I haven’t acquired the Olivetti Lettera 22 that Leonard Cohen famously ‘typed with under water’ and did, in a rage, throw across his room. I would like to think that thanks to the good folks at Hermes Delivery company, I do own an uncanny replica of the ill-fated machine. Although, his was a pistachio colour. Mine’s called il bruto Garibaldi: ‘The Brute Garibaldi’, because it’s Italian and has the rugged charm, liberality and war-like appearance of Guiseppe Garibaldi, a key figure in the Unification of Italy, and the namesake for a classic biscuit.

I can see why Cohen fell in love with his Lettera, even sneaking onto the Olivetti work-floor to seek an illicit repair job from a typewriter guru. It’s action and type are svelte compared with Japanese typewriters. Features such as the touch-sensitivity settings, the paragraph indenter and the basket shift predate my Silver Reed by 20 years and do the job much better. It’s also quieter than a mouse’s cough. The details shout quality, even when they smell of old tobacco and are filled to the brim with 50 years of magnetic dust. The spring return lever and its folding design are genius touches.

‘I was in a mood of some extravagance and I put the typewriter in the bathtub and tried to type under water. Then I threw my manuscript for Flowers for Hitler in the bath and tried to scrub it with a nail brush.’*

It’s a shame then, that this Lettera got sucker punched in transit. To tell the truth. I enjoyed making rubber grommets from an old iPhone case to replace the ones that once held the body in place. Think ‘atomised’, and that will give you an idea of the condition the grommets were in. I found bits of old rubber lining the inside of the Lettera and the body rocked on the frame. The front bar protecting the type keys was cracked and bent inwards, preventing the spacebar from moving. A bit of metal-hammering and duct tape reconstructive surgery and the face no longer interrupts the space bar.

Always send that well-worded email, even if you feel patronising, to spend longer than 30 seconds packaging something brittle and mechanical. This ‘replica Leonard Cohen Lettera’ arrived in way worse condition than the photos show. I bent the frame back to a better (not perfect) shape. It’s as though the typewriter has suffered a dislocated jaw or a bad stroke as the front lists to one side. Anthropomorphism of inert objects. That’s me all over. But I don’t name typewriters often, like I do cars. They’re a tool that should be used. I’ll post a short I wrote using the Lettera that has many working titles, one of them is ‘Misguided bullets’. Information I gathered about Cohen and his Lettera anecdotes were taken from the link below at 1heckofaguy.com. It’s a good summary of the trials, tribulations and triumphs he achieved with his little journalist’s portable. I wonder where that machine is now?

 

 

* Cohen quoted by Scott Cohen in his book, Yakety Yak, 1994
Gathered from: http://1heckofaguy.com/2011/02/23/leonard-cohens-olivetti-lettera-22-typewriter/

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As a side note: I found myself using the Lettera with the cover off, initially to un-jam type-slugs, then to correct the ribbon spool nuts and finally to enjoy the sight of a compact portable spinning out words. After searching about I noticed that a lot of Lettera users end up doing the same.