Type-set

I was going through some old boxes containing objects from my childhood and found a scrapbook from my early days. Inside, I had clipped pictures from magazines of things I liked most and pasted them to the pages. There were the predictable ones of German Shepherds and a few rocket ships but most fascinating were the pages and pages where I’d clipped and pasted pictures of typewriters. I mean, what kid does that?

It wasn’t as if they were particularly old like the machines I now collect from garage sales and family attics, the ones that only came in black with names like Royal and Remington (yes indeed, one in the same as the gun manufacturer). To be sure, the only exception to the antiques in my collection is a toy typewriter that was given to me before I was out of kindergarten. Being the pre-plastic days, it is made completely out of some unidentifiable metal with rough snowflake-like impressions and medium blue in color except for the bold black letters across the entire top spelling out my name in Magic Marker so nobody would mistake it for theirs.

Those pasted into the scrapbook were much more modern - a Smith Corona (the beer?) in a soft teal blue case with white keys, an Underwood in gray - the typical typewriters of the Fifties and Sixties.

I don’t know exactly what my fascination is with those lined up letters of the alphabet nor that I had apparently had it from the beginning.

I do remember how much I adored spy kits for writing secret messages in code and I remember how thrilling it was to see my typewritten words on a “TV screen” for the first time when we got an Atari 800, complete with QWERTY keyboard.

I’ve kept every laptop I’ve owned no matter if I’ve swapped most of the guts out to other computers. My favorites are those with the worn off letters on the keys used the most. I guess it was predictable that the typewritten words from a mechanical device would be the tool of my trade.

Which leads me to this that I read with my morning coffee today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/opinion/07egan.html?_r=1

December 7, 2008, New York Times
Guest Columnist

Typing Without a Clue
By TIMOTHY EGAN

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?

I didn’t think so. And I don’t want you writing books. Not when too many good novelists remain unpublished. Not when too many extraordinary histories remain unread. Not when too many riveting memoirs are kicked back at authors after 10 years of toil. Not when voices in Iran, North Korea or China struggle to get past a censor’s gate.

Joe, a k a Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, was no good as a citizen, having failed to pay his full share of taxes, no good as a plumber, not being fully credentialed, and not even any good as a faux American icon. Who could forget poor John McCain at his most befuddled, calling out for his working-class surrogate on a day when Joe stiffed him.

With a résumé full of failure, he now thinks he can join the profession of Mark Twain, George Orwell and Joan Didion.

Next up may be Sarah Palin, who is said to be worth nearly $7 million if she can place her thoughts between covers. Publishers: with all the grim news of layoffs and staff cuts at the venerable houses of American letters, can we set some ground rules for these hard times? Anyone who abuses the English language on such a regular basis should not be paid to put words in print.

Here’s Palin’s response, after Matt Lauer asked her when she knew the election was lost:

“I had great faith that, you know, perhaps when that voter entered that voting booth and closed that curtain that what would kick in for them was, perhaps, a bold step that would have to be taken in casting a vote for us, but having to put a lot of faith in that commitment we tried to articulate that we were the true change agent that would progress this nation.”

I have no idea what she said in that thicket of words.

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.

Writing is hard, even for the best wordsmiths. Ernest Hemingway said the most frightening thing he ever encountered was “a blank sheet of paper.” And Winston Churchill called the act of writing a book “a horrible, exhaustive struggle, like a long bout of painful illness.”

When I heard J.T.P. had a book, I thought of that Chris Farley skit from “Saturday Night Live.” He’s a motivational counselor, trying to keep some slacker youths from living in a van down by the river, just like him. One kid tells him he wants to write.

“La-di-frickin’-da!” Farley says. “We got ourselves a writer here!”

If Joe really wants to write, he should keep his day job and spend his evenings reading Rick Reilly’s sports columns, Peggy Noonan’s speeches, or Jess Walter’s fiction. He should open Dostoevsky or Norman Maclean — for osmosis, if nothing else. He should study Frank McCourt on teaching or Annie Dillard on writing.

The idea that someone who stumbled into a sound bite can be published, and charge $24.95 for said words, makes so many real writers think the world is unfair.

Our next president is a writer, which may do something to elevate standards in the book industry. The last time a true writer occupied the White House was a hundred years ago, with Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote 13 books before his 40th birthday.

Barack Obama’s first book, the memoir of a mixed-race man, is terrific. Outside of a few speeches, he will probably not write anything memorable until he’s out of office, but I look forward to that presidential memoir.

For the others — you friends of celebrities penning cookbooks, you train wrecks just out of rehab, you politicians with an agent but no talent — stop soaking up precious advance money.

I know: publishers say they print garbage so that real literature, which seldom makes any money, can find its way into print. True, to a point. But some of them print garbage so they can buy more garbage.

There was a time when I wanted to be like Sting, the singer, belting out, “Roxanne …” I guess that’s why we have karaoke, for fantasy night. If only there was such a thing for failed plumbers, politicians or celebrities who think they can write.

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Maureen Dowd is off today.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company