Joe Van Cleave's Blog

It's been four months since I posted here.

Americans for the Arts decided to have their annual convention in Albuquerque this year.

Of course, I didn't go into the gory details of all the other fiddly things I did for this repair, like the ribbon take up was wonky, necessitating the lefthand spool drive sprocket needing to the adjusted.

There's an interesting thing happening in the digital photography space, which are new digital camera products that promise a "film-like" experience.

Casa Rinconada, Chaco Canyon National Historic Park There's a silver gelatin contact print of this image hanging on a wall in my home.

Some writings gleaned from this end-of-year event: It's become a tradition of sorts to post these pages harvested from our public typewriter events, like a crowd-sourced poetry collective.

It's been several months since I've updated you, my regular readers, on the happenings in my world.

Last month we had our most successful public typewriter event yet at the Albuquerque Museum, where hundreds of people had the opportunity to try their hand at a dozen typewriters we had brought.

This is the original dealer tag, from Boulder, Colorado.

Our 12-typewriter setup at the Albuquerque Museum This month has been busy for the ABQwerty Type Writer Society!

Here's the work I did on the Royal Century: Here's the 1941 Underwood Universal, at the Ernie Pyle Library event: I think the standout machine at this event was the Remington Portable No.2 (which formerly was my machine but I've since given it to my friend

Fingers on keys Our spring 2025 typewriter event was once again at Cherry Hills Library, located near the foothills of the Sandias in northeast ABQ.

Woz Flint typewriting It's been a fun week here in ABQ for typewriter events!

La La Cafe in northeast ABQ has become one of our favorite venues for impromptu typewriter meet-ups Joe's writing iron of choice, a 1929 Corona 3, in spectacularly good condition, with new rubber and a rebuilt carry case Practice makes perfect, and here y…

We had our first Type-In of the year at another local library, this time at the Juan Tabo Library in northeast ABQ, just a few miles from the foothills of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness.

A crop of my left hip x-ray image post hip joint replacement surgery Even if they were precision surgical tools!

Royal KMM, a classic American-made standard typewriter with whole-line spacing The KMM's line spacing clutch button How I made pencil marks spaced 1/4 inch along the left margin (before typing!)

Well obviously I was being overly dramatic with the title, because the Zeppelin wasn't "lost," just in storage.

So, what's a "Pop-Up?"

Here I've underlined areas in this pre-repair typing sample where the letter spacing was crowded against other letters.

I should insert a family story here.

Harman Direct Positive Print, Pinholio Self-Developing Pinhole Camera The last Sunday in April is when the global pinhole photography community celebrates Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day.

Lomo Colorado Library in Rio Rancho Amongst the standout machines on display was this folding Hammond, brought by Bill Tefft: We were also impressed with this Smith Premier No.10, with a business-oriented upper keyboard, while the lower keyboard are caps;…

Canon T5i DSLR with 100-300mm lens I've never been an avid DSLR user.

Vivitar 110 Film Camera, early 1970s in Albuquerque The physical model of the vehicle placed against a blue background The image of the model composited with contrails as it appeared to my brother Typecast via Remington Ten Forty.

One of my all-time favorite writing machines, the Underwood 5!