That Awkward Time When Your Countrymen Almost Shot Each Other and Nobody Remembers

This April marks a sad anniversary, one that I highly doubt will be remembered by most. I welcome thoughts, but would encourage you to take stock of the important things in your life and give thanks, because five years ago we as a nation almost threw it all away. What follows are some thoughts I had, and regretfully, I have not had sufficient reason to change them.

"A Society Preparing for War"

    On a bright, sunny morning in North Carolina, Bob Owens treated himself to a pleasant stroll through the downtown.    His car, suffering from a worn-out clutch, had been left in the shop.  Of all the businesses that lined the path, only the two gun stores were attracting any attention. Bob stopped for a moment. He'd stopped by a few days ago to get some .22 Long Rifle ammunition for an article he was writing for Shooting Illustrated. The massacre at Sandyhook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and the ensuing political fallout had reignited the gun control debate. Bob was curious if the effects could be felt in his own corner of the world. He walked through the door and witnessed something incredible.

    A staff of at least six clerks worked tirelessly to serve a throng of customers. Like a swarm of locust, they had descended upon the establishment, and as Bob walked the aisles, the scope of the damage became apparent. Shelves which had usually been stocked with entire cases of ammunition were picked clean. Not a single round of popular calibers, like .223 Remington, 9mm Luger, .45 ACP, .40 S&W, 7.62x39mm, and 7.62mm NATO remained. The only weapons left were a few off-brand pistols, lever-action rifles, and hunting shotguns.

    When Bob asked, he got a few words from a passing clerk busily going to his next task: There was no way to tell if anything would be restocked any time soon. Manufacturers were operating at full speed, only to watch their backorder lists grow day by day. Then, Bob saw something that drove it home: every military-patterned weapon was gone, not just the AR-15 an AKM derivatives, but every single firearm that had been designed within the past century for the sole purpose of killing human beings. American Springfields, British Enfields, and German Mausers. M14 clones and FALs were missing too, along with M1 Garands and M1 Carbines. Even the Mosin Nagant M91/30, the most common surplus rifle, was gone along with the otherwise abundant and cheap cases of 7.62x54mmR ammunition that it fired. "Only a dust-free space marked their passing," Bob later wrote. "This isn't a society stocking up on guns because they fear they'll be banned. This is a society preparing for war." Consumer trends validated his statement, at least, to the point that something unusual was going on. People were buying everything from spare parts to cleaning kits and military field manuals on proper maintenance and tactics. Stores that had not already run out of supplies began rationing.

    At the same time Bob was sharing his thoughts with his subscribers on December 31, I was recovering from nasal surgery. I had the operation on December 15, one day after the shooting at Sandy Hook. The anesthesia made me so nauseous that I could not use a computer for several days. When I finally stabilized, I found an industry imploding. Distributors like Cheaper Than Dirt, Walmart, and Dick's Sporting Goods had pulled all firearm sales from their websites, namely AR-15 rifles. Magpul Industries published a statement condemning the price-gouging of their PMAGs (a popular polymer-framed magazine for self-loading rifles), which had gone from a retail price of $12.99 to $59.99 overnight. Outraged customers called for boycotts. A company's pricing was used to gauge their loyalty to the very concept of American civil liberty.

    As I sat on my couch with a bandaged nose watching the firestorm burn in the public forums, the question came: why was this happening? People are scared, I thought. Whenever a politician makes a speech about gun violence and the need for more control, sales go up.

    But this time it was different.

    Events over the next five months drove those words home. Panic runs in the American firearms industry are not new. Someone might pay more for ammo at a local store, but the store would never run out. In 2011, Gallup reported that only twenty-six percent of the population favored a handgun ban. The mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Oak Creek, Wisconsin, did not change much. The presidential debates gave little attention to it. The issue would die down and the panic would stop, as it always did.

    But this time it didn't stop. It accelerated. What I failed to understand was that Bob Owens had witnessed a microcosm of something that was taking place across the nation. It was, perhaps, the single greatest logistical feat in modern history. Tension had built over the course of four years, then erupted. All things gun-related were flying off the shelves. According to Gateway Pundit, Americans bought enough weapons and ammunition to fully equip the Chinese and Indian armies, the two largest on Earth. In December of 2012 alone, NICS recorded over 2.5 million requests for background checks. That means that over 2.5 million people, assuming none were denied, bought guns from licensed dealers. It would be logical to conclude that there were just as many unrecorded private sales.

    With these sales came words and ideas that had dire implications. A great standoff began as people took sides. Government officials, police officers, soldiers, celebrities, ministers, business executives, anyone with an Internet connection and something to say. All loudly professed their beliefs amid the flurry of legislative proposals and rallies in Washington and every state capitol.

