Sunday, August 29, 2010

An instant classic: the thrifted typewriter

My boyfriend has always wanted a typewriter. As I knew that his birthday was coming up I decided I would thrift one. I searched high and low, and then one day - there it was. In Hell's kitchen on 39th, for $40, looking forlorn in a corner. I dusted her off, brought her home and offered her up triumphantly.

I love hearing the rare rat-tat-tat and swoosh when on occasion he fancies himself an old school writer and sits at the desk typing away. One day I glanced at the paper still sitting tightly in the typewriter and it read:

I once wrote a story for my girlfriend about a beach, a typewriter and a game of scrabble. My typewriter has no ONE key and the O sticks. It also has no attention-grabbing mind-numbing portal to Google, Facebook and Czech lesbian websites. All it does is write each document hammered into the page with a sense of purpose alien to modern PCs. I imagine it is from the 1930s or so. Where the typewriter has been or who's fingers have struck it are unknown to me. What was written here? Did you write novel as I'd like to believe? Have characters sprang from these simple machinations? Have you written love letters that changed the recipient's life for ever? Perhaps poetry has poured through your metal chassis or a thesis on organic chemistry that changed the way we conceive this planet of ours?

From my boyfriend L, the writer


Check out the thrift parties at apron thrift girl and southern hospitality.

5 comments:

  1. thanks for visiting my blog and your nice comment! That shelf you mentioned also has an old typewriter similar to yours - check out this post to see a picture:
    http://anna-kiwiintexas.blogspot.com/2010/06/antique-singer-sewing-machine.html
    My husband writes a lot in his spare time and he uses vintage typewriters - he has this one (which we mostly just use for decoration now) and two other newer ones (from the 50s and 60s)

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  2. oh dear it's lovely! we used to have a typewriter growing up, and I'm pretty sure we played with it so much we broke it, kind of sad!

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  3. I love it. Not only cool to look at, but functional!

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  4. Great find as well as great writing by both of you. It's so cool discovering/owning a piece of history. And it works too!

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  5. Hello there! Check out my blog today @ www.bountyhuntress.com

    I need your address! :) Congrats!
    Angela

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