Home Tech ‘Like a big box of chocolates’: Tom Hanks exhibits his typewriters

‘Like a big box of chocolates’: Tom Hanks exhibits his typewriters

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'Like a big box of chocolates': Tom Hanks exhibits his typewriters

YesSome celebrities collect art, rare movie prints, or simple old action figures. (Welcome to the club, Leonardo DiCaprio.) Tom Hanks, somewhat famously, collects something that is both more practical and unwieldy: typewriters. And unlike Steve Martin’s paintings or Leo’s figures, you can currently check out some of Hanks’ typewriters at The Church, a display location in Long Island’s Sag Harbor.

Some of Tom’s typewriters include 35 from his collection of more than 300, chosen by Hanks himself. These include an electric typewriter from the set of Mad Men (curators are, as yet, unclear how Hanks obtained this, but he is recording an electronic guide to accompany the show that they hope will explain), an original 1969 Olivetti. Valentine” designed by Ettore Sottsass and, in one of the most surprising touches, a relatively new model: a translucent typewriter, still made by a company that transitioned from producing calculators in the 1990s. 1980, for use by imprisoned writers. The exhibit also includes some less sophisticated mixers reserved for a more interactive experience; Physical presence, after all, is an important part of the typewriter’s mystique.

The origin of Hanks typewriters has been told, although fictional, in his short story These Are the Meditations of My Heart, from his collection Uncommon Type. In the story, a woman brings in an old typewriter for repair, only to have a life-changing conversation with the man she hopes will repair it. Hanks has said that the conversation was taken almost word for word from his own experience, which involved being told, essentially, that what he was carrying was more like a toy, and instead being presented with a Hermes 3000, as an object of surprising durability and usefulness. . Hanks now carries a typewriter (not always the same one) almost everywhere and uses one almost every day. You don’t necessarily use them for your longer writing (a laptop will still be the most efficient tool for that), but you will use a typewriter in the same way that others might jot something down on scrap paper or make use of some notes. application: to make a shopping list, for example.

Photography: Joseph Jagos / The Church, Sag Harbor

But while Hanks provided the typewriters and some stories to go with them, it fell to renowned creative director and author Simon Doonan, who has worked on everything from a Warhol exhibit to window dressing at Barney’s to Christmas decorations at the White House in Obama. , to design and set up the exhibition. It’s easy to see why Doonan would fit well with Hanks’ playful and kind character; When I mention using my mother’s old typewriters as a child about 35 years ago, he asks her name and repeatedly incorporates her into his thoughts: “Typewriters had a huge impact on Linda and me,” says. “The soundtrack of the 20th century was the clang of typewriters,” Doonan says, “because that was the great revolution of the turn of the century and the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.” He cites his own parents as an example: “They both left school very young and went to work in a factory, but they learned to type, which changed the course of their lives.”

“For younger people,” he notes in terms of people who didn’t grow up accustomed to these devices, “it’s like, shit, look at these crazy machines that are both very simple and tremendously labyrinthine and complex. Looking at a typewriter is like looking at someone’s brain; It’s terrifying.” To make a friendlier analogy, Doonan compares the hobby to collecting (and playing with) vintage guitars, where there is an element of interaction, rather than simply displaying the wares reverently. In that sense, putting together this show was reminiscent of his work on The Warhol Look, a show that was presented at the Whitney and focused on fashion and clothing: “You’re dealing with a lot of objects that don’t come with this strong artistic imprimatur.” He notes that it was also similar to his job at Barney’s, where he was a window dresser for decades, with others selecting the materials he worked with: “I’m used to handling products, without all the preconceptions of art.”

Tom Hanks appears with several of his typewriters in a still from California Typewriter. Photography: Images of American Buffaloes

This does not mean, of course, that these machines are devoid of aesthetic pleasures. “For me, it’s something visual. “It’s like a big box of chocolates,” says Doonan, evoking a famous Hanks character. “They are all so loaded with design language that you become completely obsessed with the era.” Do you have a favorite style of typewriter? He says he is torn between the more space-like typewriters of the mid-20th century and the older models, which evoke a kind of dark glamour: “I love the really heavy Victorian machines, which are very sinister (you can imagine) poisonous.” . -letters with pen and hate mail written on them. That’s what typewriters have: yes, love letters, scripts, books, but also treacherous communications that make your blood run cold when you take them out of the envelope. “Typewriters have appeared in so many films in so many sinister contexts: the key that identifies a murderer or, in the case of Jack Nicholson (in The Shining), the typewriter that reveals the true extent of his psychosis.”

That also extends to the physical sensation of using them, especially in pre-electric models: adjusting the paper by hand, pressing keys to activate a satisfying stroke for each letter, moving the carriage to the end of the margin. Doonan has no particular writing rituals of his own, but he still notes that the physical process has changed from “beating to tickling the ivories,” losing some strength along the way. (“Violence!” he enthuses). For the multiple generations that have made the switch, and for the multiple generations that never had to, some of Tom’s typewriters can at least offer a brief, expanded version of those lost experiences.

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