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Transcript
Welcome to the International Pencil Day. Come join us as millions of Americans come together to celebrate Graphite.
You think we're kidding? It sounds exactly like that.
Hello and welcome to episode 92 of the erasable Podcast. I'm Andy Welfle. I am on hosting duties for the night, and I am joined by my good friend and confidential informant, Tim Wasem. And we have a glaring omission tonight. Johnny is not joining us. He had some family duties pop up. Really? I was telling Tim that we're in a big fight and we're not really speaking right now. I was not on the last episode. So hopefully we can resolve that.
The wopex is the Yoko of the Erasable podcast.
Yes, it is. However, because Johnny is so hard to replace, we actually have to find two people to do it. We have in our virtual Erasable studios, we have Jess Letcommin and Chris Jones, two people we've known for a long time through the Erasable Podcast group, New York City residents. And now they have a new pencil blog, Graphite Confidential, which we'll talk about a little later. So, Chris, hello. How are you?
Hello. I am very well tonight. How are you?
Very good. Jess, hello. And how are you?
Hey, I'm great. And I'm here.
Yay. You are both here. Thank you for joining us. We're definitely going to talk about their new blog because it's one of the most original ideas for a blog I've heard in a long time. Immediately when they launched that, we talked amongst ourselves and said, hey, we have to see if they want to come on the show and talk about it.
It's one of those topics that we'll get to, but it's one of those topics that we have talked about before, like, in private, saying, we'd love to talk about that, but we don't know enough about it to actually talk about it. So. Which is, like, super exciting to have somebody who knows what they're talking about. So we're excited for that.
To give people a little bit of a teaser. Chris or Jess, can you give us the elevator pitch of what your blog is?
Basically, it's advertising pencils, which is just a fancy way of saying all those pencils that random shops across America used to make as, like, little calling cards for their businesses. We amassed a crazy, you know, collection and just wanted to know, what are these businesses? And we found out crazy stories that, like, just feel like a little bit of, like, this American life of pencils.
Hell, yeah.
Yes, hello.
I've just let. Come in. This is. This is this American Pencil, our story. Awesome.
So if only.
Yeah. So tonight we'll be traveling back in time a bit to talk about some of these stories. But before we do there, let's hang out and talk about our tools of the trades. So, Jess, I know you've listened to the show and also I should have probably asked you this before we went live, but do you prefer Jessica or do you prefer Jess?
Everybody calls me Jess, so it's like a moot point.
I call you Jess because I've heard Chris call you Jess in the group, so.
Yeah, that's fine. He never asked me either.
Yeah, he just started doing it, but
it was decades ago, so he's fine.
Exactly. That's good.
It was 1987. I was young, I was foolish.
So we're talking about tools of the trade, right?
We are. Maybe start off with kind of like some of the books or media movies that you're consuming and then also what you're using right now, if anything, to write with.
Absolutely. So I've been reading a lot of books, especially as we got Graphite Confidential underway. So there's super old timey stuff. I just read Jacob Riis's how the Other Half Lives, which is like, basically like a scathing indictment of like, how the poor were treated in turn of the century New York. I just read like a guidebook to the city of New York from 1892, which is, like, fascinating. They have like pictures of the inside of the Remington typewriter factory, which is like on a random, like, office building on Broadway, and like the Eberhard Faber offices, which are like. It's like a dimly lit whatever in Greenpoint. Yeah, exactly. And then I just read a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which connected, you know, as we'll find out later, with a story that I ended up writing for Graphite Confidential. And in terms of. Oh, you know, and one day when I was just sitting here, I was rereading Caroline Weaver's the Pencil Perfect book, which on second read is better, even better than the first time because I have a lot more context for it now. Yeah, so that's, you know, that's what I'm. What, what I'm reading in terms of movies, you know, Chris and I felt like we saw like a million movies in 2017, but we're slow to get started in 2018. But we are so beyond geek to see Isle of Dogs, the new Wes Anderson movie tomorrow. Like, we just figured out that, yeah, he did a Q and A, like, down the street from us at, like, the Most twee Western Wes Anderson Theater, like the Metrograph, like a block away from CW Pencils yesterday. And we somehow didn't know about it.
So they made, they made you sit in the theater like very symmetrically.
You joke, but that would be my dream.
I don't think we're going to get that close to here, but I'm dying to see that as well.
Yeah, yeah.
I have to get to Asheville or something.
Yeah. And then I'm a music person, so I'm also very, very geeked because Jack White is playing a record release show at a small club in Brooklyn tomorrow and a friend of mine hooked hooked up tickets to that. So we're gonna be in a very small room with Jack White tomorrow. So that's not Chris, Just me, some other guy.
Yeah. I don't get to, I don't get to go. So I share your angst and jealousy, Tim.
Oh God. I'm like. It hurts my chest. Like I'm having chest pains right now. I saw a picture of him playing a show. It was like a week ago and actually Jason Isbell had retweeted it, but it was a picture of him playing on stage and he was playing a, an Eddie Van Halen like model guitar which was like such a. I don't know, it's just like a weird anachronistic thing to see him. You don't think Jack White playing like a heavy metal guitar, but he was, he was working it, he could, he could play anything but.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I would love to see that picture.
That'd be awesome.
Yeah, so that's, that's, that's what I'm consuming, which I know is a long list. I apologize.
Oh, that's great.
Tim has like two things and he just like spends like you know, half an hour on it, so.
Yeah, that is true. Yeah, that's true.
Sorry, go ahead.
That's fine. I'm a list kind of person, so I just run through them. As far as writing with, as you probably guessed from Graphite Confidential, I love vintage pencils. So even like just in regular everyday, I've got a General's torch number three that is a go to at work. At home I tend to use an Everhart favor. Third school number two. Both of those are from the vintage case at cw. And then another favorite that I kind of carry around with me is a Bloomingdale's pencil for store use only. That is one of our, one of our, you know, advertising pencil finds from the 60s and I just, you know, that's What I use in my planner and stuff like that. As far as what, like I write on what kind of. Chris and I both, we have two of the write notepads, like small ledgers and like instead of having a spreadsheet of all these advertising pencils, for whatever reason, we sat there and wrote them out in a spreadsheet in these ledgers. So it's like super 1963 in our house.
And they're written like in our own special, like shorthand code.
Oh yeah. We made up codes for like if it's got a parole or you know, like, is it, you know, a hex or a round pencil and whatever, what else the markings are. What state is it from? It's super, super silly. And for my journal, I've got a Princeton Architectural Press. Makes some really weird, interesting journals and blank books and they've got a grids and guides notebook that has like logarithms and graphs and stuff like that. And that's what I'm using lately. I'm sorry, go ahead.
I love those notebooks.
Yeah, I've got that. I got one where we, you know, did our logo in it and all kinds of other stuff going on. And then of course, assorted field notes. I'm currently upset. Until the Coastal edition came out, like the other day, I was completely obsessed with the Alphabet soup. So that's, that's, you know, sort of my, my world right now. That's my list. Sticking to it.
Cool. How about you, Chris? What are your tools of today's trade? Well, I.
Excuse me. Consuming. Listening to the new 1857 podcast.
Yay.
Really enjoying that.
I. So I didn't really know Stuart Lennon before this, but I think he's the perfect counterpoint to tj. So he. So I was listening to the episode about, I guess it was about values and they were, they were talking about what they're currently drinking. They do kind of a similar thing. And, and Stuart goes, I'm enjoying a. Just, I'm enjoying a drop of chianti. And then TJ's like, I have a Bud Light, which is.
Yeah.
In his Irish accent. Yeah, I think they have great chemistry over there.
Yeah, I really enjoy that one. And then I blame friend of the show Harry Marks. I blame him for getting me interested in the print run podcast by two literary agents based out of Minneapolis. And it's just, it's witty banter and on air drinking and like all the, all the things you love about podcasts.
Yeah, all the best things about podcasts.
On air drinking.
Cheers, everybody.
Yeah.
And the West Wing Weekly.
Oh, yes, yes.
I am very excited to. They're doing a live show here in New York in April, and Aaron Sorkin the guest, and I'm super excited that we got tickets to go to that.
He bought them months ago.
Yeah.
He made me write them down in my planner like when I first cracked it open. January 1st. Yes.
Jack White and Aaron Sorkin. I hate you both. Thank you for coming on the podcast.
It's New York, New York.
What do you expect?
I know. I know. Why doesn't he come to Johnson City, Tennessee? I don't understand.
I will ask him, but you can both take solace in the fact that we missed the entire cast of Isle of Dogs less than two miles from our house.
Okay. Just wandering around, probably.
What if they went to cw?
I was gonna.
With Bill Murray, you never know what he's gonna do.
Exactly. He was at a. One of the final four games. Or not the Final Four this night, but one of the March Madness basketball games. I was like, is that Bill Murray? And Katie's like, I think it is. Just showed up.
He's a huge Illini fan.
Yeah.
Shocked. I am not.
Yes.
Huge Cubs fan. Huge Illini fan.
Yep. That's right.
And then reading
this makes me laugh in advance.
Yes. Because as we started researching these pencils and some of the older businesses, we stumbled across, like, old trade journals from, like, the 19 teens that go back to, like, the 186 or 1870s. 1870s. Like the American Stationer. Geyer's Stationer, for one of them. Like. Like the national association of Ice Distributors.
Railroad Telegrapher.
