A New Addition to the Family

I bought a 1929 Underwood #5 Typewriter last night. Apparently, it was one of the most popular typewriters of it's day. It comes from Dayton, Ohio, and the owner's wife said that her grandmother written for the newspaper in Dayton and this must have been her instrument.

Just think: this typewriter came before the Beatles, before television, before the second World War, before Hitler came to power.

I have another typewriter, though it's ribbon has run out, and it's small and blue. This giant has the firmest, most musical keys. It sounds like the typewriter used in the Atonement score.

(Making friends. I think my laptop doesn't know what to think)

Masterpieces will come from this baby.

Comments

Ian Wolcott said…

"I bought a 1929 Underwood #5 Typewriter last night."

~ An investment far superior to rent. Congrats.

June 26, 2009 at 10:56 AM

Heather Bond said…

Wow, what a beauty! Enjoying your blog immensely.

June 26, 2009 at 4:25 PM

Shelf of One's Own said…

Thanks for reading, Heather! I hope, Ian, that your prediction is true...

June 30, 2009 at 9:21 AM

My Mad Girl

[A Question I am Not the First to Ask: What is it about women and madness? Are they more susceptible to delusion than men are? The subject of many books and hypotheses, we wonder if madness dogs the steps of creative women (eg. Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman…) Is it a biological coincidence or a recurring phenomenon? Is it socially reinforced? Do men fear the hysterical women? Is it the uterus (Greek “hysteria”) which turns the brain?] The reclusive writer, the late Janet Frame, winner of all of New Zealand’s literary prizes, spent much time in institutions and in therapy and, as far as I can tell, her novels commonly include themes of estrangement, mental health and madness. Frame considered her 1963 novel Towards Another Summer too personal be published in her lifetime. As she’d already written an autobiography ( Angel at My Table , made into a film by Jane Campion) and been this subject of several biographies, this is telling. Towards Another Su

Attention poetry mavens: any suggestions for good contemporary poets (either in general or particular collections)? Have sudden appetite but very little idea where to start. Any advice welcome!

Before I go

I'm at the airport with too many bags. A last minute weigh in required me to pull all my books out of my bags and redistribute the weight, while the service representative had to call Iceland (where I pass through en route to London), and the fifty pairs of eyes behind me glared and grew glassy. Though this morning the weather was pure, clear and copper-sunned, the fog has descended so low that the tips of the trees are nearly obliterated. This is Seattle. This is the city I know. Here's something I wrote a month or so ago, an ode to this city, its literary scene, and its inhabitants. When I graduated from a small Midwestern liberal arts college with the music degree I knew I might never use, I felt lost looking for What To Do Next. Despite the pressure I felt alongside my friends – future accountants, teachers, and doctors - to map out a life just so, a much respected professor suggested that each step in one’s life seems microscopic, a darkened footpath occasionally lit by a

A Shelf of One's Own

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