Continuing the story of the Olympia SM9 typewriter (from 2018 at Wonder Hotel) simply to show the difference a year of diligence and intrepidness can bring.

Yup, it truly was the most difficult of times, pulled in directions i didn’t want to go but then… states and provinces crossed, affairs sorted, planes and memories faced, trains and ferries joined / turmoil, bureaucracy, paperwork, disrespect and frustration, all well, just sort of sorted itself out. I mean, I know how but the point is: the time came when i was reunited with this typewriter and all was different from when i left it.

Still the keys get jammed, the ribbon inexplicably requires flipping/rewinding after barely a page of typing but, now smudged with thumbprints from changing said ribbon and supplied with aerogrammes from often lost countries, used envelopes with franked stamps (and sometimes intimate thoughts), and the usual hotel stationery, I made things.

Mostly poems and erstwhile letters, quite literally banged out without regard for perfection, just passion! Rapid  transcriptions from scribbled journals, imagined lives of a doppelgänger, and notes from undergrounds.

Then joyfully accessorized with inky stamps and collages of postage stamps which may or may not have anything to do with the poem at hand (actually, they were all very intentionally consciously chosen but hey… that’s for the art to say). Oh, you can find evidence of these sessions in Items: Forgotten cycle vol. 7 Espionage and bits in vol. 6 Circumnavigation.

Now, the burly beast sits in a teakwood closet awaiting another opportunity to resist my indelicate fingers. Reminding me to touch gently with nuance and care. 

All this is to say, art saves lives (in some cases anyhow).