Richard Polt – Madam Mayo

Q & A with Philosopher Richard Polt on “The Typewriter Revolution”

“[A]fter I started collecting typewriters in 1994, I rediscovered the pleasure of using them once in a while. My desire to use them more often led me to start “typecasting” in 2010—writing posts on a typewriter, then scanning and uploading them to a blog. It was a great decision. It connected me to the typosphere (typewriter bloggers around the world), and opened my eyes to the many uses these machines have today.”— Richard Polt

This blog posts on Mondays. Fourth Mondays of the month I devote to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

So, dear writerly readers, it is a delight and an honor to present you this month’s Q & A with none other than Richard Polt.

From The Typewriter Revolution’s catalog copy:

“Why a typewriter now? How do you find a good typewriter? How do you take care of it? The Typewriter Revolution has the answers.

“What do thousands of writers, makers, kids, poets, artists, steampunks, and hipsters have in common? They love typewriters—the magical, mechanical contraptions that are enjoying a surprising second life in the 21st century. The Typewriter Revolution documents the movement and provides practical advice on how to choose a typewriter, use it, and care for it—from National Novel Writing Month to letter-writing socials, from type-ins to customized typewriters.”

This is all a little more serious than it might appear, however. Richard Polt is a professor of Philosophy at Xavier University and the author of several works about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, most recently, Time and Trauma: Thinking Through Heidegger in the Thirties. Heidegger is perhaps best known for his essay, “The Question Concerning Technology,” which first appeared in print in 1954.

Richard Polt, author of *The Typewriter Revolution*

C.M. MAYO: What prompted you to start using a typewriter?

RICHARD POLT: I took a typing class in school when I was 11 years old, in 1976, and my father soon found a 1937 Remington Noiseless no. 7 for me at a yard sale. I used that Remington for school, college, and grad school until I got a Mac in 1988. Then there was a period of several years when I didn’t even consider using a typewriter again. But after I started collecting typewriters in 1994, I rediscovered the pleasure of using them once in a while. My desire to use them more often led me to start “typecasting” in 2010—writing posts on a typewriter, then scanning and uploading them to a blog. It was a great decision. It connected me to the typosphere (typewriter bloggers around the world), and opened my eyes to the many uses these machines have today.

C.M. MAYO: What sorts of things do you use your typewriter to type?

RICHARD POLT: Brainstorms, fiction, poetry, letters, comments on students’ papers, blog posts.

C.M. MAYO: Which model is your go-to typewriter?

RICHARD POLT: I still love my first typewriter, the Remington Noiseless no. 7; it’s next to my laptop right now. I also really enjoy my Continental portable and my Olympia SG1. I enjoy cycling through other models as well, such as my Voss De Luxe, Torpedo 18, and Olivetti Lexikon 80.

C.M. MAYO: Which, in your opinion, is the number one slam-dunk most bodacious typewriter ever manufactured?

RICHARD POLT: I am always looking for “the perfect typewriter” and also simultaneously hoping I won’t find it, so that the exciting search can go on. But the Olympia SG1 comes close to perfect for a standard—it’s smooth and snappy, accurate, strong, and full of features. An interesting candidate for the perfect portable (though it’s still pretty big and heavy) is the Erika 20, a super-sophisticated East German machine that’s nearly impossible to find in QWERTY. And if you want an electric, the IBM Selectric can’t be beat.

C.M. MAYO: After your book, The Typewriter Revolution, was published, what surprised you the most about readers’ responses?

RICHARD POLT: The delightful response that I didn’t see coming was a dance based on my Typewriter Manifesto. The awful response that I didn’t see coming was a reader review that described the book as obscene (huh?).

C.M. MAYO: What prompted you to start Loose Dog Press?

RICHARD POLT: The idea began after I read a couple of short stories in the typosphere about the typewriter insurgency fighting the powers of computerdom, or people using typewriters in an apocalyptic scenario. I thought it would be fun to challenge people to write more stories along these lines—and to publish the typewritten texts. This project evolved into the anthologies Paradigm Shifts and Escapements, which I edited with novelist Frederic S. Durbin and English professor Andrew V. McFeaters. I didn’t think a mainstream publisher would be interested in this admittedly very specialized niche, so why not start my own publishing house?

Loose Dog Press (a pun on the name for a part in a typewriter’s escapement mechanism) is dedicated to promoting typewriting in the 21st century. The books are printed on demand, sold at cost, and available only on paper. There is more information at https://loosedogpress.blogspot.com.

C.M. MAYO: What gratified you, what frustrated you, and what surprised you about Loose Dog’s first books?

