This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Can you guys hear the fireworks that are blowing up outside of my house right now?
No.
No. Okay. It is insane. It sounds like D day outside of my.
Did you tell them Independence Day was yesterday?
It doesn't matter.
This is America.
Hello and welcome to episode 77 of the erasable podcast. Summer is in full swing and we're here like sinful central air and a cold mint julep. I am Johnny Gambr on hosting duties tonight and I'm joined by my favorite cool drinks of water, Tim Wasem and Andy Ralph Lee. How are you guys tonight?
Good. Doing fantastic.
How's everything in Baltimore?
Hot. Yeah, you can have some of the summer.
You keep it. It's so humid here. And full disclosure, everybody, I have. It's my turn to forget to record. So we. This is take two on Intro and Tools of the Trade.
So I thought we were just. I thought we were just being quiet about that, Tim.
No, no, no, no, no. Or I'm gonna do it again because. Because it was so fun the first time we.
We had a. Yeah, yeah.
So I'm sorry, but it just is an excuse to talk to you guys more, which is fantastic.
So, yeah.
Yes.
We have a super great show tonight because I think this is the first time ever, or definitely the first time in a long time that all the new releases are out between two of our episodes. So we have stuff from Bear and Fig, Blackwing field notes and write notepads to talk about. But before we get into the hits and misses of the summer edition season, why don't we get on with tools of the trade? You want to go first? Andy or Jim, sorry, whoever.
Do you want to go?
Yeah, yeah, I'll go. So I got. I got a few things. I got something I'm watching, reading and listening to. So watching. I have been watching Long Strange Trip, which is the new brand New Grateful Dead 6 part documentary that was made for Amazon. Martin Scorsese is the executive producer and it's a really, really good documentary. So even if you're not a fan of the Dead, it is really interesting. It follows the entire history of the band, but makes a point to hit the parts that are a little lesser known. And I think the. As far as something that'll grab your attention and make you maybe want to watch is there's a part where they talk about the Grateful Dead being really bummed out about getting hired by Playboy to do the Playboy After Dark show, which is basically a bunch of extras pretending to party and drinking ginger ale and wine glasses while they play. While they have a band, play music in the background. There's a show that used to be out back in the day, and the Grateful Dead improved it a little bit for their. On their standards by dosing the coffee with lsd. And so everybody was having a great time.
It's amazing.
So if you go and look up videos of the Grateful Dead Playboy After Dark show, all the extras that were hired to be on this thing are just having an awesome time. And that is why, because they were all on acid. So long, strange trip. It's on Amazon Prime. Oh, well, then it wasn't. You know, this is like 1971 or something. Or 1970. But I have been listening to an album called the Nashville Sound by Jason Isbel, who I've talked about before, and. And fantastic album. It's got some references to the last year. And I think Jason Isabel is the best songwriter out there right now in my book. And a couple songs you could check out, if you're interested. There's a song called Hope on the High Road, and there's a song called White Man's World that is fantastic. The whole album is great. It's so good. And then what I've been reading is, I'm reading the Silkworm, which is the second volume of the Robert Galbraith Cormoran Strike novels, which Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym for J.K. rowling. So she's writing these detective novels under a pseudonym. And they are. They're great. I really, really enjoy them. She's one of my favorite writers. And you can just kind of feel the same. Kind of. You can feel her coming through the page. You know, even under the pseudonym, it just still sounds like her. They're fantastic books. So they're Cormoran Strike as the detective, and then he has an assistant named Robin. And I love them. So there's. There's three so far. There's Cuckoo's Calling, the Silkworm and Career of Evil. And then this year there's a fourth one coming out called Lethal White. And there's supposed to be. She. She claims that there's going to be more of these novels than there are Harry potter books. And BBC is picking.
But are they gonna be 700?
Well, they're like. They're around 504 or 500. So they're a good size, you know. And BBC has turned it into a show called Strike. So you'll see that coming around this year sometime, where each season covers one of the books. It's fantastic. And I am writing with a Baron Fig Prismatic and a domed paper 5x7 notebook, which we haven't talked about dome paper in a while. And I. I've been missing it because I used to use it all the time and just got away from it and stumbled across this dome paper 5x7 that I had gotten from the erasable swap and decided to bust it out.
Does it still have that same ruling with the graph and like the tight graph and then the wide lines?
Yep. The grid plus lines?
Yeah.
Yeah. Everything from them has the same. So, yeah, I dig it.
Nice.
Cool.
What about you, Andy?
I am Katie and I just finished season one of Master of None, which is a show by Aziz Ansari that's on Netflix right now. And we just started season two. It's really good. Good. It's about a young Indian American actor in New York City. And probably maybe semi biographical, maybe not. It's. It's really good. It talks a lot about just sort of like casual racism and having parents that were. Grew up in a different culture and being like young and single in New York City. And it's, it's. It's really good. And it's funny too, because it's as EAS an. Sorry.
So I love that episode where his parents are like, they, they're talking about, like, how his generation just wants to have fun all the time.
Yeah.
She's like, have fun? I didn't have fun until I was 40 or whatever. She says, like, who has time to have fun? Like, is our, our generation's always like, no, this isn't fun. I need some time to myself, to enjoy myself.
I love just how his dad is always on his iPad. He just has his iPad. It's exactly like my dad. You listen to the show. Hey. So watching season two of that, I am reading a book, a novel called Private Citizens by an author named Tony Tula Thimudi. I'm sure I butchered that last name. It's about a group of friends, college friends who graduated in the mid aughts and live in San Francisco. I'm not thrilled with the book. I'm trying to figure out how long to keep reading it before I abandon it. I'm kind of like 10% of the way in so far. We'll see how that goes. So reading that, and then I'm listening to a new podcast called the Turnaround, which is with Jesse Thorne, who has a podcast network called Maximum Fun Network. He's had so many podcasts. He's a busy guy. This is actually an interesting meta conversation. He's interviewing, interviewers about interviewing. So if you follow that. He interviewed Ira Glass. I think that was the first episode. Second episode, he talked to Audie Cornish, which I haven't listened to yet. Yeah, there's just a lot of interesting. Just, like, insight into how the sausage is made. Sometimes they ask the same question at different points along the way just to get different reactions from somebody so they can kind of splice that in. It's really interesting. I hope he does Terry Gross. That's really good.
That'll be awesome.
Yeah. So listening to that podcast and then writing in my brand new Campfire field notes notebook, which we'll talk about in a little bit, with my brand new Chesapeake pencil by Write notepads. It's a Musgrave job by. Yeah, it's. And we'll talk about that, too. What's great is these particular pieces match each other. Like, the orange of the pencil matches the inside of the Dusk field notes, which is the one that I'm using. Um, so, yeah, it's. It's very orangey and nice. Uh, Johnny, how about you?
So do you. Have you guys seen the Great British Baking Show?
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah. So Frankie's gotten into that. So I have gotten into that. Because we have, like, five adjectives.
Yeah.
We started with season three for some reason, so I guess we have to go backwards after that.
Season one was. Was the best, I think Season one
of, like, Netflix or season one of DC on Netflix.
There's only three. Three seasons, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So season. Season one was really good. And I felt like the other two just didn't do it for me. Have you seen the Saturday Night Live spoof on. I think we talked about this before.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Oh, it's fantastic. Go check it out.
I got through that book called Salt by Mark Kurlansky, the guy who wrote the paper book, like a year ago.
Yeah.
Was it a year ago? Yeah. Did you guys check that out yet?
Have it sitting on my Kindle. I have not read it yet.
Man, I know so much about salt. Now.
Tell us something about salt.
You know, random little tidbits in history that I did not know, which is very fun.
What is the most troubling thing you learned about salt?
That there's no such thing as fresh ham.
That's fresh.
What? Because people market. Ham is fresh. There's no such thing as a fresh ham. It's always aged. That's. Wow. That's like being a vegetarian. Like, a lot of the stuff I read in there turned my stomach, and a lot of it Brought me nostalgia to the good days of delicious.
That's why it's delicious old pig flesh.
I tasted damn good salt. Turns out, yeah, I have cod. I'm gonna read that sometime this summer. That came out before Salt and Salt. Talked about cod a lot, obviously. Yeah, yeah, A lot of stuff about fish and why some of it is especially disgusting.
I love the idea that Mark Kurlansky just sits around. He's like, what should I write a book about? And he's like, looking around on his table, there's, like, a piece of paper, there's salt shaker, some cod that he
just write a book about. Pencils. He could do pencils some justice.
Be a fun game. Like, predicting his next is very good.
The next do.
The history of the Bic pen. Yeah, Ballpoint pens.
That would be fun.
That would be interesting. There's a lot of engineering and stuff, chemistry.
It's like, my next is gonna be about lampshades.
I would so read that, though. So did you guys see there are a series of thorough biographies coming out because he turns 200 next week. And some of them have gotten good reviews, some have gotten bad reviews. So there's one by. I forgot her name. Laura Something, she teaches at Notre Dame called Heavy David A Life that I think is not out yet. It's published by University of Chicago Press, but they had it at the Shop at Walden Pond, so I don't know if they're supposed to sell it yet, if it's a street date thing or what, But I picked up a copy, and it's super amazing. It's really good. It's sort of like, you know, modernized version of the Harding one. It's super comprehensive. And instead of.
What was it called again?
It's called Him Throw a Life. It's got the famous daguerreotype as the COVID It's like almost exactly 500 pages, too, which I find really satisfying. You can see somebody tweaking the. Tweaking them a little bit, like. So, yeah, it's not on Amazon, but we'll put a link in the show notes because it's super good. If you're a Thoreau fan, you should definitely check it out. It's on Barnes and Noble's website like a doorstopper. I thought I saw it on Amazon, but it's not shipping yet. Yeah, but in my lack of patience for the summer editions, I started a regular field notes. So I'm writing with a regular field notes and with a bear claw pencil from Koala Tools.
The donut. A donut I'm not familiar with the bear claw.
I found them at a little shop. I was on vacation. It was one of those things where I bought a pack and I wish I bought like four packs, but you can get them online at Koala Tools website. I think Mike from Leadfast bought some. Okay. That he was going to review at. Les bought some and Melissa bought some and Dee bought some, I think while we were all in Boston, which we'll talk about later. Want to jump onto fresh points?
Yeah.
Awesome. I'm going to go first, Mr. Tim.
Sure. I've just got the one kind of big one I was going to bring up, which is about the Baron Fig subscriptions. So we had an email recently saying that they were coming to an end and I was gonna kind of like bring that up and then open it up to you all just to kind of interpret. So I assume this means that they're. They're. They're still going to be making limited editions. Correct. Which you interpreted.
That's. That's kind of how I think so saw it. Yeah.
And I'm guessing it's going necessarily going to be quarterly.
Not necessarily quarterly. And then also not necessarily like, you know, just kind of like as needed. It sounds like they have kind of a fluctuating. This is, this is me just like deep reading in an email. I have no, like no prior knowledge, but it sounds like they maybe have a lot of custom, like corporate orders to do. And that sort of like eats into the time that they can spend like designing and printing quarterly editions. So I sort of feel like they're just sort of like, don't want to commit to like the quarterly, you know, releases for. For like a year. So that's, that's my guess.
Yeah. I like, I totally. Two things. I am not surprised.
Yeah.
When they, you know, I'm not surprised when they introduce so many different subscriptions at second. And secondly, I am totally in support of like, I think it was a good call. Like this is great. Good for them.
Yeah.
I think it was a good choice. And not everything. It's. I felt like they might have felt pressure to fit into this quarterly BS that like everybody else does, as if that's like only thing you can do.
Yeah.
And I like this much better. Like just the. And I'm guessing they figured out that the subscription method maybe didn't give them as much of a boost as they thought. Like maybe the a la carte method.
Yeah.
Is. Is both easier and more profitable. And I think it's great because, I mean And I am also speaking from the perspective of somebody who doesn't subscribe to anything right now. Like, I only do a la carte and I think this is just great. It's awesome. Yeah, I'm. I think just let people get what they want. And, you know, I think that doesn't. It takes the pressure off of you to put something out every. Every three months. I think it's good. I think it's a good switch.
And I, And I feel like everybody has different kind of expectations on what to think about it. Like, remember when the Askew came out and like half of the Baron Fig fans, like, like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. This is. I can't write in this notebook. And then when the Metamorphosis came out, the other half, it's like, oh, it's just kind of boring. It's just like a regular confidant, but with different colors. It's pink cover, blah. It's fine. Like, I'm not naming names by any means. And really, like, they, you know, as he, as he said in that email, if you're a subscriber, you got this email, there's only six of them. And like, people who work there and they were doing these quarterly editions on every single product. Like the Vanguard, the Archers, the Squires, the Confidants.
Imagining like a goofy confidant that comes out that's bound on the. Both the top and the bottom. People are like, what?
I can't even open it up. The Collector's edition, the Pandora's Box, it
comes with, like, a box cutter to get it open.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm not going to criticize them for, for doing this. They're going to honor the rest of the subscriptions that people have out. They're going to keep doing it, I guess, at least then for. For a year or whatever.
A year from now, a year from
whenever there was some. Some hubbub raised about how they sort of suspended subscriptions on their site for like a week before they actually made that announcement. And they still haven't made that announcement, like, publicly, just to the. Just as subscribers and whatever. I don't really care how they.
So if you've already paid for the year.
Yeah.
You will get the next. The rest of the year.
Right. They're gonna finish that. So I have a. I paid for a year of the Archers, which I think, I think we're halfway through, because the Prismatic, which we'll talk about. And I think I paid for the, The Snakes and Ladders too. So I'll be getting two more quarterlies of those. I don't know, it's. Yeah, it's good call on Baron Fake's part, I think, to just understand when they've taken off too big of a bite. And then I think it's scaling it back.
Yeah, it's smart and it's not a big deal. So it's nothing to get like pissed off about. Yeah, let's just move on, you know. Yeah, yeah, but that's, that's, that's the main thing I was going to say. Andy, what do you got for fresh points?
Just a couple things. One I wanted to just mention once again, if this episode goes live by this Friday, July 7, which I think it will, that is the content submission deadline. So if, if you have something to put into Plumbago magazine issue two, please get it to me by this Friday. If you go to tinyletter.com plumbago I think, yeah, you can see a letter archive of all of the different, like just, just themes that we've talked about and just some ideas. It's going to be a full issue. There's going to be lots of great stuff in it already. I've just started today, like laying out like trying to plan the space and like lay things out and it's going to be really great. It's going to be a little bit less Zini and a little bit more magazine y still, hopefully with kind of an indie, indie zine feel to it. But this time I'm not going to just like literally Xerox everything. I'm going to actually like lay it out and try to make it look a little bit more, more clean. So it's gonna really, really great and I think I'm gonna try to get it out by the end of July and I will announce it here and through email and through the group and everywhere I can so people will have ample opportunity to buy these. Another cool thing I wanted to mention is a Kickstarter just, just launched last week by a company called Studio Neat and Studio Neat, they're, they're friends with like the Relay FM guys like Mike and Steven and they've done all sorts of crazy Kickstarters before. They've had one where they made artisanal ice making kits. Like you can like, if you want that perfectly clear ice for your, for your cocktails. They have a little kit that lets you do that. They have a couple other like cocktail tools and then they do a couple like iPhone accessories. They have something called the Glyph which is a little way to attach your phone to your tripod if you wanted to take pictures with your iPhone. So they're kind of like tech hipster guy company.
Can you hear my eyes rolling?
What's interesting about them is they've had like tremendously successful Kickstarters like that. That glyph was kind of one of the first big, big like, like 800 times the goal or whatever. Like they. And that was back in 2010. Like they've had a few hits early on and they kind of are like Baron Fig in that they like actually formed a company out of this and they've done a few Kickstarters since then, but they actually used it to kickstart a company. So they do all these weird little like specialized things, but they're just very successful among like, like the listener of like most of the Relay FM shows. So like young, probably tech professional or like tech savvy person. So anyhow, they are, they are now doing a notebook. It's called the Pano Book and it is just like a spiral bound notebook, but it's very wide. It's exactly the width of a Apple Bluetooth keyboard. So if you sit at a desk all day in front of like an imac or a big Apple computer, it just can sit like right above or below your keyboard. And it has a graph, like a dot grid on it, but it has like special lines that allows you to like mock up an iPhone screen or divide it into quarters or flip it around. Just lets you like draw your own lines a little bit. It's very specialized. It's kind of a niche. And as people pointed out in the group, it's like not something that a steno book couldn't do. And it's like I think $25 on Kickstarter, but it's really sturdy and really good quality. They sent me a prototype I'm playing with. So just for like the sturdiness and the paper quality alone and the like kick ass slipcover that comes with it, I think it's worth it. It's a lot of fun. I'll have a link in the show notes in case you want to see it.
It's super interesting to look at and then think that you could just tilt it 90 degrees and then it would be a big. Yeah, like, like reporter notebook. Like, yeah, it's just interesting to see like anything from that perspective.
It's like, all right, totally. Yeah.
For somebody to start there and then go the other direction as opposed to the opposite.
Yeah, yeah. So it's I've been actually using it to try to lay out the spreads of plumbago of the zine just to kind of like space, like plan for space. So I've been playing with a little bit. Eventually I'm going to review it here. They, man, they, they're, they hit all the right audiences. Like they already, they just launched last week. They have 23 days to go and they've made $108,000 of their $20,000 goal. So they're laughing all the way to the bank. So it's fun. It's kind of expensive. It's notebooks for people who probably are just going to sit at their desk and plan something out or take notes on their computer. It's probably not for everyone. I kind of fit the exact use case that they're looking for, but the exact demographic. But I'm like, I recognize that that's, that's me. So that's, that's really awesome. What's not awesome, which is a little bit sadder news, is there was an announcement earlier this week from CW Pencils that end of last week, I should say they have had some space, some issues with their space, like their, their storefront and they've had to close temporarily. They're still selling online. Caroline wrote a really like heartfelt thing on like a note and posted on Instagram and then she also, you know, just sent an email out to everybody, posted something on their blog. So please go support CW Pencils online if you would like to, if you have anything you need to buy. They don't have a storefront right now and a lot of their businesses walk in traffic. So our hearts are with you, Caroline and Caitlin and Alex and the crew. I hope you find a new space to open soon. In the meantime, I think you should come do a pop up shop in San Francisco.
Hey, there you go.
So.
Or Johnson City, Tennessee. Tennessee.
Baltimore. You can have it at the Bindery. We drink Blackwing beer. We win.
There's a lot of hipsters who would spend a lot of money on pencils in San Francisco. So it's a little farther away.
You might get robbed if you opened up in Baltimore. Sorry.
So that is it for my fresh points. Johnny, how about you?
So I was in Boston last week, so, like most of my fresh points are from Boston. I got to meet Dee, Les and Melissa from our group for tea and a trip to Bobsleigh and Black Ink. That was like definitely one of the highlights of my trip.
I'm so jealous.
Yeah, that was super awesome.
What are they like in real life?
Super nice. I mean, you know, when you talk to people on Facebook a lot, you kind of already know they're nice. But yeah, you know, nice people are even nicer in person. Like you guys.
Aww.
Yes. That was fun. Also, I got to talk to Richard Smith, who was on episode 39 as Thoreau, who is like super, super cool dude and probably super busy with a thorough 200th stuff at BobSlate. It's like Blackwing heaven now. They have black wings, Blackwing sharpeners, Blackwing point protectors, notebooks, like the whole bang. It's pretty awesome. They also have singles of the volumes, which I don't think they're supposed to do, but I won't tell anybody who doesn't listen to our podcast.
Hey, do you remember women Kino Kania and New York had singles at the 211
who did that?
Oh, yeah, the Kino Kanuya in Kinokunea. In New York. In New York City. When I was there, I ran across the singles of the 211 and bought a bunch up.
Oh, yes, I remember.
Those were the day.
I got you. Sorry, I've still got this right here.
The lady. When I first got to town, they didn't have the 73s. And she was like, well, they're coming in. And I was like, well, they're all at Tahoe for a party. And she looked at me funny. I'm like, oh, man, you're not in our group. You don't know that. Like, we all know that. I look like an idiot. I was glad I didn't run into her again because I was really embarrassed. But most of my trip was very Moleskine centric. I had the tiny little volants in my pocket to hold, like, my subway pass and hotel key. It was like the perfect size. So that was super awesome. And I took my Moleskine Voyager, which is like the best travel journal ever, and I was looking for the new Little Prince planters, and I couldn't find them anywhere, and I couldn't find them on the Internet. So I'm like, you know, crap, what am I gonna do? So I went to the moleskine store and chatted with a guy who knew everything and knew the whole story about why there are no Little Prince moleskins anymore for, like, at least a year or two. So they're not coming out. So I just got a blue one. Yeah. But another thing on my trip was I don't usually use pencils, like, in the hotel room just because it's like, you know, the kids are sleeping and I don't feel like getting up. Just like, grab whatever pen. So I did this here, and on Moleskine paper, I realized that I like a whole different, like, milieu of pencils. I want, like, German hbs with short points, which is not something usually people in our group like. If people like, you know, long points. Darkness, smooth. Although Faber Castells are smooth, even though they're hard.
But.
Yeah.
What do you think that is?
I don't know. Maybe I was outside my usual situation wearing a hotel robe and freezing and smelling like a different kind of soap. It got my senses crazy. And I was drinking less coffee because I was traveling. But. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people always say when you travel, you kind of get out of your normal routine. It's nice to get out of your pencil routine a little bit. Actually. I didn't use black wings the whole way. The whole time I was gone, they were just kind of taking up space in my pencil case. It's my new song.
Yeah. Taking up space in my pencil case.
But that's all I've got. Do you want to jump into our Super Summer releases?
Sure. What should we talk about first?
So I thought maybe we could just go in the order of when they showed up in our mailboxes.
Yeah.
Because otherwise, you know, it's gonna get complicated. So the Prismatic from Baron Fig, I think, showed up first, which is the second quarterly release in their pencil series of the Archer. They all have, like an indigo end dip and they're all themed with geometric shapes. And there's an orangeish red, a yellow and a blue, like a sky blue. So they're really primary looking and, I don't know, really scholastic with the shapes. I really enjoyed them. What did you guys think of those?
I was really into the colors. They remind me of the Star Trek uniforms. They're those same shades of like, like the original series Star Trek tunics. So I like that a lot.
I wonder if that was on purpose.
I don't know. I have such a hard time interpreting their themes. Like, usually, like, I guess I get askew, but they're always very, like, heady. And they have to do with, like, the creative process. And like, there's sometimes. I mean, Joey explained kind of like when he was on the pen Addict. He explained how they, like, come up with and like, interpret those themes. But, like the minimum or the Prismatic, I'm just like, okay, okay. Like, okay, whatever. They're pretty colors. They have shapes on them. What did you Think of that, too.
I think I. They look pretty enough, you know, But I think my thing is that it might have been that I got a dud a little bit. But the first one I took out, I was trying to use it to write something down. It was so scratchy. Like, it was so awful that I just put it down, pick something else up. Not really thinking about it. Not like, oh, gosh, that was so bad. You know, Like, I just. It was like, I don't want to use this right now and put it down, grab something else. And since then, like, right now I'm using it.
It's.
It's better. But I think I hit a point with the Archers where I know what they're going for, which I appreciate, but I hit a point where I was like, this is the same pencil is the last one. You know, I. One thing that it's. I feel like it's missing for me is like a pencil nut that I get from Blackwing that I don't get here is it's the same core, and I still have 10 of the other ones left. Like 10 of that one and 10 of the other one that I want. There has to be something that sets it aside, that makes me want to pick it up. It's. I just.
Don't you just want them to experiment with something else? Something else besides just the color of the barrel?
Yeah, I think so. I think that's. That's it for me, which I. I totally get why they don't do that. That doesn't seem in itself very Baron figgy, you know, to do that. But. And that might explain why they're not doing subscriptions anymore, you know, because they're like, well, we're not really willing to change to different cores, you know, different hardnesses or whatever, which I get. I mean, they're like, well, we're not going to do that. So maybe it makes sense to just once a year we'll put out a new one, and then we'll do that one for a year, and then we'll come out with a different one like that. That makes sense to me. But I was not a. Not a huge fan of these myself. Man.
They sort of departed from the masculine aesthetic that a lot of. Or some people criticized them for.
Yeah.
Like, along with the most recent two Notebook releases, they were both a little less, you know, Gray.
Yeah.
Straight. Straight lines. Like, the colors.
So I would Completely speculating. I would. I would guess that, like, you know, they just had such a big run of pencils manufactured and they Just reserved some to be painted differently. So I'm willing to bet that these were probably made on the same run as, like, the original archers. And although I don't know about the snakes and ladders, because that one definitely had, like, some quality issues, and these seem to not. So either they went through it, or this is just kind of off that same really big run and just, like,
painted theory about that.
Yeah.
But I don't know how you guys got yours. So my original archers were packaged super snugly, and my snakes and ladders rattled a lot. And then my new ones don't rattle at all. They're really, really snug. I wondered if maybe there was, you know, if the finishes were a little thinner from all 12, they would rattle around.
That's interesting. They could have crumbled and broken a little bit because they were rattly.
And they did seem softer, though.
Yeah.
Something was definitely up.
Have you.
No movement in my ones.
Did you guys notice with this prismatic that the. The lid doesn't close all the way on the box? The little. The tube.
Mine has trouble closing. It, like, sort of rips itself a little bit, and then it closes. Okay.
Yeah, Yeah. I like. I like the aesthetic a lot. I like. Tim. I'm not, like. I would love to see, like, a different core or maybe something with an eraser on it or something that's not hex, like a triangle or something else besides just the colors. Kind of, like, kind of shaken up a little bit.
Yeah. Well, that would be keeping them with their notebooks because they bury the insides on all of them. Yeah, totally do that.
Yeah. So I can't wait till the next one to see what happens.
Awesome. So next that came out was Blackwing Volume 73, the Tahoe Edition.
I don't.
I haven't seen anyone say anything negative about.
Oh, yeah, they're so good. Oh, gosh.
Actually, just while we were recording, ordered in, like, a dozen, because I didn't get them when they came out. I'm not a subscriber, but, Andy, you sent me two.
Yeah.
And I'm, like, obsessed with it. They're so good. They're so great. You know, the texture of the. Of the outside and then just the look of them. This is the first one that I've ordered extras of in a long time.
Yeah, it's so. I think probably everybody who listened to the show has probably seen them, but if not, I'll quickly recap. So it is a pencil that's themed after Lake Tahoe. $2 from every subscription from every subscriber goes to the Keep Tahoe Blue fund, which out here, pretty close to Lake Tahoe. There are so many bumper stickers from Keep Tahoe Blue. I've never been to Tahoe, but I really want to go. It's. I'm here. It's kind of the lake getaway if you live in the Bay Area or Sacramento. And the pencil themselves have a really beautiful kind of cerulean blue finish. And there is a raised. They're like topography lines of the depth of the lake, which I found. It is called Bathographic instead of topographic. It's Bathographic.
That's a good band name.
Yeah, Bathographic. To just sort of represent the depths of Lake Tahoe as a silver ferrule on. It has white eraser and it has the. The soft core, the MMX core. And so I. And what I really love. I don't know how you guys feel about it, but that those lines on the barrel of the pencil are slightly raised and they feel so good on my fingers. Yeah, they're just like extra so extra grippy, I think, especially out of coming out of the 205 release, the Jade one, which I don't think any of us particularly like that much. Nope. Yeah, it was so good. It was really great. And even though I'm not really the MMX user, I like having, like. It's been a while since we've had a softer than. It's been a while since we had a soft core. And so it was. I was glad to see it. What do you guys think? Think of it, like, just. Just from the concept.
So being from the East Coast, I don't get what's up with, like, Tahoe other than that it's big and it's famous and it's pretty.
Yeah.
