This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Do you mind if I use my notebook? I asked. Go ahead. I pulled from my pocket a black oilcloth covered notebook, its pages held in place with an elastic band. Nice notebook, he said. I used to get them in Paris, I said, but now they don't make them anymore. Paris, he repeated, raising an eyebrow as if he'd never heard anything so pretentious. Then he went on talking. Hello, and welcome to episode 23 of the erasable podcast. This is our second episode of Wet Paper, in which we're going to talk about moleskins with a small M, not the branded ones. I'm Johnny Gamber from Pencil Revolution. I'm here with Andy Welfle, the pocket that holds all of my memories, and with Tim Wasem, the elastic, who holds us all together. How are you guys?
Very good. How are you?
Doing well.
So tonight we're going to talk about the sort of loosely defined little tiny notebooks that are usually hardcover and usually have a pocket, usually have a bookmark, but always have an elastic that are summed up by Bruce Chatwin and the song lines in several places. That one is the short one. There's some longer ones that are really romantic and that I love very much that you can look up. So shall we start the way we always start with our tools of the trade?
Sure thing.
Go almost alphabetically today.
1/3. I am drinking an Allagash saison. It's a Belgian style ale. It's a saison. It's not a saison, unless you're maybe from Belgium or France or something. It's a. I'm reading from the label. It is a traditional saison with herbal highlights and a rustic, dry finish. It's really good. It's kind of spicy and it's a little crisp. It's not like super hoppy as crisp beers usually are, but it's really good. It's a really good rainy day beer because it has been pouring all day after more than a month of literally no precipitation.
It has.
The clouds have opened and it's just pouring here today. I was just saying before the show, like, San Francisco weather is just Bay Area in general. The weather is so weird.
It's so weird.
I just, like, I just don't know.
You have to start saving your pencils.
Two of each.
I did.
I know.
For a pencil arc. Well, I, I almost like soaked my, my ambition field notes. I, you know, keep that in my back pocket and I need. I think I need to get an expedition because, like, yeah, like, I kind of dried it out and it. Luckily it didn't really penetrate the COVID which is good. But if I was outside in the
rain a little bit more, it would
have gone all the way through.
Yeah. And just think if you were a sucker and used fountain pen.
Oh, God.
I know these colors don't run. This graphite doesn't run. So I'm doing that and I am writing with my other bullet pencil. The. Well, it's the. My other twist bullet pencil. I got two of them. It's the black one. And this one does not have the little clip on it, and it has a Black Wing 602 in it. So that is what I'm doing today. How about you, Tim?
I'm actually drinking port tonight, which is something I don't usually drink, but I had some from good old Trader Joe's. Has a good cheap one that we went to in Asheville this week.
Do you want to tell us what you're really drinking?
It's actually a little thing I just worked up. It's a white Zinfandel mixed with Sprite and hatred, so.
Well, the hatred and all that sweetness.
Yeah, yeah.
Sometimes in our show notes, we. We fib on what we're actually drinking. But it's a. It's a port.
Yes. Yeah, it's Porto Mergado, Ruby. It's called. What do you.
What do you like about port? I'd be interested to know. I don't know much about port.
I'm actually. Honestly, I wouldn't even go as far as to say I like it yet. It's like the first time I've had it. And it's different. It's. It's like a. Usual wine, I guess, is around 14% alcohol and a port is closer to 20. And it's sweet, but it's so. It's got like the. The weight of a cab salve. Like a heavy wine, but it's. It's a sweet. It's. I think it's technically supposed to be a dessert wine. Like something you have after a meal and you drink about half of the normal glass of what you have, you know, regular wine, but, you know, that's for wussies. And I'm drinking a full glass of it, but
open the cork with your teeth. Pop.
Yeah, Yeah.
I have a friend who. Not. Not eating the corks for whiskeys. I have a friend who drinks port with Dr. Pepper.
Really?
Yeah. Yeah.
Weirdly, that sounds good to me, but I'm like a Dr. Pepper Nut.
But I think that. Yeah, I think that if it was like. Like if it was A really good port that you wanted to savor by itself, it wouldn't be good, but I bet, like, for a cheap port, I bet it's pretty good.
Yeah.
Well, you know, there's that drink. I forget the actual name of it now, but I've had it before. It's something that's really common in Spain, like on the beach. It's this iced drink that's basically half red wine and half Coke. Oh, it's actually. It's actually pretty delicious. Yeah. Surprisingly, like, they just use, like a. They use a cheap wine and they mix it with Coca Cola and it's. It's actually pretty good.
It's called a calimoco.
Yeah, that's it.
That's awesome. That sounds. Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me.
Yeah, it's worth trying. I think we did it one time. We had a bota box and over the summer and had friends over, and we did that before. We were, like, playing Wiffle ball outside or something like that. And so we were outside in our front yard with whatever you just said.
Kali moko.
Calimoco.
It's the. There's one pronunciation that is with an X. It's Kalim, M, O, T, X, O. But the. It looks like the Spanish pronunciation is calimoco.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm. I am writing with a uni penmanship 4B hex, and my bobsleight Mountain Tom 6x4 from Johnny. I'm still loving that thing. That's my. My new. My official podcast notebook.
Man of 4B.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a. Have you either of you used the penmanship before?
I don't think so.
They're really nice. They feel a lot like the high uni, but the core is probably twice the diameter.
Oh, no.
I've seen these before. Did you get them at Jetpens?
Yeah. Yeah. Elaine sent me a pack of the 4Vs. And they're. They're really. They're really nice. They look great. It's kind of. It's a mixture of like a maroon, black, gold, and navy blue that goes together really nicely and has some Japanese characters on there too.
Yeah, it looks really cool. Looks. It looks like the top of a. Like the top looks like one of, like a brush. Like a calligraphy brush or something.
Mm. Yeah. And it's. It's. It's really soft and makes a really. It's really nice to write with. And it's kind of like the. One of the pencils that I would compare to, like, the broad nib and a fountain pen or Something like that. It always will give you a pretty thick line. But it's nice and dark and super smooth. If you put it in the classroom friendly, you get a terrifying point.
They only have four BS and six Bs there and nothing harder.
And they have triangular ones too. Yeah. So I opted for the hex. But. But I love it. I love the. I've been. It had been sent.
All right.
You know, I got it and it had just been sort of sitting off to the side for a long time. And this week I picked one up, took it to work and was using it and. Yeah. Just kind of rediscovered it and really enjoying it.
You know, Elaine Jetpens is like, like 20 miles from me.
Whoa.
One of these weekends I'm gonna meet up with Elaine. Yeah.
That's awesome. Yeah, good people.
How about you rob them?
I'll actually be. I said that talking about them later too.
Yeah.
Well, I'm on my seventh cup of coffee. I've had a lot of Pete's major Dickinson's blend today.
Oh, yeah.
Because I was too lazy to go to the store where I get my locally sourced stuff. And that was at the grocery store. But it's good. I think that's my favorite, you know, mass market branded coffee.
I like. It's funny because, like the Pete's, like I just now encountered a Pete's store. There's no. There's no pizza in Indiana. And I've been going there and like in the store it seems really indistinguishable from Starbucks. But when you. When you buy like the coffee bagged in the grocery store, I feel like it's way better.
Yeah.
Plus it's in a black bag, which makes it feel fancy.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Yeah.
And then I'll put the stupid looking pictures in the front. Like a bird. Bird in my coffee. What's up with that? I actually have switched to sparkling lemon water because if I drink any more coffee today, I might die. And it's getting late. I'm writing with a Too late to die. Too late to die tonight.
You know that Klingon saying that today is a good day to die? I think Worf has said it a few times in Star Trek. Tonight is not a good night to die.
No, no, no, no. It's gonna warm up to 50 degrees this weekend. Yeah, die then.
Geez.
This morning Here it was 11 degrees and by the time I got out of school it was like 48.
Crack your head.
Yeah, yeah. It was really disorienting.
Our weather's been seesawing around here so much. Everybody's complaining about headaches.
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
I can relate. I'm writing with our pencil of the week, which is the Laddie tririte, and I let my daughter pick my next field notes. So I have the Copper pipe night raid DDC book. And I have no idea what the hell that color means, but it is cool. Really cool. It doesn't photograph well on the Internet. It's like a shiny tan. It's cool.
The. Oh, the copper pipe one.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's. It's so cool to me, like, how, like, they got that color from mixing that orange and that silver together.
Mm.
Like, it seems so economical.
Yeah, that was. That was the first one of that set that I've used that factory floor. And it is also the first field notes I've ever lost.
You lost one?
Just disappear. I was like 20 pages into it and I just disappeared. It's the weirdest thing.
Did you have anything confidential in it?
No, no.
Just. Just my, like, you know, mysterious your life short story notes.
And see what you have to do is shopping list about people in there and then you'll never lose it.
Yeah, I'll make like a. Like a hit list on the first page that, like, I don't want anybody to see. Like, people I would have murdered. Here we go.
The list is. This is who I'm gonna unfriend on Facebook this week.
Harsh.
You're not looking at pictures of my cute kids anymore. Alrighty, you guys want to switch to our pencil of the week? The Triconda Roga Laddie Tri. Right.
Yeah.
So Mr. Tim was so generously supplied us with.
Where'd you come. Come buy these, Tim?
Amazon, actually. Yeah, they're Got them on Amazon. It was. I think it was like 11 bucks. And they only come in a 36 pack, so I got a good stack of them. Some to use, some to store, and some to share. So, yeah, it was like a deal that was kind of dumb to pass up, especially for liking the. Liking the Laddie as much as I do.
Yeah, yeah, I really. So. Okay, so the ladee tri rights come in, if I'm not mistaken, three different thicknesses. Is that correct?
No, I have no idea.
Okay, maybe not.
I'm not. Not.
Oh, I'm thinking of the Tri Rex. Never mind. Never mind. Yeah, so I really.
Oh, yeah, they do.
Yeah, the Tri Rex do. Yeah. Okay, I was thinking of the wrong one. No, this ladee is like a perfect thickness. Like, I don't really like jumbo, jumbo pencils that Much. And like, I. This is maybe a little bit thinner than the Triconderoga, which I actually really like. Not the quality of, but like that rubber coating and just the. The size and the shape of kind of that soft triangle. And I think I like this better because it's like a little bit smaller, closer to, you know, a normal pencil circumference that I. That I like. But, man, it's just so darn cool looking too.
Yeah.
Yeah. They did a really good job on the finish.
There's so many. So many pencils that are triangular that have like a round ferrule and sometimes a round eraser.
I hate that.
Yeah. And this, this one, like, everything is that same triangle shape that feral. The wonderful Ticonderoga Green, yellow, green, yellow, green. Ferrule is just perfectly the same shape. And the eraser is great too. And it's all. It's all aligned with the edges. It's so nice.
Yeah. It's good for getting those little tiny erasing marks.
Yeah.
Yeah. You can use the edges. Yeah. Is it. It smells nice. Is it cedar? Do you know, like, can you tell?
It smells like it's what the. The other fat pencils are made of.
Okay.
I have no idea what that is. It's light colored.
Mm. Yeah.
Because that's my only gripe with it, that it's not fragrant like the regular lady is.
Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't tell because one. It's. Mine's fairly fragrant, but one half is. Has like the reddish tinted almost like when you see a real cedar pencil, and the other side is the real light color. So it's like two different slats smashed together.
Yeah.
But it's. It's interesting how they make those. Like, I, I think Charles once, like, drew it out for me, like, what the two slats look like in order to come together to form the triangle shape. And a lot of places, like, apparently, you know, where they make the golden bears now, it's just not set up to do that. So that's why there's no longer a golden bear. Triangular.
That was a really sweet pencil too. Going to wax, wax Nostalgic for that. Shed a tear.
Drop me a. Drop me a text if you need some more because I sort of hoarded them. Did I tell you how I. How I got all those?
No.
So when I. When I worked there for pencils.com, i was working remote from Indiana and I was going to this, like, social media breakfast. I was on a panel of speakers, and I wanted something that I could just, like, Give to the audience. So I asked them to send me like a. Like a gross of them, and they're not that much as a gross. Like maybe 30 bucks. And. And I was expecting to have like maybe 100 people there, but like 60 people came, so I handed out. I handed out 60 of them and still had like 80 of them left. So I was. You know, I've been using. I've been going through them, but, like, not super fast because I always have these other pencils to try out. And yeah, so I have. I have some. And I'm trying to be pretty judicious with what I do with them. So I'm definitely going to sit here in front of everybody listening and tell you two that, you know, if you need some, let me know.
What grades would you guys go for?
Oh, man. Go ahead.
The only thing making me. The only thing keeping me from giving it an A is is that it's a pain to sharpen. So that's the only thing. Like, I had trouble finding, like, a good sharpener for it, which. Johnny, don't even. Don't even say it because. Oh, I just like. I'm full of just like, you know, like boiling regret every time you. When you sent me that picture. But tell us. Tell us how you sharpen yours.
Well, Troy at Classroom Friendly Supplies has a new sharpener that's plastic and it sharpens fab pencils. Or I think it's designed for fab pencils because it doesn't do a very good job on regular pencils. But it even took the Faber Castell 9000 Jumbo and made a point that looked just like that sweet, long, fat factory point.
Yeah. Awesome.
That's so cool.
And it doesn't leave bite because it has rubber teeth. Now you're gonna reach to the mic and choke me.
Let's put those rubber teeth on the regular ones now.
Yeah. I wish there was some way to get that face plate apart, but it looks like it wouldn't go back together.
Somebody told me that they put. Oh, like that silicone you can put on stuff that, like, hardens. They put that on those teeth and it really helped.
What?
I can't remember where to find that, but I'll.
We need to find a recipe for this.
Yeah.
This is a project we have to do. We do a live video.
Yeah, we should put that. We should put that sharpener that you're talking about, though. The fatty one in the show notes.
Oh, crap, I forgot.
Yeah, the one that. The one that I've used that works the best for me is the Staedtler. It's like the. Say, like a cylindrical one with the two holes in the top.
Yeah.
One says graphite. One says graphite plus color.
Yeah.
Like, it has, like, a slightly larger one. So that is the only sharpener I have that has a larger hole that doesn't put, like a. The comb wedge puts a really short, stubby point on it, which I hate. So this one gives me as close to, you know, like, sort of a medium point as I'd like because I tried knife sharpening it, but I think
that's hard with the triangle.
Yeah, it's kind of hard, but I. So it does. Definitely doesn't look as pretty as I've gotten some of the other ones to look, but I got a nice long point, but the core is so soft that I'd start writing with it and it would just kind of break off. So.
Yeah.
So this. It seems like it needs to be. Or at least for the point that I want. It's got to be, like, sharpened enough. In a manual one. This one works pretty well.
Yeah. I have an old crappy, like, classroom, like, old Boston sharpener with that, like, rotating wheel of, like, different sizes, circumferences it can take. And I. I could use. Mostly I just have that for decoration now because I just really hate how it just chews up a pencil and.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's. And it's so. It's so old that, like, it also doesn't leave a very smooth, like. Like wood point. Like, it definitely looks chewed. So I need to. Yeah. So I just had like a. An old, Like, I don't. I didn't have that one, but I had an old, like. I think it was a KUM handheld sharpener that I got back from my pencils doc or Pencil Things Dot Info days.
Yeah. Somebody at my school has one of those. The electric Exacto sharpeners. Yeah, it's like real super heavy duty. And it has a hole that. It fits really nicely and puts a really nice point on it. But it's. Yeah, it just. It eats like an inch in order to give you the. Yeah, in order to give you the point. So that's not worth it.
So it looks like we kind of across the board all said a minus. Yeah. So that's. Is that better? Johnny? I think I can hear you typing.
Sorry.
