This week I received a "Thank You" note written on a manual typewriter that made my day. I promptly fetched this old Olympia deluxe portable out of the closet to fire off a thank you for the thank you. Somehow a 5-second email exchange would have taken all the fun and romance out of it. And my fingers got a gym-level workout, too.
There's a Slow Food movement from Italy that started as an antidote to Fast Food, so why not a Slow Words community too? It could honor the nutritional value of taking a little time to think about what you're writing. To braise, not microwave, your thoughts. Creative daydreamers who still prefer pecking at a manual typewriter or even writing by hand on yellow-lined pads would join for sure. One of the many cool things about typewriters is they need you to go slow. The QWERTY keyboard design was actually designed to slow people down enough to give the type hammers sufficient time to return to position.
Courier typeface makes my heart beat faster. It's the Humphrey Bogart of type.
Too be honest, I do love writing on my computer because I do so much damn rewriting. I don't miss the days of White-out, correction tape, carbons and labor-intensive retyping. But the dark smell of ink and the staccato sound of a manual machine beckon me. It's a whole newsroom in a box. This is how manuals work. You can buy yours here. Then sit down, breathe and relax into some nice slow writing. Poems and thank you's, you're welcome.