tyleretters · February 27, 2015 04:01
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 By: Tyler Etters

 You know, I had a typewriter once. I was around 8 or 9. It wasn't a 'real' typewriter, though, not one of those clickity-clackity typewriters. Sure you still put a piece of paper in it, and sure it took ink ribbons (yeah, just like in Resident Evil), but it didn't make the noises. Nor was it mechanical per se. Nor did it break down and require WD-40.

 It was a hybrid digital one - you would type, and your letters would appear on a little 16 character alphanumeric screen one at a type. Once you got to the typing the 17th character, the first character you typed would be printed on the piece of paper. In this way, you would presumably have time to detect any typos before they made it out of the digital buffer and into the real world.

 Several years later, my dearest friend had a real typewriter and used it for college essays. Yeah he had a computer. Yeah he had a printer. But he preferred to work with the typewriter. It helped him think.

 Many artists I know prefer old tools. Simpler tools. Limited tools, even. Some use audio software that is decades old because it has 'just the right distortion module'. Others use film-based cameras. Others write with typewriters.

 For some it is out of financial necessity - surely, we tell ourselves - had we been born pre .com bubble our God-given talents would have propelled us to money, fame, superstardom and the mystical realm where all material desires are granted. A new Moog? Done. A truckload of Krylon? Done. Inspiration trip to India? Expense it. Nothing to spare for the artistic endeavor.

 For yet others it is a matter of intention - a willful choice made in the moment to work within the boundaries before you. "Perfect is the enemy of good," they say. Art isn't about being perfect anyways. It never was. Art is about responding to this world, the daily situations we find ourselves in, the confusing soup of emotional baggage we carry around. What better way to respond than with the tools you already have? The tools you have as an artist are uniquely and intimately yours. For this reason I refuse to go on stage with any gear I have owned for less than several months (gotta break it in... gotta come to see eye-to-eye with it...) But if you fall into the samsaran cycle of new-new-new, now-now-now, more-more-more then your work will reflect that.

 I prefer what I have. I am thankful for what I have. My boundaries are a blessing. These limitations are a gift.

 Mediums are defined by what they cannot do. Someone famous once said that: Jodorowsky, Macluhan or Eno probably (look them up by the way.)

 Now, I'm writing in a web-browser. I'm using a shitty Apple keyboard. My typos are underlined in red. My characters are encoded in UTF-8, bounced off satellites, and saved as a unique commit in a git repository in a datacenter somewhere. The cloud they call it. We'll probably never see these words printed on paper. A timely solar flare from the sun will erase this data forever, never to be recovered by archeologists in future generations. Never to be pulled off of a bookshelf and pondered by our grandchildren. Forever ephemerally and temporally locked into the dawn of the 21st century and those who stumble upon this URL.

 And that is beautiful.
	Forward
	+ + +
	By: Tyler Etters

	You know, I had a typewriter once. I was around 8 or 9. It wasn't a 'real' typewriter, though, not one of those clickity-clackity typewriters. Sure you still put a piece of paper in it, and sure it took ink ribbons (yeah, just like in Resident Evil), but it didn't make the noises. Nor was it mechanical per se. Nor did it break down and require WD-40.

	It was a hybrid digital one - you would type, and your letters would appear on a little 16 character alphanumeric screen one at a type. Once you got to the typing the 17th character, the first character you typed would be printed on the piece of paper. In this way, you would presumably have time to detect any typos before they made it out of the digital buffer and into the real world.

	Several years later, my dearest friend had a real typewriter and used it for college essays. Yeah he had a computer. Yeah he had a printer. But he preferred to work with the typewriter. It helped him think.

	Many artists I know prefer old tools. Simpler tools. Limited tools, even. Some use audio software that is decades old because it has 'just the right distortion module'. Others use film-based cameras. Others write with typewriters.

	For some it is out of financial necessity - surely, we tell ourselves - had we been born pre .com bubble our God-given talents would have propelled us to money, fame, superstardom and the mystical realm where all material desires are granted. A new Moog? Done. A truckload of Krylon? Done. Inspiration trip to India? Expense it. Nothing to spare for the artistic endeavor.

	For yet others it is a matter of intention - a willful choice made in the moment to work within the boundaries before you. "Perfect is the enemy of good," they say. Art isn't about being perfect anyways. It never was. Art is about responding to this world, the daily situations we find ourselves in, the confusing soup of emotional baggage we carry around. What better way to respond than with the tools you already have? The tools you have as an artist are uniquely and intimately yours. For this reason I refuse to go on stage with any gear I have owned for less than several months (gotta break it in... gotta come to see eye-to-eye with it...) But if you fall into the samsaran cycle of new-new-new, now-now-now, more-more-more then your work will reflect that.

	I prefer what I have. I am thankful for what I have. My boundaries are a blessing. These limitations are a gift.

	Mediums are defined by what they cannot do. Someone famous once said that: Jodorowsky, Macluhan or Eno probably (look them up by the way.)

	Now, I'm writing in a web-browser. I'm using a shitty Apple keyboard. My typos are underlined in red. My characters are encoded in UTF-8, bounced off satellites, and saved as a unique commit in a git repository in a datacenter somewhere. The cloud they call it. We'll probably never see these words printed on paper. A timely solar flare from the sun will erase this data forever, never to be recovered by archeologists in future generations. Never to be pulled off of a bookshelf and pondered by our grandchildren. Forever ephemerally and temporally locked into the dawn of the 21st century and those who stumble upon this URL.

	And that is beautiful.