No, it's all right. I think across the board, that's, like, better than most of the other tech condos. Right. Like, we rank that higher than that one that we just
poopy yeah.
Yeah, it was a piece of junk.
But who was it in the Erasable group that found some old, like,'90s ticonderogas made in the USA at Office Max.
Oh, yeah.
Trying to remember. Yeah, it was. It was really good. Like, they. They said they just got it at Office Max, and it was definitely Made in the usa. And it still said. Oh, it still had the, like, kind of the 90s branding on it, and it was. It was really, really impressive. Like, I wonder. I just wanted to know the story of, like, how that was still on the shelf. Like, somebody found it under a. Under shelf and just stocked it isn't.
Is Office Max the one that's going out of business?
Oh, is it?
Yeah, I think Staples is buying Office Depot slash Office Max, because the one.
Because we have an Office Max and an Office Depot in town, and one of them, I'm pretty sure it's Office Max closed. And, like, so there's a sign on the front of it that says, like, go to Office Depot, which is on this address, whatever. Or at this address. And so my guess would be that it was just sitting in the back and, like, they were going out of business and they were just kind of, like, bringing everything out.
Yeah, no, Staples bought Office Depot. So there's gonna be just one.
Just one mega. It's got to be like a. Yeah, Staples. I don't know. Staples is the best pencil selection of, like.
Yeah, they carry staler.
Yeah, yeah. No, I like. I'm. I like Staples. Just the idea of there being only one.
Yeah.
Like. Yeah. Makes me sad, but I'm scrolling through our group.
You know, there's so much content that happens. This.
Oh, this was on Twitter.
Oh, it was on Twitter. You're right.
Because I never hear anything cool on Twitter. This is why I'm on Twitter.
Yeah. It was somebody that you follow and you tag the two of us in it as well. I'm trying to find it. I know that this is not the place to talk about pens, but have you guys been following this Esterbrook controversy?
Yeah, it's pretty hilarious. Yeah.
So are you familiar? Do you remember Estherbrook? The. Oh, the old, like, fountain pens from, like, the 30s, 40s, 50s.
Giannani. They're the fountain pen choice of Ernest Hemingway.
Yes.
Hate to break it to you, but he liked to switch out the nibs.
You know, he made mistakes. You know, mistakes were made. Married four times. You know, he admitted when he was wrong, went back to pencils.
Yeah, right, right.
Tell me he did.
For the love of God, So some. So their trademark expired. And like. Like pencils.com and Blackwing, they. Like, this other guy picked it up. And unlike pencils.com and Blackwing, they. He is trying to reproduce a pencil and. Or a fountain pen and is not putting very good thought into it and has just made, like, some super crappy thing. And Brad, who's, like, pretty. Pretty honest when it comes to stuff like that, just kind of called him out for it. And I guess they're kind of fighting right now. So everybody should listen to next week's episode of the Pen Addict in order to find out the hilarious conclusion.
So, yeah, it's like a. They're making a. They're charging $400 for a pen that they're probably spending, like, 10 bucks to make in China or something like that.
And apparently they don't look like the old Esterbrooks, even, which are. I have an Esterbrook, and I think it's one of my favorite pens.
Yeah.
So anyhow, that was a little off topic, but. So we're giving the tri, right? A solid A minus.
Yeah. What made you give it the minus, Andy?
I think the sharpening was a good one.
See, I didn't have that problem. Yeah, well, I give it a minus because it's not made of cedar. Yeah, it's a minus right there.
Yeah. I don't know. And I guess lately I've just been sort of just unimpressed with, like, Ticonderogas in general. So this one is impressive compared to the other ones.
My daughter promptly stole one because Tim sent a few to. A few to each of us. Yeah, it's in her backpack. She's like, I like this one. Usually she doesn't come out and say, it's a little more coy about it. I wish I had one of those.
Send her some more.
Do you just push her out of the way? And then I grab it back and
be like, no, it's mine. No, she's got a lot of sort of like 80s and 90s vintage stuff, of which I only had one, and she asked for it, and, you know, I couldn't say no. Yeah, I'll steal it while you're sleeping. Switch it out while you take a nap.
You take it while she's sleeping, and then, like, she gets up from her nap and it's just gone again. Like, she's already gotten it. Like, sometime in her sleep, she came out and took it back.
Yeah. There was an empire that was pink that I took back from her. And I woke up one day and it was sticking out of my calf. So I leave her pencils alone.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I didn't even know she came in the room. Her teacher's not listening to this. So. Shall we move on to our fresh points?
Yeah.
Awesome.
Cool.
Oh, I like. I like the word you have here.
Sharper. Napalooza. So I kind of. So Mark Tucker, who runs the newly minted. Right. Analog blog, he and I have.
Really well done.
Oh, yeah, he's super detailed and thoughtful with his reviews and like very scientific. Spending a lot of time on them. Good writing, good photos, good blog. There's a link to it in Show Notes. He had a kind of a sharpener review. Comparison. Comparison. Review. I should say about just like several of his little handheld sharpeners. He had like the Elven bullet in there. He had a KU magnesium, like long point one. And he had like the thing that I'm always in love with, like the old AW Faber Janus sharpener there. And I saw that and like, oh, man, so gorgeous. Because I always, I always comment on that when I see the. Somebody talking about the Janus and he sent me one. I'm like, holy crap, this is amazing. Thank you. Yeah, we. He had an extra one. It was the 4046, which is a little bit different than the 4048. There's some very subtle differences to them. I previously thought that the 4046 was the like silver, like stainless steel version of the brass 4048, but the 4046 that I'm holding right now is also stainless. Excuse me, brass. So I decided to do a little comparison myself and I get it started. And because these Janus sharpeners are so old, my blade is dull. And because they are slightly curved, it is fairly impossible to sharpen them. And because it is really old, it's very impossible to find replacements on ebay. So I'm going to have a little adventure and try to figure out how to sharpen this blade. And it's like definitely no fault of marks or anything. It'll be an interesting challenge to figure out how to do this. I've been trying to play around with the idea of taking like a regular KUM blade and putting that in there and just like tightening it down so it curves a little bit. Because that's kind of the big thing for me about this is it tapers a point, makes it really long and gorgeous. But this blade is way thicker than a comb. And also it screws in from the middle. Yeah. And it Kind of looks like a. Like an old fashioned safety razor blade. Like some of the first safety razors. I think a Schaefers was the brand. I can't remember because it's kind of double sided so you can unscrew it, turn around and screw it back in. But huh. Yeah, but yeah, that's cool. I definitely, I tried, I tried it out and it sharpens the wood just fine but instead of sharpening the graphite it would just dig in and snap it. So I have a kind of a half like I. My wife's just like what are you doing? So I had like a bowl and a pencil and I was like sharpening the pencil all the way down. It's about, it's about a. There's maybe like a third left and just this like bowl of shavings. So I definitely yeah, gave it a good trial and try and tried it out. But, but I also, because I was interested in them, I bought that Alvin Bullet, the brass bullet. The point's not my favorite but I really, really like holding it and it's so portable. Do you guys have one of these?
Yeah, I don't.
Yeah.
Awesome.
They're like four bucks on Amazon and
it's down to four bucks.
Maybe it was score more than that.
I get another one.
It's. It's really like heavy. Like not heavy but like it has a good weight and it's really compact and it has like a medium to short point.
You said come with a warning about lead?
No.
Oh mine. I got the Mobius Rupert one that I bought at Dick Blick and there's a sticker on it talking about lead and washing your hands and stuff like that. It turns out that your average American is exposed to more lead than they recommend. When you use your keys one time so. Oh well, that's the only lead and pencils that are breast sharpeners. That's why KUM stopped making them.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Can you send me the link?
Yeah, I'll do that. And then I also picked up. It's a long point sharpener, a KUM magnesium one. So it's super lightweight and it is not like the, the other one that has like a two stage sharpener. That's just one altogether. So it's pretty nice. It makes a really nice point on it.
