The place: Victoria, B.C., during a week’s residency in February at the King’s Hotel on Yates Street,
around the corner from the Churchill beer parlour. In those days, when you saw a Woolworth’s store you
thought of the photo booth, and if you had nothing else to do, you went in and invested a quarter in the
history of photography. A week is a long time when you’re young. The typewriter was a Hermes Baby, a
beautiful machine with a sensuous keyboard, but it was awkward getting the photo strip in around the
platen so that it wouldn’t slip when you typed on it. They don’t make keyboards like that one any more,
that one on the Hermes Baby in 1974.
—Mandelbrot