    This wasn't just another panic run. It was a mobilization of everyone and everything. But why here? Why now? Those were questions I couldn't answer with a Google search. Something else was at work. A deep wound had been opened and was bleeding profusely. In writing this article, I sought to understand what many still do not. In one year and six months, between December 2012 and May 2014, America was pushed to the brink of violence. There was no Confederacy or secession movement, but we came closer to shooting it out than at any single point in the last one hundred and fifty years (that is, until the 2016 election).

    A House Divided

    In order to give clarity in an age of confusion, allow me to express myself in the only way I can: through history. Talk to anyone about the Civil War today and I almost guarantee they will not mention one of its most important players: John Brown. The radical abolitionist who killed for his cause in Kansas is barley a footnote in today's retrospective. We're focused on tactics and whether or not flying the Confederate battle flag is racist.

    While Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 prompted the first round of Southern secession, historian Ed Baers maintained Brown didn’t get enough credit for his role in the worsening climate:

"[He was a] very important person in history, though, for only one episode. [He was a]  failure in everything in life, except he becomes the single most important factor, in my  opinion, in bringing on the war. The militia system in the South, which had been a joke before this, before them, becomes a viable instrument, as the Southern militias begin to  take a true form and the South begins to worry about Northerners agitating the blacks to murder them in their beds. It was the beginning of the Confederate Army."
   
    Alexander Stephens, future Vice President of the Confederacy, wrote, "Dissolution of the Union is becoming more general. Men are now beginning to talk of it seriously, who twelve months ago hardly permitted themselves to think of it."   

   The Newtown Shooting was the modern "John Brown moment." It created an atmosphere of hated and bitterness unlike any previous tragedy since 9/11, except now, that hatred was being spewed from Americans against their neighbors. Prejudices that had been thinly-veiled were bared in full. Unlike Heath High School, Columbine, or Virginia Tech, the guns themselves did not bear the full brunt of the anger. Gun owners did. Charley James of LA Progressive wrote, "[The] NRA is nothing less than a terrorist organization...whose soul is awash with blood." A caller to the Rush Limbaugh radio show said, "...if you are not for banning assault weapons, you are responsible for the deaths." Film director Michael Moore stated on "The Ed Show" that the majority of guns in America were owned by racist white people. The message was clear: there is no justifiable reason to own guns. It was painted as the new slavery.

    As arguments raged over the Internet, the states of Colorado, New York, Maryland, and Connecticut passed new laws restricting gun access. The self-described "conservative" movement counterattacked with bold gestures of defiance, from the public and the gun industry. Magpul gave hundreds of free PMAGs to Colorado residents, where magazines holding more than fifteen rounds became illegal on July 1, 2013. Beretta moved its production out of Maryland. Khar Arms relocated from New York to Pennsylvania. Colt, famous for producing M1911 pistols and M16 rifles for the U.S. military, shifted its AR-15 plant to Texas. By now, there was a general awareness that a "domestic arms race" was underway. It continued well into the year. Brownell's, the world's largest sporting goods supplier, sold 3.5 years worth of AR-15 magazines in just three days. Some companies went even farther, refusing to sell weapons to police organizations if they operated in states where citizens could no longer own said weapons.

    At gun shows I overheard conversations about "getting ready." Online forums debated the best course of action when "they" came for the guns. Like Alexander Stephens, they seemed resigned to the likelihood of a shooting war. As the deadline in Connecticut neared and people vowed that they would never register their rifles and magazines, Bob Owens wrote a stern warning to the State Police:

"Any SWAT raids on gun owners will not occur in a walled-off religious compound, nor in an isolated mountain cabin far away from prying eyes [references to the standoffs in Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, frequently cited as examples of excessive force]. Any raids will be in full view of the public, and if citizens are murdered as a result of law enforcement officers attempting to enforce this law, then somewhere between 80,000-100,000 will know that they are next on the list. Does anyone honestly think for a moment that these citizens will react to such a provocation by waiting for their loved ones to die in the next blaze of gunfire?"

    The line was drawn. Two opposing sides watched and waited with millions of guns in play. Rumors floated in cyberspace. Would the offending state governments try to collect unregistered weapons by force? Would they kill people to do it? Did the Department of Homeland Security buy billions of rounds of ammunition for such a purpose? It seemed as if the "second Ft. Sumpter" could happen at any time. It almost did, at a place most Americans had never heard of: Bunkerville, Nevada.

    Let It Be Here

    Cliven Bundy's decades-long fight with the Bureau of Land Management would not have gained national attention under different circumstances. In March 2014, federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Park Service arrived at the ranch and began rounding up trespass cattle. Many Americans did not learn about the twenty-year court battle over grazing rights and range fees until after the armed confrontation was underway. There are no exact figures on how many protesters were at the ranch or what percentage of them were carrying weapons. Unarmed citizens decried the use of First Amendment zones, blocked roads, and screamed at federal agents. The image of a man laying in the prone position with his AKM rifle trained on the officers below went viral. Assistant Sheriff Joe Lombardo later recalled, "We were outgunned, outmanned, and there would not have been a good result from it."
    And then, on April 12, it was over. The BLM announced an end to the round up. The federals withdrew. I'll never forget that day. I was outside working on a boat motor with my father when I got a text message from a friend. I said a prayer of thanks. That cooler heads prevailed was nothing short of an act of Providence. There were scuffles. An individual was tazed by a federal agent. A woman was thrown to the ground. Yet, there was no shooting, no tear gas, no armored cars in the streets of Bunkerville. It was a satisfactory conclusion.

    The Road Ahead

    Newtown and Bunkerville changed everything. It brought the idea of resisting government tyranny with force of arms back into the mainstream. In the wake of the largest panic run in history, .22 LR is still hard to find in some places.

    The emotional firestorm that followed the tragedy created an atmosphere of hatred and bitterness. Americans looked at each other as enemies instead of fellow citizens. President Obama, already under fire for calling conservatives "bitter clingers," did not help the situation when he threatened to institute gun control "under the radar," which to many was a veiled threat to bypass Congress and enact new laws by executive order. However unlikely (or legally dubious) this claim may have been, people believed it was possible. Two New Jersey politicians were caught on a hot mike talking banning guns wasn't good enough, and confiscation was the ultimate goal. Many police chiefs said they would enforce such laws if passed, many said they would not. National media syndicates drove the anti-gun message while the gun industry purged itself of "traitors." In National City, California, a gun shop owner refused the city's order to remove a sign advertising AR-15 rifles, saying, "I will be in jail or dead before that sign comes down." Alexander Stephens words are true today as they were then.

    Whether or not there was a legitimate threat of total gun confiscation, SWAT raids, or the likelihood of a shooting war at that particular time, there was a perceived threat. History shows that in many cases it is not the event itself that matters as much as people's reaction to said event. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand sparked a world war. The Powder Alarm galvanized Colonial militia. The Popish Plot led to a round of hysteria that forced Charles II to execute a number of Catholic officials, despite their innocence. To the Southerners, John Brown was proof of a radical abolitionist conspiracy operating with the full backing of Northern interests. He was their excuse for arming. In their minds, if the North was willing to arm slaves, what would prevent a politician from lying about his moderate stance only to abolish slavery once in office? They saw Lincoln, a man who won office without carrying a single Southern state, as such a threat. He was their excuse for leaving.

    The hysteria died down after a time. The dreaded executive orders never came. Gun control efforts in multiple states were defeated. Eventually, like always, we moved on, however grudgingly.

    The deaths of children and the grazing rights of cows were completely unrelated incidents. Today, Newtown and the so-called “Battle of Bunkerville” have faded from popular memory. It was replaced in the headlines by news of ISIS rampaging through the Middle East and Russian activity in Ukraine. Yet, the factionalism and mutual distrust remain. When Trump was elected and crowds of people stormed the streets screaming “Not my President,” when Johnny Depp publicly (and in my opinion, stupidly) queried whether or not an actor had ever assassinated a United States President, when ANTIFA and similar organizations emerged, I found myself reflecting on these things once again.

    It was five years ago this month that two large groups of Americans, diametrically opposed in beliefs, pointed guns at each other but no one pulled the trigger.

    We have the tools we need for fratricide. Thankfully, for the moment, it seems we lack the will.
   
   




Sources

1  "Something Funny Happened on the Way to Tyranny." December 31, 2012. (Accessed August 28, 2014)

2  Johnson, Steve. "Magpul Statement on Magazine Prices." The Firearms Blog. December 19, 2012 (Accessed August 28, 2014)

3  Jeffrey M. Jones, "Record-Low 26% of U.S. Favor Handgun Ban," Gallup. 26 October 2013 (Accessed March 14, 2013)

4  Hoft, Jim. "Americans Buy Enough Guns in Last Two Months to Equip Chinese and Indian Armies." Gateway Pundit. January 14, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014)

5  Ken Burns. The Civil War. Kenneth Lauren Burns Productions. 1990

6  James, Charley. "A Simple Truth." January 17, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014).

7  "Democrats Exploit Tragedy to Implement Their Utopian Agenda of Behavioral Control." January 16, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014).

8  Allen, Michael. "Michael Moore: '90% of the Guns in This Country Are Owned by White People.'" March 24, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014).

9  "Magpul's Last Hurrah Event Overwhelming Success." Resistor in the Rockies. June 30, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014)

10 Bailey, Dabney. "Beretta Leaves Maryland Because of Stricter Gun Laws." Opposing Views. April 4, 2013. (Accessed August 28, 2014).