Did you get the new one that's bead blasted or is it the one that's very.
This is bead blasted? Yeah.
Awesome. I don't have one of those yet.
Mark was talking about how he could like it's Magnesium. So he just needs to get like some. Some steel or flint. No steel. No flint. I'm sorry. And he can, like, make a fire with it, too, if he needed to.
Put that in my. My friend Dan and I did that once.
That's awesome.
Well, we did it with a match or lighter, and we didn't think it would get that hot. It was on a table. We lit it and it was like when it burned a hole in the table.
That's awesome.
Don't try this at home.
Put that in your environment. So, so, speaking of things, for sharpening your pen. Well, first of all, thank you so, so, so much, Mark, for that. That was a super generous gift and I. Well, I can't use it right away. I am going to have fun trying to figure out how I can.
Hey, I think it's cool that you're trying to use it.
Yeah. And I also talked to Gillis Gills are one of our erasable podcast group members. Gil, if you're listening to this, I'm a stupid American. I can't pronounce your name. Please let me know how to say it phonetically. And he has a big collection of these Janus. These Janus sharpeners. And it's pretty impossible to find just the blades and still, again, hard to find the sharpeners themselves because they're expensive. So, speaking of gifts, general, generous gifts from people and sharpeners, we need to have a word about Topher,
I think
you guys would all be in agreement to me, with me that this is a super, super cool thing that he sent us.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So his fiance lives in France, and he went over there to visit, and he came back and sent three openl knives, sharpening knives, to Tim to distribute. And this is really pretty blue. Is this wood? Yeah. And just a really nice, long, sharp point that you can kind of lock into place with this little, like, rotating band. And yeah, these are the ones that they always recommend for sharpening pencils. I'm super bad at sharpening pencils, but I feel like I can now try to get better. So, yeah, that and then also some. Some Calipino products.
Yeah, Those pencils have almost identical finish to the last American run of the Ticonderoga black.
Oh, yeah.
They even smell the same. I don't think they're cedar. Yeah, it smells in that paint smells so good.
Oh, you're right. I just sniffed it. I see it. You guys are better at this than I am. I do not instinctively sniff my pencils.
What? I didn't smell it. Someone told me some Weirdo. Someone. Someone told me at school, and I like a room talk.
I like those Calipino notebooks, too, but they're just white, so I always, like, stain them really easily. Like, I put them in my jeans, and they turn blue. I always get coffee on them.
Yeah, I love that. Those are. Those are beautiful. I didn't. I didn't send you guys this. I very selfishly kept it for myself. They come in, like, a cardboard box. It's just like a really simple. Kind of, like, folds in on itself a few times, I guess. It's not really a box. It would fold out flat if you, like, opened it all the way up. But you can just kind of, like, tuck it and fold it and slide it together, and so it can have this really nice textured look. Just like the notebook, but it's like, nice textured box. A textured box that it came in. Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Topher. We'll try to gather together some cool stuff to send you.
Yeah, yeah.
The other thing I wanted to mention is Inquisitive, which is one of Mike Hurley's other shows on the Relay FM network. He had Jim Koodle on, which was pretty cool. They talked about field notes. Mike's a big fan. There's some interesting kind of inside information on field notes and some history, which was really neat, kind of listen to. So check. Check that out. I'll put a link in. Show notes. And by the way, we haven't said it yet, but if you don't know this already, show notes are at erasable US23. That's where they'll be. So, yeah, Jim's an interesting guy. That was a good show. Did you guys listen to that?
Not yet.
Yeah, I listened to the other one. I thought it was the same thing. His earlier one with Kudo.
Oh, check it out. Yeah. I think he had him on before when it was command space. Right.
Yeah. There were a lot of trains in the background, which I thought was cool.
Yeah.
I don't know why I think that's cool.
The last thing I'll mention. Have you. Did you guys see those Word notebook adventure journals?
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool.
Yeah, those are cool. I was kind of surprised that they weren't like, I love the design on them. I think it's, like, covers. Gorgeous.
And the color.
Yeah, yeah, the colors are great. I was kind of expecting it to be a little bit more rugged of paper, like, almost like an expedition. Like something that was maybe a little bit more waterproof, but it's it's also. I mean, it's one of those notebooks that people either love or they hate. Like, it's like. It definitely has, like, a very structured layout inside to put your location and the date and the condition of the environment you're in. What does the other one say? Companions. Yeah. And then some notes. I would feel a little bad actually using them because I don't really go on adventures.
Yeah, I think I'm adventure.
I'm gonna get some from the kids because kids have adventures a lot.
That's true. Yeah.
No, it's like an adventure for every page. Grown ups. Grown ups don't do that. But everything's an adventure for them. Today I went to school. Boom, there was a dance page two.
So, yeah, those are pretty cool.
I really like that brown.
Yeah, that brown's really good. And the yellow, too. Like, it's. It's differentiated enough from, like, right in the rain yellow. Yeah. So, yeah. Bravo, bravo. So that is all of my fresh points, Tim, how about you?
I got another generous package from our collective buddy, Will Fangy. He sent me my first Baron fig. He sent me a pocket notebook. This is the Light Bulb edition parody. So, yeah, it is really pretty. And I like that. Purple is actually my favorite color, so I was excited about that. I really like this purple, and I like the texture on the COVID The size is still kind of throwing me off. I wasn't ready for the different dimensions. Kind of like the short, fat look to it. And it was kind of funny because I got. Will sent me that, and then Topher sent us the Calipino notebooks, and both of them, in their notes to me, apologized for them being dot grid. So, like, I've been very over the top in my dislike of dot grid, apparently, because both of them apologize.
You know what? If you don't like.
Sorry about the dot grid.
If you don't like the podcast, Tim, you just don't have to listen to it.
Okay.
Oh, yes. Yeah. So paper. Paper. We're talking.
Feels cool.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm gonna. I'm looking forward to returning the favor and hooking him up with some stuff for my. From my stash. The one thing I did notice about it, I opened up the notebook and there was, like, a long strand of white thread just, like, hanging out inside, like a weird little.
Was it attached to the stitching?
Nope. I like the bear and figs a lot, but their quality control needs to up a little more. But they're still. They still function.
Yeah. If you want to interact With Will, there are like, he has. He has so many podcasts. He's definitely been bitten by the podcast bug. Will is on my. He's the co host of my other podcast that isn't nearly as cool as this podcast.
No offense.
Dot Grid is the name of it. Sorry, that was my blatant plug right there.
Good podcast. Yeah. My only other point I was gonna make is about. I sent you guys some texts this week about some things that have been showing up in my classroom, which was rather exciting for those of you who don't know. I teach eighth grade, so I'm around like 13, 14 year olds, and every once in a while they'll ask me about my pencils, especially when I have a black wing. I actually got a question today. I got the paintbrush question today, which I've mentioned before. Is there a paintbrush on the end of your pencil? But there's a kid sitting second row working on an assignment. And I had just happened to bring a black wing pearl to school that day, and I had it behind my ear. I was talking. I had given them an assignment, something to work on. I looked down and a kid had a nice, long, fresh black wing pearl in his hand.
Oh, wow.
He's just right in the way, just going at it. I was like, oh, cool. And I let him work for a while. And I checked in. I said, asked him about it. Hey, where'd you get that? He goes, oh, I asked for it for Christmas.
Ugh.
My new favorite student.
That is a geeky kid, but awesome.
Yeah. So he asked me that.
And then
did I tell you guys a story about the other teachers who ordered black wings at my school too? No. What? I'm like the black wing evangelist. My school. But I had two teachers that were like, hey, hey, I know you're into this kind of thing. I just want, like, a really good pencil. What should I get? And so I showed them, and I kid you not, I told him. And then months went by, like two months go by. And then one morning a couple weeks ago, one of them pokes his head in my room, and he's holding a Blackwing 602 in his hand. He goes, check it out. I got some off ebay. I was like, oh, cool. Tell me what you think. I hope you like them. He walks out of my room. Two minutes later, the other guy walks up and goes, hey, check it out. And he's holding a Blackwing 602. And he's like, I got some for Christmas. I forgot to show you. So on the Same day they both come in to show me that. And now they both have classroom friendly sharpeners. I think there's like four of them in the school now. So good things are happening, man.
You are an evangelist.
Yeah, yeah. There's another kid who had ended up with Blackwing 602s and. And came up to me today and asked me a question about JetPens, which I've never, definitely never mentioned. But he goes, have you heard of this website called JetPens? Yes, I have.
Why, yes, yes, indeed.
I was always scared that he was gonna find out, like, find my blog through JetPens or find through some wormhole or something. End up listening to this podcast, which would terrify me. So a lot of that kind of stuff has been happening. I've had, like, probably a dozen kids since that those two kids started using those in class. And like, we're using them down to a nub. And like, you know, they're not. They're never going to lose them. I've had kids asking me and kind of. There's one kid I gave one to, and then there's been more kids who have been kind of slyly trying to get me to give them one, too. Just kind of said, no.
I was like, no,
I don't like you.
There's this website called JetPost. You should go check it out.
I don't like your face, kid.
Yeah, you're just trying to be cool. But, yeah, so that's really. Those are the two things I just thought that was really cool, like seeing black wings coming up in the wild with young people, which was pretty exciting. The kids. And every once in a while, a kid will ask for one. I'll have them behind my ear working on a test. Or she'll be writing something in the middle of something. I'll just hand it to him and say, give it back to me at the end of class. But I watch them when they start writing and their eyes just kind of open up a little wider and they look at it for a second and they just start writing and then they
walk away and you turn into Liam Neeson. You're like, I will find you
taken. Yeah, that's all I've got. Johnny, what about you?
I should thank William Min first, because in case you don't read my blog, that's a Revolution has some sweet new logo work, which is super exciting because I've never had a logo on there before.
Yeah.
Let alone a really cool one, for which I just bartered some cool pencils.
Did you know. Did he also make one for your other blog, Stencil Revolution.
Yes. Okay, but that one I did not pay for. Well, I paid for it in blood, but. Well, yeah, not mine, But thank you to Will. And his blog will be in the show Notes. He's got a really cool blog. He's done two really long posts about pencils in the not that distant future that are pretty cool.
It's such an interesting. I feel like his writing is a perfect glimpse into his mind. You can see him just starting to think about pencils and thinking about things that he's never thought about before.
Mm.
Yeah. Which is really cool.
Yeah, he's got a really cool Instagram because it's like my babies and pencils, which is cool. Also, I don't know if folks might already know this, but Generals makes a cedar point number one. I think it's new because they don't have a box. And Gary has them on notegeist. This is not an advertisement. I paid for them with money.
But tell me again what number one equates to in the other. Hardness scale B. Okay.
As in these be awesome. So they don't have the number 333. We can't use that word. Bitching pencils. But they're really cool. The box just kind of has a sticker over where it says number two.
Yeah.
And the pencils themselves just have a one. It's really neat. And at first I didn't notice a difference. And I don't know if they're darker, but they're smoother. I need to test them a little more. I kind of forgot I had them. I don't know how that happened. Another cool thing is this. Like, I hadn't bought pencils in a while until I ordered stuff from notegeist. And now my house is exploding with Ticonderoga stuff because apparently I won some sort of contest on Instagram on handwriting day. And then a package shows up at my house from them, and it's wrapped in yellow and green ribbon, which is just really cool. She's like, what I was looking at. I'm like, they wrapped it in yellow and green ribbon. Did they look what came for Daddy?
Like, did they ask you for your address or did it just show up?
They did ask me for my address. Okay, we have your address. Okay, are you ready? Send me a card or something.
I feel like they. They've sent you things before. Like that sharpener. Like, they should have had that.
That's what was in it. It was the sharpener. But they repackaged it. So it comes with a dozen pencils, which is really cool, and a pack of their neon pencils they sell at Staples. And it looks like they hand selected them. They're like, perfect.
Oh, wow.
Very excited about that. And then this week, I was in Hagerstown, Maryland, which is birthplace of the guy who invented Tabasco. And there's an Office Max there. We were at a military funeral for an old veteran we knew, and it was my dad and my brother and I. We were starving, so, you know, you gotta find Panera Bread. And there was an office Max. So I ran over there, and they had those Ticonderoga golf pencils.
Oh, yeah, Those are so adorable.
Yeah, I've been stocking them on Amazon, and they were like, 15 bucks. I'm like, ah, I'm gonna give them all away. I don't want to spend 15 bucks on them. But they had them marked down to $6 and they had four packs. I mean, they're kind of crappy. The ferals are crooked on pretty much all of them. But I went to pay for them, and they rung up for a penny. What? So I almost bought all of them, but I figured three other people can have a surprise.
So did they. Did they literally just charge you a penny?
Yeah, I bought some colored pencils there, and they were like, 424. Wait, okay. Clearly your computer doesn't do math correctly.
I need to find an office Max around here.
Yeah, I think they're going away. Yeah, we had one that looked like that when I lived in Carbondale, and they closed it and made it an Office Depot. Office Max has good lighting. That's how you know you're not in Staples. You can see stuff, and there's no carpet, so. Yeah, I'm like, there are, like, a hundred more Ticonderoga pencils in my house than there used to be. But I'm probably gonna give all these golf pencils away. They're pretty cute. And the erasers on them are really small, like, itty bittys. Half the size of a regular eraser.
Yeah.
So adorable.
Yeah, I've seen them on the. On the Internet. They are super cute.
I'll send you guys, like, a whole crapload of them.
Oh, there's one in Palo Alto. I totally need to go there. There's one, like, downtown San Francisco.
Do they do that thing they do in Baltimore where the downtown store. You know, everything's twice as expensive, probably. I. Yeah, you're there. Yeah, we gotcha.
Well, no, I. I live in San Mateo, which is like, like 15 miles south of San Francisco. So I there. And so they have like regular big box stores around here.
Okay. There's a. There's an office D pack or office D packs.
Office Office D Pac Chopra.
They roll in there. Like, how come this pack of G2s is $36? Because you're here and you need them.
You're paying for outrageous rent in this space, guys. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, this. In the harbor, the rent's pretty high.
Yeah.
My last brush point is. You know, the, the Target dollar bins are really famous and awesome. And their spring stuff includes some really cool pencils that have rockets, owls. I forgot the other ones have. But they're pretty adorable. And a little net bag full of pencil topper erasers that are cupcakes, robots and robots. I forgot the other one. I think they were owls. So my daughter wanted to give me a rocket because I have rocket band aids. So I have a rocket pencil now.
She used to collect like half of one Band Aid. Oh, no pencil. I was gonna say that's gross.
No, I don't think there are more band aids. Get rid of that one, though.
I do love robots. I'll have to check that out.
Yeah, they're. They were a dollar or two dollars for the little bag. They're really, really cute.
Really cute. Did I tell you I couldn't bring my big Target thing with me when I moved?
Oh, bummer.
Oh, that sucks. I know.
I had one of those giant, like nine foot wide, like, Target pencil displays that said, like, welcome to our school shop or whatever. And I knew a guy who knew a guy, and I got. I took it home. But I. There's no way I could have gotten it on the truck and to this new place. Plus, if I did in this much smaller space, my wife would have killed me. But yeah, I was like, there's nobody around here I can just like, give it to who would appreciate this. So I folded it up and threw
it in the trash.
It was so heartbreaking.
Should have burned it. Stood around it.
It's so big. I probably would have said something else on the way,
like throw in the 300 Baker woods fire.
In other news, Fort Wayne burned down because of a giant pen. And I would have used like, pencil shavings as kindling.
Giant flaming pencils.
I hope Target does another set of colors this year because that's really cool that they've been doing that. Those ones from last year were sweet. Awesome. So should we move on to our main topic of small M. Moleskine style Notebooks.
Absolutely. Awesome.
