A friend of mine squeezed in a last minute tax deduction in late December and bought a brand new 15″ Apple PowerBook G4 for her freelance business. She brought it by my apartment this weekend to take me up on my offer of helping her get it set up, and just for a laugh, we sat it down next to the Christmas gift that I bought for my girlfriend: a brand new Olivetti Lettera 35L manual typewriter.

My girlfriend, who is working on a masters in creative writing, had expressed some interest in the singular focus that working on a typewriter practically enforces, having heard from a friend that it actually improved his creative process. I didn’t even know that they still made these things brand new, but here it is — and an Olivetti, no less. I was worried at first that I was unwittingly introducing a persistent aural annoyance into our home life, but I have to say that the clumsy tap-tapping of the typewriter keys is actually a soothing sound.