RICHARD POLT: We’ve been gratified and surprised by the amount of interest and the number of strong submissions that have come our way from around the planet. The Cold Hard Type series, which now includes four volumes, has successfully inspired people to take their typewriters down from the shelf and use their imagination both with them and about them. Honestly, although it’s been plenty of work to select contributions and use Photoshop to correct errors in typescripts, there have been almost no frustrations. My co-editors are insightful and friendly, and Linda M. Au has been a great help in producing the layout for each volume.

C.M. MAYO: If you could offer a word, or maybe a couple of sentences, of advice for anyone who is thinking of starting a press, what would you tell them?

RICHARD POLT: Do it! We are in a golden age of publishing, in the sense that you need no capital at all to begin publishing books. You just need some technical know-how to create a PDF which can then be printed on demand. Of course, it also helps to have literary and aesthetic taste. Appearances count.

C.M. MAYO: But back to typewriters: A thought experiment. Martin Heidegger, popping in from the afterlife, has offered to type his blurb for The Typewriter Revolution. What does he say?

RICHARD POLT: “What do you mean, type a blurb? I refuse to use a Schreibmaschine! The writing machine is destroying the essence of writing, which is hand-writing! … What’s that? You can’t read my handwriting? All right, I will have my assistant type it up. … OK, OK, I see the irony already. You don’t have to rub it in! Well, at least writing machines are not as devastating as thinking machines. So I’ll give Herr Polt’s scribbles some grudging credit for denouncing the cybernetic worldview.”

Visit Richard Polt’s blog at The Typewriter Revolution.
Writers take note! See also his call for submissions for the next Loose Dog Press anthology, Margin Releases: Typewritten Tales of Transgression. Deadline: March 1, 2022.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

From the Typosphere: “Right” and “Wrong”

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt,
Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

Q & A with Álvaro Santana-Acuña on Writing
Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude
Was Written and Became a Global Classic

“Julius Knows” in “Catamaran”

Yea verily, even in the doldrums of the present rhinocerosness, the American literary short story lives on. I must thank Richard Polt, author of The Typewriter Revolution, for the prompt that inspired me to write my latest typewriter short story, “Julius Knows,” which, I am honored to report, appears in the gorgeous new Fall 2021 issue of Catamaran.

I’ll post “Julius Knows” here on the blog, as soon as I get around to typing it up on my Hermes 3000. Meanwhile, you can read my previous typewritten short story about a typewriter, “What Happened to the Dog,” which originally appeared in the anthology edited by Richard Polt, et al., Escapements: Typewritten Tales from Post-Digital Worlds.

I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.

Conjecture: The Powerful, Upfront, Fair and Square Technique
to Blend Fiction into Your Nonfiction

Spinning Away from the Center: Stories from the
Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction

Meteor, Influences, Ambiance

Newsletter: C.M. Mayo’s Podcasts, Publications, and Workshops, Plus Cyberflanerie (Corona Virus-Free Edition!)

My writing assistants Uliberto Quetzalpugtl and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl snoofling at the mysteries.

For those interested in my publications, podcasts, and writing workshops, after a loooooong hiatus, I am resuming the newsletter, herewith commencing a new schedule of posting it on Madam Mayo blog every fifth Monday of the month (when there is a fifth Monday, that is to say, a few times a year).

I will also be sending out the newsletter to subscribers via email. If you would like to receive only the emailed newsletter, just zap me an email, I’ll be delighted to add you to my list. (If you’ve already signed up, stay tuned. I’ve had to switch my emailing service from Mailchimp to Mad Mimi, a bit of a process. Long story short, I give Mailchimp a black banana. Mashed in the noggin!)

If in addition or instead you’d like to sign up for the Madam Mayo blog post alerts every Monday via email, just hie on over to the sidebar (or, if you’re on an iphone, scroll down to the end of this post) for the signup. Welcome!

PODCASTS

“WORDS ON A WIRE”: Award-winning writer and Chair of the UTEP Creative Writing Department Daniel Chacón interviews me about my book Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (which includes my translation of Madero’s 1911 book). This interview with Daniel Chacón was a special honor and delight for me because while my book is a work of scholarship, it is at the same time a work of creative nonfiction. It turned out to be a very fun interview, if I do say myself. >> Listen in anytime here.

Still in production, but allllllllmost ready: The MARFA MONDAYS Podcasting Project resumes with #21: a reading of my longform essay “Miss Charles Emily Wilson: Great Power in One.” Researching and writing this rearranged all the furniture in my mind about Texas, the US-Mexico border, Florida, the Indian Wars, and much more… Miss Charles is someone everyone should know about.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

“Majesty,” one of the stories from my collection Sky Over El Nido (U Georgia Press, 1996), appears in Down on the Sidewalk: Stories About Children and Childhood from the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, edited by Ethan Laughman.

