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TypeTown #11: "There is no agony like it."

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TypeTown #11: "There is no agony like it."

🕵️‍♀️ Agatha Christie, Austin Kleon, Ruby Keeler, and the Carolina Panthers...

Neil Barraclough
Mar 18, 2022
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TypeTown #11: "There is no agony like it."

typetown.substack.com

[Welcome to TypeTown, a fortnightly newsletter celebrating the typewriter’s place in modern (and not so modern) culture. Click here to subscribe and receive every issue direct to your inbox. It’s 100% free.]

Hello, hello.

Please, pull up a chair.

Can I get you a drink?

For the last fortnight, we’ve been stretching our little grey cells to find a way into this latest issue of TypeTown.

So, please, welcome to your Friday routine Agatha Christie — creator of Hercule Poirot, author of 72 novels, 14 short stories, and the brain behind The Mousetrap, the world’s longest-running play (it opened in the West End in 1952, only paused for Covid-19, and re-opened in May 2021).

She’s also the world’s all-time best-selling novelist. Four billion — yes, billion — and counting…

Not a bad little tally, is it?

And all knocked out on the humble typewriter.

Popperfoto/Getty

Sound superhuman?

Reassuringly for the rest of us, it didn’t always feel that way.

“There is no agony like it. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.”

Popperfoto/Getty

READ» Agatha Christie’s Writing Habits - Tony Riches

READ» In the Study, with a Typewriter: 100 Years of Agatha Christie Novels - Publishers Weekly

READ» Agatha Christie: getting away with murder - The Guardian


Once you’re in, you’re in

If you’re at all interested in culture or creativity, Austin Kleon has been a must-follow for years.

This week, he’s been celebrating the 10th anniversary of the publication of Steal Like An Artist.

And it turns out he’s an another honorary member of the typosphere.

Three years ago, he got the bug.

Twitter avatar for @austinkleon
Austin Kleon @austinkleon
I was not expecting to buy a typewriter tonight, but...
10:47 PM ∙ Aug 17, 2019
195Likes7Retweets

It led to the inevitable consequences all TypeTowners will recognise…

Twitter avatar for @austinkleon
Austin Kleon @austinkleon
Image
7:25 PM ∙ Feb 12, 2020

And we all know there’s no way back.

Welcome to the gang, Austin.

Twitter avatar for @austinkleon
Austin Kleon @austinkleon
Uh oh I bought another typewriter
Image
9:50 PM ∙ Jan 20, 2022
187Likes3Retweets

READ» Austin’s newsletter has arrived in our inbox for the best part of a decade. More than 98,000 others get it, too.


Enjoying this?

Say thanks with a coffee


Tapping out a masterpiece

For two glorious minutes at least, Ruby Keeler and Lee Dixon couldn’t put a foot wrong back in 1937.

Here they are in Ready, Willing, and Able dancing across an enormous typewriter.

What’s not to like?


Here’s the game-plan

We break from normal service to bring you this magnificent five-part Twitter drama from the 2015 Carolina Panthers’ press box.

Twitter avatar for @MasterTes
Master @MasterTes
Someone has a typewriter in the Panthers press box. In 2015. Why.
6:06 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2015
202Likes126Retweets

Just because.

Typewriters, duh.

Twitter avatar for @MasterTes
Master @MasterTes
Typewriter guy wisely using the TV timeout to white-out an error. @bylindsayhjones @marcowill
Image
6:13 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2015
432Likes450Retweets
Twitter avatar for @MasterTes
Master @MasterTes
Typewriter guy has worked for Panthers for 20 yrs. Serves as backup play-by-play log whenever the computers crash
Image
7:50 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2015
90Likes63Retweets
Twitter avatar for @MasterTes
Master @MasterTes
He says it has saved him a lot of times tracking play-by-play. "@conhall1958: @MasterTes has the computer ever crashed?
8:02 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2015
3Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @MasterTes
Master @MasterTes
Another Panthers employee jumped in our halftime typewriter convo "It's the best thing going on up here."
8:05 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2015
4Likes1Retweet

Quite.


Worth pausing the platen

📬 Inside Libération, the Legendary French Newspaper — Magnum Photos

📬 What I learned about languages just by looking at a Turkish typewriter — Medium

📬 Off the cuff: The way of the typewriters — Gulf News

📬 27 ways I use a typewriter — Paper Blogging


And finally… typewriters in the wild

In this striking 1926 image from German press photographer Georg Pahl…

In this downtown Toronto cafe…

pageone_cafe
A post shared by 🅟🅐🅖🅔 🅞🅝🅔 🇨🇦 (@pageone_cafe)

And in this fun Smith-Corona produced by the same artist who knocked up the Mondrian typewriter…

zimad_art
A post shared by ZIMAD (@zimad_art)

TypeTown… brought to you by caffeine

Many thanks to all kindly supporters of the TypeTown tea fund.

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.

Buy me a coffee


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.

» Subscribe for free.

» Say thanks with a coffee.

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TypeTown #11: "There is no agony like it."

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