So, like, at first, I'm like, the localized part. I'm like, yeah, whatever. But it's so damn pretty.
Yeah, it's perfect.
This is definitely in the top three with the 211 and 344.
For me, I would say just pretend it's like Chesapeake Bay, but it's not brown. So.
Yeah,
there are parts of the Chesapeake Bay.
I know. I'm just giving you our time.
Yeah. Well, there are a lot of parts of it that are brown. Yeah. The trimmings on it are, like, perfect. And they put out the. The long point sharpener and white if you want to, like, get super matchy, which looks really good. I just can't justify buying another long point sharpener.
Yeah, exactly.
Actually, if they could have gotten Kum to make the masterpiece and tweaked that blue piece on it to be this blue. That could be the perfect sharpener.
Yeah.
Yeah, I totally agree that it's. I think it's jumped into the top. Up to the top of the list for me. For me it's probably the, the 211, the 24 and the 73 or maybe the 211, the 530 and the 73. I like the 344 as well, but I think this one jumped, jumped up pretty high right away. And it also has a striking resemblance to my beloved HB wing. Besides the.
Oh yeah.
Besides the fact that it's a silver ferrule instead of a. Which So I love it.
Yeah.
Love it so much. I love the texture, love the story and, and I'm not a big MMX user but I like I just said I had to order some more because I know I want them. So for you, good looking pencil.
For you new listeners who are jumping in. MMX is a term that we came up with on the show. I think Johnny coined it. Um, it's MMX's Roman numerals for 2010, which is when the original like Palomino Blackwing came out. The softest core with the, the matte black finish. So if you hear us talk about the mmx, we're talking about the Palomino Blackwing original. Some fun, some fun trivia. So Cal Cedar is celebrating their hundredth anniversary and this past weekend they had like a big board retreat at Tahoe to celebrate. They were streaming live with some musicians that played in the yard of the big like estate that they had rented. So yeah, they, they celebrated it on Lake Tahoe just like for their 100th anniversary with like the Lake Tahoe pencil, which is kind of cool. So anything else we should talk about with the 73?
Yeah, I think it was a hit. Yes, I give it an A.
You, you say it's within your top three, Johnny, do you think it, it's in your top three too?
Oh, definitely top three. It might be even top two.
Hmm. I, I definitely. I, I Along with.
Excuse me.
Along with you. I'd probably put the 211 in my. As my first one and then the second one. I kind of oscillate between the 530 and the 24. 5 30. Just. Cause it's. I just thought it was a really pretty. Like I thought the gold was really great.
Same as me, Andy.
Really.
That's. I love the striped ferrule on the 530. Like I think it's way more beautiful than I thought it would be. And then the 24 I liked. I was just really delighted with that because they had a new core released. I don't use it a whole lot, and it's black. It's like, it's fine, whatever. But the story behind it and the new core for the 24 was just, like, so great for me. So I like that a lot. So it's somewhere up there, and I don't quite know where yet. Yeah.
Yeah. So next in the schedule was Field notes, Campfire edition.
Yeah.
Which is one of their editions where you get three different notebooks. It's a halftone printing process, right? Five colors?
Yeah. It's a halftone illustration. So unlike the America the Beautiful, where they basically half toned all the colors, this one has, like, shapes and illustration behind a halftone which indicate, like, the texture and the shade on it.
Yeah. So they're the three stages of a campfire, building a campfire, burning a campfire, and hopefully safely extinguishing a campfire. And they're so pretty. And they do different graphs to match the inside covers. Like, super awesome. What do you guys think of the FAR edition?
They don't do my favorite stage, which happens at my family gatherings, which is start throwing things into the campfire to watch them burn. Like, marshmallow packages, cans, somebody's shoes.
Get behind that.
I know a kid that threw a toad into a fire once.
Oh, jeez.
It was alive.
Which is the day Johnny became a vegetarian.
Yeah.
Yeah. I like. Feels to me a little bit like going back to, you know, it's less experimental than the other ones. They're getting back to graph, and they're just kind of going with, like, a theme that they're representing, like, visually with just a regular old notebook. It doesn't have any, like, special things on it. I love that the paper is. The graph colors are different.
Mm.
I think that's really good.
Look really good.
Yeah. I really like the duplexing of the covers. Like, the. The inside is a more like, the inside of the COVID is like, a more matte, solid color, and the outside is a little bit more glossy and. And they all come with a patch, which is crazy, because. How many. How many did they do? 30,000.
Like. 30,000? Yeah.
They made 30,000 patches.
And they're made in America, too, apparently. In Portland.
Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't really use patches, but I have a bunch. I could put patches on something. Mike Hagen has a. Like. Has, like, a jacket that he. He Calls it his patch coat. He just, like, puts them all on.
Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know such a thing as a patch jacket, but apparently there is. Yeah, I like that idea. They had them in Boy Scouts. There was, like, a red wool coat that you would get and put patches all over.
Yeah. Yeah. Tim, have you. Have you tried this out? I don't think you. You got this one, did you?
I didn't know, but I'm definitely planning to pick some up.
Yeah.
I think they look fantastic. And I'm as just a person who, at every single chance I get, I have a fire behind my house.
Yeah.
Like, sit around the fire things. That's when I. You. I think I. When it came out, you or Johnny sent a. A group text saying, you know, field notes have announced. And my first thought was, gosh, I hope it's scratch and sniff, because that would be the greatest thing ever.
So my trouble with.
They do smell good.
My trouble with. With campfires is I'm. I have asthma. And so, like, if it's a big campfire, I always have to sit upwind because that's why we can't have fires in our fireplace in my. My apartment. Just because I think the wood.
This is why we can't have fires.
We can't have.
You can't have nice fires.
