A few days ago, one of my brothers posted an article whose title asks, "Should you feel sad about the demise of the handwritten letter?" In response, Dave comments:
Dave: I have lamented this trend for many years now. Its especially tough because I used to be both prolific and skilled in this lost art.It's true -- a simple card with handwritten signature would be great! One or two lines are just as welcome to me as one or two pages. In fact, I gladly receive, read, and respond to letters of any length -- hand - written, type - written, or conveyed electronically. Of course we value calligraphy, chirography, and longhand; however, technology not only facilitates communication but has its own artistry and even magic.
Bruce: I set out on a mission a couple of years ago to write at least one handwritten letter a week. I think I made it about two months. Maybe it's time to try again.
Kit: I'll take a birthday card!
As a coincidental complement to this discussion, just a day after my brother's facebook post, I started a new book and encountered this tribute to typing. I like the connection he makes between typewriter and piano:
" . . . teaching me slowly and patiently how each letter represented a sound . . . On [my father's] typewriter I learned the whole alphabet, the numbers and all the punctuation marks, which may explain why a keyboard -- much more than a pencil or pen -- is for me the truest representation of the act of writing. That way of going along pressing sounds as on a piano, to convert ideas into letters and words, seemed to me from the start -- and still seems to me -- one of the most extraordinary acts of magic in the world."
from Oblivion: A Memoir, p 13
by Hector Abad (see also "Judging Time Aright")
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