To Recap
From a piece in the New York Times, with the cringe-inducing title “The Digital Generation Rediscover the Magic of Manual Typewriters”:
They’re fetishizing old Underwoods, Smith Coronas and Remingtons, recognizing them as well designed, functional and beautiful machines, swapping them and showing them off to friends. At a series of events called “type-ins,” they’ve been gathering in bars and bookstores to flaunt a sort of post-digital style and gravitas, tapping out letters to send via snail mail and competing to see who can bang away the fastest.
To recap points made previously: a typewriter is a tool, for working with, to produce something. It is quite possible for a typewriter to be “well designed, functional and beautiful machine” (I have a yellow Olivetti that fits this description).
A typewriter is not, however,
- a “decorative conversation piece”;
- for “showing … off to friends”;
- something to imbue you with “a sort of post-digital style and gravitas”;
- a way of saying “saying, ‘In your face, Microsoft!’ ”;
- something for “typecasting”1;
- another way to escape from the distractions of the internet (AKA a means to overcome a total lack of willpower).
Either write with your typewriter, or don’t. By all means, appreciate its beauty, its practicality, and its utility, but for fuck’s sake, don’t worship the damn thing.
And while you’re at it, GTFO my lawn, you damn kids.
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The very concept of “typecasting” is vomit-inducingly pretentious and false. ↩
(Source: mleddy.blogspot.com)
