AMERIQUE:


A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: It is the unspoken statistic, but it is as real as anything to do with the lingering U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the military, 1,800 American servicemen have killed themselves since the initial invasion of Baghdad. That is in addition to the more than 4,000 who died in battle. This week, families of the soldiers who committed suicide asked President Barack Obama to change the government policy of not forwarding letters of appreciation to mothers and fathers of these servicemen. By week's end, the White House had reversed the policy and agreed that such letters are needed, as well... - Eduardo Paz-Martinez, Editor of The Tribune

Thursday, May 20, 2010

For Fabled New York Writers Room, It's The End of Typewriters...


By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Special to The Tribune

NEW YORK - The thing about Greenwich Village here is that its creative energy flows freely, from bars, to cafes, to musty hallways of the aging brownstone apartment buildings, to the streets. Great songs are written here, as are beautiful stories, for books and magazines, as are absolutely gorgeous love letters. Usually, it all begins with a beer or a glass of wine, perhaps a moment of sheer flirtation with some foreign woman in town for a few months.

Then there is the Writers Room in the heart of the Village not far from the White Horse Pub where Edgar Allen Poe used to drink himself silly. Writers using the facilities pay $29 a week for access to neat, private cubicles there on Broadway, near Astor Place. It's been here forever and is said to have attracted the likes of Bob Dylan and John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas and the poet Ted Hughes. For the longest part of its existence, the Writers Room was somewhat noisy in the same way that newsrooms used to be noisy - that click-clack-clacking of typewriter keys dominating sound.

But no more.

The Writers Room recently let it be known that typewriters would no longer be allowed in the premises. The reason: laptop users complained that typewriters were too noisy, that they made it difficult to think and, thus, write. It's another sign of progress.

In any case, that is how this tale is being framed...

- 30 -

1 comment:

Don Pancho Nopales said...

Don Patricio, your articles are never boring, they are very educating. Just one question, where did you educated yourself???
One guess, you are an Ivy league man.