Typewriter Pr0n

I was 12 years old when I first opened the hard-shell case on my family’s manual Royal typewriter and played around with it. I could tell this was something special and inevitable, almost primal.

A typewriter is the icon that conveys dedicated literary life so much more clearly than say, a computer keyboard. Outmoded and antiquated to be sure, the typewriter still epitomizes writing today.

The typewriter is romantic.

Here are some of my favorite images of typewriters I have collected from around Teh Internets. Many of the images convey a simpler time or just a time where we were more tactile and connected to the interface we used to record our thoughts and yes, perhaps a bit more naïve.

The old Royal typewriter. Something about that pale blue color just does it for me.

The selling point of the Underwood typewriter was, “Visible Writing,” or the ability to see what you had typed on the line without having to scroll up. Many early typewriters did not have that functionality.

Sexy golden gloves, typing away while the boss admires the woman’s skills. Clickity-clickity-clickity-clack, baby! “Even the underscore is automatic!”

Perhaps a little overdressed, this young lady demonstrates the two-finger typing method. I dig the hat.

Typing barefoot? How risqué can you get? Apparently not very, in the 1950’s. No idea who this person is, but I dig the pose.

Addendum: This is Alice Denham (1933-2000), author, adjunct professor of English at the City University of New York, and model, born in Jacksonville, Fla., and graduate of the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1949) and the University of Rochester (M.A., 1950). Denham has published numerous novels, articles, television and movie adaptations, and short stories, among them “The Deal,” which was filmed in 1988. She was also a Playboy model and Alice Denham has distinction of being the only woman to have published an article in the same issue of “Playboy” that she posed in.

Big, freakin’ typewriter! I guess that is Miss Stenographer, 1957, attempting to ascend to the QWERTY line. How fortunate she is to have this man pointing for her. I dig his socks, though I’m not entirely sure he is wearing socks. Sexy.