David Sedaris's Calypso

My own father never listened to jazz, but I can just imagine him now, watching all of us in a room, laughing, talking, making food, and carrying on. He wouldn’t say it, but the way he looked at all of us, at all that was happening, I would know that it was all he wanted. Since he’s gone, I try to look around, listen, snap my fingers, and say, “isn’t this just fantastic?”

David Sedaris writes a lovely portrait here of his father.

The Sea Section (a vacation home) came completely furnished, and the first thing we did after getting the keys was to load up all the televisions and donate them to a thrift shop. It’s nice at night to work puzzles or play board games or just hang out, maybe listening to music. The only one this is difficult for is my father. Back in Raleigh, he has two or three TVs going at the same time, all turned to the same conservative cable station, filling his falling-down home with outrage. The one reprieve is his daily visit to the gym, where he takes part in a spinning class….

Being at the beach is a drag for our father. To his credit, though, he never complains about it, just as he never mentions the dozens of aches and pains a person his age must surely be burdened by. “I’m fine just hanging out,” he says. “Being together, that’s all I need.” He no longer swims or golfs or fishes off the pier. We banned his right-wing radio shows, so all that’s left is to shuffle from one side of the house to the other, sometimes barefoot and sometimes wearing leather slippers the color of a new baseball mitt. (88-89)

...I put on some music. “Attaboy,” my father said. “That’s just what we needed. Is this Hank Mobley?”

“It is,” I told him.

“I thought so. I used to have this on reel-to-reel tape.”

While I know I can’t control it, what I ultimately hope to recall about my late-in-life father is not his nagging or his toes but, rather, his fingers, and the way he snaps them when listening to jazz. he’s done it forever, signifying, much as a cat does by purring, that you may approach. That all is right with the world. “Man, oh man,” he’ll say in my memory, lifting his glass and taking us all in, “isn’t this just fantastic?” (92-93)

If you need something to read, I keep a list of every book I've read this year on my About Me page along with the albums I've purchased. And please, let me know what you think I should read next and why.

Confessing Typewriter Heresy

I'm typing the first draft of this on one of my two remaining typewriters. I had three, but I've gotten rid of one in an act of heresy to which I'm now confessing. I sold the third because I'm sure that two typewriters is the most I can possibly need. While I have no regrets, I fear excommunication from the typosphere. Thus, this confession

My first typewriter, the 1938 Corona Sterling is the most beautiful machine I know. From the curved lines of the burgundy case to the glass keys, it is stunning. It arrived on the first anniversary of my father's death two years ago. He too was manufactured here in Syracuse, NY in 1938 and every time I type on the machine it evokes the happy memory of him. No machine can top that.

Knowing that I would need to send the Sterling out for service and a new rubber platen but not wanting to be without a typewriter, I found a 1951 Smith Corona Silent on eBay. The pictures looked good, the price was right, and the seller rated well. When it arrived, the machine was in excellent shape, but I wasn't thrilled. The elite font and general character of the letters on the page weren't right. Unlike the Sterling, the Silent was not love at first type.

Within a week of buying the Silent, a 1971 Olympia SM-9 appeared on Craigslist. The seller lived an hour away. The price was too low, but I went for a drive and found a beautiful machine with a problem carriage return that could be easily fixed. I paid the seller full price after encouraging her to take more. No, she said, I want it to go to someone who will use it. I have used it for sure. The action on it is spectacular and the font is gorgeous.

For a year the Silent has been, well, silent. That has bothered me. So too has the feeling that owning three typewriters has me leaning toward collecting typewriters, something I don't even want to get into. I can't afford such things and don't want to be weighed down by too many possessions. This is why, when a friend mentioned that his daughter wanted a typewriter for her birthday, I made him a good offer and sent the Silent away. I typed a note to her explaining the care and feeding of the machine. That's the last I'll ever type on it.

She may or may not join the typosphere. The Silent may be more decoration that writing tool, though I challenged her to type at least one school assignment on it. What she does with it is her decision.

Forgive me, but I'm a happy two-typewriter man now. I understand the lure of collecting typewriters and respect those who do, but I'm a heretic when it comes to all that. I don't want to collect; I want to write. Two typewriters are more than enough for me to type on and on and on.

Chris Offutt's My Father The Pornographer

This is one of the finest books I've read in years. Every paragraph is poetic, lyrical, and pulls me along. I'm sure I'll read it again.

