Tag: typewriting

Uncommon Types-Some stories by Tom Hanks!

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#UncommonTypes- Some Stories by Tom Hanks.

 

How fascinating and curious one behaves, 

When one Reads the title of  the book. 

Oh! This sounds interesting,The cover is creative and then the last thing you notice is the writer/Author. Unless You already know which book you are looking for .

Uncommon Types-Some stories, Inspected the book  carefully,Going through the cover,The blurb and pausing to wonder what might this book be about ? As they rightly say “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover “ The title could be something and the the story could be altogether something else. 

After  a month,Thinking it over,Do I really want to read this book? For who do I want to read the book? for the author who has written it ? or for the story.

Started reading the book.And Was interested in reading it only because it was about typewriters and written by some one  who is interested and passionate about the tool.

And I was fairly disappointed with the book.Not,Because it was Bad or because it was too much to grasp.But,May be because my expectations were set high on this Read,as its written by  A very well established and known Hollywood celebrity “TomHanks” On a tool which he is passionate about.Being  a writer too,The typewriter font (American Typewriter/Courier)being my favourite,I felt this book would be more driven by the central subject,But most of the stories,Had the very small part played by the main subject “Typewriter” a total anti-climax to a wonderful thought on the subject.

The writing styles through the book was innovate,With having all different types mentioned and  Photo for reference,The sound of typewriter being emphasised on most of the stories, was written well.And I could relate to it as a couple of years ago,Had the privilege of writing and experiencing the typewriter. .

The Newspaper Layout for the journalist story was done well.All in All there was great value and emphasis on  the designing  and very little seen into the “content” it provided.

May be,The publishers too were so drawn to the name who was writing the book “TomHanks” must have felt restricted to criticise the written matter.

it’s for the same reason why one feels not to read books on specialised subjects written by the experts ,we believe they are who could give us the right insight in the particular subjects.  

Typewriter-TypeWriting experience!!


Ever wondered How challenging is it to write on a typewriter?
Not really Right?

About a fortnight ago.I had the privilege of experiencing to write on a typewriter.

Since,I have being longing to Own one for a while,I thought this is the only moment I could come close to experiencing writing on the mechanical device.

So,without thinking for a moment,I sat on the chair and started writing my 1st few words on the typewriter. And after my typing my first Word itself I realised,In today’s time its a device for the very patient writers to write on and can be a tiring laborious job for a generation who are hooked on to the Touchscreen devices and computers,Laptops for writing.But,looking at the past history its surely a device to own for its design. But, Sadly it isn’t available anymore,Unless you can hunt for a store that sells antiques.Without Boring You guys for another minute,I shall begin describing my difficulties while typing on a typewriter.

1.To enter and begin on another line a bar needs to be moved,Whenever you need to begin at another line.

2.Caps Lock are keys available at the extreme left, Until an assistant doesn’t tell you where it is, You would miss it.

3.The most interesting part the way words are written out and getting printed.

4.It’s A very Heavy device 

5.NO Delete,With so much dependency on not knowing what to write and silly spelling mistake it can become frustrating to write on one.

6.Thanks to The typewriter for the Courier Font and AmericanTypewriter for us to able to experience the writing style of a typewriter on our I.T Gadgets.

7. The QWERTY Keyboard was first came into the existence in a typewriter The QWERTY layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer who lived in milwaukee,Wisconsin . In October 1867, Sholes filed a patent application for his early writing machine he developed with the assistance of his friends Carlos Glidden and Samuel W.Soulé  

8.These are just some of the experiences on using the typewriter for barely 5 minutes,But I guess In today’s time with word processing software making it easier to type these days,its only my lack of imagination to imagine how did the writers of the past adjust pages,Alignments and manage to write on such a manual mechanical device.