This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
I will make the world bend to my will, including my handwriting.
Hello, and welcome to episode 112 of the erasable podcast. I'm Johnny Gamber, signing in with my two most forgery proof co hosts, Andy Buffley and Tim Watson. How's it going, guys?
I literally didn't get it until just now. Which signing in thing.
Oh, no.
Forgery proof. Wait, no. You're saying you just heard him now or you didn't understand the joke?
When he said signing in, I was like, why did he say it like that? And then I was like, oh, because we're going to talk about signatures.
See what. See what he did there?
Yeah, I do.
We are pros.
Yeah.
This is the kind of.
No, no, that's. That's good. I think you should just keep on going.
This is. This is the kind of precision worksmanship. Worksmanship.
Is that workmanship?
It is now.
It is now that you get after 112 episodes.
Exactly.
We surprise each other, keeps it fresh.
So we're going to talk about signatures
a little later, because that's a signature move of ours, too.
Signature move.
Yeah.
So a little later, we're going by Garlington, and we're going to talk about creating the perfect signature, even in the digital age of facial recognition and portable fingerprint scanners. But, you know, before we go all indelible, why don't we jump into tools of the trade? You want to go first, Andy?
Yeah. In the middle of reading a really interesting book. It's called Word by the Secret Life of Dictionaries. And it's written by this woman who was Corey Stamper, who was an associate editor at Merriam Webster. And it's. It's kind of about how, like, language prescriptivism is a lie. Like, there's, you know, dictionaries are not, like, there to, like, set. Set the standard for language. It's there to kind of report on it, right? And it's. People talk about, like, how ain't ate a word because ain't. Ain't in the dictionary. You know, that's like a thing everybody said when they were kids. It turns out it is a word. It is in the diction. And even if it wasn't, you know, like, dictionaries are there to just sort of like it like it should be, right? So it's really interesting. She talks a lot about sort of, like, the history of dictionaries and the process of how you, like, how lexicographers, like, research a word and put it into dictionaries and kind of the intricacies of really hard to capture words and grammar and often how completely arbitrary grammar rules are. So really interesting. I definitely recommend it to anyone, especially for the language prescriptivists and sort of the pedantic word and grammar people in your life. Like have them read this book. And then also, I'm just, just caught up with Star Trek Discovery Season 2, which is a fantastic show. I'm super into Star Trek Discovery, so, yeah, that is my media I've been consuming lately.
That first book you mentioned reminds me of. I haven't read it yet, but I've got a book somewhere. It's called the Meaning of Everything, I think. And it's a little book that's about the history of the Oxford English Dictionary that I've been meaning to read. Looks super interesting. Yeah, I should have gotten around to it yet.
Yeah, I've heard about that. That book. Yeah. And I'm writing with my super bright green field notes that is was made for the James Brand. Don't know anything about the James Brand. What that is why it has the in front of it. But this is a very, very bright green. It's James Brand Electric Moss Green is the name of this color. And I am writing with my new Blackwing Natural. No, just kidding.
I'm not.
We'll talk about that later. Yeah. Nope. So, Tim, how about you?
You suddenly hear Johnny knocking on your door like, shit.
Give me, give me, give me.
How'd you get here so fast? Well, flee.
Open up.
Yeah, so I've got a few books here I was going to mention. First one I'm reading, it's called Fire Season. It's actually the full title, appropriately for us, is Fire Season Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout. And I stumbled across this book because the author, whose name, Philip Connors is the author's name, I heard him interviewed on the Art of Manliness podcast, which it was kind of like really fortuitous that I heard it because I almost never listened to that podcast and it just randomly crossed my mind. I was like, I wonder what's going on with that? And pulled it up and the first one that popped up was an interview with him about his new book he just came out with. And so he is a writer who was like working in the. In the city in New York, and then had an opportunity to move out to Gila National Forest and be a fire watcher. And so now he does that for like four and a half or five months a year and then he's a bartender for the other part of the year. So it Sounds like a pretty awesome life. But yeah, he's just kind of like reflects on his job up there and just tell some pretty great stories, but also gives a lot of amazing history about fire watchers and just how the Forest Service has treated fires over the years and it's super fascinating. Johnny, you said you've read this?
Yeah, Field Notes. Plugged it back when Fire Spotter came out.
You mentioned that. And I didn't realize that it was actually a direct reference to it because I wasn't. That was pre my interest in field notes. Oh no.
I mean I don't think it had anything to do with Field notes brand.
But you said that. But they like mentioned it.
Yeah, they mentioned it with some, some articles on the history of lookout towers and stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's really cool. Have to look back at the video and stuff for that, for that edition. But I'm really enjoying that book. It's really awesome. And it's a book that I, I definitely got it from the library and then ended up buying a copy because I can just tell that I'm going to read it a lot. I just finished a Lee Child Jack Reacher novel that I kind of stumbled into. I think I've talked about them on here before.
Yeah.
But I hadn't in a while and I just, I don't know, I think I had put something on hold from the library and it just popped up all of a sudden. I was like, oh yeah, whatever, I'll listen to it. But it was awesome. I really enjoyed it. It was called 61 Hours. Takes place in South Dakota in the middle of like a crazy snowstorm dealing with this like mysterious, mysterious old air force bunker that was built in South Dakota. And they don't know why it's there and they don't know what's inside. And there's this like, you know, all these rumors that circulate and he just kind of ends up in the town of course, like he always does and then has to help figure it out. But it was super, it was super entertaining. So recommend it. And yeah, the only other thing as far as consuming, I've been listening to a lot of jazz lately. Been picking up some new records, getting some jazz on vinyl because it's. It is just amazing to me how much that's. That's one genre where the, the sound quality is, is super noticeable when you listen to something on vinyl. And I've especially been listening to Monin by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. That's one of my all time favorite Albums, and I. I picked it up on Pick up the Record and have been wearing that one out the last. Last week or so. So I definitely recommend that. That album from. It's like 19. 1963, something like that. 1962. Awesome album. And watching basketball. So Warriors. Yeah, I have. I've been. I'm watching NBA basketball semi regularly for the first time in many, many years because I'm so desperate for baseball to come back. I needed some sport to watch, but decide on a team. You know, I've been. Been in the market for a team, and I think I've. I think I've made my decision.
