Buy Cormac McCarthy's typewriter

If you do, there's no doubt you'll become a great writer once you start using it.

I mean, everybody knows that as soon as you put on a pair of Air Jordans you can dunk.

You can't?

You musta bought fakes.

Anyway.

Wrote Patricia Cohen in today's New York Times Arts section front page story, "Cormac McCarthy has written more than a dozen novels, several screenplays, two plays, two short stories, countless drafts, letters and more — and nearly every one of them was tapped out on a portable Olivetti manual typewriter [top] he bought in a Knoxville, Tenn., pawnshop around 1963 for $50."

"Lately this dependable machine has been showing irrevocable signs of age. So after his friend and colleague John Miller offered to buy him another, Mr. McCarthy agreed to auction off his Olivetti Lettera 32...."

More: "Christie’s, which plans to auction the machine on Friday, estimated that it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000. Mr. McCarthy wrote an authentication letter [below]

— typed on the Olivetti, of course — that states: 'It has never been serviced or cleaned other than blowing out the dust with a service station hose.... I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not published. Including all drafts and correspondence I would put this at about five million words over a period of 50 years.'"

Everything you need to know to place your bid is on the Christie's website.