11  Allen, Alex. "Kahr Arms Relocating Due to Gun Control." Digital Journal. June 22, 2013.

12  "Colt Moves Its AR-15 Plant to Texas Over Gun Control." Mr. Conservative. April 9, 2013.


13  "Brownell's Sells 3.5 Years Worth of AR-15 Magazines." Huffington Post.


14  Jonsson, Patrik. "Growing Number of Gun Makers Threaten to Boycott States." Christian Science Monitor. February 24, 2013.

15  Owens, Bob. "When They Come." Bearing Arms. March 3, 2014.


16  Knapp, George. "I-Team: Police Faced Possible 'Bloodbath'". KLAS-TV 8 News Now. April 30, 2014.

17  "Obama Under Fire for Eyeing Gun Control 'Under the Radar." Daily Mail.


18  Newby, Joe. "New Jersey Politicians Caught Calling for Confiscation." The Blaze. May 12, 2013.

19  Adams, Becket. "Gun Shop Battles City." The Blaze. March 3, 2014.

All Quiet

The dead, the dead, the dead

Our dead

Ours all

Our young men once so handsome and so joyous, taken from us 

The son from the mother, the husband from the wife 

The dear friend from the dear friend

And everywhere among these countless graves we see 

and ages yet may see 

on monuments and gravestones

singly or in masses, to thousands or tens of thousands, 

the significant word: Unknown 

- Walt Whitman, 1865

I'm writing this at eight o' clock. Today, a century ago, millions of people across the world looked at their watches and thought "Just three hours and it'll finally be over."

Is there any man left alive on Earth who can remember that moment in 1918? The soldiers are all gone. What about the people who watched them leave, and welcomed them back? 

The British tailor who lost a son?

The Irish priest who dreamed of a free country?

The German school boy whose own country was so young?

The French writer who saw the City of Light in ruins?

The Russian peasant who seethed with discontent under the tsar?

The Indians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Canadians anxious to prove themselves?

The Ottoman imam who prayed for his crumbling empire?

The Italian?

The Austrian?

The Hungarian?

The Serbian? 

The American?

Is there a doctor left who treated the maimed? 

A child who wondered why his father couldn't sleep?

There's only one I can think of. Years ago I had the honor of meeting Alvin York's son. The most striking thing I learned from that visit to a small farm in rural Tennessee was that York mourned the men he killed. 

Others reveled in it.

Hemingway turned his scars into words.

Hitler turned his words into weapons to inflict new scars upon flesh and earth.

And now only the earth itself stands as a testament to the Apocalypse. 

Over ten million men died in the Great War.

And then the greatest pandemic since the Black Plague killed that many people all over again in mere months.

It all begs the question: have we learned? 

"Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed...The utter  destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have had our last chance." 

-- Douglas McArthur, farewell to Congress, 1951

This blog has been inactive for a long time. I haven't had anything to say. Today is different. Since 1945 the scope and scale of war has been getting smaller. Fewer casualties. Precision strikes. Even the pain has been diminished somewhat. I'd say we've learned, but only some of the lessons.

We still hate those we do not understand.

We fight to possess what is not ours.

We claim rights that we are not capable of using responsibly.

Yet we call ourselves a free and enlightened people who are so much better than those idiots.

No wonder Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." 

Being a historian offers a certain level of comfort. You know that events happen in a kind of cycle.

But only faith in and obedience to God offers a lasting, permanent hope.

"Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who draws strength from flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord." -- Jeremiah 17:5

I think history bears those words out to be true. Harlan Ellison once said, "I think we have the capacity to become god-like, but not if we believe we're just little pitiful creatures made of clay who're going to burn forever." 

Yet, we cannot sustain our own lives without eating food or drinking water. We cannot learn without someone to pass knowledge down to us. 

We cannot become more than we are without Someone to show us the way.

I'll never stop believing that. Mankind's very heart, mind, and soul are at stake.

In the midst of a great cultural regression, walking the narrow way might seem like swimming against the tide. It might seem backward, ridiculous; hateful and bigoted. And maybe reading this makes you bristle. If it makes you think, then that's enough for me. We can have that conversation another time.

But on this day, a day when so many others will let the hour of 11am pass without knowing how scared that hour was to so many, give thought to others.

And remember...

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

-- John Done, 1624

Happy Armistice Day.

Off Hiatus

Hey all! I know it's been a long time since you heard any crickets chirp around here. I found a layer of dust on the dashboard when I came to do this post. Before I go any farther, yes, Front Stroke will continue. I've been playing around with a new video software that will enable me to make better stuff.

Rejoice. The hiatus is now officially over! My family is settled in our new Arkansas home, and it's not just the move that's occupied my attention!

