and a solvent induced high.
the older i get the more convinced i am that
'progress' isn't always a good thing.
i live in a world of indesign, photoshop, pdfs, dropbox
and print-runs in their tens of thousands.
yet nothing evokes a feeling of achievement more than hand cranking out a limited run of facsimiles on a ditto (if you're american, more likely banda if you're british) machine.
they were a staple of every classroom long before whiteboards were ever dreamed of and were widely used in offices.
the shock of the purple words and the coolness of their touch
as the alcohol evaporated from the moist paper combined with the heady rush garnered from the fumes produced an unforgettable experience. holding and sniffing a ipad just doesn't give the same kicks. not to me anyway.
i fear banda and ditto machines may have been consigned to the dustbin of history in the same way that typewriters, film photography and records all have.
wait a minute. aren't they all making a come-back?
in the same way that they cast the focus onto taking pleasure from raw creativity rather than impersonal digitisation, packaging and presentation, a ditto would surely do the same.
perhaps there could be a life for the ditto machine still yet.
