TypeTown #26: "Sometimes I sit down at my typewriter... and I wonder is it worth it."
♥️ Nikki Giovanni, Kingsley Amis, Courtney Brown, and Angela Lansbury...
Blow out the candles and make a wish, people.
Somewhat staggeringly, TypeTown has made it all the way to its first birthday.
A whole year of these ramblings is probably about 11 months longer than we ever expected. So thank you, thank you. For signing up. For sharing. And for contributing to our Earl Grey fund. We hope you’ve enjoyed the ride.
We start this week with writer, activist and educator Nikki Giovanni.
A holder of 27 honorary degrees and the keys to more than two dozen cities, she rose to prominence in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement.
Regular appearances on Soul! built her profile yet further.
But it was her work that did the talking.
“We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.”
Over the years, Giovanni has been awarded seven NAACP Image Awards and has taught at Virginia Tech since 1987.
Now aged 79, she remains a cultural giant.
And she captures moments familiar to almost every TypeTowner.
“and sometimes I sit
down at my typewriter
and I think
not of someone
cause there isn't anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it”
READ» Nikki Giovanni Has Made Peace With Her Hate - The New York Times
READ» Poet Nikki Giovanni shares her wisdom about Biden, cowardly racism, and why love is a pineapple - Salon
WATCH» Why Not the Right Thing the First Time - TEDx
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Battling through 5,475 days of practice
Head with us across the pond now, for a quick look at Kingsley Amis, a satirical novelist and one of Britain’s most acclaimed post-war writers.
His durability was key.
“I’ve been trying to write for as long as I can remember. But those first 15 years didn’t produce much of great interest.”
His career began in 1954 with the publication of Lucky Jim. He was shortlisted twice for a Booker Prize, before finally winning it at the third attempt in 1986. And the last of his novels hit the shelves just months before his death in 1995.
Along the way, he worked at Princeton and Cambridge universities, garnered a reputation for drinking, fathered three children, and went through two divorces.
“If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.”
WATCH» Bookmark: Kingsley Amis (1991), Part One - BBC
READ» Kingsley Amis: 45 ways of being annoying - The Guardian
READ» Kingsley Amis, The Art of Fiction No. 59 - The Paris Review
Courtney Brown
Away from literature, sculptor Courtney Brown is a definite TypeTowner. Just look at her work!
This winged Corona might be the most portable portable we’ve ever seen.
And this piece, she says, took five years to create.
READ» I Remade My Old Typewriter Into An Octopus To Explore Higher Ideas - Bored Panda
Worth pausing the platen
📬 Becoming a Zoom Typewriter Poet for Hire - Literary Hub
📬 How Typewriters Changed Everything - JSTOR Daily
And finally… typewriters in the wild
In this short documentary and the opening credits of 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote (RIP Angela Lansbury)….
In this spectacular tattoo on poet and street writer Jeremy M. Brownlowe…
And in this fitting way to sign off TypeTown’s first birthday. Get the party hats ready…
Muchas gracias, amigos
Thanks for sticking with us. Your support keeps TypeTown going. If you want to go further, donations to our caffeine fund are always appreciated.
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Until next time
PS: New here?
TypeTown is a fortnightly celebration of the typewriter’s place in modern (and not so modern) culture.
Happy birthday! I've discovered you recently and I found your posts engaging and they always introduce me to someone I didn't know. I really appreciated your insight on Javier Marías a few weeks ago (I'm reading you from Spain and here he was considered our biggest contemporary writer). Thank you and keep going!
Those sculptures (and cake) are something!