The right type

On remembering through our hands what it was like before we rode that digital wave

Garry Wilaby and I in the podcast studio recording this week’s Analog Mix tape about his work restoring vintage typewriters.

“I’m obsessed with typewriters,” I gushed. “I have no idea why. But I’ve got it bad. It feels so good, just to type. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

What is it, when I meet an author I admire—me, on the phone up there with writer and literacy advocate Maryanne Wolf, for example—that puts me beside myself. I get anxious; I make weird life confessions. In my heart, their writing spoke directly to me, and the heart wants to pick up the conversation where we left off. Of course, my brain knows better. So we fight about that internally while my mouth attempts to form words. It’s not a great look.

But Wolf, whose books have gained international fandom by placing neuroscience and the health effects of literature side-by-side, knew what to do with me right away.

“You are remembering through your fingers,” she said. “That’s just what you’re doing.” Words on a physical page, she said, light up our whole body and mind the way words on a screen (sorry, Substack) do not.

I first heard Wolf on The Ezra Klein Show, talking about how humans aren’t even wired to acquire and share language and yet we do. It’s kind of a miracle. Stephen King hints that it may be wizardry. “Books are a uniquely portable magic,” he wrote in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.  

In fact, Wolf’s writing provided some inspiration behind this weekly digital postcard, this five minutes from the inbox written to spur more analog joy.

One of my joys? Words on the page. I wrote a magazine story recently about the proliferation of independent bookstores here in the Des Moines metro area—a blissful rebellion, perhaps, against the book-banning that’s become real real cool here. I interviewed Wolf about her books, Proust & the Squid and Reader, Come Home, which lay out physical and emotional benefits of reading deeply.

Eventually, I strayed (as I often do) into typewriter territory.

Growing up, while the other neighborhood kids were out playing tag, you’d find me indoors writing Duran Duran fan fiction, or a mystery series about thwarting our terrible math teacher, or a romance for a friend who loved the boy above the laundromat (a fictional account of falling head-over-wheels during the Moonlight Skate, rollerskating being a frequent plot element in my earlier work). I invented stories I knew would delight an audience of one, with the exception of a short-lived sketch comedy I wrote for my fifth-grade class that my teacher Mrs. Botts agreed to let us produce called Friday Afternoon Pre-Recorded.

I typed for love. My dad gave me his old Olympia, built like a Sherman tank. I’d begin on a Saturday afternoon and type until the story was finished, often late into Sunday night. The keys molded perfectly to my fingers. I loved the inky snap of a letter onto the page. Back then, I had so much time, and none of the anxiety that eventually came with idleness.

When I travel to New York City for work, I make it a point to visit Gramercy Typewriter Company to test-drive their beautiful machines. I marvel at the construction and the resilience of an old thing that still, with oil and ink and a cleanup, works perfectly. Or almost perfectly, which is even better. In August, I’ll visit Philly Typewriter while in town for a journalism conference. But the hard part about window shopping is finding the perfect thing—and leaving it behind.

Which happened when I found a mint Hermes 3000 at Gramercy Typewriter last year. I could not fathom carting such a precious thing through TSA checkpoints. So, back home, I roamed Marketplace in search of local vintage typewriters that looked even half as delicious and could actually type. The obsession—ask my family or pretty much any of my friends—was like a fever.

I was hungry for the motor memories, Wolf told me. The desire to recall through my human hands how I began writing for love. And she’s right. I’m a working writer a long ways into her career. And I had forgotten that.

Now, I am at the age of reconsidering. I have time again. Luckily, around here, you can always find a guy. I found Garry Wilaby at his workbench where he loves to tinker with vintage typewriters (action film below)!

Garry loves restoring typewriters. His garage is full of them. So far, I’ve left that garage carrying an Olivetti Studio 44 (typewriter of choice for Raymond Chandler and Ralph Ellison), a Smith Corona Skywriter (in the original case!), and a pink Royal Futura 800. We haven’t found the just-right Hermes 3000 yet (favored by Larry McMurtry and Sylvia Plath), but the last time I was in Garry’s garage, I spied an Olympia that looked like Dad’s.

“Who’s that one for?” I asked Garry.

“You,” he said.

You’ll find my interview with Garry below. I think you’ll enjoy it. He tells you how to get a hold of him at the end, too.

Happy just-about weekend. I hope you find a joyful way to remember through your hands somewhere in there.

We’d love to hear about it if you do—shoot us a note in the comments.

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Hit play on this week’s Analog Mix Tape—vintage typewriter edition!