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Transcript
Maybe that's the intro.
Guten Abend und Willkommen by the Erasable Podcast. I'm Johnny Gamber, and tonight I am joined by Andy Welfle and Tim Wasem, and we're going to talk about German pencils, with which for some reason we've gone 58 episodes and not really mentioned very much, even though we've done Japanese pencils like 16 times. So how are you guys doing tonight?
Doing good. Pretty good.
Buenos ds. Wait, that's not German.
Gut. Danke und Eiden.
Yes.
So you guys missed it. I was singing Gramstein in the shower.
Did you bring a record? Did you record it? We'll just put it on the front of the podcast.
Well, I keep a recorder recording the shower all the time.
You should. It's a good idea.
It's like shower notes. Like, hey, that one time I thought of a really good short story idea. I better look it up. You know, that's when the remedy runs out.
Yeah.
Doesn't work. So we were sort of open.
Our episode title, Rammstein in the Shower. Not related to anything. It just sounds like a good episode title.
Yeah.
So my son gets in the car and demands Ramstein all the time. And we've actually had an argument over whether or not he's saying nine or knife, which is kind of creepy. He wasn't three yet at that point. No, daddy, it's knife. I'm like. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that speaks a little German. Brother,
you should pronounce my last name in its true German form, which is virfla.
Virfla. I like that. Yeah, nice. Mine's wasum.
Vasom.
Vasum.
Gambar.
Gamba.
Gamba.
Yeah, not that interesting. It comes from an old word that means something like jester. Yeah, it's not very good.
That was gambler.
People will call me that all the time. Like, it's six letters teaching you. Beep, beep that up.
Did you. Did you catch it when I sent you that package and I put Dr. Johnny Gamber. No, he's just looking at me.
I get mail for Dr. Johnny Gamber a lot sometimes it's pretty good stuff. So I Keep it.
Dr. Gambler. You got to go to, like, intimidate some people at a casino and be like, hello, Dr. Gambler.
Is it really? Honest to God, look at my license. They wouldn't look that close.
Yeah, they'd be like, G, A, M, B. He's telling the truth.
Holy crap. So should we start tonight the way we always start with our Tools of the trade. The modified edition.
Yes.
Wanna go first? A. Andy?
Sure. Andy.
Well, Andy Wuvfle. I'm pretty sure we're offending every German who might listen to this show. Like all one of them. Lately I have been digging a podcast that's kind of a spin off of Radiolab and it's called More Perfect. It's basically about the Supreme Court, which is pretty cool. It's about a lot of like, of the way this, they operate and some of the history of the Supreme Court. Like this one case that basically led to one justice having a nervous breakdown and another justice, like having a stroke because of the stress. Talks a little bit about the system, like how it happens and how it works. It's pretty great.
You should, you should listen to it.
If you, if you like the idea. If you like Radiolab and like how they edit, if you've ever listened to Radio Lab. Um, yeah. And also if you like the Supreme Court, like politics and legislative and stuff like that. This is, this is great for that.
So that sounds interesting. Yeah.
Also Katie has signed up for a 12 week subscription for the New Yorker. So that's really about all I've been reading lately. So. Yeah, I think we talked about that last episode a little.
Yeah, I was gonna say. So that's the second time you've doubled a. Oh, yeah. Digging thing. That's good. That's.
That's called.
You're just being consistent. Yeah.
Well, that means your subscription is worthwhile.
Yeah, exactly. And I. So also last since we last recorded, I think I was in the middle of Stranger Things and I'm now finished.
Oh, I want to watch that so bad.
Yeah. Oh, watch it definitely. And other than that, I've really only been looking at Craigslist because. Just found. We just found a few.
Are you looking for someone to murder you? Yeah, I am.
That's all I want. No, I go to Silk Road for that. No, Craigslist. We've been looking for apartments and we actually have one and signed a lease yesterday, which I'll talk about because it's related to pencils.
Awesome.
Well, it's not really, but pencils will play into split. I'll talk about. So yeah, just looking at apartment listings on Craigslist. So that's about it. Thanks.
Please tell me your address is like number two something street or something like that.
Well, what's crazy is we actually looked at an apartment that's literally on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. So we like. I was like, this is amazing. Like it's like, maybe the most iconic corner, like, intersection in San Francisco. But, yeah, the trouble is, is it's like, it was very strangely laid out, and it's just. There's just so many people around.
Everybody was pretty stunned when they were laying those out,
basically.
Toilet in the kitchen.
So many people. Well, the. The sense, man, the bedroom. In this particular place, the bedroom. The only way to get to the kitchen is through the bedroom. And, yeah, it's really strange.
I. It's like an old house that was split up or something.
It was built as an apartment complex, and I think that maybe these rooms weren't originally built the way that they were laid out now. And so it's basically just a one bedroom. It's like a studio, but like a string of rooms. It didn't. Yeah, it didn't really work. And also, everything smells like pot. And there's so many young hippies on a pilgrimage to Haight Ashbury right outside this place.
We went on a big road trip. I've talked about it before, but we went on this big road trip after graduating high school, and we ended up in San Francisco. And we went there because at the time, being interested in the Grateful Dead and stuff, I went and it was like. Which probably is really great now, but it was, like, the most disappointing part of our trip because it was like a bunch of angry hippies on the side of the road, like, begging us for money, but then, like, ridiculing us for not giving them money. I was like. I turned 18, like, two months ago. Like, what do you expect?
I think it just went. It just went like. There's a bunch of expensive hipster shops around there now, so.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. There definitely wasn't that really good coffee,
but, yeah, so that didn't work out.
I don't think that will happen, but it kind of feels like it.
We found a place in Noe Valley, which is like a nice little kind of like, south central neighborhood. So I'll talk more about that in a bit, but congrats. Yeah, thank you. So, Johnny, put down that I'm riding with a Wolpex 2H. Can you even get a Wopex 2H, Jonny? Yep.
2H, 2H, HB and 2B. And they're not really that different.
I was going to say a 2H in Wopex would be like a 6H in anything else. Right.
It's pretty smooth, though. Okay.
Yeah, I am. I'm a one note Sally. So I'm writing with my Nataraj pop, which I. Which I love, and which color? This one is the orange and blue one with the like magenta cap.
Yeah.
Thank you, Kathy Rogers, for sending me some. Yeah. How about you, Tim?
Well, to follow up on your podcast, I've got another podcast episode. It's a podcast called Other People, Other ppl. All one word. And it's if you've heard of. I may have talked about it before, I can't remember. But like wtf? With Marc Maron, it's a similar format. Like this open conversation, but Other People is strictly people who work in the literary arts. Writers, editors. And it started they're like 426 episodes in or something like that. Or he is Brad Listy and they're all like, you know, an hour, hour and a half long. And he's interviewed a ton of really well known people. George Saunders has been on there. Oh, gosh. Of course. Now I'm drawing a blank. But the, but the, the newest episode, which was a. A big deal, is that he interviewed Jonathan Franzen.
Oh, cool.
Who doesn't do a lot of interviews.
Yeah.
And I guess he got them on just kind of at the promise of this really is a conversation I'm not going to grill you about all the stuff that people ask you about and all the people that you know, people bait him for all these things. And it's a really excellent interview. And you get to hear him talk about like bird watching, his new novel Purity, which I just picked up and I'm getting ready to read. But it's a great episode. And Other People is a really good podcast. It's really similar. It's like a literary wtf. It starts with Brad Listy, this writer who does it out of his garage. He kind of monologues, sort of like wtf? We'll talk about what's going on in his life, almost like a little mini spoken memoir. And then he does the interview. And yeah, it's a really neat podcast. And the Franzen interview was great. He just interviewed Chuck Klosterman, who had a new book come out. Rock writer. Well, everything writer. But I think of him as a rock and roll writer. Yeah. So, yeah, so that was good.
Have you ever noticed I'm looking up Jonathan Franzen's Wikipedia page. He looks like Ben Folds.
I don't think I would have made a connection. I don't know Ben Folds that well, but that's funny. Yeah.
Sorry.
Anyhow, and I have been into this band for the last, like, I don't know, few months, maybe three or four months, but recently it's become like an obsession. Like in the last few days, a few days, I got like really into them. One of my favorite band names ever. It's Nathaniel Raitliff and the Night Sweats.
That is amazing.
Name is unbelievable. Yeah, the Night Sweats. Like to have a backing band. Just makes my day every time I think of it. But I put a. I'll put a link in the show notes they played on Fallon. Jimmy Fallon. I don't remember the exact date, but it was recent history, you know, it hasn't been that long. And they do a song called S.O.B. which is.
Stands for what you think it stands for or.
And it is a Driving Home on a Friday song. I was sending it around to teachers today. It's like, this is what we should all listen to at the end of a school day or at the end of a school week. But it's a really fun song and Jimmy Fallon kind of goes nuts for it in the video and he gets a standing ovation from the crowd, which is pretty cool. So. And when you see him when the video starts, he has way better moves than you'd ever imagined him. So when you see him, don't form an opinion because it's going to happen. You're going to be like, whoa, check it out.
Portly white guy.
Yeah, it's going to like do the fascinating. Yeah, but they fascinate me because the style, it's one of those styles of music where you can sit there and you can listen and you're like, you can hear every influence. You're like, oh, there's New Orleans music. I hear like, you know, 20s and 30s. Oh, brother, where Art Thou Soul? You know, gospel kind of stuff. I hear 50s rock and roll and doo wop. I hear. It's just really. It's a really cool band.
Yeah.
Big band, definitely. Big band stuff. It's just like ear candy. You can just pick through it. Like, gosh, I hear this and I hear that and I hear that and I hear that. And of course, like 60s soul. Really cool stuff. So he has an album, or they have an album under that name, self titled. And also has like one of the best album covers I've ever seen, which is like, it's like a close up on Nathaniel wearing a jean jacket with nothing under it and like a big gold chain around his neck. There's just like a close up on his neck and his upper body, which is like perfect for the Night Sweats, you know. So check them out. They're. They're a lot of fun to Listen to. And I am writing with. Where'd it go? I'm actually writing with Anoreka. So I was trying to find something German and I. I've been using a lot of cheap pencils lately, which I think Johnny's gonna talk about later, and I thought I'd try the norca. I also have a hot pink wopex that Johnny had sent me at some point.
Hot pink, Damn.
Yeah. Get it. I don't know if Johnny sent it to me or might've been Cody, but one of you, she sent me this. It's like bright pink eraser wopex.
Yeah. Where did this neon ones go? Those are pretty awesome. Pretty purple is right on.
That's me.
Cool. Johnny. How about you, Johnny?
Well, have you guys seen the show on Netflix called Peaky Blinders?
It's in the queue. I need to watch it.
Same here. It's in the queue. I just haven't gotten to it yet.
When it came out. They put out season one and season two pretty close to each other, but it's pretty amazing, except for the fact that some people don't cover up their Irish accents when they should, and some people don't have one when they should. But it's a good show about some gangsters in Birmingham. But there's other stuff in there where they refer to, like, the cut in these canals that I feel like, as an East Coast American, I have no idea what they're talking about. Like, where's the ocean? What is this? How are you going to London in a canal? But, you know, to look up, like a primer on, like, 1919 Birmingham life. But it's a cool show. I haven't seen season three yet. I'm rewatching one and two because I watched them so quickly. I don't remember what happened. And I can't understand half the things people say on there. Biggie Brown.
What?
So you just drink a lot of coffee and whiskey at the same time to keep up with the show. And I can't do that with a newborn in the house, so I miss half it. Awesome.
How is baby Rosie?
Baby Rosie's getting fat. It's lovely. So you guys seen, like, the stereotypical fat baby? We've never had a fat baby. Our kids are always like, skinny babies. And the doctors are always kind of like, hey, don't put them on food yet. They don't have enough formula. So this baby's getting nice and plump. It's delicious.
Nice.
She's very, very cute. She likes to throw out and poop on me.
Just.
Good.
Do you think she's sneaking, like, French fries and milkshakes when nobody's looking?
Well, she's probably not doing it herself. Her siblings probably do.
That's true.
Henry's like, here's like, a Big Mac box in the crib. Where did you get this?
We don't eat meat in this house. We're vegetarians, Daddy. It's a BK veggie. Yeah. Also, I don't know if you guys are watching the Olympics, but there are those Olympics on.
Yeah.
Being from Baltimore with Michael Phelps, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
We're sort of all about the Olympics, you know?
Who's from Indiana is one of the, like, the double. The divers? Steel Johnson.
Steel Johnson. He's actually. His parents are good friends with my parents. Really? Yeah. They went to church together, like, when I was one year old or something. So, like, he was in. My dad was.
Is his parents from Munster, too?
No, they're from Indianapolis. I was born in Indianapolis.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. They live in. He lives in Carmel now. Right, And. Yeah. And he went to. He went to Purdue or he goes.
Yeah, yeah, he goes to Purdue. Yeah. And Carmel is like, Munster and Carmel were always, like, back and forth, one and two and swimming and stuff like that. And so we'd always. We see a lot of Carmel.
That's interesting. So I know somebody who knows him sort of. Like, there's a lot of that in Indiana. Like, I know somebody who knows that person.
So There are only 15 people there.
Yeah. Sorry. Just the whole area.
So Steel Johnson is a pretty amazing name.
The diver stuff blows my mind. Like, how are you doing this and not dying?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of that Dive board. Yeah.
I was watching the rowing today. I'm like, my God, don't put your
head under the water.
Like, 17 kilometers an hour. Jesus.
It's crazy.
I get obsessed with beach volleyball every time the Olympics comes around. For some reason, I just can't get enough of that.
Yeah,
yeah. Once every four years. I feel especially like a big, fat lump, man. I'm like a hairy beast. Look at these swimmers.
I just ate half a bag of white cheddar popcorn. All these people in their athletic crimes.
Well, with chopsticks. While watching these people do amazing things with their bodies.
Oh, you read my tweet, did you?
I did. Which I've heard that before. It was, like, a brilliant idea.
Did you guys watch the opening last Friday?
I was. I did not.
I fell asleep. I was so tired.
The end part was cool. There were a couple cool parts. A lot of it was kind of meh.
We watched like, the worst. We watched like the middle 45 minutes. So it's like the most boring part was like, Estonia. These four people from Estonia.
I love how I learn about all of these countries that I had never liked. I'm sure that last like four years ago or even two years ago. I probably heard that same, like Burundi. Like, I'm sure, like, I saw them go by in the parade of nations, but I completely forgot that they exist. And I can, like, go and look it up again and learn about the country and. Yeah, that's fun.
Djibouti.
Djibouti. The capital of Djibouti is Djibouti.
Djibouti. Djibouti. Oh, man. Everybody's favorite day of middle school. Geography. Yes.
Oh, yes. That's when I learned about Djibouti. Tell me about your Djibouti.
So I feel like field notes really dropped the ball.
Or not drop the ball.
Should edit that out. They missed some low hanging fruit. Not doing an Olympics edition.
Yeah.
It's so easy. Gold, silver and bronze. Although, you know, I suppose they're probably confident they're going to still be making those things in 2020, which they probably will be.
Yeah. Or even 2018 when they do the Winter Olympics.
They don't have the cachet there. It's like, yeah, the Winter Olympics.
Yeah, I like the Winter Olympics better because there's such. There's weird sports like the skiing and shooting.
Yeah, Yeah, I love that.
I love watching.
Why are they going downhill with a rifle on their back?
So terrible.
I feel like every year we always learn about some new, like, sport that's been in there, but we forget about it. Like, last time it was dressage, the horse dancing.
And this time.
This time I think that it's race walking. Did you know about race walking?
What?
I could do that.
It's. It's walking.
The only reason I know it's in the Olympics is from tbtl, the podcast. And they had this, like, joke at the beginning of it about, like, how kind of funny and weird it is that race walking is in the Olympics. Limiting your body can do but, like, being better at it than anyone else. It's like being the best mediocre. What do they say? Like, being the best mediocre mover or something.
I could do that, man. I do that, man.
All right. What are you writing with Johnny?
I am writing with an Apsera steno, so I'm also using an Indian Pencil and a write notepads and co reporter's pad.
Nice.
So have you guys used the Apsara stenography pencil?
I don't think so. I remember what a steno pencil is. Is it skinnier?
It's round and it has a really, really smooth light effect that says Apsara steno and then in giant letters, bonded lead.