It took me eleven months and nine days; from August 6, 2017 to July 15, 2018, but the new novel is finally done! With very few exceptions, this book was typed on my Olympia SG1. It weighs in at 368 pages (1.5 line space) and 136,000 words. I've sent the platen off for a well-deserved recovery.

This book was by far the most difficult project I've yet undertaken, not just because of the scope and scale, but life was really hard through most of the process. Between changing jobs, packing up to move, going through the move itself, and getting familiar with this new place, it wasn't always easy (or possible) to make my daily goals. Towards the end I suffered the same fatigue every writer suffers if they do long-form. At times I loved what I had made, other times I hated it. But the work kept me going on days when I thought I was going to lose my mind, when I thought I was living a life defined only by miserable stress. I can only imagine how much worse that stress would have been if I was writing something I didn't really care about, if I was chasing a market because of someone else's definition of good literature.

I also learned something about the tools we use. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you work with as long as you're willing to devote the time and effort to finish the job. There were times when my progress was slow and I thought I might never get the book done, and in such times I considered the following examples of others who had come before me:

Richard Adams: wrote Watership Down by hand, 137,000 words, in 18 months.

Herman Melville: wrote Moby Dick by hand, 200,000 words, in 18 months.

Norman Mailer: wrote The Naked and the Dead on a typewriter, 220,000 words, at a rate of twenty-five pages a week (couldn't find reliable information on time of draft completion).

Brian Jacques: wrote Redwall by hand, 100,000 words, in seven months.

J.R.R. Tolkien: wrote The Lord of the Rings on a typewriter, over 500,000 words, in 12 years (albeit, this was mostly do to his choice to balance his university career and the methods he employed when developing the story, having never intended to write a sequel to The Hobbit).

So yeah, while there were times I wished I could write as fast as Stephen King (who can crank them out in three months), in the end it takes as long as it takes. Some are fast, some are slow. Nobody cares about the information above because the finished works have changed countless lives. One of the most difficult lessons I've had to learn is that time shouldn't be too great of a concern. I'm not even ready to start editing the draft, but for now, the fact that I persevered and managed to get it done despite increasing pressure is consolation enough.

I certainly had more fun working on this book than any other in recent times. Maybe it'll be the one, maybe not. Meanwhile, I've decided to reward myself with a little treat, one that will hopefully prevent future supply problems.

Behold, the Donut!

$60 for 660 yards of ribbon from Baco Ribbon Supply. I don't think I'll have to buy any more for a long long time.


Power to perseverance, no matter what your end-goal!

Moving Soon—On Hiatus

Title says it all. See you when I see you!

The Halda Hobbles But the Lexikon 90 Keeps Going

Most of you know I bought this Halda after losing out on the chance to get one for dirt cheap. Little did I realize that this was a very particular portable.

Aside from their rarity, Halda Portables are notorious for their use of proprietary ribbon spools, which are just as difficult to find as the machine itself. That slot you see by the spool post? There's a piece of metal underneath the spool that's supposed to slide down and trip the reverse and the advance mechanism, which my finger is pointing to.

I thought it'd be easy to cut a paperclip to the right height and ghetto-rig the spools that way until I found the real deal. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The paperclips kept getting jammed and twisted (good thing I had a magnetic screwdriver near by), and the tape wouldn't hold up under the strain. 

So we're back to square one. Part of me wonders if this is why Hemingway preferred the QDL. 

Aside from the spool problem, I think the escapement needs a good cleaning, and something tells me the ribbon advance doesn't work properly anyway. Each time I tried to get the right spool to start winding, it would reverse after two spaces and resume winding on the left side. I've had this problem with my Lettera 32 and Woodstock 5. 

Next, I'm going to try trimming some plastic Royal standard spools down to the right diameter and see if the metal tabs on those will work...or buy some from a generous and kind collector somewhere out there.

Meanwhile, my Lexikon 90 keeps on trucking with some new typefaces. 

PS Kent and Tempo look SO much alike it's hard to see the difference.
They put serious money towards making these elements!

Too bad I don't write stuff using footnotes anymore.

....and that's really all I've done worth mentioning today.

A Little Deville Came to My Door

My landlord has done pest control and vent replacements to know I collect typewriters, yet he never said anything. Guess being a landlord you get used to tenants and their stuff, no matter what it is. Courtney and I just got back from a fun but tiring trip to Texas to visit her folks over Christmas and I wasn't thinking about much else besides the frigid cold and getting back to writing. I picked her up outside and after some grocery shopping, you can imagine my surprise when I came up the stairs and found this waiting for me by the front door.

I've never owned or typed on one of these cartridge electrics (unless you count the Lexikon 90) but I see them everywhere. Like the others of their class, you can get carbon film or nylon fabric. Fortunately, mine came with fabric ribbons and everything on the machine works! Not only is the case included, but the last service receipt (1997; I was a wee lad), owner's booklet, packing brackets, and two extra ribbons.

