Complex karmic mechanical quantum equation no mortal can fathom. Also a business.

How to Outlive a Typewriter Company.

Someone wrote to me, why isn’t my machine done?

I started writing an elaborate explanation of the trials and tribulations involved in bringing this otherwise dead Groma Kolibri back to life.

Because I was on a computer, I had the luxurious and rare opportunity to delete a whole paragraph.

Instead, I wrote:

“Complex karmic mechanical quantum equation no mortal can fathom. Also a business.”

While I work the machines, I ponder, and while I ponder, the machines work upon me.

What I mean is, sometimes I get caught in a quagmire, some sort of indissoluble riddle, and I can’t move the mountain. Then, something happens that is damn-near inexplicable, and the solution to the riddle presents itself.

Sometimes, sales are a dry desert, because I’m hung up on one karmic debt repayment machine. Ahriman is fucking with me, or Mercury is in retrograde, or an astrological square, or whatever your choice of nomenclature. And then I work, brute work a la Gurdjieff, and the machine starts working! I ship it to a thrilled client, one of the few in the world that are struggling to create an existence that is not a mere lukewarm phenomenon; a spark in space.

And a flood of orders comes in, often with very meaningful places and names attached to them. I was watching a movie star’s film, and he ordered a few typewriters: I was thinking of Ohio, and three orders come in from Ohio.

So yes, there are unknown and unthinkable variables that I carry in the mind, I, an existential detective… and yet I also need to operate in linear time. There are deadlines and such. Lifelong dreams to fulfill.

Classic Typewriter Co. is where dreams come true. Literary, non-distraction dreams. Quick, shameless plug. Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child, is one such karmic calamity where hosts of issues come up with a variety of deadlines. IN this deluge, machines are lost and found, addresses changed, people depart the earth, others are born. It’s always a time of great nervous system upheaval.

After the rush, some clarity; some sparkle of the coming year. In the Christ child, or the promise of the incipient spring folded up in the darkness of winter, something profound happens across the land of man and machine. Can’t quite articulate that either.

In this fomenting inspiration, I jettisoned the cell phone and switched to a little lightphone, a minimalist operation. I refuse to be sidetracked and waylaid this year by digital distraction.

Oh, my other motto: ‘From Screen to screen while dreams die.’ That’s my bone-chilling hell. Someone had the audacity to reply to my email and say ‘that’s silly, I want to save animals.’ Well, silly or not, you’re not going to save animals by going onto social media or email and writing ‘I want to save animals.’ So, in that case I might ditch the cell at once.

Sean Penn in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, that blazing aliveness. That’s interesting. I know, in reality he is nothing like that. I’m aware of the magic of fiction. However, that idea of just seeing the snow leopard without snapping the picture: that’s how I desire to live. This archetype unbridled in the breast, aching to be free.

So, in light of the new year…

This is my new phone: (I’ve been testing it for a year on the sidelines of my large smart phone, and now it’s my main phone. Everything transferred, all fears set aside).

Yes it’s got dust, sand, and pocket lint on it. The signs of a true analog warrior, I’m told!

And this is my research machine:

It’s an analog Zettelkasten on printmaking paper in an acacia box. Take that, throw away culture.

And this is my work station:

So my goals for this year:

• Release my Analog Newsletter, typewriter-fueled. [Where my most lucid thoughts go to breed inspiration and discontent in a small tribe of wonder-workers].

• Launch a revolution of digital skeptics.

• Slow way the hell down and create deliberate life work.

• Spend more quality time with alive and breathing humans (somewhat rare a thing).

• Break addictions and bray them into powder under the heal.

• Write fiction that alters the human timeline.

• Less time on social media.

Anyway, thank you for being here, fearless warrior.

Steven Budden Jr.

Existential Detective + The Classic Typewriter Company

PS. I’m creating a few books, Notes that Move Mountains and Analog Nation. More to come on those soon.