Scribe

Hello, and welcome to episode 24 of the erasable podcast. This week we're finishing up our series on paper, and we're going to be talking about large format journals, notebooks, and notepads. I'm one of your co hosts, Tim, from the writing arsenal, and I'm joined by two dudes that definitely tie this virtual room together, Andy and Johnny. Guys, how's it going?

Well, awesome, Johnny.

Yeah, yeah. The whites. Yeah.

Oh, I wish. So would have had to buy all the ingredients ahead of time, so it wasn't up for it.

I just.

Yeah, yeah. It's a little weird. A little like count. Feels like it's against the nature of alcohol to add dairy to it, but, yeah, whatever. Well, this week we're talking about paper, which I'm excited to bring this. Well, not excited for it to end, but excited to bring it to a conclusion. We're going to be talking about the big, big notebooks, which is one of my favorite subjects. But before we get into that, let's start it off as we always do, with the tools of the trade. Johnny, why don't you start us out?

All that blogging,

like twice a year. Boom.

Inspiration.

But this is Shrub liquor.

I like to think that at the Office Max that Johnny went to, they gave it to him for a penny and then the system recognized that and by the time the next batch was bought by someone in San Francisco, Named Andy. They had figured it out. So it's, like, directly connected to each other. They're connecting the base, cause and effect. Like, you're the only two people who bought those.

Yeah.

Office is already closed, so I'm out of luck.

Yeah, it's depressing.

Well, I'm not a high roller like you guys, so I'm just. Nothing fancy. I'm just drinking my favorite. It's actually my favorite beer, which I've had before on the show, which is the Highland Brewing Devil's Britches ipa. And I am writing with a cedar point number one.

got from note Geist.

I finished it off this morning watching Land Before Time with my son. And snow day, you know, got a little crazy. Yeah,

Well, I got something to look forward to then.

Yeah, right, sure.

That was. That was epic. That was a memorable night. All right, well, let's jump into the pencil of the week. This week we chose to. We wanted to look at something different. We hadn't really touched a European pencil in a while or a German pencil in a while, so we decided to talk about the Staedtler. Johnny, you can correct my pronunciation, but Shtaedler.

Norris hb. Also known as the Norris School pencil. So, Johnny, I think we're going to start with you, because this. I know, considering you gave me mine, that this pencil holds a special place in your little German heart.

Yeah. I love the idea of, like, little school children using this. This pencil.

I wonder if they're that like that common, you know?

The.

I don't know.

It's.

You can find the show notes for today's show at erasable. Us 24.

That's. Wow.

What a great idea.

Yeah. I kind of. When I was coming up with my score and just kind of what I thought about it, I broke it down into some categories. And if I was grading it just on the looks, it would be an A plus because I think it just looks awesome. The. The weird image that came into my head all the time actually because I wrote up a review to post on. On the site tomorrow thanks to the snow day. And the, the. The thought that was going through my head was a bumblebee with a bloody stinger, which is really like gross specific.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I. Yeah, visually A plus. I think it looks awesome. It's one of the best looking pencils out there, I think. But similar to Andy. The one I have with the feral. I like. I like better one with the racer which is mostly a waiting thing. This one's just too light which I guess also comes from the wood. The type of wood Is it. What is it basswood or something?

Okay. But it's just. It's just a little. A little light for me and you know it's not a. I assume it's a pretty cheap pencil.

So it's for what it is. It's pretty great. It's a solid B for me. The grade that I gave. It's just a little too light. And you know, I think it stays. From what I've tried, it stays true to the. The like German lead hardness scale. Its HB is a little harder than our HB and which is generally isn't usually my thing but. But it does write really nicely. So I do like it, but it's just a little. I guess I have too soft of a touch to really like it a whole lot. So. But I respect it so I give it a B.

Yeah, I gotta do something to make that fun.

I wonder why. The Wopex. Wait, is that sta. Right? Yep. I'm having a brain fart. Yeah, Wopex makes the same. Is made by the same company. Right?

Okay. Sorry, I was breaking up a little. Okay. I was having a brain fart. But I wonder why those are available here. But like nothing else has made the jump besides like I've just seen the Wopex and the Norica. Basically.

Yeah, that's a generous, generous assumption.

Like isn't there. There was a Simpsons episode. It's like the same thing where they take a whole tree and they grind it down to one bowling pin. Like every time. Every time you knock down a bowling pin it just like goes into this like field in the back of the bowling alley.

So I guess we. I guess we average out somewhere around an A minus, which is a good, good group score. B plus, A minus somewhere in there. That's a solid score for a. For such a humble, humble pencil. So that was good. I was glad we got to talk about that one. I've been wanting to use that one a little more.

Yeah. I have another thought that's unrelated.

But the one thing that I decided on today for the Norris is that it will fit and look really awesome in my black twist bullet pencil.

It's true.

Make some, like, cufflinks or something.

All right, well, how about we get into some fresh points?

Yay. Johnny, why don't you start us out?

Give me a beer.

Those are, like, torched or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Their personal rankings.

Yay.

Was awesome.

I have the notebook. Yeah, the black notebook. Yeah.

They do have one.

Last time I checked, it wasn't. It was one of those things where I think it was announced, but it wasn't available yet or something like that. But they're. They're real, just simple. They look like they're probably made probably Musgrave. They kind of have Musgrave vibe to them. So. Yeah, I don't know.

This is very.

Yeah. Yeah.

First thing I was going to mention is that we were all sort of minorly reached out to by a fellow who's starting who's in the group, who's name is Harrison and he's starting a new podcast that's called Hands on, which called the Hands on podcast. And the Twitter account is anspodcast, but it says a place for lovers of the analog arts and my way of sharing my adventures in the world of pens, pencils, paper and edc. So I just thought I'd give him a shout out. Just starting up. He's done a few posts and kind of test run, podcast, whatever you want to call. Just kind of like, kind of like an episode zero sort of thing. A real short test run. So it's nice to have another person in the community putting something up for us all to enjoy. So I just wanted to wish him luck and hope that that goes well. So we will defeat you.

It's not a podcast, but we're going to win. Yeah, it's a handsonpodcast.WordPress.com so good luck, Harrison.

the other thing I was going to mention was I got. Which I kind of mentioned earlier, but got an order from Notegeist today. It was an exciting thing to happen in the midst of a snowy, icy day. And I got some general cedar point number one pencils.

Yeah. Which I was real excited about getting because I like the cedar point as is, but as. I feel like a broken record, but talk about this all the time on the show, but my preference lands in like the B2B range. So it was a little, little hard for my like, general use since I thought it would be something that would fit more into my like, daily writing category. And it still might, but it's not as soft as I was expecting, which was a little disappointed. But it's still. I still like it. So what Johnny, you have some. What are your thoughts about this?

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'll. I'd be happy to send you. Send you a couple in our next. My next care package.

Because I've got. I've got a whole dozen and I've got a few other pencils lying around. So.

What?

No problem. No problem. That's. I was. It made me worry if that was the status of pencils these days that you see them on a desk and you're like, wait, those aren't supposed to be here. Those must be garbage.

Just rake them over into the trash can.

They actually like broke them into several pieces. Like getting rid of a old credit card or something. I can't leave this around. Other new pencil that I just got, which we had. I think we had talked about last week between the two, the three of us. But I ordered some Tombow mono pencils which the only time I'd ever ordered those were I got some HB mono one hundreds which were like. I remember those were one of my first big pencil buys as far as like the pricier pencils. And it was really exciting and I still love those. But I wanted to get a 2B and I think my original reason for wanting the 2B is that it was on that post. For the love of a Blackwing. The Blackwing pages, like all those pencils that compare. That he was saying compared to the. The original Blackwing and the mono 102B was on there. And then just over the over time I've kind of figured out or at least I've decided that I'm pretty sure that the. The difference between the Mono and the Mono 100 are mostly aesthetic.

The core and the, you know, the important parts of the pencil I think are. Are basically the same. I do think the mono 100 looks better, but writing experience I think is the same. And so I got some mono 2B and I got them on Amazon. They're like nine bucks for a day. So I was. It was, Yeah, a dozen mono 2Bs for $9. So I had to jump on it. So real, real happy about that and really excited to be using them. So I've been using that. That one over the last couple days on some things. And the last. Last fresh point I had is that I decided a couple days ago to officially go to the Atlanta Pen show for the big. The big Pen Addict meetup. And I am so excited. I feel like this. This is in our little stationary world. This is the like people are just like walking in, like on foot from different parts of the country to pay homage to something. Like you need to show up with a gift or something.