Do you. Do you want to share what that that team is.
It's subject to change.
Okay.
Because I don't. Because I don't care that much.
Yeah.
But the Milwaukee Bucks, the way.
The Milwaukee.
What?
That is the team. The Milwaukee Bucks.
Oh, okay. Yeah. That's interesting. Deep cut.
Did I not. Did I not fully pronounce the B there? And you're like, hey, this is a family friendly. Whoa. Whoa.
No.
Yeah, they're really good this year, and they've got some. Some young players that are really awesome. They're just fun to watch.
So the Bay Area is this, like, soaked in Warriors. Like, people here love the warriors so hard. And I actually. I'll talk about this a little later. I was. For Christmas, I got tickets. Katie and I were gonna go see a Warriors game. And actually, I will not be able to go because I'm going to Singapore, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But, yeah, it's really interesting how much. Just. Just how much people are. Katie really likes college basketball. She's a big Indiana University fan and. Oh, yeah. But NBA is just, like, so present out here. Yeah. I don't.
With me is with the NBA. It's like, I. I get the reason why some people are so into college basketball, but then I'm like, but the NBA players are just so much better. They're just so much better at basketball. Like, shouldn't we watch that one?
Yeah.
So
elitist.
Yeah. Sorry. But I am writing. I just, you know, just happened to be writing with a Blackwing 1917 that I put a gray eraser on. I don't know what sparked that inspiration there, but I worked my way through a whole one just like that over the course of the last several days, and I just assembled another one. Don't know what inspired that. And I am writing in a obama.org together field notes.
Nice. Son of a B word.
So I. Basketball love It.
No,
yeah, it's, you know, for many reasons, is a favorite addition so far. I love it. I'll talk about it more later and never mind. But we'll come back to that. So how about you, Johnny?
So I've been on a reading kick lately, which is always good for winter, I guess. So I finally read Any Human Heart by William Boyd. Have you guys read this book or seen the miniseries?
No.
No. So it's a story of a guy named Logan Mount Stewart and basically, like the 20th century and his journey as a guy and a writer and then a guy and then a writer again and a spy. But, yeah, it was like, you know, Hemingway is a character in the book, and it's not a character of Hemingway, which is, you know, good. Although the character of him in Midnight in Paris was at least funny. But, yeah, it was one of those books I always talk about this. It's really, really satisfyingly big. Like, this is so good. I'm glad it's 500 pages long. So that was an enjoyable book. And then I moved on to a book that I'd already read called Writers and Their Notebooks, which was a book, I guess it came out in, like, 2010, where one writer asked other writers to send in essays about how they use their notebooks. Oh, wow. So, yeah, it was, like, on topic. Like, the book was really nice. The only thing was that you got the impression that she just said notebooks. And some of them thought that meant work notebooks. Some thought that meant journal, some thought that meant diary. But that made the book more interesting. But, like, the philosopher in me is like, pick a term. It has to mean the same thing. But I think it's still in print. I assume it's still in print. It wasn't like a big splash book or anything, but, you know, there'll be a link on there if you want to find it. And I just watched the film. Don't worry, he won't get far on foot. It just came out on, I think, Amazon this past week with Joaquin Phoenix about John Callahan, the cartoonist. It was really, really good. It was surprisingly not sentimental. Was about, you know, his. His accident that left him paralyzed and his career as a sort of controversial cartoonist and alcoholic and stuff was. It was really good. Joaquin Phoenix, you know, he's always really good.
Yeah.
And stuff. Even with really bad, like, late 70s haircuts and, like, a really unfortunate mustache. But, yeah, it's on, I think, Amazon. Oh, yeah. This thing is a fortunate mustache. Terrible. It's on Amazon Prime. I think they Made it so you can go check it out and watch it for free. And I am late to the game. But finally, watching the Haunting of Hill House, which is so good. Did you guys check that out in the fall when it came out?
No.
Netflix. So Stephen King said it was close to a masterpiece. I'm like, well, he hates everything, so I will check that out. But it's hard to talk about it without spoiling anything. But it's really good. It's genuinely creepy.
Yeah.
And it's about families and grief, and that's on Netflix. Netflix made it so you have 10 episodes of that. I watch it when everyone's asleep, which is, you know, a good setting for it. And I am writing with a Blackwing Volume 16.2, which is the matte white one in honor of winter. And I have sharpened it with an Eiffel Tower point with my hovel. Like, I sent you guys a picture. Like, no, I mean, no,
no.
Crap. This point is, like, more than 2 inches long. And it's like the. What David Rees would call the color bottom where the wood and the paint mix meet. That is really crooked. But the rest of it is so pretty.
Yeah.
I don't want to use it, but I do.
Did you see TJ's video about the hovel?
I might have watched it several times.
So our good. Our good friend TJ Cosgrove, who has the wooden graphite video channel, he. He also got one and reviewed it. Yeah. And it was, as I think Harry Marks pointed out, it's like ASMR videos with. With the hovel. So watch it over and over and over again. It gives you that chill down your back.
Make a note to put that in the show notes. That'll be linkable on here. That's what I'm consuming. So why don't we jump into refresh points before we sign on?
I get it now.
We should have made this joke many more times.
Yeah.
Lose some listeners. They sign off.
Yeah. Well, I'm signing on to.
Yeah.
So first fresh point, Baron Fig released an interesting new. You know, they've been really hitting it with these kind of, like, structured content confidants lately. You know, they had that habit journal. They had their dream journal. They just released something called the Savor Recipe Journal. And it is a bright blue. It is not blue. It's red. I'm looking at it right now. It's red tomato red valentine. Yeah. Confidant. And they basically have a recipe log in there. So you put down your. You put in your ingredients, you put in your instructions and just like some notes, some notes about it. It's, it's pretty. I don't know. There's. To me, there seems like it was a really fine line between like too vague and too prescriptive for these kind of like structured content things and journals. And this one feels a little far onto the prescriptive side. But I can think of a lot of people who would really be into, into using that, like into having, having that there. But it's gorgeous. It's using the thing they've been doing with their structured notebooks where it has the elastic strap on it. I hope that makes its way to the regular blank notebook soon because that's one of the only things I can think of that that would improve. A confidant. But I also. It's like a confidant. It is fabric covered. And if this is going to be sitting in your kitchen all the time while you're cooking, like this thing is going to get dirty real quick.
Grease soaked.
Yeah, but it's, it's gorgeous. The, you know, as usual, the product photography on like Baron fake stuff is on point. So if this is something that appeals to you, be sure to go check out, check that out. We have a link in show notes. My next fresh point. Both Johnny and Tim separately talked to me. He was like, what is this about? So my press point just says I'm going straight edge. So no, I am not going to adhere to the straight edge lifestyle. I just sort of got in my head that I really want
a little
ruler that I can put in with my field notes and put into my little stuff sheath. So I posted an RSVP because it is a very RSVP topic. I was looking for a, a ruler with a good, with a good like edge on it that is no longer than 6 inches and is like flexible but like rigid enough not to just like get bent. And found a bunch of cool things. There's this one like carbon fiber ruler that was like as light as plastic but super, super hard. But honestly like, it took me, it took me a while and I found this thing on Amazon. It's probably just some super knockoff. It is called the Echlone ruler and it is made of like anodized aluminum. It is five inches long exactly. So it's about half an inch shorter than, than my field notes. And it comes in five different colors or five pieces. It's a five piece set. It's exactly the same ruler. I'm sorry, it's 4.7 inches at least.
That's even better.
Yeah, it's a really good size. It's 10 bucks on an Amazon prime and it comes in red, blue, yellow, purple and green. So if anybody. I'm a big fan of like taking just like a blank page notebook and putting some straight lines for my, like just along the side to kind of create my own margin. And I often, when I'm making my show notes, I like to put like a line down the middle, like a steno pad. On one side is like fresh notes and the other side is like timestamps and stuff. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of this. I'm trying to think of a good kind of unobtrusive way to like just clip it to my notebook.
Oh, so it's 10. 10. $10 for five of them. Yeah, I missed that. Okay, so you get all five different colors.
I want one.
I'll just, I'll send you one. I have.
Do they have cork on the back?
Nope, it's all.
That's cool. I don't like that cork.
Yeah, no, it's super thin. You can close it up in your pocket notebook real easily. So that's awesome. Purple one spoken for. If either of you want either the red one or the green one or the yellow one, I'll send it to you.
I'm going to take you up on this.
Okay.
Shotgun red.
Shotgun red.
Those are cool.
Talk offline.
Yeah, that's a good idea. I would never have thought to want that.
Yeah.
But now I want that.
It's really. Yeah, it's really useful. Last thing I'll mention, I'm going to Singapore in March.
That's exciting.
Yeah. We talked earlier about this book that I'm writing with my friend Michael Metz, and kind of after we made an announcement to the Internet about this, somebody from this UX design studio in Singapore just messaged him out of the blue and was like, hey, we're doing this UX writing workshop during Singapore Design Week. Or we went to and would you come and do it? And we're like, yes, yes, yes, we will. So we are going to Singapore in March and I'm going to be.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I'm going to be asking everybody for their Singapore stationery recommendations. Because I, I have never been to a, an Asian stationery store. Well, I mean, like, you know, Mido, like Japanese stationary here in town. But if anybody here has been to Singapore and has bought stationery there, please let me know.
See what they have at their Walmart.
Exactly.
Yeah. You know, yeah, you go under There to a Walmart and it's all Taekondarogas. No, it's just like all black wings.
Yeah.
Come on.
Yeah.
Yeah. Cool.
That's awesome. Yeah, I'm. I'm happy for you.
Super excited. About 17 hours straight on a plane, being 6 foot 2 and sitting in economy.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
You could watch like an entire series.
I'm sure I could. I'm.
I'm trying to figure out reading, like listen to an entire audiobook.
Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what, what stuff to bring with me. Like what do I want to bring like a, like a nice journal and basically fill it up or do I keep like how, how do I keep myself busy for 17 hours? Because I kind of go crazy in the five hour flight back to. Back to Indiana from here. Right. Like I'm.
You'd write your book.
I get really antsy. That's true. Just. Just write the whole business. Could be not such a lazy ass and just get finished. Get started in your book.
I think you've got something to do there. Just joking.
We should record an entire like a super difficult podcast before that so I can spend the entire time trying to edit it
and have like a really wired guest and we'll all drink lots of coffee.
Johnny, I'll keep dropping in like really crude Easter eggs for you to pick out.
Oh, I can't wait.
Mouth harp.
Johnny doing the mouth harp sound between every word that he says.
Tim, do you want to.
Johnny. He said, damn it, where's my mouth harp? Yeah, I'll take over. Yeah, that's awesome. So the first thing I was going to bring up just with an update membership pod. We've got six episodes out now. Came out today, an interview with Charlie Peacock, who's Jason and John met him in Nashville and talked to him and he's a music producer and musician who's recorded in kind of all kinds of different genres and it's a really awesome interview they did. He's a guy who worked with like the Civil wars and the Lone. I think the Lone Bellow. I think he worked with them as well, so kind of similar. But he makes jazz albums and he has four Grammys. So he's a really interesting dude. He's been. Been around the music industry for a while and he's a big fan of Wendell Berry. He actually has a song called Wendell Berry in a Field at Night from his latest album. It's a instrumental album. So yeah, that just went up and we also just interviewed Laura Dunn who's the she's the woman who directed the Wendell Berry documentary that is on Netflix right now, which is called look at, look and See, which that'll come out in a few weeks. And that was a really great interview. She's awesome. She, she was doing it with, under the production company of Robert Redford and Terrence Malik.
Oh, wow.
