Present&Correct - Olivetti Typewriter
Look at it. Beautiful, yes?
Inspired by the likes of Patrick Rhone and Nick Cernis, I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to live a more minimal lifestyle, certainly in terms of how I approach my work and writing.
It started when I bought my first (and so far only) Mac. Drawn by the bright lights and Apple’s promise of all-the-cool-things-I-could-do, I expected dazzlement and wonder with every mouse-swish and keystroke.
But something strange happened. Instead of revelling in the glitz and relative glamour of iMovie, iPhoto and the multimedia posse, I found myself enjoying quiet nights in with my new best friends, strong and silent types like Finder, TextEdit and, more recently, Simplenote.
And the reason was this. I am simply a writer. I don’t need all that other stuff. Or at least, I don’t need it to do what I do best.
So once the dazzlement wore off, what I found was a computer - a word you hear less and less these days - that gave me tools to do things quicker, more efficiently, perhaps even better. The technology disappeared and left me alone with my words. Just me and them.
Which brings me back to that beautiful typewriter. I have a reasonably significant birthday coming up. What could be more minimal for a writer, more distraction-free, than a bona fide vintage typewriter?
No email. No Twitter. No iAnything. Imagine that. Bliss.
