Truly, I am not intending to collect typewriters. All shelf space is spoken for by books!! Last week I brought home a 1967 Hermes 3000 because (long story zipped) my 1961 Hermes 3000 is temporarily inaccessible, and it was bugging me that my 1963 Hermes Baby types unevenly and sometimes muddily (which could be a problem with the ribbon, but anyway), and I had a deadline to type my short story “What Happened to the Dog?” for the anthology COLD HARD TYPE (about which more anon read it here).
Well, obviously I had to buy another typewriter!
I dare not buy anything but a Swiss Hermes. The one I could find in my local office supply shop was a refurbished 1967 Hermes 3000 with a Swiss-German QWERTZ keyboard. I’ve had to get used to the transposed Y and Z keys; otherwise, kein Problem, and es freut mich sehr to have the umlaut.
A QWERTZ Swiss German keyboard
(American keyboards are QWERTYs)
Of my three Hermes typewriters, this 1967 3000 is by far the smoothest, easiest to type on, and most consistent. I venture to use the word “buttery,” in fact.
Herewith, typed on the 1967 Hermes 3000, “Silence” and “Poem,” from my forthcoming collection, Meteor:
If you’re going to the Great American Writerly Hajj, I mean the Associated Writing Programs Conference, come on by my reading– it’s a free event– I’m on the lineup with Thaddeus Rutkowski, Cecilia Martinez-Gil, Tyler McMahon, Seth Brady Tucker, John Domini, Teri Cross Davis, Elaine Ray, William Orem, Jeff Walt, and Joan G. Gurfield for the Gival Press 20th Anniversary Celebration Reading on Friday March 29, 2019 @ 7 – 10 PM, Hotel Rose, 50 SW Morrison St, Portland OR.
The following day, Saturday March 30, 2019, @ 10-11:30 AM, I’ll be signing copies of Meteor at the Gival Press table (Table #8063) in the AWP Conference book fair.
You can also find a copy of Meteor on amazon.com. And read more poems and whatnots apropos of Meteor on the book’s webpage here.
P.S. Tom Hanks on typing, in the NYT. And Richard Polt on typing in San Francisco. And David Rain on “Hermes of the Ways.”
P.P.S. Joe van Cleave recommends silk ribbons from Ribbons Unlimited.
P.P.P.S. Your Typewriter is Not a Bowling Ball.
P.P.P.P.S. Austin Typewriter Ink Podcast “Typewriter Justice For All.”
Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on My 1961 Hermes 3000
“Round N Round” on the 1963 Hermes Baby
Marfa Mondays Podcast #19: Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos
Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.
