Vintage typewriters

I'm not really "on Facebook" anymore but I like to visit occasionally, if only to be reassured and/or reminded of the existence of old friends I'm no longer in touch with. Thus, e.g., I found out today that my college friend Adwoa now (a) lives in Geneva, (b) is obsessed with vintage typewriters -- apparently there's been a Vintage Typewriter Revival of sorts lately... -- and has a blog documenting the obsession. The pictures are fascinating, at least to me: as prev. noted I like visibly articulated objects. Some of the old ones (this is from the 1920s) remind me vaguely of pipe organs:

And this one might go well with your furniture:

These intricate mechanical contraptions delight me, partly because I so completely lack the relevant kind of ingenuity (or temperament), partly because they are, in some profound sense, things one understands; any electrical appliance induces a measure of "irreducible bafflement" that even one's mental picture of electrons being dragged through viscous tubes by potential gradients goes only so far to dispel.

Finally that pic of he-who-must-be-mentioned in any post on this topic:

"No -- seals do"

Calista's tumblr is really quite marvelous, consider, for instance, this new post, quoted in full:

W. H. Auden (from “Shorts”)

  Many creatures make nice noises,
  but none, it seems,
  are moved by music.

in the margin, E. Bishop:

   no — seals are

[ed.] The context here is Bishop singing to the seal in "At the Fishhouses":

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,

element bearable to no mortal,

to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly

I have seen here evening after evening.

He was curious about me. He was interested in music;

like me a believer in total immersion,

so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.

I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”

He stood up in the water and regarded me

steadily, moving his head a little.

Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge

almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug

as if it were against his better judgment.