Typewriter Cafe
If this were a different era some enterprising person(s) would create a place, open to the public, that had typewriters and an espresso machine. School desks. Wooden floors. Blackboards. Bookshelves with a good selection of typewriter art, both verbal and non-verbal. The place would put out its own zine of course and why not a publishing arm for books created in the café? As for music – only the clicking of typewriter keys and the ding of the carriage return. Yes, you could bring your own paper. Yes, there would be cushions on the chairs. Carbon paper, white-out, correct-type strips – what have I forgotten? The café would be popular at first as a novelty, but the mood of it, the mood of people thinking and creating is contagious and soon… eventually there would be subscriptions, special rates for frequent typers… and ancient machines available for use at extra cost. The location would be in my neighborhood, of course, near the chess shops – aren’t rents going down? So many storefronts are empty now…. It’s too good an idea to stay local though, cities across the country would want their own – and why not an international organization of typewriter cafés, typewriters of other languages could be traded, exchanges of multi-linguistic works, and…. Ah, but we’re in the midst of a pandemic, social distancing, encroaching poverty, climate change and, as always, threats against equality and freedom….
