All tapped out...

Somewhere in India a factory manager is turning out the lights on the last typewriter production line in the world...
Godrej and Boyce, the last remaining typewriter factory on Earth has just closed down, with only a couple of hundred machines left in stock.
The firm began production in the 1950s - when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru described the typewriter as a symbol of India's emerging independence and industrialisation. Despite the onset of computer age it was still selling 50,000 models annually in the early 1990s, but last year it sold less than 800 machines.
No matter how progressive technology becomes, nothing will replace the staccato sound of typewriter keys pounding out a letter.
I'Ll miss YOu tYpewRiterS...

Hungarian phrase book...

... because it's funny.

Literary feast

It seems the more reliant we become on electronic media the more people prophesy on the impending redundancy of the good old 'paper' book. So if the humble book is that undesirable, why has it become the darling of the 'designer interior' set? Pretty much every supermarket-variety interior decorating magazine sprouts carefully placed Penguin 'Classics' in photo shoots of renovated lounge rooms across suburban Australia. And glossy coffee table books have never gone out of style (though they do get somewhat dusty. Here's a tip: opening them up occasionally and having a read will fix that.) But I reckon one of the worst offences against books was committed by whoever dreamed up the idea of creating those tragic faux leather book facades that the rich and stupid prop up on their bookcase to hide their Sylvester Stallone video collections in a vain attempt to look intelligent.
Welcome to Brushstroke - the uber-trendy Japanese restaurant just opened in New York where gastronomy is but one attraction... The walls of the cocktail bar and lounge were built with 12,000 second hand books. Looks pretty cool huh - brilliant even! Reading and eating, combining two of life's indisputable pleasures right? Not quite....sadly these hapless paperbacks can no longer fulfil their original purpose, jammed as they are like bricks into mortar.
The Gothamist columnist reporting on the opening asks the question on everyone's lips...: Who will be the first sake-bombed customer to idly pull out one of the books and bring the entire restaurant crashing down?

Gender bender

Bit of a laugh... Bookblog.com reckons that by analysing a sample of your writing, fiction or non-fiction, its Gender Genie can tell whether you're male or female. I tried it and lets's just say....two out of three ain't bad.
How did you go?

Tip of the iceberg...

This could be my house....! Thanks BookshelfPorn.

Guilty sins...

Thanks to my friend the Unsung Heroine for passing this on from the Mamamia website...
A confessional on the trashy reads secretly loved and cherished by bookophiles - What's your book shame?
I not-so-sheepishly put my hand up for the The Thorn Birds too. Read it cover to cover on a three-day flight from Sydney to Durban via Perth, Mauritius, Harare and Johannesburg when I was 13 years old and was so engrossed I barely noticed the dodgy airline food, cramped confines onboard, permanent daylight and lack of air-con (and seats) during a 3-hour transit at Harare, all the way home to Africa.
There have been others, too numerous and cringe-worthy to mention here, but I'd love to know yours!
What's your favourite secret trashy read?

The age of etiquette

Good manners are under-rated, which is why this caught my attention during the week - from AbeBooks: Courting to Duelling: Antiquated Etiquette Guides. It takes a look at old school manners manuals in the time of Queen Victoria and Abe Lincoln. 
I love the look of these two by Mrs Humphrey, 'Madge of Truth', written in 1898. In A Word to Women ladies are taught how to run the household efficiently and dress appropriately according to their social status. Manners for Men teaches blokes about huntin' and fishin' and how to pick up girls... 

Princess diaries

Haha! Saw this on my very talented friend Jo's blog Coelho Culture, photographed during her latest travels in London.
As the world watches, what kind of story shall unfold? Fairytale, nightmare, rom-com, melodrama, tragedy (I hope not), epic adventure (probably), psychological drama (I'm sure)...
It's a Choose Your Own Adventure in the making. Only this one has three billion people watching their every move. Gulp.
Good luck kids.

Type 3

The last word on typewriters. Something about this pic makes me smile - not sure whether it's the cheerful aqua enamel or the quilted 'grandma' bed spread. Nevertheless, it's by Vancouver artist Tracey Ayton and I found it on UPPERCASE. 
What kind of story would you punch out of this one?

Type 2

This is a typewriter. Deconstructed. No words inside...but plenty of squiggly bits and pieces.
Artist Todd McLellan takes apart old objects and reinvents them as an art form. This piece is from his exhibition series disassembly.
'I've used old items that are no longer used by the masses and often found on the street curbs heading for disposal. All of the items in the photographs were in working order. The interesting part was the fact that they were all so well built, and the parts were most likely put together by hand. I envisioned all the enjoyment these pieces had given many people for many years, all to be replaced by new technology that will be rapidly replaced with half the use.'
No words inside but I recognise my story in the chaos...

