Notes from a Public Typewriter

Just imagine … no delete key! To be typing away with no way of erasing one’s words. Where force is needed on each letter, a loud click echoing around the room.Some will have learnt to type on the old ribbon typewriters, whilst for others they are an alien concept. How can one manage without autocorrect, cut, copy and paste!Forget the modern contraptions and imagine an antique typewriter set on a lone table. In a bookshop. Paper rolled into place. People approach and can write a sentence or two on it. What would this be?"Where’s the power button?""what is the password?"Just such a scenario developed in a bookshop in Michigan as part of a community project and the results are beautifully collated in the wonderful ‘Notes from a Public Typewriter’.The co-owner of their bookshop, Michael Gustafson, whose love for typewriters developed from his grandfather’s beloved 1930s Smith Corono, first imagined a great new American novel co-written by hundreds of people.The Literati Bookshop, Ann Arbor, Michigan.He couldn’t have been more wrong! Yet the messages are more than he could ever have predicted and they offer a unique insight into the human psyche as the anonymity allowed people to bare their souls."I’m scared I’ll spend halfmy life deciding what to dowith it and the other halfregretting that choice."They provide glimpses into into other’s lives, their proposals, breakups, love, loss, addiction, joy, worries over school, college. Some cut straight to the question of our human existence."The hardest thing aboutloving someone so brokenis you might fall to piecesyourself."some are funny and intimate"i love it when you talk typewriter to me."And some are sweet and poignant"I raced the snowflakesto see who would fall first."Of course the novelty of a typewriter features often as one young writer shows."If I had to write afive-paragraph essay onthis thing, I would withdrawfrom middle school."The purpose of life in all it’s facets captured in a few profound sentences."Life,like thistypewriter,has nobackspace.Type stronglyand don’tlook back."Every evening Michael Gustafson would collect the papers, read the messages and cut them out, placing some on The Wall of Fame. Fame that grew as news of the bookshop became more widely known.In 2015 an artist, Oliver Uberti, was commissioned to paint fifteen of the messages on the brickwork outside the shop and it is now the most photographed building in the town.‘Notes from a Public Typewriter’ is a wonderful and inspiring collation of notes, some even resembling flash fiction, many incredibly poetic in nature, beautifully presented in a smaller hardback form. A sense of harmony is achieved as the disparate notes are selected into various sections describing the initial set up of the bookshop along with his wife, Hilary, in Ann Arbor and then concentrating on different themes of the notes, providing glimpses of occasions and people in the bookshop.The notes themselves are presented unedited in typewriter fonts along with all their spelling errors etc. They are raw, honest, beguiling, addictive.It is a profound book, it is hilarious, it is life!"we are all stories in the end"It has become one of my firm favourites this year and a book I’ve recommended to so many already!

This book is a look at what people are thinking and feeling at any given moment. Some of the writings are profound and moving. Well worth a read & a savour.

Notes from a Public Typewriter is a charming little red hardcover book edited by bookstore owner, Michael Gustafson and graphic design artist, Oliver Uberti. In Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2013, when he and his wife open Literati Bookstore, Michael Gustafson puts out a light blue Olivetti Lettra 32, inserts clean paper and leaves it for customers. One of the notes typed on the first day: “’Thank you for being here’. I didn’t see the typer’s identity, so it appeared as if the typewriter itself was thanking me. As though the dusty machine was happy to be used again.”Collated are a myriad of comments, pleas, words of wisdom, quips, aphorisms, secrets, worries, jokes, advice, poetry, confessions, proposals, simple observations, with their quirky misspellings and overtypings, that are arranged in a semblance of order under cleverly titled chapters. The typewriter, the store, the people, the wall, love, frustration, sorrow, local personalities, heartbreak, hope, humour and even a bit of mystery all get their turn.Some of the illustrations require the reader to turn the book upside down. Two years after they opened, Oliver Uberti, responsible for the store’s logo, began painting the sixty-foot side wall of the store: selected notes from the typewriter had the public fascinated as he painted them, and make for a tourist attraction. Literati, Ann Arbor, Michigan definitely seems worth a visit!!Some samples:“Where’s the power button?” and “Avoid identity theft. Use a typewriter. They are much harder to hack.” (two among several that will amuse readers of a certain vintage)“Life, like this typewriter, has no backspace. Type strongly and don’t look back.”“We had a date night and chose to come to Literati. Please do not tell our children we came here without them.”“I wrote a letter to Santa today so he doesn’t think we only talk to him when we want something.”This is such an original and intriguing concept. Selecting the notes to be included from the thousands accumulated can have been no easy task, but what a wonderfully varied collection this is! Combined as they are with essays and photos, they make a delightful but also moving and often thought-provoking read.This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Scribe Publications Australia.

Notes from a Public Typewriter is a charming collection of things that people have typed an an old typewriter kept stocked with paper in a bookshop in Ann Arbor. These texts are sometimes funny, occasionally profound, heartbreaking and always intriguing.As well as these short texts, there's also a few pages giving the background - about the shop, its owners and customers and of course, the typewriter. This makes the book something more than a simple compendium of pithy statements that would grace any Christmas stocking and turns it into something much more fulfilling. An utter delight.