Yeah, there was a. There was a definite. Huh, yeah huh feel from. From Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or he probably because I know he. He tends. Tends on the. The broader side. Like maybe like a. I know that varies, but I think historically he's been more like a medium or. Yeah. Broad person. So maybe it's more that he just likes a consistent point and doesn't like that.

Varies. Like I could. I could see that. But I'm really excited about going and there now. There are a lot of people. They're going to be there. Of course they announced that Anna's going to be there and I know. Yeah, they got enough extra in the. In the funding to. To fly Anna in as their co host.

But I know, I know Doug from Gentleman Stationer is going to be there. I was just talking to Dan Bishop on the phone and he's going to be there from Keras Customs. Yeah. And my. Yeah, Dudek's gonna be there.

Yeah, that'd be a good idea. That'd be awesome.

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. That'd be a long trip for him. But yeah. So I am so, so excited to go and it seems like there's just gonna be a huge number of people there and my uncle, or really my wife's uncle, sorry, my uncle in law, or whatever you want to call it, lives. Lives in Atlanta and he is kind of one of my only close by pen, pencil, like fellow enthusiast. So I'm gonna go down and stay with him and he's gonna go with. And it's gonna be a lot of fun. So if anybody who's listening is gonna go get in touch because I'd love to, love to meet you. I'm so jealous and love to hang out and I think if enough of us talk about it and make Andy jealous, maybe he'll come too.

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

There you go.

there you go. We'll work on that together. We'll. We'll workshop that and find something.

Okay, let's get into our. Our main topic for the week. We're going to be talking about large format books. And this is going to complete our series on paper. And we're gonna talk about both notebooks and notepads. We started small and we're gonna stop just short of those huge, ridiculous motivational speaker pads that they use. You know, I guess we won't get to stuff that big, which. Do you know how expensive those things are?

They are so expensive.

I mean, it is ridiculous. Like, I see these teacher videos, like instructional videos, and there's teachers using them and then I'm like, oh, that would be handy. And then I go and look them up and they're like, it's like $50 for three of them or something stupid like that. I mean, it's ridiculous. So we're not gonna go that big because, you know, blogging money.

Yeah, yeah, they're super practical. We get a big leather case for them or cordura for Johnny. But. So this is a. This is a notebook topic that I'm super excited about because this is one that I don't have a ton of experience in, but I'm very intrigued by it. Like, I like. I like the large size notebooks, kind of the old school notebooks. It goes back to as many things do. John Steinbeck for me. But when he would. I remember reading that a long time ago, that when he would write, of course he'd write in pencil, which we covered that before. But he would write in huge, like, ledger books and he had this real tiny handwriting and he would just kind of disregard the margins and would just write and just fill them up. Because, of course, his hyper romanticized version of it was that he was so poor that he had to use every inch of the paper that he could possibly. I feel like it's a poor writer's version of that. I had to walk 15 miles through the snow to get to work, to get to school. Yeah. Barefoot. Couldn't afford pants.

Yeah. I didn't own a pair of pants till I was 15 years old. So I feel like it was a little bit of exaggeration, but he used these big notebooks and I thought that, like, you know, that just makes me really excited to talk about these.

She.

Yeah, yeah, we'll let it slide.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I can start us out. I've got a few come to mind pretty much immediately. And I think the reason I like these big size notebooks or I like using these big size notebooks is that I like them more for long form writing. So with, with the like small books, I do this thing when I'm working on something that I'm. I'm writing that I end up wanting whatever I'm writing to fit the notebook I'm in. If that makes any sense. Yeah, like there's an old saying about William Carlos Williams that he was a doctor and so he would write poems on prescription pads like in between patients. And so therefore all of his poems are prescription pad sized. So I think there's some part of me that makes whatever I'm writing fit that. So if I have a big format, I've got room to breathe and it can be big and I don't have to worry about that as much. This is great. This is our, this is our Google Doc moment of the week. Yeah. Missy Elliott moment happening. Yeah. Johnny, that was one of the highlights of my texting career. When you texted that melody using words. That's really incredible. So the one that I've used the most before, which is, gosh, the Sailor Moon back to school book with a purple plastic spiral. It's powder scented and not at all toxic.

