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How We Used To Talk

@howweusedtotalk.bsky.social
197 followers 939 following 185 posts

Artifacts of almost obsolete communication technology—mailboxes, home landlines, payphones—as launchpads for funny, poignant, and culturally rich discussions about where we're at right now. Initially written weekly by me but any submissions welcome.

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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
We will never run out of these vintage Western Electric classics in mint condition, even after using it as a weapon at www.howweusedtotalk.com
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
That's right. We custom make Hi Bias mix cassettes. Taking everything in and making it as tactile as possible. www.howweusedtotalk.com
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Just one of many at Personalized Found Communication Artifacts that come with official documentation and personal typed out story. www.howweusedtotalk.com
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.howweusedtotalk.com Put yourself on the map. Talk to someone. We're here to help.
howweusedtotalk.com
PayPhone
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
It's here! www.howweusedtotalk.com I hate to say it, but I'm already excited for the monthly book club (the only thing not on the website I spent a year building) on YouTube live. First month The Memory Police. Sign up for free copy to celebrate! #booksky
howweusedtotalk.com
PayPhone
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
After this week, finally, the doors will be open at howweusedtotalk.com It's been and will continue to be an international effort. We don't miss the past. We miss the presence. Arrival for our preservation project for analog opportunities and communication artifacts ETA is the freaking weekend.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I'm a fool to do your dirty work
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Just seeing how these snippets from my payphone connections around the world hit on blue sky. Here's one from a great artist from Rwanda. You can find him on here @iranzye.bsky.social
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
AT&T first and only employee beer pong set 2000s
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Before I get specific, let's start with a classic The original SW Bell Desktop Rotary and the Wall Mount Phone Model 500-Black These phones could easily kill a man. Find more next week when my website goes live howweusedtotalk.com Mint condition with all original parts and historical documentation
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
One of my favs This rectangular keychain is a vintage solid acrylic flat fob format featuring a sleek silver-toned reflective mirror panel face, the classic blue bell icon inside a double-circle frame, and the block SW Bell text branding. This high-gloss acrylic finish style commands entire rooms.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
To celebrate my website going live next week. howweusedtotalk.com 1st and only AT&T beer pong set SW Bell lineman belt buckle Payphone mark-sense lead specialized mechanical pencil used to mark conductive cards for early data-processing equipment to read the electrical current of the marks. NO 5.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
When we could say what we wanted about "the war" "When the president talks to God" - Bright Eyes www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tzgw
dailymotion.com
B-E when the president talks to God
Dailymotion video by alfonso_cn
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Now would be the time to look at the Patreon page. There's a finite amount of spots. Once the site is live, there are no rules. Patreon.com/HowWeUsedtoTalk
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Who else loves wall hanging phones with the black rotary background? Plus, outside of 70s burnt sienna, not quite sure what to call this color ;) #vintagephone
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Who thought "that's where this painting belongs"? St. Charles Hilton Embassy Suites, MO. 2026
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
The SW Bell Standard Rotary Model 500 desktop black
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
This SW Bell Original Rotary Model 500 wall mounted version of the desktop one took a chunk right out of the wall when hanging. This phone could kill a man.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
One week away. A preservation project for analog opportunities and communication artifacts with a real time interactive global map. Write someone in jail. Read zines. Go to the place. Connect over the payphone. Also enjoy merch with mailboxes memorialized and real life mailboxes for sale
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
You can always count on the hospital for two things in America. -Subpar care in Byzantine healthcare nightmare and mailboxes. -Hats off to Lake Saint Louis SSM health Emergency room.
You can always count on the hospital for two things in America.
-Subpar care in Byzantine healthcare nightmare and mailboxes. 
-Hats off to Lake Saint Louis SSM health Emergency room.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
24 hour or less Urgent International Telegram service at howweusedtotalk.com starting Aug. 2026. "I don't want to see you again. Your stuff is outside." just hits so much harder when it's hand delivered.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
On the record, we love our diet coke at How We Used to Talk. Good luck finding that anywhere outside the US.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
When Southwestern Bell hit the NYSE on my actual day of birth-November 1, 1983. More one of one vintage phone items like this. On howweusedtotalk.com after Aug 1. Also listen to my doctor call a payphone in India to talk to an old fellow student. And of course more.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
