That’s as far as I got before life interrupted and I had to step away. The Underwood DeLuxe Quiet Tab I was using is back at the office, so I’ll have to finish this via electron.
My ambitious–perhaps too ambitious–plan is to write something/anything every day for the next 88 days, using a different typewriter every day. It may be opinion, it may be pointless rambling, it may be short fiction, or it may be poetry. One of my first ideas was to adapt the concept of 88 characters literally by creating 88 different fictional characters, but I fear that would be to invite pre-NaNo burnout. Nonetheless, expect some talking to myself about November’s plot.
Consider this day #1.
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Typewriter: 1963 Hermes 3000.
I meant to fix the typos before scanning it. Honest. And I don’t know if all 3000s punch right through the paper and shred their ribbons, but two out of three of mine do no matter how I set the resistance–and the one that doesn’t has problems.
For those who missed it, the UK’s Guardian ran a pretty good April 1 leg-puller along the same vein.
I’m not the first to speculate on possible intellectual damage from text messaging*, but I tend to agree that today’s instant, stream-of-consciousness forms of communication are harming our ability to think. Twitter’s entire premise not only reinforces blurting out minimalist, choppy thoughts, it actively discourages taking the time to form full, well-rounded ideas. It also conditions the brain to quickly abandon its previous thought and immediately move on to the next, popping (and pooping) ideas with the mental length of enjoyment and nutritional value of jelly beans.
I realize that the same complaints were made about MTV in the 1980s, and about television in general for years before that (anyone remember “Television, the Drug of a Nation“?). The lamentation that Interstates destroyed our appreciation for roadside America began almost the moment the system’s ribbon was cut. I do believe that this has been an ongoing, accelerating process for quite some time. A daylong road trip cut down to a race from Point A to Point B; storytelling reduced from four-hour epic films to one-hour television dramas to 3 1/2-minute music videos. Today, I fear that the ever-reducing drain on our attention spans has minimalized them to the point where our world view has exploded into fragments, and as a result we’re now seeing the wholesale erosion of this generation’s critical-thinking skills and ability to process ideas.
* “Texting”: not a verb. Knock it off.
If Michele Bachmann were an Afghan Taliban or Iraqi cleric talking smack like this, we’d have blown up her car with a Predator drone by now.
…..
BTW, Al Franken won. Again. (What, fourth time now?) Now look for Norm “Scorched Earth” Coleman to appeal to the State Supreme Court…then the Federal Appeals Court…then the US Supreme Court. Then look for him to slink back to Brooklyn in a few years after he tries to run for Governor and discovers that he’s completely squandered whatever support he had even within his own party. For the most part, we Minnesotans are a patient, tolerant bunch. Our idea of road rage is to pull alongside a lousy driver and shake our head in disappointment. But this whole affair has got most of us–liberal, moderate, and conservative alike–ready to run Norm out on a rail.
This past weekend, I took time to indulge in a side hobby that I haven’t had much time for lately: early audio recordings. The occasion was a melancholy one. Fine Groove Records, one of the finest and last independent music shops, is closing its doors after 26 years of peddling new and used music in Northfield, MN. I collared a friend who also collects 78rpm records and we spent the afternoon rifling through the shop’s hundreds of shellac disks and LPs, searching for overlooked gems. (For me, my gems were a previously unknown to me Raymond Scott recording, an early Eartha Kitt record, a promotional double-disk interview with Laurie Anderson never released to the public, and the elusive second volume of Henry Mancini’s music from “Peter Gunn” in mint condition. My friend hit a rich vein of Spike Jones recordings.)
Owner Brian KenKnight says that the decline of locally-purchased music, along with rising property taxes, caused him to make the decision. He told us that the vinyl collectors were still coming in, but his primary customer base of college students have turned more and more to digital downloading, both the legitimate and illegitimate variety.
Today’s big, flashy, electronics stores have nothing on independant shops like Fine Groove. Brian can tell you the career history of almost any musician from the 1920s on. He’s the kind of shop owner that actually listens to the stuff he sells and knows that if you like artist A that you might also like artist B. He keeps a pair of turntables behind the counter and will let you play something to see if you like it before you buy it. At Best Buy, you’re lucky to get a sales droid who’s aware that Thelonious Monk is not a rapper.
More than economic, the closing of Fine Groove will have a cultural impact on Northfield’s Division Street. Fine Groove was a place to hang out and talk music with someone who knows and loves music, and you always came out feeling richer (in the spiritual sense) for having gone in. Independent business owners who are informed and enthusiastic about their products are few and far between these days.
In tribute to Brian and other indie music shop owners, here is a collection of record labels from days gone by. Though Columbia is still around, and Gramophone eventually became EMI, these are labels mostly forgotten by all but us who dig in thrift store boxes and dusty bins in hopes of finding that obscure folk song or Uncle Johnny Coons comedy routine.
Typewriter: 1946 Smith-Corona Silent
Brought to you by a 1939 Royal KMM.
I bought a set of typewriter keys today. Just the keys. From a…a…keychopper. I feel so dirty. This must be how Republicans feel when they get caught by vice cops in airport bathroom stalls. Is it wrong to patronize one of the denizens of typewriting’s sleazy underbelly if the goal is to restore another typewriter? It wasn’t a collectible or particularly old typewriter. A late-’60s Montgomery Ward model whose keys happen to be identical matches for an Olivetti Valentine’s.
Afterward, I saw all the other sets of keys the person was selling. Perfect, round, chromed keys, looking at me like puppies in a mill as I walk away with one of their siblings inside my coat.
I’m going to hell for sure.
