The giant typewriter eraser in the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle

Raymond Chen

The Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle is open and free to the public all year around. (And I’m surprised they haven’t gotten the heat from the IOC over use of the word Olympic.) One of the works is a giant typewriter eraser. When my friend took her niece (I’m guessing around ten years old at the time) to visit the park, the girl asked, “What’s that?” — Oh, that’s a typewriter eraser. Back before Wite-Out or eraser ribbons, this was how you corrected mistakes. This end is the eraser, and you use that end to brush the crumbs off. The next question was unexpected, but in retrospect, inevitable.

“What’s a typewriter?”

Raymond Chen

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