In Mechanica Antiqua

I listen to a lot of music, I have no favorite song or artist, or even a favorite genre.  However, I do have a favorite album.  I’m the kind of person who’ll pick a single great song out of an entire stack and hate the rest.  But just one album has seemed to hold the only spot in my favorites category every day since I first heard it in 2005.  The indie album “Illinois” by Sufjan Stevens. I’m not sure why this one album enraptured me so much.  Maybe because it had been engrained in my life for so long.  Now this isn’t the only album from Stevens that I love.  “Carrie & Lowell” is excellent, and several songs cherry picked from a few other albums made my playlist as well.  “Illinois” though, man...don’t even get me started on track 9.  That’s my jam.  I’ve got it on all my devises, I covet the CD, and have a backup cassette just in case ;) Topping the charts back in 2005 doesn’t seem to do it enough justice.  It should’ve stayed there, though it did make the top 100 so

So, I was asked what a typewriter ribbon does.  Of course I gave the simple technical answer about the medium for transferring ink to a page, but it really got me thinking.  What really is a ribbon? In a way—in a far-fetched, metaphorical way—a ribbon is akin to a soul.  It’s a medium people use to express their ideas.  Not just those, but their sentiments, their intellect, and all these are recorded through a silk ribbon soaked in ink.  Sometimes one feels that the ribbon will go on forever, pouring out words at their command, but then it unwinds completely, what was once happening, has now ceased. A life only stretches so far, only carries...only gives, so much.  And when that ribbon runs dry, and all those ideas have been committed to a page, it’s purpose has been fulfilled.  When one has given all they’ve got, when one has poured themselves out completely, when one can no longer hold on, they have fulfilled their purpose.  The end of the spool falls away. Perhaps now, it