Last month, I predicted that McCain would select MN Governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate, and explained why.

Breaking news as of 45 minutes ago:

Aug 28, 5:43 PM EDT
McCain makes decision on VP running mate
By LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain decided on a running mate early Thursday, and one top prospect, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, abruptly canceled numerous public appearances.

The Arizona senator will appear with his No. 2 at an Ohio rally on Friday, aides said, though they provided no details on who McCain had picked.

Without explanation, Pawlenty called off an Associated Press interview at the last minute, as well as other media interviews in Denver, site of the Democratic National Convention.

Rest of the story here.

I could be wrong yet. Stay tuned…

Update
Yep, I was wrong. You can officially ignore anything that comes out of my keyboard. It’s going to be Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Nope, I’d never heard of her either. Seems she was Mayor of a town of fewer than 8,000 people before surprisingly winning the Governorship two years ago. Since I’m sure most folk are as unfamiliar with her as I am, here is how she stands on the issues. (BTW, I recommend OnTheIssues.org as an excellent resource for checking the voting record of every politician.)

I’m not sure whether or how this selection hurts or helps McCain. I have my speculations, but I’ll have to reserve them until I learn more about this woman.

Good news! The green script Royal FP arrived today!

Bad news. It was left sitting on-end on the front stoop.

Good news! The seller packed it exceptionally well, and no damage was done. Carriage hadn’t even twitched.

Bad news. It has no ribbon spools, and standard spools don’t fit.

Good news! The spools from a Royal HH fit!

Bad news. The carriage doesn’t move when I hit the keys.

And that’s where it sits. There must be an unobtrusive little lever somewhere that “unlocks” the keyboard, because the escapement and all other functions work fine. Carriage moves when I hit the spacebar, or tab key, or backspace. Just not when you hit anything connected to a typebar. Not much time right now to delve deeply into the issue, but quite frankly, I’m flummoxed. Typically, the spacebar uses the same escapement release mechanism as the keys. I assume since everything else related to the carriage and escapement work that I must be overlooking some “feature”.

And no, Monda, this isn’t a sign that I should send the Royal to you right away. Though I am wondering about your little curse hoodoo.

Hi, all. Just wanted to let y’all know that my previous post inspired me to start a new blog for all of those historic images and bits of ephemera that just don’t fit anywhere else. The first post commemorates the anniversary of the tornado that all but flattened Rochester, MN, ultimately spawning the creation of the Mayo Clinic. Check it out!

Today we visit a couple of classrooms from the past. Back before “keyboarding” classes, nearly every high school student learned touch-typing, in rooms full of clacking, dinging, ratcheting clamor. And lest those of you who didn’t have to take one of those classes believes that there is no difference between “typing” and “keyboarding”, the two are worlds apart. Touch-typing is an art. The keys are not neatly compressed together and nearly level, as on a computer keyboard. The vertical and horizontal finger reach of a manual typewriter is nearly twice that of a keyboard. Shifting required actual muscle strength. You had to align forms with the type; calculate centering, right-justification, columns; keep track of your bottom margin; plan ahead for footnotes. There was no word wrap.

If you made a mistake–oops!–backspace and delete could not save you. Heaven forbid you didn’t discover the typo immediately and had to use half-spacing to insert a missing character. If you were being timed for speed, there was no going back and correcting your mistakes with a quick backspace or Ctrl-<-. Those flubs counted against your word count.

And you did most of this without looking at the machine.

First up is a postcard, c.1915, of the Spencerian Commercial School typewriting room. Click to see it full-size and try to find as many different typewriters as you can. Is that a Smith Premier 10 next to the Monarch and the Remington in the near row?

Next is a Library of Congress photo of a typing class at Eastern High School in Washington, D.C., c.1920. Most of the typewriters are Remington #10s. Click the photo to view it larger and enjoy the fashions which were popular then. If you click here, you’ll see the most wonderful thing about this photo: the list of classroom typewriter serial numbers and reported problems (“Remington RX85832 – Bell does not ring”).

Interestingly, while the fashions and the machines in use indicate that this undated photo was taken in the 1920s, a couple of those serial numbers cross-reference to much later dates.

Warning: politics and bad language ahead.

On a side note, I really enjoy using the SM4. But its dog-poop brown color doesn’t do anything for me.

Meet the incredibly scarce Keaton Music Typewriter. It’s not quite a typewriter as one would think of one in the traditional sense, is it? It’s a bit of an exoskeletor typing machine. Blank sheet music (not included in the photo for the sake of showing detail) rests on the board beneath the machine; the typebars downstrike to hit it. The shift scale indicator (curved part) delineates different points on the musical scale and the scale shift handle moves the type segment back and forth accordingly. (Click here to see the main keyboard separated from the smaller staff marks keyboard.) It has three spacebars which can move the machine from a partial note to an entire chord. If I knew the first thing about musical notation, I’m sure I could tell you all sorts of other fascinating things that it can do. Alas, I do not, and the manual is missing.

Very little is known about these machines, including how many may have been made. We know from patent records that a smaller, 14-key version was made from 1936 to 1953, when the 33-key version appeared. The one above is the 1950s model. Obviously, the market for such a contraption was small to begin with. They seem to have been purchased primarily by school music departments and small sheet-music publishing companies. Certainly, the device is too plodding to have been of much use to an individual composer. A Keaton is to a regular typewriter what a large-format plate camera is to a 35mm with autofocus and built-in light meter. It seems to be best suited for producing a single master copy to use to make multiple additional copies.

The best source of information I’ve found is, not surprisingly, an article Darryl Rehr wrote for issue #25 of ETCetera. You may note that the Keaton featured in Rehr’s article is serial #3184. Mine is #3180. As of 1993, when the article was published, there were about half a dozen known Keatons. I’ve learned that a handful of additional examples have turned up since then. Certainly the total number of known Keatons is less than two dozen. Undoubtedly, additional machines will crop up as schools and shops clear out their back rooms.

On a personal note, if you haven’t guessed by now, this is the typewriter I hinted at in a previous post. It was hidden away from general sight in a back room of an antique dealer’s storage barn, where I found out it has sat for a decade. The case is dirty and beaten, but the typewriter itself is in splendid condition, all things considered. I only had to reattach a few disconnected typebars; an easy fix. (Loose or missing typebars and missing keytops seem to be a common failure point among the handful of other specimens I’ve seen. The typebars are held in place by only a weak pair of brass finger-stockings, and they keytops are simply pushed onto their posts.) Despite its intricacy, it has a wonderful semi-homemade feel, from its ALCOA-stamped pots-n-pans aluminum frame to the re-purposed battery clips manufactured by the Mueller Elec. Co. of Cleveland, OH. Oddly, the typewriter collecting community in general doesn’t seem very interested in Keatons. Perhaps it’s because one can’t type actual words with them, or perhaps it’s the nontraditional design. Or perhaps it’s just too new. If this were an equally odd and only somewhat more scarce 1800s Hansen Typing Ball, collectors would be going ape over its discovery. Oh, well. I like it, and that’s all I care about.

Maybe I’ll do a coded typecast on it someday. Everybody get out your Oliver Hammond secret decoder rings!

Big -band singer Jo Stafford died the other day at the age of 90. She made her name at the age of 17 as a member of Tommy Dorsey’s vocal group the Pied Pipers, the same group that would also introduce the world to Frank Sinatra. Her instantly recognizable husky-yet-lilting voice made her popular with servicemen on the front in WWII, earning her the nickname “GI Jo”. Later, she had a successful solo career and delved into more serious jazz.

I wish I had time to write a more in-depth obituary. Instead, I’ll let her music do the remembering for me. Here are a couple of my favorite tracks. “Bewitched” is off of one of those home-recorded disks, and is probably taken from the “Johnny Mercer’s Music Shop” radio show.

“I’ll be Seeing You” “Bewitched”