Remington Rand 5

I used to classify myself as a Luddite. I have romantic notions of living in Arcadia, some pastoral wonderland where I sit beneath a tree and think about poetry and philosophy all day while the sheep tend to themselves. Or as a member of the idle class, possessor of a low-ranking but well financed fiefdom where I can sit beneath a tree and think about poetry and philosophy all day while someone else tends the sheep.

Certainly, there is no unpleasantness, no starvation, disease or poverty in my romantic past. We're all equal, yet somehow we manage to have servants. Unfortunately, there is no stereo or toothbrush, no hot running water or air conditioner either. I'd miss those. I like my internet, I just don't like car alarms keeping me up at night. I think we'd all be better off without cell phones, unless I'm trying to meet a friend in a crowd.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a perfectly normal Luddite of convenience. I dream about an idyllic past I'd rather live in if I could take with me every modern invention that I find useful.

One of the ways this tendency has shown itself is my attraction to antiques. Now I also fancy myself a writer (who, unfortunately, for the most part, doesn't write), so my favorite antique is the typewriter. It connects all of my impossible dreams and brings them right into my house, where I can constantly be reminded that I will never have what I really want.

This one here is my first. It was a gift from a friend and it was quite meaningful in two ways. First, that he cared enough to go on eBay and pick this up for me; and second, because he showed me that I could actually have something unusual that I wanted. I didn't have to satisfy myself thinking wistful thoughts about how nice it would be to have...whatever it is I wanted at that moment.

This particular typewriter has an additional attraction--it has an apparent history beyond its obvious age. The "CD" sticker on the side shows that it was a part of my country's civil defense efforts during the cold war. Maybe even before. I've so far been unable to track down its exact purpose, but it pleases me to think that it was used by a journalist in WWII. If it wasn't, I'm not sure I want to know.

Here's the side view with the sticker:


One of the wonders of the internet is that everything has a fan base; no matter what you are looking for, someone out there knows stuff. Relevant stuff. One site I will probably refer to often on this blog is The Classic Typewriter Page maintained by Richard Polt. It shows this model, the Remington Rand Streamlined #5, was made between December 1935 and December 1940. So my WWII hope survived the first piece of investigation. So far it's the only piece.

On the carriage beneath, there is a sticker that has been thoroughly obliterated with a thumbnail or a dime. Too bad. I have not yet located the serial number, even though I followed instructions on where to look. The serial number probably won't get me far, but it is the only next step I can think of.

Daily Quote for Friday, April 6, 2007

All the blessings which you pray to obtain hereafter could be yours today, if you did not deny them to yourself. You have only to have done with the past altogether, commit the future to providence, and simply seek to direct the present hour aright into the paths of holiness and justice: holiness, by a loving acceptance of your apportioned lot, since Nature produced it for you and you for it: justice, in your speech by a frank and straightforward truthfulness, and in your acts by a respect for law and for every man's rights. Allow yourself, too, no hindrance from the malice, misconceptions or slanders of others, nor yet from any sensations this fleshy frame may feel; its afflicted part will look to itself. The hour for your departure draws near; if you will but forget all else and pay sole regard to the helmsman of your soul and the divine spark within you--if you will but exchange your fear of having to end your life some day for a fear of failing even to begin it on nature's true principles--you can yet become a man, worthy of the universe that gave you birth, instead of a stranger in your own homeland, bewildered by each day's happenings as though by wonders unlooked for, and ever hanging upon this one or the next.

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Daily Quote for Thursday, April 5, 2007

There is no lantern by which the crank can be distinguished from the reformer when the night is dark. Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.

--Heywood Braun

Daily Quote for Wednesday, April 4, 2007

It is hard to even begin to gauge how much a complication of possessions, the notions of “my and mine,” stand between us and a true, clear, liberated way of seeing the world. To live lightly on the earth, to be aware and alive, to be free of egotism, to be in contact with plants and animals, starts with simple concrete acts. The inner principle is the insight that we are interdependent energy fields of great potential wisdom and compassion—expressed in each person as a superb mind, a handsome and complex body, and the almost magical capacity of language. To these potentials and capacities, “owning things” can add nothing of authenticity. “Clad in the sky, with the earth for a pillow.”

--Essential ZEN

Daily Quote for Tuesday, April 3, 2007

There isn’t a bourgeois alive who, in the ferment of his youth, if only for a day or for a minute, hasn’t thought himself capable of boundless passions and noble exploits. The sorriest little woman-chaser has dreamed of Oriental Queens; in a corner of every notary’s heart lie the moldy remains of a poet.

--Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert