Typewriters are making a resurgence. Justin Lamb, 30, not only enjoys typing letters on manual machines, he affixes stamps and sends envelopes through the U.S. mail.
And he has friends who type letters back.
Could I email him for more information?
Nope. He doesn’t have email.
Could I call him on his cellphone?
Nope. No cellphone.
So I paid a visit. Lamb and his wife, Lyndsay, have tastefully used a few typewriters as decor in their classic home near Snohomish High School. Two old typewriters are used as book ends. A couple perch on a high shelf in the dining room. His office, with no computer, has three old models on display.
Why?
“I’m not into technology,” Justin Lamb said. “I grew up with computers. They aren’t fun to me. Sending an email has no personality.”
What started the typing fun was a wedding. About five years ago, he wrote a fictional story about his friends. He prepared the gift using a typewriter font and his wife’s scrapbook material.
“We attended his childhood best friend’s wedding in a great little hotel in Seattle,” Lyndsay Lamb said. “The space was creative, fun and very emotional. I think Justin was inspired to try and capture this feeling for them. He wrote a fictional story from the perspective of a guest attending the wedding. He wanted them to see exactly what was going on around them and have it captured on paper for a lifetime.”
Since then, her husband prefers corresponding on typing paper.
His wife sells real estate and has a laptop. She has an appreciation for her husband’s hobby.
“It’s been nice,” Lyndsay Lamb said. “I get typed letters and little notes in my purse.”
Her husband said there are famous authors who use typewriters, not computers. It was written in The New York Times that Larry McMurtry “pecks away for 90 minutes on a manual Hermes 3000 typewriter every day at 7:30 in the morning.”
McMurtry won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, “Lonesome Dove.”
Justin Lamb’s favorite typewriter is an Olympia SM3 from 1957.
“It’s very smooth,” he said. “Precise, durable, sturdy, heavy duty. It’s flawless.”
He has a Royal Standard portable from about 1935. His fantasy purchase, which he doesn’t own, is a Pink Quiet Royal Deluxe.
Justin Lamb taught himself how to repair old typewriters. He said there is a fellow back east who sells parts.
Folks who need repairs by Lamb can drop off and pick up typewriters at Uppercase Books and Collectables at 611 Second St. in Snohomish. Lorraine Read at Uppercase said the Lamb family, including their son, Miles, 5, are regular customers.
She hosted a recent type-in event at the shop.
“I believe the attraction is a pull-back reaction to all the technology we have at our fingertips,” Read said. “Yes, we want information quickly and cheaply and available to us wherever we are whenever we want it. But isn’t the motivation behind all those apps the idea that they should provide us with more time to slow down and do things that are meaningful to us? I think so.”
She said when Lamb types at the store, the clack clacking is an oddly soothing sound.
“It always brings comments from other customers and it makes them smile,” she said. “As for the appeal of writing with a typewriter, that’s all typewriters are made for. Write at a computer and pretty soon you’re checking email, checking Facebook and Googling something. It can be really distracting; whereas a typewriter forces focus. I think some folks recognize how much they miss that focus.”
Lamb, an avid writer of stories and poetry, has a blog called snohomishwriter at http://tinyurl.com/6f8n5cn. On the blog he wrote: “I write because I have to, because my brain will explode and my heart will fail if I don’t.”
It’s unusual to see online, because it includes typewritten poems. He types his posts, scans the work, and uploads documents online with a laptop in a process called typecasting. By day, he is a member of Stationary Engineers Local 286 and he works at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He likes to read just about anything, especially a good biography.
I tried to trip up the young man because folks my age know everything there is to know about typing.
He was up to the challenge.
Justin Lamb, as others like him reinventing the “typosphere,” knew all about onion skin, carbon paper and pink-wheeled erasers attached to stiff brushes.
Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451, oharran@heraldnet.com
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