Putting In The Work

It feels like it has been a month of Sundays since I last posted to this blog and I’m guessing that’s not too far off the mark. While I haven’t been writing about typewriters here on The Typewritemosphere, I have been using my own machines quite a bit. I’ve even spent a bit of time working on a few of my typewriters just recently. I was finally able to get my Imperial Good Companion 5 working with a touch that I had long suspected it was capable of. So I have been using it to type a number of my most recent letters. On the other hand I had to wave the white flag when it came to my Olympia SF Deluxe, a machine that I have yet to use in the nearly three years that I have owned it.

The little Olympia has an issue that seems to indicate a problem with the escapement mechanism. This much I was aware of before I began investigating the problem once again. I made a half-hearted attempt to dig a little deeper than I have in the past (which isn’t really saying all that much), but eventually I wound up putting it back together and placing it back on the shelf of my “typewriter closet”. I mention the above because I have come to realize just how much I took my workbench and dedicated space in my old garage for granted. I now better understand the headaches those of you without such a space must endure in order to work on these machines yourself.

I will eventually prevail over the Oly, or maybe I won’t — this wouldn’t be the end of the world. One of the reasons that the SF Deluxe has remained unused by me for so long is that I have plenty of other great typewriters at my disposal. This is also why I eventually stopped acquiring more typewriters. With a fine machine like the Olympia SF Deluxe sitting unused, I grew somewhat uncomfortable buying more typewriters. I’m not proud of the fact that I had pretty much forgotten about the little Olympia, but that is essentially what happened. Perhaps were I to actually travel with a typewriter or two, I might pay more attention to the SF.

The reason behind my posting here today after such a long absence has nothing to do with my Imperial Good Companion 5 or my Olympia SF Deluxe. Instead the idea of creating this post came to me today when I was going to the effort to clean my coffee bean grinder. I actually had not been drinking much coffee over the past five or six months. While I really enjoy iced tea, I have yet to acquire a taste for iced coffee. (At this point in my life it is unlikely that I ever will.) On those occasions when I do feel like drinking something hot during the summer months I generally go for some sort of tea. This year when I made the switch from tea to coffee I did so with gusto. My espresso machine in particular has really been getting a workout. Silvia (the model name of my espresso machine made by the Italian company Rancilio) has been a part of my life for more than 20 years now, as has my Rocky burr grinder (also made by Rancilio). They have both seen a lot of use during this time, though not so much over the past few years.

In my world, coffee takes a fair bit of time and effort. Though I have yet to begin roasting my own beans (perhaps some day in the future), I still manage to take up a chunk of time grinding the beans and cleaning the equipment (not as often as I should). Making espresso takes even more time as my machine is a pretty basic manual model. At this point I should tip my cap to my fellow type pal Carlos as he is the person responsible for reigniting my passion for good coffee. Carlos uses an espresso machine that requires even more dedication than my Silvia does.

Coffee is one of those “hobbies” where a person can get as carried away as they like. In the case of my friend David it became his vocation. Though I like my coffee, I am definitely not passionate enough about it to turn it into a business complete with a roasting operation and cafe as he has. Of course the fact that I am not nearly organized enough to run a business is also a factor. Still, I do go to more of an effort than the majority of people when it comes to making coffee.

As mentioned, Silvia is a pretty basic machine. In order to get the best out of the coffee I must adhere to a pretty strict process that requires timing things just right, both for the brewing of the coffee itself as well as the steaming of the milk when making a drink other than a straight up espresso. All of this comes after properly grinding the beans to the correct fineness and tamping the ground beans in the portafilter with the correct pressure for Silvia to extract the best flavor from the beans. For many, all of these steps are just too much. It is far easier to pay someone else to make your favorite espresso-based drink. Not that I have a problem with anyone who does so as I too did so for many years and still do once in a rare while.

I invested in Silvia and Rocky not only because I really enjoyed coffee, but also because I was truly interested in being able to make my own espresso. I might not be capable of the more elaborate “latte art” designs that so many baristas crank out, but I can make a damn good tasting latte whenever the mood strikes me. After Silvia has properly warmed up and I have gone through the above mentioned steps that is. But the more often that I make espresso, the easier it gets. Eventually all of the steps and the timing required in order to maximize Silvia’s effectiveness become ingrained in my brain and I hardly need to think about such things.

