To-day I am MAKing aN inno6£vation. as you mayalready have gessed, I am
typlng this article myself Zz½lnstead of writing it, The idea is to save
time and exvBKpense, also to demonstyap demonBTrike= =damn, to demonstratO
that I can type /ust as well as any blessedgirl 1f I give my mInd to iT""
Typlng while you compose is realy extraoraordinarrily easy, though
composing whilr you typE is more difficult. I rather think my typing style
is going to be different froM my u6sual style, but Idaresay noone will mind
that much. looking back i see that we made rather a hash of that awfuul
wurd extraorordinnaryk? in the middle of a woRd like thaton N-e gets quite
lost? 2hy do I keep putting questionmarks instead of fulstopSI wonder. Now
you see i have put a fulllstop instead Of a question mark it nevvvver reins
but it pours.
the typewriter to me has always been a mustery£? and even now that I have
gained a perfect mastery over the machine in gront of me i have npt th3
faintest idea hoW it workss% &or instance why does the thingonthetop the
klnd of overhead Wailway arrrangement move along one pace afterr every
word; I haVe exam@aaa ined the mechanism from all points of view but there
seeems to be noreason atall whyit shouould do t£is . damn that £, it keeps
butting in: it is Just lik real life. then there are all kinds oF
attractive devisesand levers andbuttons of which is amanvel in itself, and
does somethI5g useful without lettin on how it does iT.
Forinstance on this machinE which is A mi/et a mijge7 imean a mi/dgt, made
of alumium,, and very light sothat you caN CARRY it about on your £olidays
(there is that £ again) and typeout your poems onthe Moon immmmediately,
and there is onely one lot of keys for capITals and ordinay latters; when
you want todoa Capital you press down a special key marked cap i mean CAP
with the lefft hand and yo7 press down the letter withthe other, like that
abcd, no, ABCDEFG . how jolly that looks . as a mattr of fact th is takes a
little gettingintoas all the letters on the keys are printed incapitals so
now and then one forgets topress downthe SPecial capit al key. not often,
though. on the other hand onceone £as got it down and has written anice nam
e in capitals like LLOYdgeORGE IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO REmemBER TO PUT IT
DOWN AGAIN ANDTHE N YOU GET THIS SORT OF THING WICH SPOILS THE LOOOK OF THE
HOLE PAGE . or els insted of preSSing down the key marked CAP onepresses
down the key m arked FIG and then insted of LLOYDGEORGE you find that you
have written ½½96% :394:3. this is very dissheartening and £t is no wonder
that typists are sooften sououred in ther youth.
Apart fromthat though the key marked FIG is rather fun, since you can rite
such amusing things withit, things like % and [Symbol: face] and dear old &
not to mention = and ¼ and ¾ and!!! i find that inones ordinarry (i never
get that word right) cor orresponden£c one doesn't use expressions like @@
and % % % nearly enough. typewriting gives you a new ideaof possibilities
of the engli£h language; thE more i look at % the more beautiful it seems
to Be: and like the simple flowers of england itis per£aps most beauti£ul
when seeen in the masss, Look atit
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
% % % % % % % % % % % %
how would thatdo for a BAThrooM wallpaper? it could be produced verery
cheaply and itcould be calld the CHER RYdesigN damn, imeant to put all that
in capitals. iam afraid this articleis spoilt now but butt bUt curse . But
perhaps the most excitingthing a£out this mac£ine is that you can by
presssing alittle switch suddenly writein redor green instead of in black;
I donvt understanh how £t is done butit is very jollY? busisisness men us e
the device a gre t deal wen writing to their membersof PARLIAment, in order
to emphasasise the pointin wich the£r in£ustice is worSe than anyone elses
in£ustice . wen they come to WE ARE RUINED they burst out into red and wen
they come to WE w WOULD remIND YOU tHAT ATtHE LAST E£ECTION yoU UNDERTOOk
they burst into GReeN. thei r typists must enjoy doing those letters. with
this arrang ment of corse one coul d do allkinds of capital wallpapers. for
|nstance wat about a scheme of red £'s and black %'s and gReen &'s? this
sort of thing
£ % £ % £ % £ % £ %
& £ & £ & £ & £ & £
£ % £ % £ % £ % £ %
& £ & £ & £ & £ & £
Manya poor man would be glad to £ave that in his parLour ratherthan wat he
has got now. of corse, you wont be ab?e to apreciate the fulll bauty of the
design since i underst and that the retched paper which is going to print
this has no redink and no green inq either; so you must £ust immagine that
the £'s are red and the &'s are green. it is extroarordinarry (wat a t
erribleword!!!) how backward in MAny waYs these uptodate papers are
wwww¼¼¼¼¼¼½=¾ now how did that happen i wond er; i was experimenting with
the BACK SPACE key; if that is wat it is for i dont thinq i shall use it
again. iI wonder if i am impriving at this½ sometimes i thinq i am and so
metimes i thinq iam not . we have not had so many £'s lately but i notice
that theere have been one or two misplaced q's & icannot remember to write
i in capital s there it goes again.
Of curse the typewriter itself is not wolly giltless ½ike all mac&ines it
has amind of it sown and is of like passsions with ourselves. i could put
that into greek if only the machine was not so hopelessly MOdern. it 's
chief failing is that it cannot write m'sdecently and instead of h it will
keep putting that confounded £. as amatter of fact ithas been doing m's
rather better today butthat is only its cusssedussedness and because i have
been opening my shoul ders wenever we have come to an m; or should it be A
m? who can tell; little peculiuliarities like making indifferent m's are
very important & w£en one is bying a typewiter one s£ould make careful
enquiries about themc; because it is things of that sort wich so often give
criminals away. there is notHing a detective likes so much as a type riter
with an idiosxz an idioynq damit an idiotyncrasy . for instance if i commit
a murder i s£ould not thinq of writing a litter about it with this of all
typewriters becusa because that fool ofa £ would give me away at once I
daresay scotland Yard have got specimens of my trypewriting locked up in
some pigeonhole allready. if they £avent they ought to; it ought to be part
of my dosossier.
i thing the place of the hypewriter in ART is inshufficiently apreciated.
Modern art i understand is chiefly sumbolical expression and straigt lines.
a typwritr can do strait lines with the under lining mark) and there are
few more atractive symbols thaN the symbols i have used in this articel; i
merely thro out the sugestion
I dont tkink i shal do many more articles like this it is tooo much like
work? but I am glad I have got out of that £ habit;