Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
Search
Close

L.T. Hanlon

Category: Typewriters

My favorite country song

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019 L.T. Hanlon1 Comment

One of my all-time favorite country songs is Red River Valley. The tune's been covered by hundreds of performers in dozens of genres; one of the best is the duet above by Stevie Nicks and Chris Isaak. I've given considerable thought to the enduring popularity of this song, whose origins are variously traced to Manitoba, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and even Europe, and have concluded that Red River Valley touches something deep in us because it speaks a sad and uncomfortable truth that one way or another we will lose everything in this world that we love. The song's message comes through even when sung by Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns several Western bootmakers, including Justin and Tony Lama.

Note: An earlier version of this post was published on a blog of mine several years ago.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Paper, rubber, imperfection

June 7, 2019 L.T. Hanlon8 Comments

 

Photo of a box of Southworth Businessd 100 Percent Cotton Paper
I really like this Southport 100% Cotton Business Paper. It’s less than $20 on Amazon.

 

Photo of a typewritten page with the following text. Chicago, Friday, June 7, 2019. Just a mixed bag of updates this time. Paper -- I've found a nice  paper with a surface compatible with both typewriters  and hand-writing tools such as pencils, ballpoints, gel points,  and more. Another fun plus is that the paper, Southport, Business 100% Cotton, feels sort of like money after you’ve crumpled  it multiple times. Rubber stamps -- Lately, I’ve enjoyed personalizing my correspondence with rubber stamps. I especially like the Chicago flag stamp I’ve used here. Non-perfection -- A fear of being less than perfect has hamstrung my freelance writing efforts but I’ve put that behind me and am pounding away once more. Nothing can be per fect -- not even this mechanical wonder I 'm typing on right now. Its unique character registration would, in fact, ensure my quick apprehension were I to use this typewriter to create a ransom note!

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Guinea pig snacks for everyone!

June 5, 2019June 5, 2019 L.T. Hanlon1 Comment

 

Journalist Marc Singer stands with his back to us as he videotapes a giant alien flyinf saucer gliding over a river in El Salvador.
More than 35 years later, the slow-moving, almost-documentary style special effects in the original “V” miniseries remain effective.

Photo is of the following typewritten text. Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Chicago, USA. Those lizards still work! Today I binge-watched the original V miniseries first telecast in 1983. Surprisingly, the production holds up really well. In fact, many of its set pieces created the template for subsequent cinematic ventures into alien threats. Much of the reason why V remains visually impressive is that the special effects rejected a frenetic approach to depicting alien technology. The Visitors' gigantic saucers sweep over earth gracefully, slowly, even slower than the ships in 1996’s Independence Day. Even the Visiors' smaller craft move little faster than terrestrial helicopters when chasing humans. The only thing that doesn't work for me in V is its derivative score. Composer Joe Harnell gets a wave-through for cribbing Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries and Gustav Holst's Mars, The Bringer of War (everybody does those), but rubberstamping Bernard Herrmann's main theme from North By Northwest makes me expect Cary Grant, James Mason, and Eva Marie Saint to show up. Still a good time, however. The shocker everybody talked about at work the next day was, of course, watching Jane Badler enjoying a rodent snack.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Warning about that keyboard

June 5, 2019June 5, 2019 L.T. Hanlon4 Comments

This is a photo of a typewritten page containing the following text. Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Chicago, USA. The danger of typewritten letters. This will be a short one but it's a vital message nonetheless. Keep track of what's in the letters you type and mail. At least once this month a friend has emailed to tell me that I’d already described an incident once before in a previous letter. Writing letters with a typewriter isn't like using email, which offers an archive   of your letters. So be careful.

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

I love a rainy night

May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

Photo of a typewritten page with the following text. Thursday, May 23, 2019. Chicago, USA. Smith—Corona Silent-Super (pica). I’m not here for the destruction. I’ve posted several times before about how I enjoy monitoring the live video feeds of stormchasers. But I ought to make it clear why I watch this stuff. Like the majority of folks who are fans of NASCAR, I have no desire to see the tragedy. Far from it. I like seeing how stormchasers track bad weather, decide where to go, and how they coordinate with other chasers and with the media. Last night, one of the best feeds showed some chasers stop at a Sinclair service station in Oklahoma and get gas and food. Or food and then gas, as we'd joke in junior high. As the chasers tended to their vehicle, one pointed out the green concrete Dino out front. I hoped someone would go ride Sinclair's mascot, but nobody did. This venerable Smith—Corona I’m typing on probably has seen its share of storms. It still bears the business decal of the outfit that sold it: Windward Office of Kaneohe, Hawaii a Honolulu suburb.

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Analog breadfruit comin’ at ya!

May 20, 2019May 20, 2019 L.T. Hanlon1 Comment

Frank Zappa pedals his talent to Steve Allen.

This is a photo of a typewritten page that contains the following text. Monday, May 20, 2019. Chicago, USA. Hermes 3000 (1968). Like breadfruit off the HMS Bounty. The much-overrated but nonetheless witty Frank Zappa said that it isn' t necessary for the world to end in fire or ice — it could just as easily be done in by paperwork or nostalgia. I’m convinced that nostalgia is what fuels most eBay transactions. We finally acquire what we coveted in our youth.	In my case, that's mostly been film cameras and lenses whose prices were hopelessly stratospheric in my teens and 20s. And now that I own a Widelux, an f/ 2.8 Stereo Realist or a near—complete set of Super Takumar lenses with their gloriously yellow radioactive thorium tint, I t m left trying to decide what to do with it all. I've just stumbled into semiretirement and the sad reality has dawned on me that photo equipment is of no use unless you use it. And I 'm not just talking about taking random shots of streets, buildings, power lines, trees, and fields, I 'm talking about people. Unless you' re photographing people, cameras are worthless. I’m by no means a hermit, but these days I’m seldom in situations where people need or want to be photographed. So I 'm going to unload just about all of my analog equipment.	Nostalgia has a way of taking up space, both in closets and in your brain. Note: Unedited. Typos are Easter eggs.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

How valuable is this typewriter?

May 20, 2019 L.T. Hanlon3 Comments
Screenshot of the results of a search for typewriters in Facebook Marketplace show two typewriters and one opened waffle iron. The waffle iron looks sort of like a typewriter.
Facebook Marketplace finds a rare typewriter for me.

The following text appears in a photo of a typewritten page. Sunday, May 19, 2019. Chicago, USA. Canon Typestar 5. One of these things is not like the other. Foreword — I had planned on writing this earlier today but got distracted. So now, at around 11:15 p.m. I can't haul out a mechanical typewriter and pound away. Well, I could ... but that  wouldn't make me a very considerate neighbor. So ... Canon Typestar 5 to the rescue! The quiet, electronic Typestar uses a thermal element to transfer type to paper. When these portable wonders were in production, Canon sold ink-ribbon cartridges about the size of a mini DV cartridge. Those ink cartridges haven't been manufactured for many years. I have a few NOS  ribbons I bought off eBay but I use them sparingly when I need to type on traditional paper. The rest of time, I remove the ribbon cart and load the Typestar with thermal fax paper. That l s what I'm using for this typecast. You’re probably familiar with thermal paper already; it's that lightweight  paper used for store receipts. The main part This is going to be much shorter  than the foreword. It's just a funny little incident from earlier today. While wasting time on Facebook, I searched for typewriters in Facebook Marketplace and among the illustrated results was a WAFFLE IRON. I guess it wound up in the results because to an Al program it looks like of like a typewriter; sort of how the openings in automobile wheel covers look enough like faces to Google Street View's  algorithms that they're always blurred. Well, that's it. Note: Unedited. Typos are Easter eggs!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Typewriters and flying saucers

May 18, 2019May 20, 2019 L.T. Hanlon5 Comments

At least for now, you can watch the TV movie “Roswell” on YouTube. There are excellent performances by Kyle MacLachlan, Dwight Yoakam, and Martin Sheen. The music in this production is incredibly creepy and adds a lot. 

