Type-writing. (An essay.)

I have re-installed a nifty application on my Macintosh that simulates the sounds of typing on a typewriter. With every key you strike, there is a classy noise of a key striking paper, the way some of learned to type. Even the space bar and carriage return sounds are there, adding to the overall experience. There is something about this I really like, something incredibly satisfying. This is the way I prefer to write; with a typewriter sound in the background. Why? Because the typewriter is such a heavy, final instrument — it demands conviction of thought. There's no screwing around with a typewriter; you'd better mean what you say, since it's going to be a bitch to remove those words from the page. And if you've got carbon paper... well, let's just say you'd better mean those words. No screwing around.

When you type on a manual typewriter, there is this demand from the iron creature that you'd better goddamn well mean what you see, by George, because this is going to require a significant portion of your upper body strength to pound these letters into the paper. Isn't there something to the finality, the authority that seems to come with a manual typewriter and those computer keyboards with similar action? POW! POW! "Now it's there for ALL ETERNITY! My words belong to the ages! I am a part of the universe and here is my prrof!"

Er, proof. Heh-heh. (Ahem.)

And you get a bit of smell, a funky inky odor that only a typewriter has. This is a heavy-duty machine, expected to be pounded without restraint or regret, yet operating with many small moving parts. Those parts have to work perfectly one million billion times over the life of the machine. Naturally, there's the smell of lubrication. Oil and ink. God, something about that is romantic. Stinky, but romantic. I guess it's similar to the sense of nostalgia that old-time newspaper folk get when they smell a fresh newspaper. That printer's ink has some weird quality that a good handful of individuals like. It is, like all smells, evocative. And you have to respect that.

The hum of an electric typewriter before you type is something special as well. It's as if the machine is a creature, standing before you, saying "Come on. You have something to say. Say it. Let's go. I'm ready." And then you pounce! on! the! keys! and you're off, that hum encouraging you the whole way. Each ding! of the bell another notch on your belt, each letter a step closer to the end of your story or column or political manifesto. Every sound is a sound of encouragement — except that dreaded backspace sound, which means you did something wrong. It's not nearly as bad as the silence that comes when you hit the wall, when you can't think of what to type next. Especially if you're using an electric. "Come on!" it seems to say. "Come on, let's GO!" Its impatient hummmmm adding to the tension of writing that simple silence does not immediately provide. There's an urgency in that hum once you've broken the streak of minute after minute of recording your thoughts, basically serving as stenographer to your mad mind, rushing those arms across the fresh onion paper, forever marking them in your words. You want so badly to break that silence (or hum) so that you can feel accomplished again, like you're producing, like you're getting something done, even if it's crap, because ultimately, that's the satisfaction a typewriter provides: physical feedback. Sound, touch, sight. Nearly every sense, in a way, challenged to detect whether or not you're fulfilling an obligation or adding something artistic or important to the universe.

And as much as I love computers and everything they have to offer, I will always have a warm place in my heart for these hulking, oily beasts. You can kill a man with a typewriter, but you can break his heart with what you type.