ELEVEN REASONS TO USE A TYPEWRITER
By Tom Hanks
Welcome to the 59th issue of the Lists of Note newsletter. Each week, a new (old) list.
It’s widely known that Hollywood star Tom Hanks has a deep and enduring love for typewriters. He owns dozens, uses them often, and even wrote a book of short stories inspired by them. And sometimes, when replying to fan mail, he’ll even include this typewritten list: a playful defence of the machine and a glimpse into what makes it so special to him. Part joke, part tribute, and unmistakably Hanks.
ELEVEN REASONS TO USE A TYPEWRITER
by Tom Hanks
Your penmanship is illegible. One of those legal experts would examine it for a trial and say, “Oh, he’s guilty!”
You are just too thickheaded to figure out a computer.
Your religion forbids the use of machinery invented after 1867.
The Communists are back in power.
No one chucks anything typewritten into the trash.
You take great pleasure in the tactile experience of typing — the sound, the physical quality of touch, the report and action of type-bell-return, the carriage, and the satisfaction of pulling a completed page out of the machine, raaapp!
The distraction of rolling another page into the carriage allows you to collect your thoughts.
You are an artist and everything you type is one-of-a-kind work. The combination of paper quality, the age of the ribbon, the minute quirks of your machine, the occasional misuse of the space bar, and the options of the margins and tabs add up to make anything you type as varied and unique as your fingerprints.
You keep the machine out on a table, not locked away in a closet. You have next to it a small stack of stationery and maybe some envelopes. The typewriter is ready and easy to use any time of the day.
You really want to bother the other customers at the coffee place.
Typewriter = Chick Magnet.
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Huge thanks to Shelby for sharing this list with us.
I always appreciate you using an image of the actual letter, but especially so today.
I love reason number 10! I'm trying to figure out now how to casually walk into a Starbucks with my 30-pound 1935 Underwood 6 under my arm. I might need to get some training for that.