Typist and typewriter: Hunter S. Thomspson
Cats: typist & typewriter|Today we start a new series on GT: typist and typewriter.
Some of the best prose ever written came through the keystrokes of a trusty typewriter. You can almost hear the clickety clack of the writer in the garret tapping away on the old manual typewriter. Those days are gone now and typist and typewriter have been pushed aside by the word processor.
But at GT, we still believe that the typist and the typewriter are things of dignity that should be remembered and respected. So each week we will salute one such pair - typist and typewriter. This week our typist is Hunter S. Thompson who used the IBM Selectric (Red).
Thompson is best known as a proponent of “new journalism”, a form of writing that engages the subjectivity of its author and often includes fictional elements to dramatize real occurrences. Among numerous examples of his eccentric and daredevil approach towards writing, he became the first reporter to infiltrate the Hell’s Angels. He rode with them for a year, an experience that led to his being savagely beaten up.
Thompson produced a stream of outrageous books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), which was made into a film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in 1998; and Generations of Swine (1988). At the end of the 1980s he contributed a weekly column to the San Francisco Examiner. He has also worked as a writer for the television series Nash Bridges (in 1996), starring Don Johnson.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:01 am
Fear an Loathing in Las Vegas was one of the first novels I ever read voluntarily. A must read for anyone who has had some exposure to mind altering drugs.
Don’t forget “Where the boffalo Roam”. I didn’t read it, but i saw the movie starring Bill Murray. I never remember movies, as I have a highly developed brain.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
perhaps your highly developed mind is the result of mind altering drugs or reading books by people taking them.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 am
The image of a bar full of blood-soaked reptilian police chiefs, and the drug-addled terrorised response from the two protagonists is etched in my brain, and has flavored all subsequent contact with large reptiles and the uniformed authority alike. Definitely not something to be raised at US Customs
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Reducing the overall number of brain cells does demand that some efficiencies be realized.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:55 pm
As with many things, I’m woefully unaware of Hunter S. Thompson’s writing but I do respect the typewriter and often wished I had my own as a child and perhaps fledgling blogger.
May 3rd, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I am still mourning Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas changed my life, in addition to introducing me to the pleasures of recreational drug use back in my 20s. May he rest in peace!!!