What kind of message do we send when these are in our public parks to climb on or across the street from a communication museum?!?!?
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Check this challenge out on booktok for your us. It'll help tremendously. I'm meeting the man again in November. Let's get it to Josh Johnson sooner.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Thought this was an abandoned building in Portugal not the sneaky secret that it is.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Despite not being drawn by our hero John Waters, this seems to encapsulate his whole world. Happy promise month y'all.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Mutual discovery is one of my favorite phenomena. The patent for this baby below was filed on the same day by Alexander Graham Bell AND some dude named Elisha Gray. We see you Elisha Gray.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
This I had to load up here on BlueSky. The white party photo trend. Message received in Porto where I didn't see a single black person all summer.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
The box of mail from the museum of mail in Portugal
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Bring back physical IDs! Nothing like pulling your id out of your oversized wallet or freshly built cyberdeck. As if there was any doubt ODB was from Brooklyn, this communication artifact puts that to bed.
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Reposted by How We Used To Talk
Kate Violette @kateviolette.com · 20/06/2026
I don't know who else needs to know this but the Multnomah Co library is doing an adorable thing where if you read for 30 days between June 15 - Aug 15, you can return your filled in card for a tote bag I'm gettin that tote bag 🤓
The front of a Read 4 Life" card from Multnomah County library, for adult readers. There is a sunflower with blank petals you fill in for each day you read.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
This is what djing a local radio station at a party from 2-5am at a diner-old school. No blue tooth, cell phones etc. Shout out 89.5 KOPN 2-5am Sat-Sun. shift. You can listen worldwide now because of you know
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
This hits harder in the US. Leave it to passive aggressive signboards to get the message across
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Way to turn the shadiest thing in your neighborhood into a billboard for the freshest salsa around SE Portland
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
People are missing out on communication museums. Even their boxes from the gift shop are fly This one's from Portugal
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
The Trapper Times 1983- just plain ole trappers communicating the necessary local trapper info.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Calling a male loneliness epidemic solution from beyond the grave with the confidence of babe ruth
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
This represents the time that we realized every male carrying his own mail was dangerous as hell. We needed a Mailman! #mailmen
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Before there was "the mail," there was "your mail" in these cute Portuguese fanny packs.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
When you see yourself truly being seen at a Dollar Tree in the candy aisle of middle America. It sure does get its point across. Communication with another wild win.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Outside Bangkok International Hospital around 2022. It certainly gets the message across. Where the hell are all of our (in the US) vaccine showers and pools?
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
When I stressed bring back cords, I should have used a better example than the Hermann "garden hose" phone I profiled a couple days ago. This is a fancy hose for a fancy wall phone. #vintagephone
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
This piece of vintage equipment got the double duty at an illegal table tennis party I threw at an after hours laundromat in 2009.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
If only David Foster Wallace was alive today, This why we do it on How We Used to Talk #booksky
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
My journey dealing with the NTT in Japan to bring a payphone back to life in Tokyo by way of the US. Another one on the map! Going live in August
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
The cassette revolution doesn't have a thing on 8 tracks. Found this unopened gem in Portugal. If you're younger than 50, get in the mood for a deep dive.
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
And b/c I know you all love talking about Japanese snacks, here are just 3 that make chips look neanderthal. Also connecting via Tokyo payphone with someone I met once over twenty years ago and spoke no English. The conversation will live on How We Used to Talk later this summer forever. And more
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Japan has one of the best payphone networks in the world, but they still find time in their hearts to turn some into wow public art. This week I am connecting via payphone in Tokyo to someone who didn't speak my language that lived with me over 20 years ago hosted later this summer on my website
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How We Used To Talk @howweusedtotalk.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Textbook example of what something means to one culture (or person) and something completely different to another (a Burger King in Bangkok.)
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