California Typewriter Page #4

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Hey, what's up, buddy?

How you doin' man?

- [Jeremy] Alright.

Occasionally they'll

call me and ask me

if I have a certain part,

like a carriage return lever,

platen knobs, mainsprings.

- [Jeremy] Really common parts

that I have boxes full of.

- This won't fly, but that's

the guy I need right there

so that one's gonna do

it, yeah that'll fit.

- I usually take 'em

all the way apart.

If I can give him any

kind of part that he needs

to put into a functioning

typewriter, I'm happy to do it.

It's pretty common actually.

You know, Smith-Coronas?

Herb has a lot of

IBM Selectrics.

Some of them are just too

far gone, too hard to repair.

So he gives them to me

instead of throwing them away.

Thank you.

Thanks, Herb.

- [Herb] Alright, see you later.

- Catch you later.

(slams)

(whirring)

(wipers thunking)

- I feel like I've

been peripatetic

since I was an infant.

(distant thunder)

I basically grew up in the

backseat of a Plymouth.

I don't like flying.

I'd rather be in a car.

But it's really hard to write

a play when you're on the move

because you have

to focus, you know.

I feel my great strength

as a writer is being alone.

Aloneness is a

condition of writing.

You look at all the writers

that have come up with something

worth its own salt, you know,

and they're utterly alone.

All of 'em.

(shuffling paper)

The plays that really

bore me to death

are the ones in which the

writer's thinking all the time.

Causing the actors,

the characters to

speak for the author.

It's very boring

compared to a character

who speaks for himself.

There's a certain framework

of time that takes shape

around a play.

Sometimes you might fly

through a three act play.

You can write it

in a week or two.

And a one act play

might take you a year.

One of the keys to

leaving a piece of writing

and coming back to it

is to leave it at the

point where you know

it's about to go somewhere.

Don't come to a dead end

and stop and say oh my god,

you know, and walk away.

You'll come back, you're

gonna be in the same dead end

as you left it, you know.

I just never got along

with the computer screen.

And it's somehow removed

from the tactile experience.

When you go to ride a horse,

you have to saddle it,

whenever you use a typewriter,

you have to feed it paper.

There's a percussion about it.

You can see the ink flying

onto the surface of the paper.

So a letter will go,

pam, like that, but

along with it is the ink and

pshh, flying into the paper.

I'd rather ride a

horse than drive a car,

but that puts you in

a very different relationship

to the modern world, you know.

(piano jazz music)

- [News Anchor] Well,

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