Monday, September 24, 2012

Venice Type-In

The Venice Type-In was organized by artist L.A. Marler.
It featured 2 screenings of The Typewriter (In the 21st Century),
the artist's works, typewriter repairmen Ruben Flores of US Office
Machines and Ermano Manzorati of Star Office Machine,
Collector Steve Soboroff and 5 machines from his collection,
as well as several typewriters to type on!!!
3 typospherians also attended - BusterBullet of Streamlines Deluxe,
Annalese Stradivarius of A Machine for the End of the World,
and myself :)
There were many typers there... including 4 of Anna Strad's here:
The Royal, The Oliver 5, Remington Noiseless, and the Standard Folding


I brought my Corona Speedline. I must say that by my estimation,
the most popular machines were her Oliver 5 and my Corona.
They got a lot of typing done on them by probably near a couple
dozen different people. Now we both have to clean them!




Ermano's table (manned by his assistant Pedro) - each repairman
brought some typers to sell

Ruben's table - lots of kids around that were very curious about the typers
Jesse Flores RIP
The two repairmen are good friends
Ruben's brother Danny is also a typewriter repairman -
This is what he was using to degunk an Olympia...
He was doing repairs during the event!!! I watched him,
mesmerized, as his wizard fingers made a SM3 like brand new!
(No pic of the repairs in progress bc like i said i was mesmerized!
Had to take a pic of one of Ruben's customer's typers which he brought
i suppose bc he thought his customer would be there to pick it up.
It is an Underwood 5 with german keyboard. His customer
is a well-traveled Austrian and this typewriter has been around
the world. He said the rebuld took about 10 hours with multiple
parts replaced and cost the customer over $700!
The result: a beaitufiul and enviable machine!!!
Soboroff's table usually had a well-sized crowd around.
Here he explains how amazing his typewriters are.
Of course, he first warned this little girl: "Don't touch them!
They're worth more than you!" LOL
He didnt get tired of retelling the same stories about how he came to
collect famous people's typewriters ("Because they're one of a kind") or
how he got them (re: Cronkite's typer "i called up his lawyer right when
he died!")



He said he bought this forf $20k from a family friend of Hemingway's and he says its probably
worth $200K now
This he bought for $3500 while bradbury was still alive. He says it's probably worth
$75-100K now



He said this is probably priceless/ It was Lennon's from when
he was a child/early teenager.

I typed on this bad boy after Soboroff volunteered my services to help him
carry all his typers back to the car. Luckily BusterBullet helped too!
The cover of still shows the FBI Evidence tape. felt creepy typing on the machine.
I actually have a copy of the letter Kaczynski wrote to Soboroff.
He gave it to me as a souvenir... ill have to scan it soon.



just realized blogger is messing up some of my pics. stupid blogger blogspot!!! getting sick of it.
end rant.
k i added this pic before but somehow dumb blogger removed it or hid it behind another pic WTF






9 comments:

  1. Great photos! The famous machines look wonderful outside of their displays. I'd be afraid to take them out of the house. I'm jealous that you got to use the Unabomber's machine.

    Not surprising that the Oliver and Speedline were a hit. They are beautiful in their own, unique ways.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow I wish I coulda been there! I still haven't seen the film either.
    nice post and pics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That Corona you brought is one magnificent machine, Michael! There's no doubt it got every bit the workout my Ollie did!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great report! Wish I could have been there. Now to read the other participants' perspectives ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Excellent! Thanks for covering the Soboroff typewriters, and preserving the quote on Cronkite :)
    I am VERY impressed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for coming out and sharing our interests as well as you nice pictures and thoughts.
    :) Louise Marler

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, it was great meeting you Michael. You need to email me your contact info so we can hook up again!

    ReplyDelete
  8. An excellent account on what seems to have been a truly epic Type-In!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Having read all three posts about the type-in, it sounds like it was a really great time. Such a turnout, I was not expecting, but that makes it all the more exciting. That you were able to use the Uni Bombers typewriter is amazing.

    ReplyDelete