Forum / Old typewriter fonts
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DolemiteJan 11, 03:23am -
James Lloyd DavisJan 11, 01:36pmOr you could go to a pawn shop and rescue an old Underwood... Saw one the other day in a window. It looked rather lonely.
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DolemiteJan 11, 08:07pm
I'd love to have my old Underwood back. Actually bought something similar a while ago but MAN is it tough to use. Probably needs cleaning/oiling.
I think it's a shame they're gone, for the most part, though I know a few author's still use 'em.
I think the physicality of the machine itself reminds you that you are MAKING SOMETHING in the physical world: written art as object, something that SHOULD be as real and possibly useful, as the coffee pot on your desk. That you are carving, sculpting, molding thought into matter. Less likely that way to just write off the top of your head, to "express yourself." More inclined to let go and sink down to where the idea/thought appears as symbols of physical manifestations. And because of the investment of physical energy, purchased paper, ribbon and NOISE, more inclined to learn to WAIT until you are pretty close to IT before making your move. Like a hunter getting close (or allowing prey to get close) by disappearing into the scenery before making his move.
Also, every keystroke was a step into virgin snow, so to speak, an attempt to get as close to IT in as efficient a manner possible.
It slowed the process down, made it a meditation of sorts. Your internal terrain had to alter, become more like the desired, for you to receive the image and proceed.
Basically, you had to wait, and suffer with the waiting, until you had something worth saying.
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James Lloyd DavisJan 11, 10:22pm
Here in a universe of bits and bytes, it's hard to feel the connection, yeah, to the physical realities. It was nice to hear the typewriter slam each letter, nice to feel the back of a typewritten page with your fingertips after you pulled it from the platten... zzzziiiiippppp. Letters stamped, embossed and inked tappity tap tap tap.
All in all, our modern world lacks connection to physical realities we once took for granted. When I was young, I helped to build an aircraft carrier out of steel plates and iron shapes, molded, craned, jacked and beat them into place for the welders to stitch together with puddles of molten steel and a hundred amps of electric arc on the grounded ends of little rods.
Times change but fiction is fiction. I love the convenience and would not trade my computer now for a hundred Underwoods and a lifetime supply of whiteout and carbon paper.
'Course, I wouldn't mind being twenty-two years old again and stupid. You can really enjoy life when you're twenty-two and not smart enough to avoid all those things you'd never dream of doing when your old and smart.
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Julie InnisJan 14, 10:34pmthis is the best thread ever and I'm typing my response using the "B" setting of Clickey - as close to the sound the first typewriter I ever used made. Am one vrrrrrrrrry happpppppy typist right now.
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DolemiteJan 14, 11:03pm
and you are...
Oh, it's Downtown Julie Brown!
(I went for the "C" sound, meself)
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Just like reading a physical book engages, I believe, more of your brain than reading online, what with various sections of said organ, above and beyond the "eyeball section," being stimulated, used, WOKEN UP (touch, smell, balance, muscle-strength, movement), using a typewriter also engages more of your physicality and, by default, more of your humanity.
The snappy sound of the keys striking paper, besides being a public--even if only of one--declaration of engagement with mystery, a call-to-arms of the creative soldiers, also reverberates in the room (the kitchen, when I was a kid), echoes back, gives you a true sense of truly being in the physical, actual, world, doing physical, actual, work, producing physical, actual, 3-dimensional ART.
(whereas the secret diary entries about yer girl fren/boy fren hopes and dreams and miseries are best suited for the silent slide of the pen under the covers...)
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Joani ReeseJan 15, 02:56amI knew there was a drawback to always owning a Mac. I am sad now.
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Marcus SpehJan 15, 09:25amflawnt often used <a href="http://flawnt.tumblr.com/post/641170619/art-by-cyn-kuhn">Mom's Old Typewriter</a>... i own six olivetti lettera and they all work. when we're all at sleep they come to life and write for me in exchange for some oil and some love.
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DolemiteJan 15, 06:45pm
I like Mom's Old Typewriter, too
(and also http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RBF1PO/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details)
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DolemiteJan 15, 06:46pm
(Well, that was *supposed* to post as Dad's Old Razor.)
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