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Transcript
Yes, you children might enjoy your l', Choi, but the adults in the house drink Polar Seltzer.
Hi, and welcome to episode 69A of the Erasable podcast. After some technical difficulties with Mixlr and our Skype call last time, which resulted in unusual audio or we're switching tracks, so to speak, no fanfare, no live streaming, no live chat, no nothing. Just conversation. And there's no one we'd want to be having a plain old conversation with than our friend, a return guest to the show and the host of Covered, a podcast about writers and their books, Mr. Harry C. Marks. Hi, Harry. Welcome.
Hello, everyone.
Yay.
And hello, of course, to my fellow co hosts, Johnny and Tim. Hey, guys.
Hey.
So Harry, you're probably wondering why you're here.
Just like, called him randomly one night, like, hey, hey, Harry.
Yeah, get on Skype.
Hurry.
He's getting called to the principal's office.
Gotta tell you something, dude.
Calling you up the ranks? No, after we are done with our fresh points and everything, we're gonna. We're gonna get into some conversation. Harry sparked a really active conversation the other day in our Facebook group, and we just wanted to just dive into that a little bit more. So once we get to the main topic, we'll talk about that. So let's dive into our tools of the trade at the moment. Harry, would you like to go over what you are consuming, either media and. Or booze, and then what you're writing with no booze.
Although I did have two cans of Polar seltzer and. Well, yes, you children might enjoy your Lacroix, but I. The adults in the house drink Polar
Seltzer and hey, man, nothing but La Croix over here.
La Croix. I bet you call it a foyer too.
A foyer.
All right, enough of that. I am currently reading the book Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller, actually, in preparation for an interview I'm doing with her this weekend for my show. And it's about a man who sees. Who thinks he sees his dead wife across the street from his bookstore. And so half every other chapter is an epistolary novel. And the letters are written from the perspective of the deceased mother when she's a young woman around the time she meets her husband. And then the other half of the novel is the aftermath of what happens when he runs after his wife after not seeing her for many, many years. So it bounces back and forth between letters and then present day prose. And then I just finished the movie Genius, which was on hbo, and it tells the story of Max Perkins, the editor who, for lack of A better word discovered. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald. And it centers around his relationship with Thomas Wolfe, who wrote Homework. Was it Look Homeward Angel? Something like that. And yeah. So this guy, Max Perkins, there was a biography written about him, and he was the one who edited A Farewell to Arms, the Great Gatsby. What is it? La Combert, Angel. And then his relationship with Thomas Wolfe, which was. It was weird. It began in a professional manner and just went off into. He basically treated him. Perkins treated Wolf like the son he never had. And it was this really weird, tenuous relationship between them because Wolf was battling demons of his own. I really enjoyed it.
To Sherwood Anderson, too.
I'm not sure they. I don't think they get into that in the book, in the movie, but really, really great cast. Jude Law plays Wolf. Colin Firth plays Perkins. Who. Guy Pierce plays F. Scott Fitzgerald. I can't. Dominic Monahan plays. Yeah. Dominic Monaghan plays Hemingway in a brief role. Really, really good. I loved it. It got sort of critically panned. A lot of people thought, especially in the uk, they thought it was very hammy and. And not well acted and a little over the top. But I. I enjoyed the hell out of it, so I highly recommend it.
That sounds good. Did you. Where did you say you watched it?
I. It was on hbo, so I watched it on demand.
Oh, okay.
Oh, and then Tools of the Trade I am currently using. So I'm sort of baron figged out here. Joey was kind enough to provide me with a couple of notebooks, and I've been using. I've been working on a short story in one of their really large the XL Vanguards, because I. I had mentioned that I had used a. One of those really large Moleskine notebooks for my second novel. And he's like, well, try this. And I was like, all right, cool. And then I picked up a Squire pen, which has been fantastic. Sorry, no pencils this week. Yeah, I love that pen. It is so well balanced.
Are you using it with the original ink or are you using something else?
No, I'm using the. The original black refill that they use. I got the charcoal color.
Yeah, me too.
And it's. It's so pretty. It's so good. I. I want the Alphabet, and I have no need for the Alphabet, but I just want it.
Yeah.
And then I'm using. I use a workplace 2 as my daily bullet journal list thing. And then I use a confidant as a reading journal, slash, podcast prep notebook. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I take general notes In a field notes byline.
So when you use the workplace, do you like use the dot grid side for something and the blank side for something else?
Yeah, I'll send a picture because on the dot grid side at the top, I section it off into three sections for. So the left side is the date, in the center is the weather. And then on the right side I list out pages read. And if I'm working on a book or something, it's words written. And so that'll be my daily word count log. And then on the left side of the page, along the edge of it I'm using. I think it was Mike Rohde had put up a post about the planner bar he uses. So he sections it off. It's like every five dots is an hour. And then I schedule in my meetings and what I'm working on in that planner bar and I shade it in different shady ways. So like either all blacked out or checkerboarded or whatever. And then on the right side of that page, I use a standard bullet journal for my to do list. And then on the blank side, a lot of the pages I've left blank. I'm tempted to just leave it blank and go back again. So use it as two separate notebooks almost.
That's cool.
I've used a couple of the pages for note taking and stuff or like my TBR pile for my books, stuff I want to pick up. But for the most part I've left those pages blank. I'm tempted to just use the dot grid side for work. And then when I figure out a use for the right side of the page, the notebook, I'll figure it out.
Nice. Cool. How about you, Tim?
I have been listening to a lot of Ryan Adams lately. Any of you fans of Ryan Adams?
Not really.
Yeah, I can't name a single song.
Yeah, so I mean, I've been. He's. He's one of those super prolific, you know, just. I mean, he comes out with a couple albums a year and I've been sort of into him in a mild way for a long time.
Did he write the never ending Robin Hood song?
The what?
That was Brian.
Everything I do, I do it for you. Is that him or is that Brian?
That's Brian.
I don't remember which.
There's the two of them confused.
Look that up online because there's. There's a pretty. I mean there's a kind of a. They have the same birthday, by the way. Adams and Brian Adams.
Really?
And there's a really famous story of Ryan Adams getting pissed off at a concert because somebody kept yelling out, Summer is 69. He's like, get him the F out of here. And, like, like, walked up to him and apparently, like, handed him like, a 40. Like, 40 bucks. I was like, this will pay for your cab home. Just leave. No. Ryan Adams was in Whiskey Town. He is kind of a founding father of the, like, kind of alt country world with Wilco and things like that. And he's pretty incredible. And I. There's an album of his Cold Roses that I love in high school, I still love today. And I just got a record player, which was going to talk about. Finally got a record player. And that was one of the first records I bought, was his Cold Roses album. So I've been listening to a lot of his stuff. And he had a new album that came out like, two days ago called Prisoner.
So nice.
So that's been pretty amazing and really, really fascinating. I also just watched the movie Whiplash for the first time.
Oh, so good.
I don't know how it took me this long to watch it, but I was totally blown away by it. I mean, that was an incredible movie. And I decided that as a teacher, I want to be a cross between J.K. simmons character and Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society. So I got to figure out how to creative hybrid of those two. Like, two opposite, complete opposites, but more
smacking, less, oh, Captain, my captain.
Yeah, yeah. Less villainous than J.K. simmons, but just like the. The raising the standards. That, like, that whole, like, idea was kind of nuts where he tells that story about Charlie Parker like that. The only reason Charlie Parker is Charlie Parker is that somebody, like, flipped out on him and threw a symbol at his head. Like. Well, I'm not gonna throw a symbol at my kid's head, but I'm gonna raise the standards a little bit at least. So, yeah, so I've been listening to a lot of Ryan Adams, and also thanks to Whiplash and La La Land, which I. Outstanding. His. It got me to read a book I've. I've had in my. My Kindle forever, and I've been meaning to read it. I keep reading, like, the first 10 pages and coming back to it, but it's called Cooking Hard Bop and Soul Jazz, which my favorite. I'm a big jazz fan, and my favorite section of jazz history is Hard pop, which is like mid-50s to early 60s. So that's been super fascinating. So I highly recommend that book. I won't get into too much. I won't get into the weeds on that one. As far as details, but, but it's a podcast. It's. Yeah, yeah, right. It splits it up by artists and it's, it's. You can find. If you on Spotify, if you're. If you like jazz, you can go on Spotify. And there's a, actually a really good Hard Bop curated playlist on Spotify and gives you a really good feel of what, what Hard Bop's all about. So that's, that's been good. And yeah, like I said, I've been listening to a lot of vinyl, which has been a lot of fun because I've always, since I was in high school, been the kid who had the. I. The ipod that held. Held like 80,000 songs and it was filled to the brim, you know, like I always had way more than I needed.
Yeah.
And then with Spotify and Amazon Unlimited and all this stuff, like, I just, I find myself just constantly looking for something to listen to. And so I was like, screw it, it's time. Like, I'm gonna get one. And then I actually got one from my uncle. He gave me an old record player and then I had some records that I bought over the year. Years for no reason because I didn't have a record player at the time. I just kind of would find deals on records I liked and, and so I've got that upstairs and it's nice to go from having unlimited music to having like 2020 albums or whatever.
I'm sorry, Tim, Analog has no place in this podcast.
Yeah, sorry, I'll stop talking. I'll show myself the door.
Here's 20 bucks.
Yeah. Get out of here.
GTFO.
So. So that's been awesome. And I know it's just like the hipster thing to do or whatever, but like it's just, it's great. I love it. And I've been sort of ready for this for about. I've been buying records for like 12 years and I have this collection of like 20 to 30 that I've been building up really for no reason. I don't know why I didn't. I guess I always expected I would get one at some point, but Beatles records and old jazz records and stuff. Yeah. But as far as writing with. I am writing with a 211 Blackwing 211 that I've been carrying around in my pocket for a few days. And I'm using a Write notepads reporter notebook. Nice.
Yeah. Such a good notebook.
The best.
Johnny, how about you? What are you consuming and writing with
so do you guys watch the man in the High Castle on Amazon? Not yet.
Definitely.
I watched the first episode and I haven't had a chance to go back, but I did read the novel, so
I feel like the first half of the first season just kind of sucked and I fell asleep a lot and then it got better. So I'm halfway through season two, which is very, very good. So we've been watching that on nights that I don't fall asleep right after dinner. And are you guys watching Victoria on pbs?
Just finished it last night.
Awesome.
I'm one episode behind. I'm gonna watch it after this.
What do you. Do you like this better or the crown better or would you even compare them?
I think I like Victoria better, but I think the crown is better.
This is turning into a different kind of.
It is,
yeah.
Yeah. But I just finished rereading a book called the Thoreau you don't know by Robert Sullivan, the gent who wrote that really cool book about rats, so.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I know who you're talking about.
Yeah, he's a really good writer. He wrote a book about rats that was a best seller. That's pretty cool. But he wrote a book about Thoreau. I don't remember when it came out. Nine zero eight, something like that. Where he's sort of, you know, tossing out everybody's misconceptions about Thoreau as like a mean old hermit who just loved the earth and ever said anything ever about nonviolence, etc.
So he was actually like a really skilled and award winning flamenco dancer or something.
He was John Wick.
That is in the appendix.
Yeah. Okay.
Hasn't been proven yet.
Yeah. Yeah, that's actually president.
If you've read a lot of Thoreau, you might not learn that much because stuff you already know. But it has a really cute cover. So there you go. And I am writing with a blue dipped palomino. HB gasp. And a field notes. The XOXO 2016. Those really colorful ones which are actually really, really nice to write in. Among my last one, which is the darkest one? I think it was the one in the middle.
Yeah.
Is that the black and white one? But it has a lot of black in it.
It's mostly black with pink and a little bit of pink and a lot of orange. And then, you know, the graph inside is orange. So if you look at them with polarized sunglasses on, it actually like gives you a headache.
Can break your eyes.
Discover after I'm writing for a while in the sun. I'm Like, God, my head hurts.
Oh,
so there you go. How about you, Andy?
I am well, as of late and as I think many of us are. I'm trying to become a more educated media consumer because there's a lot of reasons to be right now which we won't get into. But I've always really had a deep appreciation for and enjoyed listening to on the media, the. The show at npr. They're just really smart and they cover. They do a lot of like, meta coverage and cover the media's coverage of things. And I have always kind of like just missed it because it's on the weekends, at least out here on kqed. It's on Saturday afternoons, I think, when I don't usually listen to it. Sunday afternoons, one of those. But I, I was like, oh, well, they have a podcast. So I've been listening to that podcast on my way to work and it's, yeah, been really good. They usually do a weekly hour long thing and then sometimes they do a little podcast extra. So maybe like 15 minutes. So good. They've been talking about leaks from the White House lately and how that happens and how the media handles it. It's really interesting if you.
I listen to it too. And it's become one of my favorite podcasts to listen to because if you compare it to even last year, like during the campaign, you can hear the slow descent into madness of Bob Garfield. It is amaz. He has just lost all, like, he has no Fs to give anymore. He's just done. He's like, trump is crazy. And yeah, it's hilarious to listen to.
Yeah, yeah, it's so good. And I've. I like Brooke Gladstone a lot, I think. Yeah, both of them are just so good. So I've also been reading probably about like 80% of the books that I read are sci fi. And I try not to do like, you know, kind of the sci fi equivalent of, you know, the detective paperback novels, even though those are perfectly great. So I rely a lot on the monthly sci fi and fantasy reading list that iO9 puts out every month. I have that just set up to like, go straight to my. My pocket reader. And I just look at all of the sci fi ones. There's something called the Incrementalists by Stephen Brust and Skyler White. It's really good. It's kind of this like, reincarnation y thing. I don't really know yet. I just started it. It's a good, like kind of light sci fi novel to get yourself into.
If.
If that's your thing if genre fiction is your thing. And then also I. I don't want to talk too much about it because this isn't that podcast, but I'm a little bit obsessed with the Young Pope. Has anybody here watched the Young Pope?
I've heard good things.
It's so weird, guys. Johnny, I think you would appreciate it. You went to Catholic school, did you? Are you Catholic or in any way connected to Catholics?
Harry? No.
Okay.
I have been in between religions my entire life and leaning more towards not being near any of them.
I am definitely a pretty hard nosed atheist as it is. But I went to school for. I went to school. I went to Catholic school and my parents are Catholic, so I grew up Catholic. And the Young Pope is. What is the Pope? I just don't even know how to describe it. It was filmed simultaneously for HBO and for Italian television. And so there's a lot of. It has a very, like, European pacing to it.
I'm with the Young Pope.
Yeah.
And. And it's funny because all of the previews and everything made it seem like the entire premise of the show is like, hey, what if there was a pope and he was young? And strangely, like, it's. It's way more deep than that. But like, all of the marketing and even the episode descriptions on HBO refers to him as the Young Pope.
So you would say it's. It's hbo and it usually means there's a lot of sex in it. So I'm trying to figure out how that would fit in the Young Pope.
It's like that episode of Seinfeld when Newman keeps calling McCl, die hard,
go.
Die Hard, go.
It's like he's the Young Pope. So it's a. So I feel like on Twitter everybody just had, like, a lot of fun with making fun of the Young Pope, but it's actually really good.
He.
I don't think it's any spoilers here. It's kind of like if. If there was a young American Pope, we would all expect him to be like, super progressive or something like that. But this is sort of a get back to the roots of, like, fire and brimstone Catholicism from the medieval period. So it's kind of like make Catholicism great again. Even though this was filmed and shot well before, like, any officials were current, current White House administration people were in the office. Anyhow, if you have access to hbo, go watch the Young Pope.
It's really good.
And there's only like eight episodes, so it won't take that long. Ten Episodes, maybe eight. I don't remember. And I am writing with a Vierko 3000, which is a remake from a vintage one, which I'll talk about a little bit later in my Baron fig confidant. Okay, well, now that we've spent the whole podcast talking about our media that we're consuming, let's talk about fresh points now. Harry, do you want to start us off?
Not really. Yeah, I guess so.
What?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how to introduce this because my, my fresh. Well, okay, we're not into the main topic. This is different. Okay.
Yeah.
You know, I've been listening to this podcast since it started and I have no idea how it's organized.
Neither do we. Don't worry.
It's super complicated. So.
So, yeah. So my fresh points are I just wrapped up my. The first draft of my fifth novel and I have it out to a couple of beta readers before I start on edits. I'm trying to take the. The Stephen King method and leaving it alone for a while so I can look at it with fresh eyes. The last time I did edit. So my, my process is I finish a book, I. If I hand wrote it, it goes into the computer and then I reprint it out so I can edit it by hand. Or in the case of this one, I typed it out in scrivener from beginning to end. I printed it out and so I'm going to go through it with a red pen or pencil. The last time I did this, I did it with a red Mitsubishi, which I wasn't thrilled with because it was it. It just wore out way too quickly. So I am seeking recommendations for red pencils that have decent point retention. That will last me a little while because this, that thing lasted me maybe 30 pages before I had to junk it.
Do you, do Johnny or Tim have any suggestions for him?
It's not just red, but that carrot. The caran d' ache Blue red, which I got from CW Pencils. I love that thing. That thing is so nice and it's so smooth and it holds a point decently. I mean, it's still a colored pencil because it's hard to find one that doesn't. That holds a point that's not super light and scratchy, so. But that's my favorite. But it is blue and red. I actually have to look around to see if they just make a flat out red pencil. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't, I don't need the blue side. What about the black wing colored pencil is the red one any good?
Oh, it'll be way too soft, and you'll have.
You'll have to buy the whole set, too.
I feel like a lot of the specifically colored pencils would be too soft. I don't know if the red, like, mark pencils have a different formulation than, like, red colored pencils.
Do you know they're supposed to be erasable, some of them.
Yeah.
Have you tried the Dixon one? Like a super new one?
No.
So they kind of sucked, but now they're cedar and super nice. You get them at Staples, I think, and, like a four pack. I've been using one of those for a while. They've got pretty good retention, but, like, you know, they're not that dark, but they also aren't smeary, which is good.
Oh, that's good to know. Okay, so I'll take a look at those. All right. Well, thank you, gentlemen. Yeah, that's really all I had. I live. I lead a very boring life at the moment. So I was supposed to go to Washington, D.C. for the AWP conference, the association of Writers and Writing Programs. I was doing a panel on literary podcasting, but we got hit with that snowstorm, so I was stuck here. Yeah, thanks. Global warming. So that. That fell through the. Through the Whatever. So, yeah, it's late. It's late. I'm tired, and I haven't had coffee in three hours, so I'm kind of out of it.
Well, I'm so glad you could be here to join us.
Yeah, no, you guys are keeping me awake. That's good. Thank you. Cool. So, yeah, it's that. That was my. My big to do. And then I'm working on a new short story, and I'm handwriting that one in the. The vanguard, like I said. So it's nice to get back into handwriting stuff. I missed it because I. This last book was all done in Scrivener. I didn't do much. I did one chapter handwritten, and I was like, I can't do this right now. So it was taking too long, so I just went into the computer and did it. So it's nice to get back into writing things. I do. I do run into this issue, and I don't know if you guys do, but I have so much stuff. Like, I've got. I'm. I'm looking right now. I've got, like a Lamy Al Star. I've got the rotring 600. I've got a couple pilot Metropolitans, and then I've got a whole bunch of random Pencils. And I never know what to use and when to use it. Like, when. When do I want to switch off to something? Do you guys have any type of, like, method you use or. Like, I only use certain pencils for certain things and a pen for other things.
Gosh, Chaos.
I. Yeah, yeah. And I'm the opposite. I just pick one. Like, I pretty much. On a given day, like, I'll just use one thing all day long.
Yeah. Like, I've stopped buying things. Like, I'm not trying out every new thing. I've pretty much found what I like. Like, I really like the Squire pen, so I've been using that almost exclusively. But I do want to get back into using pencils, and I have so many pencils to. To go through, and I just honestly don't know when I want to switch off. It's just, you know, well, I could be using a pen for this, or I used a pen for the first seven paragraphs. Why would I switch to a pencil now? And that kind of thing.
As far as the. Yeah, well, this is funny because you mentioned that, because I. The other day, I was kind of thinking the same thing when I was working on something, and. And I had this realization of, wait a second. It does not matter one bit what you're switching between as I giving myself permission, because, like, I find myself obsessing over what my writing looks like on the page. You know, like. Like, if it looks uniform or my handwriting looks right or whatever. And so it helped. Like, I just the other day was trying to, like, really hard to embrace chaos. And because I was writing with a fountain pen, I started to have issues, and I put it down, I picked up a pencil, started writing. It's too soft. Put it down. Pick something else up. And I was like, as long as I keep the. Moving the ball forward and keep writing and I'm not stopping and, like, googling 50 things about what to use, then it's a win in my book.
As long as you can read it at the end, it's a win.
Yes, I was gonna say that. That's, for me, just a win. Because at some point, if I've written too much, my handwriting gets even worse than it already is to the point where it's just illegible. So, yeah, for me, as long as I can read it, I feel like I'm winning.
That's it for me.
Cool. Tim, do you want to talk about your super cool thing?
Yeah, I've just got one freshpoint as well, and I talked about it in. Well, Actually, no, no, everyone, I did not talk about it because you never. You never heard that episode.
But the lost episode, I.
Every once in a while, I'll get together with Mike Dudek. Dudek, Modern Goods and Great guy. We've become good friends over the year, which is amazing because we've never seen each other in person. In fact, we've never been, like within six hours of each other, but we interact a good bit, like through text message. And he. Every once in a while, we'll get together and we'll talk about an idea and come up with an idea for one of his amazing walnut pencil stands or pen stands. They're so pretty. Yeah, I'm. What?
They're so pretty.
Oh, pretty. I thought you said, I'm so breathy. I was like, sorry, you suck, dude. Calm down. I'm a mouth breather. Sorry. No. Yeah, they are so pretty. And he does such a good job. They're so uniform and so perfect, and they're just. I just adore these things. And so I got together with them in camp with an idea for a new one. And it was based on something I've talked about on the podcast before, which is the idea of. Which comes from Steinbeck. The. You know, he would have a cup of pencils that were sharpened and then an empty cup, and as what has he dulled one, he would switch to the other cup, and he'd just keep, you know, moving to the other cup until they were all dulled down. And then he would sharpen them all and start over. And I've kind of adopted that. And my form is that I always have 12. I've been doing this for a year now where I have 12 sharpened pencils ready. And then as one dolls, I put it aside, put it aside, put it aside, then sharpen all the same time. And so what we dreamed up. And I've got it in front of me right here, you can hear the palominos rattle. Got it. And it turned out perfect. And so the way that it works, I'm guessing it's 10 inches long. About 10 inches long. And on the left side, there's a grid of four columns of three. And so there's 12 pencils that'll fit on the left side and then 12, the identical. The same thing on the opposite side. So there's 12 and 12. So as you. You put the sharpened ones on the left side, and then as one dulls, you put it on the other side and you just keep filling it in as you go. And then one idea that Mike had that he added into the middle was he used one of the little stainless steel dishes that he used for the plants. And if you've seen those stands, he has the pen stands with a little planter. He put one of those in with, you know, nothing in it as a shaving repository or place to put shavings. And then he made a perfect size circular hole next to it that fits. That is the perfect fit for the KUM single hole long point sharpener, which is my favorite handheld sharpener. So it's a thing of beauty. And he killed it. I mean, it is perfect. I sent him an idea and then he's like, well, I've got an idea. This is what we're gonna do. I think you're gonna like it. And then he just went for it. And he was totally right. I think I've said this before, but about things that he's made me. But this is my new favorite stationary item that I own, and it's amazing to look at it right now and imagine 30 years from now, 40 years from now, the same thing sitting on my desk.
So it's a beautiful piece. I. I'm gonna ask him, when I have a little money to spend, I'm gonna ask him to make me one too, because it's. It's gorgeous.
It is, yeah. You should totally do it. He's. He, he never. I've never had anything that wasn't just perfect from him. And I, I'd love to see his process of how he makes this stuff and how he like the stages he goes through, because it's very meticulous, it's very simple, but also like a lot of things that are super simple and super clean, a lot of attention went into making them that clean. That doesn't mean that the process was simple. It means usually the process was complicated. So, yeah, I love it. So thank you, Mike. That's all I've got. So what about you, Johnny?
So you guys saw what our friend Ina Reinert put on Instagram about those itty bitty little thin pencils from Dixon?
Yeah, I think I saw that. Okay. Yeah.
So Dixon makes these pencils. They make, they make a mechanical version and they make a wooden version, and it's called the Reach because it fits through like nail holes in wood. I have absolutely no idea what they would be useful for, but when I saw them, I went out and got some right away. So they're like a bridge pencil, but they're black and they're full length, so they're super awesome. And they write really nicely. They have like a really thick sort of soft core. They were like 249. So if you find yourself near Lowe's, I think that's the only place I know I have to get them in person, at least in central Maryland. So, yeah, also a week and a half ago, I got to go down and write notepads and hang out to view an MSNBC interview with Chris Roth, the proprietor and his dad, which was really, really funny. The way they edited it was pretty hilarious.
What show was I watching?
I don't even know. I didn't know he was gonna put it on. We just kind of watched it. But I showed up with Blackwing Beer, which is local, and Raven Logger, which is local. And I had to point out the connection, which was disappointing because it was a Friday night and I guess nobody's brains were working. But, you know, Blackwing Raven, Yay.
I'm sorry. I think it's meaningful in some way. Harry, where am I? What show am I on?
Whose line is it?
Yeah, they have a new product that has come out since then called the Paper Journal, which is their glue bound notebook in an A5 size. And they're super, super, super pretty. They're on their website for purchase. I don't know where you can buy them. If you're in Baltimore, probably trove. But Anyway, they are 80 pages. They're sort of like their pocket notebooks, but they're really big and they don't have a margin. So it's like, how big are they? Are they lines?
And are they like five by eight size stuff? Sorry, Are they five by eight size? Yeah, yeah. Okay.
And they're gray, mostly blank. And they come in a two pack. I have no idea how much they
cost, but 15.99 for a two pack.
They're gonna have more covers. I have more color covers. Cover colors.
Yeah.
There you go. And page formats. Sorry, it's been a long day.
So.
Yeah, those are pretty awesome. From our friends at Wright notepads. Made in Baltimore.
You know, they're really nice looking.
I guess they fulfill the same purpose as a Baron Fig Vanguard or a Cahier, except that they have, no offense, like, vastly superior paper to those options. Yeah, and not in pencil town. I did not have my older two children with me one day last weekend and I wandered into the stationary aisle at Target, as one does. And you guys know the Bic 4 color pen? There's a green version that has quote unquote, fashion colors.
Oh, God, yeah, the fashion colors. Yep.
So there are two new versions of that. One is light blue and one is pink. So I picked them up for my kids and, like, made their day for, like, 250. So they're pretty awesome.
What colors do they have? Are they fashion colors as well?
Oh, yeah, yeah, they're both fashion colors.
Sorry.
Yeah, it's like baby blue, which is Henry's favorite color because it's the color of Thomas the Train and pink. And I got a blue one for myself because.
Why not?
And my only last point is. So, Tim and Harry, you have smallish children, so you don't probably let them play with pencils that have very long points.
No.
Yet.
No.
My.
My son doesn't play with. He uses pens and stuff and he uses markers and crayons and things and he has used pencils, but nothing. Like, I would never use a. I would never sharpen one with a masterpiece and then hand it to him. That's just begging for an ER visit.
Yeah, so I let my daughter use the masterpiece because we were at a coffee shop and she had a school project in first grade to do, and I was like, well, you know, she wanted to sharpen a pencil and she didn't. She got through half a point and did an entire project with a masterpiece. And she can use it, too, which is pretty impressive. Although she makes a much larger mess all over a coffee shop table than I do using it. Because that thing doesn't make. It makes, like, weird graphite slivers. I'm always afraid one's going to get embedded, like, under my fingernail or something.
Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like graphite shrapnel.
Yeah, yeah.
You're afraid you're gonna, like, inhale it and basically die.
Puncture your.
Yeah, that's how I'm gonna die.
Inhale too much graphite.
Yeah, Hand me off, sharpen like 30 pencils like that and sneeze and I'll breathe it in and that'd be the end of me.
Oh, my.
Oh, one thing I didn't write on here. If you live near a Staples and if you like colored pencils, our friend Les Herger put something on her blog and on Instagram about some colored pencils by Bic in association with Conte. They're black fake wood extruded colored pencils. They're sort of geared toward adult coloring, but they're on sale for seven bucks and they come in a tin and the points are so hard, you can write with them. So you can write blue pencil sentences, which has always been a dream of mine.
But you.
So what you're saying is I could buy that and then use the red pencil to mark up my manuscript?
Yeah, but that would be way more expensive than just getting some Dixons.
Well, yeah, but then I get a whole box of colored pencils out of the deal because I've actually.
Except for one color.
Right, Exactly.
Daddy wears red.
I went to books a million a couple of months ago, and I had picked up a cheap. But what do you call it? A cheap box of colored pencils. I mean, like literally two or three dollars. And it was eight colors, I think, in the box. But what I've been doing is in my confidant, in my reading journal. The first couple of pages I drew shelves and then the spines of the books I'm both reading and want to read. And as I finish a book, I color in the spine so I can. I can track my progress of my reading throughout the year. So I can. I can send a picture of what I have so far. But yeah, that's. That's how I've been tracking my reading. So I carry colored pencils with me now so I can color in my spines.
These are apparently unbreakable, so. And pretty lightweight. They're not as cool as those colored wopexes. You can get out now.
But we won't start on wopex.
No, we won't.
Shut up.
Yeah, cool. That's all I have. How about you, Andy?
All right.
A few things to run. To actually run through first. Did anybody see the new Baron Fig Vanguard that came out today? The Infinity?
Yeah, I got some.
Yeah, those are cool.
I. I actually have a pack sitting here in front of me. They're really pretty. The thing that I don't think shines through as well in the photos on their website is that the. Let me grab it here. The. The spine. You know how it's always, like, stitched? It is the same color as the. Like the pinkish purple in the shape. So it, like, just offsets it really well. Just little details. Looks really good.
So am I crazy, or is the dot in the dot grid or the dots in the dot grid a lot darker than they usually are? I look really dark. It could just be the lighting in
here holding it against a confidant that I have. And it looks. It doesn't look darker, but it looks thicker. Like, the dots are thicker.
Yeah.
And so they. They look to be about the same as size.
Ish.
One thing I can't remember if I meant. I think I mentioned this in our last episode, but you know, The. The dot grid in the new into the Pines. Right. Notepads are a little bit wider and that makes all the difference for me. Apparently my handwriting is just so that like it gets a little cramped when I'm using like a Baron Fig or a field notes dot grid. But that. That wider. Yeah. Write notepads is so great.
Chris would be that he spent. I'm sorry. He spent a lot of time picking those dots.
Yeah, he's really happy about it. I think he arrived at the perfect one.
So.
Yeah, those are available on their website now. Pretty great.
They're really slick looking.
Yeah.
Although the triangle one does look like a Verge logo and that's gonna.
Oh, God, you're right. It does look like the Verge logo. I didn't think about that.
The middle one makes you want a donut really bad right now. I'm really hungry.
Mobius Donut Never ending
sits.
Should be the subtitle. Homer's Dream.
So the. Speaking of Baron Fig, there is a group, I think since we last recorded and published that John Coakley Jr. Who's a pretty active member of our group he started called Baron Fig Fanatics. It's a fan group just for Baron Fig. It's pretty great. You're definitely.
I'm in like 80 stationary Facebook groups right now.
I know you're absolutely welcome in our group to talk about Baron Fig and I'm sure you're welcome in the Field Nuts group. But if you just want to like Fanboy girl other out on Baron Fig,
then I'm on my way.
You have that group there. I'll have a link in show notes.
I actually, I left the Field Nuts group because those people scare me.
It gets. It gets so intense.
Oh, hey, look.
Tim awesome asked to join the Baron Fig Fanatics. I don't even know why I can approve members, but apparently I can approve.
Thanks, Andy.
Feel free to just add me to that group.
I'll just do that. Speaking of notebooks, Gary Varner brought to my attention by reviewing this on his blog. These notebooks made by Waverly, which is a Scottish company, they usually. I think they're like a book publisher. They make various, like bound things and they have a line of tartan notebooks that are just gorgeous. Like I've. I. I don't know. I'm trying to like, I had a time in my life when I would just buy a lot of like plaid stuff. Like I had a plaid black wash scarf. I really like plaid. It may be because I went to Catholic school. Just carry over for that what are you laughing about?
Every Catholic school joke is funny to me.
I thought you had dreams of being a lumberjack.
I am.
And.
And I'm okay.
You have to grow, like, a really.
Sleep all night and I work all day. Get a girl a big beard.
Get a pipe.
That's. Yeah, can't do that. So. These notebooks are really beautiful. You know how I love clothbound notebooks. It's one reason I really love the confidants. This one is, like those colored edges.
Oh, my God.
Yeah. It's fabric bound in lots of different plaids. The edges of the notebooks are. Are they're edge painted to be the accent color of the notebook. So for example, in a black watch, there's just a little bit of, like, orange that runs through part of that and they. Oh, no, the orange doesn't run through the black watch.
The. The.
The orange just is like a good, like, contrasting color. And the elastic band that goes around it is also in that color. So the edge of the sheets and the elastic band are like, in an accent color. It comes in like 12 different. I had never heard of this until Gary posted this, and I guess he heard about it from. Oh, no, never mind. John Campione and the Erasable group made a pun. I'm just looking at Gary's post right now. Waverly, Scotland. I'll have a link in show notes. I got a hold of. I have one on the way that's a large format blackwatch plaid. But there's so many beautiful plaids in here. If you like plaid at all or if you have Scottish heritage or whatever. Check these out.
Plus they have tiny ones. They have little pins.
Yeah, they have little ones. They have like a little pocket note, like a three and a half by five and a half. But I'm more of a five by eight fan, so I ordered like a bigger A5 size. Yeah. So that's really fantastic. Sorry. Yeah, I noticed that. Is that. Do you suppose that's more common in Europe to call it that, or are they just, like, no clue, Paying tribute to, like, an older idea?
I'm gonna choose to believe the latter.
Okay, let's go with that. Do we talk about that article? There was something about a book of commonplace prayer. No. Was that what it's called or just a book? A book. A commonplace book that people would have back home.
I think Patrick Roan wrote something.
Yeah.
Because he keeps a commonplace book and it's like quotes and things he comes across during his travels.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's what I'm thinking of. I think I read something he wrote and then whatever he was linking to and the cramped about that. Yeah. By the way, Harry, I'm going to Minneapolis in June, so I'm going to hang out with Patrick again. You should come too.
I. Yeah. I can't.
I know. No, that's cool. I also today published a review of some of the V arco Vintage collection pencils. I am a big fan ever since, I think it was Caitlin who in an episode before Christmas told us about it and I ordered some and I've kind of neglected it for a while and I rediscovered the joy. They are great. They are beautiful looking and they're like decent but not outstanding performers. They're like a little bit scratchy. Not as scratchy as the Baron Fig Archer, but just a little bit. They're. They're just a really nice pencil and they just look great. So I invite you to go over to Woodclinch to read my review of that. Have you. Have any of you used these pencils?
I have tried one.
I have not.
They're so pretty.
Yeah, I got the. The 3,000 which are round and then in these kind of like metallic pastel colors. And each one has a bright yellow end cap, which is really great. And then the 1951 S is the other one that I picked up. And those are multi colored as well, but they're hex. And the end cap is kind of the same color as the barrel and there's white stripes on it. They're really, really pretty. And I. This is just worth noting. I think. I don't know if it's. If they're actually handmade or not like hand painted, but they look hand painted. Like the. The paint on the end cap is just like a little uneven, but not such that it looks sloppy. It just looks like maybe it was hand dipped. And then the stamp, like the foil stamp on the round one is not quite complete. Like on the edge, on the very edge of it, it is a little bit more lightly stamped than in the middle. Kind of like somebody might be hand stamping this thing. I think it really adds to the look and it makes it look extra authentically vintage to me. No idea if that's actually how they did it. Somebody in the group today was asking about if this is available outside of America. Somebody who lives in Portugal says he can't find this, the vintage collection, which is a shame because it's a Portuguese company. So if you are from outside of the United States and you can find that these Are like easily available. Please, please comment in.
Cool.
Last thing I'm going to talk about before we get into the main topic. I think I'm going to open submissions for a volume two of Plumbago magazine, which is fun. Yay. I don't know much about it yet. I just started thinking about it. So on the erasable website. Erasable us, Plumbago. I'll have more information there very soon, so go check that out. I need to figure out when to end submission so I can start like actually printing it. I'm gonna try to make more copies this time. So yeah, if anybody has any ideas, please submit them my way. And I'm happy to help anybody try to like think out a half baked idea. Okay, well, let's move on to our main topic or as we'd like to call it, why Harry thinks notebook companies should stop selling cool notebooks and only make boring brown ones.
That's right, Floral Bargle. Yep, that's pretty much it.
Harry, how should we introduce this? Do you want to read your post or do you want to just sort of like reframe your post or.
Oh, I'll reframe because it's kind of a long post and I don't want to get into, you know, into the whole setup and everything. I mean, the main crux of the argument is in like the last three ish paragraphs. And so the setup was. My initial question was do you think there's too much emphasis placed on differentiation or gimmickry in modern stationary products, specifically with regard to the subscriptions? So I gave some examples. Like, you know, Field Notes has every quarterly release is some new thing. Like maybe it's a wooden cover or they're giving you a seed packet or you know, it's the byline and it's a whole new format for them, not a whole new format in general. And then on the pencil side you've got the black wings, which, you know, they cycle through the same four cores. But their whole thing is, is what is it wrapped in? What are the colors they're using? Is there, you know, are they using a different wood or an eraser color that, you know, different feral. And then the, you know, you've got Baron Fig, who they have their new Squire Alphabet pen which was in the, in our group, met with a resounding meh. But you know, you look at the other side of it with the askew notebook, which is like way off the rails for a line notebook. And that was like, well, this is too much. And you know, I can never use anything like this. And so it's, it gets frustrating in that regard because to me, you can't have it both ways. Either you want the same thing every time or you let a company experiment and maybe it's not for you. But, you know, so many people looked at the askew and were like, this is useless. I can't use. This is a pointless notebook. I can never use this until someone actually used it and it was like, oh, I can see. Yeah, exactly like, oh, this is fun. And I can find a use for this. And it's not as crazy as I thought it was because if you look through the notebook, very few of the pages are actually as nutty as the nuttiest pages. It's like 15 or 20 pages in the whole notebook. But so I wrapped it up with the. Actually I sort of summed it up better later on when I. Because the post, the discussion was getting a little off the rails and people were saying, well, if you don't like it, then don't buy it. And it's. That's not the question I was asking. It wasn't should they make this. What I was really asking was, are our expectations of new, of the new shiny affecting what comes to market and the quality of that product and our judgment of products that don't fit the new shiny bucket? So are we expecting something revolutionary every time? And if so, is that affecting the quality of the notebooks that come out? Like, are we going to. To get to a point where the quality of field notes suffer because they need to find a way to reinvent the wheel every time?
I. Yeah, that's interesting.
Not to mention that the price would keep rising. Right, right.
And I think they started increasing their prices. Yeah, it's an issue.
Big jump.
10 bucks to 13 bucks.
It's a, it's interesting you brought the askew because this is something we discussed in our, in our last, our last episode did not get published. Yeah. Michael Hagan from. Does he go by Mike or Michael? I think he goes by Mike. Mike Hagen from Leadfast.org was probably one of the most kind of like vocal anti askew people that I saw. Just review it, talk about it. He, he thought they like specifically, oh, I'm going to say betrayed their subscribers. Baron Fig betrayed their subscribers. Even though that's probably a strong harsh word. Yeah, I don't think that's what he would. I don't think he behind that, but he definitely thinks that this is, this is something that was not useful and sort of like Stepping outside the bounds of subscribers. Like, they're like releasing this crazy wacky thing and this is not part of like what they signed up for.
Which I would argue the exact opposite. Yeah, subscription. Or that being a subscriber means the complete opposite of whatever they're going to give you. You're going to like, give it a shot.
Right. Because people got upset when they re released the work play as a new notebook and they said it wasn't enough of a differentiation. So. So what do you want from them? Do you want the new confidant or do you want something completely wacky?
And I don't want to like pick on. On Mike because. Specifically because he's not here to defend himself, but. But also a little bit. I really see these subscriptions more like, more like, you know, when you like are really into a winery, you can buy wine futures. You basically say, hey, this upcoming vintage I'm going to sort of like pre buy X number of bottles. I don't do this. I don't drink that much wine. And also I'm not fancy. I think this vintage is going to be really awesome. So I'm going to buy like pre buy this number of bottles to be released like throughout the year.
I've never bought more than one bottle of wine.
This is on my mind because I just went to wine country with my wife's sister and, and her boyfriend and Katie and so like they, they were talking about this. So you're sort of. You're not really like buying no books notebooks so much as you are sort of like investing in, in the company, like behind the Notebook and Kickstarter. Yeah, it's. It's kind of like. It's kind of like a Kickstarter. I mean, if you're, if you're getting a subscription where you're just getting like a refill service, like I used up this notebook. I need a new one. I think I'll need for a year. I'm gonna do this. I think that that's a different thing than somebody who would order like the color subscription or Baron Fig subscription. And if I'm not mistaken, you can just set up a, like a refill service through Baron Fig, right?
You don't know.
Do you guys know.
Say that again.
That'd be a good idea.
I thought, I thought that I read I need to look into this. I haven't actually done it. I thought I read that you can just set up a recurring like subscription to just the plain old confidant. Don't take what I said Literally.
Yeah, well, they, they have a thing where you get like a slight discount if you set up to get it like every.
Yeah.
Three months. Or I think you can set the time like where you say, like, yeah, I want to get a two pack every three months, or I want to get one every two months or whatever. And then you get a slight discount if you, if you commit to that.
Cool. Okay, that makes sense. So, I mean, that's one thing. But I think what this is and what I'm paying for is really just this company to, like, try new things. And I definitely, like, I really like this argument because I think it really, like, forces the question that you have, Harry. Forces the question, like, what is gimmickry and what is innovation? And I know that's not exactly what you're asking, but I think that.
And gimmickry might have been the wrong word. Someone mentioned novelty, which I think was a little better. But so let's, let's take, let's take the two companies that immediately come to mind. We'll do Baron Fig and Field Notes, and I'll start with Baron Fig. So let's take the Squier pen. So the Squier pen, when it first came out was, it uses the retro 51 refill. I don't remember what the number is, but it's, you know, it uses the standard refill. It's a great refill. And the pen is this really sleek, elegant, well balanced on the smaller side pen. And it's pricey for a pen of its quality. It's 55, $60. So they release this pen, then they come out with a charcoal version, and now they have this Alphabet one and all it is, it has the Alphabet in white along the side. So for a lot of people who already have a Squier pen like me, I don't need to buy it. And I can understand why you might not be wowed by it. But think about the people who collect retro 51s.
You know, not every design Lamy Safaris and Al Stars.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Like the, the new Pacific Blue. Like, I want a Pacific Blue Al Star. I have no need for it. I have an orange one. But like, you know, people collect these things. So, you know, is it, is it gonna wow you? Is it like the, the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Probably not, but you know, it exists for a reason. And maybe if you've never had a squire before, you might want it. So, you know, who, who are they making it for? Are they making it for the people who collect. Are they making it for new customers? Are they just making it because they wanted to do something kind of neat with the Alphabet? You know, I. I'm not entirely sure. On the other side, you've got field notes and the two editions, we'll say three. But the. The two main additions that come to mind are the Sweet tooth and the. I never remember the exact name. It was, like, overexposed or underexposed. The. The one that was really ugly.
Oh, unexposed.
Oh, yeah.
Unexposed.
Unexposed. So those two come to mind as, like, two really stark. And in the case of the unexposed, harsh notebooks, you know, the colors didn't appeal to me in any way. I'm not a subscriber. I buy them as I want them. The colors didn't appeal to me. The novelty or the gimmick of it. You know, you never. Unless you open the pack, you didn't know which ones you had. And so they were sort of like digging at the collectors a little bit. And then on the sweet tooth, like that. I would never use that paper or that tearaway idea. You know, it was. The paper was really thick in different colors and. And it had the. The perforations in it, so you could sort of hand it off and give away pages. That didn't really appeal to me. So, you know, who are they making that for? Are they making that to be used, or are they making that for the collectors who are looking for something new and shiny?
Well, it's interesting, though, because, like. And I think we did talk about this in the last episode, so. Tina Kamiyah. Yeah, Tina from the Field Nuts group. And I think she's in the pencil group now too. She loves that sweet tooth. She's an artist. She takes these really great sketches with black pen and a white pen, and she, like, does little, like, just landscape sketches and in her field or her sweet tooth. And they look amazing and she loves them. So she was more than happy to just trade. A lot of people when they just got their sweet tooth and they hated it. So I feel like, yeah, there's going to be some amount of, like, some number of people who it really fits, like their use case or else it really, like, fits some interest of theirs. And there's a lot of people for whom it will not.
Right. And the third model or the third format that, yeah, comes to mind that was really. That really jarred people was the byline, because people weren't expecting a reporter's notebook. And that's actually my favorite field notes they've ever come out with. I wish I had bought a dozen of them because I like the colors better than the. The one that they turned into a stock version of.
The front page.
Yeah, the front page. Yeah. I actually like. I like the dark gray a lot better, but that's beside the point. But, you know, I don't. Don't think for a second, I don't think that Field Notes doesn't put their all into every notebook they put out. I don't think they're. They're doing this just for collectors or they're doing it just to. Just to reinvent the wheel every time. I. I really do believe they stand by everything they do and, and create, and they, they. There is an authenticity in that product. And the same thing with Baron Fig. I think they authentically want to try new, cool things and they. They want to sort of stand apart from everyone else. They. You know, I don't know any other. I don't see Field Notes ever doing something like the askew, you know, just working with a graphic designer to, like, do crazy lines on a ruled notebook. But I do worry about a point where if they don't put out a really unique, insane notebook, that they're going to incur the wrath of the nuts, the hardcore collectors. Yeah.
And I guess where I see, like, I, like, I tend to like the concepts where, you know, they have kind of this broad theme, like, like the Shenandoah theme. You know, it's kind of themed after, like, the Shenandoah Valley woods colors, like, in the fall. And their, like, covers reflect this. The insides reflect this. Their belly band reflects this. Just like, they really take it to, like, this very, like, broad thematic feel, whereas something that's more novelty is like. I'm trying to think of an example of something that I just thought was just kind of, like, gimmicky and I wasn't super into, I guess. Well, I guess, like, what's it called?
Crap.
Unexposed is kind of gimmicky to me, and. And that's part of it, I guess. You know, it's. That was more about. I guess, I don't know where the line is. I guess I would automatically go toward the things that I like are this really great sort of, like, execution of a theme. And the things that I don't like are something that's more gimmicky or novelty. It's really hard to, like, put this to a benchmark so we can all sort of talk the same language and not get opinion in there.
Yeah,
yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was right after like baseball, traveling salesman, expedition.
Yeah.
Okay.
But the ones that came before.
So those editions weren't anything wild. They were, you know, they were different covers and maybe different paper styles. But a lot of people thought that
America the Beautiful was pretty wild. That was the one right before that because it was the first time they put graphics on the COVID and the first time that they used the thicker off white paper.
Yeah.
Now everybody's all like, oh, I love America the Beautiful. But when it came out, everybody hated that one.
That's interesting.
And Night sky was a little bit innovative in that. It like it had that reticle graph. So I guess, I guess not innovative necessarily, but I don't think a lot of other notebooks available anywhere had something like that. And it actually.
Right. But when you compare it with like an Arts and Sciences with the different size and the gilded edges and all the, you know, that kind of thing, or with the byline in the completely different format and the pocket in the back and you know, sweet tooth and unexposed. So you know, comparatively, those earlier editions were a lot tamer than the ones we have now. So, you know, at what point what's next? You've got like Snowblind with the color changing covers and the black Ice with the chrome colored covers and the perfect binding and all that.
How long until they send you a deconstructed notebook? And like here, this is our notebook.
Right. Here's a bunch of loose sheets of paper that Aaron stuck some stuff on.
Allen Key. Really weird set of directions with no gender on the person.
Yeah, the IKEA edition, the Newt book.
Oh my God. Yeah, that's a good idea actually.
So part of it is like flat packed.
Is this model sustainable? Like, is it something they can keep going on at the rate they are? And if they slow down and kind of get back to their basics and release just a notebook with a solid different color, will people.
Right. Like could they, could they release a Night Sky? I know the Lunacy edition was actually pretty tame comparatively. It's a neat cover and everything, but it seemed pretty standard. But I mean, could they, could they release another Night sky or even just even something even more plain? Like let's say they wanted to do their take on. I mean if they did a take on a composition notebook, I think people would lose their. But you know, if they just wanted to sort of reinvent the original field notes notebook, like let's say they wanted to go back and change that Kraft brown paper into something else, but make it A standard note. Like, would people accept that or would they feel cheated because they, they didn't get what they were paying for?
Yeah, I. Gosh, I think the, my answer to that, the question of whether it's sustainable with all this and like all these decisions that they make with every edition, is an absolutely no, in my opinion. I think, I think that this little world, and I mean, well, this is. And someone else brought this up, but this is capitalism, right? It's just people trying to, like, give you more things to buy, like more stuff to throw your money at. And there's nothing wrong with that on their side. I mean, that's like what our world revolves around. But at the same time, this stationary world seems pretty small, you know, I mean, it's. I think it's smaller than people think it is. And especially the people who are subscribing to these sorts of things. I would love to see some statistics of how much overlap there is between different subscriptions, which, I mean, will never happen, but just get everybody to talk
to each other and cooperate.
Yeah, but you've got two groups of people, I'll say three groups of people. You've got your collectors, your hardcore people who will get every edition no matter what. It doesn't matter what it is, they will always get two or three packs. One to open and one to keep in the plastic. You've got the triers, the people who will try anything. Maybe they're like you and they run a blog and they review all the stuff. Or Brad Dowdy, they, you know, they, they have to try every little thing and then you've got people like me who, they find something they like. And I, I used to be a trier. I used to be, you know, oh, the, the new confidant is out or the new field notes is out. And I'll still pick up the occasional here and there. Like, I, I went. The only two field notes. The three field notes models I got were the, the ales, the. What is it? The, the drink local edition, the. The workshop edition, and the box set and the bylines. And those were the three because they just to me stood out, but nothing in between. And that was just an aesthetic thing for me. Like, I wasn't looking to really try them, I just really wanted them. But now I'm at a point where I've got all this stuff and I just need to get through it and I have no interest in purchasing anything else until I start working through a lot of the stuff. And the same thing with the pens and the pencils like my 24s, my Blackwing 24s. When those run out, whatever the next iteration of the 24 is, if, whatever the next, you know, if they put that core into production, I'll get whatever that is. I don't need to try the next, you know, subscription or whatever it is. So I've reached a point where I just, I don't need all this and I don't need to try every new thing that comes out. I'm content.
I'm in the exact same boat as you. I followed the same progression went from the, the trier because, I mean, I was a, you know, I did the blogging thing for a while, but I was terrible at it from here. I just, I didn't do it often enough that I wasn't like, literally trying everything. I was blogging as a trier or just like, that looks interesting, I want to try that. It wasn't like, I feel like I need to try everything. And then now I've gotten to the point where, like, I found the handful of things that work for me and the only times that I'm gonna go out and buy something is if it really appeals to me. And I commented on your post and just like made my comment about the whole idea of subscription that some people just need to know that you have permission not to subscribe to everything. And like, you don't have to buy every single thing. Which some people are collectors and that's totally cool. You do your thing. But some people, it's almost like they feel pressured, like they won't be cool or something if they don't do, like, you're not cool.
Subscribed everything.
Yeah. Unless you've written in your sweet tooth and like, it's like, unless you've tried
everything and you consider me Miles Davis.
Yes. Episode over. That's all I'm happy with.
That's what I was going for. I'm glad you, that's exactly what I was glad. There's a fellow fifth grader here in the room.
But. Yeah, but just that's, I mean, I, I don't subscribe to any, Anything.
Yeah, yeah.
You're a nihilist.
Yeah.
We're all going to die.
Must be exhausting. Yeah, we're.
And, and I'm in the same boat. Like, I, I wanted to subscribe to the Black Wings, but I also knew that I would never work through a dozen pencils in a quarter. Like, I, I still have, I think 11 of the 1224s I was using because I just, I, I, I don't work that way. And I could never subscribe to a field notes or a Baron Fig because for the same reason, I, I don't go through a notebook in three months. I don't go through anything in three months. I, you know, it takes me six months to go through a case of Tide, so I'm certainly not going to go through a notebook in that long.
Yeah, so.
So for me, I'm not a collector and I'm not a trier. So for me, a subscription doesn't really make any sense. But, you know, it, like you said, it's capitalism. You know, if you want to collect this stuff, if you want to buy this stuff, don't stop it. You know, I'm not saying it's wrong to buy it. What I'm. And I think people in the group took it as, you know, this is dumb and they shouldn't make these notebooks anymore. And that's not what I was saying at all. Yeah, my question was, do you think that basically, do you think the companies take into consideration what our expectations might be and are our expectations affecting what they put out? And on the other side of that, are what they putting out affecting our expectations? You know, if it's not good enough, if it's not wow enough, are we jaded in our expectation of, you know, what's going on in the stationary world? And let me just tell you how crazy it is that people are jaded in the stationary world.
I definitely think that, yeah, it's something that like progresses and escalates. Like if, I don't know, I was every time Baron Fake would come out with a limited edition confidant, like, like the Three Legged Juggler is exactly the same as a gray confidant, except that it has some colors to it.
Right.
And I love that thing. That's my very favorite Baron Fig product ever is the three Luggage Juggler notebook. And that was pretty early on in their, in their releases. If the second confidant they ever put out was an askew, I'd been like, what the hell is going on? This is insane.
Right? It's like being in a relationship. Crazy out all at once. You do it in piecemeal. They've established themselves now that the crazy can come out.
Yeah, don't normalize this. So, yeah, it's that. I definitely feel that it's interesting to note, I guess we talked about it in our last episode, but CW Pencils now has a quarterly subscription service. However, they have sort of like bypass this problem by just curating other brands and Curating other stuff into their pack, which makes a lot of sense for them. They're a shop.
I really appreciate something.
Yeah, Yeah.
I really appreciate something like that. Like, if it was. Is it one pencil a month or is it a little bundle of pencils? I think.
I think it's a little bundle. It's. Each. Each quarter is going to be about $30 worth of stuff. And so I think that we should expect. Yeah, I think so.
Right.
I know it's that big.
It costs $30. Yeah.
That's not bad at all. And I like that a lot because that gives me the opportunity. Like, I'm not a trier, but maybe there's something out there that I've been looking for. I didn't know. And so it's. If they're sending me brands of something I can go out and buy more of, and it's not some limited edition I'm never gonna see again, then that, to me, is a lot more useful.
It's more like artsnacks, I think. Except apparently artsnacks is now making its own stuff.
But.
Yeah. So that's kind of interesting. I. I think. I think the quarterly subscriptions that everybody's sort of like, this quarterly subscription model is really interesting in that, like, it's. It's every, what, four months, three months. I don't know how to do math. Three months, which seems like plenty of time. But then if you think about how field notes is sort of like essentially reinventing the pocket notebook every three months or trying to. It, it does seem just like, super crazy.
Like, I think totally. Oh, go ahead.
Go.
Please do.
Going back to what I think it was Harry said and kind of bounce off what you just said. Andy, the. I think it totally is a lot of pressure for them. I think it's totally. I think they. I think they have to put pressure on themselves because of the expectations for something totally new that, like, I bet all of these companies. And I'm totally speaking on. I'm just imagining that field notes and write notepads and all these. They may have fun making these things, but I bet deep down they're like, well, we worked really hard to come up with that first one and we perfected that thing. So what's wrong with having a Kraft Brown notebook? I still like using those Kraft Brown notebooks. There's nothing wrong with them. When the right notepads, when those first ones came out, it was like this whole new thing that he had worked really hard on. Chris came up with a new idea for the pocket notebook that was done differently than the other ones we had seen. And I'm sure he felt the pressure to, like, totally, you know, start over and make something new and do that for the foreseeable future. That's a lot of pressure to put on.
Yeah. And. And they don't have the luxury of a molluskine where they have, you know, a bajillion licensing deals and can do a Simpsons notebook and a doctor who notebook and God knows what else. Like, they actually have to put a lot of thought into what comes out next. Yeah, let's.
Let's talk about. Let's talk about field. Sorry. Go on, Johnny.
I was gonna say, how do we look at the gimmickry of the. Or rephrase this. Like a conceptual gimmickry. Like, Write Notepads is almost a year into theirs. And, like, they're all the same notebook. They're just Write notepads. Notebooks with a different cover. But they're not just doing a different color. It's like a whole story. And I don't want to say theme, but, you know, there's a theme. There's a pencil that goes with.
Yeah, like, they have rulings inside.
Yeah.
It's the same paper and the same size. So, you know, as long as you don't hate dot grid, you just roll through and use all the notebooks. Unlike the latest stuff from field notes, which is kind of out there. Like, I think in the last year, I don't think they've used the same paper stock twice, have they? Am I gonna egg on face? But so is that sort of like, it's not just a different color? Like, Field notes started with different colors, and then they started getting kind of wacky, and then they started doing sort of a conceptual thing. Like, they'd keep the same paper inside and just change the colors around like American tradesmen and sort of that era. So Write Notepads just does a different idea. Is that gimmicky? This is sort of like the Blackwing thing, too.
But. But Write Notepads also does. There's, like. There's a pencil involved, and there's. What was the.
There's a local element, too.
Yeah, well, there's a local element there. Wasn't there extra stuff in, like, the charcoal one?
Yeah, you got a. Like a trade coin, which Chris had to explain to me, because I have no idea what the hell they are. They also did a whole different package for subscribers that time.
And I remember Lenore was gorgeous and had, you know, the special black pencils and the special Packaging and everything.
And I think. I think Chris. I mean, if he runs out of themes, which he seems like an extremely creative person who probably has a long way to go before that happens, I feel like. I don't know, he seems to more of, like, build on a theme. So he has, like, a design around that and a color. And so if he starts, like, repeating paper stock, I don't think it would be that big of a deal in his case.
Right.
Well, so far, they've all been exactly the same paper stock, just with different prints.
Have they? Okay, cool. So there's different ruling. So if he started repeating rulings, I don't think that's a huge deal.
Yeah, they've already repeated one twice.
And like you said, there's definitely a local element. That's a Baltimore company, and those are Baltimore heavy notebooks. You know, it's like if there was a New Jersey notebook company that did, you know, a Rutgers red and a scratch and sniff. Smells of the Meadowlands, you know?
Smells like pizza.
Yeah. Or the one true pizza smells like Jimmy Hoffa's remains. You know, that would give you at least a differentiation compared to the rest of the stuff out there.
Yeah. I'd be interested to know what you guys think, sort of applying this model to. To Blackwing. Like, they, you know, they. They have four cores that they've been cycling through. I feel like there was kind of a true innovation on their part. When they came out with the 24 core, it was completely different core. Nobody expected it. Everybody figured they would just use the. Keep on using the same three cores. Um, so obviously they can't do that every time. Like. Yeah, the amount of pencils they have to order.
To do.
To do that is, I'm sure, just crazy. But they. I mean, besides. Besides cycling through some of the cores, it's mostly just. Just aesthetic differences. And.
Well, Black. Blackwing has it in their favor that there are no other pencil companies doing this.
Right.
So, yeah, like, they don't have to compete against anyone. So I think after a few years, it'll maybe get stale. And I imagine that for people who aren't collecting, that the subscription element will sort of dial down.
Do you think Blackwing would go for something like making their own, like, red, blue copy pencil or making something that's a stenographer, a bridge pencil? Like, do you think I would do that?
I think black wings, what do you call it? I won't say their philosophy, but their focus has leaned more toward the collector than the utility.
Oh, totally.
And the subscription is A perfect example of that. They went in right off the bat saying, we're going to give you a packaged single pencil and a cylinder for you to preserve, so you may never collect. Exactly. So, like, we know this.
I took that the opposite way. I took it as well.
I'm sorry. Well, yeah, but they've only got four cores. And how much can you do with four cores? It's not like they're coming out with a brand new core every time or, you know, they're changing the colors and they're changing the finish. But what is going on otherwise? Yeah, it's really just about collecting. You know, it's like, gotta catch them all. You just gotta get every color that comes out. And. And on a separate note, I'm sorry, I just. I did not understand all the hate that the volumes edition got for the volumes edition, the. The 24 edition. Because I. There were people in our group were like, this is ugly. And I don't want a black pencil. Like, it's a black pencil. What do you. What is wrong with it? It's a black pencil.
Yeah, Yeah, I can understand the hate for the 56 because that thing is ugly.
Is that the pinstripe?
You're waiting. You're trying to find a way. Yeah, in there.
God, I hate that pencil. But I took it the opposite way. Like when they. When they came out. I'm like, well, I don't have to buy black wings anymore because they'll just send them every three months. I don't use them that quickly. And the one of the tube I just took is, you know, oh, cool. I can just save one. I'll just give away and use all the other ones. My kids steal them. But I've got one for posterity in case, for some reason I need one for posterity to prove that exists. You know, they'll call me up. We lost all the 56s in the world. You got that tube? Like, got it, bro.
Don't worry, Mr. President. I have.
We have a 211 still. Oh, man. Yeah, it's. It's interesting. I do feel like Palomino or Blackwing, whoever. The volumes has sort of like their. Their scope of themes more like clearly defined. Like, I guess. I guess write notepads does too. Like, they're really sticking toward, like, Baltimore stuff. But I feel like if. If Chris wanted to veer away from Baltimore stuff, like if he did a California thing or a New York thing, it would be.
Well, so far, only two have had
any Baltimore connection, but he's always sort of like tied it back into Baltimore. Even with like kindred spirit, he was like, imagine a bar Baltimore summer evening on the porch barbecuing with your neighbors or whatever.
Baltimore is disgusting on the summer. The last one looks pretty.
Just general.
They just hit it.
Yeah, look at what Palomino and I hate to pick on them because they put out really good products, but I. Some of the stuff they've done lately hasn't sat well with me. And I use their point guard as one example. Like you made a $10 pencil point protector that doesn't fit. And your answer to that when people complain is you're using it wrong.
I mean Blackwing's marketing has never. As somebody who worked in marketing at Blackwing for a little tiny while, they're pretty heavy handed with their marketing. But they do have a pretty clear philosophy and definition to what makes a volumes edition. And the way they say it is kind of like makes my eyes roll a little bit. Like it's things that defined a creative culture. Which, I mean, which basically means it's like people and events and things that led to some sort of an artistic movement or. We all know that. But it's. I feel like they have kind of license to not be super innovative in the like feature space and more just explore that theme. Does that make sense? They're kind of like, they're kind of like allowing their scope to focus on that.
And I think there's a risk there that I feel like these companies want to be like Moleskine in the success department. But I worry that in their reach for that they're going to turn into Moleskine in the quality department. And I don't want that to happen because I don't want Palomino to become a commodity like that where they're, you know, you can buy them in any airport gift store and any Barnes and Noble and you know it's going to be the same quality no matter what you buy, but it's not going to be that good of quality. You know, they're, they're, they're quality pencils. They are good. They're premium pencils, the Black Wing specifically. And you know, I want them to stay that way. I don't think we need, you know, if I wanted to buy a commodity pencil, I'd go to Staples and I'd buy a pack of Dixons or whatever. Like that's not why I go to Blackwing.
Yeah, I think we can all kind of agree on, on that. Like all of these brands are small enough in that we don't want them to just, like, succumb to pressure to like, keep on doing something and, like, start getting crappy.
Yeah.
And I think all of them would disagree. All of them want to be, I mean, I, I don't know. I, I, I agree with what you're saying, but at the same time, I would love to be able to like, drive over to Office Depot and pick up some black wings when I run out, you know?
Yeah, that would be, you know, what
we need needs to create a dash button for black wings. And so you push it and they just ship you new black wings.
Dash button for black wings.
Boom.
No, I mean, I could see the companies wanting to kind of go global like that, but I think that, like, their subscriptions or services can't like, they can't scale something like that.
Yeah, that's not aimed at the global. That's, that's, that's for the, the niche, hardcore supporters kind of thing.
So maybe we should, we should wrap it up there. It's, this reminds me of, like, Pardon the Interruption. Has anybody ever watched that? I'm not a super big sports fan, but I'm just fascinated by the structure of their show. Just a bunch of wonks just like loudly discussing and arguing about things. Wonks says Pardon the interruption. Stationary edition pti. Yeah. So, Harry, thank you so much for coming on and joining us and bringing us this, this conversation.
It's really interesting. I look forward to being yelled at more.
So if somebody wanted to yell at you on the Internet, Harry, how would they go about doing that?
They can't.
Johnny, what is the Internet raceablepodcast?
He said as he closed down all of his social media accounts. You can find me on Twitter cmarx and you can find my podcast at coveredfm, and you can find my show at the website. It's hologramradio.org covered.
Cool. What does your next next episode come out?
I'm recording it this Sunday and then it should come out the following Friday, so. Next Friday.
Cool. Awesome. So thank you, Harry, for joining us.
Johnny, thank you for having me.
Where can people find you, Johnny? On the Internet.
You can find me on the Internet@pencilrevolution.com on Twitter Pensolution, and on Instagram at myhole. Name.
My whole name.
I just typed that into the bar in the search bar and it came up with nothing like, who's my whole name?
It's like, have you ever listened to the how to do everything podcast and they'd always give their coupon code or whatever for the sponsorships and they'd say, go to the podcast bar and type in everything. And then somebody finally asked him the question, like, what, what if we actually did type in everything? How long would that take?
Yeah.
Well, Tim, how about you? You can find me on Twitter imwassum. And you can find me on Instagram timothywassum. And you can find me at Walgreens
buying decongestant and laying in a tub of.
And you can find me using a neti pot in my bathroom in about five minutes.
Yeah, Neti pot.
Well, I am Andy Welfle. I am@woodclinch.com and on Twitter @A Wealthley A W E L F as in frank L E. And this is the Erasable Podcast. We are on the Internet@ erasable us or at any podcast directory near you. Come join our Facebook group. It's almost 1600 members. It's growing kind of quickly. It is facebook.comgroups erasable. You can have plenty of conversations like this, except it's on the Internet so people get more upset. You can check out our Facebook page, facebook.com erasablepodcast we're on Twitter @erasablepodcast. Instagram is the same. This episode is episode 69. We are @erasable us69 and check us out two weeks from now where we will be back with episode 70. Thank you very much and have a nice evening.
And keep an eye out for our Amazon dash button, which will be out
Amazon dash button and my upcoming Newt
is ours, the Erasable podcast dash button. We'll be out. The intro music for the Erasable podcast is graciously provided by this Mountain, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music@www.thismountainband.com. If I could just count the times
this has happened before.
Oh, I said.