I’m in the midst of my research on Douglas Adams and the academic reception of his oeuvre. I found a nice tidbit about his Hermes typewriter in M.J. Simpson’s bio on Adams. Macworld, a tech mag devoted to Apple computers, ran a piece on him in 1985:

“The obsession with words and music that is so evident in both his books and his life has carried over to computers. Douglas Adams’s workroom has a collection of three Macintoshes, plus mice, keyboards, disk drives, a 90-megabyte Sunol hard disk, a DEC Rainbow, and a couple of printers. Timelessly, an old Hermes manual typewriter remains amidst the electronic gadgets” (151).

He had this to say about his Hermes (presumably his Ambassador):

“‘I use it when l get stuck ,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s something wonderfully fundamental about hitting the keys and watching them strike the page–something a word processor will never entirely replace'” (152).

-Article by Jeffery S. Young

Quick personal update. This was posted from Texas. Headed down for the second half of the summer after the fiasco of having to move to a new house in Gallup. A twenty year-old carpet put me in the ER. (Had to make sure it wasn’t walking pneumonia.) Carpet was replaced after cajoling absentee landlord. Let us prepare for the land wars of the future, Comrades. Had a wonderful time with Eliezane in spite of the Texas heat. Much needed quality time. A little fine-dining at Aldo’s. Like the old days in New Orleans. We’ll have to do some good eating in NM this winter.

Heading back to Gallup by the end of the week. Work resumes, except now I have a quality mountain bike in my possession: a Salsa Blackthorn Deore I’ve nicknamed the Bat Bike. Very keen on trying it out on the NM trails. It’s a monster. May the Trail Faeries keep it safe on my roof rack.