Tag: typecast

You Are A Service, and other ads for smartphone addicts

Typecaster Rino Breebaart on what messages he’d put on bus ads for people who happen to look up from their smartphone:

These would work just as well, if not better, as digital ads. Or maybe as a service where you get one of these texted to you for every 10 minutes you’re on your phone.

April 3, 2018 2 Comments

‘Uncommon Type’ by Tom Hanks – a typecast review

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It's fitting that my very first typecast is a review of "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", a book of short stories by Tom Hanks (out October 2017), written on my Olympia SM7 of a similar color. I don't read many short story collections, but when I heard the unofficial Dean of Typewriter Enthusiasts was writing a book inspired by typewriters, how could I not read it? Little did I know that a librarian colleague (h/t Megan) would snag an advance copy at a library conference for me, allowing me an early look. And whaddaya know: I liked it! But I *would* say that, right? "Of course the typewriter and Tom Hanks fan would like it!" Since I knew I was biased, I tried to read the book as if I'd picked it up at random without knowing its very famous author. And I liked it even then, though there are clues throughout that point to Hanks being the author. There are stories about World War II, the Apollo missions, and the life of a famous actor during a whirlwind press junket, no doubt influenced by Hanks' well-known interests and career. The bulk of the writing, though, is characteristic of simply a good writer, famous or otherwise. The highlight might be "Christmas Eve 1953", which alternates between a sweetly rendered scene of a World War II vet at home with his family and his vivid flashbacks to the Battle of the Bulge. I also really enjoyed "The Past is Important to Us", set in the near-future when time travel is possible but only to a specific time and place for 22 hours at a time. This brings a billionaire to the 1939 New York World's Fair repeatedly to track down an enchanting mystery woman. Has the makings of a great short film. Several stories feature the same friend group but with a different focus in each: "Three Exhausting Weeks" follows a listless man who gets more than he bargained for when he starts dating his type-A friend; "Alan Bean Plus Four" (so-named for the fourth person to walk on the moon) sends the gang on a fantastical, slapdash trip around the Moon; and "Steve Wong is Perfect" has them cheering on a reluctant bowling prodigy. Each story leads off with a picture of the typewriter mentioned in the story, be it a Hammond Type-o-Matic, Groma Kolibri, or Selectric. Most of them are used or mentioned only in passing (for a story dedicated exclusively to typewriters, typeheads can skip to the delightful "These Are the Meditations of My Heart", which includes a paean to the Hermes 2000), so people who didn't come to the book for the typewriters (perish the thought!) will still enjoy a fairly diverse assemblage of stories and characters. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Hanks exhibits in his writing an actor's keen sense of relationships and scenic flow. It *was* surprising that this wasn't the case for dialogue, which is often over-written. But I ain't mad. I'd recommend this not only as a typewriter fan but as a librarian, to readers in search of small-dose stories that trigger a smile as often as a twinge of longing. May this book recruit ever more people into the glorious Typewriter Revolution!
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See more typewriter-related posts here. 

July 17, 2017 8 Comments

Towards Integrity

Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows, re: Hawthorne’s “The Celestial Railroad”: “The old world, Hawthorne seemed to argue, was arduous, but it knew where it was going, and it went the slow sure way. Machines made life easier, faster, more predictable, but they led away from an integrity that people missed from the beginning.”

January 17, 2017 Add Comment