Did I tell you? When I. When I went to that conference in Vancouver, we had like a stenographer like doing live captioning and she let me like try out her stenography machine.
What?
It was super cool. I could not do it because like you have to in rapid succession type the right number of keys in the right part of the word that makes up the word, if that makes sense. And you have to do it all in the time it takes me to say a word.
No,
it was amazing like how she did it. I just like part of the time I just watched her and she, during one of the breaks she let me like try it out. It was awesome. But
anyhow, you guys want to pop our fresh points?
Yeah.
You mean talk about pencils.
What? Yeah.
Yeah, let's do it.
So I like your first one and I can help you out with it.
All right, so this is the situation. So when I moved from Indiana to the Bay Area, I moved from a two bedroom house with a full basement where I had all of my pencil collection to a one bedroom apartment, like a spacious one bedroom apartment. So now I am moving from a fairly spacious one bedroom apartment to a smaller one bedroom apartment that doesn't have sort of like this pseudo second room, second bedroom that my current place has. So I really feel the urge to downsize my pencil collection.
You get a safety deposit box?
Yes. So here's our storage unit. Oh God. Storage units in San Francisco.
I can imagine.
Yeah. Maybe I can like keep it in like get like a place in Fort Wayne, Indiana and just like make my dad like go back and forth and send me things. No, so my, my collection is kind of broken up, not counting like notebooks
and stuff like that. Give me that 3B tombow, please. Overnighted stat. All right.
Don't know where it is. So it's kind of broken up into three pieces, not including like paper and stuff like that. I have like, like brands of pencils that I collect. Like, like I had dozens of my black wings and like a bunch of like helix oxfords and Nataraj pops and things like that. I have my like old vintage branded pencil collection which includes like some old black wings and like old. Oh, you know, like old pencils. Right. And then I also have like, old advertising and souvenir pencils. And that's mostly. I would never, like, use the advertising. Souvenir pencils. I just like think they're cool how they look and like how they, you know, like what's written on them. And it's, it's kind of like a different sort of collection. It's mostly like just for antique and kitsch value, I guess. So one of these, I feel like one of these should go. And part of me thinks it should be the advertising and souvenir collection, but I don't know. What do you guys think?
What are you gonna do with it?
Well, at least for some of them, I was thinking about just sending them to CW Pencil because, you know, they have that. They have like pencil vending machine. Oh, yeah. And they load it up with like old, old advertised pencils.
You could buy one of those pencil machines. They're on Amazon, like 2 or 300 bucks.
Ooh.
And you could sell them at work.
Take it to work and just buy your pencil.
You can have them weighted like 25 cents or 50.
Yeah. Have some backpack straps put on that machine and just wear it around the office.
Just walk around with a Pennsylvania machine on my back?
Yeah.
You live in a big city.
I should go into Haight Ashbury and like walk around with that.
Yeah.
Alternatively, if you take the car seats out of my car, it's pretty spacious. So I could pick up Tim and we could come out and take all of your pencils and we'll go on like a 10 day bender and then we'll drive back.
That's amazing.
That sounds a great idea.
You know what's happening is the end of this month is the San Francisco Pen Show. I should get a Pennsylvania machine and sell them out front.
Yes.
I'm excited.
You're like, these things are a quarter people. Don't waste your money.
Don't waste your money on the $300
fountain pen that'll link in your pocket.
That would actually be a really $300 fountain pen. Why don't you buy 750 pencils from me?
You know, Brad and Anna are going to be at the SF Pen show this year, so I should like, recruit them to my. Cause I think they're both working the Van Ness booth.
Yeah.
Come on, guys. One fountain pen or 750?
You could write 750 novels with this thing right here. Yeah.
So. Oh, Mark Cohen from the chat says people sell pencils at the SF Pen Show. I'm one of the people who runs it.
What?
Awesome.
Well, I look forward to meeting you, Mark. I'm totally coming to visit. Can you give me a free booth where I can sell my pencils?
You don't need a booth. That's those fancy pens in a TV tray.
That's awesome. Yeah. No. So anyhow, yeah. Trying to figure out what to do with that. It's going to be, like, a painful process because I'm not, like, super organized. It's not like it's mostly sorted into, like, buckets like that, but, like, not a lot.
So.
Yeah, so it's going to be. It'll be. It'll be fine. I'll do it. But I just have to figure out, like, what I find to be the most precious. Yeah. So, anyhow, thank you.
Stuff. Send us pictures, like, once a while. We're, like, cleaning stuff out of the house. Like, Jane will send me a picture. Be like, which one of these do we keep? He just keeps sending us pictures, like, okay, I'm gonna keep one of these 20.
What do you think? Just gonna go outside and throw all of my Blackwing 211s onto the ground and watch the frenzy. Yeah.
The people just, like, come out of the bushes, start grabbing off the ground.
So my. My only other thing I had to mention today is I was interviewed probably eight months ago. Perdiz magazine, which is run out of Barcelona. It's a magazine that is bilingual English and Spanish, and it's stories about things that make people happy, is what the premise is.
So it's about pencils, right?
Well, there's something about pencils. There's something about jazz pencil.
Yeah.
And they contacted me completely out of the blue and said, hey, we want to interview you because you seem to really love pencils. And, well, I want to know why. So I did, and I answered a bunch of questions, and it was really fun. And I didn't really hear anything until a guy I know from Twitter who lives in the UK was like, oh, I just read the comic interview with Andy in Purdy's magazine.
I'm like, what? That's unbelievable.
So he sent me a picture, and it. So it wasn't just an interview. Somebody set a comic to it. So. So I am. I am in comic book form. I just. It's so insane.
That's like a new nerd level.
Yeah.
I mean that as a compliment. Yeah. The.
The weird thing is, is that my chin looks gigantic in this comic. And I think the reason is, is because the picture that I sent Them thinking it was just going to be like some text with like a picture of me in it. I sent them a picture of my profile picture where I have the pencil under my nose and I actually have my mouth scrunched up and up toward my having my lips sticking out so I can hold the pencil in place. And I think that maybe whoever did the comic saw that and interpreted that as my natural mouth shape or something. So my chin looks really big and my mouth looks really small. But it's a pretty good comic if you are in the group. I link to a PDF of it, but publicly I'll share maybe just like the first page because I want to make sure they sell their issues. And I'll have a link in show notes if you want to buy an issue.
Gosh, you totally need to make the. Well, any of these. But some of these, your profile picture. And I co host the Erasable podcast. The one where you're just holding a pencil is. I usually carry a pencil with me. Yeah, that one's amazing. That should be our next T shirt. We should get that on a T shirt.
Get that on a T shirt.
That would be awesome. I usually carry a pencil with me. That's all it says. Just a picture of using. I usually carry a pencil.
I sent it to Caitlin. Oh, what did she find? Her quote, she really loved the thing about, I think it's toward the end, something about like, life is short and so is your pencil.
Life is fleeting.
Life is fleeting. And so I actually do not remember writing that, but I'm like, huh, look how eloquent I was.
You're a philosopher.
So yeah, that was. That was pretty cool and just like above and beyond what I thought it was going to be. I was like, oh, this is this magazine. So the magazine is kind of expensive. It's €17, which I think is maybe like 12 $15.
Ish.
I don't really know. And then have it shipped to the us but it is gorgeous and like very well bound and beautiful quality. So it's totally worth it.
Pretty amazing. And I also. Another good T shirt would be the one where you say it's also a selfless instrument. It self destructs while you create. Yes, I love the selfless and self destruct like in the same sentence.
I originally said that I wrote a thing, Patrick Roan's blog, the Cramped. I wrote a thing basically about pencils because he's more of a pen guy and he was interested to know why pencils. So I wrote a thing and I got that from Something and I really wish I could remember where because I want to give it credit, but I cannot remember where. But yeah, it's such an interesting, high minded, philosophical thought about pencils. There's practical reasons why I like pencils. There's romantic, lofty reasons why I like pencils. That's one of them. So, yeah, so that is. I've been in like full on like apartment hunting mode. So I've had very little, little pencil time. Although I think I mentioned this last time we. I use the reporter's pad to like take notes about apartments. It's really good for that.
Nice.
So luckily that's over. Now I just have to worry about paring down my stuff and moving.
Wait till you go to ikea, you get some pencil action.
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. I. Yeah. We have so much IKEA furniture that we just have to downsize. I'm gonna be so fit because this place is on top of a hill and it's the third floor of a walk up. So like not just like any hill, like a San Francisco hill. So I'm either gonna never leave my apartment or I'm going to be so fit it's gonna be amazing.
Probably the first. Never gonna leave my apartment.
Yeah.
Cool. Tim, how about you? What's up? What's up?
I don't have much, but I have something pretty major for me, something I'm very excited about. So I. My uncle Chris, who had come to the DC Pen show, so I met any of you at the D.C. pen Show. You might have seen him there. He always has amazing things that he like finds and gives me pencils that he orders. He's gotten really good at ebay, bargain hunting for really cool pencils. And so he'll find things. And so he was just in town for like a big family gathering and he's like, oh, hey, I've got something for you. Don't forget to give it to you. I saw him the next day and he had gone online and wanted to find some bullet pencils, like some vintage bullet pencils. And he hands me one. And it is a vintage ball pencil from the National Baseball hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.
What?
And it is beautiful.
That is the most Tim Watson thing I've ever heard.
Oh, I know. It's so good. It's got this like old fashioned. You can blame school for that.
I'm chastised. I want to see a picture of this thing.
It is amazing. Yeah, it's got this like old timey, like the cartoon, like a little Cartoon drawing. Looks like a bazooka bubblegum wrapper kind of art. You know, sort of comic bookish. Got this guy. And when I, you know, the batter, when I glanced at it. And you probably can see this when I post a picture, but I kind of looked like a stormtrooper. And at first I was like, star Wars. What? Then it's like, even better. I was like, baseball. So I am just in love with this thing. I haven't refurbished it yet. I need to dig the old eraser out and I need to buff out the. Because it obviously hadn't been opened in a few decades. So it's pretty grimy on the inside. The outside, the gold on the outside looks really nice, but it's a beautiful thing. And I love these old cheapo bullet pencils. I mean, I've gushed over the timber twist a lot. I still love it. But there's something about these. When you have them in your pocket just to kind of throw them around.
Are you going to go have it restored by. By our friend Huckleberry Woodchuck?
I might. Or I might just try to do myself. I think I've. I've. I've found out I've twisted some arms and got some information about how they do it.
So cool.
You might just do it. Try to do it myself.
I bought a couple bullet pencils on ebay recently, though they're not. They're not quite as cool as that.
Yeah, I think this made me want to get back into them because I went through a period where I bought like, I don't know, a dozen off ebay hunting stuff and, and still one of my favorites that Randy sent to me. The Badlands have a silver one from the Badlands in South Dakota. Just pretty, pretty awesome too. So. But that's really all I've got. That's the biggest thing that's happened. I've just been in school mode school starting back up, taking up a lot of time. It's been good. I'm in high school this year. I'm enjoying that you graduated finally. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I've been. All my students have been like, this is your first year in high school, and this is my first year in high school. So we'll figure it out. But it's. That's, that's, that's been good. It did help me. Yeah. Like, this happened last year. I remember talking about it, but everything reverted back to just using nothing but the Palomino hp because I'm never disappointed by it. So I like at school, I had to put away all my other pencils and just have HBS on the desk, the palominos, just so that I could, like, focus. And it's.
Do kids use pens more in high school?
I assume I have freshmen, and they're still in, like, middle school mode, so most of them are still using pencils. But I think by the time they get older, they use more and more. Yeah. Pens. And the kids. You'll see the kids who have, like, a couple or have, like, a G2 behind their ear and stuff like that, and I think they're really cool. I.
We should. Yeah. Have a talk sometime about just, like that graduation up from pencil to pen, because I. I very clearly remember mine. And. And I did. I mean, I did consider it like a. Like a promotion. Like, I. Looking back, I was like, oh, man. I like, why is this a promotion?
But I had a. I had a school man.
I had a Fisher space pen that I was my. Like, my official pen to use at school that I really love. Yeah.
I remember finding pilot G2s and being like, what have I been doing with my life with, like, all the junkie pens?
Yeah.
But I will say I remember I was thinking, this is odd. Something about school today made me think of this. But I remember an episode of the Pen Addict where they were talking about someone. You know, someone in Germany had said that when you're a kid, you write with fountain pens and that you kind of graduate to ballpoint pens, which I thought was kind of interesting, that they would use fountain pens to learn how to write with, like, good handwriting. But then now, you know, apparently this person was claiming that some people who are, like, high school age would then look at fountain pens as, like, little kids pens. Well, shut up, John.
Yes.
You're making me feel like, oh, there were no gel pens when I was in middle school or high school. Huh.
There were gel pens at the end of high school for me, but they were super crabby.
Well, I remember being in middle school and there being jelly rolls. Oh, yeah.
Hate you guys. I'm gonna be 30.
Used to use. Didn't you just pluck a feather off the back of your pet turkey and carve that up?
No.
I went to Catholic school, and they gave us all the same feathers.
Box your ears if you break it.
I did get spanked before. I mean, in school. By a nun. Yeah, in school.
Johnny's just making so much background noise.
Sorry. I finished that. Lime Ricky.
That's my other rapper name.
Lime Ricky. This is a big one. This is A lime, Richard.
We got unsweet tea and we got lime Ricky.
Both of those are pretty great. Both pretty good.
Okay. How about you? How about you, Johnny?
Well, I'm bragging because I'm off to NYC again.
So jealous.
So did you guys see in the Facebook group? Apparently there's a shortage of palomino hbs. No, nobody has them. Apparently. I only read it in passing. Tin has a little bit and I turned it off.
They're all here.
Yeah. So if you guys need some. Let me see if there are any left. If nobody jumps a gun and steals them all or buys them all. Yeah.
How many do you still have, Tim?
Oh, gosh. Over a hundred definitely. Like 120 probably.
So I just found a box, a dozen box of blue capped palominos that I didn't have. I didn't realize that I had. Yeah, I asked my wife for a gross of them and she gave me a dozen. So I was kind of pissed. I forgot I had them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're so good though. They just feel so nice and they look so great.
Yeah, these are the old ones that say California Republic stationers.
Yeah, I miss those gold stripes.
Yeah, I don't have any of the new black wings with no gold stripe yet. Yeah, sad face. You're gonna hear a siren.
The police once an episode. We hear that.
Yeah, that's medic 19. All right. Anyhow, yeah, so apparently in NYC, the New York Historical Society has an exhibit of Mo Willems art. So we're very excited about this Mo Willems stuff. See, he came out way after us. So like our kids read them. He got the Caldegat.
He's a children's author.
He's the one we were talking about last time, right?
Yeah. He wrote the pigeon series, the Conifer bunny series.
Okay. Yeah.
Hilarious, dude. They had a big thing. So there's a museum of children's picture book art in Massachusetts. Didn't know that. So they had this also announced in New York. So now I have to go up there and check that out. And apparently you can get a degree in children's picture book art in association with one of the universities up. So that's pretty cool. Also, I noticed, or anyone that's in our Facebook group has noticed the delicious rise of cheap pencils, which is making me very, very happy. But not even like semi cheaps, like cheap. Like a bucket under does pencils.
Yeah.
Plus so many of them apparently are made by Nataraj or the Hindustan Pencil Corporation, who makes Nataraj and Apsara I
really want to go there or at least like find out more about the company because their website is awful. But they make such great pencils.
Yeah, they really do.
Yeah.
There's like the ones at Walmart. Aren't those made by. What are those called? Those pencils that come in like the tube and they look just like aspara. They look like espara pencils. Or. Or I forget what it is they look like because I. I haven't bought any yet. But they have like the. The silver and black alternating sides of the.
Yeah. Which one?
Hexagon, The Platinum.
Platinum Navy.
They all have kind of confusing names.
Yeah.
The absolute. The beauty, which is. That one's fitting. That's a very pretty pencil. But. So I got the idea to do a post for Pencil Revolution, copying off all this stuff, wherein I'm gonna rate the like absolute garbage pencils. Like Staples brand. I didn't stoop to Big Lots brand because I'm not gonna do that to myself.
I didn't know Big Lots had a brand new.
Oh, yeah. Looks pretty bad. I like my pencil sharpers too much for that one. But yeah, I'm gonna compare them and see which ones are crappiest. So the thing is, they're made of like, I don't know, bones or something. They're really hard to sharpen. But once you get them sharp, I mean, I like the aesthetics of a yellow pencil.
Yeah.
So. And like cheap pencils got me into pencils. So I have a soft spot in my heart for that. It makes me happy to see everybody, or not everybody, but so many people embracing the cheap pencils. And that's just, you know, two or three dollars apiece. Japanese pencils, which are very nice and have.
Yeah.
There is like a joy in things like the force choice, you know, or just like picking up a really simple pencil and just go in town not worrying about it. I think that's just like a really special thing.
Yeah.
There's something about those, like really simple
ferals in the USA Gold.
Yeah.
Do we count those as cheap or semi cheaps?
Those are cheap. Oh, my gosh.
As long as it's not foil wrapped, it's fine with me. Like, it's below garbage if it's foil wrapped.
UB has those pencils, the I Am Other series. They're paper wrapped.
Yeah.
But they're surprisingly good. Pencils are pretty nice. I appreciate the messages and stuff. I don't know if I mentioned this last time. My daughter picked one up and I was like, which one do you want? She picked the yellow one that said that, which makes you different, makes you special. I was like, why do you want that one? She says it's true. Like, oh, it's working. Yeah. For the price. Their stuff's very nice.
Yeah, they're like three bucks a dozen, right? Something like that.
Yeah. They have pretty nice folders and notebooks. So she picked up a folder, say it was like a buck. It was a pretty nice folder. It's blue, which was the draw, but on the other end of things. Did you guys see the Kickstarter for this product from Italy called the Sostanza?
I think so.
Lead holder.
Yeah.
So I've never owned a lead holder.
Oh yeah, you sent us a picture of it, didn't you?
Yeah, it's that one.
Yeah.
Basically made of two sandwiched pieces of wood, like a pencil, but they're split and then a ring tightens it around a lid. Holder. Lid. That's it. So I got a sample in the mail. The glass tube, which was really beautiful, was broken, but the pencil was cool, was fine. I got the pear wood one. They're so pretty.
Yeah.
The Kickstarter is over.
I saw the clicky post. Had a. Had a review of it.
Oh, it did?
Yeah, just. Just yesterday.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Cool. But we ordered them. Apparently they're really pretty and they have a really, really cute little video where they pronounce it better than I do. So stanza. So, yeah, I mean, I'm. Have you got. You guys have lead holders?
One I've been meaning to get is. I don't have any, but you know, I'm a fan of the Kaweco sport pens and there's a Kaweco sport lead holder that I've been meaning to pick up for some time.
Is that one. One of those really fat lead holders are like the two. Two millimeter ones?
Yes. Yeah. Holds the big fat lead.
Oh, well, this one's just the little tube, which is like really cute. They ship it with a nice 3B so like right out of the broken glass tube. It's very smooth. Yeah. But it's a tube that's laser engraved and then it has a cork on the end, which is very nice. Little touch. I don't remember how much it was to back them. I think it was like 20 bucks or under 20 bucks, something like that. So yeah, you can pre order them. I didn't click through the link, so I don't know how much that is. But if you like lead holders or just something a little different, they're really, really neat. They have Some really beautiful woods too. And they coordinate the ring to match the wood or to complement it very well, which is just awesome.
Yeah, I love that color.
Yeah, the pear wood one is just like wood, but they had a really neat red one.
Yeah, like what?
I wanted more of these, but I don't have a use for more than one, so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you guys want to get on to our main topic?
Yeah.
Release the German pencils.
Is that Fight Club? He's like, what are you scared of ze Germans?
It was in Snatch.
Snatch. That's it. Yeah, I was trying to figure that out.
Today the Germans come.
The German. Yeah,
we were sort of hoping to get one of our German friends on, but maybe next time because there's. Yeah, there's so much to talk about with German pencils. So we thought we'd do is just do part one and talk about the two big companies, obviously, Faber Castell and Staehler, and maybe wax a little bit about what makes German pencils special versus like American or Japanese pencils. And then our favorite German pencils of the moment, which probably are all going
to be Wopex, I think so. Just because Johnny replaced every word.
Johnny has gone guerrilla warfare on us in the Google Doc.
Someday, Johnny, we should do a family tree of the fabbers. Go down and talk about Eberhard Faber and aw, Faber and Faber Castell and
like just, just how it all works.
Because there's so many different pencil companies with that name in it.
Yeah.
It's crazy. Yeah.
So they were all Faber when they were founded in 1761, older than our country. So they've been run by someone in the fiber company for eight generations. And they became Faber Castell in 1900 when someone's granddaughter married Faber, which is a cadet. I'm sorry, a cadet of the Council of Castel. So then they came out with their new logo, which we're all familiar with, with the two knights jousting. And if you're blind, you don't know their pencils. They're jousting with yellow pencils, which is pretty cool. And I think we talked about this in the winter that their latest CEO, Count Anton Wolfgang von Faberkastel passed away.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And one thing I didn't put in here, Sean Malone from
Black Ring Pages and Contrapuntalism.
Yeah, which one is it on? Contrapuntalism. He's gotten to go there a few times and he's got some really, really, really cool posts, some amazing pictures.
I am very saddened about the loss of the Count, but I almost made a pour a 4B on the curb for him joke, but I held back. And then obviously I didn't held back because I had to share. I think he would have appreciated. Yeah, drop a 4B on the curb for him.
Yeah.
So the other big one is Staedtler, which was founded in 1835, although they can really trace their roots back to 1662, which is impressive. So you imagine like in Nuremberg, these, like, street fights between Statler and Faber Castel. We're technically older. No, we're really older.
I just imagine like the. Oh, it's Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey did those. We're going to bump you up. Guys. Just imagine the two of them.
Well, they're probably very gentle because they're pencil makers.
That's true.
Maybe. Guys, have you seen the article? It was from several years ago and I just put it in the show Notes from the BBC. It was State learned Faber Castell's productive pencil rivalry. You ever read that article?
I seem to remember it. Was it about.
I've seen it a long time ago and then I just found it again and I put it in the. Yeah, it's just about Staettler and Faber Castell and like a little bit about their history and then talks about how they play off of each other and their different strengths and how they run their businesses. And it was. It was super interesting.
Yeah, I think I remember that.
Little things like Staedtler has like no bank debts. Like they. They run their business, so they have no debts. They just make enough money to do something else, which should be pretty normal, but most businesses don't work that way.
I love this picture of Count von Faber Castell too, because he was so handsome.
He was a rakish man.
Everything you expect. Christopher Plummer plays him in the movie. Clearly.
Yeah.
He's just amazing. Sorry, I don't mean to fanboy all
over group together to write a screenplay for this. Yes. Oh, yes.
Using all German pencil.
Let's workshop this thing.
We have to get this out before Christopher Plummer dies because he's the only one who can do it.
That's awesome.
Oh, sorry. So
we could just move right into what makes German pencils different.
Yeah.
Because I think early on the show we talked about what we liked and we were like, German pencils. Why? Because.
Because German pencils.
Yeah.
So, you know, Japanese pencils run a lot darker.
I feel like this, this is a good answer to the question that I kind of asked below. Is. Is usually when I feel like when we talk to people, like, about, like, pencil people, you know, they like a foreign pencil, and there's people who like German pencils, and there are people who like Japanese pencils. And I like both, but I feel like I usually kind of fall on the side of Japanese pencils. So I'm. This is a good topic because I think this. This illustrates we can actually, like, break down some of the differences between the two.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's nice. Yeah, I think you're. You're right.
The.
The default for a lot of people falls towards Japanese just because people tend to prefer softer pencils. But that doesn't. Isn't really fair to the fact that German pencils are so masterfully made. They're so nice.
Yeah.
And. And one of, like, in other, like, introductory thoughts I have about is, you know, we generally divide things up into. Most of the time on this podcast, it's American pencils, Japanese pencils, German pencils. Lately we've been talking about Indian pencils more, which is great. We've talked about Chinese pencils a little bit. But one interesting thing about those big three of Japan, America, and Germany is that there are, like, not many German pencil makers. Right?
Yeah.
And it's a small country, too. Like, that makes it really interesting to talk about. I guess we don't have many American pencil makers now, but, like, Japan, there's a ton.
Yeah.
Japan's small as well. But just to start off, like, before we even get into the discussion, could we list, like, the German companies besides Staedtler and Faber? Castell.
There's Stabilo.
Yeah.
And is that it?
I picked this up.
I mean, that's crazy. It's just like. I'm gonna Google, is Lyra. Is that current? Yeah.
No. Lira is owned by Fila, an Italian company, but they're made in Germany.
Okay.
I mean, I don't know that nerdy question.
Like, there's. There's like, I don't have a super specific answer, which is not German, but it's, like, very close.
It's European. Yeah.
Yeah.
They're Swiss.
They're all the same.
Yeah, Maybe it'd be. Yeah, be fair. Yeah, yeah. Like German instead of German saying, like European pencils. But also at the same time, Swiss pencils and German pencils don't feel very similar.
No, not. Yeah.
So they've sort of revitalized the Eberhard Faber line, but they're sort of like cheap, schoolish pencils.
Lammy pencils. Walter Galindo says.
Oh, yeah.
Huh.
Do they make wooden Pencils.
I made a couple.
Really?
Yeah.
They were fat and they had the size of your thumb.
Of course, I have no idea. Yeah, of course I have no idea. Like if these are actually like made in Germany or if it's just a German company that, you know, has it made somewhere else.
Well, that's actually in a BBC article they talk about. I think it's. Is it? No, I'm going to mix it up, but it's either. Let me see if I can find it. But either Shaedler or Faber Castell makes most of their pencils in like South America and Asia. I forget which one it is going to look it up.
But unlike the American companies, when they outsource, they still keep a lot of stuff at home, which I appreciate.
That's it. Faber Castell, the article says, in contrast to Staedtler, Faber Castell has more of its production abroad than at home, with factories in South America and Asia, but remains committed to its German presence.
Yeah, they're the biggest pencil maker in the world.
Awesome.
So have you guys ever seen that show? Oh, crap, what's it called? It was some BB or the show, I think it was in the BBC, they did one where it was like live like a German or something like that. So there was a family that had to live like a walk like an Egyptian, so that the. The dad worked at the fiber Castell factory.
Oh.
So he was on his phone and they came around, they're like, what are you doing on your phone? You're here to work. But they gave him free lunch and they didn't work very long hours. It was really interesting. Yesterday he spent the average German man's amount of time in the bathroom, which apparently is a long time.
All that sausage.
Yeah, they had to eat that much sausage too.
Oh, man. I can't imagine a British show about living like a German would be all that complimentary to Germans.
Yeah, there was a lot of stuff on there about whether women could work or moms could work and stuff like that. So that was interesting. But the thing about the bathroom stumped me, Alice. A long time in the bathroom and, you know, living in an apartment, they have one, so.
Hold it.
How do we get off of that? So, yeah. Is that. Is that all the German pencils we could think of?
Yes, I could think of.
Yeah.
That's sad.
Yeah.
Well, I guess there aren't that many in America anymore either.
I was trying to go through brandnamepencils.com because there's an amazing list of like pencil brands there. But I don't think that he breaks it down by like current currently made pencils. But yeah, that's, that's super interesting. There's like super old ones like J.S. regensburg. They have like pencils with amazing like typography on it. Looks like there's 24 different pencil companies on his site. Carl Nabla, Bavaria, Bleistift, Fabric, Lira. Yeah. Abara Faber. Still German pencil company. Schwann. Oh, Schwann's a thing, right?
I think that's a Stabilo thing.
You're right. And I think Schwann still exists, but makes makeup maybe.
No, they still use that logo for the Stabilo stuff.
You're right. You're right. That's. Yeah, totally.
I'm on pencil pages right now and was doing a search find on the list of pencil manufacturers and just rolling. I just typed in Germany. It was rolling through and Yeah, I mean the ones we've mentioned are the active ones. There are some. I mean Pennsylvania's list is lists like Kaweco and Pelican stuff, but I'm pretty sure they just make mechanical pencils. Yeah, but most of the other ones, I mean, I don't, I don't think these exist anymore.
We don't have to do another episode about other brands.
Well, actually I did find. I did find one.
Huh.
Rayta R H E I T A oh yeah.
I have a couple of their pencils. They don't mark it here.
E I since 1948. Their website isn't just totally in Germany, but it's an active website. It looks like it was put together in the last 10 years, which makes it like cutting edge for a pencil company. They got a Musgrave beat, so they exist anyways.
It's cool. So when you think of German pencil,
what do you guys think of Faber Castell 9,000s?
Yeah. Gosh. I mean, stole the words from my mouth. That's exactly what I was going to say.
The qualities like.
Oh, I see, I see.
Along with the Japanese pencil, they're. They're sort of flawless. But Japanese pencils are really dark for their grade, so they're smooth. But I feel like German pencils being harder for their grade, they're still really smooth and that's a bigger achievement.
Yeah.
Quality wise. Oh, go ahead.
Like an HP Custom 9000 is one light pencil, but it's still really smooth.
Mm.
It's not running them with a nail or anything like that.
I definitely think of like the just exacting nature of a lot of them. Like, you know, they're Very. Like, the core is super centered. Like, I have. I have a whole bunch of the grip 2001 sitting here, which I'm not a huge fan of because the wood is just kind of like weird and lightweight. But, like, despite it being like a weird triangular pencil, it's like everything super centered in it, which is really hard to do with triangular pencils. So I. Yeah, I just think of the just like very exacting, you know, manufacturing of pencils when I think German.
Yeah. I was gonna say the same thing, that the quality wise, they're very rarely low quality. Like, I was just saying that I was using a Norika and I have. And I don't use norca's very often, but I have I, you know, bought a box of them. And they're amazingly consistent and centered, well put together. And. And even when they don't use cedar, the wood still seems. Even if it's like. Like the 2001, I don't ever want to use them because of their. The weighting and just. I've. We've talked about that for. I don't tend to like them, but they also feel really well made. Even if it's a lightweight wood. Weird wood.
Yeah.
There's definitely a lot of care that went into choosing them and designing them, so.
Totally. Yeah.
And when I think.
Also when I think of German pencils, I think. And I could be totally wrong about this, but what I think about is quality over variety. You know, like with General Pencil company and Musgrave, they have some quality pencils, but they also have some stinkers in there, especially Musgrave.
Yeah, it's into an lexicon.
Stinkers. Yeah. But like German pencils, like, there's. There's not a huge variety. Like, they'll take, for instance, the Wopex, and they'll do, you know, they'll do a hundred different versions of it aesthetically. But the core, the hardest stays there. But they still all look.
They're all really, really amazing pencils. Shut up, man.
This. The chat is just tearing Wopex apart.
Yeah, well, I'm making a list of all this.
You are.
I also think of just like the very classic aesthetics of German pencils. Like, they're not super, like, gloss, glossy and shiny with, like, crazy color contrast. Like a lot of, like, Japanese pencils, but they like that dark green and the 9000 and really classy looking. Yeah, just really classy and like old
world looking, I think. Yeah, they're conservative with that gold foil.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's not a giant thing that Says made by elaborate process on the side. Yeah.
But the.
Their finishes they've been using for general office writing.
They've been using sort of ecologically friendly paints longer than anybody. If I'm not mistaken, there was a generation of the cast on 9000s that were out like 10 years ago. I'm old. That were. You could see the wood grain through the paint. There was their first generation of water based varnishes. They hadn't perfected it yet. Now they're gorgeous. And they're still water based.
Yeah.
Which is awesome. And also they tend to win awards. Like the Wopix won the Bioproduct of the year award in 2009.
Oh yeah.
The grip 2001 was like a big deal when it came out of the year.
Hey, I won that last.
They just make that up. They just make that up. Win that the year before.
We just won the.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's a European thing.
Yeah. Bio products.
The Grip 2001 won a bunch of design awards when it came out. That whole line did. Because in 2001 that was a big deal. God. Ticonderogas are still made in America in 2001.
What?
Wow. I didn't realize. Yeah. Huh.
Yeah.
I really love. I think we'll talk about them a little bit later. But I so much love the Norris school pencils. I think they're so great.
Yeah. I mean even when you make grocery store pencil in Germany, it's a really good.
Yeah. Yeah. And I find that here they're all over the uk. Like I, I bought like several different grades of the school pencil when I was with tj. So.
Good. Yeah, that's. That's a really impressive thing. I mean.
Yeah.
You think about like you talk about floor and ceiling. Like the floor of a German pencil.
Yeah.
Is like the ceiling of an American pencil for all like, for most purposes, you know, like. So that's. That there's definitely something said there. Like you're not going to go in. I went to. Oh gosh. I don't even know the name of it. I just like purged it from my memory. But I went to the grocery store and there was this super low level pencil they were selling that had a. They were called wow pencils. Like World of Warcraft. But like it was one. It was this really awful use of, you know, like wow was spelled vertically like wow. And the O and the W like went with other words.
I see.
But they like didn't totally make. It was just like so careless. And they looked like total pieces of crap. And like, I don't know, I imagine I've been to Germany, but at the time I wasn't shopping for pencils, so. Yeah, I'd imagine you're not going to find much like that because if you can buy Norris for a quarter.
Yeah, yeah. Those pencils that Kristoff sent us, the sort of reconstituted vintage looking carpenter pencils that he said were for tourists. I sharpened one up with a knife today and it was like the most amazing pencil. It smelled delicious. I put it in front of Rosie's face and her eyes opened.
She ate, she ate it.
And the lead is nice.
Good girl.
Yeah.
We don't do it right here. Sad face.
Yeah. So let's take the show to Germany, guys.
We're moving to Germany.
Brush up on my German.
Yeah.
So do you guys want to talk about our favorite German pencils?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I just, I just favorite.
I just have to say me and Tim. I don't remember. I think the ballot box was stuffed because I do not remember writing all the wopex in.
Well, it wasn't stuffed, but they weigh it and a Wopex is heavy.
That's true. That boat is weighted. I, I do. I, I kid. I, I do like a vopex. It's like, I like it just for its sheer, like, you, uniqueness. Like it's. I like the weight of it. It is fun to write with. Yeah. I love to just like run my fingernail along the like, barrel of it because it's kind of rubbery.
It's.
Yeah, it, it's. Wopexes are fun. They're not like, yeah, the most like, smooth, dark riding experience. But the world doesn't revolve around like, not everything needs to be smooth and dark anyhow.
That's the rule you live by.
Yeah. Put that on a T shirt.
Not everything has to be smooth and dark, says Andy.
Yeah, sometimes plastic pencils are plastic as pencils too. So I like, I already talked about the Norse school pencil. I also really like a Mars Lumograph, which just is a really nice like I, that was kind of like the first Office Depot fine pencil that I ever thought about getting. They're just really nice. Their erasers, like you can get separately with that are nice. I think that was one of the first like capped pencils I've ever really used.
The Lumigraph is one of the maybe like the only ubiquitous pencil that I've never touched. I've never had one.
Really?
Yeah. That's like one of the One of the only of all the pencils I've tried in the boxes of pencils I have downstairs. Somehow I've never had a Mars Lumograph and I've never used one.
Do you have a Staples in your town?
No.
Remember, they have them in the drafting section there.
Remember when Tim went to like. Where did you go? And you were like, it's like a vacation because I went to a Staples.
Oh, yeah, yeah. That was in Atlanta. And I just. I guess I didn't go to the drafting section.
Yeah, they have. They have them at Office Depot too.
Yeah, they're pretty good price. It's like seven bucks for half a dozen. That's not bad.
Okay, well, we have an Office Depot, but I just haven't seen them there, so I'll check again.
Yeah, I also, like.
It's a pretty small one, but.
Yeah, I think Tim mentioned this, so I won't talk too much about the Jumbo, but I do like the fabric Estelle 9000. It's a super classic Faber Castell. And that's. Yeah, exactly what I think of when I think of Faber Castell. Faber Castle.
Faber Castle.
Who was it? Was that.
That was me. Yeah.
Yeah, Faber Castle.
Cool.
So how about you, Tim? What are your favorite of the Sherman pencils?
Yeah. And the really like the. I've talked before about the 9000 and how I actually was a little disappointed, but that's kind of changed. I'm starting to like them more.
Have you tried 4B?
No, not yet. It's grown on me. But I have a 2B Jumbo 9000. Jumbo. It was that I bought a couple years ago when I was in Atlanta at a. When I forget the name of it. Soul Art Store. And I still love that thing. Utrecht. Yeah. And I love it, love it, love it, love it. I could use that all the time. It's really nice and smooth. I love the big, fat, huge core. It's a wonderful thing. So I. I enjoy that one quite a bit. And. And I do have to say, like, with the. With the Wopex, very, very rarely pick them up, but I admire them and I'm still. I'm still. I'm still getting used to the. The to be that you sent me, Johnny. And if they had those with erasers, I would be very excited. I think, like, I would maybe carry one around a little more, but.
But they're the hackling one.
Oh, gosh, that's good.
A Wopex Blackwing. That would be a really interesting collaboration.
Oh, my God. No one will get any. I will buy them all. And probably people would let me have them all.
A wolf wing.
But that's. That's really the only ones I have to offer. I'm. Those are. Those are my favorite. There are some that I've talked about especially not liking. You know, I don't care for the 2001. I know some people just love them, but it's not my thing. So I. The. The 9000 jumbo and I do like a Wopex now and then.
What are the reasons you don't like the 2001?
It's too light.
Yeah.
I don't like the little nubs.
Yeah.
On it. It's really kind of all around. I just hate it.
Yeah.
You guys didn't like.
Yeah, I have one in front of me right now. It's still just too, too scratchy. And I think. Which I forget when this first came up, but it's still the idea of like with a pencil that light. If it's at all a little scratchy, I feel like it reverberates through the pencil and I just notice every like all scratchiness of it.
Yeah.
So I just don't. Just don't care for it.
I told you about how those dots melted in my car, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. They had to redesign them.
Yeah.
They're actually clear now.
Really?
Yeah. They used to be black. Now like, if you look at them really closely, they look like hot glue.
I have some that. That look like little diamonds in there. Did I send you guys those?
Yes, I have those. The like the pastel colored ones.
Yeah.
I swear I sent you some, Johnny.
Oh, man. I'm gonna kill my mailman.
I have a purple, purple and a pink one.
Yeah, those are. I got those in England. Those are cool.
I have one with soccer that Matthias sent me.
Cool.
The grips are little soccer balls. It's black with the German colors. It's one of my favorite pencils.
Tiny, tiny soccer balls. That's cool.
Yeah, he had some on his website that were neon and the grips were like sneakers a few years ago. They were really cool looking. You give it to the Germans when they make something kind of weird. It's still a really good pencil.
Oh, yeah.
The Germans.
The Germans.
How do you spell Shermans? Is that S H E R? No, that's Sherman's.
If I spell it, just funny is like Germans. He's trying to pronounce it like Germans, but Germans. It would be the. What is it deutschers or what? How do they say German if you're a German person? You're a Deutschlander or what is it? Yeah, that's all I'm trying to say. Yeah.
Where did Guy Ritchie go? That's huge. We didn't do an After Dark episode about Guy Ritchie films.
Okay, well, Johnny, what are your favorite? Oh, you talked about the Wolfex.
Yeah. So I'm paring this down to a couple, but in no particular order the Wopex, because it's awesome. So Matthias sent me to in, like, 2012, and, like, I immediately fell in love with them, even though I was sort of already in love with the idea of them because I thought they were so cool.
Yeah.
But also the Norse. I'm surprised you guys didn't mention Philistines.
I mentioned the Norse school pencil.
Okay, fine. Edit that out. It's late. That's sort of like Britain's Ticonderoga. Get that everywhere.
Yeah.
Draw a cartoon of a pencil. That's what you draw.
Yeah.
So it's a great pencil. I like the ones that don't say school pencil more because I don't know why, I just feel like a little kid or something. But Mattia sent me some with erasers that are cedar.
Wait, the erasers are cedar? No, the pencil.
Yeah, sorry. And they're cedar and they have erasers and they're amazing. They're really cool. They're all, like, absolutely perfect. And they put a really, really cool feral on that pencil. There's another thing the Germans do, right? Their ferrules are all really cool.
Yeah.
Faber Castell nine thousand.
Of course,
because it's always smooth and it never smears. You can write with a 4B and it won't smear and it's smooth and wonderful. I have one that's a B. That is an erase that I let my wife borrow and she did not give back. So to figure out where to get those. And my last one, I just closed the dock. Sorry. Is the Faber Castell grip design that's in all black, so pencils matte black. The dots are black, the logo is black. I think the wood is black. It's an amazing pencil. It's so pretty. I'm not aware of anywhere you can get them.
Besides, do you think John Steinbeck would like those?
No, they don't have any. Well, he didn't like erasers, Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, that's the true volume in 24.
I thought the nubs would be too frivolous or something.
That's true. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
You like round pencils.
Sand them off. Yeah, you sand it Naked. The wood's black.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
I don't know what kind of wood that is because Faber Castell grows their own wood in South America, which is really cool.
They just like, just.
But they, they've gone back to cedar for the cast on 9000, which is good.
Yeah.
Because you should have cedar in your flagship pencil. But yeah, I'll stop or I'll name
like 20 of them.
Okay.
I can't think of 20 of them, but maybe like 10.
Yeah, cool.
Yeah. If you guys had to pick one German finish and you could change the lid, what would you pick?
German. Wait, say again?
So, like, if you could take a grip 20.01 but put any other lead in it, or what German pencil would you keep with a different lid?
If I could take the form factor of the 2001 and put some other kind of wood in it, like anything else, like, like cedar even, that would be fine. That would be better.
Yeah.
Like, goes back to your golden bears. Your triangular golden bears kind of has a similar size to it.
Yeah, it's like. Has the same kind of like soft triangular shape, but it has like a regular wooden instead of like. Do you know what kind of wood that 2001 is?
I'm sorry, I think it's Julitong, however you pronounce that.
Okay.
I think Charles told me that one time.
I just don't care for it. Like, just like Tim says. I think he really nailed it. Tim. It's like the scratchiness reverberates through the wood.
If you get the ones that are. It's less. Less noticeable.
That's true. Yeah. A little bit of weight on the end, but it kind of like you can almost feel it like echo up, up. If like. I feel ridiculous saying that, but it's so true.
Yeah, yeah.
But we all know exactly what you're talking about.
It makes me sound like the Princess and the Pea or something. Like, I'm so sensitive that I can feel the scratchiness echo up through the pencil.
The hair on your arm stands up, you're like.
No, but it makes a little sound. It has like a really high pitched, like ear.
Ear, Ear sound. Yeah. What do you feel with your pencil?
Yeah, yeah. That is not. No. I think if also, if I could take like the. Just like you said, Johnny, the. The non smudginess of like a dark Faber Castell 9000 and put it in like a triangular Norris School pencil, that would be a fantastic. Or like put that lead in a Wolfex because I love the heft of The Wolfex and like the kind of rubbery, plasticky feel, but I just don't like that. That graphite formulation. And I know that they have to make a special graphite formulation to like, bond to the. To the plastic, but I think therein lies the problem.
Yeah. The binders in that are plastic instead of clay.
Yeah.
It's like a big fat mechanical pencil lead.
Yeah.
Only better.
Yeah.
It doesn't break.
So. Yeah, that's my. That's my Franken pencil.
How about your Tim?
Yeah. I mean, it's a tough one. I. It seems like, to be honest, it feels like kind of a weird exercise because I feel like I'd just be turning it back into a different pencil that I already like, you know, but. Yeah, it's a hard one to answer. I feel like I would. I would gravitate towards the. The 9000 just because it looks so amazing. But I'd hesitate to say something like, I want to totally change it when I. Like, I haven't tried the 4B, which Johnny, you've told me is like, pretty great. So that might be what I'm basically creating. But I was going to say something that looks like 9,000 but has the core of a, you know, Blackwing 602 or something.
You know what else I'd like to see is some sort of a collaboration wherein the Germans engineer the pencil and the Japanese design the pencil. Or some sort of a, like, Japanese take on a German pencil. Because I love the way, like, the aesthetics of a Japanese pencil and like, define exactness and like, quality of a German pencil. Like, what would that look like?
I think it would be World War 3, the Axis pencil. The Axis 3?
Yeah.
That's not funny.
Yeah, no, it's a. It'd be a good pencil, though.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just something with.
Be tough to beat.
Yeah. Yeah.
Our American pencils would not beat that. Yeah.
I'd like to see something like the 4B fiber castell 9000 but with the lead not so fat. I don't know why it bothers me writing with that. Like, I don't want to sharpen this as much. You know, it's not going to break. Those things never break, but bugs me.
Yeah. Cool. Anything else we should say about German
pencils or anything about the Germans?
The German pencils?
I don't think so.
Yeah. Cool.
I don't think so.
Should we.
They don't get enough love from for most and I think it's a matter of just reassessing the scales. Yeah.
I feel like with Blackwing Fever. Everybody wants a dark pencil, which I appreciate because I usually like a dark pencil, but then the German pencils get overlooked. And you can always just go up a grade in case of the Castro 9000, like, or Thor.
Corey Roth in the chat has a. Has a good question, which is, why do you think they don't call the Norris Eco a Wolpex?
It's my interpretation that they're sticking with actually using the word wopex only for that particular line. There's a tradition eco also that they're selling as part of the tradition line, even though it's a wopex and the Norris colors. So I think it's. I mean, I assume it's a branding thing.
Yeah.
Staedtler's really weird about their brands.
Yeah.
And also they won't sell in small quantities, which is why they don't have them at CW Pencils.
Boo.
Yeah. That makes me sad. I went on there to look at what they have. I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot. Caroline said they don't carry them. Sad face.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
But, yeah, they do have a pretty good selection of Faber Castell stuff.
Yeah. I'm so jealous that. Are you going to go. When you go to nyc, you're going to go to CW Pencils. Yeah.
We have like three stops. The Historical Society, the pencil store, and, like, this pizza place I really like in the Village. So full day. I think we're going to meet up with Harry Marks, which would be cool.
Yeah.
Maybe Dr. Hans again.
Hello.
Should look up June Thomas, too.
We have a little party at the place with my daughter.
Yeah.
Teetotal. We'll bring a thermos of coffee or something. Yeah. Box of Joe.
Whenever I think of pizza places in New York City, I think of that episode of the Office where Michael Scott goes to New York. He talks about. He's like, there's a little neighborhood corner pizza place that I really love over here, and it's a Cafe Sbarro.
It's not like a Sbarro, but it's like on Times Square.
Yeah, you're right.
Yeah.
Cool. Should we button it up?
Sure. Let all these. Yeah. Thank you for listening. We kept it to almost an hour and a half this time again, which is really awesome. We're getting really good at scheduling. We're almost like Germans.
Almost.
So we are the Erasable Podcast. Can you guys tell folks where they can find you online and in real person, in real life? If you want to give me your address?
Yeah. If you walk up a really big hill in San Francisco.
My coordinates are the only hill in San Francisco.
There's only that one.
So.
Yeah, no, I am. I am Andy Welfle. I am on@woodclinch.com if you want to read non pencil writing, it's at Andy Coffee. You can find me at a W E L F as in Frank L E on Twitter and Instagram. And yeah, go to Noe Valley and just shout my name in San Francisco in starting in September and you'll find me.
You think it's a joke, but I'm gonna make a road trip.
I can't wait. I can't wait. I'll just read the police plotter and look for the guy they arrested shouting some guy's name.
And they found me with a shoebox full of opex. Didn't know what they were.
Oh, my God. That's plastic explosives.
Some guy with a pencil machine strapped to his back.
What's going on there? Tim, how about you?
You can find me on Twitter timwassom and I am on Instagram imathywassum.
I'm Johnny Awesome. I am@pencilrevolution.com on Twitter ensolution and on Instagram onnygamber, although that's largely baby pictures. And we are the Erasable podcast at Erasable Us. You can join our Facebook group, which is like daily more awesome@facebook.com groups erasable. And you can check out our facebook page@facebook.com erasablepodcast where you'll get sort of our official announcements. And we don't really mess around on there, but maybe we should. We're on Twitter and Instagram erasablepodcasts. We've got a lot of new followers on Instagram, which is really awesome. You could rate us and review us on itunes and overcast, whatever that is. And this episode will be at Erasable Us shortly. So thanks for tuning in for our live folks especially. And we'll talk to you in two weeks.
How do you say goodbye in German?
The intro music for the Erasable podcast is graciously provided by this Meltdown, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music@www.thismountainband.com. If I could just count the time
this has happened before.