This photo of a typewritten page contains the following text. Saturday, May 18, 2019. Chicago, USA. Hermes 3000 made in 1970. Smith-corona and the thing from another world. Ever since fifth grade I've been fascinated by UFOs. In junior high, my best friend and I even went to a meeting of the Denver UFO Society. And then I became obsessed with cattle mutilations mystery that still not been fully explained to this day. In the 1 980s, the so-called Majestic-12 documents came to my attention. Skeptic that I am, my inclination is these are a hoax.  The papers purport to prove that in the late 1 940s, President Truman authorized the creation of a secret committee to deal with, among other unworldly things, the spacecraft and extraterrestrials allegedly recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. Supposedly, one damning detail that examiners found is that at least one of the documents was typed using a Smith-Corona machine not produced until many years later. According to Curt Sutherly in his UFO mysteries: A Reporter Seeks the Truth (Llewellen Worldwide, 2001) , an expert concluded that the MJ-12 Truman memo was typed with a Smith Corona cartridge machine introduced no earlier than 1963. Clues to determining the typewriter year and model were the capital letters A and W, both of which, (skeptic Phil) Klass, said, tended to. tear the old-style carbon ribbon. This defect was corrected by Smith Corona in the model introduced in 1963. The mystery for me — and perhaps someone more familiar with Smith-Corona product offerings than I am can shed some light here — is that as far as I know, Smith-Corona  didn't introduce its Coronamatic cartridge ribbon system until many years later in 1973. So either the company did make a cartridge typewriter in 1963 or someone made a typo and changed 1973 to 1963. A third explanation, of course, is that the same team investigating the Roswell Incident also worked on the Philadelphia Experiment and a 1973 Smith-Corona Coronamatic typewriter somehow timeslipped back into the late 1940s. Hey! Can you prove it didn’t happen?Note: Unedited. Typos are Easter eggs.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Yes, you can type in hieroglyphs

May 17, 2019May 16, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

Photo of typewritten page with the following text. Friday, May 17, 2019. Chicago, USA. Hermes 3000 (1968). King Tut had a typewriter ... well, sort of. Last week, I speculated about whether anybody ever created a hieroglyphic typewriter. Well, it turns out that at least one was made. Such a magnificent machine was crafted by Martin Tytell, a man of many, many talents — one of which included typewriters. According to Typewriter Man, an article by Ian Frazier in the November 1997 issue of The Atlantic magazine, Mr. Tytell did indeed retrofit hieroglyphic typeslugs to a typewriter owned by a Brooklyn Museum curator. That's not the only cool stuff we learn about Mr. Tytell. The man's typewriter expertise leads him to play a vital role in World War Two and beyond. Please read about Mr. Tytell. He led an amazing life and it would make a great movie. Note: This typecast has not been edited. Also: Off to the right side of this photo is an old, public domain sketch of Pharaoh Akhenaten in profile. He has a slender head, aquiline nose and a regal bearing.

Read “Typewriter Man,” Ian Frazier’s story about Martin Tytell.
Read Mr. Tytell’s New York Times obituary.
Learn about Akhenaten, a pharaoh who might have embraced monotheism.

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

‘Mondo Trasho’ auteur at the typewriter

May 15, 2019September 17, 2023 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment
A young John Waters sits at a typewriter in what appears to be a table in a home's kitchen.
John Waters as a youth in Baltimore. Photo from This Is Not Porn.

This photo of a typewritten page contains the following text. Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Chicago, USA. Is that typewriter bigger than Divine's butt? In articles about celebrities and famous writers’ favorite typewriters, the profiles are always of people who can charitably be described as annoyingly normal. That’s why I like this photo of young John Waters. I learned only recently that he and Divine attended high school together. So what is the future director of Mondo Trasho composing here? Waters probably is working on some dull composition for English class. But I like to imagine he’s compiling a list  of assholes who bullied him and Divine — with plans for adulterating their food with  fresh dogshit. Note: This typecast has not been edited.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Like Loading...

Posts navigation

Older Posts
Newer Posts
December 2025
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Oct    
Follow L.T. Hanlon on WordPress.com

It’s a big, wide wonderful world

I fully accept Charles Fort’s observation that one measures a circle beginning anywhere.

Blogroll

  • Antique Typewriter Collecting by Tony Casillo
  • Codes of the West
  • Imperium Romanum
  • J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies
  • Jeff Rense
  • Joe Van Cleave
  • Library of Congress — Photos
  • Macroevolution.net
  • Pen Vibe
  • Pulp International
  • RadioJayAllen
  • Spudart
  • Streamliner Schedules
  • Taos Hum
  • The Classic Typewriter Page
  • The Payphone Project
  • The Rt. Rev. Theodore Munk
  • The Untimely Typewriter
  • Trailways Forever Memories
  • Typewriter Review

My Flickr Photos

000231320010 copy000231320008 copy000231320003 copy000231320005 copy000231320006 copy000231320001 copy000231300009 copy000231300006+5 Anaglyph000231300002+1 Anaglyph
More Photos
Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
Back to top
L.T. Hanlon
Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • L.T. Hanlon
    • Join 46 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • L.T. Hanlon
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d