A Writer's Notebook
Tom Fasano
Advertisement film for Robotron typewriters. Made in East Germany. The look and feel of these ads is like something out of James Bond.
I love the vibe of this video, especially the audio.
The end of this video features a Justowriter, which typed from a punched paper tape, allowing reuse of layouts and variable-spaced type to simulate professional typesetting — a real precursor to digital typesetting and word processors. A machine like this must’ve been a really big deal back in the day when everything was done manually.
Solenoids turn typewriter into a printer. Hacker Konstantin Schauwecker transformed a vintage Silver Reed 2200 CR electric typewriter into a functional printer by outfitting it with 50 low-voltage solenoids arranged in a matrix, controlled by a Raspberry Pi that translates PDF files into keystrokes. Despite minor formatting quirks, this creative project effectively repurposes obsolete technology for modern use.
Shot of the snow on the mountains from the back parking lot of a grocery store.
Sandy inserting herself into the ceramic display
More of the show
Local side yard art I discovered on my daily walk
What’s left of the foundation of a former aviation museum
Beautiful African Iris along sidewalk
Some uncorrected proofs of the poem I typed on a roll of cashier’s receipt paper.
So, yes, here is the tape rolled across my driveway. And, Yes, my yard needs some cleaning up after a few rare winter storms in my neck of the woods.
The poem unspooled from the Phomeme thermal printer like an EKG readout of a dying dream, line after heat-sensitive line, until the machine itself whispered the inevitable: a spectral blue strip, the color of an old lover’s veins. That was the ending, foretold by the medium itself — an apocalyptic omen baked into the banal mechanics of a cash register’s entrails.
And then my wife (Sandy) and I did what any two prophets of the mundane would do: we took that serpentine scripture, my holy writ of impulse and thermal imprints, and unfurled it in a madcap relay, watching it slither across the driveway like a tape measure of fleeting genius. It was a ticker-tape parade for two, a celebration of nothing and everything, as the wind attempted to edit my masterpiece, scattering syllables like the last words of the dying.
I used a plastic bucket to catch it as it emerged from my Phomeme thermal printer.
Our public library here in Claremont
I’m in the process or securing the use of the Claremont, CA, Helen Renwick Library to hold a type-in this May. For those who’ve done this sort of thing, organized them, etc., I have a few questions.
The library wants a $60 fee as well as proof of 1,000,000 liability insurance, which can be purchased for one day.
Are these fees usual for such an event? Would I be better off finding another site?
The facilities there are excellent. But I’ve never organized a type-in before (actually I’ve never attended one) and want to get some input from the Typosphere before I pull the trigger on the deal.
