Mental Radio

Sometime last year, I had a dream about my friend Bryan Doerries (a fellow counselor at the UVA Young Writer's Workshop, you know the one all the 15 year old girls had crushes on?). I dreamt that he started a radio station, and the next day I wrote to tell him about my dream. As it turns out, he was trying to start a radio station, and he was reading the book "Mental Radio" by Upton Sinclair. So, I too, bought "Mental Radio" and between Richmond and NYC, Bryan & I conducted some of the same transmission techniques Mr. Sinclair did on a regular basis with his wife. I am quite convinced, that if we had stayed with it just a little bit longer, by now we'd be exchanging "Mental Emails" without even having to bootup or download. Bryan, now a well-known playwright in NYC, is recently married and has an intense passion for typewriters. He even had his mother wait in a Denny's parkinglot in the middle of her East Coast roadtrip in order to give me a typewriter he'd bought for me at a thriftstore. Then he sent the typewriter ribbon in the mail. Thank you, Bryan! No matter that you practically have to use your elbow to punch the keys, it is a real thing of beauty! So, when I heard an NPR interview with Darren Wershler-Henry about his new book, The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting, I ordered it for Bryan and had it sent to him straight away. Turns out it came on his birthday! Mental Radio to you Bryan and congrats on your marriage!