So I don't know if you can
start with an explanation of what small M Moleskin means.
Yeah, these are. Well, I think the name came from the skin. Which people or the skin? The COVID material that people used to use for aprons and tablecloths and stuff. That was an oil treated cotton canvas. But moleskins were covered in vinyl until recently. So I don't know if you guys remember, they used to laser engrave them. There was a company that did that and they had to stop because it makes you sick.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting.
Yeah.
Burning PVC creates sulfuric or hydrochloric acid in your lungs.
Oh, man.
Really bad. They're trying to ban vinyl siding because it's really harmful to firefighters. Yeah. The more you know. So they've taken that of a lot of pencil stuff. Like now the old PVC erasers are just plastic and they'll be like PVC free. They used to say, hey, pvc, it's great pvc.
Yeah. You know me. Yeah.
But I think we can include things that aren't made of that material but are, you know, that size with an elastic and a pocket and usually a page marker.
Yeah.
The ecosystem ones that were my favorite were, I think they were paper covered in latex and that could be separated for recycling. It was really well thought out. But I don't know about you guys, but the regular, the big animal skins, that's how I got into nice stationery. That was sort of the gateway for a lot of folks. Like black wings are now, you know, get caught up in that.
It's Italian.
Hemingway wrote with it, which I did buy when I got them. Oh, no, no. Crap. Definitely.
I've never been anything cool.
Yeah, I stopped using them when it stopped being a notebook and it started being a brand. And they had reading glasses like. Yeah, this is lame. Plus they started to be crappy.
The 19 carpenter pencils.
Oh yeah. My wife bought me some of those recently. She was in New York and went to the Moleskine store. They're like really nice, but they don't come with a sharpener. So if you don't have a, you know, good knife skills, you're screwed.
Or at least at the Barnes and Noble. I asked. They're like something crazy like that 15 for two of them or something like that.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. Okay. Where were these made? Heaven. They do. They feel good in your skin, on your skin, on your hand.
But
yeah, the price is ridiculous.
I don't want to know.
Rub it on my leg.
I. I do really have to hand it to Moleskine, because I, I think that that was the brand that I, I first. Where I first noticed, like, a nice style notebook. Like, I. I think. I think I bought one of those maybe like late high school, early college. And I was. I was like, this is really nice. There's a place in here for a piece of pocket. Yeah, it's. It's. It's a. I mean, it's. A lot of people will just. Just rail on a moleskin. But. And how do you say it? I hear most.
I always say moleskin, but I know it's totally wrong.
I. I mean, that's how I say it.
Yeah. We talked about it before, didn't we? It's like Moleskine is the actual. Yeah, I'm like, most people say moleskin. Yeah.
Yeah. But, yeah, and they have some cool special edition ones. Like, I bought a really cool, like, Pac Man 1. There's a Lego one that I don't have, but I really want.
I really want the Simpsons one.
Oh, the Simpsons one is really cool. Yeah.
I have a little Prince planner. That's pretty.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I had the Darth Vader planner last year.
Now people are gonna stop listening. Like, they like Moleskins and, And like,
you know, their, their marketing is a little over the top. Like, you know who used it.
Legendary notebook.
But it's. I mean, but it's a solid notebook and it has. I've never had one fall apart. I've had a lot of them. The paper is not my favorite in the world. It's a little thin. And I know that they're kind of sketchy about their paper too, aren't they?
Yeah, it changes all the time.
Yeah, it's never changed. It's always the same stuff. Like.
No, it's not. Yeah.
For a while there, G2 would literally never dry. And then.
Oh, wow.
They had some later that dried instantly, huh?
Yeah. So, yeah, I've never found them to be, like, a ridiculous notebook. Should we talk about the blog, Johnny?
Yeah. Moles Guinery was the original stationery blog.
Yeah.
Back in, what, January 04.
Yeah.
I think that inspired a lot of people to blog, including me. Armand sort of disappeared again for a little while, but he was like the big daddy of everything. Yeah, he was really, really generous with, you know, links and promotion and stuff like that. So if there's some weird miracle, he listens to this. We love you. And then that. What happened? Remember the history correctly. They Bought the blog and Armand ran it and it was still pretty cool. And then Moleskin started running and I don't think anybody reads it anymore. It's really terrible.
It's been such a long time since I've even looked at it.
It doesn't even load. It takes forever. Why am I sitting here for five minutes waiting for this webpage to load? Yeah, maybe I'll write my Moleskin about it.
Now, the blog that I just kind of about, Moleskine, like notebooks that I think I followed just really closely when it was in a short product, in a short run as black Cover. That was a really great blog. He didn't go very long. It's mostly. I think it was mostly in the, like the 2000. Okay. It looks like his last post was 2011, but I remember it being mostly around like 2008, 2009. There was a guy. I'm trying to remember his name. I want to say Nick. He had a blog, blackcover.net and he basically was just looking for the perfect black notebook. Basically the perfect Moleskine type notebook. And there was actually some like, really cool stuff that happened. He really loved this one called the stiff, Stiff flexible, all one word. And it was basically a little black notebook that had like a little bend in the COVID so. So you could just kind of bend it backwards as you were using it or like tuck it in your pocket. So it was stiff, but it was flexible. Paper is really good quality. It had this really cool green foil gilding on. Was an Italian brand. And correct me if I'm wrong, Johnny, didn't he spawn them to put it back into production again?
Yeah, that was my understanding.
Yeah, they didn't last long.
They were kind of big here for a little while.
Yeah, they almost. They cannot went out of business. Yeah. This guy lived in Italy in 2003 and he came across the stiff flexible notebook made by Mazzu Leoli. That's such a stupid American. And he just like purchased a bunch of these things. And so he really loved it. He brought it back and. And it generated enough of a buzz. I think he was boing, boing at one point where they started making them again. And apparently that didn't go so well because then they stopped. And I mean, I could never find this anywhere.
They were sweet.
Yeah.
And they included a note in them about being fountain pen friendly.
Yeah. And it was so cool. Like, even. Even the little envelope in the back was really neat. It had like a flap thing that allowed it. You could almost use as a Bookmark as well. It was just a really cool. I wonder if I can find them on ebay. I'm not gonna check. I don't even wanna know how much that would cost.
Oh, back in the day I found some at Tuesday mornings. I don't know if you guys have that where you live.
Oh yeah, we had a Tuesday morning. Yeah.
Yeah. That's where I found all the ones I had for like five bucks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he did have a review in there of kind of the noose to flexibles. They came in multicolors. There's a really pretty green one. I'll put all these links in, show notes.
I have one with the earth on it.
Really?
Yeah. I don't remember what it said. It said something kind of stupid, but it was cool looking.
Cherish the earth.
It's full of my innate thoughts now, so it's alright.
Oh look, I just ran across a comment that I left that in 2008.
Now we feel old
linking to my Pencil things dot info blog which if. By the way, if you go to pencil things dot info, some like SEO something or other grabbed it and now it's all about home interior design writing for search engines. Here are the. Here are the resources Vapor intrusion investigation under like the resources section. I don't know, this is really weird. So yeah, blackcover.net was a really cool. That's kind of what I use if I'm trying to reference a little black notebook that I can't remember as I'll go check them out. So yeah. Why one of the questions. Why are they so popular and why are they so imitated? Are they specifically copying off of the Moleskine like all these other brands or is it something that is just a really great design and everybody needs to have something kind of standard like that?
Yeah. I think it's along the lines of why there's so many. Three packs of saddle stitch notebooks. Yeah, it's a cool format because I love field notes and all. But they didn't do it first. Moleskin did.
Yeah.
Calles.
Yeah.
Quite a bit before. That's the first. The first thing I thought when I saw field notes. Terrible. It's like, wow, what a rip off of moleskins. They're even craft.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's. It's really a. It's just. It's a timeless look. You know, it's. I get the impression that it's a style of notebook that's been around for a long time and when you look at it, there's nothing that could be dated about it. So there's not much you can improve on it besides just the materials that go into it. But it's a black notebook, the black band and a pocket in the back. You know, it's. It's one of those kind of. I feel like it's one of those perfect little designs that there's really no reason to improve on it besides the quality of the paper. It's not something that's really gaudy and it's gonna stick out and attract a bunch of attention or you're gonna be like, embarrassed to pull it out. It's just very, very clean, very simple.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if you were to take kind of like your favorite features of all the ones out there and kind of string them together, what would your perfect notebook look like or have in it?
You go first, Tim.
Well, my. I feel like the closest thing to the perfect one for me, which. I don't know if this really, like, counts, but this. Well, actually, I'll backpedal a little bit. I think paper wise, the best I've had in this sort of style is the Blackwing slate. I'm really in love with the paper in there and I love the lined paper in there, so. But I'm not a huge fan of the pencil slot on the side. I just don't use it. And I think I like the just all together kind of look more like a. I love the Rhodia web notebook cover. That has like, kind of a soft feel to it. But as far as qualities. Yeah. I mean, I think the slate is a. Is it a hundred pound paper or what is it? Or it's.
If it's not £100, like 90 pound, it's really thick. Yeah, I thought.
Yeah, I was thinking it was 100 and that's. That's about perfect for me. So that's the quality I'd be looking for. For me, it's just the paper. I don't. I want to have a paper that I don't have to think about, like, can I use this in here? Or was this gonna work? Or is there some paper that even certain pencils will kind of show through on the backside? So. And I just like that, but I don't have to think about it. So. Yeah, paper is the most important.
Looking at my review of the slate in here. Yeah, it's. That's a hundred pound. Yeah. The Palomino luxury notebooks are 90 pound and Rhodia is 80 pound. And who even knows what Moleskine is?
Yeah, whatever. 60 or 70 or something. Yeah. Johnny, what would your kind of ideal be?
I don't know. I used to think the perfect moleskin would be a moleskin made of recycled paper, which was sort of granted by those ecosystem notebooks. I don't know if they make them anymore, but I think the forest choice are recycled.
Right?
Oh yeah, I forgot about those.
I don't think they have a moleskin sized one. I think they're just like little calles.
I think I. I miss the, the old moleskins when they were, you know, they were sort of esoteric and you'd have to go to a travel bookstore to buy them. Oh, yeah, that. I. I know everyone, you know, pooped a brick when they found out they weren't made in Italy. I'm like, well, they were nicer when they were made in Italy. I'm like, they were never made in Italy, but they did used to be a lot nicer. Like the ones that I have from 2003 when I was working on my master's degree are like, still perfectly fine. The elastics are good ones that I had from a few years ago. The elastics have shot. Okay. Sums up. Yeah.
My elastics always, always breaking. Yeah.
I feel like they were perfect and
then always be breaking.
It's an album title. They used to be so nice. Now, you know, they kind of went downhill and it became a brand instead of a notebook.
Their website has a lot of like, did you ever go through and like pick what kind of a user you are? And there's like the worldly traveler, the hip urban journaler. This is stupid.
Oddly enough, I got pencil, blogger and podcaster.
Really? That was targeted specifically to you.
They were reading my Internet history. Now, their old website was really cool. They pulled up random movies they were in, including Amelie, which wasn't true at all. Yeah, they used to align themselves with, I don't know, sort of, you know. Hey, have you read Bruce Chatwin? Yeah, I've read Bruce Chatwin. Now, I don't think anybody knows who that is, which is a shame. He's a really good writer.
Yeah.
But. Yeah. So what are you guys favorite Moleskine? Big M or Small M?
Style books?
I think I have. I think I have three of them over the years. I have to first mention I'm a little embarrassed. I have never owned a Leuchturn.
I. Oh yeah, I haven't either.
I. And. And you have Tim, right?
Yeah, I've had one. They're really nice.
Yeah, I. I don't think about them enough.
I don't I just don't see him enough and buy them in the. In the wild. There's a bookstore in Asheville that sells them now. I might grab one once I need a new one.
I almost mean to get one. They have a big one called like a Master Book or something like that. That's like bigger than 8 and a half by 11.
That is a good a title for a book.
The Master Book.
This is the book. Boy. The book tells you what to write
in it in old country book writes you. No, it's a. Yeah, it's a good brand. I think you say lich term, but I don't know that for sure because I'm terrible apparently with this. But I would have to say that my favorite of the just like plain old like sidebound books would be the. The web notebook. The Rhodia web notebook. I discovered that. That was probably right after I discovered the Rhodia notepads. I kind of. I found somewhere where they had this and I just loved it. Had the orange one. It was bright, but it wasn't like Halloweeny. It was so great. I also had the Moleskine. It was the. A five size, the 5x5x8 and a half moleskine. But it was a reporter notepad, so you could kind of flip it up. Being left handed and not resting my hand on that spine was really great. And I. I love that thing. I. That's one of the first notebooks I think I used all the way up was a reporter pad. They're pretty good. Oh, Johnny just said they. You make a road. They make a rodeo.
Like that now. Yeah. Yeah. They're really cool.
Yeah.
Like the COVID folds all the way back.
How's it bound?
It's sort of bound like if you bought one of those portfolios that you can slide a legal pad into. It's like that, but it doesn't come out okay. But they're so pretty.
I have to check that out.
Yeah, I have one of. My wife stole it.
I love stole it.
It's gone.
Yeah. I think Rhodia is probably consistently my favorite paper brand.
Yeah, they. They did something better this time. Instead of letting the elastic destroy the COVID they put a little indentation for it.
Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. Oh, you know what? I've. I think I've seen these. Yeah. And then I guess my last one was. Was so I was. I think I may have talked about this before on here, but for a long time I used a gallery, leather planner, weekly Planner. And in 2000, I think 10, maybe. Maybe nine. I decided I didn't find a color of the gallery leather I liked. They kind of switched up some of their layouts, and I was really looking for something new. So on 43 folders, which is this old kind of like, productivity site that Merlin Mann ran, I basically put a call out for the perfect notebook and planner. And I listed all these specifications that I was looking for. And lo and behold, there was a bunch of comments, like, there's over 100 comments. And somebody suggested the Moleskine notebook plus planner. And it was perfect. It had. On the left side, it had the actual weekly planner, and on the right side, it had a blank line page.
Like, that's how my Darth Vader one was.
Yeah, it's so great. Like, I. It worked just the way my mind worked. It was perfect. But now it would just be almost impossible for me to use a paper planner. I have to do it digitally, so. And if I did have the paper planner, I would just be duplicating my efforts, so I don't use it anymore. But I still just love that, that layout. I don't think I found anyone who, like, replicates that the way that Moleskin did it. So those are kind of my three favorites. How about you, Tim?
Well, the first one I already kind of mentioned, the Black Wing slate. Yeah, Big fan of. I like that. The second one, these other two are really ones that I've been using for a long time, and I'm still very attached to them.
Real quick, Tim, I'd be interested to know about the slate. What is. Do you think of the spine?
That's. That's the thing. That's what I was saying. Like, the longer I use it, I'm not crazy about it. I mean, it does allow it to lie a little more flat, which is kind of nice. But. And actually, I should not be too hard on it because mine got kind of frayed kind of quickly from actually, actually because of the feral on the 602 sliding in and like, kind of catching. But at the same time, it wasn't that bad, and I'm almost done with it, and it stayed just intact just fine. So it only needs to survive as long as I'm using the notebook, you know, so. But. But yeah, the spine's interesting, I think. I like that it. That it lays nice and flat. The paper is really the all star of that notebook.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Because I can use, you know. Yeah. I mean, of course, any sort of pencil can use comfortably all the way to Broad fountain pens. Yeah, it's really nice.
Yeah.