My gosh, it’s unsettling to read a story I wrote so long ago (maybe 1993 or 1994?). And “Majesty” is a strange story, and stranger still to be rereading in this age of the iPhone. It’s set in an Arizona luxury golf resort / spa in the late 1980s / early 1990s–another world, so to say, and on multiple levels. I recall the fun I had playing with the Alice in Wonderland imagery– I had recently been introduced by Douglas Glover to the German novel The Quest for Christa T. and the idea of the story as a net, an important influence on my fiction writing ever since.

Get your copy from all the usual suspects, including amazon.com

GIVAL PRESS POETRY AWARD CONTEST
JUDGED BY YOURS TRULY

Back in January, as the winner of the most recent Gival Press Poetry Award (for Meteor), I selected the winner for this year from an excellent batch of anonymous manuscripts. Here’s the press release from Gival Press:

February 6, 2020
For Immediate Release
Contact: Robert L. Giron

(Arlington, VA) Gival Press is pleased to announce that Matthew Pennock has won the Gival Press Poetry Award for his collected titled The Miracle Machine. The collection was chosen by judge C.M. Mayo. The award has a cash prize of $1,000.00 and the collection will be published this fall.

“With a craftsman’s deftest precision and a thunder-powered imagination on DaVinci wings, the author recreates a lost world within a lost world that yet—when we look—shimmers with life within our world. Elegant, wondrously strange, The Miracle Machine is at once an elegy and a celebration, tick-tock of the tao.”
—C.M. Mayo, author of Meteor

About the Author

Matthew Pennock is the author of Sudden Dog (Alice James Books, 2012), which won the Kinereth-Gensler Award. As per the terms of that award, he joined the board of Alice James Books in 2011, In 2014, he co-created AJB’s editorial board with executive editor Carey Salerno, and then became the board’s first chairperson, a position he held until 2020. He received his MFA from Columbia University and his PhD from the University of Cincinnati. His poems have been widely published in such journals as Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics, New York Quarterly, LIT, and elsewhere. He currently owns and operates a learning center outside of Washington, D.C.

In case you missed it, here’s all the info about my poetry collection Meteor, which was published by Gival Press last spring, 2019.

SELECTED RECENT MADAM MAYO BLOG POSTS

Patti Smith’s Just Kids and David M. Wrobel’s Global West, American Frontier

Oscar Wilde in West Point, Honey & Wax in Brooklyn

Workshop Posts (every second Monday of the month):

Donald M. Rattner’s My Creative Space

This Writer’s PFWP and NTDN Lists: Two Tools for Resilience and Focus

A Refreshing Tweak: The Palomino Blackwing Pencil

Q & A

Q & A with Joanna Hershon on her New Novel St. Ivo

WORKSHOPS

I am working on a book so I have no workshops yet scheduled for 2020. For my students, and anyone else interested in creative writing, I will continue to post on some aspect of craft and/or creative process here at Madam Mayo blog on the second Monday of the month.

> View the archive of Madam Mayo workshop posts here.

Meanwhile, I’m putting together a new workshop on applying poetic techniques to fiction and creative nonfiction… More news about that in the next newsletter.

# # #

CYBERFLANERIE
(INSPIRING, INTERESTING, AND/OR USEFUL GLEANINGS)

My typosphere guru, philosopher Richard Polt, has posted about the dance based on his “Typewriter Manifesto”!

How to smombify millions of otherwise healthy, active, and creative people or, electrical failure as last defense: Nicholas Carr on TikTok.

Let’s be frank, shall we? Leslie Pietrzyk offers tips on post-MFA etiquette at Work-in-Progress.

BRAAAAAAAVOOOOOOOOOO, Judith Boyd!!!! What to Wear in Honor of the Death of a Significant Friend is a highly unusual essay well worth reading thrice.

Patricia Dubrava on Little Women

Andrea Jones “On Not Riding”

Philosopher Jeremy Naydler on light and thought. Poets and literary writers may find this especially energizing. (Not for those who get cooties from any whiff of woowoo, however.)

Clifford Garstang, who did a Q & A for this blog in 2019, has posted his annual Literary Magazine rankings. Dear writerly readers looking to publish, while of course his, mine, yours, or anyone’s rankings of literary magazines are subject to debate, take this as a valuable and free resource!

Speaking of publishing, that usually involves a heaping helping of rejections. Well, I say, micro freaking deal! Rev that sense of humor! Need some assistance in that department? Here’s what Jia Jiang learned from 100 days of rejection:

There’s more to Mexico than beaches & pyramids & Frida chunches… (Chunches: That’s Mexican for tchotchkes. Not to be confused with Ughyur raisin-drying facilities.) For anyone interested in the rich cultural heritage of Mexico, check out Richard Perry’s long-ongoing blog, Arts of Colonial Mexico. Richard writes: “For the New Year, we plan to highlight monuments and art works in Oaxaca and Yucatan as well as in Guanajuato, Puebla and Tlaxcala.”

An email from Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka, editor of Loch Raven Review:

Dear Fellow Translators,

I want to spread the word about Loch Raven Review’s role in showcasing poetry translated from a variety of languages, featuring as a rule one language per each issue’s bilingual section. Since 2011, when I accepted the responsibility of the Poetry Translations Editor, Loch Raven Review has featured 21 sections of poetry in translation. I’ve compiled a list of all the sections, starting with the Spanish language, followed by the expected and unexpected languages, such as Catalan, Mayan or Kurdish, at http://danutakk.wordpress.com/loch-raven-review/

I’ve made it a point to engage local area translators, starting with Yvette Neisser and Patricia Bejarano Fisher, then Nancy Naomi Carlson, Barbara Goldberg, Katherine E. Young, Nancy Arbuthnot, Zeina Azzam, and then Zackary Sholem Berger, Xuhua Lucia Liang, and Maritza Rivera in the most recent LRR Volume 15, No. 2, 2019.

Also, since 2018 we’ve been busy catching up with LRR print volumes. In 2019 we published Volumes 10-13!
You may enjoy them at http://thelochravenreview.net/loch-raven-press-books/ and on our Facebook page.

Vol. 14 is going to press soon.

Starting in 2018 we have nominated four translations for the Pushcart Award.

I feel proud and happy to be able to bring together poets who write in such a variety of languages, and the translators who make the poems available to the English language readers.

Wishing you all a peaceful, creative, and joyful 2020,

Danka

Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka

Emma Lawton on “What Parkinson’s Taught Me”:

There is nothing you cannot do! Says Tao Porchon-Lynch, the world’s oldest yoga teacher– who recently passed away at 101. She made 98 look like 18. Bless you, Tao.

Cyberflanerie: Bill Cunningham, Brattlecast,
Rudy Rucker, Sturmfrei & More

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt,
Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

Remembering Ann L. McLaughlin

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

“What Happened to the Dog?” A Story About a Typewriter, Actually, Typed on a 1967 Hermes 3000

Includes the story by C.M. Mayo, “What Happened to the Dog?”

Of late I have become an enthusiast of typewriting— the machine I am working on these days is a refurbished Swiss-made 1967 Hermes 3000, and quite the workhorse it is! (Ribbons? Kein Problem.) Of course I do most of my writing on my computer using Microsoft Word; WordPress for this blog; not to mention multitudinous hours spent with ye olde email program. But for laser-level attentional focus–and percussive energy!– the typewriter is something special, and as time goes by, the more I use it, the more I appreciate it. In fact, I now use my typewriter for one thing or another (drafts, notes, letters, recipe cards) almost every day.

Though I have yet to meet him in person, my mentor in the Typosphere is none other than Richard Polt, professor of philosophy at Xavier University and the author of some heavy-weight tomes on Heidegger, and, to the point, a practical manual I often consult, and warmly recommend to anyone thinking of buying a typewriter, or, say, hauling Grandpa’s out of some cobwebbed corner of the garage: The Typewriter Revolution. As “Richard P.” Professor Polt also maintains a blog of the same name. And now he, Frederic S. Durbin, and Andrew V. McFeaters, have put together a pair of anthologies, both just published, the second of which, Escapements: Typewritten Tales from Post-Digital Worlds (Loose Dog Press, 2019), includes a story of mine: “What Happened to the Dog?”

(Well, I guess it got loose, haha.)

An “escapement,” by the way, is the mechanism in a typewriter that shifts the carriage to the left as you type. If you want to get nerdy about escapements, and pourquoi pas?, be sure to check out typospherian Joe Van Cleave’s extra crunchy video on escapements. Joe Van Cleave’s typed short story appears in the first Loose Dog Press anthology, Paradigm Shifts: Typewritten Tales of Digital Collapse.

