Electra & the fates
Filed under Essay
This post is part of The Quiet Lane series.
Something happened after I finished watching California Typewriter. A tingling. At first I dismissed it, chalked it up as symptomatic of my recurring faith in objects as salvation. Because I do believe in the redemptive power of form and function—the object as muse—but I know we’re the ones weaving the spells, imbuing magic where none exists. Beauty merely guides us to the proper incantations.
Surely this would be nothing more than a silly infatuation, a vintage folly, a hipster-driven manic episode to shake off once the initial rush had subsided.
Or not.
You see, I write—but I’m not a cursive writer. I’ve tried, I’ve even romanticized notebooks and pens...but they’re slow and soft. For brainstorming yes, for sketches, absolutely; but not for writing. For writing, I am a typist. I need the clack and drumbeat of keys, I want energy sparks at the tip of my fingers, exploding in bursts. The dancelight. The bassline. The rawness of its epiphanies
an urbanity
wailing,
a siren.
The movie revealed what I had sensed already: that I was missing a hard physical banging connection to paper. Not for everything, not even for many things...but for a few, chosen moments.
These are pictures of a Smith-Corona Electra 120 typewriter. It sits in my studio, under a desk lamp, next to a stack of white paper, ready to use.
I bought it Friday from an elderly couple, on the West-Island, about an hour away. I found their ad online and when I got there they’d set it up in their garage, loaded with a sheet so I could test it properly. It worked like new. The kit included the dust cover, the carrying case, even a couple of unopened ink ribbons. They’d kept the user manual, the original receipt from 1970 stapled to one of its pages; the woman had been a schoolteacher and this was her writing machine—the only one she’d ever purchased.
We talked for a bit, all of us masked but eyes smiling. Funny how that’s normal now. I thanked them and drove away, happy. This had been easy...almost predestined. A week since I’d listened to Tom Hanks waxing poetic and here I was, hitting the road with my very own typewriter.
Now, I’m not a signs person...I don’t project patterns on reality and perceive life as preordained. I don’t actually believe in fate, not really. But when I came home Héloïse, our youngest, was curious so I showed her the machine. I brought out the manual, unfolded the receipt (to wow her with the antedeluvian age of it all) and this time I looked at it properly, with my glasses on: July 10th, 1970.
“Same day as today!” she said. Holy shit. I looked at my watch: July 10th, 2020.
Fifty years.
Down to the bloody day.
I sent a message to thank them again and mentioned the bizarre coincidence. The husband quickly replied that he’d realized, about an hour before I arrived, that his wife had purchased the typewriter the year they’d met. But neither of them had noticed the date on that receipt.
Did I tell you the man’s name was Patrick?
This morning I sat at my desk, placed a card in the Electra 120, typed a few words—my very first ones—and stapled it to the manual, next to the original proof of purchase.
I dropped it in the case
and closed the lid.
