Tag: typewriter
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

The Neighborhood

- by Typewriter Fox

Go on, boy.   Bang it out. Then drink it in–irony tastes refreshingly bitter on the leading edge of a fifth decade.  So better to keep drinking while grinding through.  Consuming the madness.  Choking on the chemicalization.  Calculating paths of least resistance across the face of an uncooperative schedule. Because what’s another day of mittened mania, here in the hostile land of QD Donut Munchers? Freaking out in the absence of never fitting in.  Always the weird one.  The one watching from the meadowed periphery of entanglement.  Living out of bags and boxes.  Running scared from a hunting Wolverine wolf pack of rabid mediocrity.  The native predators pushing out the immigrant fox at the expense of his gentle collaboration.  Pressing somehow past self-inflicted boundaries.  Fingers ready on …

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Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Homecoming

- by Typewriter Fox

Heading back again across county lines a bitten straggler.  Just a dirty, exhausted Boulevard Boy limping back to where he doesn’t really belong.   Not the homecoming once imagined.  That foolish ideal was born years ago––an unearned right surrendered to the whims of violence.  But in those adrenaline tainted moments of its birth, just the idea of that ideal was enough to help keep me alive.  Because it meant that in some improbable way, I was actually wanted.  And that everything I had sacrificed somehow mattered.   But then came that night when I should have died.  That changed everything.  And afterwards, not much else seemed to really matter.     Including me.   Somewhere between those extremes, I was left an intimate trespasser.  A sweaty nightmare …

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Blog Posts / Random / Uncategorized / Writing

Smokestacks

- by Typewriter Fox

A curious brutality is born whenever hearts combine.    It is often accidental. Seldom intentional. And if it is, that’s a type of abuse better captured by other, more competent, writers. My talents aren’t nearly impartial enough to ever capture that peculiar complexity.    It just sort of happens; no one is really at fault. Feelings and expectations combine as the commonality of mutual experience meld into a comforting pattern of disconnect. One that eventually erupts unexpectedly on some random Clinton County Wednesday morning.     It was a long time in coming, that breakdown of communication. There is only so much compassion one can find after only a few hours of sleep stretched out hard on thinly padded living room patio furniture. And before the strength …

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Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Flapper Dreams and Other Strange Things

- by Typewriter Fox

  There is nothing worse than finally meeting the woman of your dreams, in your dream, only to wake up and realize that you’ll never see her again.    And just to twist the knife a little bit more, when you do finally wake up, there are messages waiting.   Messages from a girl who has come the closest so far to meeting the imaginary benchmarks set inside the unpredictability of those dreams.   Much of it was washed out and ethereal, as dreams often tend to present themselves.  But some of the specifics stuck inside my head–hard.  And their lingering presence made me ache desperately to return to their simple, uncomplicated joy.   We were browsing at some ridiculously large antique mall.  Obviously on the hunt …

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Blog Posts / Random / Writing

The Green Eyes Have It

- by Typewriter Fox

She took me by surprise.   It was shaping up to be just another cookie-cutter Tuesday night, here in the wintery flyover fields.   After having sent out another series of resumes in an attempt to keep looming homelessness at bay, I had settled in to put the final touches on a ridiculous poetry project I recently completed.  Outside the windows of a little blue house, the January winds blew in heavy heaves and sighs- there wouldn’t be any aimless wandering the city streets with weather like that threatening.  So I just hunkered here in a rented bunker to chew up the empty overnight hours with more literary shenanigans.   Then my phone bleeped.   At first, I figured it was just another rejection for a job …

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Blog Posts / Machines / Uncategorized

NSFW- The Naked Lettera 22

- by Typewriter Fox

After perusing one of the local antique malls recently (on my birthday, actually), tucked way in a quiet corner of the very last vendor booth I happened to spy what I have come to call a “bowling ball bag”.  I knew from experience it would would contain something interesting and it just so happens that I was right. A quick unzipping and there it was….an Olivetti Lettera 22.  And a price tag.  A price tag that stated $25.  She was a bit dusty, which is about the norm anymore.  The paint was scuffed in a few places and stained in others…  In other locations, the paint had somehow gotten mucky.  Like, really mucky. I’m not sure if something had been spilled on it, or if it …

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Blog Posts / Machines / Uncategorized

Run! It’s a Copper!

- by Typewriter Fox

The other week I found myself lucky enough to have won an online auction for a sterling that nobody else seemed interested in (I was the only bidder).  Even with shipping and the additional handling charges added on, it was $20 typer. I knew going into it that the paint was a bit rough: Not too bad at first glance, BUT in the long, sordid history of this typer, it seems as though someone had spilled coffee onto it.  So even after cleaning the paint, the stains remained.  So, it was time to play.  But first, some more “as found” pics…. Showing some of the surprises inside, along with coffee stains…. Such a dirty girl…. Scuffs and stains…. Worn and dusty…. First step, disassembly and washing …

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Machines / Uncategorized

SOS…Saving Our Sterlings!

- by Typewriter Fox

This 1950 Super Silent came to me accidentally when I had actually gone to acquire a different typer ( a SkyWriter, in case you are wondering) through a garage sale listing on Facebook.  The seller was like “Oh.  You like typewriters? I have another one if you are interested”, and me being me, well, I can’t seem to say no.  Have to keep that typer addiction fed, don’tcha know. Plus, they only wanted ten bucks for it, so I figured if nothing else, I would end up with a parts machine. Upon further investigation, however, I soon saw that the mechanical problems were easily sorted and the machine was worth saving as a whole.  It was just going to take a little bit…. It had definitely …

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