FOR THE LONGEST time I've wanted a typewriter and I think I'm going to start looking for one. Also I started thinking about it and I think I was born in the wrong time era, or I just have an old soul. I don't know why but all the new age technology (though impressive and innovative and quite helpful) really doesn't impress me nor am I really that fond of it. I mean, obviously advances in technology via medical or safer cars or what have you, I appreciate to the upmost. What I'm talking about are the non-threatening sort of things that have been done away with. For instance, reading the paper, or even just a book. The news is read more now on the web more than in paper form (that is, if you're under the age of 65) and books, hundereds and hundreds of books can be stored on one little slab of bits and parts put together to form a slab of glass and metal. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic that you can save space that way, but I don't know....there's just something so phenomenal, so enthralling, so...invigorating about holding the newspaper or a brand new book in your hands. The feel of the gritty paper between your fingers, the smudges of ink on your elbows from resting your arms on the paper, that stale heady smell of ink and paper and the inside of the truck that carried it, the smell of news and happenings, of letters colliding together to form thoughts and feelings. Ahh, there really is no substitute for a lovely afternoon basking in the sunlight of some little coffee shop, with a newspaper in your hands or a book, worn and battered from numerous reads. Which then leads me to my secret love affair with the typewriter. Although completely inconvenient in just about every sense of the word, that is one of the things that I miss dearly. There's so much satisfaction in the sound of letters being stamped into existence, and the boldness that comes from each word displaced from electrical impulse in your brain between your neurons, down through your spine, out towards your arms, trickling out through your fingers until out rushes so many thoughts you barely get it out before another rush of thoughts overtakes the first. With computers and anything really nowadays, you can write something, take it back, re-write it, delete it, save it, paste it, then change your mind again and delete it. There's always a way out, you don't have to be sure of what you are going to say, neither do you have to fully mean it, and there is (not always, but lots of times) not a whole lot of format or serious thought into writings (sort of like this message.....IRONY). But with a typewriter, I don't know. I suppose I just picture the writer sitting there at the table, a cigar in an ashtray with the smoke creating this ethereal haze in the room, running his hands through his disheveled hair, standing up, sitting down, standing up, walking around, shirt wrinkled and half tucked, tie hung loosely around his neck, sitting down, setting his face with determination pounding out a few sentences...brooding over what he wrote and grueling over what he was to write next, fighting, struggling, listening, sorting, rearranging--bringing his thoughts to a boil, letting them simmer, and then a sly half-smile over takes his countenance as he finds the hidden trail in the path, the key to the secret room in the house--he finds the words that match with his whirlwind of thoughts and like a madman, he begins to pound the keys, hesitant at first, but upon hearing the resolve of each key as it strikes the page and leaves behind it's fingerprint, a fury is unleashed and like a fire he quickly consumes the page with his words before the flame is snuffed out.
Ahh, yes. The mottled mess in my brain that creates such a distinct and clear image in my mind's eye...an old soul with a young face.
Until next time....
-A Walking Contradiction
