Volume Control
Why do so many people experience hearing loss? It’s not just a matter of growing older By David Hayes, The National Post, December 14, 2019 About a dozen years ago, I saw an ear, nose and throat specialist at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto. After taking a battery of hearing tests, I laid on a […]
Working Class Martyr
On December 8, 1980, I was working on a deadline for one article or another on my Underwood typewriter when my phone rang. It was my friend, singer Marian Tobin, calling from the El Mocambo where she and her two singing partners who made up The Honolulu Heartbreakers were performing that night with Professor Piano […]
Gerda Taro’s Pioneering War Photography
She was, like so many talented women, overlooked, known mainly for being legendary war photographer Robert Capa’s lover and muse. But Gerda Taro was herself a war photographer, celebrated today as the first woman to cover the front lines of a war. With her small Leica camera she ignored the bang-bang and focused on humanizing […]
Yaggy’s 19th Century Publishing Empire
Levi Walter Yaggy was an inventor, writer, and publisher in Chicago. His 1886 Yaggy Anatomical Study of Human Anatomy (used in medical schools and by physicians) was considered a landmark of its era, especially for its use of pop-ups. The folio contained large charts, or “manikens,” of the human anatomy, including the skeleton, muscles, nervous system, arteries […]
When Typewriter Repair Shops Ruled
So glad that Gramercy Typewriter is still around. I visited the shop, on West 17th Street in Chelsea, a few years ago and it provides a lovely nostalgic feeling for those of us who, long ago, wrote on typewriters, not computers. According to Paul Schweitzer, owner of Gramercy Typewriter, which his father founded in 1932, there’s […]
Where War Reportage meets Creative Nonfiction
Link to essay in National Post They Will Have to Die: Verini’s reporting straddles the polarities of war with evolution of technology ‘I would find out later that the strike request exchanges were taking place on a WhatsApp channel. Armies, air forces, an infinity of munitions, all orchestrated via a free chat application’ By David Hayes, […]
READY TO WRITE THAT BOOK?
READY TO WRITE THAT BOOK? Come to the “Meet-and-Greet” for the University of King’s College’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction Monday, November 11; 6 p.m. Penguin Random House 320 Front St West, #1400, Toronto, ON You’ll hear all about the program from our Executive Director, Kim Pittaway, and you can chat with faculty members as well as […]
The Most Beautiful Typewriter
Often described as the “most beautiful typewriter ever made,” the Olivetti MP1 (Modello Portatile) was first produced in 1932 and remained in production until 1950. The most sought-after are known as the ICO, referring to the company’s founder, Ingegnere Camillo Olivetti, who famously said, “A typewriter should not be a geegaw for the drawing room, […]
The Toronto Star’s Art Deco Treasure
In 1891, Toronto’s population was 180,000 and it had six newspapers. In November 1892, 21 printers (locked out after a labour dispute at another paper) along with their teenage apprentices launched a four-page newspaper aimed at the working class called The Evening Star (“a paper for the people”). Their reach exceeded their grasp and the Star struggled […]
A Reverse-Kondo: An Office Furnishings Fantasy
I love vintage office furniture and supplies. The other day, I thought, what if I were to do a reverse-Kondo? What would really give me joy would be to acquire a whole new office set-up. In this fantasy, I started to imagine pencils and staplers and tape dispensers and fountain pen holders to sit on […]