Casting My Dream Ballot

I'll gladly cast my ballot for the candidate who does not use social media, a group that clearly must number in the zeroes.

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I got a nice comment from a friend saying, "I don't like you not being on Facebook, I miss the updates, though I added you to my blog roll." I understand and I'm torn over being on and off social media which I quit in August. It led me to this thought:

I would like to be connected with the people on Facebook (and maybe Twitter), but I'm against providing corporations with free content for their platforms so they can then advertise next to what I've written and profit. Aside from the poison thoughtlessly sold by them during the 2016 election, their whole model offends me. I'm not interested in being someone's serf or slave.

This wasn't the primary reason I quit social media, but it has become one of the most important reasons I stay away. The Facebook/Twitter platform-economy is even worse for us than the gig economy. I want no part of that.

Still, I miss connecting with my friend and need to find other ways of doing that.

Any ideas?

David Foster Wallace's This Is Water

This seems almost exactly right:

And I submit that this is what the real, no-shit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out. (60)

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.

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.