According to Courtney (who talked to him after accepting the gift and then kept it a secret all day long) the machine used to belong to our neighbor next door. Sadly, this sweet old lady's health declined rapidly about a month ago and she no longer lives here. We were always on friendly terms, yet didn't see much of each other on account of radically different schedules. This extra bit of holiday cheer comes with a sobering reminder, and I'm glad I knew her for however brief a time.

Not sure what distinguished the Deville model from the countless Coronomatic machines. Maybe it's the single interchangeable slug?

"So it goes..."

- Kurt Vonnegut, who used a 2200

What Makes a Story Timeless?

The Griffin and the Moon

Can't believe it's been August since I last posted, but then again, my stacks of stories and ever-lengthening novel is proof that I've neglected this page. If anyone's wondering, Front Stroke will continue once I have sufficient time to plan an film another episode.

Meanwhile, a harmless foray into my recent thrifting trip.

HA! Who knew those jokes were around even then?

The remaining pictures were taken from a different yearbook. The Summit, 1955.

Got these for 25¢ each. Yes, my car is that old, and I know there's a cassette player at my parent's house somewhere.

The Typographical Mind

One of the best books I've read recently is Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right. - Foreword.

Cover of my paperback

Written in 1985, the book was meant to be a scathing critique of the then-dominant TV culture. Sadly, Mr. Postman died of lung cancer in 2003, so we will never know his opinions on the internet. I've been unable to find any quotes attributed to him, but we can extrapolate his views by this quote from another book, Technopoly: [in a technopoly] the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment... and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.

From the same book: Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems.

Anyway, back to Amusing Ourselves to Death.

The book was very easy to read and comprehend, so nobody should be afraid of picking it up, despite your education background. The chapters that fascinated me the most (besides the one on TV preachers) were chapters three and four, entitled Typographic America and The Typographical Mind. But first, a synopsis.

In the first chapter, Medium is Metaphor, Postman argues that "...in every tool we create, an idea is embedded that goes beyond the function of the thing itself." To illustrate this, he points out that eyeglasses, invented in the 12th Century, were the first tools man ever used to overcome the limitations of old age and natural wear-and-tear. With mediums of information, he postulates that every medium of communication contains inherent characteristics of what message will be sent, regardless of the actual words used.

There is a lot to take in when reading this book, such as the history of show business and how politics is now a form of entertainment. But the section I want to focus on in this post is about pre-electric America and when the decline of public discourse began.

According to Postman, the pre-electric American colonies were rife with books. Reading a book, after all, requires that one know how to read and already have some grasp of the subject at hand. The whole book must be read to fully understand the subject, or the author's position on said subject. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858 were among the shorter sessions the two men had together (at only seven hours). And yet, as those two great statesmen argued their positions on the most terrible moral quandaries our nation has faced to date, ten years had already passed since four infamous words were transmitted by a means other than speech and paper:

What hath God wrought.

That's right. According to Postman, the telegraph was the beginning of the decline in our public discourse. Why?

Because the telegraph was the first time in history when information could be presented without any context. He quotes Henry David Thoreau, "We are so eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some few weeks nearer to the new, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."

Postman continues to argue that once the newspapers were able to combine headlines from around the world with photographs, people no longer needed to read the entire paper to get a good feel for the subject matter. TV, he says, is news from nowhere directed at no one in particular, but it started a long time ago and was a gradual process. TV (and by extension, the internet) is only the end result.

In my opinion, this makes more than a little sense. Why do people claim the Bible is littered with contradictions? Because they compare select verses without reading anything before, after, or anything in between. Why do police officers have to wear body cams? Because the public wants access to the full context of every deadly encounter. Why are traditional news outlets considered shameless liars? Because they omit pieces of information that will undermine their case, i.e. "selective reporting."

Postman is not a Luddite, though he was accused of it many times. His cautionary work is meant to highlight how society is in danger if they allow themselves to be controlled by technology, but not that technology is inherently evil. Like Socrates allegedly said, all things in moderation.

In 1516, Thomas More coined a new word for a fictional island he had invented: utopia. It was constructed from two Greek words meaning "no-place," and in its original etymological use, refers to any society that does not exist. Only recently has it come to mean a veritable paradise.

Today, we have created a "no-place" parallel to our own society: cyberspace. Our entire legal system is shifting on the idea that what happens in this "no-place" can affect people in reality. People go to jail for sending the wrong text messages. Rants posted online are taken as serious threats. Some people will devote thousands of hours to a virtual world like World of Warcraft or Stardew Valley, and even have relationships that only exist online (even romantic ones). Traditional TV as I knew it in the 1990s has ceased to exist, and everything is powered by the Web. Every time I think I have a good idea for a fictional treatment of these issues I'm knocked down a peg or two because the topic is so overwhelming in its breadth and the far reach of its implications. This blog post is hardly doing it justice.