Pretty, pretty amazing connections there. That was, that was a lot of fun. So. And on the Wendell Berry topic, I wanted to bring up an essay of his that I think I probably mentioned like way early on in the podcast, but I think it's, it's, it's worth bringing back up. I'm saying might even been single digits when I brought this up the first time episodes. But he has an essay that's called why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer. It's a short and sweet essay from 1987, the year I was born. And so title pretty much gives you the gist of it. But he makes a couple of references in there that I just thought our listeners would appreciate. At the beginning of the essay, it says, like almost everybody else, I am hooked to the energy corporations, which I do not admire. I hope to become less hooked to them in my work. I try to be as little hooked to them as possible. As a farmer, I do almost all my work with horses. As a writer, I work with a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper. And then later on, he says that even his wife, who types up his manuscripts for him, types still in 1987, was typing on a Royal Standard typewriter from 1956. And then right at the end the essay, he says, my final and perhaps my best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to fool, to wish to fool myself. I disbelieve and therefore strongly resent the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil, which is just a great quote. And then at the end, he says, to make myself just a couple lines down, he says, to make myself as plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological innovation in my own work. They are as follows. One, the new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. Two, it should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. Three, it should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces. And four, it should use less energy than the one it replaces. There's like five more. He just keeps going, but really kind of shutting down the entire notion that he would ever use a computer which I just.
So do you know now, 32 years later, does he have a computer or.
No, no, definitely not. Yeah, no, I mean, he absolutely does not.
He.
He still writes. Yeah. And in like spiral bound notebooks and pencils.
And how's he going to come on your podcast then?
Oh, yeah, well, I mean, we can bring it to him.
Yeah, that's true.
We can bring the technology to him and he'll begrudgingly let us use it like the, the cameras for the documentary that was made. So, Yeah, I thought people would enjoy that. And you can look up that essay. It's. It's seriously, it's like a page long. It's a kind of a mini essay of his. And also. Oh, yeah, I forgot there's an announcement from Blackwing.
Oh, yeah, we can skip that though.
Yeah.
Now that people have been waiting for 45 minutes or whatever. Yeah. So the new Blackwing Standard edition that we've been hoping for and talking about and describing in almost the exact same terms for like, years. Yeah, it's here. The Blackwing Natural was announced, which is super exciting. Everybody was really pumped up about that. Still pumped up about that. And the addition is. Oh, good.
What I think is really interesting about this was it was like super leaked, like, right. Like somebody.
Somebody went three days early.
Yeah. Somebody went to the national stationary show, like one of the, like some boutique gift shop or some vendor, and they. They posted a picture of it and somebody found it and just put it in the group and was like, oh, my God. And we had nothing to like, this was like out of the blue, right?
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden that post was gone.
Part of me was wondering if that boutique vendor even existed. And this was just like an elaborate,
like, his name is Schmarl Schmerlsheimer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kind of mind blowing to see it, but it was like finally, goodness gracious. Which is like, you know, they made. For those of you who don't know about this, there's a new black wing coming out that's going to be a standard edition that they're always going to have. It is a. It's called the Blackwing Natural. It is a naked incense cedar pencil with the extra firm graphite core, the same they had in the 24 and in the 1917. And it has a gold ferrule and a gray eraser. Is beautiful.
And I think it's worth mentioning that we, in the. The life of this podcast we've been recording for almost five years now, there has not Been a new addition to the regular lineups. So the last one was the Pearl in 2013. So this is. This is the first time in a very long time that we've had a
new permanent edition, and it's one that's overdue with. With the core, which to me is very bittersweet because the. The arrival of the Blackwing natural means the total disappearance of the Palomino hp.
Yeah, that's depressing.
Sort of sucks because the Palomino HP is just as good of a pencil as this. They're basically the exact same thing and it's half the price.
So, yeah, there would be no black wings without how successful that pencil was. Yeah, they really launched their brand.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's. That kind of sucks. But, you know, at least this is here. So. And so we. We all ordered them in large quantities when they first came out and then immediately got a notice that they were delayed because. Because they didn't realize so many of us were going to order this.
I was so excited because I was like, you live 80 miles from Stockton. I. I paid for priority shipping because I'm just like that much of a. Like a douchebag. And I was so excited. I was like, I want to get my pencils before anyone else. And I got my. I got that. That email that they were going to be delayed five to 10 days just because of logistics and stuff.
You should get your priority shipping back.
It's fine, I'm sure. I mean, once they do ship it out, I'll get it real fast.
But yeah, whatever. But still, like, like nine days later. Yeah, but a dollar a day.
Yeah, it's just. It's just so funny how like, it kind of got leaked like that and then all of a sudden that post disappeared and then, then suddenly Blackwing had a big thing like, oh, we have announcement coming Thursday. And we're like, oh, I wonder what it could be.
But what could it be?
Yeah.
And I think they showed us that picture of, like, human skin and burlap and we're like, what?
Especially because this pencil has some sort of finish on it. It's not actually naked, like a cedar. Cedar point.
Yeah. Yeah.
Which. And like.
Okay, I was just gonna say it kind of doesn't. Doesn't surprise me. I mean, as far as, like, they want. They seem to be pretty or they're very aware of the. The brand and wanting everything to match and, like, fit. And if you have the. The 602, the Pearl and the MMX and then have one that suddenly, like, People touch and their hand oils, like, make it ugly. Like, they want it to look good on camera, you know, like they want on Instagram and stuff. They don't. They don't want it to. To get all gnarly. So.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I was disappointed by two things, and I'm being nitpicky as hell, and I wanted a silver feral with eraser, but I think they just wanted to keep all gold ferrules and all gold imprints for the. The standard line. So, like, you know, that's cool, but, like, I hope this isn't offensive, but I think they really failed with the name. It's like calling it the Blackwing White or the, you know, the Blackwing Gray. Like, there are a lot of cool, like, plays off of horses. Like, they could have called it, like the Wild Blackwing. That would have been kind of cool.
It'd be better than Blackwing Mustang or.
Yeah.
Or like, I don't know, they could have just called it the Palomino hb
and it's colored in blue.
Yeah, that's. That one.
Yeah. That didn't really cross my mind. I don't have a problem with the natural. I don't know.
I guess maybe. It's so pretty. I wanted to have something more original.
