michael

Well howdy again. I am back here with a One Typed Page. And look, I write a lot every day. Morning Pages, Sketch Journal, some Spanish, and in all of that one or more of them gets dropped. Like One Tyoed Page of late. But that is kind of unfair. This place is kinda special in what it gets out of me because I write differently to each format. SO, should I disappear again, I encourage you to kick me for not showing up here. Write to me at:

michael@jamhome.us or
mikeraz@gmail.com

Both will show up in my consciousness (oh lord, spelling!) and I will get at the keyboard to one of my typewriters and get with the flow and appear here again. Daniel does not reveal anyone’s address or other information. Damn if that is not nice. However, it does not stop any of us from communicating in any means we care to try. (Yes, those of you with letters pending, well…) NOTE: this is not a plea for likes or other feedback. Other than a “hey! Get on it again.” when I drop off for a few days.

“When I’m 64”, remember that song? My wife had planned for decades to travel to the Beatles hometown of Liverpool. She was to spend her 64th birthday getting “fooking debauched” with her second-oldest, a 50-year-old penpal (penpals for 50 years, they are a different age), and her husband (the penpals husband) at a, well starting at, a favorite pub. I am sure we would have had a bloody great time. But not now with the Covid. We will be going for another time to celebrate. But it is not for her 64th. Which is what I was doing this last bit of time.

And for the record, my wife’s longest-running penpal has been sending letters across the pond to Germany for one year more. 52 years of, well it isn’t One a Day, but several times a year.

Are any of you learning a foreign language? Spanish in my case. With Esperanto and Latin as my follow on … well I think so. Perhaps I will go with Portuguese we will see how my fascinations flow as we get down the road a bit. You know how to reach me. I just passed the 800-day streak on Duolingo. It could be 1,200 plus day streak if it were not for being hospitalized for days of unconsciousness. Duolingo is not my only thing to do for languages. It was a start. And actually, it remains a start for languages.

OK, back to pages of less about me and all that stuff. Back to the things I trip over while wandering through the thing of life.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

A hook. I want one. I gotta have one, I am going to find one. I need one. I have to have one. I will have… I must have… A hook. I have to have a hook. I need it, I do not have one yet.

In the late 70s, 79, 78, that time frame, I was working in a radio station. Early morning shift for air time. Afternoon for writing and recording spots.

In the mid to late 90s I was involved in, with, beer. First as the editor of the Oregon Beer Crew Newsletter, then as a columnist for Celebrator Beer News. The newsletter was eight pages. The column was 1,000 or so words.

In the early 70s, 73 through 75, I was in radio again (?) Mostly the closing shift, until 10:00 or 12:00 on weekends. In 74 and 75 I wrote a lot of spots, mostly for a grocery store. But whatever the general manager came up with. It was a form of job training as I was still in high school. I got three hours of time in the afternoon to make whatever I did better and they recommended a grade for me. Or something like that. That was a while ago.

All of those things involved being paid for writing. Getting paid to write about beer? Yeah, baby. But there was a catch. One that I never got around. Or so my memory says. I needed a hook. You would think that given one column a month coming up with an idea would be easy. C’mon, guy. It is just a half-page of writing one time a month. But on too many months I sat at my desk and thought. Well, not about much, Cause I did not have a hook. Some topic to carry my thoughts through the places I would write about. I had to have one.

It has been a dry, well, probably not but when it came time to type I could not come up with a hook. This is different from facing a blank page, having writer’s block. There were ideas. But not ones I could work into an extended piece. (Not that this one qualifies!) But yes, start someplace, somewhere and go through other places, and tie it up.

Like this that I have to, I get to, I gotta, I need to, I have the pleasure to, all these to’s, which one fits?

—— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

There are a couple of letters waiting to go out with the mail. I wrote them today. They are special, being written today. It is the last day of February. The last day of InCoWriMo. International Correspondence Writing Month. As you may be aware, I am not an everyday kind of guy. I could be described as regular. But I am in no way like Kent, or Kat, or Mike, or any of the other people whose writing we see every day. But for InCoWriMo I set out to write every day. Even better, I decided to send mail to people across the borders of the United States. And heck, you cannot leave Mom out of it so I started with her and sent a letter to people in the United States. Every day. Every day to a person in the US and one to a person outside of the US. I started by spending to people on every continent, except for the Antarctic continent. Australia, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. I was lucky there was an address exchange place on their website. Nearly 200 people outside of the US put on their addresses. The problem turned into who to select. Two people in South Africa made for an easy choice. Two in Brasil and one in Chile was limited the people to choose from. For some reason (Rasmussen anyone?) I sent letters to Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain were easy Since we all speak the same language. My Spanish is just barely up to the level where I was able to volunteer writing in espanol, and two people took me up on the offer. (oh, and Australia, sorry about that Aussies) But, yes, I got letters out every day or written every day. During the ice storm, they piled up, waiting for the postman to arrive and talk them away.

Now comes the fun part. I have letters from Boise, Albuquerque, Oakland, Suquamish, Feeding Hills, Scarborough (Ontario), Edinburgh, Willingham, Salt Lake City, and Ninilthek, and who knows where else the USPS will be delivering mail from. Though I have to admit, some of them are not going to be handwritten. If you have not seen my handwriting, perhaps it is a blessing. But then again, my typing is not among the best.

Yes, I know of a guy who did it in part to improve his handwriting. That does not seem to have worked for me. However, it did lube up my ability to write a letter. There is so much to be said. Pick a topic and in little time you have a page filled up and it is time to insert it in an envelope and send it on its way. You can do that secure in the knowledge that they will be happy to receive it. And I know I brought bright days to people seeing that they have mail that someone took the time to send to them.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

It is February. A kind of slow time for business. Unless you do taxes or something like that. But two weeks? I used to get them in two days. From Portland to Denver. From Portland to Little Rock. But now, from Albuquerque to Portland: 10 days. From Feeding Hills, MA to Portland: 8 days. And the real crown jewel, from Southwest Portland to Southeast Portland: four days. Four days to cross town? I am accustomed to two days. I sent something to Eugene, Oregon (that is 112 miles via the I5 route) Sent on a Friday, responded on a Monday via a txt message. Two business days.

Back last fall I asked people who they would be happiest to see replaced by Biden. My response was DeJoy. If our postal service goes downhill there is a bunch of things that just won’t function properly.

OK, enough ranting.

A while ago I wrote about the costs of things we go to cheapest on. A nickel pencil vs a two-dollar one. The paper I am typing this on aside from being the backside of a toss-away piece started as a 3.2 cents. I did not buy expensive bits of paper because I could not use them. At least until I had practiced enough to have a hope of getting good with it. (It equals drawing) Typing about this got me to thinking about the time spent when I used the raw materials. The raw materials are the cheapest stuff in it. Whatever I do with the materials my time spent doing it is way more valuable. So I quit questioning the cost of paper, pigments, pencils and pens. Except for the cost of composition books.
I have grown to like them.

— MichaelRpdx rkmm

I have a special topic for Sunday. Hang on, it will be good. It may even be thought out and pre-typed. Or I might just think out loud.

“Does anyone else do that?” Where that is “typing my thoughts out loud.” Serious question? Don’t we all do that? And only that? I do. All the time. I have what passes for thoughts and I let my fingers do the typing and … hmmm maybe there is some taking time to have the thoughts to do things like spell correctly, have it be coherent all the time. (pause to think about what to type next) Maybe that is something for finished pieces and maybe there are some people doing finished pieces here too. By gum, I will try that.

According to the online menu from the Frontier Restaurant they call it “Huevos Rancheros”. I have had “huevos” in lots of places. Never like you can get at the Frontier in Albuquerque. I have not had it in 30 years now. Damn, I can remember the food right now. And how it tasted and now I am drooling. Again.

I have had an argument about apostrophes recently. You will note I did not type “I’ve had …” and I typically I do not, rather than I Don’t. This rule gets a single mention in, or on, the grammarbook. Grammarbook.com with lots of rules given to possession cases. I am just thinking about the omission of letters. Do you keep them or use an apostrophe or not? What do you say? I am thinking one needs to be consistent. Which I am not. Oops. I think this is also a case for a style book, like for the Chicago Tribune or New York Times or pick your favorite. What do you say?

I believe it was Dato that commented on almost buying a KMM. Almost? Should we start a pool as to when he will join the grand group of people who have and use ones? Herb Caen called his series of them the “Loyal Royal” typewriter. He is joined by a couple dozen other people. People of Fame that is to say. See Richard Polt’s “Writers and their Typewriters” page.

You may note that I have a pair of Hermes 3000s, Yet I am typing this and lots of other posts on a KMM. There is something magnetic in this machine. Maybe I should try other typewriters. Yeah, maybe.

If you have an argument as to why I should try other typewriters do tell me why. On the other hand, forget I typed that in. I know a typewriter and a person is a very personal thing filled with one’s personalized reasons. There is no reason to share your idiosyncratic (spelling??) reasons for that choice. No, please, forget I asked.
(See Mike, does anyone else type their thoughts out loud.)

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

I apologize for the upcoming computer plug, forwarded to me on FB.
Go See:
https://kottke.org/21/02/the-typewriter
a compilation of bits from TV and films. It is fun. It is good. I will accept any diatribes about my recommendation,

This afternoon I went to the Post Office to mail a letter. Sure, yes, I could have waited until tomorrow and let the mailman pick it up from our front porch. It happens every day, except Sunday. But I did want to keep up with my daily InCoWriMo daily double. Get it in the mail today and I am pretty sure it will arrive this weekend. That was just a part of my reason for going there.

Our closest post office is next door to “I’ve Been Framed”, a great art supply house. Yes, they still frame art. For me, however, they sell stuff. And hopefully, they will continue to be a museum of materials and pieces they have picked up. I wanted to buy something, anything, from them as a show of support. They have been shot.

Four times in the front window. Why would someone shoot an art supply store? It seems it was done due to their putting a piece in the window. It was something you see a lot in our neighborhood. It is a poster. It reads “Black Lives Matter”

Black Lives Matter. So do the people who support them.

As an aside, I have never seen a black person working at or patronizing the store. Maybe I am not observant. Maybe I go there at the wrong times. But I will say that this family-owned decades-old place has been wounded. Not fatally. But I had to buy something.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

PS – The store’s name is “I’ve Been Framed” not “I’m …” It is a great place. Go buy stuff.

“Every book you could ever need is at City Lights,” lectured Ray Mondini. OK, that may not be a quote. But the words carry his meaning. Ray Mondini was the Art History teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute. It was there that I first heard of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. There are many memories associated with him. The most recent one is of trying to teach myself how to write poetry. What is poetry? In my search for examples, I got a copy of “Poetry As Insurgent Art”, It was one of the best examples of what I was looking for. Here is an excerpt from the book.

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

And so the lessons began. He goes onto sing, “if you would be a poet…” Do not state, sing. It is time to reread this book and learn more.

And learn again.

~~ MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Bandon Schaefer is an accomplished artist of oil painting and drawing and recently of watercolor. I followed Bandon when I was looking for teachers in the oil color world. He was a guy that would not be afraid to talk about the mistakes he made. I loved that aspect of his work. Sure, his work is great. But his videos, he is a big person on YouTube, are not just a hit parade of how to do the successes he has created. He will spend an entire video discussing his mistakes and warning you away from them. (See “Mistakes I Made Painting Aurora’s Portrait in Oils” as an example.) Anyway, I recently saw a watercolor video from him doing watercolor sketching in Alaska, plein air painting on location. I had not seen his work in years and that was all oil painting and drawing work. Watercolor? This was interesting. I went, I saw, and had a good time. (OK, he posted this in June of 2018. As I said I followed him a long time ago.

But then the interesting stuff started to happen. I got news stories on watercolors. Um, what? I am fairly accustomed to seeing advertisements following my interests. But now I was getting “news” stories on the subject. My news story source in this case is Google.

Is this good or bad? (I took a break at this point. Now back to typing.) Or perhaps hew can I game the system to get the news and ads I want? A few years ago there was a guy who noticed this behavior in his Facebook ads. He tried to get them to show him ads for woman’s bras. Unsuccessfully as I recall. Considering the broad brush strokes they, Google in this case, employs – they show me stuff from watercolors, not plain air watercolors or watercolors designed to show nickgolebiewski’s work. That is fun stuff. (See him on Instagram) But yes, they are much too broad in their descriptions. And I am, or so I think, are far too I’m weird in my tastes to fit their means.

in so critic, no that isn’t right. Off to ask my wife how to spell. And it took a while to figure out what I was after: idiosyncratic. I am too idiosyncratic for their methods. At least yet.

And she agrees. Thank god for that.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm