On typewriters and cat-eating coyotes

It’s tempting to continue following “The History Detectives’” bungled story about the typewriter suspected of having belonged to Ernie Pyle.

The subject has attracted record traffic to the Red Electric.

And just think, I had hoped — if that’s the right word — to write about coyotes’ devouring neighborhood cats.

It’s a challenge, but I’m going to try both … and hope an elegant transition between the two emerges.

Alan Hale of the on-line Portable Typewriter Forum suggests that the History Detectives may have come up with the right conclusion about the typewriter — but for the wrong reasons.

The PBS sleuths, you recall, were trying to determine whether a Corona #3 portable, which now belongs to Eric Warlick of Portland, had once belonged to Pyle, the famed World War II correspondent.

The detectives concluded that Warlick’s typewriter was at least not the one used to write one of Pyle’s last letters from Okinawa before the WWII correspondent was killed by a sniper’s bullet. Their conclusion was based on a difference in the numeral “1” as it appeared in the letter and in the way the typewriter produced it. Their “expert” was ignorant of the fact that Pyle simply may have used the lower case “L” to make a “1,” and that Warlick’s typewriter was fully capable of doing just that as well as producing a real “1” by using a shift key. For the full discussion, go to my earlier post.

(At this point you may be looking forward to hearing about the coyotes and the demise of the neighbors’ cats, but bear with me .... )

Hale says the program’s “document expert” could have pointed to other evidence showing the typewriter’s typing didn’t match up with the typing on the letter. Hale offers some qualifications for his judgment, but here is his analysis.

“… The overall lengths of the samples were different,” which, he admits, could be attributed to variations in reproducing up the samples for display.

But, he continues, “Regardless, both the shapes and the internal proportions of the characters (both letters and numerals), and the typefaces as a whole, are distinctly different … the letter bows were much taller and fuller in proportion to the overall height on the Pyle (letter) sample.

“Besides the differences in shape, the Corona's typeface seems to be both shorter and narrower within a given character's Pica space and with generally shorter serifs, leaving more apparent space between characters — assuming, of course, that it wasn't a paste-up (distortion).”

I’d only add that if I were Ernie Pyle and dependent on a functioning typewriter in the battlefield, I’d have a back-up under my cot back at the base camp. Eric Warlick may have one; the letter may have been typed on the other.

Let’s see. An artful transition to coyotes and cats.

How about “There’s a war zone of a different sort closer to home and it is taking its toll on the neighborhood cats.”

Oh, never mind. Let’s cut to the chase, which happens to be coyotes’ chasing down and devouring neighborhood cats.

I fear that Marlin and Taco many be the latest feline victims.

According to missing notices places around our neighborhood Marlin is “lost” and Taco is “on the lam.”

Let’s hope so.

But Mike Sallee, who lives near Robert Gray Middle School, has seen families of coyotes emerging from the forested ravine behind the school. It happens that the missing cat postings define the area around the ravine. And recently, Sallee reports, a horrified group neighbors discovered the remains of a half eaten cat near the ravine.

Moreover, a few months back, I reported here that I spotted a coyote crossing our street around 11 p.m. at a place that happens to be an extension of the draw that feeds the ravine.

Portlanders pride themselves on this city’s being “weird,” but Portland is both weird and wild. Forest Park and its adjacent natural parks provide a corridor of more than 10 miles of wilderness. Elk have been spotted in our neighborhood. Eagles soar above us. Raccoons, of course, scuttle about in the night. I recently saw one disappear into a concrete road culvert fifty yards from my house.

Marlin and Taco may have placed themselves at the dangerous intersection between their laid-back domestication and the wilderness that surrounds us.

And I must confess, as I write this, our own cat, Izzy, persists in (no, insists on) exploring the same wilderness. Fortunately we live at some distance from the ravine. But is it a safe distance?

We bring Iz in before dusk and let him out after dawn. So far he has not gone “lost” or “on the lam.”

So far ….

I’d rather write about typewriters.

Only 38 days left! Are you ready?

Thirty-eight days left? Are you ready to meet what?

Your blank TV screens, of course.

Yes, it's another inspiring TV-B-Gone/TV Turnoff Week post.

First, repeated posts on this subject require this rhetorical inoculation—hold still, you won't feel a thing:

Psst, this blog shills for no one—and no thing, including clever stealth TV remotes.

The "Three-Eyed Red One" (see photo) is just trying to level the media playing field with the blog-spatula it's been given.

I mean, think of all those effusive articles glorifying this or that flat-screen TV. The stories never question whether you need pulsating plasma panels planted on your walls in the first place.

Well, a growing legion of us is asking you—and ourselves.

So, as TV-Turnoff week nears on April 23, the excitement mounts.

Only 38 days left! Not too early to ask how you and your family are planning to celebrate. (Remember, tips and benefits are here at this special Kaiser Permanente TVTO site as well as at the TV Turnoff Network site.)

I'm thinking along the lines of a week of Scrabble, backgammon, darts, horseshoe pitching, bicycling, typewriter puttering, garage-door painting, lawn reseeding, ivy pulling...and, of course, blog writing (and, yes, time spent here is "screen time." So call me a hypocrite. At least the mind is engaged—well, mostly.)

Or I might take Henry David's advice and fit in some long walks in the woods. (If you have to ask, "Henry David" who?" you haven't been paying attention. See recent posts.) The "woods" that beckons many Portlanders is Forest Park with its 30-mile-long Wildwood Trail. But there are countless others.

And, as they say, there's more!

Coming here soon will be a blog-review of the just published book, "The Big Turnoff, Confessions of a TV-Addicted Mom trying to raise a TV-Free Kid." The author is Hillsdale author and neighbor Ellen Currey-Wilson. Ellen will discuss her book at Annie Bloom's on April 24. According to the publicity advance, Ellen goes after TV insanity with one of the deepest penetrating knives in the drawer: self-deprecating humor.

Meanwhile, TV-B-Gone inventor Mitch Altman and I have been corresponding again.

Always dangerous.

When I recently put in my bulk order for 20 stealth remotes, I asked about some interesting uses for them. Also, with our TV Turnoff Week celebrations coming up, I wondered about what message he carries to his TV-Turnoff audiences.

Here are his answers:

Different people and organizations have used TV-B-Gone in different ways.

I've used it as a fun excuse to talk in schools about TV and its effects. Adbusters, and Culture Jammers in North America and Europe roamed around in small and large groups turning off TVs in public places, leaving fun literature behind them. Some organizations have used it as raffle prize gifts, pledge gifts, sales for enhancing revenue, making fun videos to promote their work.

TV-B-Gone gives people an opportunity to think about TV and its effects. I think it is important to make these concepts fun, easy and non-threatening, since otherwise people have a tendency to become defensive (just as addicts are often quite defensive when talking about their substance of choice).

In my presentations at schools I introduce myself as an inventor and show them my invention TV-B-Gone, which is a fun way to start. If there's a TV in the room I tell them I'll give them a demo later.

My talks are very personal and autobiographical, talking about being really unhappy and depressed as a kid, bullied and tormented daily, retreating into TV when I got home. I use that as a way in to talk about TV and its effects on me, personally. I ask questions of the kids as we go along to see what thoughts they have on how TV may be effecting them.

Before ending with an inspirational message about choosing well what you do with your time, I ask them their favorite things in the whole world, then talk about inventing, one of my favorite things, giving TV-B-Gone as an example.

Then I ask them what they'll be doing instead of watching TV for the next week. They're usually pretty excited by that point.