Behold, dearest reader, another Monday is upon us.  But this isn’t “just another Monday.”  No.  June 23, 2025 is a day of ink-soaked rebellion and typewriter fury.  Around this time in 1971 (try as I might, I couldn’t pin down an exact date), Charles Bukowski’s raw, booze-soaked novel Post Office was published.  It’s a throbbing middle-finger to The Grind, chronicling his years as a postal worker with unfiltered grit – drinking, screwing, and surviving the soul-crushing monotony.  Bukowski’s voice is pure badass: no polish, just truth.  This book cemented his rep as the poet of the down-and-out, and its release was a liver-lick to the literary establishment.  If you’re looking for something that screams defiance, this isit.  The prose hits like a shot of Jack – rough, unapologetic, and leaving you reeling.  Bukowski showed writers like yrs. truly How Its Done, turning a dead-end job into a manifesto of survival.  Pick it up, crack it open, and let the pages drag you into the chaos of a man who refused to bow to the suits.  This book was a grenade tossed into the ivory tower.

June 23 is also National Typewriter Day, marking the 1868 patent of the typewriter by Christopher Latham Sholes.  This machine was the weapon of choice for literary rebels like Hemingway, Kerouac, and other wild scribes who hammered out their works with mechanical fury.  The typewriter’s clack is the sound of creation under pressure.  It’s a nod to the tools that let writers fight their own apocalypses on the page.  Back in the day, this beast of a device was the heartbeat of the craft, a clattering symphony of keys that turned thoughts into tangible rebellion.  Sholes’ invention birthed a revolution, giving voice to the outcasts and dreamers who pounded out epics on its iron frame.  Today, it’s a relic, sure, but its legacy lives up to every keystroke – a reminder that the fight for words is as old as the machine itself.

I have a truly old, totally analog typewriter…no electricity needed.  If the world goes up, or the electrical grid collapses, dissemination will certainly be affected, but I’ll still be here, banging on the keys.  Due to my father’s ludditic obstinance when it came to technology, I was forced to use a typewriter until I had already started college.  It was a real pain in the ass, especially since literally everyone I knew had been rocking word processors for years at that point.  But there is a certain satisfaction the comes from typewriting.  I think it’s the combination of several different elements: the various noises from the contraption itself…the aforementioned clanking of the keys, the end-of-the-line ding, the subsequent smacking of the carriage-return lever.  It also has something to do with the fact that you are dealing with a physical page, which pages stacking up next to the machine is far more gratifying to those of us who like tangible, visible results of our efforts than any screen could ever be.

N.P.: “Bauhaus Staircase” – Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark