I guess it was about a year-and-a-half ago that I came across a website used by a prominent (by current standards) radio dramatist to put forth his pronouncements on the medium and the craft. Among his many rules, he had specifically admonished the neophyte radio writer to avoid submitting any script to any producer of radio theatre that was typed using a manual typewriter. Now, the first thing that struck me as funny was the thought that anybody (including me) was going around sending out scripts typed on manual typewriters. I just couldn't see that as being a common problem.
The second thought I had was that this might be something of a short-sighted policy. I mean, there are well known authors who compose on manual typewriters. So, I e-mailed the Prominent Radio Dramatist and asked him if he would reject a script from, say, Gore Vidal or Don DeLillo because they used manual typewriters. He replied in the affirmative. I don't think he knew who DeLillo was, but I do, and I'd take a script from him if it were written on a napkin with a crayon.
And in that exchange an idea was born. Figuring that, after two or three series, I'd probably be getting burnt out on churning out scripts for "Next in the Series," I thought that maybe I could do a season called "By the Manual" in which I solicited scripts from authors who work on manual typewriters as well as throw in a couple of my own. In addition to Vidal and DeLillo, I know that Ian Frazier uses a manual. And now I've found out that Bob Dylan used one to write "Chronicles, Vol. 1." I have a couple of other names scribbled down on a slip of paper somewhere, and there's plenty of time to collect more.
Now, as a result of the postings on an earlier thread here, I'm toying with the idea of including the proviso that the scripts, in some manner, deal theme of technology and how it affects us. Other than that, the authors would have a free hand.
Sometimes an interesting idea can arise simply from wanting to give the finger to someone who seems like a pompous ass. And for that, I will always be grateful to the Prominent Radio Dramatist.
7 comments:
Robert--
That's the trick to manual typewriters: All they do is transfer ink onto a blank sheet of paper. Somebody else has to supply the rest.
"Old School" is having quite effect on me. And since it's set in 1961, the manual typewriter makes more than a passing appearance. Here's a passage concerning one of the attributers of a manual typewriter that its decendants don't really possess:
"All through my dorm I heard typewriters. Maybe it was nothing new, maybe I'd just lost my filter, the way every voice around you will suddenly flood into your head, each with its own rhythm and tone. One machine went off in high crackling bursts like strings of cheap firecrackers. Another, even lower than George's, grumbled and surged like th engines of a ship. I tried not to listen for them."
It probably sounds juvenile, but there is something about working on a manual that sounds like writing. It probably comes from a diet of too many old movies, but there it is.
Ah, yes! The fountain pen! Here is an entire subculture devoted to a device long thought dead. I, too, prefer nib pens (I don't have a true fountain pen) to their ballpoint brethren. That is a good sound. And the way that ink flows! It's a revelation!
What a good little machine the fountain pen is. it reminds me of my favorite piece of technology, all time. The humble book. It has never been matched and will never be exceeded.
All right, I think i'm going to have to cut P.J. O'Rourke a little slack just because of the following quote, which is his:
"When you had to carve things in stone, you got the Ten Commandments. When things had to be written with a goose quill and you had to boil blood or whatever to make ink, you got Shakespeare. When you went over to the steel pen and manufactured inks, you got Henry James. You get to the typewriter, you get Jack Kerouac. When you get down to the wordprocessor - you get me. So improvement in the technology of writing hasn't improved writing itself, as far as I can tell. "
Sometimes it's hard to argue. Of course, during the carved stone period, not much got written, period. And the goose quill days brought us many more writers on the level of Frances Meres than those on a par with old Shakey. Since I've never been able to make it to the bottom of the first page of any of Henry James's output, I might instead refer to Twain or Dickens. I've never read Kerouac, although there were some Beatniks who lived down the street from us in 1965. Perhaps there has been something truly great that was written using word processing software. I don't know. They almost never include this information on the dust jacket.
I forgot to mention Tom Wolfe as a well known manual typewriter user, and last night I found out that Larry McMurtry is another. I suspect that there are others, but that they hide themselves behind a smokescreen of e-mail and submissions transcribed by underpaid assistants and overworked grad students.
Robert--
Okay, first, let me clarify the whole PJ O'Rourke thing. (I don't blame you for confusing him with a character in "Doonesbury." In many ways, he is.) Mr O'Rouke is an alleged humorist who came to some prominence in the '80s writing magazine pieces. These would then be collected into books with such titles as "Give War a Chance." Mr O'Rourke started out as a radical leftist in the Sixties, and somehow became a neocon by the '80s. Switched from smoking bombers to smoking cigars. I think the quote I gave above is emblematic of his style (and that of the whole neocon movement): Sounds good on first hearing, but betrays no real logic or meaning on further analysis.
And as far as I know, all we can really say from history about the writing of the Ten Commandments is that the book of the Bible they appear in was written in Babylon during the captivity probably, I would think, with brush and ink on sheepskin and possibly by a woman. (Originally there was an 11th Commandment: "Don't track mud across my nice, clean floor!")
The tool any writer uses is a preference, and a very personal one at that. In this matter, I happily support everyone right to choose.
More later: The TV beckons now.
Robert, it's a strange thing because you can't get the genii back in the bottle, no matter what you do. (I believe that there's a Bugs Bunny cartoon that is very instructive on this point.) It's that whole Pndora thing. (You know, she's always gotten a bad rep because they say it was her curiousity that led her to open the box, but, for all we know, she was looking for something, like a Kleenex or a match.)
The technology monster isn't going to go away, so the question becomes, "How does one lead a sane life in the midst of insanity." As I sit here in CubeWorld poking away at the laptop that is on loan to me from The Corporation, I'm really not sure. You can't just ignore the machine, and as John Henry proved, you can't beat it, either. The only option left, it seems to me, is that very tricky tightrope walk in between. I guess it's the razor's edge. Which always reminds me of a line from Tom Lehrer's song, "Bright College Days": "Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life." Talk about philosophy.
I think in my earlier post, I should have said that you can't fight the machine, rather than beat it. Can it be outwitted? I know I can.
It's just like my whole pursuit of a radio show or any other worldly activity. My Taoist teachers tell me that it is just vain striving. And yet, the moment when I became a writer, back when I was 14, was a purely spiritual experience, an actual, honest-to-goodness calling. And Chuang Tzu says "Nothing is worth attending to and yet things must be attended to."
Of course, I don't think the Taosit sages ever imagined the modern Cubist life. It's no wonder that Lao Tzu escaped into the mountains!
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