“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe
I have been on the road a lot this summer due to family obligations. Last week, I was up and down the length of New Mexico visiting elderly relatives and taking in the strange and beautiful sights of the Land of Enchantment. I gave Joe VC a silent salute as I passed through Albuquerque.
White Sands, NM is a pretty weird place:
You may be on the moon or in the middle of Antarctica. It was 106°. It was beautiful.
I spotted one typewriter in the wilds of New Mexico. It was crouched in the corner of my cousin’s guestroom north of Santa Fe, ready to spring. Like photos of Bigfoot, this one is a little blurry:
In this photo, you can make out the markings: “Sears – The Electric 2”:
Moe at Mozo’s asked me to drop in after I returned from New Mexico. She had a beautiful little Royal P that she wanted me to admire. It’s a beauty from 1927 with serial number P37918. It types like a son of a gun.
I took a moment to also admire a Barcelona-made Underwood-Olivetti Studio 44 that came in while I was gone. I think it’s from 1961 with serial number 332001. The Studio 44s at Typewriter Database with lower serial numbers seem to be labeled “Underwood-Olivetti” rather than “Olivetti-Underwood”. Funny, that.
Next to the Studio 44 was a 1966 Fortune magazine with a little kid on the cover diligently hacking the mainframe:
Moe also has a new Underwood 6 that is a bit messed up. The carriage gets stuck in strange ways. It may be just dirty – maybe some tab interference too. I will bring this one home in a couple weeks after I finish my travels for the summer.
This Underwood 6 has a strange key:
Does anyone know what “DO” stands for? The typewriter also has a degree symbol.
Roia from Mozo’s created an eerie tableau from a doll head while I was gone:
Moe also proudly showed me some strange bird-headed acquisitions:
Moe says that she can’t look at them too long because her heart fills to overflowing with their strangeness. She sneaks peeks at them now and then. Apparently they are Jenny Lind figurines from the 1850s. Jenny Lind was a famous opera singer known as the “Swedish Nightingale”. Still weird.
And here’s another weird thing Moe showed off:
We did not leave Mozo’s empty-handed. My daughter brought home an Anglo concertina from Moe’s and has been making lots of noise with it:
I can’t look at that concertina without thinking of Joan playing the accordion for her husband’s colleagues.
Lastly, I leave you with a random weird typewriter thing for the day. I saw this on Instagram while I was procrastinating and not doing work like I was supposed to.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFGTFllw_ga/
I wouldn’t stand under that art installation. I did some quick Googling. This is called “Chor der Heuschrecken” (Chorus of the Locusts) by Rebecca Horn, 1991. I wonder if it is still on view in Hamburg.
myoldtypewriter 
Ohhhh love the weird stuff… No idea what “Do” means. Those bird-head figurines are haunting. What a delightful and visceral reaction.
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‘Do’ is short for ditto, now most often represented by a double-quote. Used most often in columns of dates that repeat.
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Ah, mystery solved! Thank you so much.
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