But I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's very timely and the arguments still hold true, despite being thirty years old. I had many thoughts after reading it, and will probably have to go through it again, but the one that kept coming back to me was...


The Typewriter Revolution must continue.

An Important Lesson About Importance

Work is going to be unmercifully hard this month. While a novella rests with a trusted beta reader I've begun a new book, a children's fantasy, and all the while writing short stories. I'm also reading a lot, and ever so often I will read something that strikes me as a brilliant and important story. You know the ones I'm referring to, the ones that make it onto the Top Ten or Top 100 Best Of lists, maybe into English curriculums. For me, important works include Jurassic Park, which served as a cautionary tale against abusing the power of a force––genetics––that we had only begun to explore. Important works include I Am Legend, a novel that entertained what a difficult transition it would be for humanity to evolve into a new species. And of course, important stories like Brave New World which correctly predicted that, at least in America, amusement and thunderous applause is how liberty and free will would die. These are important stories because of the subject matter, narrative style, or a writer's unique perspective. Some might say that a story can be important simply because it made lots of money. One of my great failings as an artist is the desire to write "important" stories, ones that will make people stop and think differently about the world around them, about the future. I've been trying that for a long time with books like The Jolly Rogers, because isn't it obvious that any technology that could help us erase our memories would spark social disaster?

I wrote one story with that in mind, a science fiction piece called That Gentle Night.  It began as a 900 word flash fiction piece and then was expanded to 4000. Set in 2100, the story shows a grim future in which most people have never seen the stars except in pictures. Night time has effective been abolished, thanks to improved green energy and efficient lightbulbs. After being ravaged by a fungal plague, ultraviolet lights are used everywhere, even outside, to keep the public's fears at ease (this was based on my own memories of the anthrax scare of 2001). The street lights are so bright that people have to wear sunglasses at night (a nod to the Oz books). It addressed the fact that thousands of songbirds are killed every year because of unrestrained artificial light pollution that distorts their navigation and I extrapolated the idea that they might even become endangered. I gave a nod to Isaac Asimov's wonderful story Nightfall and had a quote from Arthur C. Clarke at the beginning to set the tone.

And most people on the Zoetrope Virtual Studio who read the story didn't get as excited as I had been. They didn't hate it, but neither did it have the desired effect, despite the average score being 7/10. I have yet to sell the story.

Then one day last week, on a complete whim, I recalled a passage from the Bible: Revelations 20:13 "...and the sea gave up her dead..." This turn of phrase is also used in the Anglican's Prayer. Reflecting on the countless myths that personify the ocean, I thought to myself, "What if the sea was a person who cared for all of the dead people that had drowned? What if God decides to end creation and she doesn't want to give them up?"

With nothing better to do, I dashed off a 2000 word story called Eventide. Despite writing by hand it took a few hours, probably the fastest I have ever written a complete piece except The Curse of Horace Jonah. Minimal editing, a few words added on the second draft, and I figured there wasn't anything to lose and put it online.

The response was overwhelming. 

In less than a week I've had five reviews and the score is holding at 9.2/10, the highest any of my stories and I've submitted twenty-three for workshopping since I joined in 2013. There were plenty of generous comments, praise, and congratulations. But the most important review came from a fellow user, a young woman who has led a very troubled life, whose writing is so graphic and raw I never thought she'd care for my work. Besides called it "exquisite" and "luscious," there was one part of her review that really hit me: 

I spent the night drinking and writing a difficult poem about my life, all of which depressed the hell out of me. But it's Taylor to the rescue. I'm happy again, now, and feeling up (Somehow!!!) for a very long run on this beautiful day.

How did this happen? How could something that required so little effort have such a strong impact?

I learned an important lesson in these first cool days of August: words have power, but not every word has power over everyone. 

One more reason why the key to writing is to write. There are a lot of words inside one's self.



Power to the pen, and may you always have the strength to wield it even on your worst days.

The Fox and the Hound and a Whale Named Monstro

One of the members on ATC posted to FB that he was giving everyone permission to buy an affordable typewriter. There weren't any listed that I wanted...until this behemoth came up for sale.

I have a love/hate relationship with electric machines. On one hand, I like the fact that it keeps you away from the internet, but still lets you compose with blinding speed (if it's needed), and if you're using a good ribbon, quality print is almost guaranteed (perfect for folks with weak hands). Yet, you can't relax your fingers on the keyboard, lest you accidentally push too hard and make a mistake. I've only bought five in my history of collecting: A SCM wedge, a SCM Electra 210, a Selectric 71, and an Olympia daisywheel. If I had bought a new, refurbished Selectric, this Olivetti might not have appealed to me. But my Selectric doesn't work right, yet I bought it anyway because it's red. I was able to get most of the problems fixed with help from Vern, but it still bunches up letters on the left hand margin and sometimes it takes several minutes for the machine to get into gear so I can use it.

