“We assert our right to resist the Paradigm, to rebel against the Information Regime, to escape the Data Stream. We strike a blow for self-reliance, privacy, and coherence against dependency, surveillance, and disintegration.” 

No, these lines were not culled from “The Social Dilemma.” Philosopher Richard Polt wrote them 5 years before the Netflix hit to preamble what has come to be known as The Typewriter Manifesto. 

Polt and his manifesto were featured in “California Typewriter” – a critically-acclaimed 2016 docu-film that I only recently discovered in my efforts to cope with our pandemic-induced house arrest. Directed by  music video veteran Doug Nichol, this homage to the typewriter also offers the insights of famous typewriter enthusiasts such as the actor Tom Hanks, the musician John Mayer, the late playwright Sam Shepard, and the historian David McCullough.

Truth be told, I was no fan of the makinilya (i.e., Filipino for typewriter) during its heyday. I did not relish correcting a typo with liquid paper. Neither did I enjoy  getting my fingers soiled when replacing the typewriter ribbon. Most of all, I did not like the inconvenience of having to take the typewriter to a repair shop when a key malfunctioned. So when the personal computer became affordable, I did not think twice about ditching my portable Brother.

To the credit of the typewriter fans that director Nichol featured in his docu-film, their personal stories made me appreciate the typewriter in a new light. In his email reply last November, Mr Nichol shared that his film “was a labor of love and it took several years to put it all together – it was like a big jigsaw puzzle and the fun was discovering how all the pieces fit.” No wonder the film evoked 5 aha! moments akin to solving a jigsaw puzzle.

• I now realize that the typewriter is actually a weapon against mass distraction. Unlike the smartphone or the laptop, the typewriter cannot interrupt me with endless notifications, emails, chats, and meeting invites while I work. Neither can it entertain me with various distractions when I get bored. It only offers two options when I sit in front of it. I either type my thoughts or I don’t.

• Because the typewriter has no spelling and grammar check, it is the best prompt to act on the advice of Filipino writing guru AA Patawaran. “Write here write now. The only way to get started is to start…. You can worry about organizing, polishing, editing, rewriting, or changing it altogether later.” Just type away! Perhaps this is why an intricate drawing of the typewriter adorns the cover of Patawaran’s book on writing.

• I make music when I type. Kontra-Gapi founder and UP art studies professor Edru Abraham once remarked in a podcast that it is not just whistling, clapping, or tapping that is musical. Even the act of walking or a baby crying is musical. If we go by the achievements of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra (BTO), which has released 3 full-length albums to date, so is the pounding of typewriter keys. The clackety clack may be hardly discernible when you type on your computer. But it is all that you hear when you’ve mastered the typewriter keys. A bell even rings on cue as you near the right margin. 

• The typewriter is to my writing what the cloud is to my photos. Every page that I type is not only a tangible measure of the effort that I pour into what I write. It is also an optimal insurance against the possibility that my smartphone or my laptop might one day bury my output should my gadget crash.

• Since many of the world’s greatest literary pieces and reportage of the past 100 years were composed using the typewriter, this machine is a physical conduit to the temporal context of writing greats like Carlos Bulosan and Nick Joaquin. Maybe this explains why one writers’ museum has a corner encouraging visitors to try their hand at writing via typewriters.

While the actual shop in Berkeley that inspired “California Typewriter” closed down this year after operating for 70 years, interest in the typewriter persists in many countries, including the Philippines. There is a small but growing Facebook community called Filipino Typewriter Collectors. Celebrities like Chynna Ortaleza and Glaiza de Castro use typewriters. The Inquirer columnist and Ateneo history professor Ambeth Ocampo and the novelist and UP creative writing professor emeritus Jose Dalisay, Jr are typewriter enthusiasts. In fact, it was through their writings that I learned of Dennis Pinpin, the leading typewriter collector in the country, and Gerald Cha who Prof Dalisay calls “the master of Commandante Street.” I have them to thank for helping me find a working 1959 sea green Smith-Corona during a pandemic. – Rappler.com

Von Katindoy is a teacher at Ateneo de Manila University and an incoming student at the University of the Philippines Diliman.