The Blackwing naked.
Yeah. There.
Blackwing Bear. The Black wing Nude.
The bear wing.
Yeah, the Blackwing Naked.
You know, there are a lot of pencils already called the net. The whatever Natural.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it may make sense. I mean, that's. That's what we would have called it. Right. We would have called it a natural pencil. So. Yeah, it's just. Yeah.
I don't know.
It makes sense, but super nitpicky.
Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that by the time we record.
Really several times.
Yeah.
I was gonna say you can send me yours if you're.
Yeah.
Happy with that.
By the time we record episode 113, I'm hoping we'll. We'll have them in hand and can talk a little bit more about them.
Yeah.
So I assume that this pencil is for those of you who got a hold of the 1917 Black Wing, that it's basically the. Just the exact same pencil, just with a different imprint and a gray eraser. So I assume that that's the. As far as the. The feel on the outside of it, like the. The coating that it's got on. Yeah, it's probably gonna. Exactly the same as that or the. So a lot of choice or whatever.
A lot of people in the group are Talking about how this could, you know, the bottom could fall out of the, like, collector's market on the 211 and the 1917 and. And so on, and I. I don't know about that. I think the 211 is still very kind of, like, special in its own right. And also, it's not an extra firm. Right. So I think. I think really, this. This. This. The market will. The bottom will fall out on, like, some of the. Some of the pencils that are, like, special just because they're extra firm. Like the pink one and the. Well, the 20. I don't know. The 24 had such a. Such a good story that connected with so many people behind it. And it was the first one, but, like, definitely the gold. Like the 530.
Right?
Like the gold. The gold one. Although I. I'm coming around with the gold one because I love that stripe.
And that was a firm core. That was an extra firm.
Oh, no, that was extra firm.
That was extra firm. Yeah. And then. And then it was. Yeah, yeah.
No,
Yeah, I think so.
I'm googling this junk.
Yeah. And then the yesterday, then the surrealist one. I don't remember the. The edition 54. 54. That's it.
Yeah, I liked that one a lot. Yeah, the teal imprint got me.
Yeah, that was a good one. So how about. How about you, Johnny?
What are your.
What are your F points?
So most of mine relate to my hometown. A few weeks ago, I got to go to an event with Chris Roth and John Michael Moses from Right Notepads about sort of like, brand identity. And John talked about product photography, which is interesting. I never actually thought about any of that stuff.
So he's a great photographer.
Yeah, it was a good talk. Well, I guess talks and got to meet some really cool people, and maybe even some of these ideas could be transferred to podcast branding or photography or something. I don't know. But one cool thing was right after that, they released their winter edition. I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's a Year of the Pig notebook. So if folks haven't seen it, it's, like, as red as paper can be with a cool texture. And their first ever gold foil hit of a cool graphic of a pig on the front for the Chinese New Year. And the inside is dot, grid, and they're super, really awesome bright white paper and gold staples. So, like, this one is, like, so pretty.
It went, like, hot takes, too.
Yeah, they went really quickly, I think. I think these did last overnight, but not by much. I think they made a lot more than they made of the Keats books.
Then a few days later, the CW pencils were like, hey, we have some too. And then they sold out real quick.
Yeah. And then I think. I don't remember if Greer didn't get them yet or if they already sold them out. And there was. There's another place in Ocean City, Maryland, or Annapolis somewhere in Maryland. Oh, no, Virginia Beach, Virginia, that has them, but I don't remember the name or if they'll, you know, do it if you're not in Virginia Beach. But, yeah, these were cool. My. My mom likes pigs and red, so mine are all spoken for.
So it's a double trip.
Should have bought more.
But the other Baltimore thing is the Baltimore Washington pen show is here in two weeks. Well, not here. Last year, it was in downtown Baltimore. Now it's gonna be by the airport again. But, you know, lots of cool folks drove this. Brad'll be in town.
Yes. Are you gonna hang out?
I hope so. We got invited to do, like, a table or something if we pencil folks had wanted to.
But, yeah, I need to get my crap together and actually, like, think about traveling to that kind of a thing. That would be really fun.
Maybe next year.
Yeah. And I think I feel like we could pull together. Pull together some fundraising, right?
Like, yeah, yeah, definitely. And then also, you know, one of the Kickstarter rewards could be hugs.
You know, if you don't pledge, he's gonna hug you.
I'm not good at a lot of things, but I'm a good hugger. You can take that to the bank
if you're too short. You get some chest hair all up in your teeth.
A lot of it's gray these days.
Terrible padding. Yeah.
Just make me look more muscular than I am. Okay. So my one fresh point that is not related to Baltimore is so how to handle this diplomatically. There's often a lot of drama in the field Nuts group. So I thought, hey, why don't we start a field notes group that doesn't have a lot of drama and, you know, it's cool to trade stuff. But, like, that group has become so much wading through all the trades that I thought we could make a group with no trades. So I made a new Facebook group, which is called Remember it Now. But, you know, we've already changed the rules a lot. It's just, you know, any pocket notebooks, but still no sales.
Yeah, I think people can do giveaways, right? Just not trades or sales.
Yeah.
Yeah. I Mean, we, you know, I already had to rewrite one rule because everybody kept breaking it and I was like, ah, real stupid. But, you know, everybody plays nice and that's good.
Yeah.
So it's another little corner of the Internet.
That's an excellent idea.
Yeah.
Yeah. And obviously the title comes from field notes. Motto or slogan, whatever it is, I'm not writing it down to remember it later. I'm writing it down to remember it now.
Yeah.
Which is cool. I'm writing down to remember it later because I don't have a memory. I turned 40 this summer and it's turning off early.
I'm writing it down to play with my new pencil.
That is the bell to signal that this section of the podcast is over.
Are we going to sign off?
Going to sign off and call up Bull. All right, let's do it. All right, so why don't we jump into our main topic, which is creating a signature signature with Bull Garlington. Bull Garlington is an award winning columnist and author. His most recent book, the Full English, was Forward Reviews Nonfiction humor book of the year 2017, which is awesome. Thank you very much for joining us, Bull. And before we start hitting you with questions, you want to tell us what you're consuming and also what you're writing with on.