Oh, you property owners who can have fires. Yeah. It's a beautiful addition. I'm using the dusk one right now because that's kind of what stood out to me the most. I love the orange ruling, and I like the kind of, like, darker shades on the COVID And I like that
they return not just to graph paper, but to their regular paper. It's been since Snowblind. I think that's the last time they used their normal paper.
Oh, really?
They had the. The colored paper, the reporter notebook, the gray paper. And then last time, was that like sandpaper paper?
Wow. Yeah.
This is.
Wow.
It's really been a while. Yeah. So you could have subscribed and never touched this paper before.
Huh. That's interesting. And I like. On the back, it says, note, in a pinch, this memo book can be used as kindling.
Yeah. My dad has a small collection of notebooks that he doesn't open or use, so I'll probably reinherit them one day. And I told him this one. His eyebrow picked up. Really? He was this. Well, he still is a scout leader.
Yeah. Oh, wow.
You know, big into fires. There was an instance where at summer camp, our troop lit the fire for the council and they had to bring in the fire department to put it out. Finish lighting it was the stuff of legend.
Well done. Yeah.
To build the inside of the fire, I had to get lowered into the outer part of the fire with a ladder and then build a normal fire around which we basically built a log cabin that burned out of code in homemade napalm.
Yeah.
I have a lot of stories about why the hair on my arms doesn't match that. Lights campfires.
Can you guys hear the fireworks that are blowing up outside of my house right now?
No.
No. Okay.
It is insane. It sounds like D day outside.
Did you tell me his day was yesterday?
It doesn't matter.
They didn't go to bed yet.
It's ridiculous.
No, we were drinking all night.
What actually happened here is that it was raining last night, and so the fireworks were, like, really ramping up by, like, 8:30. And we were getting anxious because we're like, oh, great, our kids are going to be up all night, like. And then it started raining, so they stopped. So I think tonight they're blowing up the rest of their stash. So I'm kind of shocked you can't hear it because it's so loud. It's like, I can see it outside. Huh? Sorry.
Yeah, no, it's. I can't hear it here.
Yeah.
Do we have any final thoughts on campfire?
I don't think so.
Ah, it's fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So next, up near and dear to my Baltimore heart is the right notepads, Chesapeake edition, which is. I forgot what the color the paper is called, but it's sort of like a corduroy textured blue. And the inside are blue lines on one side and a really faint dot grid on the other. And if you look really thin, they line up. And outside, it's a metallic stamping of Chesapeake. And on the back, of course, a blue crab. And if you're from Maryland, you get the joke that it's blue, but the pencils are orange, which is what a crab looks like after you cook it in Old Bay. And then the subscriber extra is a crab mallet that's made on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. It's really awesome.
Oh, that's cool.
Even though I haven't used one in, like, you know, 15 years, but still, Henry thinks it's cool.
Do we know, Johnny? Below the. Below the crab, it says callinectae sapitas, which is.
I think it's the butchered Latin blue crab.
Oh, okay, that makes sense.
But, yeah, most of the blue crabs we get around here are not from the bay because we've overfished it. So most of them are from, like, the Gulf. Unless they say specifically. We're trying to re. Populate it. You know, the bay is a big, like, Tahoe. It's a big point of pride and concern in these parts. But. Yeah. What do you guys think of the. The Chesapeake?
I. I'm a big fan. I love, love, love the way that cover feels like it. It's like, just gorgeous. And it. It's like. It's kind of wood grain, but it's not, like, shelter wood. It just kind of feels like it. Right. Like, it feels really good. I love the color. Love that. As always, with. With stuff that Chris Roth does. Like, the typography and the designs are just, like, amazing. I really do think that out of all of the, like, limited edition, like, subscriber things that stationary is doing right now, I think that.
Right.
No Pads is the best at, like, coming up with a concept and, like, making it, like, executing on the concept. I think that he. Yeah, it's just really. Just knocking out of the park with that. Like, he hasn't had one that just has been, like. That didn't work very well. You know, Field Notes has had plenty of those. And granted, he's only, what, like, six in.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I. I don't like the ruling that much. Like, I like. The lines are fine. The dot grids are very, very tiny. It's like a pin dot grid, I think, is, as Chris put it, it's really hard to see. So I guess it's really only there as like, a. Like, a point of reference rather than, like, trying to guide your line. You have to specifically look for it. Like, I was taking pictures of it and the dot grid wasn't showing up. So, like, the ruling isn't great, but it's not bad. I don't often use the pages that have, like, different rulings on different spreads, but I will still use it because it's gorgeous and I. I'm a big fan of it. So I'm using the pencil right now. The pencil is really nice. It still has a pretty sharp hex like most Musgrave. Musgrave pencils do. So I don't know. I would say the COVID stock is my very, very favorite thing about it. It's so good. And the rest of it is really good and really solid. I think that I. I still like Telegraph and Kindred Spirits better. That's my. Those are my favorites.
Kindred Spirit had a lovely texture.
Yeah. I love the ruling and Kindred spirit. Like the. Like the lines with the little side. The side rule.
Yeah. They got rid of the ledger on these.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is. All right.
No more margin.
Yeah. We don't want to be like word notebooks where they just like always. Always use the same ruling.
Yeah. And they got rid of the boxes this time. It's a. It's not really belly band. It's sort of like moleskins. It tucks into the COVID instead of going all the way around.
Yeah. Yeah, it was that. And it's really good looking like it was. It looks very well stamped and letterpressed, but. Yeah, I do miss the boxes. The boxes are cool.
Yeah. I like how they. With this, you can sort of feature the COVID a little more.
Yeah, that's true.
The last one, like, the boxes and the covers were so close to each other.
Yeah. Tim, do you have this chest speak in hand yet?
I don't.
Okay. It must be. It must be on its way. But it.
Yeah, but it's very, very pretty.
Yeah.
I'm like dying to get my hands on that cover, just like you were saying, like, seeing the texture of it and I. I think I'm gonna like this one a lot. The royal blue has been one of my favorite.
Yeah.
So far and. But I think this one can give it a run for its money.
Yeah.
I'll check in once I. Once I get in hand, but I. Everything I've seen about it and heard about it, I just think. Sounds fantastic.
Yeah. I don't have a lot of use for the crab mallet. Somebody in the chat that we had earlier suggested that we like, call the podcast to order with it.
Oh, man, I should have done that.
We could splice it in.
Shut up.
You are out of line. I'm gonna hold you in control.
You ain't talking no more, hon. It's my turn. Chris has a really good Baltimore accent too. Sort of get going down there, you
know, I have to admit that until I watched the. The Henrietta Lacks movie, I had never heard anybody with a Baltimore accent that wasn't like you imitating them. Johnny, did you see the keepers? No, I haven't seen that.
When that lady who moved to Gettysburg was talking about her friend Skippy. That was pretty Baltimore esque and you know his name was Skippy. Frankie and I were like rolling like, oh, my God, they find this lady.
So, Yeah. I don't know where I would put it in. Sort of like the ranking of Wright notepads. I would say so. Yeah. I feel like kindred spirit is My favorite. And Telegraph is my second favorite. Royal blue's in there somewhere. Probably third. And then Lenore and then. Oh, into the pines. I forgot about that, though. That's probably like fourth. And then royal blue for me. And then Lenore. I like Lenore, but I just did not care for that ruling. Yeah.
I'd have to do like, a list of concepts and aesthetics and a list of which ones I enjoy using.
Yeah. And that. That's totally different things. Yeah, you're right.
I love the way the lers are. I like the softer covers.
Yeah.
Yeah. But the paper a little dark.
Yeah.
Once you get used to it, you find the right pencil is good. That was a very nice companion for an mmx.
Yeah.
Also aesthetically. Yeah.
This one is a good companion for the 211 just because they're both like, themed after large bodies of water and they're both blue and they both have really great texture. I. Yeah.
And in the spring, the white 205 matched the telegraph notebook really well.
Oh, yeah.
Like, wondering, like, you guys talking, like, collaboration Bicoastal edition.
They should absolutely.
Should have done a Thoreau edition together. I could do it in the fall. I'd be okay.
Yeah. Can't believe it.
Autumnal tints. That'd be perfect.
Can't believe Charles just didn't listen to you, Johnny. He basically.
He just listens to me.
He owes you a throw pencil, I think is what. What we decided.
I don't know, knowing then they might have one up their sleeve.
Yeah, that's true.
Come out as like, hey, guess what? Your. Your subscriber extra is a dozen throw pencils.
What?
Yeah, they didn't do a coin this year that was. Yeah, I mean, I, I admit I really liked that coin. I thought it was cool.
Yeah, they'll. They'll get them. Anything else we should mention with this Chesapeake Bay edition?
I don't think so. This has been a very, very satisfying season of releases from everybody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Overall, it's been really, really nice. I mean, a lot of fun. I haven't gotten everything yet, but I've got some things on the way, so everything I've seen. Yeah, I just feel like everybody really, really nailed it this time.
So I, I do like, despite, like, there being so many of them out there nowadays, I do like the idea of the quarterly releases. I think it's cool because it kind of keeps companies on their. On their toes trying to, like, put these things out. It lets you just like, try like, a wide variety of things for like, like relatively not A lot of money. Like, it's. It's $100 a year, which is not small change, but it's. It's not any more than if you were to buy, like, the products outright from them. Right. Like if you buy eight packs of notebooks and some of them, like the tchotchkes, extra. So my trouble is I just don't use them up fast enough, so I have just drawers and drawers full of them.
My children are always glad to help themselves.
Yeah. Yeah.
Especially if it's blue. Henry wants everything that's blue.
Has he claimed his Chesapeake notebook set yet?
Yeah, I took the Chesapeake notebooks out of his grubby little hands because he's got a lot of notebooks. He doesn't fill his notebooks very quickly.
Yeah.
How about fill a moleskin in a week? The two 11s. Henry does not have any two 11s. Oh, you mean the 73s.
Well, because.
Yeah, he's got a 73.
They're blue. The 211. Sorry, the 73s. That's what. That's what I meant. Sorry, the numbers are a little bit confusing.
Yeah. So should we button this one up for the night? Yeah, for the week.
Yeah, for the week. Have a short episode.
So, Tim, where can folks find you on the Internet? And if you want, you can tell people where to find you off the Internet.
What's your address is? You can find me on Twitter timwassom. You can find me on Instagram at Timothy Wasom.
How about you, Andy?
I am@woodclinched.com or Andy Coffee. And I am on Twitter at a Wealthley A W E, L, F L E. And on Instagram is the same. And that's me. How about you, Johnny?
I am still on the Internet@pencil revolution.com which will be 12 years old this month, and on Twitter Ensolution and on Instagram onnygamber. All one word. And we are the Erasable podcast. You can catch us on Twitter and Instagram raceablepodcast, our Facebook group, which is pushing 2,000 people now, is facebook.comgroups erasable. And apparently the group is so awesome, there are a lot of people who don't know there's an actual podcast which speaks to how awesome the group is. Not podcast. Podcast is.
It's right there in the title of the group, guys.
And we sort of have an Official mouthpiece@facebook.com erasablepodcast where you can like our page. You can find this episode at erasable US77 or on iTunes. Overcast or your favorite podcasting. Medium or program or app or channel or whatever you call it. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time.
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 at www.thismountainband.com.