Type 1

Ad campaign from Brazil selling the latest incarnation of Penguin Classics. Typewriters sprouting pages of Classic novels were set up among lap tops on display at a number of major techie retail stores. According to Google translate the website says: 
'To disseminate the Penguin classics - Companhia das Letras in POV, we created an action to draw the attention of hipsters and also the new generation. We ended up pleasing everyone.'
Wonder how many books they sold though?

Modern Wonders

History preserved in this great film clip from 1947 demonstrating how books were made in the days of the copper printing press (...and when fingers/limbs were expendable!)
Got to love a book that's 'strong' and 'good looking'.

A crap load of Harry

At least people are reading.... The entire first chapter of Harry Potter scribbled inside a bathroom stall somewhere in the world. 
Must have been an almighty session.


Photo courtesy of TwitPic

Quite.

Truism:
[troo-iz-uhm]
-noun
a self evident, obvious truth.
Dictionary.com


Photo courtesy of Bookshelf Porn.

Yum!

Happy V Day people :) And thank you to a very special someone for cooking me up this delicious surprise... xx

A litte word from John Donne's Epithalamion - 

'...This day more cheerfully than ever shine
This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine.'

From the pen of JFK

An unfinished novel by JFK caught my attention when the John F Kennedy Presidential Library this week released an immense collection of digitised archives. In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of his inauguration, the material includes 300 museum artefacts, 300 reels of audio tape, 72 reels of film footage, over 1200 individual recordings of telephone conversations and 1500 photos.
Among the 200,000 pages you can trawl through is this piece of writing by a school boy JFK, included in a letter to his father, Joseph Kennedy Snr. Titled 'A Plea for a Raise' it begins: 
'Chapter One
My recent allowance is 40¢. This I used for aeroplanes and other playthings of childhood but now I am a scout and I put away my childish things. When I am a scout I have to buy canteens, haversacks, blankets, searchlights poncho things that will last for years and I can always use it while I can't use a chocolate marshmallow sunday with vanilla ice cream and so I put in a plea for a raise of thirty cents for me to buy scout things and pay my own way more...'
Hardly Pulitzer Prize material but, as all wannabee writers will appreciate, one must begin somewhere.
Among the more quirky pieces, a congratulatory telegram from Harpo Marx on JFK's 1960 election win, and a crib sheet from a 1963 speech in Berlin with phonetic spelling of Ich bin ein Berliner.
Wow... a head of government with a healthy respect for pronunciation. We in the Antipodes can only wish...

A cuppa with Orwell and Wilde

Public holiday today....perfect for sitting down with a great book and a cup of tea George Orwell style. Came across this article written by he of Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four and the rest, published in the Evening Standard, 12 January 1946: A Nice Cup of Tea. 
As a confirmed herbal tea drinker, Orwell's advice should come in handy next time I'm called upon to make a cuppa for the discerning and traditional drinker...
His rules and rites of serving tea made me think of Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, a man who frequently used tea ceremonies as a battleground for serious frivolity. Take this scene from The Importance of Being Ernest...:

Cecily: May I offer you some tea, Miss Fairfax?

Gwendolyn [With elaborate politeness]: Thank you. [Aside.] Detestable girl! But I require tea!

Cecily [Sweetly]: Sugar?

Gwendolyn [Superciliously]: No thank you. Sugar is not fashionable any more. 

[Cecily looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four lumps of sugar into the cup.]

Cecily [Severely]: Cake or bread and butter?

Gwendolyn [In a bored manner]: Bread and butter, please. Cake is rarely seen at the best houses nowadays.

Cecily [Cuts a very large slice of cake and puts it on the tray]: Hand that to Miss Fairfax.

Merriman and the footman serve and leave. Gwendolyn drinks the tea and makes a grimace. Puts down the cup at once, reaches out her hand to the bread and butter, looks at it, and finds it is cake. Rises in indignation.

Gwendolyn:  You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far. 

Cecily [Rising]: To save my poor, innocent trusting boy from the machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not go. 

Delicious!

Yup.

Confessions of a Book Fiend, 2010, by Grant Snider. 

Click on the image to enlarge.

Love love...

Found these covetable prints on the UPPERCASE website, a Canadian books/papergoods magazine that makes me drool...

This, by Lisa Congdon, is how I feel with a jumble of different characters in my head all upsidedown and round-about jostling for position...

This is a beautiful bookstack by Katie Green. 

Looks like the pile(s) beside my bed.

And these treasures are vintage matchbox labels (artist unknown). Sigh...they leave the old Redheads for dead.

A handy little stocking filler...

An update on the world's most expensive book, first talked about here in September....and an excuse to show you this exquisite illustration again! The complete volume of John James Audubon's The Birds of America went to auction in New York on Tuesday and fetched US$10.3m, claiming a new record for literary treasures. It's no small volume either, The Economist says the book measures 91cm x 61cm and includes 435 life size hand-coloured illustrations of birds from North America.
The newspaper produced a chart tabling the top ten most expensive books (excluding four other copies of The Birds of America which would have made the list). Click on the chart to enlarge.