Yes, the Railroad Telegrapher. And it just. It's fascinating to. To read these to learn about not only the pencils, but just, like, seeing the ads in them for, like. One of my favorite ads is for a. A thumbtack display that a stationer could, like, have on their counter. Thumbtacks. And it's just like, such flowery language of, like, how they describe their products, but, you know.
Yeah. True story. We sit here and read it in, like, a. Like a fake, like, 1930s gangster accent to each other, like, hello.
Hello, friend.
Come on down and buy some thumbtacks.
See? Exactly. Exactly.
From Johnny Thumbtacks over here.
Hey, I'm Johnny Thumbtacks.
No, but it has stuff in there, like, Everhard favor, like being the toastmaster on a yacht on the Long Island Sound with, like, Joseph. You know, with Joseph Dixon company executives or whatever. And you're just like, I was on my yacht. See? Like, what? We love that. Anyway, Go on, Chris.
Sorry. Yeah. So then and again, just watching whatever comes in on one of the channels that we get on the antenna.
Law and Order reruns.
A lot of Law and Order reruns. And then writing with. I am obsessed with the microtomic 2B and 3B. I like. I like softer pencils. Like Jess prefers like, you know, the F grade or like super high H. Yeah. Like give me a big soft pencil and I'm happy.
We're like Jack Spratt. Yes.
Are you using some of the. The untipped microtomics or some of the like kind of the flared ferrule, like a black wing.
No, some of the untipped that just had like the metal end cap on them.
Oh, yeah.
And then leftover new pink futuras that we still have left over from the wedding.
Yeah, they were our guest with pencils at our wedding, so we ordered like 20 of them. And they still stick around.
Yes.
Nice.
The Eagle drafting pencils is. Somebody in the group was trading away Dixon Flamingo, which is another. Has a big soft core, so. I like that one. Yeah. And then just whatever new toys that we bring home from CW every weekend.
And real quick, I should probably mention, how far do you two live from CW pencils?
1.5 miles.
There you go.
Jeez.
So, yeah, another thing for us all to envy about their circumstances.
Well, I mean, at first when we started, you know, I told him about it and he's like, oh yeah, let's go. And then he was like, yeah, let's go next weekend. I was like, I don't know if we should be going every weekend. But he convinced me that it was alright because it wasn't just him. A guy randomly alone.
Yeah, that I think would have been a completely different story. That would have been like in a restraining order. But, you know.
Exactly.
Then what I'm writing on is a notebook that we got at Greer Stationer in Chicago, which, if you ever have a chance, is a fantastic place. It is a by Elum Designs, the brand. And it's just. It's like a. Got like a wooden cover, like a stained wooden cover. And so I'm using that for all my notes on graphite Confidential. And then just like random field notes that I have like stuck in different pockets in my bag or at work or.
Oh yeah, his field notes. Every so often he gets up in the middle of the night at about 3 o' clock in the morning and it's like, oh no, where's that night sky? Or whatever. And he like starts Pawing around for an hour. And he's like, jessica, get up and help me find it. And it's like, somewhere obvious, but, like, we spend an hour, like, a week in the middle of the night, like, making sure that his field notes are safe.
I thought you were gonna say he just gets up in the middle night and just goes and stares at them.
No, he, like, gets in a panic that he lost it.
Oh, no.
Anyway, I think that's a. That'd be a good episode title there. A Week in the middle of the Night.
A Week in the middle of the night.
I like that.
When you're waiting for a quarterly release, sometimes that's what it feels like.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I think, Chris, you and I had something special in our mailboxes today.
We did?
Yeah.
So pretty.
Yeah. We'll talk about that a little bit later in the freshpoints, but I'm going to do a live unboxing. Cool. And, Tim, how about you? What are you consuming and writing with Skype music, first of all?
What did you say?
Skype music.
Oh, Skype music. Yes. I've been putting together a jazz tribute to the Skype sound. By consuming, and by that, I mean using. I am not literally consuming this, but my. I got a new guitar for the first time since I was in high school, I think. Yeah. It's been a while.
Yeah.
But so I've been talking about. You got me self conscious now about my. My being going over the top of the. So guitars are these instruments that have six strings and. Let me. Well, let me go back to the violin first. Let me talk about the violin first, and then we'll get to the guitar. Yes. I got a new guitar. I've been talking about a guitar player named Julian Lodge lately. This album, Modern Lore, that I really like, and I went and saw him in Knoxville, and it was this amazing show, and it's gotten me. You know how, like, when you get really into something when you are in your 20s and then you let it go for a while and then you come back to it and it feels so amazing. Like your brain has just been eager to have it back. Like. Oh, that part of your brain that you programmed to love playing jazz on the guitar or love listening to jazz, like, has been atrophying, and it just. It feels so gratifying. So I've been listening to a lot of jazz again, and I playing my guitar a lot, and a lot of. It's. A lot of these old tunes and these standards are coming back in kind of my muscle Memory and it actually motivated me to make an impulse purchase which was, you know, pretty good. But I've been meaning to get one of these for a long time and I've been kind of saving up for it. But I got a new guitar. It's an Epiphone Emperor 2 Joe Pass, which is like a full, hollow body arch top jazz guitar, which I've been meaning to get for a long time. And I love it. I just came in. So I've been playing a lot of guitar with my Epiphone. I've been listening to the two albums I picked. I was going to talk about. One is, like I said, I've been getting back into jazz and I've been trying to be more familiar with old standards and the words that go with them and listening to some old Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and those kind of singers. But there's a newer album, it's called Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin, which is kind of a combination of what I've been listening to for the last couple years and what I used to listen to. And it's Willie Nelson singing some of these old Gershwin standards like Summertime and Someone to Watch Over Me and.
Oh, that's awesome.
It's so good. I bet it does such a. Yeah, it's such a good album.
I feel like he would just get. Get off track or something though. Like some of those songs are so like. Like the. They're so metered and they just rhyme so much. I feel like he would just sort of like wander, which I guess would. Putting his own spin on it.
Yeah, yeah, it does. And it's great.
He's like, the way you wear your. You can't take that away.
Yeah, it's definitely looser, you know. Yeah, that's pretty close. I think you pretty much nailed it right there. So you can either get this album or you can just listen to. Just hit the 30 seconds back button on your podcatcher and you can just listen to that over and over again.
Andy Buffley sings Willie Nelson singing Gershwin.
There you go. But it's a really cool album. And what's the. They can't take that away from me. That was the song that I was listening to it. Been listening to it all day. But I was listening to it when Andy called me on Skype and the sound of the Skype tone coming into my headphones actually mixed in with that song and I missed the call, so he had to call me back. But it's. It's a cool album, so I'd check it out and Then there's this band called Snarky Puppy. Have you heard of them?
Yes.
Okay. Snarky Puppy is this. It's kind of like a, you know, like big band jazz. This is like millennial big band jazz. It's like these young people and it's a unusual format and instead the big, huge horn section, there's like three guitar players and it's just this big production. And actually one of the guys, the trumpet player, is from Elizabethton, which is where I teach here in East Tennessee. But yes, I've been. I've been listening to them and it's. It's kind of. It's definitely not like an easy in for some people, but it's really cool and really well produced music. And it's this big group. I bet there's 20 people in the group most of the time writing or playing all original music. So check it out. They actually have a. Some YouTube videos that they kind of went viral a couple years ago. They've won a few Grammys since they got started, so they've. They've really taken off. But there was a. Oh, man. Let me see if I can find it. There was a YouTube video that really took off. It was called I'm Almost There. It was called Shafukin.
Oh, yeah, that one show.
Do I have to write about this, Tim? I don't. No, no, I don't think that's how it's pronounced. But that's how I pronounced it so that you didn't have to do that. It's S H O F U K A N. And there's another one called Lingus. And those are the two that have like 50. Yeah, exactly.
I have to cut all of this out.
Sorry. Just put one long typewriter bill. But. But they're 15 million views or something on YouTube and kind of took off. So.
So if they're millennial jazz, like, are most of their. How many other songs are about avocado toast and hummus?
Well, there's no houses, there are no lyrics, so you just have to kind of assume. Yeah.
You know, millennials aren't young anymore.
I know, but their obsession with avocado toast is wrecking the economy.
It's true.
Can't confirm it.
So that's as far as listening. And then I don't have a lot to say about this because I just started reading it. But Colin McCann, who is the author of a. Now, of course, I'm going to forget it. But he. He's written a few novels in the last few years that I think. I think he won a National Book Award for. You can edit this out, this part right here. And I'm just going to say the title of it. Like, I actually prepared for what I'm about to talk about. Let the Great World Spin. Let the Great World Spin. He won National Book Award for. But he has this new collection out that's called 13 Ways of Looking, which is a novella of that title, along with some short stories I just heard reading that. And that's very good so far. It's kind of like the Leo Tolstoy the Death of Ivan Ilyich. It's this, like, story told from the perspective of this aging professional man. He was a. In this case, he was a lawyer. And he's just looking back on his past and in the first person reflecting on his life, and he's kind of like near the end and super interesting. And I. I'm writing with an old wing, as Andy called him, but it's a palomino black one, Blackwing, with the feral from the. The gold black wing. What was the number of it?
535.
30. The fair old 530, which had the black band around the top of it. So nice writing with that. And it is at the official Steinbeck stage where I can feel the metal on my. My hand. And I am writing in such a good feeling. That is a good feeling. Keeps me cool. And then I'm writing in a right Notepads Walden edition that I busted. It was actually one that I had been writing in, but I found it the other day and it became my regular notebook. I had lost it for a while. I love this. Love this edition.
Yeah.
So how about you, Andy?
All right. I have been watching a really, really great show on Netflix. Have any of you been watching Ugly Delicious?
I haven't watched it yet. I have it in my queue, but I haven't started.
So it is a episodic documentary series about food by David Cho, who is the chef of, like, a bunch of New York eateries like Momofuku. And he's a Korean American chef. Really great. There's a food writer.
He's telling me to wash my mouth.
Yeah, Momo. Momofuku. There's a food writer who's also part of it. I cannot remember his name. And basically what they do is. And I apologize to New Yorkers, Chris and Jess, but you know how. Tim. Tim, you know how people from New York are just kind of like, jerks? Tell me about it.
We're not from New York.
Oh, good so you can. You know how people in New York or from New York are just basically like, jerks about pizza and, like, Jack
White being down the street and Wes Anderson and stuff?
Well, we're from Chicago, so we're the biggest jerks about pizza.
Oh, you sure are. Okay.
Yeah, take that back, Andy, Watch your mouth. So.
So, yeah, you meet up with, for example, Harry Marks, for example, and you're like, hey, Harry, what are your thoughts about piz? And he goes, oh, you mean the one true pizza from New York and New Jersey? Like, yep, that's what I mean. Essentially. Essentially, like, people who think that, like, there's this just one true way to do this, and they. They basically, David Cho kind of challenges people on this and they. They have an episode per food item. So pizza was the first episode. They had one about crawfish, they had one about tacos. They're going to do several more. Like, a few more. He basically kind of like, takes some people out of their. Their bubble and brings them to other places. And they have somebody who makes it very traditionally and they have somebody who makes it very. Not traditionally, and they. They eat it. But then they also just talk about sort of like the cultural implications behind that food. The pizza one was really good. They took this guy who is like a. Has a pizzeria in Brooklyn. Really has never. He thinks that, like, Connecticut pizza is, like, not real pizza. He just really, like, is in his bubble. And David Cho took him to Domino's. Talk about it. It's. They interview a lot of people. It's shot in a really interesting kind of fresh way. To me. People, like, they have, like, actors on there. Like, what's her name? She was on Community. She played Brita.
Alison. Brie. No, no, I don't know her name.
Yeah, so she lives in LA and Koreatown. They talked to her about, like, Korean barbecue. Yeah, it was fantastic. It's a really good show. About halfway through. Can recommend that. I've also been reading an interesting book kind of for work. It's by the. By Emmy Favilla, who is the copy chief at BuzzFeed. And she wrote a book last year called A World Without Whom. And it's kind of like a. It's kind of an anti. Strunk and White like it. I would not recommend giving this to your students, Tim, because they probably need to, like, learn the rules before they start, like, breaking the rules. But it's basically arguing for. Yeah, for arguing for, like, you know, less formality in language, even, like, if you're writing it On a website, she talks about how BuzzFeed puts together its style guide, which is out there. Among, like, people who think about online style guides, like I do is one of the most like prescriptivist, not, not prescriptivist, descriptivist ones out there. They, they take a lot of stuff into account. They have very, as you know, if you've ever read BuzzFeed, it's pretty, it's pretty loose, it's pretty informal. And she just kind of talks about some of the rules and how it can actually like, stifle language and creativity. So it's actually really good. I'm enjoying it a lot.
I have to say I'm shocked that buzzfeed has a style guide.
Yeah, they're very consistent with how informal they are.
Okay.
Number four will surprise you.
Yeah, right. As somebody who works at a very large software company that has still very old school thinking processes behind writing, for example, it's pretty refreshing. I think there's probably a balance to be struck behind, behind like this, between this and like Strunken White or some of the very like more formal kind of like writing books out there. So it's just a good kind of like fresh perspective. And I am writing in my Baron fig Metamorphosis Confidant, the pink one with a pencil. It's a Japanese pencil called a Smart Value that I got from John Morris. It's basically, I think it's like a camel. It's a 2B Camel, but it has ish thing but it has a crazy looking logo on it. That's really fun. It's like a. There's an S and an X and a V that has like, it's kind of arranged like a smiley face. So that's me. Let's talk about fresh points. Justin, Chris, I don't know if you have any fresh points. Basically any like short things not related to our main topic but still related to pencils that you, you want to kind of bring up. And if not, that's totally fine too.
Well, I have a feeling we're going to get into the whole field notes coastal thing. So I'm going to even.
Yeah, I will hold my comments for the same.
No worries. All right, so Tim, let's. Let's start with you. What Tell us about your fresh points.
So newsflash, Surprise, surprise. There's a new item from Baron. Figure they've come out of the woodwork with another new product as they do every three or four days. And it's another good one. It's a simple one, but that's where the good ones are. Often they came out with a simple one called the Mastermind, which is,
I
guess you'd call it a notepad or a legal pad, but like, I mean, not legal size, but it's just a little notepad with a. What do you call the glue binding at the top?
Yeah, just a, Just a little notepad.
Yeah.
Yes, a little notepad. Little dot grid notepad is the one that.
I can't believe you said the dirty word, Tim.
Well, but I was going to say the one cool thing about the Mastermind is you can flip it over and then it's blank.
That's true. That is true.
Oh, I hate blank.
Oh, gosh.
Fighting words with Tim.
All right, good night.
It's just us now.
Okay, so I, Yeah, it's a six by eight little desk pad that they came out with 35 sheets and you get two. And it was just a convenient little, very practical, set it on your desk, kind of something you can jot things down on. And what I. And I'm forgetting the name of it because again, there's so many new items or like new things they come out with. But the larger desk pad they came out with, what was the name of that one?
Well, so the, the larger one is. Is the Mastermind, right?
Yeah, this is the Mastermind Mini. Right.
Otherwise. Otherwise known as the Half Mind.
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So there's the Mastermind standard and the Mastermind Mini. Yeah, gotcha. That's my bad. But the, so the, the Mini, I think is much more, much more practical. It fits my desk really well at school and I enjoyed using that. And I, and it was dot grid. So I was initially like, what am I doing with this thing? But I accidentally open it up backwards and. And so, yeah, it's blank on the back. So it's. The docker is just printed on one side because it's intended to just be something you jot your notes down on. You tear it off and you move on to the next sheet. But you can flip it over and that works really well. So I've, I have it set on. I've got my classroom set up kind of old school with my, my desk with my computers in the corner. But then I have this another little like small desk right in the middle of the room. And then all the seats kind of fan out in front of my desk so that I can intimidate them, which never works. So I've got, I've got one sitting there. So if I ever need to jot down a note. If a student asked me a question, I'm like, you know what, I need to look that up because I don't know the answer and I'll get back to you then I can jot it down there. But yeah, cool. Another very practical, very sensible item from Baron Figs. Yeah, Mastermind Mini.
The half mind.
The half mind. Yeah, the half mind. Yeah, I like that. So this also leads me into you. I've been, you know, maybe like 70% joking. No, 30% joking. That's what I meant about not liking dot grid. Just because I don't usually find a use for it. It kind of drives me nuts. But along with my getting back into playing guitar more and more, getting into music theory and stuff, I actually found that I do like dot grid for this where I'm. I've been in notebooks kind of listing out scales and modes and chord structures and things. And I do like having some sort of overall structure that's not super tight. And so I. I have. I will admit to you all, since no one listens this and they'll never hear it, I actually have been using some dot grid in order to. To track some of those, the music theory stuff I've been working on. So I've liked that quite a bit. It's just the thing with me with, with dot grid is that when I'm writing free, like actual writing prose sentences and writing in my normal handwriting, I don't like it. But if I'm just doing things with their, like single notation, I mean, I'm doing things like writing whole, whole half, you know, like the number of steps that are in a scale, like whole, whole, half, whole half, that kind of thing I like or like chord progressions and things like that, then it makes much more sense to me because I can. I can draw squares, you know, along the dotted lines and make sections on the page and it works really well for me. So I've been liking that.
What I like about dot grid is I guess, kind of the same. Like I. If I need to structure something like a to do list or if I need to like do some, some like vertical or horizontal rules, it's there. But then I also don't feel as pressured to stay within the lines. If I just want to like, kind of write big and loopy, like it's not as intrusive as like a full grid. Yeah, I like it because I think that's a little bit more flexible, I guess. Yeah.
Mm. Yeah, that's true. And I think just like I said last time, it's not a rational thing. But just recently the dot grid hasn't worked for me because it's just like, I've been noticing it more and I used to not be able to. I used to just be able to ignore it. And if I wanted to write in my normal handwriting and I. It wouldn't bug me. But for some reason lately it has been so it'll probably pass. It's just a phase.
It's just a phase.
Don't worry.
It depends on how dark the dot grid is. Like, some of them that are faint are better than the ones that are like, knock you out black.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Depends on which one it is.
Yeah, that's true. And Ben Baron, Fig 10's on the. On the lighter side, in my opinion. I think I like. I like that if I. If I have to use one. And the last thing I have is that I saw a. I was actually. It was Sunday morning, I think it was this past Sunday morning, I saw a post from Harry Marks of this contraption he'd bought at Michael's to organize his pencils. And it just completely blew my mind. Like, where I. It had been a while since I'd had that kind of. I saw something online. I was like, I need. I want to go to there. Like, I need this thing now in my life. I need it. I'm going to get it. I'm gonna get today. I'm gonna find it. But it was this desk, it was a craft organizer that he had posted this picture of. And it's probably, I don't know, like 14 inches tall, a little more than a foot and about roughly square anyways. But then it's about seven inches deep and it's got three sections in the bottom. There are two drawers that are, you know, rectangular. In the middle there's just an open shelf. And then on the top there's a grid of hole. Like there's a bunch of sections in a grid. And I think it's like, I look at it right here. There it is. There are seven per row, three rows of seven. So there's 21 sections. And it fits pencils perfectly, which is what Harry Marks did in. In his picture. And I just fell in love, like, I needed to have it because I. I have all my pencils stuffed into a. A cabinet in my office room, which is fine, but it's just not super organized. And they're kind of piled up on each other and they're all in boxes and I don't like to have all my pencils in boxes. I know it's going to save the erasers over time, but blah, blah, blah, whatever. I want to see them. Like, I want to be able to grab them. And so I went and picked it up, and it's from Michael's. They had a sale going on for all craft storage stuff, and it was 20 bucks. It's normally 50, I think, was what it was. It was 60 off and brought it home. I loaded the drawers up with all of my.1 one is full of every sticker I've ever bought or been given or that I've got there loaded up and. And patches and buttons and all that pins. And then in the other one, I've got erasers and replacement blades. And then in the center, I have probably a hundred pocket notebooks that I've just built up over time. Field notes, write notepads, everything. And then in the top, I. Which I cannot describe to you, how gratifying it was to fill this thing up with stuff. It was just like the best. It was like the best hour of my life after I got this thing put together.
It looks like a little art store with the way. With the way the pencils stick out. It looks like a little art store.
I have a burning question, because I've seen pictures of this quite a bit now among the group. It's too short for pencils. Doesn't that drive you crazy? Like, with the end sticking out like that? It's like your feet sticking out over the bed.
It doesn't bug me because, I mean, it's. It's only. It's really just. The ferrule is sticking out is about as much as stick that sticks out. And there's the. The grid part actually is set inside. And so if you really want to, you could pull the grid part, like, right out to the edge so that it's barely sticking off if you wanted to, because it's not the full depth. But it didn't really bug me. And it actually practically. Like when I go. When I've grabbed one off of there just in the last few days, it makes it easier even, because when you grab it, it kind of. You can pull it down and comes at an angle and you can slide it out. Nothing falls out. You know, it's. It's plenty. Yeah, it's plenty deep to keep them in place. And I just kind of like looking over there and seeing all those erasers sticking out.
So Micah in the group is saying that she bought two of them and organized the typewriter. Bell out of her mom's workspace and her own workspace. So apparently now she says you can only get them in store in Michaels and not online just in case anybody is looking for them. If you have a Michaels near you, go check that out for 20 bucks.
Chris is giving me a face now.
I also want to mention, Tim, you have some stickers that you put on the sub that are exclusive preview of some of the stickers we've been thinking about. I order some samples and just send them to me and me and Johnny and Tim. So he has some pictures of one on his Instagram.
So if you want to find out, you better go hunt that down now. We can tell. But I mean, it's. Yeah, I put down, I threw a ton of stickers on the side of it, even on the top. All. Every erasable sticker we've made, including the bumper sticker that TJ made us, is right on the top. But I've got stickers from CW pencils and ripe notepads and field notes, and I got plumbago stickers. And then I got the perfect pen or pencil perfect sticker on the other side and cub stickers and. And all kinds of good stuff. And then including our. Yeah, the little prototype stickers that involve the, for better or worse, the faces of the co hosts of the erasable podcast on the side. And it was just so much fun to put that thing together. So I definitely recommend it. And actually, I didn't mention that the top part, like, if you look at the top part where the pencils go in, that's actually like a shelf slid into a shelf. And so if you really wanted to, you could take out the whole pencil part and put it vertical, like next to it, next to the whole thing and just have two open shelves on the top for notebooks or whatever. If you really wanted to, it probably wouldn't have as much integrity as far as holding the pencils in place. And if you did it that way, but it's still an option. And you can also put, obviously put the pencil part in the middle if you want to put the notebooks on the top or whatever floats your boat.
Whatever holds your pencils.
Whatever holds your pencils. Yeah, whatever stows your graphite.
Exactly.
Andy, what about you? I've been talking long enough.
No worries. So I am going to do a live unboxing. I guess I actually opened the box, but I'm going to open this pack of field notes. So the, the new edition, the spring edition of field notes is out and it Is called the Coastal Edition, and it's super cool. Subscribers get a pack of west coast and a pack of east coast notebooks, sparking a war in the field. Nuts group, as things are like, tend to do. But I know over there in New York, you. You all have your additions too. You got yours?
Yeah, we got both.
Yes. Yeah.
Today. Let me open them.
Yeah, it's. It's really cool. And I think the. The look and the feel of it in person is not done justice by the pictures on the web. And part of it, I think, is because they have like a holographic foil stamp on the front, and those just, like, just look amazing online. Like, you can't. You can't take a picture of it successfully. It basically, there's a. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the. The Blackwing 73. You know how it has those. I can't remember what it's called. Like, the depth lines on it, like a terrain, but underwater, they kind of have this. The land has. Has the swirly, like, altitude lines. The coasts are marked by just some really beautiful like. Like yellow holographic stamping. And then the water part of the coast is marked by a really beautiful blue holographic stamping. And they have three notebooks per pack. Each one basically just goes down either the east or the west coast. Mine has Washington and Oregon on the first one, kind of like NorCal in the bay Area on the second one, and then Southern California on the third one. Gorgeous. Super beautiful. The. The inside is also really cool. They did a fountain fade, first of all. It's a reticle graph, which is like night sky and unexposed. So it's a dot grid, but with, like, little crosses, which I wish. I kind of like you probably. I mean, it would work the same as a dot grid for the new use you found for it, Tim, but it just adds a little bit more, like, weight to it.
These look so amazing that it doesn't even matter. Yeah, I would just. I would want these no matter what. They. They could be like. It could be like a dot grid made up of poop emojis. And I probably.
I would buy the heck out of that, let me tell you.
Oh, man.
The really. To me. Yeah, the really incredible thing to me is they did a fountain fade on the. The inside pages. So what that is is they. They start off with, like, let's say green on the left side and blue on the right side. And then they start printing these. So you get pages with slightly, like, variating, vary variating Is not a word. Slightly varying colors, blue to green and.
Like a wave.
Yes, like a wave. It's so beautiful. Big fan of these. I. I know they talked about how this is one of the most ambition, ambitious, like, projects yet, and I think that they're right. The precision that it must have required to do these covers. Somebody. Somebody in the field nuts group was asking why this is, like, so amazing. And I think what it is is, you know, they had to do two separate foil stamping passes, and the blue foil stamp and the yellow foil stamps are so close and tight with each other, they don't have any. They can't afford to be off at all. So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't mean to be a jerk, but I don't even know stuff about printing, but how could you ask that question about why these are so amazing? Just look at them. I mean, just having them line up like that. I mean, that's. And just to be that. That intricate.
Yeah. And I think this person was asking out of just, like, genuine interest about not knowing printing methods themselves. I mean, sometimes. Sometimes in field nuts in our group, too, you can have kind of jerky questions. But I think this was kind of like an honest and so not having seen them in person, that was kind of my speculation. But now seeing them in person, I just realize how much accuracy and consistency was required to do this. So kudos on that. I can't wait to try one of these out. What are your thoughts on them over there, Jess and Chris?
Well, we did the same thing with the East Coast. We, of course, immediately tried to find our house on the second of the east coast ones. There's like a tiny speck representing Manhattan. No, but we. We just were oohing and owing immediately when we took them out, I was just like, oh, my God, I almost don't want to. I want to, like, put it under glass or something like that.
So, of course, as soon as, like, I saw the announcement and I knew my subscription was coming, I'm like, I'm gonna just go ahead and order some more packs of these because I know we're gonna, like, want to throw a couple in the. In the archives.
Yeah, in the Chris archives.
Yes. Right. Yeah. So kudos on this, I guess. We do have another interesting field notes story that came about. Tim, I don't know how often you actually are on Facebook, but have you seen the coffee Farm notebooks?
Nope.
Okay.
So, no, I am on Facebook. Honestly, I'm probably on Facebook once every two weeks. I don't know. I just. I Just. Yep. So just go along, move along. Yeah, totally understandable.
So this will be a fun story. So you know how the Seattle Roastery, Starbucks Roastery has exclusive field notes. So somebody I think in the nuts group posted, made like, hey, look, look what I just got. New Starbucks field notes. And they were showing off a, like a notebook with like a print of coffee leaves and berries and like the cherries and leaves and stems and a big thing that said coffee farm on the bottom. And I was kind of like losing it. Oh my God, this is amazing, people. I'm sure everybody in Seattle just like went there right away to start grabbing them and selling them in the field Nuts group. And soon we learned that when they went into the roastery to get it, they were out. And the guy behind the desk said, these are actually made for a Starbucks farm in Costa Rica. We got a few of them, but the rest of them will be available at this coffee farm in Costa Rica.
I wonder how many people bought plane tickets after that.
Yeah, but then somebody who went in probably like the next day found a small stash of them and kind of like bought them out and then kind of grilled the manager who kind of gave them that same story. So it sounds like they're just sort of doling these out in short bursts. Maybe they don't have as much. So kind of as soon as they came into being, they kind of blinked out of existence. So I think we'll probably know more later if we have any listeners in Costa Rica. Maybe.
Is there a partnership between field notes and like Delta or something?
American? American is the airline that goes to Costa Rica. Don't ask how I know that.
Okay.
It's probably a. I'm assuming it's a. Like it's a. One of the Starbucks owned farms in Costa Rica. Like a tourist coffee farm. That's my, that's my guess. But they're gorgeous. I. They have one of them, that's one of the notebooks in the pack is green. One of them looks like a natural. Like maybe it's a. Perhaps it's like a craft brown. And then one of them has that like really beautiful pattern on it, which is at the front of the pack. And it's just gorgeous. So I'm. I'm definitely going to see if I can get a pack of them, but I'm not going to hold my breath because it doesn't matter that much. They're just field notes, people. I say as I'm like fondling my, my new Coastal Edition field notes
that Coastal video that they made. I just have to say that was like, that was almost as amazing as the Notebook itself.
Yeah. Jim, kudos. I think on Twitter said that he spent like by a large factor. This was the most expensive video that they produced for an edition. And they were like, we probably didn't need to, but hey, we did.
Oh, I mean, like, that's your dream job when you can do stuff like that.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah. So another big limited edition thing. We don't know any. We don't have anything, like, we don't have any insight what it is. But Blackwing has announced their spring edition. It's the volume 54. So of course there have been much speculation. The edition itself. Well, like the, the what I'm trying to say the Instagram that they announced it where they always have like the volume, you know, 54. It was on a background like a paint palette with some very like expressionistic looking like colors on it. Nobody knows what it is. I thought that Melissa Chapin and the group had a really good guess. I'm trying to find the post right now. It's been getting a lot of activity, so should be near the top. But of course it is not she or no, somebody else guessed it. Yep. There's just some speculation about it being just a few different artists. I think somebody. I'm reading the thread right now. Somebody thought that it would be. Somebody thought it'd be Bob Ross. That would be really fun.
Oh God, yeah, that's too good. That won't happen.
Yeah, right.
That would make us all too happy. There's no way.
Somebody said, oh yeah. Martin Codena said that it sort of reminded him of a Leroy Neiman palette, which is an expressionist painter. He paints things for. He used to paint things for Playboy from like the 50s through the, through the 90s. Lived in California for a while, but I think also is like lived mostly in New York. Okay. So. And I was reading his Wikipedia and apparently in 1954 he began his association with Playboy. Tim, I think that he painted a bunch of like World Series posters back in like the 40s. I don't know that for sure. Yeah, he's just a. Use a lot of big goopy paints. So Blackwing announced that they will be doing a live, a live reveal on Monday. And I don't know anything beyond that if it's going to be on their Instagram or some other way. But if you're around Monday, check them out and see what they say. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm still going with Indy Warhol. Yeah.
I disagree so vehemently. It just seems like a much more basic kind of artist than Andy. It wouldn't have been all splotchy like
that, but it follows the Palomino Blackwing special edition of dead white guys.
Yeah, but there's a lot of dead artists.
Yeah, I think they've been. Maybe, maybe it's been in response to like what people have said about editions, but I have a feeling that it's going to be somebody that is not a common, like a common knowledge name, like something that people know of. It's going to be something a little, A little off the.
Yeah, they've been. They've been getting in the weeds with their, with their tributes lately. Like after that. What's his name? Country singer Tim.
Oh, Guy.
I already forgot.
Yeah.
Guy Clark.
Yeah. And I guess for like me and the people in my circles, the Ada Lovelace pencil was. Was pretty, pretty popular. But I don't know if like everybody celebrates computer science quite like that or math. But. Yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. I'm. My speculations are based on nothing as opposed to in the past when I've had like a really good hunch that of course turned out always to be wrong.
Always.
So, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what they. Yeah. I also. Last thing I wanted to mention. So this is something we kind of did exclusively in the group, but I just realized at one point that we all, all of us who like pencils, there's kind of a strong correlation to people who like coffee. And I've. I've before. I probably won't like take the time to explain it here, but I've always talked about how collecting fountain pens is like wine tasting and collecting pencils is like coffee tasting. And I don't know if that metaphor holds up, but I just. We just sort of realized that. So we did a coffee swap. I basically let people sign up and I matched them with somebody, somebody else across the country who had access to some like really good, locally roasted,
like
good artisanal coffee beans and basically connected them so they could send each other a pound with maybe a little note, maybe some pencils in there. Just experience what, what the local coffee there is like. Chris, I know you matched with somebody. Where does, where does he live?
I believe he's in North Carolina.
Yeah. So they're sending each other some of the, like the local coffee and even like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I'm from has three or four really Good quality roasters. And so I've tried to, like, pair some people in bigger cities up with people in smaller cities, too, just to kind of make that known. But, yeah, I think it's. It just sounds like fun. And I've. I realized at one point that I have all of these, like, little, you know, local coffee roasters that I really love that, you know, people who live in Montana or New York or Florida or Tennessee don't even know about. So, yeah, we had a bunch of participants. We definitely do it again. Maybe we'll open up to a wider audience. But if you are in the Facebook group, pay attention to that. And if you're not, I'll try to find a way to announce it so you can participate too. So have you. Have you done your. Done your swap yet, Chris?
I believe, Dave, because we just had, like, our fourth northeaster of the month yesterday, and it snowed all day and like, you know, blizzarded and it was nasty. And then like Today it was 45 degrees and it all melted.
Yeah.
So it's like nothing ever happened. It was like, it's awful. It's blizzarding. Ah, just kidding.
Psych.
Yeah, exactly. But now the place I'm getting David's beans from, because he specifically requested decaf. There is a local chain here in the city.
Not a chain. It's a. It's like. It's like a. Like a old business that has, like, two shops, both in the Village.
Oh, yeah.
It's not a chain at all. It's like spoke. Yeah, it's, you know, like, I think they formed in like a hundred years ago or something. Puerto Rico importing. They have like, the gold leaf letter that's like, chipped away from decades of, like, you know, elements, but they have
decaf whole bean just like locally roasted in the shop. So. Yeah, and it.
And it's the non, you know, non chemical process called Swiss water process. Yeah, it's the Swiss water process. So it's. It's even nice decaf.
That's cool. That's fun. Yeah. So. So, yeah, I can't wait to see how this turns out. That should be fun. So last. Last quick thing is that we are still taking submissions for Plumbago 4, and we will be probably for a while, so take your time. But if you are kind of like codifying your ideas, send them in. We want to hear about it. All right, so let's. Let's jump into the main topics. So, yeah, so the main reason, besides just liking them and being interested in talking to them, we Wanted to see if Jess and Chris could come on to talk about. Talk about the new blog. But before we jump into that, can you talk a little bit about your interest in pencils in general?
Sure. Well, I'll start. I've been a journalist for years and years and years, so, like, I started in the business before, like, everything was computerized, so there was, like, red and blue pencils, like, everywhere. And I was always, like, the geek who would, like, try to, like, get people to give me their rubber stamps and their random pencils and stuff like that. And I was also doing a zine, so there was always pencils involved. But I didn't get, like, sort of weirdly obsessed with them or, like, notice them until, you know, I'll just, you know, full disclosure, I'm a huge Pearl Jam fan, and I've done a few projects, you know, in conjunction with the band. And I was doing, like, an insanely detailed family tree about seven years ago when they. When the band was turning 20, and I found myself needing to write smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And then I discovered, like, the grading system and what that was all about, and that was just the rabbit hole for me. That's, like, where it started. And my mom happened to live in Europe at the time, and so I just be like, I'm gonna spend all day going to French stationery stores. Or, you know, there's a million stationery stores in New York. So like, that's where that was my. My gateway drug, I guess.
Yeah, that's really interesting. It's kind of like. Kind of like Brad, you know, Brad Dowdy kind of got into pens because he needed to find something to write really, really, really fine and small. So it's a good. It's a good parallel path. That's cool. So how about you, Chris?
Well, I didn't really. I mean, I, you know, going to school, just. I use, like, the standard, you know, basic number two pencils. And then, you know, took drafting in high school, but did and didn't really like pencils. Didn't really have a special. Like, I didn't really get truly obsessed until I moved out here and discovered cw. Then it's like, wait, all these different kinds of. All these pencils are different? Yeah, they're like Pokemon. You have to have all of them.
I remember I saw they were written up in the New York Times, like, really shortly before you moved here. And I was like, ah, you want to go to a store that's only pencils? You're like, go on.
And that was the old Forsythe street location. And yeah, it's like I went in there and I have no idea how much money we've spent in there over the last, you know, year and a half to almost two years. But yes, just Matt, we bought one
of everything in there except for the. The Blackwing. The original Blackwing, which is another story for later.
Yeah, the last thing we have to get is the. The 1960s.
You're jumping ahead, my friend.
Vintage Blackwing.
So before we get to the vintage ones, though, like, what are some of your favorite currently produced pencils? Things that are still around today that are. That you. You find yourself reaching to more often than. Than others?
