This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
I don't care. Just really don't care. It's fine. It's totally fine. I don't mind at all. It's fine. It's fine. Hello and welcome to episode 94 of the erasable Podcast. I am Coach Tim Awsome, coach of the Lug Nuts, on head host duty tonight, and I am joined by my long lost co host, some people that I haven't seen in way too long. And when I say seen, I mean heard. Andy and Johnny. Greetings. It's so good to hear your voices again.
Yeah, put me in, Coach.
I got a double in me. It is so fun to hear you guys talk again. It's been. It's been too long. And it is that time of the year where it just like. Gosh, when we get too long, it just. It's like I itch to record an episode, so it's probably. Yeah, yeah. I see a doctor about that.
Some graphite dust on there.
Graphite dust? Yeah, Rub it real good. Shavings.
That's. That's the snake oil. Oh, yeah.
We haven't recorded all of us together since February.
Yeah.
Bonkers.
Yeah, I was. I was gone. And then, Johnny, you were gone then. And then, of course, we had. We had that hostile takeover last time from just some weirdos.
So, yeah, we took care of that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Had to change the website password so they couldn't upload anything else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those punks. Yeah. That was rough.
It was tougher. He started it. He hacked it.
Apologize to Universe for that. I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
But it's great to be a unit again. Yeah. Yes. So tonight we're going to catch up with one another because we haven't. It's like legitimately, we haven't talked to one another in so long that we're just excited to catch up with each other, talk about some stationary things. We're also going to discuss some of the spring releases that have come out from our. Some of our favorite stationary companies. So we're glad you're here, we're glad you're listening, and we're glad to be back together because Erasable is one again. Cheers. So we're gonna. We're gonna dive right into tools of the trade. And, Johnny, I would like you to get us started.
Excellent. So you guys. You guys might have heard of this filmmaker named Wes Anderson, maybe.
I think we had some guests on a previous episode that really pissed me off because they got all this cool stuff. They mentioned something about this, but I blocked it away. So thanks for reminding Me.
So today is Wednesday, and I think Isle of Dogs is out Friday nationwide.
Yes.
But it was playing at the Art House Theater in Maryland or in Baltimore a couple weeks ago. So we saw it. It was super, super, super good.
I can't wait to see it.
That's not a spoiler. It's a stop motion Wes Anderson film. You know, it's going to be awesome. Yeah. And you know, like, in the middle of it, they're gonna play kink song for no reason. It fits.
Johnny, what is your. What is your Skype avatar that I'm looking at right now?
Oh, that's a taxidermied fox from the Oregon Ridge Nature Center.
Oh, shoot. I was trying to set you up to say I thought it was fantastic Mr. Fox. I thought that's what I was looking at. Speaking of stop action Wes Anderson things. Okay, never. Never mind.
I remember Colin Malloy from the December. The lead singer from the Decembers. Changed my parenting model because he had posted something on Twitter about his 2 year old watching Fantastic Mr. Fox. I was like, I'm doing this all wrong. I have. I have failed as a parent. Like, I need to show this to my kids because Henry was like 4 at the time. Yeah, it's a great movie. Yeah. George Clooney, come on. Yeah. Yeah.
So if you guys, you guys have probably noticed that the really horrible 2004 movie Troy is all over the streaming services because there's a new series on Netflix called Troy, Fall of a City, which was really good. First episode was like, you know, there was sort of Games of Game of Thrones, like bad acting, unexplained nudity, and really weird violence. But then it all kind of tapered off and it became very dramatic for the rest of the season.
So it's not hbo.
I think it was on one of the BBC channels when it was on.
Yeah, that was a joke.
But they did a good job of diversifying the cast, which is good.
It's been so long, we forgot. We forgot how Tim's humor works.
Yeah, I'm sorry. My students don't know either. And it's been four months, so it's.
But when did this come out? It came out like a week or two ago. It's like eight episodes. The scene, I mean, you know, going into it, it's about the Trojan War that Hector dies. That scene was really hard to watch, but really well done. But yeah, jump in. And it was really well cast. Except for this is the second time there's a movie about or a thing about Troy where The lady who plays Helen is German, and it bothers me because she doesn't cover accent up correctly. Sometimes she has a British accent. Sometimes she's just like, this is where we have to go.
I'm like, okay, this is very hard. Pick. What does Troy.
What does an ancient Greek accent sound like?
I don't think anybody knows. There are a lot of names that no one knows the pronunciation for.
Right.
According to.
Maybe it was German.
Who knows?
It's actually Julius Kaiser.
Yes. That's where Kaiser comes from.
Yeah, that's Roman. I'm sorry.
Yeah, we know how to pronounce that.
Plateau.
Plateau.
Well, it's kind of annoying because you'll have, like, Aristotle.
It reminds of Chipotle.
Chipotle.
Aristotle.
He's a spicy Greek. It's a spicy hero.
It's gyro. Sorry, I totally just kicked.
Not helping you out here, Johnny. I'm sorry.
You're fine. Also, I picked up a book called how to Live well Without Owning a Car because I recently went car free again. Yeah. I mean, it was condescending, and it came out in 06, so there's so many ways that it's easier now that didn't exist then. He was like, have you heard of this thing called Zipcar they have in Boston? Okay.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, if there aren't a lot of books that are out for that kind of thing. Like, there are a lot of, like, cycling books, but no, like, screw it, walk everywhere books.
Yeah. I would have. If I saw this book, Seen this book, like, a week ago, it would have changed my life. But we live in an area which. Living in the. We don't live in, really, in the South. We live in, like, the center of the country, like, right in the middle. And so we had Jane's car. I don't think I actually got to tell this story on the podcast, but Jane's car, which was a Toyota Matrix 2007 Toyota Matrix, was starting to have some problems, and it was, like, failing. Like, just not starting all the time. And finally I got in the car, I drove it to the dealer, and I. At every stop sign or stop light, I would have to change it into neutral and, like, rev the engine. Like. Like, I was a total badass. Like, I was like. So that it wouldn't die. And so, like, the light would turn green once, and then I would switch it to drive, and I would drive, and I pulled into the dealership, and it was, like, shaking like crazy when I did. I was like. And then died. Like, as I Pulled into the parking spot. And so, you know, as one would I turn the car off, handed the keys to the dealer and was like, hey, I'd like to trade in my Toyota Matrix outside. And so that happened. And we got a toy or a Honda crv, which.
Oh, my. My brother's wife just got one of those.
Yeah. Which is pretty good. But also had its own problems I'm not going to get into because this is not a car podcast. And. But. And then less than a week later, my Subaru completely crapped out and died at a Barnes and Noble pretty close to here and barely survived that situation. And like that whole time, like, so I had to get the mass airflow sensor replaced. I thought it was going to be like a totally dead car and have to start over. But the whole time I was thinking, can I please just not have a car? Like, please. But we live in a place that is just. Everything is just far enough away that it won't work. Yeah. So. Because, I mean, I know a lot of listeners will sympathize with that, but it's just like sometimes you live in a place where it's like public transportation is super crappy where I live. That's how it is here because it just started like five years ago, so. Yeah, but that was a super long reaction to your mention of a book. But that's. That's what's been going on in my life right now. I thought I'd mention it. Yeah. So. But, but Yoda, slash, that was the name Henry gave my Subaru was Yoda. My name was Zelda for Zelda Fitzgerald. But she's back. She's back and running.
Oh, good. I'm happy about that. I was sad about you. Subaru.
Yeah, it made me really sad. But it got back running. Cost me several many hundred dollars. Got it back running, which is better than a car payment. And. And for two days, for the first time in three years, I did not have a check engine light on in my car. And then today at. At about 6 o', clock, it turned back on.
Oh, no.
Which made me want to slam my head through the glass window next to me. But yeah, hopefully it's something that doesn't involve the drivability. Yeah. Johnny, I'm. I'm sorry. I'm totally hijacking your note with my. I'm just fishing for pity here. I'm fishing for an erasable listener to offer me a new car.
Hey, I tried, but we're so far away.
Here goes. Yeah, you did. Yeah. And I honestly, I Almost texted you back and said so, but if I could get out there, what would you charge for?
I. I guess. I guess I'll jump on the hijack then and say so. I also recently bought a, like, had a. Had a car thing.
We.
We got a new Forester as Johnny got rid of his 2018 Forester. I got a 2018 Forester. Not the same one, but we had a 2005 Forester that we tried to trade in. And the dealership was going to offer US$100 for it. And I was like, I could get at least like $2,500 for this.
Yeah. The offer for my 95 Subaru Legacy L was 85 bucks. I have. I have fountain pens that are more expensive than the car that I try to trade in. Yeah. So, yeah, actually try that again. I have dozen. A pack of a dozen pencils. That is three times as much expensive.
Exactly.
As the car that I tried to trade in.
Yeah. So. Yeah. So if I. If I had a way I could actually, I could like, get this 2005 Forester to you, we could, we could talk, but.
That's very nice of you.
If anybody's driving from just randomly from San Francisco to Johnson City, Tennessee, like, let me know.
Let's talk like a driving board, like from on the road.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good old literary about it. That'd be great.
Exactly. Do it.
Yeah.
Okay, Johnny, continue with your story that you may continue.
No, that's it. No, no. We were having that feeling for like two years. Every time I got into, I'm like, I wish I didn't have to have a car. And I'm like, wait, I don't have to have a car. I'm a grown up and I live in the city and like, I chose where I live when I didn't have a car. Hmm. But, you know, selling new cars is a really stupid financial decision. But it works out.
That's good.
Yeah. I eat a lot more food and I go through a lot more shoes. That's cool. It's fun to wear your shoes out. Yeah. And so writing on with blackwing54 on a right notepad, secure a book which is like springtime perfection.
Yeah. Two. Two things of which we will talk about.
Yeah. So how about you, Andy?
Well, I recently read really good book. I think that our listeners would really like this. Actually written by a friend of mine, somebody I worked with Facebook for a while. But it is a book. It's called Dictionary Stories. And essentially what he did is he created dozens and dozens of like short stories exclusively from example sentences from dictionaries. So he. He has 12 different dictionaries that he pulls this from. And he just has a big interesting thing in the front of the book about, like, how he went about doing this. And it started as just, like, a little hobby.
He.
He would make, like, little zines and just, like, give them to people and sell them to people, and eventually it turned into a book deal. So quit his job and basically put this together, and it's like a legit publisher. Like, Harper Collins published this. And his opening party was at the Booksmith, which is a. A bookshop here in town, right in the Haight Ashbury district. And we went there the other day to see the opening, and it was him in conversation with Robin Sloan, who's another local guy who wrote the novel Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, which I think I've talked about on here before. Just really good book. So. Yeah, it's a. It's a really.
Harry Marks is a huge fan of that book.
Yeah, it's. It's a really good book. I'm a big fan of all of Robin Sloan's writings, but. But, yeah, Dictionary stories. I'll. I'll see if I can find a good example story on his website to share with everybody.
That sounds awesome. Yeah, that's. When you describe that. That made me want to use that concept to get my students to start writing.
It's a really. Yeah, I feel like it's a really good device. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he.
It was interesting. He. He decided that there were some rules that he should follow and, like, some things that he can change. So he allowed himself to change to make the. Make the story, like, have good continuity. He. He allowed himself to change, like, the tense of words, and he allowed himself to change, like, personal pronouns like he or she, depending on the story he was writing. And he allowed himself to, like, make compound sentences out of these things. But he also. He also said that the changes could not comprise more than 5% of the overall story, which I'm like, that's. That's a really interesting constraint. So he. Yeah, it's fascinating how he. How he did that. I just can't imagine, like, the amount of time and, like, brain power it must have taken to do that.
Yeah. Limitations are often, like, really healthy for.
Absolutely.
Fiction writer.
Yeah.
Makes you think less.
Totally. And it. It's. It's fun when there's, like, the right constraints are in place, I think.
So.
Yeah. That's a really good book then. I Was also going to mention, I guess I don't know how I should feel about this. I used to really love Roseanne.
Yeah, it was a good show.
Yeah, it's a very good show. And so Roseanne is back. They're doing a reunion season 20 years later and. Yeah, we're watching it. I know Roseanne Barr kind of went off the deep end a little bit. As far as, you know, she was the 2012, like, runner up presidential candidate for the Green Party right behind Jill Stein.
What? Really?
Yeah. But then, since then, she's like, that's bad. Yeah, she, she's like a supporter. No, it's a typewriter Bill Bat bell.
I'm gonna write that time down.
Sure. Since then she's, you know, she's been like a conspiracy theorist and a Trump supporter and whatever. But it's still, it's still a really good show. Like, it's, it's about the Connor family.
Trump supporter.
Yeah, she is really big time.
Didn't he, like, tear into her at some point?
Rosie.
That was Rosie o'. Donnell.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, never mind. Move along.
Yeah, yeah.
So except my Rosies. Yeah, it's my dog. ROSIE o' DONNELL and Roseanne and, and Rosie Gamber. Rosie Gamber.
Oh, yeah.
The best, the best Rosie of them all. Rosie Gamber.
My sister's name is Rosie, too.
And the second tie for first best Rosie is Andy's sister. Yeah.
It's all right. Rosie Gamber can be first. That's fine. Yeah. So it's a, it's a good show. Have you watched any of the new, any of the new Roseanne?
No, I missed the last couple seasons of when it was on.
Yeah, I think I'd be lost. It's interesting. Johnny Galecki was on the latest episode of the new one and it's really weird to see him as some other character than the Big Bang Theory character he has.
Is there a. I know there's a character from the original Rosanna that was like a baby that was named Jerry Garcia.
What?
Oh, I don't know.
Actually, from the original one. Is there a. I don't know. From the modern season, there was a baby that was named Jerry Garcia and I was kind of on the Jerry Garcia Connor.
I'm looking this up right now. Here's what happened to Jerry on Roseanne. According to the new reboot. You may have forgotten all about him. The youngest child of Roseanne and Dan Connor. His birth, his. Oh, his birth was shown during the Halloween episode in season eight. He was played by twin babies. Apparently he would be in his 20s by now. And the family says grace at the dinner table. Oh yeah, I remember this. And the line was, please watch over our son Jerry, who's on that stupid fishing boat where apparently they don't get phone calls. She said. And that's where they left it.
Okay. All right. There you go. All right.
Jerry Garcia Kunner is a joke now.
Cool.
I'm riding with a. Also a Blackwing 54. But in my. I really should branch out more. I'm just using my Baron Fig Metamorphosis confidant, which I've been using for months now.
It's a beautiful book though.
Yeah, it's really great. It's unfortunately like the pinks don't match the 54. And the of the like pencil and the, the pink of the metamorphosis are not. Do not match. But you know what? That's fine.
I don't even care.
It's fine. Yeah, it's fine. I don't care. Really don't care. It's fine. It's totally fine. I don't mind at all. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
Tim, how about you?
It's fine.
It's fine.
All right.
For consuming as far as watching stuff, the one thing that I've seen recently, well, there's really two, but one I had already seen, which is on Amazon Prime. I signed up for the one week trial of HBO and I was able. I got it because I was going to watch get out finally, which I didn't end up doing, but I'm going to watch soon. And I was going to watch May It Last, the Avett Brothers documentary, which I've talked about before, but was even better on the second watch. That documentary is unbelievable. It's as far as like rock music documentaries go. I love it so much because they meant a lot to me for a decade. But it was directed by Jed Apatow.
Yeah.
And their producer is Rick Rubin. Amazing. Rick Rubin, who's produced the Ava Brothers, Johnny Cash, Neil, I mean he runs American Records, has worked with Jay Z. He was in the Beastie Boys.
Did you see him in the. The David Letterman Show?
I was just talking to a friend about that like three hours ago, really, when I was at their house. I haven't watched it yet, but I can't wait to because he's an amazing, amazing individual. So I got that to watch May It Last, the Ava Brothers documentary, which everyone should watch. It's about the recording of their new album True Sadness, which came out A year and a half ago. A year ago, something like that. But the other thing I watched was the first episode of Barry, which is, which is Bill Hader's new show on hbo.
He's like an actor slash, like assassin or something.
Well, I'll correct you, he isn't. He is a assassin slash actor. Okay, so he, he goes to. He's a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and he comes back and a family friend gets him hooked into this system where he, I mean, he's basically killing bad guys, you know, I mean, he's like an assassin and he's hired to kill these guys. Doing horrible. Yeah, I mean, as much as he can be, I guess, you know, he's, he's, he's an assassin. But his, his life is shocker. Super sad. But he follows a job like a hitman job to la and he follows his target to a acting class hosted by Henry Winkler and gets kind of sucked into and ends up on stage unexpectedly and decides that like, man, this acting stuff gives me meaning in my life, so I want to do it. Which is, but, so it's this weird dichotomy of having these really funny scenes with Bill Hader being Bill Hader and being in a acting group that he obviously is not ready to be a part of, but also being like a super skilled hitman and like disturbing ways. You know, Bill Hader is so good
at just being so weird. Like. Yeah, yeah.
So he, he succeeds in this, at being a super weird hitman, but also a super weird actor in an acting class. And he's convincing on both sides. Totally. Like, I mean he, I think he, he wrote, directed and acted in the first, the first episode. So I think everybody should check it out. Barry is really funny and really, it's really good. It's a really good show.
Yeah.
So. And I've been reading a book called Wool by Hugh Howey. And Hugh Howey was the, he's kind of like the first person to do self publishing on Amazon. That really hit it big as far as I know. And the novel Wool, which you can get on Amazon for it's like five or six bucks, is an omnibus version of all of his develas that became a part of the story. And it's really good. It's the concept. It's like a post apocalypse thing, but it presupposes that these huge spiral shaped silos were built down into the ground when the apocalypse was approaching. And so people were able to buy spots in these silos. And so the characters in this story are within those silos. And so like, the further down you are, obviously you don't have any context for what the world above you is like. And I don't know, it's. It's fascinating. It's really fun. So I think Wool by Hugh Howey is an awesome story. And I think I bought the ebook for like six bucks and the audiobook that comes with it, which I don't have her name, the woman who reads it, but she doesn't. Just a fantastic job. It's like an extra three bucks.
Part one of Wool is free on Kindle right now.
That's awesome. Yeah, do it. Get it.
Doing it right now.
Yep, do it right now. It's so good. It's a good sci fi story. And Hugh Howey is this really fascinating character, the author himself, who was just working on his writing and decided to self publish. He's kind of the dream story of all of us who are writing and who don't have a book deal and the big five booksellers. And he just, he made it and now he's literally sailing around the world with an assistant, you know, who's teaching him how to play piano and teaching him different languages, and he's just like living the life and in the most noble way possible. So it's a really good book. I totally recommend it. And then as far as music goes, I have two that I was going to mention. One I mentioned, actually intended to mention last time, which is Nathaniel Railiff in the Night Sweats.
I thought he was in Harry Potter.
Yeah, yeah, definitely his Night Sweats, his superpowers would be super gross, but he. His first album is self titled and if you know him, you know already. Even if you don't, it's because of a song called S.O.B. that's the sanitized version of the title of his. His song, but it's SOB Give Me a Drink is the. The beginning of the chorus. That was his kind of big hit song. But his first album is totally incredible. It's kind of like modern indie music mixed with 50s, 60s soul pop hits. And it's so entertaining. And if you can find it, go on YouTube and find his appearance on Jimmy Fallon when he played SOB and it is one of the coolest performances I've ever seen. I've showed it to students at school because I was like, I think you've
mentioned it here before. Like, I remember talking about this.
Yeah, yeah, I probably have. It's. It's amazing. But he has a new album out that came out pretty recently, which is called Tearing at the Seams, which I got, and I love it. I listen to it every single day. The my favorite song from is called hey Mama. So if you want to check a song out, check out hey Mama. It's a guy talking to his mom about, like, life and complaining about life, and then his mom is saying, you have no reason to complain. You've never really had to do anything. Which I feel like is the hey Mama is like the millennial anthem. You don't know what it means to really need something, you know? So listen to hey Mama by anything I'll write Left in the Night's West. And the other one is called Bedouin, which I found out about on NPR yesterday. But Bedouin, she's a kind of a folk singer. But she she was born her family is from Syria, and they were born in. She was born in Syria. She was raised in Syria. They eventually moved to Saudi Arabia, and then they won a lottery to get a green card to America. And she lived in Boston, Houston. But there's this program on NPR that's called. I think it's called Slingshot or something like that, where they find artists who are on the cusp that they want to give more attention to. And so Bedouin was one of those artists and had this really amazing album. And it kind of sounds like Iron and Wine or Harry Harry Nilsson or something, but with just, I mean, this amazing depth of experience with it. So Bedouin, B E D O U I N E. It's a really awesome album. And I've been loving it, loving it, loving it. She's amazing.
So. Yeah.
And as far as writing, I am using a Copper Pipe Night. Copper Pipe Night Raid edition of Field Notes. This is the DDC Factory Floor Memo book from a few years ago, which I've been having this realization that field notes books are just perfect, you know, compared to, I mean, a lot of others. And I was going through, I finished a notebook, field notes, Portland edition, and was going through unfinished field notes editions that I had. And I've got, you know, three or four of them that I hadn't actually finished through. And this is the first one that I picked. It's just such a cool notebook. This is the copper pipe entered, has the copper cover and the bright orange interior. I'm finishing up right now. And I am writing with a general's layout pencil that is about 4 inches long that I love. So super cool. I love this pencil. I. I don't give it enough attention.
Yeah.
So. Yeah.
All right.
So let's go into fresh points. Andy, get us started. Go for it.
Well, first I wanted to mention. So there's a. A clothing store that's around these parts, and I know that they're around other parts of the country too. I'm just not sure. It's called Uniqlo and it's mostly, like, Japanese. It's like. It's like Japanese. The Gap, I guess. And in Japan last year, they. They. Well, so. So they do these series of T shirts that are called the Brands, where they do, like, little partnerships with various brands of things. Disney thing. One time they had like a board. Like a classic board game thing. Last year in Japan, they had a partnership with Tombow and you could get a shirt that basically had a little, like a T shirt that had a pocket, and out of that pocket was screen printed, like, Tombow pencils. I really wanted one in one of these pencil. These shirts. It was really hard to get because they were only in Japan. Well, this year, this season, they have the brands collection for T shirts. And they are. Two of the shirts involve Pentel sign pens and then also Bic crystal pens. So the Pentel sign pens is just this white T shirt with blue and red and green sign pens just like writing a little line across the base of it, and it just says Pentel sign pen, which is pretty cool. And they have a couple different bitcrystal shirts. They have one with the little, like, Bic character with the. I don't know what the heck that head is. Like that shiny black head, and then some of the. The yellow, like, Biro bics. So while this is not officially a Bic crystal podcast, I think that we are definitely fans of them here, so. And I think you can get them online. So if you go to the Lincoln show notes. Yeah, check this out. It's 15 bucks. And it looks like they have. They have all the sizes. So that. Yeah, that's really cool.
Two different sign pen shirts.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
And there's. There's two different Bic shirts, too. There's that one and that I was just talking about. And there's one that's blue with the little, like, Bic guy sticking out of the pocket along with a. Like a Bic crystal pen. Just pretty fun. So it's totally a novelty shirt. And if you're somebody who would walk around with a pen printed on your shirt, then, then definitely look at this. It's pretty awesome.
I mean, it's sort of like our unofficial pen of the podcast, right?
Yeah, I think so.
Totally. I'm gonna throw out there that we totally need a new T shirt, which is true. Yeah, we need to figure this out. It's been. It's been too long since we've done T shirts, so.
We were talking about that a couple minutes ago.
Let's. Let's work together. And by work together, I mean I'm going to do minimal work.
Beg one of our artist friends to
help us with it. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
We need one. I want to do more this time.
Yeah.
I'll write a quote for the back. Okay, give me. I'll get. I'll give you a hot pull quote for the back.
Hot pull quote. Come on. Come on, Tim. Give us a hot quote.
Pencils are dead. Unless you listen to the erasable podcast.
Ooh, good one. Pencils are dead. That's the showtime.
Done.
Hot pull quote is the title. All right.
I was going to say cedar or gtfo.
Cedar. Gtfo. That's better.
Cedar graphite or gtfo.
Graphite. The good fight. I also want to mention, I think that I mostly want to talk about it because I want to use it as the episode cover art, but you guys saw my erasable logo latte, didn't, you
know, and you sent me to the coffee pot when I had enough coffee that day too, so you actually made me feel very good.
Oh, good.
That was amazing.
Hope I didn't make you just, like, heart race and end up in the er. So it's. So San Francisco is a very strange place. Strange and wonderful place. And there are startups that will, for example, put a latte art printer in your building's coffee shop. So Adobe has, like, a little internal coffee shop, and there's this app called Coffee Ripples, and you can upload artwork or a photo or whatever via this app. And when you go up to the counter to order a latte, you basically can send the artwork to this machine and say, like, oh, hey, I got one of the, you know, coffee ripple things. And then they roll their eyes and they make you a latte, and then put the latte under the machine, and then you can have something printed on the. On the latte. I have no idea how it works, but it's really cool. I'm told that it works extra well with, like, a nitro cold brew. Like, if you have one of those made printing into the nitro cold brew, like, like head foam head, you could do that really well. So that's my next. It's my next thing. I told Topher that I want to print his face on a latte and then just have a picture of me sticking a straw into his head and then drinking from it.
That's not weird.
No, not at all. So, yeah, that's fun. Expect more things to be printed on lattes and posted in the group. The last thing I wanted to mention, nothing like, really specifically timely about this, but we've talked before about friend of the show Jason Patterson, who is actually a friend of Mike Hagen's, and he was introduced to the erasable group into the wonders of pencils. Is kind of like a master hack winger. Like, he. Some of the coolest hack wings that I've seen just in the last, you know, recent days are from Jason. And part of it is he's an artist. He, like, really has an intuitive sense of, like, what cool stuff goes together.
But he.
He recently started a Instagram account for his hack wings. It's instagram.com or if you're on the app, of course, it's hack Underscore wings. And you will see some of the most darn beautiful hack wings you've ever seen. Like, he. He will pinstripe stripes under the feral. He'll, like, color them in and make different colors out of them. He's just really good at it. So, yeah, I think someday we should have him on to. Just to talk about, like, you know, art and hack wings. Oh, yes, the subtle art of hack
wings definitely sounds good.
I just wanted to talk about his. His Instagram account. So, Johnny, what about you? What are your fresh points?
So you guys have gotten your Baron Fig show and tell edition. Yeah. So did you get one of those, Tim?
I did not. Andy did, right?
Yeah, I got one.
Yeah.
Yeah. So for folks who haven't seen it, it's one of their limited edition confidants in this, like, really deep purple, but not like dark purple and not joker purple. It's like, dusty. It's really pretty.
Yeah.
With. And the pages are blank at the top and lined at the bottom, so, you know, they're good for, like, travel journaling or anything that involves, you know, pictures and words in the. On the same page. So I got a review copy and didn't want to give it up because I'm using it. So. It was my daughter's birthday, so she got one also. But it's really cool. I think, you know, they've gotten flack for being weird on the inside. And this is like, I don't know if you'd call it weird. It's differently useful.
Well, it's an interesting partnership with Dribbble which is a. It's a website where it's like a portfolio website for designers and it's kind of like a designer, like a graphic designer. Instagram. Right. Like, it's, it's. They do a lot of like, you know, you can have your portfolio there and show like a little gif of your animation or like the new logo you're working on. And I feel like this notebook is such a perfect analog version of Dribbble because that's exactly the format of their website. So I thought that was a really
creative partnership and even just itself. It's so interesting, I think. Didn't Moleskine make something like this a couple years ago?
They have like, they have like a storyboard moleskin where they have story panels. Yeah. Is that it?
I don't know.
It seems like it's not that weird. Why don't more people make something like this? Yeah, but I mean, I think this is the coolest one they've done in a long time that wasn't just like dot grid or lined. Yeah, possibly the coolest one they've done ever that's not dot grid aligned. Yeah. So my daughter just turned eight two days ago, which kind of breaks my heart. But all of her presents for me were like super expensive for kids stationery, like the show and Tell and Black Wing 54, which I told her were sold out, which was true. They were sold out. When I told her that I already bought them. And so she. At the. At the Baltimore Museum of Art, they've got a pretty big selection of Rodin sculptures, including a really big cast of the Thinker that she's sort of obsessed with. So Kikker Lind makes a pencil sharpener that's like a really nice resin sculpture of the Thinker, like the size of a kid's fist with a pencil sharpener in the bottom. So she got that, which is cool. And it's actually, I'm pretty sure the same size as that really, really slim kum. So I think I can rip it out and put actually a good sharpener in it, which is triple cool.
Yeah.
What else did she get that was stationary related? Oh, they're. You guys might have seen these boxes around. They're sort of hipster looking because they make one that's white with like, you know, those triangles that hipsters think look like pine trees. There's Danica, I think. But they're these like really heavy duty pencil boxes. They're like, I don't know, 6, 16 to 20 bucks, depending which one you get.
You have to put them in the show notes. I'm not sure what this is.
Yeah, the links. Is it in there? If it's not, I'll put it in there.
I see.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the one that I got her. The. It's called the Empire, but I got one for Father's Day or my birthday. Like, you could probably rob 711 with one of these, even if it wasn't full of pencils. They're pretty cool. I should, like, take. Make a big list of the cool stuff she got for her birthday from daddy. So a gentleman who was pretty active in the Field Nuts group has recently cut pencil bug in our group, Mr. Larry Grimaldi. And I hope I'm not embarrassing him or mispronouncing his name. So I sent him some Woepex, and because he mentioned he never tried them. And you know, I love to convert people to the Woepix. So Larry sent me those new Field Museum field notes books.
Oh, yeah, those are cool.
Yeah. And one of the green ones, which I also didn't have. So now I have an instant Field museum collection of field notes. So, like, big thank you to Larry. They're really, really cool. I think my kids are going to steal them, but that's okay.
Did you see that? There's yet another roastery field notes. Only this time it's only in Shanghai.
Oh, my God, that thing is so pretty.
I feel like they're doing this just to mess with, like, field notes collectors, which. Which I support.
Yeah, yeah. Look at this one. I was like, that is one I'm not even going to try to get because it's impossible and I don't pay more than retail for field notes ever. I'm never going to. But yeah. Oh, my God. I think it has the same insides as the Seattle Roastery. Like the explanations of coffee and the dot grid paper and everything.
Yep.
It's so pretty.
I mean, I think, you know, on the balance, the copper stamping on the wood that we can get not that hard in or you can get without much difficulty if you know someone in Seattle. I'll take that one over the red one. Yeah, but the red one is really pretty.
Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, my. We can talk about field notes all night. All right, I'm going to surrender the fresh points to Tim before we do that.
Well, the first one I'll mention is another podcast. We've talked about it before, but the Take Note podcast.
Mm.
Which is Ted and Adam run that. And I've really been enjoying that for the last Couple weeks, I've caught up.
There's such thought all the way.
Yeah, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's. It's really entertaining for me. And I'm. I've talked about the Lunchbox podcast on here before, which is J. Robert Lennon and Ed Skug, two writers who do just this really good podcast. And my. One of my favorite formats for a podcast is the. We're two old friends and we're going to let you listen to us have a conversation. Try to keep up as best you can. You know, like we're going to be talking about things from making inside jokes. We're going to be just enjoying each other. I don't know. I love that. I love that format. And take note sort of feels similar.
Yeah.
