The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century

by Richard Polt

Overview

The connoisseur's guide to the typewriter, entertaining and practical

What do thousands of kids, makers, poets, artists, steampunks, hipsters, activists, and musicians have in common? They love typewriters—the magical, mechanical contraptions that are enjoying a surprising second life in the 21st century, striking a blow for self-reliance, privacy, and coherence against dependency, surveillance, and disintegration. The Typewriter Revolution documents the movement and provides practical advice on how to choose a typewriter, how to care for it, and what to do with it—from National Novel Writing Month to letter-writing socials, from type-ins to typewritten blogs, from custom-painted typewriters to typewriter tattoos. It celebrates the unique quality of everything typewriter, fully-illustrated with vintage photographs, postcards, manuals, and more. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781581575873
Publisher:	Countryman Press, The
Publication date:	10/22/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	34 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Richard Polt is the creator and webmaster of The Classic Typewriter Page and the blog Typewriter Revolution. For over twenty years he has been pursuing his love of the typewriter as a collector, webmaster, blogger, magazine editor, repairman—and frequent typist. Polt teaches philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

08/24/2015
Typewriters were first developed as tools for speed and standardization, and were treated as archaic after the advent of computers, explains Polt, a typewriter repairman and founder of the Classic Typewriter Page website. Polt aims to change the typewriter’s out-of-date reputation with his book celebrating the overlooked perks of using one. He explains how to find and fix a machine, includes testimonies from writers on the freeing power of tapping out a story on a typewriter, and describes the innovative ways that people are using the typewriter today. Polt can’t quite balance his anticomputer, mock-radical rhetoric (beginning with a manifesto that starts off “We assert our right to resist the Paradigm, to rebel against the Information Regime, to escape the Data Stream”) with his insistence that the typewriter revolution is not antidigital, though he devotes much of the end of the book to a thoughtful look at the combining of typewriters and computer technology. But considering the book as a love letter instead of a call to arms makes it quite enjoyable for anyone who likes the clack of keys and the ring of the carriage return. Color photos. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/01/2015
Polt (philosophy, Xavier Univ.; Emergency of Being), a blogger at the Classic Typewriter Page combines the history of typewriters (like the "Ball" used by Friedrich Nietzsche and machines that interact with computers) with a fun analysis of social implications. He examines meanings of "efficiency" over time by suggesting that often efficiency is a directive that must be rethought or perhaps rejected depending on what type of work is being completed. To accomplish these goals, Polt features scans of typed paper and plenty of illustrations of typewriters through its history. He states that most will last longer than the devices created to replace them, while acknowledging the challenges of finding replacement ribbons and repair shops (to match a trend toward interest in these machines). VERDICT Effectively blending analysis of the mantras of our age with offers of a few alternative ideas, Polt's account will attract those curious about the changes in technology and social patterns, since this book is really a culture-critique masquerading as a history.—Jesse A. Lambertson, Metamedia Management, LLC, Washington, DC

Library Journal