Camera: FUJIFILM X-Pro3
Lens: XF35mmF2 R WR
Exposure: 1/320
F-Number: 8
ISO: 160

There are few roads left to follow, now that our wild urges are contained. Horizon compressed until its thin line fades, until the blue-green glow of another summer

vanishes.

IPAD, AFTER ELECTRA

It's funny, how choices interact. Move one piece and another falls in line, while two more disappear. Cause and effect.

I've been using a writing app called Ulysses for three, maybe four years now. It's one of the many "no distractions" apps, part of that initial wave of supercharged Markdown editors. It's not perfect—I recently discovered it was the cause of messy formatting issues when pasting text into Squarespace—but it comes very, very close. Its feature set and organizational options are, frankly, the best I've found. (1)

Until recently, I'd always configured my workspace in Ulysses to fit the modern device I used it with 99.5% of the time, i.e. my iPad Pro. Until, that is, Electra came along.

I know, I know...enough about that damn typewriter already! I'm not on the verge of starting a new career as a hipster typewriting advocate, don't worry. And it's not a fetish thing either. As I said, it's the interactions I find interesting.

I'm now using Courier on Ulysses—a font I'd always positioned squarely alongside Comic Sans in the "hell no" category; I've disabled all automatic functions: no auto-capitalization, no auto-correct and no spell checker; I created a UI theme that mimics a black and red ink ribbon (red for headings, black for body). 

The iPad still floats on the Magic Keyboard, the keys still perfectly illuminated as I type—I'm not moving into the woods just yet—but words now flow without interruption, regardless of errors. There is no judgment on the page, no red lines and no word suggestions to stop me in my tracks. Typos can be fixed later, once ideas are settled and paragraphs are the living, breathing creatures they were meant to be (2). I've even found myself switching on the app's typewriter mode—another feature I could never adopt before, in this or any other app. 

The physicality of the iPad differs greatly from the Electra 120, and yet it's uncanny how similar these two writing zones have become after a few simple tweaks. I look at the page, the screen, and the filiation is abundantly clear.

It turns out the Smith-Corona wasn't an end in itself but a gateway. And I'm reminded of the X100 camera, and how it brought so many of us back to a certain essential truth. Trust in ourselves beyond the machine. 

We can walk without crutches and still make it to the end of the street. We can mix the best of two worlds.

Intersections.

…

1. And for the record, I believe I've tried, used and purchased most of them.

2. A new update has integrated LanguageTool into the app and it’s impressive. The function is Mac-only for now but apparently coming to the iPad in the next couple of months.

LINKS

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Talk soon,
Patrick

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