So. And I've really been enjoying that podcast. The last one, they've had some audio issues along the way, which really doesn't bug me whole lot early on, like caused some problems and the last one that came out was skipping. So there's. It's still early and they're still figuring things out, but I really enjoy it. So give. Take note a shot. I think Ted and Adam are doing an awesome job. And the concept is they do a podcast about what do we use our pocket notebooks for? So there's a section where they talk about, you know, here's what here. Here are two things from my pocket notebook from the last two weeks that might seem out of context for you, but I'm going to fill in the gaps and then we'll talk about it, which I think is pretty, pretty great. So I kind of want to steal that, but I think they did a great job. So this Baron Fig came out with a new pen in the last couple weeks. Yeah.
Where have you been, Johnny?
I saw it. I saw it. Tim and I had a lot a loud argument about this last night on the phone. My neighbor started beating on the walls, called the police.
Yeah. Baron Fish came out with a new Squire, which is the Click. Is that what they called it? Click?
I think so, yeah.
The Squire click, which is. If you think of the. If you have a Squire, it is essentially the same pen, but it's about 10%, 15% thinner than the one that you're used to. And it has a click function instead of a twist function on the end to get the card, the ink cartridge to come out.
And it's like $30 cheaper, right?
Yeah, it's, it's, it's cheaper for sure. But yeah, so it's got it's got, you know, like anything, it's got some pros and cons. The pros it is. The click is very smooth. It's like, well, if you're a person who doesn't want the audible kind of clunk, clunk, click, you know, it's. It's very smooth, it's soundless. You can click it really easily. It's a very streamlined pen, like of course you'd expect after the, the previous Squires, but it's very thin, you know, I mean, I, I've enjoyed it a lot. I mentioned Andy and Johnny in a text that it feels like kind of the, the old cross pens that you get from your grandmother or grandfather from previous generations, kind of passing it down. It's just a really kind of solid pen. It's thin. It seems useful, but less. With the original Squires, I didn't really get caught up in the clip thing very much because the twist can't. You can't accidentally. That twist function can't accidentally happen in your pocket. Right. You can throw that thing in your pocket. There's no way it's going to do a whole like 360 degree turn.
Yeah.
And.
And unless you fidget with it and you don't even realize it.
Right. That's true, but that's not going to happen. But the click pen, I mean, you sit down once and nothing pops out. So I was writing of the thing and I was like, I mean, I love this, it's cool, it looks good, it's the charcoal color. But I would never put this thing in my pocket, you know, which was kind of disappointing because I want to be positive about this. I want to say the good things and ultimately like, as far as how it writes and the, the ink cartridge. Ink cartridge that it comes through, comes with is really good and it looks good, but for me personally, it's pretty much a pen and maybe this is what they're going for, which would be totally fine. But it's a pen that I would put on my Dudek modern goods, stand on my deck and just leave. Or my desk and just leave it there, you know, grab it when I need to use it, click it, start writing. Whereas the previous Baron Fig Squires I would be fine, twisted clothes, throw up my pocket and go around, you know, go along with my day.
So does it have the same refill?
No, I should say that I haven't tried to fit the old refill into this one, but I. And if you'll give me just a second, I'm opening A Keras Customs pen. I have that. This, My favorite refill is The Schmidt Easy Flow 9000m, which is a ballpoint refill that I really, really love. And I've used it with the Keras Customs bolt and the Retro 51 pen and the Keras Customs EDK, which is their kind of small click pen that they come up with. I love it. It's the most consistent, beautiful ballpoint pen I've ever used. And it fits with the, with the new Baron figure Squire Click, which is awesome. So it's a different shape. So I haven't had. I haven't tried to fit the rollerball like Liquid Ink version that came with the previous Squires. It might fit by. I'm gonna venture to guess that it doesn't. So I don't know. The Squire Click is a. Is a really sharp pen. It's really good. It's not a good pocket pen in my opinion, unfortunately. But I still, I use it all day today at work and I really enjoyed it, but I kind of keep it in a stand and that seems to be the best place for it. So with a pocket pen, I don't really understand what you're supposed to do with it besides that, right? Keep it in a stand. You can't be put in your breast pocket. It's just going to like flop around all day. If you put in your pants pocket, it's going to click when you don't want it to. It's going to leave any stain in your pants. Like so I feel like it needs a clip, right? Either needs a clip or it needs to be just kept on a standard.
And that's one thing with the squiers that I've kind of been annoyed at for a while is like, I, I completely understand sort of the aesthetic that they want to try to hit with that. But like, it has that so minimalist aesthetic. And putting the clip on it would like ruin sort of the lines. Right? But it solves two problems like that. The Squire, at least the regular Squire is just going to roll away on your desk. Like it's not tapered enough to just kind of roll in a circle. And then also like, yeah, I just like. So get over your. Your hipster self, Joey, and just give us something with a pencil clip. Give me a, Give me a detachable like a sold separately pocket clip. That would be amazing. Les from the RSVP podcast has a 3D printed pocket clip for it. And I actually should follow up and see if that's still holding up. But she yeah, she thought that was a good solution. I would love, I would love to get one of those for my two Squires.
Yeah. Unfortunately for the Squire, I mean, one of its design benefits is that the. It kind of tapers out towards the bottom. Right. So the. It gradually it's smaller at the top than it is at where you're holding it, which is really. Can be really comfortable for how you're writing. But with the clip, the clip's got to go down off the top. Like you've got to pull it down from the top instead of up from the bottom for like most pens would be. So when you pull it down from the top of the pen where you twist it when you put it in your pocket, that's going to leave it liable to just kind of come loose and be loose in your pocket, which is a problem, unfortunately. So maybe there's still a solution out there. But you know, most clips you try to use with it are going to eventually slide off if the force is going down because you're putting it down in your pocket. Unless we need to start coming out with like Baron fig pants that have pockets that go the opposite direction.
Baron fig pants? Yes, yes.
The pockets go up instead of down. So you can like slide the pen up, up into your pants.
Give them another couple months and I'm sure that that will be a new release.
You know, we're big fans of Bear and figure, but this pen is really great. But it seems like on the practical level, it's either in a pen case on your. On your desk, which is totally fine. A lot of people do that. They have a pen that they sit on their desk. That's what I use them at my desk. But in your pocket it's not as useful, you know, because it's going to click out and same reason I. You don't use a pilot G2 in my pocket when I'm. When if I can't clip it, you know. Yeah, because it's going to click out and it's going to stay in my pocket or whatever. But so that's that. I mean, overall writing experience is really great. It's just the practical like carrying around aspect that it's either on your desk or it's in a pocket that's kind of flopping around. So yeah, we'll see what happens from there. But I have been looking and I was going to ask you all, do you know any. Are there any at all? I've talked about this before, I think, but it's been a while. A round Natural cedar pencil.
I have a small box of them.
The field notes pencils.
Those aren't cedar, though, right?
I think they took a break from cedar, but they're cedar again.
Now for the field notes pencil.
Yeah, they say they're always cedar, but there were some a couple of years ago that are most certainly not cedar.
Definitely not, because I've got some of those and they're definitely not cedar.
Yeah, the newest ones are cedar.
All right.
Oh, and there's. There's. There's a brand of Hobby Lobby's house pencils that are natural cedar, but they're. I don't know.
They're all right.
They're overpriced and you have to go to Hobby Lobby to get them, and they don't exist everywhere. Huh.
Okay, well, I guess that's an easy question. But like, that's still. It's like. It's crazy that they're that rare, you know?
Yeah.
I mean that to get a round cedar pencil, there's maybe a field notes pencil that fits that bill. Which, again, the ones I have are totally not.
Oh, there's one. Those sentient VRCO pencils are natural cedar, but they don't smell like cedar.
Those are gross, though.
So I really like the lavender ones, but they're out. I have those. Those weird ones. I think I sent you a couple that are unfinished from the Forest Choice factory.
Yeah, yeah, I've got. So those are my model. Like, I've got. I have one of those that's. I finished a couple of them, but I've got one that's halfway through, and then I've got two that are unsharpened. And so I've been having this crisis from, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do when these are gone, because I love these. And so I've taken the ferrules off of field notes pencils and write notepads, natural round pencils, and sharpen them from the opposite sides, you know, because I wanted that same kind of feel of a good solid pencil that doesn't have an eraser on it, but is cedar. But it just doesn't work because they're too light. So it's not the same as that one that you sent me. And so I was trying to find another. Is is there any round cedar pencil natural or. Not really. I mean, the only. I've got some blackwing ones that I've taken the ferrule off and sharpened on the opposite side so I could have a ferrule less cedar pencil, but I Just don't like that core, you know, so it doesn't work well.
So our friend Gary has gotten into the paint stripping of the black wings. I guess you could paint strip some volume ones or paint strips some, like some generals pencils, like the goddess or the layout.
Totally paint strip the volume ones. Get that ugly ass veneer off of that.
This is where we. This is where you and I fight
the sausage liner veneer.
Sausage liner veneer.
That's really, that's on point. Even though I really like them, I
don't see anything on the, the field notes pencil online that says that it's cedar. So I'm, I'm curious about that. So I may try again.
Yeah, my last shipment came with one that was cedar, but it's still, you know, I think I feel like they used to be usable now. It's like writing with a nail that's not even very naily so much. It's like a railroad spike.
Spike.
Like. Yeah, it's like you're clearly not supposed to use this pencil.
Well, you know that they used to say California or like Cal Cedar on the side of it, those field notes pencils. And it was. Turns out, it turns out Cal Cedar is a brand name,
so I think
they stopped doing that. But I, Yeah, I should check. I got a. I got another pencil with my, my Coastal edition that I didn't pay much attention to, but I will.
Well, the last, the last point I was gonna make is that I have made a surprising turn towards software pencils and most notably the Blackwing MMX core, which we've talked about a lot. But I've been using it almost exclusively for three weeks.
You're getting soft in your old age.
I'm getting soft, yeah. Gone's getting soft on me.
You're not even 30 yet.
I'm 30. I'm 30. Just 30? Yeah.
I thought you were going to turn 30. I feel a little better about this.
Yeah, I turned 30 in August, so I'm, I am 30. But the Blackwing 73 has. I'm totally smitten with it. I mean, I love the MMX core, but there's something about the 73 that's made me so happy. I think because of the kind of subtle grip that comes from the topographical lines. You know, they come with it. But I have been using it almost exclusively in field notes notebooks lately and it has been so great. I've used two. Down to the feral, you know, down to nothing, which is make. It just makes me super happy there. It's a good feel. I feel productive when I'm sharpening a pencil a lot, which some people find annoying. But I just, I like to stop and sharpen and use as much as I can. And like, you know, with a MMX core, when you use it down a little bit, it almost feels like a marker. You know, it gets rounded. Yeah, it's like you use a sign pen or a Sharpie or something. That's really satisfying because it's like I could use this forever before I have to sharpen it. And I really, really love it. And I was able to cash on on some riches, cash in on some riches and find some folks who are willing to trade some Blackwing 211s, the beloved Black Wing 211s for some Black Wing 73s.
What?
Yes.
It wasn't a one to one trade, was it?
That's what I was going to ask.
It was not, but it was still. I mean, I mean Black Wing two elevens are like the rate is ridiculous. So I still, I mean, I tried to be a little generous, you know, as far as what the. I mean, black wing two elevens are going for insane numbers. I mean it's like $300 for a dozen and the 73s are going for like 40 bucks a dozen, which is still like double the price. But I was offer offering folks like two or three Black Wing 211s for a dozen 73s because. And I'm going to say a super, super controversial thing here, but I don't use the 211s very much. So in, in theory and on paper they're perfect, but I just don't find myself using them very often. Maybe it's because I'm being hesitant because they're so expensive and there's. They're so great, but they're just a little thinner. I want something that's got a little more heft to it. And the 73, I think another controversial statement. I think the 73 is maybe my favorite edition so far. Really? Yeah. This is the Blackwing 73 and I've been putting an orange eraser into the feral. And those are just my favorite things in the world. I love them. I've been buying extra orange erasers to put into all the MY73s because the Blackwing 73 with orange ferrule is just perfect. I love carrying it in my pocket. Love. And now I've got some CW pencils, pencil extender that's, you know, filled with a stub of a 73 and just makes Me so happy. It's my favorite. I think it's my favorite edition, so don't add me. So it's really great.
Cool.
All right, well, that was great. So let's get on to our main topic, which is all of these spring 2018 releases that have come out since we've talked to each other last. We're going to talk about Field notes, we're going to talk about Blackwing, and we're going to talk about write notepads. A lot of good stuff that's come out since we've talked last. And let's start with the Field Notes Coastal edition.
Well, Johnny wouldn't know because he doesn't listen to our podcast, but in fact, we did talk about Field Notes Coastal on the last episode that he was not on.
Yeah, but I still didn't have them at that point, and unfortunately, I still don't have them now. I want to. But actually this goes back to the Take Note podcast, because Ted on the Take Note podcast inspired me because he was like, I have two field notes notebooks left. When those are done, I don't know what I'm going to do. I was like, oh, man. Cutting to the core there, Ted. Yeah, I looked at my, you know, my pencil notebook case that I got from Michael's, and I have. I have probably 60 field notes notebooks that I haven't used. And so I was like, no, I'm not going to buy some Coastal editions because I don't need them, and it's just a fact. So I didn't. But I love them. They're beautiful. They're absolutely beautiful. And Andy, do you have some of them?
I do. I was.
Tell us, like, what are your thoughts about it?
I was using a little bit, and I. I think the main criticism that goes around for them is that the reticle graph ink is a little bit too dark, a little bit too thick. So it's just very starkly ruled on the inside. And I think, I think. I agree with that. I think that makes sense. I. I mean, I use a dark pencil on it, so like A. Like a 73, for example, will, like, shine right through. But if it was like a really thin ballpoint or if it was a lighter pencil, I think that probably, yeah, it would be. Be a little harder to see the writing on that reticle graph when really, like, as cool as reticle graph is and as cool as that, like, fountain fade of colors are on the inside. Really, like, the ruling on a page should really fade into the background. It should really just be a guide for the things you're going to write in it. So whenever they come into the limelight a little bit too much, sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. And I think that they may have kind of like tread a little close to that line with the Coastal edition. But like, I. You know, I talked about last time that we. Well, that when we were here with the Graphite Confidential people, I mentioned about how it's like, it's incredibly, like, hard to get that precise with two different runs of that foil stamping. You know, there's like a yellow and a blue foil stamp on those, and they run right next to each other. So I so appreciate the craftsmanship and I really love the color the covers of these, but they're. I mean, so they're just gorgeous to look at. And I love kind of like the conceptual thing that they did, but it's. It's probably not. Yeah.
My.
My very favorite edition. Johnny, what do you think of them?
I agree about the reticle thing, and I suppose the caveat should be that I hate reticle grid, no matter how faint or dark it is.
I really don't like that night sky, Johnny. Night sky.
That ruined night sky for me. Even though I love that edition, I still have a set that I don't think I even unwrapped. Like, Hammy was born and he can have them. They're like his birth edition. But yeah, I agree with that. And the covers are so beautiful that they almost seem, like unfield notesy because they're so damn slick.
Yeah.
But if you look really closely at where the white stamping of field notes is, the foil, like, creeps up on the letters a lot in a really, like, not imperfect way. But these are still field notes away, which I appreciate, and it keeps them from looking too slick.
Yeah.
But I really liked the COVID stock because, you know, the. The cuts on their spines, like, you know, they're always a little jagged, and that's fine. But I've gotten a couple in the last year or two that have just, you know, started ripping up to a staple, and I go through them pretty quickly, so that's kind of ridiculous. But these look really good, especially for field notes, so that was nice. But, yeah, love the texture of those covers. Yeah, I don't like thick cover stock. This isn't too thick. I like it a lot. But yeah, the reticle. No, thank you. Like, please don't ever use that again as if you're listening to me. No, but I do appreciate that they kept their regular paper so that at least you know what you're getting, you know what's going to work on it. Yeah, that's, that's a nice keeping with it feature.
Yeah, Tim. Just as far as, you know, kind of like looking at them and even, even if it's not something you're getting, like, it's like kind of visually, what is your, what is your impressions of these things?
Look, looking at them, they're more exciting than anything I've seen in a long time.
Yeah.
From field notes. I mean, they're stunning. I think they're awesome. I love the concept of it. I love the look of them. I love the, the physical situation, you know, like with the foil stamping and everything. I think they just look amazing. And it, and I will say that it took a lot of willpower not to just order some for no reason. So I would, if I, if I had just the disposable income to just kind of buy stuff for no reason that I wouldn't use eventually or just that I could collect, I would totally have bought these.
Yeah.
But for me, at this point, I was, I was kind of trying to hold myself back and saying, there are notebooks. Don't get crazy. You're not going to fill it up until you are, you know, 40 years old. It's gonna be 10 years before you get to those. Just chill. But they're, they're, they look beautiful. I think the concept is really awesome. I think it's a big concept, you know, like, it's a concept that it seems like they're kind of burning it when they could have used it later sort of. It's an, it's an easy concept. The two coasts of the country, you know, they could have done that down the road. So, you know, I always am kind of baffled by them coming up with new ideas because there's so many things you could do with it. But also it seems kind of restricting at a certain point. So it seems kind of like a low hanging fruit or whatever. And that sounds way more negative than I meant it to because these are gorgeous. I hear what you're saying.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I am generally very reticle grid just seems like stupid. I'm like, just make a graph.
Come on.
Like, who are we getting here? It's graph. Just add a tiny little bit more to each line and just make a graph paper and we'll all be happy. Or.
What's wrong with lined paper? They never, they never really seem to do lined.
Yeah. Yeah. So Those are my thoughts.
I think.
I think it's beautiful. Reticle's dumb, but outside is really, really beautiful.
Y' all are haters. No, I. I will say that the. That these. These notebooks next to the Blackwing 73s look real good because they're all. They all sort of have those. Those same, like, terrain lines on them, and they're both like. Have a lot of. A lot of blues in it. So I. Yeah. Blackwing 73 and a field nuts. Coastal look very nice.
And you know what the coast specific. What do you call it thing, the practical applications in the back. That was pretty cool. One of them was Acela quiet card notes. I'll just. It's an east coast. I think it's pretty cool. I appreciate that. And actually, the belly band was really nice. Like, they obviously put a lot of thought into the belly bands. We never really talk about those.
It's true.
But these were super nice. Like the Shenandoah with the wooden belly band. Yeah. We never talked about. But, like, God, that was perfect. We're talking about that. Speaking of black wing. Black Wings. The 54.
Yeah.
I don't know. Does anybody else want to start on this?
I'll jump on the start and say, get your typewriter bell ready. I really, really like this pencil, like, so much. It's so. I don't know. You know, there's a lot of dedicated to white guy stuff. And then, like, I don't want to throw around the term, like, masculine aesthetic, but, you know, there's a certain aesthetic that would seem to preclude using rose pink.
Yeah.
So I appreciate that they broke out of that and used, like, glossy, thick rose pink and the teal, which is super. Nice touch.
Yeah, well, of course, like, as the. Like the. The idea is that this was sort of designed by randomness. You know, the.
That they pick the.
The foil and they pick the eraser, and they pick the color of the ferrule, and they pick the color of the barrel completely based on just, like, random drawing, which. Yeah. There's been some skepticism expressed, like, from people about whether or not they've actually done that, because that would be a very expensive and kind of silly thing to do. But I'm not. I mean, I'm willing to. To buy into that story because. Yeah. Like, that. To me, like, that blue and that pink don't really go to go well together. I think I mentioned I took out the eraser and put in a yellow eraser, and it just looked perfect. Like, it looked like an Easter pencil. Then. And coming to us, like, around. Around Easter time, it was perfect. But yeah, that has a nice firm core in it, which I think everybody really likes. If you don't like the way it looks. As Johnny mentioned before, our friend Gary Varner has. Has a new. Has a new hack. He takes pure acetone to the. To the barrel and just strips it of the paint and then he lets it dry and then stains it. There's some. If you're in our field nuts.
Group.
Field nuts. The erasable group. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Come on in.
If you're in the erasable group, you can probably see some pictures on it and. Yeah, kind of see how that works.
So.
So, yeah, I. I think it's a really nice pencil. I like the core. You know, Tim, I know you're. You're now. You're now a softy, but if you. If you like the. The extra firmies, then. Yeah, then this is good. Do you have the 54 stain?
Not yet. Yeah. I definitely want to try to get ahold of at least some. I'll send you a couple. Yeah, that'd be awesome. But I want to try them out. I think visually they're pretty catching, you know, and I love. It's just something about looking at the page. Like, you pull up the page for the 54 and it says the exquisite corpse Pencil. I'm like, yes. Yeah, that is fantastic. Yeah, just a great subtitle for it. This surrealist. A pencil. And it's. Yeah, I think it looks great. I think it was much needed. Kind of like you guys have said, within the span of the kinds of things they've done over the course of the Blackwing volumes edition. And I like that. I think this is the first edition in my mind where the color of the barrel and the color of the feral have kind of clashed in, like a cool way.
Yeah.
You know, they haven't done anything like that. That's just kind of out there where you're like, whoa, that's kind of funky. You know, most of them have kind of made sense in some. Some fashion. So I like it. I haven't tried one yet, and I. I definitely plan to. Certainly plan to, but haven't yet. So it's kind of fun also to have the Blackwing 54 and the 56. Like, I feel like this is the two closest additions that we've had that are just two numbers apart within the whole span. We haven't talked about the numbers themselves very much. You know, over the course of. The course of everything, there's an endless number of possibilities that we could have.
But I know we talked literally infinite number of possibilities.
Yeah, literally. And then. But like with the volume one. I remember we talked about that. But like you're gonna use volume one on this. Really? This is like that ugly thing. You're gonna burn volume one on this? Like sausage lining of a pencil. It's gonna.
But screw you guys. That's a great pencil.
Yeah.
But I can't stop thinking about the video of that guy smoking whatever that
was because it looks like the. It looks like what he's. We are writing with what he's smoking.
It looked like a finger
smoking a finger.
West coast thing.
Take a puff of that west coast finger. So, yeah, I'm excited to try one, but. And it's good for another extra firm core, so I'm excited.
Yeah. So they've done three years, 24s.
Okay.
So in three years, two of those years, they joined all four cores, which makes me suspicious that it was really exquisite corpse. At least for the core this time. It's nice that, you know, they're not just doing the six or two over and over again.
Yeah.
And I guess if they're not going to release an extra firm regular edition, they might as well have that come up over and over again. In the. Yeah, in those.
Is the 73 the last MMX core they've had.
Yeah.
Yeah. Because the 16.2 was
the 602.
Oh, no. It's a 602.
Yeah.
I was just using one of those at work today and man, they just like that matte finish. Just feels so nice.
It does. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
All right, should. We should move on to the cherry blossom festival.
Let's do it.
Yeah. So write notepads. I think the most recent release out of these things was write notepads, and they released the Sakura edition, which is a Japanese cherry tree that makes really beautiful bright pink cherry blossoms, which is what the Cherry Blossom is. D.C. has a really big festival. San Francisco has a really big festival. And of course they have them all over in Japan. So it was a. I don't want to Front yard. Yeah. I don't want to steal the spotlight from Johnny since he's our right. No pads boy. But I. No, no, they're. They're saddle stitch. So they are like folded over and stapled like a. Like a typical field notes might be.
But they're stitched, not stapled. Right.
I mean, they're stapled. Yeah, they're okay.
Yeah.
And they. They use. It's interesting because it's a rose gold wire that he uses for stapling it. But it's really hard to tell. Like it's. Did he talk to you about this, Johnny?
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have known if he didn't say.