Yeah. How much time do you have? Because it's a lot. So first of all, I love that question on the Google Doc for preparing for the show that what you're doing, what you're writing on. I've gone back and listened to a bunch of episodes and I am going to be spending a lot of money because of you guys.
Ye.
In honor of you guys, this very moment, I'm using my favorite Black Wing 602, the Paladino. And. And I'm writing on my cheap legal pad. But I have to say that I kind of have a collection of journals that I use every day. Part of it is because I review journals, but part of it is also because I am deeply and horribly addicted to them.
Yeah, we have no idea what that's like. Yeah.
How did you know? Usually it's a pilot. Metropolitan is my, my everyday. But I just rewarded myself and I'm replacing that with the pilot Vanishing Point.
Those are nice.
Which is an incredible fountain pen. And I just, I, I can't get enough. I, I just, I doodle with it because I want to touch it all the time. And, and then the notebooks that I'm using is something called a Before Breakfast dots, which is from handmade in London. From Masalito
Paper.
I don't know, my wife bought it in Belgium. And it's a weird, it's the weird Asics side and it's made in something called a Swiss binding. So this is cool in a way that's different from most lay flat notebooks we're used to. And I'm kind of reviewing it right now and it is from a company called Before Breakfast London.
This is interesting.
I'm loving this little thing. I use a loose therm five year journal because I am in four and a half years I'm going to write an article about having used it for five years.
Playing the long game.
Yeah, yeah, the long game. I'm only going to get like 200 bucks for it. So that's what point zero cents per day I've used the bullet journals. Bullet journal, but I don't use it as a bullet journal. I just use it as a journalist. And then I'm using a Staples composition notebook. It's a long story. I'm not going to get into it. I know it's a piece of crap and everyone hates it, but somebody challenged me. And then my, my legal pad, which is Ampad. And then on Etsy I get these pocket notebooks called simple notebooks. And when I go out and do stories, that's where I take notes in. And when I'm recording stuff, I put my meters on there. So yeah, that's me every day.
Is your Ampad, the one from Staples, the gold fiber and pad?
Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's the one with the really heavy back.
Yeah.
Although I don't like the paper. But on the other hand, you know, I just wrote an article about how even though I love journals and I love, I love great and expensive and beautiful notebooks, the truth is a cheap legal pad is probably the best way to run your day because you, because it's cheap, you don't care and so you don't hinder yourself and you don't worry about being neat and you do stupid crap. If you could look at mine right now, you would say how in God's name do you read that? And so that's. It allows you to be creative during the day where you're going along. So even though I have a crazy stupid method for what I put on it at the beginning of the day, in the morning as I go through the day, it just becomes an insane like piece of weird art. Pomo art.
Yeah, yeah. I, I really, really love one of my favorite notebook notepads. Is that Ampad gold fiber notepad, the one that has the spiral binding at the top and that like, almost like. Oh, I don't even know what to call it. Like a particle board. That's not it. Like the old timey cover, that press board. That's what it's called. Love those. I think they're. They look so good, but like that. Yeah. The legal pad too is like. And it's pretty good for pencil. It's pretty fibrous and toothy.
It is very nice for pencil. Absolutely. For a fountain pen. I just have one bleed through to the very.
Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. Yeah.
By the end of a year. By the end of. I say a year. I get one every month. By the end of the month, the very last page looks like some weird reverse constellation. Just dots everywhere.
Yeah.
Cool. So for our first question, why don't you if you would please tell us a little bit about your professional background and how it relates to your personal relationship with stationery. It's a little nosy.
Do you have a. Do you have a close personal relationship with stationary?
Stationary?
Assuming your relationship. Stationary is person.
Stationary is my copilot.
Stationary has affected my life in the following way. We're gonna have an intervention pentuention. Oh, my God. A new podcast. So here's the deal. I've been writing since before you guys are born and I'm assuming. And I started working at a daily newspaper in the late 80s and I've been doing that kind of thing ever since, off and on with strange ventures into service industries and retail. But I have always kept a notebook. And recently I was, you know, a couple of years ago when the Moleskine craze kind of hit and, you know, or reemerged, I guess you could say. I thought I should really upgrade my notebook game. And so I went out and I bought a Moleskine and, you know, one thing led to another and pretty soon I was buying Faber Castells with the weird metal cap and I was, you know, buying strange sticky notes and crazy highlighters and I was YouTubing videos about how to sharpen your pencil. I've used a journal every single day for a million years. And my preferred journal used to be a national. A national narrow ruled IES paper and a notebook. And it was a. Called A33 004. And it's a perfect size and I loved it. It was spiral bound. But once I got my hands on, you know, a luchtiderm and a moleskin, there was no Going back? Yeah, Yeah. I use notebooks in my profession because nothing works better than a notebook for capturing ideas. And when you're. When you're in the field and you're doing a story, I interview a lot of people. And so a lot of times what I'm doing is I'm letting the recorder go while they're talking, and I'm having just a regular conversation with them like we're having now. But in my notes, I'm writing down. I'm looking at the meter on the recorder, and I'll write down, like, 23.04. He said this one thing about wine, and I know later on that's going to be part of the story, and I can go right to it, and I'll get thoughts and write you questions and stuff and, you know, just crazy ideas and weird quotes. The other day, I was at a press gig at a giant German restaurant here in Chicago. It's a Hofbrah house. It's ginormous. Like 2,000 people can drink beer in it. And they were all there, and it was their sixth anniversary, and, you know, they have the Oompapa band, and everybody's in lederhosen, and there's free beer. So I was professionally inebriated. I was not casually inebriated.
It's your duty.
I was. I was. I had an obligation. Yeah, I was about six obligations into my obligation, and I was having a good time and. And they brought us a plate of something. And my wife said, what is that? And I said, it's vegetarian. She goes, but there's bacon in it. And I said, it's German vegetarian. And I wrote, and I thought, that's going to go in the story. So I wrote it down on a little paper and I quoted, made it into the story. And that's why notebooks are important, man. You got to capture those moments. Because if you rely on. If you had to open up, I'm just going to not say a brand, but an application, and then thumb type that crap into there. It wouldn't be the same.