Herewith, “What Happened to the Dog?” (Caveat: undoubtedly the photographs in the book itself are of better quality; these I just snapped with my smartphone, too quickly, I daresay, in a rush to make the PO with the originals.) May this entice you to buy the ridiculously low-priced anthology of a cornucopia of wildy-imagined stories by many other writers, now available at amazon.com— and better yet, have a go at typing your own pre-/post-digital fiction.

*“What Happened to the Dog?” by C.M. Mayo in Escapements, edited by Richard Polt et al, 2019. Story* © *Copyright C.M. Mayo 2019. All rights reserved.*

My writing assistant answers the title question: She was having a perfectly reasonable morning siesta when, suddenly, this book appeared on her back. She reports that this reminded her, mistily, of a previous life as a dimetrodon.

Those of you who follow this blog may be wondering, what perchance, and by jumpingjacks, does this short story about a typewriter have to do, and by the way what has happened with, the book in-progress on Far West Texas? The question of technology has turned out to be central to what I am writing about Far West Texas. (Darkly: there will be Heidegger quotes.)

Fingers crossed that I can finally get the next Marfa Mondays podcast up Monday after next.

Next Monday, the second of the month, I post here for the writing workshop. More anon.

Consider the Typewriter (Am I Kidding? No, I Am Not Kidding)

Texas Pecan Pie for Dieters, Plus a Review of James McWilliams’ The Pecan

This Writer’s Distraction Free Smartphone (DFS): First Quarter Update

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

“Silence” and “Poem” on the 1967 Hermes 3000

*My writing assistant wonders…. um,* warum? (why?)

Truly, I am not intending to collect typewriters. All shelf space is spoken for by books!! Last week I brought home a 1967 Hermes 3000 because (long story zipped) my 1961 Hermes 3000 is temporarily inaccessible, and it was bugging me that my 1963 Hermes Baby types unevenly and sometimes muddily (which could be a problem with the ribbon, but anyway), and I had a deadline to type my short story “What Happened to the Dog?” for the anthology COLD HARD TYPE (~~about which more anon~~ read it here).

Well, obviously I had to buy another typewriter!

I dare not buy anything but a Swiss Hermes. The one I could find in my local office supply shop was a refurbished 1967 Hermes 3000 with a Swiss-German QWERTZ keyboard. I’ve had to get used to the transposed Y and Z keys; otherwise, kein Problem, and es freut mich sehr to have the umlaut.

A QWERTZ Swiss German keyboard
(American keyboards are QWERTYs)

Of my three Hermes typewriters, this 1967 3000 is by far the smoothest, easiest to type on, and most consistent. I venture to use the word “buttery,” in fact.

Herewith, typed on the 1967 Hermes 3000, “Silence” and “Poem,” from my forthcoming collection, Meteor:

Typed today but originally published in Muse Apprentice Guild in, *ayy,* 2002. I think it was.

If you’re going to the Great American Writerly Hajj, I mean the Associated Writing Programs Conference, come on by my reading– it’s a free event– I’m on the lineup with Thaddeus Rutkowski, Cecilia Martinez-Gil, Tyler McMahon, Seth Brady Tucker, John Domini, Teri Cross Davis, Elaine Ray, William Orem, Jeff Walt, and Joan G. Gurfield for the Gival Press 20th Anniversary Celebration Reading on Friday March 29, 2019 @ 7 – 10 PM, Hotel Rose, 50 SW Morrison St, Portland OR.

The following day, Saturday March 30, 2019, @ 10-11:30 AM, I’ll be signing copies of Meteor at the Gival Press table (Table #8063) in the AWP Conference book fair.

You can also find a copy of Meteor on amazon.com. And read more poems and whatnots apropos of Meteor on the book’s webpage here.

P.S. Tom Hanks on typing, in the NYT. And Richard Polt on typing in San Francisco. And David Rain on “Hermes of the Ways.”

P.P.S. Joe van Cleave recommends silk ribbons from Ribbons Unlimited.

P.P.P.S. Your Typewriter is Not a Bowling Ball.

P.P.P.P.S. Austin Typewriter Ink Podcast “Typewriter Justice For All.”

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on My 1961 Hermes 3000

“Round N Round” on the 1963 Hermes Baby

Marfa Mondays Podcast #19: Pitmaster Israel Campos in Pecos

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

From the Typosphere: “Right & Wrong”

Typed on the 1961 Hermes 3000, a pair of poems from Meteor:

At last, my book, Meteor, which won the Gival Press Poetry Award, is listed on amazon, et al. The official launch will be in March, at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Portland, Oregon. If you’re attending that conference, I welcome you to come by the Gival Press 20th Anniversary Celebration Reading and my book signing at the Gival Press table in the bookfair.

