I finally have come up with a business idea that is sure to make me rich. Me, and anyone else who would like to invest their kid’s college savings or their grocery money in my venture. The idea is: a typewriter factory! Now I know what you are thinking. Since practically every document now is electronic, typewriters are obsolete. Most of us hardly ever print documents, let alone typewrite them. So let me explain the origin of this idea.
I could not agree with you more. When I teach writing, all my students get is a pen and a notebook. All assignments are timed and must be read out loud. There was no internet when I got my doctorate, only long hours in the stacks of Columbia's Butler Library. When you went to the National Archives, they gave you paper and pencils. Has Big Tech improved writing, thinking and scholarship? Absolutely not. My professor Mary McCarthy refused to give up her old Hermes and she was right. In a prophetic 1989 lecture at Bard College, she said: "I do without cuisinarts, gelatoios, word processors, credit cards, happy to be without them. For just here, in this practical domain, our freedom, our vaunted abundance, takes on the sinister (to me) appearance of compulsion and scarcity. And I resist. You would be surprised (unless you too have resisted) to find out how hard it is. The word processor, for example. People, young and old, keep trying to convert me to using a word processor; it is for my own good, they tell me. I will see if I only try. It is like being surrounded by a religious movement, calling on me to join them and be saved. The pressure becomes wearisome, always the same arguments, and finally they start coming from one’s own family—a treacherous breach of my defenses. Some morning—Christmas or a birthday—I will find the egregious word processor tied up in pink ribbons in its hood on my desk. Even if I am spared that (“My dear, how can I thank you?”), I will lose the battle, if I live long enough, by simple force of attrition. It will be impossible to buy a new manual typewriter of the kind I like. Already my last two have had to be second-hand. And how long will workmen repair old manual typewriters? When I called the typewriter man last September to fix my three old Hermes machines—a Baby, a Rocket, and a big desk portable—his wife said he would be at the junior high school all week putting their word processors in shape. No time any more for my job. Let us not talk of micro-film replacing books in libraries. If I tell you that it is possible to rent a car without a credit card, you will doubt me. But it is true—you can—but even to tell about it is like recounting some long, complicated history of medieval adventures." https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/mary-mccarthy-and-macroaggressions
I would go back a bit in time, but not so far as a type writer. Too hard to correct errors. I prefer what came after a type writer. A simple word processor unit that allowed you to save your documents, and easily correct errors that was not hooked up to the internet.
Grow your own food. Without the toxic drugs that the industrial farmers use.
Not only is that low tech but it will provide your whole family with exercise (saving on gym fees), improve your health (saving on medical fees), improve your finances, and taste super-frigging awesome at the same time.
There can be no greater freedom in the world knowing that you do not have to spend and consume to live a life that people who are only rich find most annoying, in that it cannot be purchased with money.
The Analog Revolt. Clocks that wind, phones that dial, vinyl records that play on a turntable, typewriters, fountain pens, handwritten personal letters to the ones we love..
I used to be a prolific longhand letter writer. Chose papers and pens based on how they’d inform the content, along with drawings and clip art. I’ve been told that the recipients still have them 30 years later.
But I too have succumbed to the need for speed.
🧐
Seriously considering adding old school letters to my communication arsenal again.
So happy you are joining me in 'Retrotech' with this plan for a typewriter business. Count me in!
I learned to type (NOT text) in 1951 on a huge Underwood. Strengthens your finger muscles, valuable for playing piano. Etsy has a couple available for about $1400. Then there are Royals, also big and heavy. Both tended to impress the letters into the paper as well as use the ink ribbons to make the letters easy to see and read. Consider creating NEW 'Retrotech' Underwood Typewriters. I would love to write on it.
I also write handwritten letters with an 'inkpen' that must be refilled, (not dipped in ink), and friends invariably remark on the pleasure they enjoy on receiving them. I think a hand written note carries the
energetic quality of the writer, even more import than the words. I'm thrilled at the prospect of being
You are so brilliant that it seems unlikely that you are a real person. As a young woman I used to break my then cultivated long nails when I missed the middle of a key in speed typing. Ouch!
I LOVE shared handwriting on the condition that it is legible…
Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, at times thought provoking opinion and viewpoints.
Excellent idea! An ode to the creative process. We’ll happily set up a manufacturing plant for them and distribute typewriters widely throughout our artist communities… ✨🌎✨ I also fondly remember the distinct scent of fresh typewriter ink, from my first time learning to type as a preschooler 😊🙏🏻💗
Great Idea, Charles. Count me in. I wish everyone would go back to landlines. I have one and no cellphone for years. This would help the powers to be not to distort our reality and documents too. I have been saying this for years. I have not had a cellphone in 2 years. We survived fine without them before, and now we think we never could. Think of how connections with each other would open up! Please Charles and others give up your cellphones!!!!!! I also have an ethernet cable instead of wifi.
I could not agree with you more. When I teach writing, all my students get is a pen and a notebook. All assignments are timed and must be read out loud. There was no internet when I got my doctorate, only long hours in the stacks of Columbia's Butler Library. When you went to the National Archives, they gave you paper and pencils. Has Big Tech improved writing, thinking and scholarship? Absolutely not. My professor Mary McCarthy refused to give up her old Hermes and she was right. In a prophetic 1989 lecture at Bard College, she said: "I do without cuisinarts, gelatoios, word processors, credit cards, happy to be without them. For just here, in this practical domain, our freedom, our vaunted abundance, takes on the sinister (to me) appearance of compulsion and scarcity. And I resist. You would be surprised (unless you too have resisted) to find out how hard it is. The word processor, for example. People, young and old, keep trying to convert me to using a word processor; it is for my own good, they tell me. I will see if I only try. It is like being surrounded by a religious movement, calling on me to join them and be saved. The pressure becomes wearisome, always the same arguments, and finally they start coming from one’s own family—a treacherous breach of my defenses. Some morning—Christmas or a birthday—I will find the egregious word processor tied up in pink ribbons in its hood on my desk. Even if I am spared that (“My dear, how can I thank you?”), I will lose the battle, if I live long enough, by simple force of attrition. It will be impossible to buy a new manual typewriter of the kind I like. Already my last two have had to be second-hand. And how long will workmen repair old manual typewriters? When I called the typewriter man last September to fix my three old Hermes machines—a Baby, a Rocket, and a big desk portable—his wife said he would be at the junior high school all week putting their word processors in shape. No time any more for my job. Let us not talk of micro-film replacing books in libraries. If I tell you that it is possible to rent a car without a credit card, you will doubt me. But it is true—you can—but even to tell about it is like recounting some long, complicated history of medieval adventures." https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/mary-mccarthy-and-macroaggressions
I would go back a bit in time, but not so far as a type writer. Too hard to correct errors. I prefer what came after a type writer. A simple word processor unit that allowed you to save your documents, and easily correct errors that was not hooked up to the internet.
Grow your own food. Without the toxic drugs that the industrial farmers use.
Not only is that low tech but it will provide your whole family with exercise (saving on gym fees), improve your health (saving on medical fees), improve your finances, and taste super-frigging awesome at the same time.
There can be no greater freedom in the world knowing that you do not have to spend and consume to live a life that people who are only rich find most annoying, in that it cannot be purchased with money.
The Analog Revolt. Clocks that wind, phones that dial, vinyl records that play on a turntable, typewriters, fountain pens, handwritten personal letters to the ones we love..
Best idea I’ve heard of in quite a while, I’ve got 245 green shield stamps I could invest…
i loved my typewriters...my wife got in shape by running through the woods with an Olivetti in her backpack.
Great idea! I'll have to look for my old Olympia. . . . Fountain pens are AI-proof, let's have more handwritten texts!
🤣😂😆
Brilliant!
I used to be a prolific longhand letter writer. Chose papers and pens based on how they’d inform the content, along with drawings and clip art. I’ve been told that the recipients still have them 30 years later.
But I too have succumbed to the need for speed.
🧐
Seriously considering adding old school letters to my communication arsenal again.
So happy you are joining me in 'Retrotech' with this plan for a typewriter business. Count me in!
I learned to type (NOT text) in 1951 on a huge Underwood. Strengthens your finger muscles, valuable for playing piano. Etsy has a couple available for about $1400. Then there are Royals, also big and heavy. Both tended to impress the letters into the paper as well as use the ink ribbons to make the letters easy to see and read. Consider creating NEW 'Retrotech' Underwood Typewriters. I would love to write on it.
I also write handwritten letters with an 'inkpen' that must be refilled, (not dipped in ink), and friends invariably remark on the pleasure they enjoy on receiving them. I think a hand written note carries the
energetic quality of the writer, even more import than the words. I'm thrilled at the prospect of being
REAL again. Charles, YOU are the BEST!!!!
There is something magical that happens when you hand write your ideas and dreams. This is lost on the technology only focused individuals.
You are so brilliant that it seems unlikely that you are a real person. As a young woman I used to break my then cultivated long nails when I missed the middle of a key in speed typing. Ouch!
I LOVE shared handwriting on the condition that it is legible…
Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, at times thought provoking opinion and viewpoints.
Please please continue 🙏♥️
If only we could invest in your idea with something better than money... ;)
Excellent idea! An ode to the creative process. We’ll happily set up a manufacturing plant for them and distribute typewriters widely throughout our artist communities… ✨🌎✨ I also fondly remember the distinct scent of fresh typewriter ink, from my first time learning to type as a preschooler 😊🙏🏻💗
you're in luck, the last typewriter ribbon manufacturer is just south of you in Arden, NC. all the best
Funny enough, i have a friend who used to work for Google and now sells high end fountain pens...he and you are onto something for sure!
Great Idea, Charles. Count me in. I wish everyone would go back to landlines. I have one and no cellphone for years. This would help the powers to be not to distort our reality and documents too. I have been saying this for years. I have not had a cellphone in 2 years. We survived fine without them before, and now we think we never could. Think of how connections with each other would open up! Please Charles and others give up your cellphones!!!!!! I also have an ethernet cable instead of wifi.