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Magnetic Plot-Bot Paper

A review of Fringeware.

Barnacle Press, purveyors of fine, antiquated newspaper comics, have spotted a fine advertisement for an Electric Belt:

Although we had heard of this project, we somehow failed to realize that the driving mechanism was a punch-card:

Western Union has announced the end of Telegram services:

Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.

Some more history on Western Union can be obtained from the company itself or from that nigh-omniscient oracle, the WikiPedia.

It is with relish and perhaps not a bit of poorly-concealed glee that we read the tale of Chris Elliot (yes, the scion of Bob&Ray Bob Elliot) including Boilerplate, the pseudo-Victorian metal-man, in his latest novel — believing that the robot was a Victorian-era hoax.

The Strange Case of the Spoofer Captured by a Spoof
By EDWARD WYATT

As a comedian, actor and satirist, Chris Elliott has made a career out of blurring the line between truth and absurdity. As a novelist, he has unintentionally fuzzied things further by falling for an online spoof and incorporating a fictional robot into his book as a historical figure.

Now, Mr. Elliott finds himself in a comic nightmare, bending over backward to avoid being accused of a comedian’s cardinal sin - lifting someone else’s joke - and agreeing to a financial settlement with the robot’s creator to head off potential litigation.

“The Shroud of the Thwacker,” Mr. Elliott’s debut novel, published in October by Miramax Books, tells the tale of Jack the Jolly Thwacker, a serial killer terrorizing New York in the late 1800’s. A spoof of period mysteries like Caleb Carr’s “Alienist,” the book also nods to the thrillers of Patricia Cornwell and, perhaps inevitably, to “The Da Vinci Code.”

But it does so in characteristic Elliott fashion, mixing historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt, here seen as a disturbingly flatulent mayor of New York (a wink at those who know that Roosevelt was a police commissioner of New York, but never mayor), with fictitious creations like the police chief, Caleb Spencer. Some inhabit a kind of time-warped middle ground, like an intrepid reporter named Liz Smith who writes for a paper called The Evening Post and a time-traveling investigator named Chris Elliott.

To his satirical 19th-century mix of gas-powered wooden cellphones and imagined New York landmarks like the original Ray’s Pizzeria, Mr. Elliott adds a minor but intriguing character named Boilerplate, a robot said to be developed by the inventor Archibald Campion in the late 1800’s. According to a deliciously detailed Internet site that tracks the robot’s history (bigredhair.com), Boilerplate was designed to replace humans in combat; it took part in Roosevelt’s campaign at San Juan Hill, joined the hunt for Pancho Villa, and fought in and, ultimately, disappeared during World War I.

But in fact, Boilerplate never was. It is the creation of Paul Guinan, an illustrator and graphic novelist in Portland, Ore., who with his wife, Anina Bennett, is the author of “Heartbreakers Meet Boilerplate,” published in July by IDW Publishing.

Read more…

The difficulties of learning the Japanese language are well-documented, and possibly no task is more daunting to the novice than learning its written form, kanji. The complications of their very language became a detriment to Japanese office managers, who pride themselves on utmost efficiency and productivity. A way to write faster was needed. They saw how the typewriter had increased the productivity of the American officeplace, but American typewriter design was obviously impossible to use with the massive Japanese character set, which can consist of as many as 50,000 characters. The quest to create a kanji typewriter led to a complete re-examination and streamlining of the Japanese language. We at SCP salute the editors of The Book and the Computer who have superbly documented the evolution of the Japanese writing machine as part of their series, Japanese in the Age of Technology.

Once or twice daily, a young delivery lad knocks on our door with the latest bundle of post. We flip the endearing street urchin a shilling and retire to the smoking room to enjoy the correspondence from you, Dear Readers. Most often, we grammar- and punctuation-correct each, then slip them into the walls as insulation. However, every once in a while we receive a note which we feel compelled to share. Today’s correspondence is from M______ of Scranton, PA, who writes:

Dear Sirs,
Why haven’t you ever written about [the vintage and antique typewriter site] Machines of Loving Grace? It would seem to be a natural fit for inclusion in your publication.

Regards, & Etc. [sic]

Rest assured that Machines of Loving Grace has not eluded our detection. The fact that is has not yet been featured in these pages is simple: it is a site owned and maintained by one of our editors. To write about it could be construed as Shamless Self-Promotion, and that–as we were so often reminded by the hymnal-wielding women who raised us– is something one Does Not Do.

Another reason is that we prefer to features pages of Quality. And from what we have seen of Machines of Loving Grace, it is sorely lacking in typographic and design skills, is far too verbal where it oughtn’t be, and not verbal enough where it should be.

Therefore, kind sir, please understand why we shall refrain from posting about Machines of Loving Grace, or its companion ocean liner postcards site.

Kind regards,
The Management

While Gizmodo is salivating over the new VoodooPC Envy m:515 laptop, we cannot help but notice that it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Ghia-designed Smith-Corona Super-C typewriter.

Eclectisaurus is the business nom de plume of Leslie Zysman, who sells all manner of antique and vintage items through eBay and on her site. Though many of her best items are long lost to capitalism, she has blessedly preserved pictures of all of her past wares, going to far as to set aside portions of her site as nicely-photographed radio and typewriter museums. Perhaps best of all, she has set up an audio stream so one can listen to bygone jazz and big band music whilst browsing.