TypeTown #10: A fine Colombian export
📚 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Arthur Miller, Singapore, and more...
¡Hola! ¿Como estas?
Bienvenidos a TypeTown and another quick-fire, clickety-clack tour of all things typewriter.
We start this week with a fine Colombian export (no - not that one).
Sunday marks what would have been the 95th birthday of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The 1982 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature jacked in his law studies, took up journalism, then spent his life creating acclaimed fiction including One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985).
By the time of his death in 2014, his impact was such that then Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos hailed Marquez as “the greatest Colombian who ever lived”.
All achieved with nothing more than imagination and a typewriter. There’s hope for us all, yet.
“I can only work in surroundings that are familiar and have already been warmed up with my work. I cannot write in hotels or borrowed rooms or on borrowed typewriters.”
READ» Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The (Comforting) Case For Embracing Failure - Texas Observer
READ» Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Art of Fiction No. 69 - The Paris Review
READ» Gabriel García Márquez: 'The greatest Colombian who ever lived' - The Observer
WATCH» Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez Trailer (2 minutes)
These salesmen did not die
Have a dig around Arthur Miller’s archives and at least three different typewriters appear.
In this 1959 image, he works in front of a Royal.
By 1964, a Smith-Corona had appeared on his desk. See these fascinating photo collections for the full experience:
📸 Arthur Miller and Inge Morath: In The Country - Magnum Photos
📸 Arthur Miller, Neighbor and Friend - Magnum Photos
And, later, an IBM takes its place in Miller’s studio.
Which is your favourite?
Enjoying this?
A very good night…
Even the smallest of TypeTowners have surely never slept inside a typewriter.
But if you’d travelled to Singapore about 10 years ago, the Wanderlust Hotel in the must-visit district of Little India looked to have been the only choice in town.
Back then, it had some particularly eye-catching rooms. And one of them was designed to look like the inside of a typewriter.
TypeTown visited Little India in 2008 and 2012, but hadn’t yet been bitten by the typewriter bug.
Alas, today the hotel’s website suggests a more sober style.
Bring back the typer!
READ» Wanderlust Hotel - Uniq Hotels
READ» Typewriter Suite Is One Of The Themed Suites At Wanderlust Hotel Singapore - Elite Choice
…and a little bit of silliness
This quick graphic generated a fair amount of interest on social media this week.
For those of you not absorbed by Facebook, Instagram or Reddit, here it is.
TypeTown can tick off 11 boxes. How about you?
Worth pausing the platen
📬 Typewriter repair shop cares for its long-time customers — The Bulletin
📬 The other machine that made Remington famous — WIBX
📬 You never forget your first typewriter - especially if you still have it — The Seattle Times
📬 Former Tesla Employee Makes Career Transition to On-Demand Poet — Silver Screen Beat
📬 Just His Type — Monmouth College
And finally… typewriters in the wild
In this Canadian news report about a rockstar typewriter technician (fast forward to 4min 21secs)…
In this shot of Pope Pius XII…
And in L.A.’s Hotel Normandie…
TypeTown… brought to you by caffeine
Many thanks to those who donated to the TypeTown tea fund last issue.
As ever, and with all the usual caveats of absolutely no pressure, expectation or hard sales push… if TypeTown brightens your week, I’m open to coffee tea.
Please share the love
Alternatively, please take a second to ❤️ and comment below — or share this post to your social networks, neighbours, grannies or anyone else who might like it. Whatever you do to spread the word, I promise it never goes unnoticed. Thank you!
Until next time
PS: New here?
TypeTown is a fortnightly celebration of the typewriter’s place in modern (and not so modern) culture.