Okay, I'm getting back. I was just reading what Johnny added to my.

The one that I've used the most is the Piccadilly, which I've talked about before. Yeah, whatever. The one I've used the most is the Piccadilly notebook, which isn't the like huge jumbo size. And this is, this is one that I actually I found a couple years ago and I ended up buying like four or five of them because I found them cheap online somewhere and ordered them in bulk. But Piccadilly has three sizes. They have small, medium and large. The small is like the three and a half by five and a half. The medium is the traditional like what you think of as like a mold moleskin size five by eight something like that. And the large one that I really like, and it's a 7.5 by I think 10 or almost 10, something like that. It's kind of an odd shape somewhere close to B5, apparently. But that's one that I really liked. And I bought a bunch of them in plain paper. And Piccadilly's are really good value. The only problem is the paper can be a little inconsistent, like sometimes. So, like for pencil, sometimes it's really nice and then sometimes it just has a little too much tooth and it just chews up pencils. So it just kind of depends. And those, the ones I bought, to be fair to them, were probably like old stock. I know they've had like a new push and they have tons of colors. I'll put it in the show notes. But they have three sizes and from what I can see on their site, they've got at least 16 colors. Well, 17 counting black. So there are tons of options. And so they might have upgraded since then, but who knows. The new one that Andy was referencing is that I actually got in the mail from the wonderful people at. I'm going to give it a shot. Leuchtturm or something like that. I think something like that. Like during 1917, they make a notebook called the Master Classic. And so they make a lot of the same style notebooks, the Moleskine style. They have one called the Master Classic, which is huge.

Oh, did they really? Yeah, I'm a few episodes behind, so I missed out on that. What did they say about it?

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah. I reached out to them just to ask about them, ask if they had one that I could try. And they were extremely, extremely nice and receptive and sent me one right away. FedEx came straight from Germany, which was really awesome. I got a line version and black cover and they are just huge. But I'm really excited about it. They have 233 numbered pages, which is a cool feature, they number the pages and I got lined. But it also has a little bit of a margin. And then at the top there is like an area to date and title. They also come with archival stickers to put on the front and on the spine so you can label them for whatever.

If you're saving, which is a really neat feature, the size. Of course, they're European, so they're doing these goofball sizes. Sizes. No, just kidding. They're using the sizes that make sense that we should be using. But I don't understand because I went to American Public Schools. 225 by 315 millimeters, which translates to a whole lot bigger as my translation of it than a America. Like a field notes. Yeah, America. I've got. If you go to my Instagram feed, I have a picture of the notebook with a field notes kind of flush to the bottom corner. And you can see how much bigger than a field notes isn't. It also has like a couple pens on top of it, so you can see how big. How big it is. So they're really great. And the paper is 100 gram. Really nice paper. I love it already and I can't wait to use this thing. I just, I feel I'm still at the point that it's new enough that I feel a little ridiculous when I use it. I kind of feel like I. I tweeted a picture and got, you know, some responses. I think Mike Hurley responded. And then I sent back that I. When I use it, I feel like a 1920s bookkeeper. Like when I open it up in front of me, like, I should have like a. One of those green see through visors on like a big lamp over top and be like doing the accounting work for some business.

It's a.

Yeah, I've got some of those around here somewhere, actually.

So I'm a huge fan already. I'm just digging into it. I'm gonna post a review fairly soon, but I just want to give myself a little time to actually use it. But it is amazingly big. It's thick. I mean, it's. It's an inch. It's got to be an inch thick. They also have one called the Slim, the Master Slim, which is, they say 33% lighter than the classic. And it's got instead of 233 pages, it has, I think I want to say like 150. I'm trying to find it out, but it's smaller, so that's a good option for you. It was the same size, but not the same. It's 121 pages. It's the same dimensions, but it's just thinner.

Master Slim, yeah. No, that one wouldn't fit me if you haven't seen me in person. So definitely not Slim. But all that beer. I think that's all I have to say about that one.

All that marshmallow vodka. It's just getting going to my gut, you know, Marshmallow vodka gut. And it is a real thing, which is scary.

Yeah, I saw it at a liquor store. It's like a toasted marshmallow flavored vodka. I'll mail you some people. You should. And the last one I was going to bring up is the Moleskine Folio, which I actually haven't tried, but I know it's about the same size and it compares to the Master Classic. So it's oversized, not as thick. But I've heard. Heard pretty good things, I think, actually. Harry Marks, I believe from. I think I remember this right from a cramped post that that's what he writes in to use for writing fiction. So I think similar use to what I like about the Master Classic. It's a big, wide format, gives you lots of space and yeah, not as bad. Of course, there wouldn't be as nice of paper in there, but it's worth checking out if you're a Moleskine fan and want to try something new. Because sometimes changing the format of the notebook you're using can really affect what you're putting out there, like what you're writing or the way your thought process works just to have different paper in front of you. So I'd say for anybody, it's worth a shot.

Oh, really?

I mean, like the sketchbook is. I. I've seen the sketchbook and the papers even thicker on the sketchbook.

Andy, were there any that come to mind for You.

That's.

19.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 8 and 8.25 by 11.75.

I don't.

Globalism.

Now that we have a. We have a resident Californian, I have to. Did you. Did either of you watch the SNL40? What are you doing here? It's funny because the new the Return of the Californians.

That's what I was gonna ask you. So as our resident expert, is that what it's actually like? Because that's what I assume that everybody's like that out there.

I think, yeah, pretty much everybody.

Yeah, she's pretty good. Yeah, I liked. I like Bradley Cooper.

I was not expecting the Betty White make out session at the end.

Yeah. So to get to get back spoilers, Johnny. Yeah. To get to get back on topic while we're still talking about Rhodia, I was gonna mention that I don't know if either of you have seen these, but the, the web notebook, just like the A5 size. Like they're. Yeah, they. That it comes in a landscape version.

Yeah, it's that basically. Yeah, I think I might like to try that sometime because that's like. Basically turns it into the width of a legal pad or some sort of like large format. Except that the pages are just short, which is really cool. So I might try that out sometime.

Oh, nice.

Oh, cool. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, I'm sure I'll hunt around on the. On the Interweb. If not, I'll let you know. Cool.

So.

So pretty.

Mm.

What?

Okay. I was about. I was like frantically typing.

I did just. I did just see that. He talking about him. He does have a sale on Ticonderoga. So anybody wants to.

Yeah.

Well, I think that that about does it right with our. Anybody have anything else you want to say about the large format notebooks?

I don't know.

What are you talking about?

I was excited to talk about this, so I'm glad I've got some new ones to. New ones to try out and think about, because in some point, maybe 10 years from now, I'll actually fill up the ones that I actually have.

Yeah, that's true. I guess if anybody listening has a large format notebook that you really like, we'd love to hear about it. So you can either leave it as a comment on the show notes, which are found@eRaceable US24. You can leave it as a comment there, or you can get in touch with us at our website, which is erasable Us. Our Facebook group, which is facebook.comgroups erasable. Also, if you haven't liked us yet on the Facebook page, which is separate than the group, our kind of official page for sending out information occasionally is go to facebook.com erasablepodcast and we're also on Twitter raceablepodcast. There are so many ways to get in touch with us. You do not have an excuse for not getting in touch with us. I am Tim Wasem. You can find me online Imwassum and riding Arsenal on Twitter. I'm also on Instagramwerriting Arsenal and I write sometimes@thewritingarsenal.com Andy where can people find you online?

alright, if you haven't yet, if you could go to itunes and rate and review us, we'd really appreciate that that helps us become more visible to people who are searching for things related to our podcast that keywords might help lead them to listening to this show. You can also, if you used Overcast, you can recommend us or rate and review us on Stitch or whatever it is that you use to listen to podcast. We'd really appreciate, really appreciate that it helps us a whole lot and hopefully down the road we're looking into some other projects we want to work on, things we want to do for our listeners, kind of things we're excited about and so more visibility will only help us in that. So we really appreciate it. Thank you for listening to episode 24 of the erasable podcast and until next time, take care.