Rocky is Silvia’s partner in crime so to speak. The thing is, there are days when I feel like nursing a cup(s) of coffee over the course of the morning. On those days I stick to making drip coffee. While I prefer to use different coffee beans for my drip coffee than I do for my espresso, I still make use of Rocky to grind those beans. So even on those days where Silvia gets a break Rocky is still getting down and dirty. The key word in Rocky°s case is dirty. The reality is that coffee making in my case is a pretty messy business. While grinding beans just before brewing the coffee is essential for a great tasting cup of coffee, the downside is that Rocky gets filthy fairly quickly.

When I began cleaning Rocky this morning I realized that it had been much too long since I had last done so. As I am my only customer (I’m a lousy tipper at home), I wind up being the only one to suffer due to my sometimes lax cleaning schedule. While Rocky doesn’t seem to care one way or another, it really is best to thoroughly clean out the burrs and all of the various nooks & crannies where the oil from the beans accumulates trapping particles of the ground beans. The longer the grinder sits uncleaned, the more likely it is to impart “off” tasting flavors in the brewed coffee. While Rocky did not say a word, I was embarrassed at how much I had let things slip this time around.

I wound up taking my time, doing a proper job of cleaning Rocky. As I did so I thought about how much time I’ve spent and all of the effort I have gone to in order to make my own coffee/espresso over the past couple of decades. The reality in my case is that it is not a big deal. There is a part of me that actually enjoys putting in the work. Cleaning Rocky and Silvia is not what I would call fun, but the rest of the process of making coffee is a ritual that I don’t mind and I often enjoy. This extends to enjoying the coffee that I have made that much more. It might sound a bit cheesy to some of you (maybe even very cheesy to some), but that is honestly how I feel about such matters.

The thing is, this is not unlike how I feel about typewriters and typewriting in general. I enjoy my manual typewriters because there is a part of me that enjoys putting in the work involved of completing page after page of typed output. For me, this too is a ritual of sorts. In addition, handwriting for me these days is not enjoyable at all. If I were to regain my handwriting form of old it would require far more effort on my part. My manual typewriters might require more effort of me just as my espresso machine does when compared to some of the fancier, more expensive machines out there.  But I don’t mind.

My reference to “putting in the work” might seem like a bit much and I suppose that it is, but I’m guessing that you more or less get my point. I can also appreciate the fact that when it comes to typewriting, some of you might require a bit of assistance in the form of an electric typewriter (or for some an electronic typewriter) and that is totally fine by me. If you happen to suffer from arthritis in your hands and/or fingers, or you are battling something like carpal tunnel syndrome and you are still making the effort to use your typewriter(s), then it is definitely safe to say that you are putting in the work! This is the sort of effort that I have come to associate with any number of analog pursuits in my life be it coffee making, typewriting, film photography, enjoying vinyl records, shifting a manual transmission while working the clutch, or any number of other things that I might be overlooking.

Such things have long been a part of my life. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that has spent a bit of time reading my blog in the past. But what I find fascinating is that so many young people are embracing the extra effort that comes with most all things “analog” these days. Typewriting might be quite convenient when compared with handwriting, but it is certainly no match for the efficiency of texting or even email for that matter carried out via the ubiquitous smartphone. The same can be said for most of the other examples that I have listed above (as of yet you can’t exactly drive yourself somewhere via a smartphone, not that I am aware of at least). In all of these cases, the work or the effort involved equates to a personal interaction that the digital realm cannot match.  Such personal involvement is ultimately what makes these analog experiences so worthwhile in my mind.

Hey, I made it all the way through this blog post without managing to spill any coffee on my typewriter.  Not bad!

AFTERTHOUGHTS: Holy smokes did this one ever turn into an incredibly long post (in addition to being incredibly convoluted). Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Much like the act of making coffee on a manual espresso machine, creating blog posts while editiing them on the fly often benefits from doing so more frequently. I suppose that putting in the work tends to pay off more often than not.