Apropos of typing, I am honored to also announce that my short story “What Happened to the Dog?” has been accepted for Cold Hard Type: Typewriter Tales from Post-Digital Worlds, edited by novelist Frederic S. Durbin, writer and Professor of English Andrew McFeeters, and philosopher Richard Polt, the Dean of the Typoshere, and author of The Typewriter Revolution. My own vision of the post-digital world? A mashup of a Fortean echo of Aeschylus’ death, the Galapagos Islands, an Ivy League university quadrangle, and round-a-campfire singin’ with the Girl Scouts. (Like they say about the future, the imaginal can be a beyond-strange land.) What post-digital worlds did the other contributors come up with? I for one look forward to reading…

In case you missed it, I posted here a while ago about the return to typewriters. As Andrew McFeeters says on his blog, The Untimely Typewriter:

“There’s a small, international army of typewriter users and collectors on this planet called Earth. Many share some core beliefs: 1) The typewriter inspires creative, deliberate, and thoughtful writing through its singular purpose; 2) Typewriters have no distracting social media apps. Writing, after all, is a solitary act; 3) Typewriters do not require batteries; 4) New technology is not bad, but it is inferior to the mighty typewriter; 5) If you do not think typewriters are cool, then that leaves more typewriters for the rest of us. Still, don’t knock it until you try it; and 6) If you feel the clacking call of the typewriter beneath the full moon on a windy night, check out Richard Polt’s website”

Richard’s blog is named after his book, The Typewriter Revolution.

P.S. Visit again next Monday for a fascinating Q & A with Ellen Cassedy, who has translated a brilliant, moving, and genuinely landmark book of short fiction.

From the Typosphere: “Bank”

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on my 1961 Hermes 3000

Poetic Repetition

Visit my website for more about my books, articles, and podcasts.

“The Typewriter Manifesto” by Richard Polt, Plus Cyberflanerie on Technology

Viva, Richard Polt! He says that if you send him your address he will send you this postcard.

One of the themes in my work-in-progress on Far West Texas is the nature and pervasive influence of technology, especially digital technology– but also other kinds of industrial and military technology.

So what’s with the typewriter poem? The poem pictured above, “The Typewriter Manifesto,” is by philosophy professor Richard Polt. I’m a big fan of his blog and his book, The Typewriter Revolution.

My 56 year-old Hermes 3000
works fine, no need to update the OX! (Yes, ribbons are easy to score on eBay).

Nope, I am not a Luddite, but yep, I use a typewriter on occasion. When needed, I also use a Zassenhaus kitchen timer, a 30 year-old finance-nerd calculator (I used to be a finance nerd), and a battery-operated alarm clock. Yes, I know there are apps for all of those, and yes, I actually have downloaded and previously used all those apps on my smartphone but, e-NUFFF with the digital! Too many hours of my day are already in thrall to my laptop, writing on WORD or blogging, emailing, podcasting, maintaining my website, surfing (other blogs, mainly, and newspapers, plus occasional podcasts and videos), and once in a purple moon, making videos. Most days my iPhone stays in its drawer, battery dead, and I like it that way.

But kiddos, this not a writer-from-an-older-generation-resisting-innovation thing. Back when I was avid to adopt new technology. I had a cell phone when they were the size and shape and weight of a brick. I started my website in 1999! I bought the first Kindle model, and the first iPad model. I was one of the first writers to make my own Kindle editions (check out my latest). I started podcasting in 2010. I even spent oodles more time than I should have figuring out the bell-and-whistles of iTunes’ iBook Author app… and so on and so forth.

From Charles Melville Scammon’s “California Grays Among the Ice” Whales! Magnificent outside! Digestive juices inside!

In short, with technology, especially anything having to do with writing and publishing, I dove right into the deep end… and I have seen the whale. And it was not, is not, and will not be on my schedule to get swallowed whole.

(My schedule, by the way, is on my Filofax, a paper-based system, and paper-based for good reason.)

P.S. Ye olde “Thirty Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing.” I hereby remind myself to take my own advice.

CYBERFLANERIE ON TECHNOLOGY

Richard Polt’s NYT Op-Ed “Anything But Human”

Mark Blitz explains Martin Heidegger on technology.

(The original pretzel-brain inducing essay by Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” with its handful of profound points coccooned within copious noodathipious deustcher Philosophieprofessor flooflemoofle, is here.)

