Ode to the demise of the Typewriter

Words spill out the mind onto the electrified monitor screen virtually
The click clack days of the typewriter gone
The soft touch of the computer keyboard
Not giving way to the experiential, grit act of typing
A lost art in this world of speed, commerce and techno-mania

The typewriter was an instrument to be played, allowing a physical stream of consciousness
A physical act with live sound, fresh ink, clumsy sounds, a visceral dimension of sound and space

Changing empty sheets of typing paper, using correction fluid or white out
This process has been supplanted by the ease of backspacing, immediate deletion
In this easing of typing, this creature comfort, a huge loss has occured

The typewriter as medium is dead. The medium was the message. A medium gone
Thrown like so much into the dust bowl of history
Old typewriters now for sale in antique stores as cultural/technology relics of a communication past, an age gone, a demise

The evolution of communication moving at lighting speed
Leaving in its wake a lost machine of elegance and simplicity
The glory of the empty page of paper, the fresh ink, the key strokes, the sounds clacking, the clumsy
process of revision gone, supplanted by the ease of computer speed and efficiency

I want my old typewriter back. I wrote my college entrance esssays late at night on these relics
I wrote my first love letters there, I wrote my first poems at 2 am, worried the noise might awaken my father
I, caffeine driven dropped ashes from clove cigarettes onto the pages once, not fearing the destruction of a $1000 laptop

The IBM Selectric was my introduction into a creative realm, one I would lose myself in
as the words flowed from my mind onto a clean sheet awaiting creative production of ideas

I took great pleasure in seeing the fresh ink dry on the page
The very real text font of a typewriter gone. Replaced by replica new courier fonts of virtual ease
The text look of the typewriter is often used in graphic arts on packaging drawing the viewer back to a more simple time

Typing was a lot like painting with letters and word contruction
It has become virtual life, disconnected from the gut, electronically digitized
Desensitized, sanitized, futurized, electrified, homogenized, declassified

The computer keyboard makes it easy. Word processors make it fast. Spellchecks make it highly functional. No one speaks of this loss. Younger generations unaware of the beauty of typing on typewriters. Just as the joy of putting a vinyl lp on a phonograph, hearing that scratchy sound before a song lit up the speakers and room with edgy sound. The message is the medium

I want to march into the coffee house and plop down the clunky, heavy typewriter and begin cranking out noisy poems, filling the air with the crackle of words hitting the page not so softly
Annoying my latte drinking neighbors with the very real sound
of the creative freedom of ink

I miss you typewriter. I don't know exactly when you died Your slow fade much like the decline of the newspaper has been felt. I hope you reemerge one day. Appreciated again
I too have moved on to embrace the computer keyboard out of necessity and adaption to the present future reality. But I will not forget you. Your spirit lives on and I know I am not alone in my sense of loss

I am going to find one of you at a garage sale or flea market and have you bronzed and have another to use. Even though I might not be able to find an ink ribbon to use, I will play you as a musical instrument to hear your sound and fury Click, clack, hit the return and grind onward

Remember the typewriter? Recall the lost art? Do you ever miss the old machine?
If you do, "type" back a comment or reply virtually on your soft, computer screen in remembrance and in recognition of the machine that once revolutionized the art of communication.