The, the other, the next one which is, was, you know, we talked about how moleskine for you two was your entry into nice stationary or like when you noticed there were. Oh, there are good notebooks. I don't have to get a Captain America notebook for a dollar, which is awesome. Which I still do buy sometimes. There's this writer, Natalie Goldberg, who wrote a book called Writing down the Bones, which is a really cool book about writing. And one piece of it's split up into these little essays. And there's one essay at the beginning that is actually pretty influential on me, now that I think about it. But it was all about choosing the right instruments to write with. And she told, she said what she used and had all these kind of ways she thinks about what notebook am I going to use? And she's this very like Zen kind of personality in the writing instruction world. But, but she mentioned that she uses those notebooks like that have stuff on the covers like these cheap, cheapo notebooks just because she doesn't want to take herself too seriously.
Yeah.
And so if she's writing in, you know, like an Elisa Frank notebook or like a Iron man notebook, first of all, she's not going to be afraid to mess it up. Some people with moleskins are like afraid to mess them up and use them, actually. And then also she can think back and be like, yo, I think when I was working on that project, I was using, I was, I was using a Green Lantern notebook or I was using a Shaquille o' Neal notebook, that
Space Jam notebook, pretty old notebook. I definitely have several of those Where's Waldo notebooks from Target last. Last season.
Yeah. Yeah, those are cool. Yeah, I wish I would have gotten some of those. But my, my kind of first step into this world was the, the, the pocket sized hardback moleskin, the lined paper. I guess it's around three and a half by five and a half, something like that. And that is one of the few stationary related things that I have been using pretty continuous, like continually from high school ish time until now. I still have one that I have going. And actually there was a, I think it was about a year ago and it was right when I had found out about the pen addiction because that was kind of my entry into this community and there was word over Twitter or something that Kinko's was gonna stop selling moleskin. I don't know if you remember when this happened. And so I went to my local one and they Were all marked like 75% off or something crazy like that. And so I bought. I bought like six of them.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
So I had my stuff, a nice stash, and so I'm using. I use one now. Those are my. I don't talk about a whole lot, but I like them. They're. The paper is kind of terrible with inky pens, but with pencil, it's great. Yeah, I really love it.
And they're a good size and they're hardbacks, so it's like. Yeah, they don't distort.
Yeah.
And they're able to lay pretty fairly flat too, so I love those. And then the last one is the Piccadilly notebooks, which I've talked about before on here. I'm a huge fan of. Especially the big ones, which are, I don't know the exact size. I would say eight by ten, somewhere in there. They're almost like a little on the squarish side rather than like the 8.5 x 11. I'm pretty sure. I really like those. The paper's a little inconsistent. Everyone I've had works really nice with basically any pen I use. But every once in a while I'll have one that the paper has seems to have a little bit more of a texture to it and so the pencils will wear down faster is the only complaint. But they're so cheap and they look good and it's pretty rare that I have that problem. So those are the three that definitely stick out for me.
Well, speaking of the stiff flexibles, I've had a few of those that definitely would be on my list of three because they were kind of thinner and more pocketable than a regular moleskin, which I thought was cool. And number two would be the ecosystem one. I have no idea if this company still exists and I haven't been to Barnes and Noble in a while, but they used to just be like an exclusive Barnes and Noble thing. And they started selling them online. But they're USA made recycled moleskin and the elastic is organic cotton and stuff like that. And they were really cool.
Yeah, they're online ecosystemlife.com awesome.
Yeah, they stopped making planners. They used to make a planner like you were talking about and like the 5 by 5 by 8.5 size that was one of my favorite planners I've ever had. And then in 2012 they're like, yeah, we're not making them. Grr. I don't remember what crappy planner I had that year, but I hated it on principle. But Lately at Barnes and Noble, sometimes they'll have the colors nobody wants for, like, three or four bucks.
Yeah.
Which is a steal. So no one wanted pink. So my daughter made out, got her some pink ones. She really likes them. She filled them up really quickly. My favorite Moleskine notebook is the old 2003 Moleskine Big M ones. I remember the day I bought one. I went to the bobsleigh in Porter Square in Cambridge, and it was the big thing. It was like, this time of year. I was getting ready for my comps so I could get on my master's program and move, and I didn't know where I was going. And my PhD applications were all in. It was a very nice thing to have to calm myself down. And back then, the paper was better. I used, like, crappy pens and space pens, and the paper didn't degrade at all. It was fine ones from a few years ago that have a gel pen. And the paper is going all wonky. So if you go back in time, buy those. That would be sweet. The elastics are probably better.
Yeah.
Yeah. So we've been going on for a while. You guys think we should sign off now?
Yeah. Give these people a break. I want to apologize to everybody. It's been a while since we last put out an episode. We've just had a lot of scheduling differences, and now there's all these different time zones between us, which there's no excuse, but it makes it harder. So we'll try this.
Yeah. We missed each other.
Yeah, for sure. Sometimes I just want a online group hug.
I love those. Those moments where I get out of work and I look at my phone and there's, like, a chain of 25 text messages between you two. Like, I get to catch up and see what they've been talking about today.
It is interesting. It's. Yeah, we definitely, like, use a group text like other people use Twitter. Just, like, in, like, an ongoing conversation. And there's probably something new in there every day. Yeah, for sure.
Like, to the point where I'm pretty sure on at least on my phone, that our group text, like, max out my phone. And then, like, all of a sudden, I won't be able to. I won't be able to respond until I delete it and just start over. Like.
Yeah, sometimes you have to go in. You had to just delete images from that. From that thread. Sometimes I have to do that.
A lot of people, back and forth. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's online. It doesn't count against you.
Yeah. But then it shows up in your Google Picasa album.
Oh my God. Does it?
I think maybe they solve that. But for a while, like, I had a friend who, a co worker actually, who had an Android phone and somebody came in for an interview and she was also in that interview and he asked her like, hey, just so you know, like, I was like looking you guys up and found your Google profiles and your, your Picasa pages and there's some pictures of you and your underwear in there. You should like take that down. He said this in an interview. And so she, she looked back and apparently she had been at a department store and she was in the changing room and she let her daughter play with her phone who was there with her, and her daughter was like. And just put it in the camera roll. But it automatically backed up to Picasa. Like the default setting was to send it to Google. So she went in and deleted those out real quick. And we had to figure out how to turn that off.
Yeah, I don't have anything that embarrassing. Conscious of the fact that it's in my pocket.
Yeah. Lots of pictures of kids and pencils.
Yeah, occasionally. Hey guys, look at this beer I'm drinking. That's the hard stuff.
Yeah.
Where can folks find you online, Andy?
I am online at Awelfly A W E L F L E on Twitter and my website is woodclinch.com youm can find me here or on the dot grid podcast which is nerduprising co dot grid how about you, Tim?
You can follow me on Twitter at Writing Arsenal or at Tim Wassem and that's W A S E M as in Master book, which I'm now kind of obsessed with. I love the idea of it. I think I'm. I would order one, I think 35 bucks.
35 bucks.
Yeah, on Amazon.
But email them and they'll send you a copy for review.
Well, you can. You can read my very occasional writings@thewritingarsenal.com and you can follow me on Instagram. Thereriting Arsenal. How about you, Johnny?
I'm Johnny. You can find me@pencil revolution.com on Twitter ensolution and on Instagramnygamber. Although lately there's more cuteness and less pencil on there. We are Erasable, the world's only and best pencil podcast. We're at erasable us. You can check out our Facebook group@facebook.com groups erasable, which is probably one of the best groups on Facebook. I'm sure they use this as a test case at Andy's job. All the time, all the time.
And I do bring online awesomeness.
We have a page now@facebook.com erasablepodcast which is our official Facebook presence, and you can find us on twitter@twitter.com erasablepodcast or raceablepodcast. And please review us on itunes. Recommend us on overcast because this increases our visibility and probably will put pressure on us to podcast more for you so that you don't have to listen to an hour and 41 minutes of us every three weeks.
I would love that, personally.
I do love that, guys.
Yeah, thank you for listening. And we have a lot of more pencil stuff, paper stuff in store. Of course we have pencil stuff. But stay tuned for more awesome paper goodness.
Yeah.