Beginnings

The first time I tried using a typewriter I felt utterly alone: I had not realized how much spell check had become a comforting companion. As a net genner (Tapscott, 2009), the magic of technology is so integrated into my life that I rarely give  process a second thought.

The rawness of  typewriter metal and mechanics suddenly jolted me into a wakefulness that had been numbed. My fingers fly over computer keys but slosh in typewriter keys like rain boots through a freshly tilled field.  The typewriter slowed down my hands, disconnecting them from my thoughts. My thoughts raced ahead like eager children. In the space between the tap of the keys and my thought children in the distance, I realized that the typewriter had caught me between ages. Dumbfounded, as if stumbling upon a  tesseract (L’ Engle, 2007), my hands were caught in the  pace of one century and my thoughts in the pace of another.

This hiccup in tempo causes me to reflect on thought and language, acknowledge the process of writing, and celebrate the becoming of text.

I imagine a circle of writers, facing each other, not hidden behind screens, connected by the sound of clucking keys; the cheerful ping of the bell filling a cafe with the raw sound of machinery embossing thought to press.

A lost pace unearthed.

So I propose  Type. Writer. Club.  with a mandate to build a community of writers that explore, or perhaps rediscover,  the raw relationship between humans and machines.




References

L'Engle, M. (2007). A Wrinkle in Time. New York, NY: Square Fish

Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital: how the net generation is changing your world. NY, NY: McGraw Hill.