David Michael Newstead's Blog, page 112
April 22, 2016
The Typewriter Inheritance, Part Four
By David Michael Newstead.
My mission to restore my grandfather’s typewriter stalls from time to time as I debate how to proceed. Surprisingly though, there’s a very famous typewriter enthusiast out there and sometime ago I decided I’d reach out and ask for his advice. Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks has an extensive collection of typewriters and even released a typewriter themed app in 2014 called Hanx Writer. Below, I include links to his NPR interview about typewriters and the app as well as a link to the Hanx Writer website. Then, I include the text from my snail mail letter to Mr. Hanks.
NPR Interview with Tom Hanks on Typewriters
Dear Mr. Hanks,
My name is David Newstead. I’m writing to you in regards to your typewriter collection and expertise in that area. I’m currently attempting to restore my grandfather’s old typewriter – a Cole Steel Portable Typewriter manufactured in the United States between 1956 and 1966. Since you are the most well-known typewriter collector, I thought you would be a good person to ask about this. From your own experience, how have you overcome the limited availability of replacement parts when restoring older machines? I’ve talked to several repairmen in the D.C. area where I live and replacement parts for the Cole Steel have been impossible to locate so far. I feel like these older repairmen have a wealth of expertise, but once they’ve gone no one will be left who really understands typewriters. My mission to restore the Cole Steel is part personal challenge and partly a personal mission since my grandfather passed away a few years ago. I kept his typewriter since I thought it was the coolest thing when I was a kid and that there’s something special about these machines. Anyway, any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated.
All the best,
David Newstead
April 18, 2016
Who’s Crying Now? Reflections on Politics and Masculinity
By Diane Rubino.
The men in the spotlight this political season have been caricatures of machismo, emoting by shouting, insulting, and threatening violence.
Since attention begets attention, I wanted to highlight the other side of the emotional aisle, the “new masculinity” of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.
Garland choked up behind silver spectacles when discussing his wife and daughters after Obama’s Rose Garden nomination announcement. He’s also visibly moved discussing his work and the US judicial system in his dating-profile-like “Meet Merrick” video on the White House YouTube channel.
Since the departure of high-profile crier and Speaker of the House John Boehner, The Donald’s rabid fury has been the most reported male emotion. The continuous media coverage seems to reassure his competitors, supporters, and staff that the traditional male’s limited emotional spectrum is not only alive, but celebrated.
Even so, Garland’s nomination is a hopeful sign for gender equity.
The White House’s marketing campaign to get Garland on the Court highlights his character, personality, and downright niceness in addition to his jurisprudence. In some ways this treatment is standard. The tone and content of this president’s Supreme Court announcement is similar to what he said about Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
But in this most recent nomination, Garland’s personality was underscored.
Obama recycled the phrase “understanding before disagreeing” from his speech introducing Kagan. This time the president also added that Garland disagreed “without being disagreeable.” In Merrick’s Tinder ad to America his welling up about justice could have been edited out—but was not.
No matter what comes of the nomination, it’s a reality check that there are possibilities in the highest echelons of power for men who reject traditional trappings of masculinity.
Notably, Garland is being proffered as the replacement for Antonin Scalia, an old school man’s man. Scalia’s aggressive badgering, inflated confidence, and sarcasm, are woven throughout C-SPAN’s cache of recorded Supreme Court cases. His blustering is a flavor of manliness that needs to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Merrick Garland lacks the machismo that oppresses women and stokes violence. He embraces family, public service, and even volunteers with children. More importantly, he represents America’s growing acceptance of new masculinity, a pillar on which we can build a more gender equitable future.
Diane Rubino is an activist, New York University instructor, and applied communications professional who seeks to make the world more healthy and humane. Learn More.
April 15, 2016
Quantified Happy Memory Project
By David Michael Newstead.
This week, I presented at DC’s Quantified Self Meetup, detailing a project I’ve been working on in my free time. I spent a year creating a list of every happy memory I could think of, then analyzed the information for greater self-knowledge and personal reflection.
Below, you can listen and follow along to the presentation. And start your own Happy Memory Project with a downloadable sample version.
PowerPoint Presentation
Start Your Own (Downloadable Version)
April 12, 2016
Doing My Laundry and the Myth of Sisyphus
By David Michael Newstead.