Yeah, cool. So really, you're here to talk about today, about signatures and perfecting a signature and creating it. So as. As we all know, it is 2019, and we use our faces and our fingers to unlock our phones, which are the gateway to our entire lives, really. So why. Why are you interested specifically in signatures?
Well, I think a signature is one of the places where we get to be real on paper. And when you. When you. First of all, I always say that you draw your signature you don't really write your signature because the signature is not exactly prose signature, it's almost an ideogram or something. And if you don't really write your signature, you draw your signature. And. And so when. When I draw my signature anywhere, whether it's on a check or if I'm signing a book or something like that, it's important. And because I'm. I'm giving, like, if I'm. If I'm signing a book. And this is where all this comes down to me signing books. If I'm sending a book to a guy, he's going to come back and look at that signature at some point, you know, and it. That's what is going to define me as much as the contents of the book. And. And so, you know, I thought to myself, starting to go by the name Bull in my bylines. I need to. Actually, I'm signing all my books, Chris Garland, and it's weird. And so I decided to change my signature for a second time in my life and learn how to draw as the signature for Bull Garlington. And I have to tell you, it was not easy.
Yeah, you got to, like, reprogram that into your muscle memory and everything that's. I think of when I think of signing. As far as, like, book signing, one experience that sticks out to me is I saw the. The writer Michael Chabon speak in Michigan, and he. I still. I. I still. Yeah, absolutely. And I still remember his thing. I can still see it in my head. I mean, I still have the book, of course, but I watched him sign it, and then I saw him just do this little thing where he. He looked up and he looked in one direction and kind of, like, decided, yep, that's the way. And then he pointed an arrow and made a little compass and.
And wrote north on the arrow.
It was just like. Because the book he was writing was. Or that I got signed was Maps and Legends, his book of essays. And so he was, you know, it was like his little compass rose that he was putting on his signature. And just that little thing. I mean, it just, like, made it. I can still picture that signature in my head always. I actually just saw on Instagram that he's signing his new book Bookends, and he's drawing bookends onto his signature, like, on either ends.
Oh, that's all.
It's the thing. And it's. The weird thing is it's a tangible, intangible thing, right? Because. Okay, it's portable intangible in the sense that it exists. It's in a book. But what's really valuable about it is what you just said, that story. And that's the intangible part of it, you know? And I've seen authors that just sign just the weirdest, strangest, loopy dump as fast as they can, sometimes not even looking at the page. That's not. I don't like that. You know, when a guy comes up. When somebody comes up to my table and. Or the back of my car or just an alley somewhere, wherever I'm signing books and they say. And they hold it out for me to sign, that's like one of those weird Japanese business card ceremonies. You know what I mean? It's a little bit of a ritual. And so I want them to see me do I want to take my time? Would I do it? And. And if I ever actually get famous and there's a lot of people in line, it's gonna be like, three days for them to get through it, because
it's like David Sedaris, right? And they say David Sedaris will spend, like, five hours signing books and stuff after reading. That'll be you.
Yeah, yeah.
Take your time and enjoy it. Yeah, yeah. So, like, why do you think.
I mean, you've.
You've kind of hinted at this a little bit, but how would you. How would you explain why having that little piece of writing that represents us is so important? Even in the digital age, like, even today, when we sign for our taxes with a code number or whatever, we have these little things that we do to sign that aren't that our mark? Why is it still important today?
This is the best question, and because this is, I think, what matters most about a signature and about writing in general, but particularly signature. And that is that. And I'm about to go deep here. Okay? When you. When you sign your name, when you draw your signature on a page, you're creating something that never existed before. You did that, and you are literally carving your logos into the real world. You're engraving the real world every time you sign your name. And I think that it's important to develop. By developing a. I love what you said, a signature. Signature, then you actually add important ritual to that moment. And so every single time you sign your name, your signature. Signature, signature properly, when you put your mind. When you're mindful about it, then for that three and a half seconds it takes you to do that, that's a moment that's kind of in a weird way, out of time. That's. That's a little bitty meditation on paper. And I think that there is enormous value in that. The phones that we carry around, as powerful as they are, they don't. They don't give anything meaning. They can only carry data and they can carry stories, and we can read a story and there's meaning in it, but the meaning didn't come from the device, and the meaning didn't come from using the device. The meaning came from somebody who wrote the story and you reading the story. That's where the meaning occurs. But when you write your signature, there's meaning right there in that moment. And I think that's why it's important to really think about that. That's a part of your life that you're going to do a lot. Especially if you're a person who is, you know, out in the world doing speaking engagements, book signing, you're going to sign your name a lot. You should take control of that. You should take ownership of it, and you should also take responsibility.
That's a great answer. Yeah, well put.
I'd also like to sell you guys some essential oils. If we have some moments, the more deep stuff I can talk about.
So as we're sort of moving into more super specifics of signatures, so I guess this is the most general specific question. What are some specific elements that you think are, you know, essential for a great signature?
Well, I think it's. You have to remember that it's a signal, it's a symbol. It's not really words, like we said earlier. So I think uniqueness is important. And that uniqueness doesn't mean it has to be some crazy thing like what Picasso does. Uniqueness means that it is singular. And even if it's beautifully neat and perfect Spencerian script, that's unique, that's your signature. It's not like anybody else's. And it's not just a plain crappy line. If you put just a little effort into it, then you've got a beautiful, unique artifact that you give to somebody every time you sign that. Readability is important. I think flourish is important. I think illustration makes for a great. Like you talked about, Siobhan, I mean, that guy makes an illustration and all of the signatures. I put an illustration in my signature. I think that that lends it more character. And I don't know, it's. I hate to say brand, because I don't mean it like in the marketing way. I mean it more like in a cattle way. You know, like when you like, have you guys seen my signature? Did I send it to you?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
Well, that was stupid, wasn't it? That would have helped a lot. Right. So it's my name, Bull Garlington. And then underneath it, there's a little symbol. It's a geometric symbol that I. That I made up. That is the. That is a bull's head. And as much as I practice the signature, I also had to practice that. And so I got it down to the most minimum number of strokes that I can do it. And so it says, bull, garland him. And then there's a little bull underneath it. And you know how people put like a horizontal line under their name sometimes a flourish. That's. That's my flourish. And I think stuff like that makes for a good signature.
