Graham Strong sent a link to a documentary about a month ago in his newsletter. California Typewriter is about typewriters, naturally, “and the people who love typewriters.” That second descriptor — “the people who love typewriters” — moves the story beyond the merely mechanical and allows the film to weave together artists and a humble, though now outmoded, machine. The movie’s title comes from a typewriter/office machine store in Berkeley, California, whose employees play a central role.
The full-length movie is available on Youtube (includes intrusive advertisements, sorry), but you can get a cleaner movie experience by renting or buying it.
It’s pretty well known that Tom Hanks is a typewriter collector. He is one of several notable artists who are part of the documentary. There’s the best-selling author (David McCullough), the playwright (Sam Shepard), the singer-song writer (John Mayer), a unique typewriter sculptor (Jeremy Mayer), and the staff of California Typewriter. One of my favorite parts of the movie features the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (aka BTO, audio to sample). The interview of the group is hilarious; watch the facial expressions of the players.
The movie is in fact a labor of love. Doug Nichol made it with a budget of zero. He worked on it — filming, editing, everything (almost) completely by himself. It took almost six years before the film made the rounds in festivals. It did well!
“THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TYPEWRITTEN”
For a machine the typewriter certainly arouses passions. Richard Polt put together a manifesto, in fact, that has increasing relevance today. He typed it, of course. The manifesto, which has been translated into many languages (see here) appears below:
It seems to me this is a good movement. Like the notorious Antifa, the typewriter revolution is ideological, not a Real Organization. Kristi Noem’s goons may have found the girlfriend of a notorious Antifa founder in Portland, but I bet they’ll have a tougher time finding the stenographer of the leader of the typewriter insurgency in Des Moines.
The REAL over representation? The PHYSICAL over the digital? The DURABLE over the unsustainable? The SELF-SUFFICIENT over the efficient?
SIGN ME UP!
Image credit: Wikiwrimo, Eponymous “California Typewriter” Store in Berkeley as of 2019., November 2, 2019, Own work, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_typewriter.jpg. Rights: CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
Links, cited and not, some just interesting
Nice images, some moving. The closing of another typewriter shop, this one in Cambridge. Visuals by Jillian Freyer and Text by Scott Cacciola, “A Type-In to Say Goodbye to a New England Institution,” Style, The New York Times, March 24, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/card/2025/03/24/style/cambridge-typewriter-company-party.
Typewriter Revolution dance by On Stage Dance Studio (http://onstagedance.ca). Based on The Typewriter Manifesto by Richard Polt, from the book The Typewriter Revolution. The audio is poor, but it’s still good to see an interpretation of a manifesto in human forms and motions: Typewriter Revolution Dance by On Stage Dance Studio. 2020. YouTube video, 03:05. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7tIv6a6eM.
