You may want to leave your cell phone or laptop at home if you plan to pop in for a beer at Port Moody’s Brave Brewing Company on Nov. 3.
Typewriters are taking over.
Port Moody collector Brendan Raftery will have more than a dozen of his old-school communication devices on display at the brewery — some of them custom painted by local artist Dave Benning.
Raftery and Benning have collaborated for several projects on vintage typewriters, including an homage to actor Tom Hanks — himself a typewriter enthusiast — as well as scenes from movies like Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Godfather and TV shows like Star Trek. They even painted one with a Twitter theme as an ironic commentary on social media.
In 2023, Raftery and Benning teamed up to create a special Terry Fox tribute on an old Smith-Corona series Five Silent Super machine that was made in Canada.
Raftery restored the typewriter, that had belonged to a Vancouver collector and was never used.
“I gave it a deep clean, but it barely needed anything for fixing,” he said
Benning then painted it with scenes from Fox’s Marathon of Hope, as well as some quotes.
The process took the duo two months and when they were finished, they presented it to the Fox family, who’ve added it to the Fox Family Historical Collection.
The old Olympia’s, Optima’s and Smith-Coronas taking over Brave won’t just be for show, though. Visitors of all ages can even take them for a spin to feel the tactile thunk of keys striking the ribbon as they compose a poem, note or letter.
The typewriter takeover at Brave (2617 Murray St.) runs from noon to 3 p.m.
With files from Janis Cleugh, Tri-City News
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