On the express elevator to the top of my To Read tower: Richard Polt’s Heidegger: A Introduction

Typosphere, Ho! “Stay West” on my 1961 Hermes 3000

My first attempt at typing on a typewriter in nearly thirty years. From: *Meteor.*

My writing assistant denies any and all responsibility for slipshod typing or head-scratching sushi poetry.

Thank you, Typewriter Techs! My refurbished 1961 Hermes 3000 typewriter has arrived in Mexico City. Typewriter Techs, the Riverside, Illinois company that refurbished it, shipped it to California in a box so well padded it could have survived a Mars landing; having discarded the packing materials and box, I then grew some new biceps carrying it on board my flight home. I’d say it weighs about the same as a wet brick. It was a loooooong way from the security screening area to the gate. Jack LaLanne, watch out.

No, not the French scarf and tie and stupendaridiculously-expensive-whatnots company. This Hermes was of Swiss manufacture of yore.

The color is just as I had hoped, a foamy celadon (although it looks gray in this photo— too strong a flash).

LIKE TIME TRAVELING

I’m old enough to have had nearly two decades of experience with typewriters, both manual and electric, before I started using a computer in the late 1980s. It was an eerie experience to type on a typewriter again… like time traveling.

My first attempts at typing on this antique were clumsy, since I am, as are we all, so used to letting fingertips fly over a laptop’s keys and making scads of corrections en medias res and whatever whenever wherever and with the benefit of, after penicillin and sliced bread, the bestest thing ever invented: CNTRL Z!

But I like the deliberateness of typing on a manual typewriter— the goose-stepping linearity of it. That is the whole point, for me as a writer now. (Why? See my previous post, Consider the Typewriter. Am I Kidding? No, I Am Not Kidding.)

Madam Mayo says, The Anti-Digital Revolution will be Youtubed! And blogged! And, when I get around to it, tweeted! Git yer iron-knee right here, on a spatula! But seriously, check out this fine trailer for philosopher Richard Post’s excellent and thought-provoking resource The Typewriter Revolution.

WHY AN HERMES 3000?

I chose the Hermes 3000 because of Richard Polt’s recommendation in The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century:

“The 3000 model is a Swiss segment-shifted typewriter with excellent alignment, smooth carriage return, and quality manufacturing, introduced in the fifties. You’ll find it in a wonderfully bulbous body, painted in a color that some call “sea-foam green”… Not the very fastest or snappiest typewriter, but “buttery” in its smoothness, as fans like to say… Users include Larry McMurtry, Sam Shepard, Eugene Ionesco, and Stephen Fry.”

A tip of the Stetson to my fellow Texan Mr. McMurtry. As for Monsieur Ionesco, voila l’entrevue:

Watch the interview with English subtitles here. No, alas, Ionesco’s Hermes 3000 does not make an appearance. *Mais nous pouvons utiliser notre imagination.*

My 1961 Hermes 3000 arrived in its original carrying case along with, LOL, total yay, a packet of jellybeans!!

Under the jellybeans, a message from Typewriter Techs…

The original 1961 Hermes 3000 instruction manual. (Ha! Will those websites and YouTubes still be available and playable in 55 years? You reeeeeeaaaaaaalllly think so…?)

The warranty, yay, from Typewriter Techs.

I WILL NOT PANIC ABOUT TYPEWRITER RIBBONS NO I WILL NOT PANIC

Although we now inhabit a consumersphere rife with such ecologically exploitative poppycock as single-serve Nespresso capsules… it is nonetheless easy-peasy to find typewriter ribbons that work for multitudinous models and makes of typewriters. I knew that from reading Polt’s The Typewriter Revolution, and a quick Google. Furthermore, Typewriter Techs included this with their shipment:

In case you cannot read the image and/or your brain, like mine, goes into blur mode WITH ANYTHING WRITTEN PLEASEGODWHY ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS, it says:

“ALL ABOUT RIBBONS

“In the 1950s ribbon sales topped 50 million annually, they were the toner of their day. But unlike toner most typewriters will take the same ribbons. There are several direct replacement ribbons available for most machines. If you cannot find one, don’t panic. The ribbon itself is identical, only the spool changes. We recommend you purchase the genetic black., or black and red ribbon and rewind it onto your current spools. This is the least expensive and guarantees a correct fit. You can also contact us we stock a large variety if replacement ribbons.

“Cloth ribbons will hold more ink than nylon. Cotton will soak up the ink, nylon it just lays on top of it. A typical ribbon should last about 900,000 characters or about 180,000 words… That’s around 500 pages. A good quality ribbon will transfer the ink without leaving excessive ink on the type bars or pages. If the entire type slug is covered in blue, it’s probably not a good ribbon to use again. Black only ribbons can be turned upside down and doubled in life.”