I was also lured by the measly $5 price tag. Then I read Steve K's post on the model here.

In a rural county awash with Royals, Remingtons, and Underwoods, it was nice to see something exotic and obscure float to the top, so after talking to the lady on Facebook, I decided to take the plunge. The lady was very kind and told me she only bought the machine at an estate sale because it came with a desk she really wanted. Nothing was said about the previous owners or what they might have used the typewriter for. As you can see, it came with a lot of extras.

Gotta love state pride!

Let's start with the obvious: the Lexikon 90 was one of many attempts to capitalize on the phenomenal success of IBM's Selectric line with its revolutionary "golf ball" print element. Earlier Olivetti electrics, like the Lexikon 82, brought this concept to a small, portable machine. The model 90's element is completely different, and it lays on its side. Looking at the little gem, I'm reminded of an egg for some reason. Mine is a 90C, since it features the correction ribbon. 

There are three differences between the Selectric and Lexikon 90 that I have observed after a casual typing session (and reading the booklet).

1) The Lexikon 90 has a traditional carriage that moves from left to right. This might annoy devoted IBM fans, but I'm not bothered. I actually prefer the traditional carriage, as it's easier on my eyes to follow what I'm typing. 

2) The Lexikon print element is much easier to change out that the Selectric ball. It doesn't use any plastic parts that can get broken. You just pull the little triangular tab to the left until it clicks and then lift straight up. Reverse to insert a new one. Mine is labeled 12 Cicero, but I'm not sure if that means 12 cpi or something else. Wouldn't mind having a second one if there are any around.

3) The biggest advantage of all: the Lexikon 90 can use fabric and carbon ribbons without any special modifications to the feed mechanism. The Selectric can't do this. You have to have one or the other, and a Selectric II ribbon won't work on a model III and etc.

Advantage #3 sounds good in theory, but reality isn't so simple. The Lexikon 90 was only produced from 1976-78, which means there is a definite shortage of supplies available on the second-hand market. I consider myself extremely lucky to have three unused ribbons and a good carbon ribbon already in the machine. You can find off-brand ribbons for this model on eBay for fairly cheap, but I couldn't find a single machine for sale. As far as I know, Steve K and myself are the only ones in the Typosphere who've blogged about it. Yet, since the machine will also use fabric ribbons, it might be possible to re-purpose the plastic cartridges one day and re-ink the fabric, should the need arise. 

Serial # El8-2409160. Approximate date of production: 1977-78.

And now one of Olivetti's famous ads featuring this very model.

(Seriously, did secretaries really get that excited about new equipment?)

When Janet refers to the stationary print element, listen carefully to what Betty says at 00:09--"Mine runs all over the place." Nice jab, Olivetti.

That's all I have to say for now, but I'll post more as I get familiar with it.

There's another fox I want to talk about, one I've been hunting for awhile.

Those who've read this blog for awhile know that Bambi is one of my all-time favorite novels. Since then, I've been looking at other authors who focused their stories in the natural world (Richard Adams, Beatrix Potter, Tad Williams, E.B. White, etc). Some of these are borderline fantasy while others are as close to the real critters as you can get. Mannix is one of the latter, known for meticulously researching his subjects (though his writing career covered all sorts of strange things). I stumbled upon a Reader's Digest volume with a condensed version of The Fox and the Hound. Unsatisfied, I was determined to find the real thing.

I was surprised how fast and how lucky I was. I snagged both of these books for a mere $75. The other first edition copies of TF&TH were going for at least $130. I haven't read either of them yet. Still working through Tailchaser's Song, but I have high hopes. Fine additions for the collection. They just don't put the same about of heart into a book's presentation anymore (unless it's a cult phenomenon best-seller that goes through a million reprints).

In writing news, I've just hit the 40,000 word peak in my science fiction novel. I'm seriously considering stopping where I am and taking a break. I've been so close to the material for so long that I'm beginning to lose perspective. Instead of staggering ahead through two more sections that I only have a vague idea of and whose importance to the story is questionable, I might need to step back and reassess it later. Most of what I wanted to say is now on paper, so it'd be a matter of finding what's missing and cutting what doesn't belong. I'm seriously considering expanding one of my short stories into a novel-length work for children. It's been getting a lot of praise from my critique group. 

Finally, Front Stroke will continue once I get settled into the new routine. We've hit the busy season and I've got a six-day work week coming up. My off days are never consistent from month to month (and sometimes week to week), so dedicating a day to film when I could be writing...well. You see the dilemma. 

Power to the pen!