"I like the sound a typewriter makes."
-- Paul Auster
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| Typewriter keys 2-15-14 |
"There on the landing sits the typewriter. It is clogged with dust, the ribbon dried and flimsy ... He realises he can replicate in his head the exact sound it used to make. The clac-clac-a-clac of the metal letters hitting the paper, the ribbon raising itself each time to make the impression. The machine-gun fire of it ... The ding every time the carriage reached its limit. The whirr as the page was snatched out, then the rolling ratcheting as a new one was wound in."
-- Maggie O'Farrell,
The Hand That First Held Mine
Whenever I go to buy art supplies, I usually walk a couple of doors down and take a spin through the thrift store. It's like a treasure hunt, and I've made some pretty good finds there. I'm a particular sucker for Barbies, action figures, good leather belts and old cameras. But yesterday, still empty-handed after my swing through housewares, I made a really good find.
Well, Leo made it.
He spied a lovely, compact little electric Smith-Corona "Coronet Electric 12" typewriter on a shelf strewn with cast-off lamps and electric juicers and a bunch of light-up Exit signs (still in their boxes). The sticker on the typewriter said $1.79.
Leo: (excitedly) Let's get it.
Me: (cynically) Let's see if it even works, first.
It was adorably retro, from the '70s, dove gray and baby blue. It was a little dirty, but it had a ribbon in it. There was an outlet right behind it, so we plugged it in and switched it on. Leo rolled a wrinkled receipt into the carriage and waddaya know? It worked. And pretty darn well. The ribbon still had plenty of ink and the keys all worked. Leo announced "We're takin' it," unplugged it, tucked it under his arm and we headed for the checkout.
With tax it came to a grand total of $1.92.
I love typewriters. I miss them. I miss the sound of them. And even though this one plugs in, it's older. It isn't fancy or sophisticated. It sounds and works very much like a manual machine.
Several years ago an elderly friend gave me her husband's old manual Smith-Corona, a vintage one from 1939, which he used in graduate school. It was still in its case, pristine and perfect. I was beyond thrilled to get it, even though I had to scour the Internet to find ribbons that fit it.
I type letters on it, mostly, when e-mail isn't personal or private enough. If you receive a typed letter from me, it probably means that I like you a great deal.
Leo was still pretty little when I got it. His bedroom is right next to my workroom, and there were nights when I was typing noisily away while he was down the hall in his bed.
Me: Am I keeping you awake, Buddy? I can quit if it's bugging you.
Leo: No. Don't stop. I like it.
Sound is a powerful emotional trigger. A specific sound can evoke memories that transport you instantly to another time and place. There are sounds that annoy and irritate, sounds that frighten. And there are sounds that soothe and comfort, sounds that elicit pleasure.
For me, like for Leo, the sound of a typewriter is a good thing.
Until she retired, my mom was a professional secretary, trained at the renowned Katharine Gibbs College in Boston. She could type like a fiend, and perfectly. My dad typed on a giant, heavy, Royal manual, a leftover from the high school typing classroom when they switched over to IBM Selectrics. He was a big guy and he banged and smashed the keys, shaking the whole dinner table which he used as a desk, cursing when he goofed, glopping on blobs of Liquid Paper to cover his mistakes.
Since we brought it home, our new typewriter has been plugged in on the kitchen island. Leo can't leave it alone. He typed a letter to his brother and keeps messing around with it, typing nonsense just to type.
He types exactly like my dad, noisily and with just his index fingers. He has the cursing down pretty well, too.
Not on my watch.
For whoever dumped off my new typewriter, it had most likely become a useless and obsolete relic that was just taking up space. I looked it up online and they're selling for about $95. For me it's worth even more.
I'm glad someone at least cared enough to bring it to the thrift store -- which is kind of the retail equivalent of the dog pound -- so that Leo and I could adopt it, rescue it.
Whoever you are, you did a good thing.