Well, I mean, I, Yeah, I. I love those Futuras that. That just got reproduced by the Moon company. Like, they're just beautiful. And I love a pencil that's not one of the standard shapes. I think those are somewhere in between. Yeah, they're semi hex. And I. For all my checklists, the tombow colored pencils are amazing. I just. And I have like, brown is my color of the year, so I have like a stash of brown tombows. And I'm a sucker for the viarcos that smell like the gardens of Portugal or whatever. But, like, we have to put them away in a. Like a tightly sealed box or else, like, our entire tiny apartment will be overrun with the smells of Portugal.
The smells of Portugal.
Exactly. Exactly.
Cool. So what is it about advertising pencils specifically that draws you to them? I think I remember when. I think I even commented on one of the early posts, Chris, that you made in the group about, like, how you were just like, pumping quarters into that. That old pencil vending machine. And I was like, it's like he's playing. Playing the slots, right?
It pretty much was, yeah.
Oh, it totally was.
It's like, yeah, we go. Go in there, get 10 bucks and quarters and just kind of keep pumping and pumping the quarters in and seeing what comes out. We ended up with some fun and interesting stuff. And we're both not in everything, but, like, in this, in the pencil thing, we were. We were completionists. And like, wait, we have like, 38 states. We need to get all 50 states.
Yeah, it started with the states. I mean, I think that, like, to begin with, like, I just like the, like the typography on them and like, some of the weird names on them or, you know, if we found ones that were near places that we live that kind of like, you know, rubbed us the right way in a certain way and, you know, we wanted, you know, as many, like, that were sort of sans serif, you know, hexagonal pencils from Chicago. Like, we just kept wanting to find ones that were, you know, that. And then we discovered the state thing. Then we're like, oh, wait, we have almost all the states we gotta get. You know, Maine and Alaska and whatever it is.
Yeah.
And then we started being curious, like, but what are some of these? You know, because you would get some ones that you didn't sort of plan to get, and you're just kinda like. But it wouldn't be readily apparent what they were. I mean, I think the weird ones drew us in. Like, really obvious weird ones, which are like. I mean, we'll talk about this a little bit, like, when we get into, like, some of our favorite stories, but, like, you know, like, the Cut Rate liquor store that specifically elicited itself as across the street from the government projects. Like, really, you need to put that on a pencil. Like, okay, you know, or the. Or the cemetery that says, you know, drive carefully. We can wait. You know, like, okay, all right. You know, like. But, you know, it started with the states, and then we started looking them up. That's. That's where. That's, you know, that's what happened.
That started with, like, we picked all the Chicago ones, and we're like, oh, let's make a map to see, like, where these were. Like, were they close to where we went to school? Were they close to where either of us lived? And then, like, as you know, we're Googling and looking for the addresses. Like. Like one in particular. Stebbins Hardware. It's not there anymore, but the address came up and it's in downtown Chicago, or was. And then, like, I'm like, wait, this place isn't here anymore. But it has this fascinating backstory, which I won't go into now because that's a future post. But it's. We started looking, and that's how we kind of, like, accidentally stumbled into, like, there's a lot more here to these pencils than just, like, the name printed on them.
Yeah.
And then, like, we kind of Googled a couple more.
And then I just feel like we really quickly discovered that, like, I know I name checked this American Life before. We're both, you know, fans of, you know, of that show for sure. But I think we sort of realized really quickly that these are, like, a little glimpse of, like, you know, what you think of as, you know, like, the American past. Like, it's a little bit of Americana. Like, this is Actually, history, you know, like, it was not the history that you'll ever read anywhere, you know, by the way, it's just like, you know, somebody's like, family business or something like that. And I just love the idea of, you know, it seemed very relatable, you know, like, just these. The business that he's talking about, Stebbins Hardware, is this old hardware store that, like, was around for, like, over a hundred years. And, like, you know, whenever every mayor went in there to buy thumbtacks or whatever, you know, it's just, you know, it's crazy, the rabbit holes you find yourself in that, like, quietly, these things were, you know, kind of writing the little histories of the town.
Yeah, that's really cool.
It's interesting, too, because, like, they, you know, that this business, like, was doing well enough or, like, for some reason decided to, like, slap this on a pencil. And I know that it was probably more common to do back then, but it's. Yeah. You just hardly see that anymore.
Yeah.
Actually less expensive to do back then.
Yeah. Yeah.
Two. Two and a half cents per thousand.
Wow. What?
Yes.
Wait, two and a half cents per pencil?
Per thousand per pencil? Yeah.
1650. 1650. It's like, what?
No, no, no.
I need to find a flipping time machine.
Like, 16. Yeah. 16 bucks for a thousand pencils. Well, Chris. Chris, like, more than me, I think, but Chris very much is into. Into the. Like, what were the companies that made them? Because it turns out this was like, the absolute number one way that people advertise their small business. Like, we've looked into, like, you know, like, what was available to folks, like, more than any other sort of method. Every single shop made pencils. It was just a thing you did. More than I thought. But, like, it turned out that, like, Eberhard Faber and all the big four, like, you could buy pencils of your shop from them for, like, 15 bucks.
Wow.
Yeah. Like the Eagle factory was.
Which is a block away from our house.
Yeah, that's cool. But, like, yeah, you could just, you know, contact Eagle company, be like, I need, you know, thousand pencils. And they, you know, they would make them for these companies.
Done, brother.
Yeah.
You see, it's like, we're going out on our jobs.
You want to buy pencils.
But. Yeah, so. So we. So we realized that, like, chances are if your business existed before, say, 1975 or so, which is, you know, sort of before our lifetime, then you. Your shop had a pencil. So I thought the other thing, and then I'll shut up about this, but the Other thing that was really interesting is like there's a million ways that you know, like ephemera from like, you know, small businesses or whatever. But a pencil is one of those rare things that kind of just keeps kicking around through the generations. You're not really gonna throw out a pencil unless it's used up or broken or something like that. And like, the chances that like an old pencil is gonna be in the bottom of somebody's drawer are actually pretty good. Much more than like a leaflet or, you know, any other kind of thing. Like a pen will dry up or whatever. But, you know, hey, you know, I. What? You know, I found pencils for a lot of random hundred year old things at the bottom of my dad's drawers and stuff like that.
Wow.
So I've got kind of two questions for you to follow that up. The first one is that like as you're talking about all these, this is something I've never gotten into, the advertising pencils. But one thing that I have gotten into are the advertising bullet pencils. Are you going to be writing about those as well?
Eventually, yes, because we have probably. We have like a, you know, a good solid thousand. Not a pool of pencils, wooden pencils.
He just like his head loaded.
No, the regular boring ones, the wooden pencils.
Well, that's okay then.
Yeah. All right.
And we have several about Jesus, so.
Well, that was just my response was if you had, if you had a thousand bullet pencils, like, so how many wooden pencils do you have? Jeez, that's what I was thinking.
But no, but we do have, we do have a couple that are like happy birthday from your Sunday school teacher.
Oh, yeah.
Do you have the kind with two erasers on each end and it says, life without Jesus is like this pencil. There's no point to it.
Oh, God, no. But there's one for the telephone company that says like you should, you should telephone and not write.
Yeah. Like, don't send a telegram. Call.
That is funny.
That is funny.
Eventually I would like to get into some bullet pencils just because they're,
you
know, especially with like the agriculture and the stockyards and the grading elevators and like the whole. Because I did live in rural Missouri for a while.
I forgive you.
Yes, she forgives me.
The Midwest is a really hot spot for all those. I mean, all those.
Wes Anderson goes there all the time.
I mean, he lives in Champaign, Illinois.
Champana is a happening place.
Shambana, come on.
Champagne.
But yeah, eventually we would get to, you know, pull up pencils and Various other, you know, office type things. But we wanna cool. We have way too many pencils with cool stories before we start thinking about branching out into other pencil that Jason.
Cool. Well, so this. These. Yeah. So when you. When you have these pencils and you've got all these, you know, for, I'm assuming, companies and things all over the country, first of all, what is it that sparks your interest enough to want to dive into it? Like, what. What are the kinds of things you're looking for? What catches your eye? And then how are you conducting this research? Like, where do you start with the research for whatever it is that catches your eye?
You mean in terms of, like, what catches our eye about buying a pencil or what catches our eye about wanting to look into it?
Wanting to look into it.
You know, it's funny. Like, some of them are super obvious. Like on Graphic Confidential, one of the first stories we wrote was about the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, which is a pretty famous museum. And it had an alphanumeric phone number on it, which is, you know, like, from ye olden days when your phone number had a couple of letters and then some numbers. So, like, you know, we had both gone to the Museum of Science and Industry as a kid, so we were just like, oh, you know, like, I wonder if this is still the same phone number. And it was, you know, and, like, wonder when this pencil is from, like,
things like that there Every year on a field trip. I think, like, when I was a kid, we would go there every single year.
Yeah, totally.
Our school did, too.
Yeah. And I actually, when I was in, like, you know, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, I lived two blocks away, and it was free in those days, so we literally were there every day. Just because. Why not, like, hang out in the giant heart or watch the chicks hatch or whatever? So, you know, it could be something as obvious as, like, oh, this is obviously a giant, you know, institution that, you know, why does it have this weird phone number? You know, a lot of the. You know, a lot of other ones that we've gotten into, where I'm just sitting there and we're sorting through them, and I'm like, I can't tell what this company is. Chris, can you start looking it up just to find out? Like, well, is it a real estate agent? Is it a, you know, a hardware store? Like, what is it? And then it's like, oh, my God, Jess, you're never gonna believe this story. You know, it's. It just starts down this rabbit hole as soon as, like, as soon as he was like, oh, actually it was. It was an Amish cemetery or whatever.
Yeah. Or competing buggy repair shops.
How do we research, though? That's gonna be a much more boring answer than you're probably hoping for. Like, you know, we're both really, really adept at doing online research, you know, like.
Yeah, I imagine as a journalist you develop. You develop a particular set of skills.
To be honest with you, I was the research editor of Spin magazine for several years. So I, yes, I have had some very interest in my life. But, you know, I find like, Google Books is our. Is a godsend. Like, we go over there and we go to town. Like, there's just like amazing things there, like the crazies. The American stationer and modern bookseller from like the 20s or whatever, where like. Or like the New Yorkers archives where like, EB White was like, writing like, reviews of like, restaurants or whatever. Like E.B. white, the guy who wrote, you know, everything. And also, like, speaking of, you know, grammar, Mr. Strunk and white himself. But there's just a ton more stuff online than in those days when I was doing research. So I feel like it's like it comes to me naturally. And Chris, you know, was in grad school for a million years, so he's super.
I hate to out you a million, billion years.
I mean, not recently, but, you know, but I'll let you speak for yourself.
Yes, it's the same kind of thing, like where I'll. I'll start like, just with, you know, basic search, just the business name or a partial business name. And then, like, I'll, you know, end up in like, the obituaries. Like, I'll find the business name in an obituary, and then I'll be able to like, trace the, you know, does the business still exist? Like, what family members are still there? One of the fun ones for addresses that we look up in New York is like, is the building still there? And like, a lot of them still are.
Google Street View.
Yeah, Google Street View. And then like, then like on the weekend we make an itinerary. Like, okay, we have to go by
these places, which is ridiculous. Yeah.
And you'll see these buildings.
Yeah.
What are. What are some of your favorite. Your favorite backstories that you've. That you've discovered so far? And if, if you would like to. This is totally putting you on the spot. But if you don't want to, that's fine too. I'd love to. I'd love it if you'd read an excerpt from One of your favorite backstories so far.
We're sitting here, like, pointing at it, pointing at ourselves, like, we both want to tell.
Yeah, please do.
Chris is gonna. I think. Chris, you want to start?
Yes.
You're gonna talk about South Hutchinson.
Yeah.
Kansas United Methodist Church and the Pie Matrons.
I love this already.
Like, this was just a. Like, a net. Like, this pencil caught my eye when we were. When it came out of the machine. And, like, as you can see from the picture, it's just like. It's like one of the. Has no ferrule, no eraser. It's like one of the bugles. And it just had gold. Like, faded gold imprint on it that said South Methodist or South Hutch Methodist Cafeteria, Kansas State Fair. And I thought, I don't even know what that is, but I have to have it.
Yeah. Like, why. Why is there a cafeteria at a state fair? Like, what? Yeah.
So then we started looking it up and.
Oh, man, the rabbit hole. It was a rabbit hole.
It was a huge rabbit hole. So, yeah, I'll just. I'll read a couple paragraphs from this. When we came across this orange pencil for the church's cafeteria at the fair, we wondered, why does a church need a custom pencil at a state fair? But a single search made it was obvious this wasn't just a church group selling snacks to hot and hungry fairgoers. It is an institution that has remained a perennial favorite for decades. It's likely that at some point, these pencils were used by church volunteers to write down or record any number of things, like volunteer lists and schedules, customer orders, how many raisin cream pies would be needed tomorrow. That. That funny thing Fran said earlier. Oh, Fran. So how did the.
No, Fran.
You know Fran. She's a card. So how did the church get into the fair game? A storm destroyed their church in 1948, so members began serving up the unusual fair for a state fair to quickly raise the money necessary to rebuild. The new structure was built in 1951, and their state fair chicken and noodles and variety of homemade pies were such a hit that long after the fundraising goal was met, they continued to feeding hungry fair goers. They are now one of the Kansas State Fair's oldest continuous vendors.
Like, he only put, like, I would say, 50% of the details that we found out about this whole situation into the story. I kept saying, like, but what about. What about the storm? Yeah, the storm destroyed the church. The storm actually destroyed the whole town and that whole part of Kansas. Yeah, it's like, you didn't say anything about like, where's Dorothy? Or anything.
What about Fran, though? Hope Fran made it out her laugh.
Fran, that's good. Oh, Fran's fine.
And there was some, there was some retired school teacher that was like, she used like, oh, oh, I raised six kids and I had a whole career. But okay, I'll, I'll, you know, I'll pitch in and you know, like make the noodles. And she brought the pie, she brought
a recipe for raisin cream pie from California.
So I mean, I love the ones that we've written about, like the, you know, the old 1893 Laura Ingalls, you know, railroad. Like the Laura Ingalls family actually worked on the railroad in order to finance their family at a certain point. But actually just in the last couple of days, I bought some. A random handful of pencils off of Etsy, which I do every now and then if I see something, you know, sort of interesting. And it. One of them that stood out to me, it just says postal telegraph on it. And I'm like, I like anything that sort of talks about the history of communication or, you know, things that are sort of self referential. I could totally imagine like, you know, 100 years ago like a telegraph company or something. And I started looking up this company because I'd never heard of it. And it just was the most, it's the most incredible rabbit hole of like history. So, you know, the phrase the mother lode, it refers to like the Comstock load of like, I think a silver mine back in the 18 whatevers. And the people who, who worked on that mine like, got insanely rich. And one of those guys decided he was gonna found the first sort of international telegraph company. It was the only real competitor to Western Union. And like, you know, like they built this skyscraper in downtown Manhattan. And then in the 20s, his, you know, flapper daughter decides she's gonna like, you know, run away from their traditional, you know, moors and like, marry Irving Berlin, which, you know, like, he didn't like and almost disherited, disinherited her.
Stephen Sondheim.
No, you made that up. It's our favorite Berlin.
Almost another pencil connection, I promise you.
You know, just, just all of this stuff. They were the inventors of the Singing Telegram and all. Like, it just. I was just like, okay, this is, this is so ridiculous. I cannot wait to, to dive into this. And we discovered that the pencil that we had is absolutely from somewhere between 1930 and 1939, which is way older than I thought, you know, so I Can't wait to write that down. It's. There's just. I feel like that one touches on, like, parts of history that people have heard of. And so that's going to be a super fun one to write, you know, like, you know, just so many things about New York and history and the Jazz age. So that's one of my favorites. And then of course, there's like, we kind of glancingly talked about it, but there's a lot of death related ones. It's like, you know, like the funeral parlor that. There's a funeral parlor that's got a glow in the dark pencil so that you can see their night number in the middle of the night. It's like, okay, you know, like, all right.
Quite a few casket company and cabinet makers.
Yeah, undertakers and cabinet makers.
Yes, that's what it was. Undertakers and cabinet makers.
Oh, and then of course, the Amish amusement park.
Yes. In central Illinois there was an Amish amusement park.
So you could just go.
Called Rock Ome Gardens.
Yeah, you can go gawking. I bet it's lit, which is really terrifying. I mean, like, oh, man. Anyway.
That sounds so fun.
Yeah, you can churn your own butter.
No, literally, butter.
The roller coasters are all just flat. They just roll along the ground.
But, you know, it's funny, of course, a pencil is a perfect advertisement because, like, that's.
You don't need a battery for it.
Yeah, like, it's, you know, fine. Anyway,
so as you've been researching all these pencils that you've come across that you want to write about, have you. How often is it that you hit a dead end, like where you are going to look into something and then it just turns into a like. Well, this probably isn't gonna work out, so I'm gonna try something else that's
happened a few times.
I feel like we have so many that, like, when it's when, you know, an initial search doesn't turn up something interesting, we're like, on to the next. It's fine.
Yeah, like, we can. Yeah, we'll come back to it later and do a deeper dive or kind of.
There's like, you know, at any time, like hundreds in line that we know are gonna, like, just be gold, Jerry. It'll be gold.
Yeah, you've kind of got an infinite pool of subjects, which is pretty awesome.
Like Perry's Tropical Nuthouse in Maine.
But then there's also like all kinds of like. Like, I keep talking Chris out of, like, doing the ones that, like, everybody knows about like, we have, like, 12 Ford Motor Co. Ones, but we'll get around to those.
Yeah, and one of the ones that I want to do, like, in the next few posts, is the old GEICO pencil that's. That has spelled out government employee insurance company.
Oh, I didn't know that's what it was.
Yeah, that's the acronym.
It sounds like your blog is more about, you know, the history behind the pencils, then the pencils themselves. But being a podcast about pencils and not being a podcast about history, I do have to actually dig in and ask if you actually write with these old pencils, and if so, are there any general notes that you have about that? Because I do have a bunch of old advertising pencils, but I don't actually write with them.
If they're sharpened already by the time we get them, then, yes, we will use them and sharpen them and keep using them. But if. If they're not sharpened, then. Then no, we don't. We don't use them.
Yeah. And. But I love the ones that we do, you know, that do come sharpened. Like, if I get a batch and some of them are sharpened. P.S. the CW ones are never sharpened. So the other ones come from, like, my aunt's attic or Etsy or, you know, wherever somebody hands them. My went to an account. My accountant the other day, she's like, here's a whole bunch of random pencils I've had in the bottom of my drawer for 20 years. Like, okay. And I love using. I actually love using the old pencils that are already sharpened because I've noticed that graphite ages. And I'm sure they started out as number two pencils, but they feel more like a. Like a three, like a number three, or like a two H. And I. That suits me perfectly. Like, if you like soft pencils, you will hate old graph. You will hate old advertising pencils, but I love them.
I wonder if you sharpen it down, it would get a little softer. Just because I'm guessing, like, maybe it oxidized or just kind of developed a, like, some hardness on the outside. I wonder if the insides are fresh or if, like, it's kind of hardened throughout. I don't actually know the answer to that.
Yeah, and you know what? Neither do I, because I have, like, rules around, like, how. How far I'll sharpen a pencil.
She does.
Like, I won't sharpen it past where the writing starts because I feel like you're ruining it, especially, I mean, like, if it's an old pencil, if it's like, you know, one I can get like 12 of. I'm not gonna worry about it. But like, if it's like one of three or something like that, I won't sharpen it past where the letter starts, like where the, you know, writing on it starts. That's where. When I see it, like a cool pencil, where the writing is on almost all of it, I get mad in advance because I can only use like an inch of it.
Tim, I can almost feel you rolling your eyes from the collectors over here.
Actually, not too bad. Not with this.
Yeah.
How this kind of thing, like, I have a tendency to roll my eyes with like, stashing away just normal, you know, like black wings or like pencils that are not super like an individual case, like a company or something. With these, I. I totally get it, actually.
Yeah.
Where I'm like, ah, yeah. Because I have some, like, for some bicycle companies and things that I've come across over the years that I got. And I thought they're like, this is super cool. And I didn't want to use them because they were. And it was part of. Partly because of that, because they were so there's so much on there. I. So I actually. Yeah, surprisingly, I actually get that.
But.
So we know you have tons of pencils to talk about. You got this big pool of pencils to write about and research and things. But as you're buying things, you've mentioned Etsy, and I'm sure ebay has come into play along the line. But what is it that you're looking for when you're buying advertising pencils? Is it just as simple as we're looking for advertising pencils? Or are there certain kinds that you're like, these are the. These are more interesting, or these are the kinds that kind of fit what we like or a certain time period or something.
I can write a whole prospectus on this subject. I think the first quality, you know, that's the most important is like, is this old?
Yeah.
You know, like, I don't want to buy. I don't not interested in anything that's not older than me. And I know that's like, really selfish, but, like, if it's not older than me, then, like, it's something I could imagine, like, have like randomly coming across when I was like in, you know, third grade myself. So, like, that's not interesting. So first of all, it has to be, you know, at least several decades old, you know, mid-70s or older. And the older the better to me. So anything that has, like, A weird ferrule that's automatically in. I have a soft spot in my heart for hexagonal pencils. More than round. We have a ton of round like advertising pencils. But I love the hexagonal pencils. I love them. I love the ones that have interesting typography on them that are imprinted like stamp foil, stamped or stamped rather than printed on the ones that just feel super old timey where you can imagine like some Scott Joplin rag playing in the background while you use it. See, you know, like I just. That's what, that's what gets me going.
Well, like if something has a phone, like a three digit phone number, right?
Or like an alphanumeric phone number, like
you can tell like it's before
7
digit phone numbers came into, came into existence. Or like local area codes because like just jumping back for a minute to the Museum of Science and Industry pencil, there was, there was no area code on there because at the time there was no area code in Chicago. It was like, you know, mu or MU. Yeah, it's MU4. 14.
14.
Like your phone number was just like the two letters and then four digits or five digits and that was it. There was no area. There was no 3, 1 2, no 773, no 708. And so just knowing that seeing something without an area code automatically gives kind of a timeline of like, okay, it's before this date or even better like the three digit phone numbers.
And I think another thing that always sort of catches my eye is if it's for some business that maybe I don't never heard of that business specifically, but there's something like you can tell there's going to be a juicy story like, you know, like, like a telegraph company is not around today. That's going to be interesting like to even just read about, you know, like old railroads. We have like ridiculous number of old railroad pencils. Those are fun. You just know there's gonna be, that they don't exist anymore and there's gonna be a story about them. So it's just certain businesses that are, that are strange and fun. Like there's the International association of like Machinists which was, you know, like they like basically were like the, the shop guys who you know, figured out how to build a space shuttle which is like. Okay, like that's random. Yeah, like I knew, I knew the inner, you know, like the aerospace workers. You, you know, like that's a weird pencil. That's like you like. All right, let's, let's find out what that is, sometimes it's just, you know, like I said earlier, there's, like a weird juxtaposition on there. Like the. The liquor store at the projects or the, you know, like, drive carefully. We're cemetery. We can wait.
Yeah.
You know. You know, or there's like a furniture store where they're like, you got the girl and we got the. You know, we got the furniture so she doesn't run away or something like that. It's like, all right. And, you know, ones with sort of fun puns, those are. There's a one that I think is kind of ugly, but I bought it anyway because it was for an exterminator in the 60s, and they were just like, we kill every pest except for the pencil collector. I was like, okay, I gotta own that one.
Okay, bro.
So we want to know what's next for Graphite Confidential. We love the idea, we love the blog, we love the posts. What are you thinking from here on out and maybe suggest podcast, because totally listen to some, like, produced stories about some of these companies that you're. You're digging into or organizations that you're digging into. I think it would be super fascinating, but I know it'd be a lot of work. But, like, so what are you thinking as far as going from here with Graphite Confidential?
You're putting ideas in our head. We could call it the Pie Matron and have her on as a guest.
Yes. On site. On site, yeah. Like recording on site and walking into the old buildings where these companies existed.
Yeah. Going to Kansas. Brb.
Well, Chris is constantly looking at, like, flights to places. We're planning a trip to Chicago because we have a ridiculous number of Chicago pencils to go back and, like, explore that.
But you should do, like, seasons based on wherever it is that they are. You could do, like, a Chicago season and then do a Kansas season just too.
Like, I feel like people get tired of that. Like, they're like, oh, my God, can
I be your west coast correspondent?
Sure.
Absolutely.
I. I mean, I'll let Chris talk, but, you know, like, we've talked about every sort of permutation of, you know, like, how we can tell these stories. And, like, Chris, definitely you've mentioned podcasts and, you know, and I've mentioned a print publication because that's. That's sort of my background. But one thing I do think that we know at this time is, like, we definitely want to get into a rhythm before we branch out. You know, we don't want to, like, overextend ourselves before we're even, you know, out of the gate, you know, like, it's. It's a week old. So, you know, I do think, like, in the future, like. Like, oh, man, the sky is the limit. Like, pretty much like, we would love to do all of those things, but we do have one project for next week, actually.
Yes. To celebrate Pencil Day.
This is ridiculous. I warn you in advance.
Yes, we will be releasing a newsreel.
Yes, we've made a newsreel to celebrate Pencil Day.
Welcome to the International Pencil Day.
You think we're kidding? It sounds exactly like that.
That's amazing. That's fantastic. Come join us as millions of Americans come together to celebrate Graphite.
Hey, would you like to do a voiceover?
The thing you just did?
We'll send you a script. You can email it back to us.
Yeah, it's. Well, since it's Pencil Day, what better topic than advertising pencils that advertise pencils? We have a silly number of, like. Like, the companies that made these pencils saying, like, oh, you could get pencils made with, you know, you know, these slogans at, you know, the American Pencil Company or whatever, and they all happen to be in New York.
Oh, that's fantastic.
We did a little walkabout and did some black and white footage, and. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
That's very cool. Well, on that note, you too, I think. I think we'll. We'll button it up. But thank you so, so much for. For joining the show.
Yeah, thank you for having us.
This has been really great.
Where can people find Graphite Confidential on the Internet?
Well, you know, all the stories live@graphiteconfidential.com and then, you know, we do ridiculous macro photography on our Instagram account @GraphiteConfidential.
And then on Twitter, since Graphite Confidential was too long, we are graphitecon. So graphitecon, which is not a convention.
Man, when I was gonna start my convention, I was gonna scrap yet.
It's not a convention yet.
And, Jess, do you want to plug your personal social media accounts so people can find you personally?
Oh, yeah. Well, fair warning, you know, you'll get a lot of talk about. About New York and Pearl Jam, so. But I'm etkiman L E T K E M A N N on Twitter and essletkman on Instagram.
How about you, Chris?
On Instagram and Twitter, I am Hris Allen Jones. And on facebook, just facebook.com ChrisAllanJones and also our graphite confidential facebook page is facebook.com graphiteconfidential awesome.
Well, once again, thank you so much for joining us. This has been lots of fun. Tim.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Tim, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me on Twitter timwassom and you can find me on Instagram timothywassom, because I like to be formal
when it comes to Instagram is a very formal place. He's a fancy formal man. I'm on Twitter and Instagram at awealthly A W E L F as in frank L e. And my blog is@woodclinch.com although it's been a very long time since I've been updated, since I've updated that. This is the Erasable podcast. We are at erasable us. You've just listened to episode 92. We're getting up there to the three digits. So if you want to find, show notes and more information about this episode, we're at erasable us 92. Come join our amazing, amazing Facebook group, really rich community. We have coffee swaps, we have trades, all sorts of things happening there. It's facebook.comgroups erasable, and if you want to check us out, our official voice on the Internet, it is Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as raceablepodcast. Thank you very much and we will talk to you again soon.
The intro music for the Erasable podcast is graciously provided by Vismountain, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music@www.thismountainband.com.