City Comfort

I seem to be able to find several examples of sofas sitting on the curb and in front of apartments. This one even has the name of an underground heavy-metal band!

Today is National Typewriter Day!
Typewriters were initially conceived of in 1575 by an Italian printmaker, though it never saw production (and to be fair, it wasn’t QUITE a typewriter, but the relics were there). In 1714 we had patents in Britain from Mr. Henry Mill that seemed to be a typewriter from the design and was explicitly described as intended for that purpose. It appears that the device was made at some point, though it never went into production, and no examples exist today.

Another example was designed in 1802 by Agostino Fantoni to help his blind sister writer, while Pietro Conti di Vilavegna invented yet another. But it wasn’t until 1895 that a model went into actual production with the Ford Typewriter. From there, the world has never looked back, and typewriters started finding their way into private homes and places of business alike.

Some of the most important classics of the last 100 years have been produced on a typewriter, including the earliest examples of Stephen King’s work, Ernest Hemingway, name a professional writer who wrote a piece of any significance, and the odds are high that they were written on a typewriter. National Typewriter Day reminds us that while keyboards may be the key to modern literature, our world was conceived on a typewriter.

Some of you enjoy collecting typewriters, so enjoy your day and the weekend!