This quote, the way it rolls and tumbles until in the last line he knocks me off my feet, it's just too much:

I’d grown up in the country, run from it for most of my life, and now wanted to live nowhere else. Between ages nineteen and fifty-three, I traveled relentlessly, living and working in New York, City, Boston, Paris, Florida, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Kentucky, California, and Mississippi. In my free time I visited other places. I’d slept in every state except North Dakota and Delaware and still hoped to get there.

What began as a desire to see the other side of the nearest hill at home had shifted to travel as a habitual way of life. If things didn’t work out, I moved on. I knew how to arrive in a new town, get a job, find a cheap room, and furnish it with junk from the street. I liked living without history, nothing held against me. My brother once asked what I was running from. I told him I wasn’t, I was running toward, only I didn’t know toward what. He nodded and said, “You’ll always be afraid of him, you know.” (164-165)**

And this about his father's writing process which has me in awe:

My father’s writing process was simple—he got an idea, brainstormed a few notes, then wrote the first chapter. Next he developed an outline from one to ten pages long. He followed the outline carefully, relying on it to dictate the narrative. He composed his first drafts longhand, wearing rubber thimbles on finger and thumb. Writing with a felt-tip pen, he produced thirty or forty pages in a sitting. Upon completion of a full draft, he transcribed the material with his typewriter, revising as he went. Most writers get more words per page as they go from longhand to a typed manuscript, but not Dad. His handwriting was small and he used abbreviations. His first drafts were often the same length as the final ones. (203)

If you need something to read, I keep a list of every book I've read this year on my About Me page along with the albums I've purchased. And please, let me know what you think I should read next and why.

From A Pear Crate

I could have just bought one from Barnes & Noble.

Last week I saw a lap desk at Barnes & Noble. I want one of those. My laptop gets fiery hot and writing with a clipboard is just a pain. A lap desk would work in the backyard and in bed, two places I often want to write but where it's uncomfortable to do so. I examined a faux-wood lap desk and thought, there you go, but didn't buy it.

On my basement workbench is the nearly finished top of a lap-desk I began building last night. I've applied a second coat of polyurethane and will give it a third and maybe a fourth tomorrow. I want to be sure I can easily clean the coffee I'm bound to spill on it.

Buying a lap desk seemed foolish. Money is tight and I'm not sure I'll use the thing very often. I wish I could go back and not purchase most everything I've ever bought. The combined savings might allow me to retire now. Spending money on a lap desk would set me farther back and deprive me of the chance to make one.

I enjoy few things more than building something for myself. I work alone with wood and saws, nails and a hammer, tape measure and a carpenter's pencil. Saw dust gets all over me and up my nose. I fail to notice the passing of time. And then there is something new in the world because my mind imagined it and my hands brought it into being. Compared with that, buying a lap desk is more than a mistake. It's a wasted opportunity.

For some reason, I got it in my head to make the desk at absolutely no cost. I also wanted to build it out of an old pear crate. Thirty four years ago, as a kid, I worked in a produce store. Pears arrived in roughly sanded, hardwood crates, with a blue label on the side. Total old-school aesthetic. I took more than a dozen of them. They weren't big enough for records but made perfect bookshelves. Later, I divided them for compact discs. Then my daughters used them as toy shelves and doll houses. Over thirty four years I've kept every one of those crates.

Last night, I carefully disassembled one, pulling each nail, laying out the pieces on the workbench, and imagining them becoming a lap desk. The image came together almost as if it was a kit. I sanded and made some cuts. I measured and came up with a way to join things. At half past ten I quit for the night so the family could sleep.

This morning, I ripped down the ends of the crate to form a frame, clamped the long sides of the crate and screwed it all together with leftover screws. I keep the screws in a peanut butter jar whose cap is nailed to a ceiling rafter. I unscrewed the jar from the rafter and tipped the screws out, sorting through until I found some that would work. I wasn't going to spend money on this project. None. I built from what I have.

I sanded the top and rounded the edges. Every knot, dent, and gouge delighted me. I opened the polyurethane and applied a coat. The wood came to life under it. Thirty four years glowed in that wood. I love things that endure and the look of the marks time leaves on them.

I have scraps of foam padding to secure to the bottom and will cover those in old fabric from my daughter's bat mitzvah. This will be a beautiful lap desk. It will be free in every sense except that it will be laden with meaning and significance for me. I'll savor this because it has been purchased with the currency of my imagination, built by my two hands, and has been in the making for thirty-four years. I've yet to find all that in a big box store.