There is something lovely about seeing typewritten pages. The type that doesn’t have corrective tape on it. You get to see all the little mistakes, the X’d out letters. When you read something that’s been typed on a typewriter, there’s just something special about it…the words have more presence. Somehow, the sheet of paper has more character to it.
I was sorting through my old archives of writing mementos when I saw a stack of papers that were typewritten. They were one of my earlier attempts to keep a journal. I had kept a LiveJournal during my high school years, but for one reason or another I stopped updating it. In the summer of 2004, I lugged out the big old Corona-Smith electric typewriter my parents had. I typed out about a month’s worth of journal entries. The entries stopped at the time I got my first sales job.
As I was reading through the journal entries, the unedited flow of thoughts leapt at me. I saw all the spelling mistakes, the transposed letters and all the other little typos that come with using a typewriter. To me, the typewriter is like an instrument. You see the little flaws of thoughts transmitting through fingers and keys, the words that flow from the metal typebars that smash the ribbon of ink, ultimately creating a permanent impression. There is something incredibly pleasing about seeing each letter you type, whether or not it belongs in that word, appear before you. There is no backspace to erase your error. Your mistake is forever embedded into that piece of paper.
The type writer is going the way of the mimeograph. I am too young to have used a manual typewriter, and the electric typewriter was still very much a novelty. By the time I was old enough to type reports, home computers and printers were gaining momentum. So really, I never was engrossed in the culture of typewriters.
Instead, I became fascinated by typewriters after watching Conspiracy Theory (starring Mel Gibson). I wanted his typewriter so that I too could neatly produce my cockamamied ideas on a white sheet of paper. I wanted to fill that broad stretch of pure and untouched stationery with black serifed letters, complete with the disheveled imperfections of a physical medium.
In a way, the typewriter is to writing as using film is to still photography. There is something intrinsically satisfying in dealing with tangible items, perhaps even more so in this day and age. I imagine that when I find that it is time to move on to a new chapter of my own life, I will print this entire blog. And what better way to produce an accurate record and history of my own thoughts? It would be quite amazing to hold a year or two’s worth of my thoughts bound in a book of my own making.
And so I go forth on my hunt for a typewriter that suits me. In one of those journal entries that I rediscovered, I had written that the keys on that Corona-Smith were not particularly conducive to accurate typing. I am trying to look into the differences between manual and electric typewriters, but I do believe that the more pressing issue is finding one that has a ready supply of ink ribbons: it would become entirely useless should the source of ink run out.
Thanks hisks for the stock photo!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I apologize for being a nitpicker, but typewriting is not analogous to medium formats (or any formats for that matter) in photography.
The film format in photography simply refers to the size of the film and the amount of information (or resolution) that can be stored. Economically and sometimes aesthetically (grains vs. pixels,) it is much more practical to use medium and large format films for high quality art photographs than a $5000 digital camera with the equivalent megapixels. For some, and myself, the film development process also affords a degree of customability in the combination of films (which varies in the structure of its silver ion crystals) the developers used (which also varies in chemistry), both of which when used in different combinations will produce a unique quality to the final image. There is also extra customability in the techniques that can be used during the development process.
None of these things are in any way analgous to the typewriting process in any perfect 1-1 way.
I do see typewriting as being analogous to the darkroom printing process in photography however, which some do favor over digital printing. Personally, I’d rather just develop the film, scan it, photoshop and print it on a printer, given the costs of the paper, equipment and chemicals and lack of customability in darkroom printing. But there are some artists that prefer it for whatever reason, either because they consider themselves “purists” because its traditional or for the very reason you stated: satisfaction from the hands-on process (and the extra skill that it takes to create a perfect image with such a error prone process.)
It’s a pretty good analogy because with darkroom editting, you’re left with the stupid mistakes you’ve made, having dodged one part too much, having accidently exposed part of the paper due to a misaligned easel, overdevelopping the print by leaving it in the developer too long, etc. But you’ll hardly see a photographer showing off those bad prints, they often wind up in the trashcan at darkrooms. I know, I for one have wasted a sizeable amount of money on paper and stuff, as well as time, on those bad prints.
Point well taken. What I really meant was the use of film as opposed to digital. In which case I should have a word with my friend who apparently likes to drop fancy sounding terms without a full understanding of what it really means.
Hello,
I agree with everything that you said in this post. With the written word, or even the unedited, typed word, one can see the history of a person’s thoughts. Just as the importance of a relationship lies in building a strong history with another being, the importance of building a relationship with one’s writing and an appreciation for its progress, lies in the history of edits and re-writes. When I write, I plot my thoughts on paper by hand and type them up on the computer later. While writing is an ancient art, nowadays, it is a novelty, and I quite enjoy paging through my old stories and ramblings, gazing at the crossed-out words and strange doodles scattered across the pages. I find comfort in knowing that if my computer crashes, I have something even more genuine that I can hold in my own two hands. And, I get a kick out of knowing that anyone reading my typed work is only getting half the story. :)
WWG