California Typewriter -- Film Review
California Typewriter
Directed
by Doug Nichol
There is pushback.
There is dissent. I thought I was
the only one, but I found I am not alone.
We don't all have to be digital zombies. There are still people out there using
typewriters and loving it, even championing it.
For example, Tom Hanks, Sam Shepard (recently deceased), David
McCullough, Mason Williams, John Mayer, and many others. There are people out there collecting manual
typewriters. And there is one place left
in Berkeley, California that fixes them:
California Typewriter on San Pablo Avenue.
I used to have an IBM electric typewriter, which I had had
since my mid-twenties. I donated it to
Goodwill some years ago in a downsizing, with painful regret. I hadn't used it in years and didn't intend
to, but I still liked it, and I liked having it. It was a perfectly good, working
typewriter. I am not nostalgic for
manual typewriters, but I stand in league with people who are resisting the
digitization of every aspect of our lives.
Vinyl records are making a comeback as well. I saw vinyl record players for sale in a
Target recently. Many people like the
sound of vinyl records better than the remastered CDs. Digital may be more efficient, but it is not
necessarily better. The film points out
some of what is being lost with our increased dependence on digital
devices. I wouldn't call this film an
indulgence in nostalgia. There is some
nostalgia expressed, but there is a meaningful protest and a mobilization of
resistance going on here to an increasingly imposing culture of dependence on
digital devices and a domination of our time and attention by online
demands. The typewriter is a symbol of
respite, a reassertion of the tactile.
I have long worried about the fact that so much of our
society and our communication and our record keeping depends on digital technology. In order to access and use this information
one needs very sophisticated machines that depend on a very complex,
technologically advanced society to produce, and they require electricity to
operate. Batteries for these machines
are also very sophisticated and depend on very advanced production methods, as
well as advanced materials. If our
infrastructure were to collapse for any length of time, all of the information,
knowledge, and know-how of civilization would be inaccessible -- except for what
is written on well preserved paper or books.
I especially dislike that libraries are digitizing their holdings and
disposing of books and paper. True, it
takes up less room, but if the lights go out, we're back in the Stone Age.
The people in this film who use typewriters instead of
computers for writing do it for a wide range of reasons. It does not represent a wholesale rejection
of the digital age. It has more to do
with personal preferences, aesthetics. Most
of these people are over fifty. The
friend who accompanied me to the film thought they were all crazy. But I happen to like weird people with quirky
interests. I'm one of them. My friend is normal. However, there are many within Silicon Valley
itself, including some prominent engineers and designers, who are renouncing
the digital domination of life and raising alarms against its overwhelming
intrusion and envelopment of our time and attention.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia
The typewriter was part of a massive technological
revolution at the end of the nineteenth century that made the twentieth century
very different from the nineteenth, just as the computer and the cell phone are
making life in the twenty-first century very different from what it was in the twentieth. The film draws these parallels very
effectively, tracing the history and development of the typewriter from the
late 1800s, and focuses on a series of people who all have some special
interest in typewriters. One is a
collector of vintage typewriters from the 1800s, Tom Hanks we all know, David
McCullough is a prominent historian, Richard Polt is a writer and blogger, Jeremy
Mayer is an artist who makes sculptures from the parts of discarded
typewriters, the playwright Sam Shepard, Grammy award winning singer John
Mayer, as well as other typewriter enthusiasts.
Each has an interesting, unique personal perspective on the typewriter
and its application in their daily lives.
However, the center of gravity of the film is the California Typewriter Company
of Berkeley, California, owned by Martin Howard. The
film explores the lives of all of these people and delves into the origins of
their interest in typewriters and examines the persistence of their use despite
the overwhelming onslaught of digital word processing and printing.
This film had special relevance for me because I lived
through all of these developments. My
father had a manual typewriter from the World War 2 era whose keys were so
stiff I could hardly depress them as a kid.
I always hated that typewriter. That
might be why I never remained attached to typewriters and was so ready to
embrace the computer for composing documents.
As a graduate student I bought an IBM electric, which was an advanced
modern wonder at the time. My girlfriend
at that time used to make fun of me because I was so proud of it. This is the one I regretfully gave away
several years ago. But I was the first graduate
student in my department to use the university's computer for word processing. I typed it my thesis myself and printed it on
the advanced printer connected to the computer system. When the professors saw the results they made
the secretaries learn how to use the new technology and had computer terminals
installed in our department. I
spearheaded the digital revolution in writing and document printing. I've never had any inclination to go back to
a typewriter, but after seeing this film I feel I would like to have one. I can see some uses for it and I have become
increasingly resistant to the digital invasion of our lives.
I still use a landline phone and do not use a cell phone
(but I do use one while traveling). I
don't own a television set, and haven't for many years, but I can watch videos
on the internet. I do almost all of my
shopping online and believe Amazon.com was the best thing that ever happened to
retail shopping. I carry a pocketwatch
that you wind up (no battery). I've been
using pocketwatches since I was about twelve years old. I don't like wristwatches and I don't like
clocks with batteries that run down and LED screens that go bad that you can't
read. I bought a new bathroom scale
recently that is analog. No batteries to
replace, no digital screen. It replaced
one that was about 50 years old and was inaccurate by about 7 or 8 pounds in my
favor. I gained weight just by replacing
the scale. I drive a manual transmission
car, and always have. I never use a GPS,
always depend on paper maps. I am learning wood engraving, which is an art
form that went out of style about a hundred years ago. I bind my own books, and have taken numerous
workshops in book binding at the Center for the Book in San Francisco. I was a dark room photographer for many
years, but have gone completely digital.
I love Photoshop and my digital photo printer. I have no desire to go back into a darkroom,
but darkroom photographic prints have a special look and feel that digital
papers do not replicate. I have numerous
fountain pens and mechanical pencils, and have taken workshops in
calligraphy. I disagree intensely with
the removal of cursive writing from the curriculum of school children. Raising children to be completely dependent
on digital devices is a huge mistake and a great lament.
This film could become a cult favorite among a certain
subgroup of retros in our society. They
are more numerous that I might have imagined.
I was glad to see it and hope it will be a coalescing point and an inspiration
for other digital refuseniks. I am not a
relic after all; I am part of a nascent counterculture. This well constructed documentary helped me
see my true place in an awakening community.