YE PAD

A related and most felicitous purchase was the Jackalope typewriter pad. Definitely it cuts the noise.

The typewriter pad. Land o’ Goshen, why didn’t I use one of these before?

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, YE LOVELY TYPEWRITER FABRIC

My writing assistant remains confused but pugfully blasé.

A most thoughtful holiday gift from my sister’s dog (yes, in our family the dogs give presents): this yardage of neat-o typewriter fabric and I do like it draped over the Hermes, just so. Nope, I am not going to attempt anything on a sewing machine, the typewriter is my own personal Mount Everest for the moment. Must get typing.

More anon.

Consider the Typewriter (Am I Kidding? No, I Am Not Kidding)

Q & A: Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub on Translating Blume Lempel’s Oedipus in Brooklyn from the Yiddish

From the Typosphere: “Bank”

Find out more about
C.M. Mayo’s books, articles, podcasts, and more.

Consider the Typewriter (Am I Kidding? No, I Am Not Kidding)

Perhaps, dear writerly reader, you have heard of Freedom, the app that blocks the Internet so you can focus on your writing (or whatever offline task). It is not cheap; prices have gone up more than a smidge (ayyyy!) since I purchased it some years ago for a mere USD 10. Nope, I don’t use it. End of review.

[UPDATE: As of March 2019 I use the latest version of the Freedom app and can recommend it. I plan to post about my experience with the Freedom app on one of the second Monday of the month workshop posts in 2021.]

Of course, a more economical alternative for those who work at home would be to simply switch off the wi-fi signal.

But never mind, there you are, glued to your computer, same screen, same keyboard, same desk, same chair, and whether you’re using the Freedom app or you’ve turned off the wi-fi signal, either can be reversed (that is, the Freedom app turned off, or the wi-fi switched back on) in a matter of the slight inconvenience of a moment. Staying off-line when you’re working on a computer is akin to trying to diet with an open box of chocolates within reach! As they say, Don’t think about the pink elephant. Or, elephant-shaped chocolates with a cherry in the middle! Or, for a more au courant Internetesque analogy, Don’t think about cats! And certainly not cats wearing hats!

YE OLDE NONELECTRIC TYPEWRITER

Yet another strategy for diminishing the pull of the Internet, at least for some writers some of the time, would be to get up from the computer, aka the distraction machine, and hie thee over to ye olde typewriter.

My typewriter went to Goodwill years ago. But now, with a book to complete, I am seriously considering going back to using a typewriter. I am old enough to remember typing up my papers for school and college, that satisfying clackety-clack and the little ding at the end of the right margin… The calm. The focus.

Speaking of analogerie, I am also, as those of you who follow this blog well know, massively, as in an-entire-parade-ground-filled-with-dancing-pink-elephants-and-cats-in-hats-all- under-a-rain-of-chocolates, massively, relieved to have deactivated my Facebook account . That was back in August of 2015. Yes indeed, having eliminated that particular bungee-pull to the Internet, I have gotten a lot more writing done, and I am answering my email in a more consistently timely manner.

So, typewriters. I spent an afternoon of the Thanksgiving weekend doing some Internet research. Herewith:

Five Reasons to Still Use a Typewriter
By Gerry Holt, BBC News Magazine

The Hidden World of the TypewriterBy James Joiner, The Atlantic

The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century
By Richard Polt
A superb reference written by a professor of philosophy. His blog is The Typewriter Revolution

WHERE TO FIND A GOOD OLD (AND MAYBE REALLY OLD) NONELECTRIC TYPEWRITER

Why nonelectric? It might be nice to type in the tipi! But also, it seems that some of the best workhorse typewriters are nonelectrics made back in the mid-20th century. The only nonelectric typewriters currently being manufactured are from China and although cheap, they’re crap, so if a nonelectric typewriter is what you want, think vintage.

For a rundown on vintage brands and models, both nonelectric and electric, Polt’s The Typewriter Revolution is an excellent resource. On his website Polt also maintains a list of typewriter repair shops.

You could start combing through the cheapie listings on EBay and Goodwill, and if you have the time and can stand the skanky vibes, peruse the stalls in your local flea market. You might even grab a typewriter for free– perhaps the one gathering cobwebs in your parents’ garage…

But it seems to me that, if you want to start typing ASAP on a good vintage machine, the best strategy would be to shell out the clams to a dealer who specializes in refurbishing or “reconditioning” quality typewriters, and who offers his or her customers a guarantee. I should think you would also want to confirm that it will be possible to source ribbons.