It happened again. My pile of laundry steadily grew until circumstances demanded that I wash it. This was inevitable, I suppose. It’s part of the logistics of being an adult that I didn’t give any thought to once upon a time. Years ago, I had no real concept of the nuts and bolts of adulthood, even if I thought I did. Then one day, there it was – work, bills, and laundry. Tasks that I never finish no matter how many times I complete them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. It’s just different than what I imagined. Before, I could only see the independence and the maturity, but I never considered the price tag. Or quite frankly the upkeep, which is the real issue. Because although you might want a lot of things from life, how many things do you want to have to constantly maintain? As for me, I wash and dry my laundry every week or two. I drag the hamper up to my apartment, folding and hanging things as necessary. Then as soon as I finish, I pretty much start all over again. And maybe there’s something funny about that to me.
April 8, 2016
Review: The Mask You Live In
By David Michael Newstead.
I’ve wanted to see this documentary for a while now. And last week, I finally got the chance. After watching it though, I felt like I needed to think about the material for a few days. The Mask You Live In touches on a wide variety of issues surrounding masculinity in America. In my view, this ends up being the film’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness since it covers so much territory. But that overview format also means the audience can identify with a specific issue that might resonate the most. These include insights on sports culture, socialization, education, violence against women, hook-up culture, suicide, mass shootings, and more. For me, some observations were applicable to my own life, while many others were not. However, that’s not a criticism so much as it’s a recognition of the vast differences that are possible within American masculinity.
For example, one segment focused on a kind of round table discussion by prison inmates who were all violent offenders, serving life sentences. Their perspectives on how they were raised, what manhood means to them, and how a man solves problems were incredibly interesting, because they embodied where negative forms of masculinity can lead. Related to that, Jackson Katz explained how mass shooters and sex offenders are essentially being manufactured and that they aren’t aliens that grow up separately from the rest of American culture.
And it’s that same culture that’s under scrutiny throughout the film. The basic takeaway being that a hyper-aggressive, emotionally atrophied form of manhood is the root of many of these problems or at least a major contributing factor. One way the film underlines this is by pointing to the significant jump in boys’ rates of suicide as they enter adolescence, which occur at five times the rate of girls’ suicides and are the third leading cause of death among boys.
But far from just discussing the extent of the problem, The Mask You Live In also advocates for a better kind of manhood and shows how we might get there. But for me to really reflect on that, I want to watch the film a second time.
April 1, 2016
The Greek and the Greek American
By David Michael Newstead.
I sit down with a Greek immigrant and a Greek American to discuss the immigrant experience, their connection to Greek culture, and the wide-ranging issues affecting Greece today.
March 31, 2016
March 25, 2016
A Film Noir Evening
By David Michael Newstead.
A story in Film Noir speak.
It felt cold as hell outside. I was at the end of a long day of nine-to-five, but there was a frigid wasteland in-between work and home. I grimaced just at the thought of it – another winter. Standing there, the wind bit into my face and I hid behind a coat and a scarf, desperately trying to stay warm. All of a sudden that gym bag I was holding onto seemed about as likely as ten cents worth of pulp fiction. That’s when I realized maybe fate had other plans for me.
A subway ride later, I pulled up a seat at the local diner. On a night like this? I was content to just waste away with everyone else who staggered in from the cold. Then after that first drink and the restaurant’s soup of the day, I began to notice the woman to the right of me and the dame on my left. Outside, it was still dark and bleak and inhospitable to human life. In here though, there were a hundred different faces, loud and animated from too much alcohol.
It wasn’t long ‘til a certain femme fatale turned to me, started telling me all about her divorce. And I’ll admit, it had all the twists and turns of a great detective novel. The trouble was, there weren’t any heroes in her story. Just people being loud and animated.
I finished my drink, said my goodbyes. Then, I paid my check and left.
The hallway of my apartment building was deathly quiet except for the keychain rattling between my fingers. Inside, a few lines of moonlight filtered in through the blinds. I took a deep breath and pulled off my jacket. Suddenly, the room lit up with the dim glow of a laptop. Online, every movie ever made was staring back at me – tonight’s entertainment options. But no matter which classic I picked, I was preoccupied. Part of me kept wishing that winter would finally end.
March 24, 2016
March 20, 2016
The Quotable Ben Franklin #5
Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.