Yeah, it's really. And I never thought that like, it would be hard to like see rose gold in metal, but like thinking about it. Yeah, that goes perfectly with that cover. So it's a pretty, pretty simple cover. Like, it has a really nice texture on the paper. It has just a really simple illustrated cherry blossom branch that kind of like goes from the back to the front. I guess if I had one criticism of that design, it would be that like the, the back is actually more beautiful looking than the front. To me, the front just sort of looks like, like an extension of that back. But that being said, yeah, it's really beautiful and very simple. It's different than. I think a lot of times he goes for something that has a little bit more filigree, like is a little bit more ornate, which is totally the aesthetic. And it works so well for what write notepads does. But this is definitely a little bit more simple and it feels very like, like mid century Japanese. Definitely in the illustration style. Yeah. One of your notes, Johnny, I think is my exact. My exact thought is the grid is just kind of like meh. But to me that meh is because it's just so darn small. Like it's not as small as the Lenore edition, but it's really small.
Yeah. I think it got balanced out by the fact that it's so damn faint. I just pretty much ignore it. Yeah, but it's, it's like really close to field notes, which I think is already slightly too small. Like if some of them make one just a little bigger than field notes. Like the size of field notes is dot grid. That's. That's the perfect graph, I think.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I've. I've been in a mode lately where field notes notebooks and I mean, I've come back to field notes notebooks after using a variety of other things. They're just so perfect. It's like when you think about baseball, right. Like this part of the Ken Burns baseball documentary. But just if the base paths were 89ft instead of 90ft or 91ft instead of 90ft, like the game would be totally different. Right. Everyone would get thrown out at first base. Or if the pitcher's mound was just like six inches further, everyone would get Hits right. It's just this, like, kind of perfect portion, like, this perfect. The measurements just line up in a way that's super useful. Where, like, I want to use a field in a snow book and, like, their grid and their dimensions and the staples, like, I just. I don't have to think about it, and I love it. I don't have to fight against it. You know where I feel like they really landed on something that just works. Maybe it was by genius, maybe it was by luck, but every field notes notebook of a hookup pickup, I'm just like, yeah, let's do this. I'll shove it in my pocket. I'll use it every day. I'll pull it out, write things down if I need them. But other notebooks, I feel like I'm fighting against them. You're like, oh, this is too short. This is too fat. This is too, uh. Like, the binding doesn't open up flat enough. You know, like, there's always something. But with field notes, there's nothing where.
This is the most on brand Tim Wasem monologue I've ever heard, by the way.
Why. Why. Why do you say that?
Field notes is like baseball.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I love it. It's not like. Yeah, totally.
I mean, you're right.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, if you first home base to first base, you got 90ft. If it was 91ft, everyone would get thrown out every single time. If it was. If it was 89ft, then everyone would get on base. You know, it's just. It's like a. They just lucked out. They. They landed on that early enough. That's what stuck. And so the sport lasted. Whereas. Same thing with pitching. You know, if the pitchers were 6 inches closer to the. To home plate, then everyone would strike out every time. If it was six inches further away, then everyone would get a hit because it's. It's just kind of perfect. And I feel like that with. With field notes. So the dimensions fit. As far as fitting in a pocket, as far as giving you room to write, as far as the shape of the grid, as far as the stapling, and as far as how they lay flat, it just. It works. It's totally utilitarian. So I. I keep coming back to them, and I feel like a lot of other notebooks are trying to kind of reinvent the wheel with that, understandably, because you can't just copy off other people, but. Yeah, still.
Yeah.
So what did. What did you think of the. The extra with the sakura notepads? Did you Plant your tree, Johnny.
No, but from what I understand, they weren't cheap to get, so I feel like I need to do something right with those seeds. Oh, we didn't mention the extra. If you're a subscriber or if you buy. The deluxe pack is a set of cherry tree seeds.
Really cool. Pretty awesome.
I wonder if I can sneak that into a. Like a garden or like a park strip or something around here and just, like, randomly grow a cherry tree. That would be fun.
You should do it, like, on the side of the road.
Yeah.
Stuff from the ground.
Do it. Yeah. You know, with these, I appreciated the extra real estate for the page spread because. Right. Notepads are already wider, and then these open super flat like a field notes. You're just like, damn, I have like half a letter page every time I open this thing. But it still fits in my jeans pocket.
When you think about it, jeans are like baseball.
Because America.
Yeah.
No. Yeah. I mean, somebody suggested that they were going to fall apart with only two staples, but my first one, like, I. I really tried to, like, beat the hell out of the thing. Didn't fall apart. It was fine. I mean, I don't understand why Field Notes uses three when they used to use two. Because that middle one really screws with the flexibility of the book. That kind of bugs me. I feel like that's one thing they do that doesn't make any sense, and it makes the notebook work less. Yeah.
What would Ginny do if her blog had to be called Two Staples?
That's why they won't switch it back. Yeah.
Like, somebody named their blog after us.
Well, that's a good reason to keep it then, I guess. That's interesting. But, yeah. I mean, I. I don't know how to say this. Like, the folks that write notepads would be crazy to not keep making saddle stitch notebooks now. Because a lot of people were like, oh, I like them. I like their aesthetic, I like their paper, but I don't like that pure binding. But these are like field notes with better paper and better quality control
because,
you know, they make them and they won't wrap them if they're crap.
Yeah. And they're. I mean, smaller runs for sure. So. And a smaller shop, so it's probably easier to, like, keep a good eye on them.
Yeah. And they could do stuff like the. The covers are letterpressed in three colors, which, as I understand it, is pretty complicated.
Yeah.
Or at least it's a lot more time consuming and.
Right. Notepads is like its own print Shop where Field Notes, you know, entirely sort of like, sources this out through a supply chain, which. Which is cool because it's kind of like they're. They're conducting an orchestra.
Right.
Like, the field notes is like an orchestra. There's a lot of, like, a lot of moving parts that need to be sort of like, you know, arranged and conducted in harmony. Whereas, like, everything happens in house at Field Notes, which are at. Right. Notepads, which is a much different sort of a beast.
So, yeah, like Baron, Fig and Field Nuts both are design companies, not like stationary companies.
Yeah, yeah, there's.
I don't. I don't think they disagree with.
Yeah, there's a really great episode, by the way, the most recent episode of the RSVP podcast with. With our friends. And they talk a lot about stationary subscriptions, and they kind of broach that subject a little bit like, you know, what's. What's the focus of. Of these subscription models? And, you know, are you. Are you buying a design. Are you buying a stationary. Are you buying like a. Like a concept, like futures? Like, what's. What's going on? So I'll have a link to that in Show Notes. It's a really good episode.
Excellent. Yeah, I think of the. The two spring notebooks. These are a little more usable than the field notes. Just if nothing else, because you can see the paper when you look at
the page, they don't feel as precious.
Yeah. I mean, you know, they make really, really durable notebooks too. So even when they. They look precious, you can still, like, beat the crap out of them. They'll still be okay.
Yeah.
And the paper is their usual paper, which is really nice paper.
I like the textured cover a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, you really got to talk Mr. Roth into doing more staple action with this lighter cover material.
Well, thank you for listening to episode 94 of the erasable podcast. You can find the show notes for this episode at erasable us94. And you can find our podcast on TwitterACeablePodcast and on Instagram raceablepodcast. My name is Tim Wasem. You can find me on Twitter imwassum and on Instagram timothywassom. And Andy. Where can people find you on the Internet?
I am on the Internet on Twitter and Instagram as wellflate. And you can find my pencil blog that I Never update@woodclinch.com. how about you, Johnny?
Yay. Yay.
So I have been re. Updating my pencil blog regularly. CM the Class nerd@pencil revolution.com. i don't even think I use Twitter anymore. Really. And I'm on Instagram at my name, although it's largely pictures of my children. And, like, things I see walking around. Yeah. Things I drink, things I eat, things
I see walking around. Like people and animals.
Moing moimoi.
Dead squirrels, you know, walking around.
They're just sitting around.
Lovely Baltimore landscape.
Yeah. Some of it more lovely than the rest.
And that's it for us here at the Erasable.
All right, good night, folks.
Thank you for listening. The intro music for the Erasable podcast is graciously provided by this Mountain, a collaborative folk rock band from Johnson City, Tennessee. You can check out their music@www.thismountainband.com. This has happened before.
Oh, I said.