I'm really curious what makes. What are some undesirable characteristics of a bad signature? And I assume you're just going to talk about everything that's in my signature.
Laziness.
Yeah, you got it. Yeah.
And it is so obvious. And I mean for every day. I mean, for everyday stuff, whatever, you know, I mean, I understand why people have illegible signatures because they're in a hurry. You know, my name, when I spell out my entire name, it has like almost 30 letters in it. All right. It's a lot. I might as well be Polish. It's a long name. And there are times when I. There's no way I'm going to go through the process of signing all those things when I'm in a hurry. I just put a G and put a circle around and go, yeah, that's it. So. But that is. That is lazy. And I can tell you who's got terrible signatures, and it's surprising. J.K. rowling signature is horrible.
Interesting.
It is. It is ludicrous. It looks like she's drunk. It's not even letters. It's not letters. It's not an illustration. It's just like, here is exactly enough ink so that you could say, therefore is a signature, sir, and walk away, but you can't read it.
Yeah, Mine. Mine got really bad when I was in college and right after I worked in admitting in the emergency room. And I would. For every patient that came in, there would be like three different forms, and then they would sign it, and then I would sign it. So I was signing my signature hundreds of times a night, and it sort of just sort of devolved into this capital A and capital W in the. Than. Like a. Like a squiggly line.
Yeah.
I mean, if you said that out loud. What would it be? It'd be like if you went out in the world, right? If you went out in the world and someone in your. Okay, let's say you're at Starbucks and you reverse Starbucks entirely. This is what's going to happen now. And they go, what would you like? And you go. And you know, and they just stare at you like you do when they call your name because they don't know what you're saying. You just sound like an insane person. Well, your signature, when it's lazy, that's what it's doing.
Yeah. My students at school, these kids, I need to get them on the. On the bandwagon here and get them to work on their signatures because I have some kids that I was like, hey, you have to sign this to say that you got this form or whatever. And they'll just like, write it in print. They'll just write, oh.
It's like, because why?
Because we don't teach cursive anymore. And they're also. They might be lazy, too, but that's possible.
Well, you know, another thing besides laziness is indifference.
And.
And that's part of laziness. But, you know, I. I am. I'm going to tell you somebody has a terrible signature and it's going to astound you and you're going to be sad afterwards. I just want you to be prepared to be sad. But David Bowie's signature was horrible.
Oh, no.
Right?
It was bummer. It was the most indifferent, lazy, inconsequential, scribble artifact you'll ever see. It is dumb. And I am a freak about David Bowie. And it is the exact opposite of any great song he ever wrote. It is just useless.
That's a bummer. But.
Yeah, I know. Sad now.
Yeah.
I have to say that one of my just sort of a short jump from. From Bowie is that John Lennon, I feel like, had a strong. A strong signature, especially in that period where he started doing that little, like, almost like single line sketch of himself. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. Like, with the long hair and the glasses. He would draw that underneath the signature.
I mean, how old was he when he did that? He was in his. I think he was in his, like,
late 30s, early 40s.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you ever make it to his early 40s? I could look that up on Google, but I'm not going to.
But I'm on my way. He was 40 years old when he died.
Wow.
Yeah.
There's a period in your life and I think it's in your late 30s or mid-30s, when that's when you. Okay, you. You know, your life goes in seven year stages, right. So it's seven years old, 14 years old. And so there's a period in your 30s where a lot of stuff has happened to you, and it's almost like you're restarting in a lot of ways. You'll find a lot of people in their 30s are destiny. Go out and look for, you know, mystical reaffirmation and, you know, they join the Lions Club and stuff like that. And it's because they're trying to reconnect. Like, all their. Yeah. Their friends have moved away to different places and people are having babies. It's weird. And I think that's when a lot of people begin to think about their signature.
What is my legacy to, you know, to the. To the future.
Right.
And also, you're just old enough. You're just fairly old enough to. About people that are younger than you. And really, that's your signature. You lazy? No. Good. Why?
Lineal.
And to go look at this and then you do something from, you know, 1874 on the page, like, what is. What language is that?
Yeah. So what are. Like, we've kind of already been on this, this, this topic, but what are some of your favorite signatures?
Well, when you. When I saw this question, I didn't want to do the thing where you go online and you find other stuff. I wanted to really think about signatures in my life that, that actually, that I actually discovered were good. And the first one has to be Frank Frazetta. I don't know if you guys are familiar with him, but he is an artist. And if you've ever seen, like, you know, if you ever seen a really great, like, sword and Sorcery book cover, all right, it was probably Frank Frazetta. And the moment you see his art, you go, oh, that guy. And I mean, if you. I know you guys didn't live in the 70s, but there were so many minivans in the 70s that had Frank Frazetta paintings on the side of them. He was just, you know, every pothead had a Frank Frazetta poster in their room or a tattoo or something. And he just had that, you know, he did pictures of. He did all the Tarzan covers and he did.
He did some variant. He did some Dune covers, too, I think, like.
Yes.
Like some sci fi. Yeah. I'm recognizing the stuff.
Style.
Yeah. We could go on a tangent about all the great psychedelic artists of the 70s who weren't actually psychedelic Roger Dean and this guy. But look at his signature, because I know you have it up right now. Yeah, his signature. Cool, man.
Yeah.
That is really.
No, and I was a little kid when I got into Frank Frazetta, and. And. Which my mother didn't appreciate, because also, look at what he's painting.
There's a lot of butts. Yeah.
A lot of.
But, yeah, we don't want to get into that. You want to go where that headed.
Yeah, but.
But that was the first signature that got me, and then right after that was J.R.R. tolkien, because I started reading the Hobbit and. And those books, and. And I. You know, I got into JRR Tolkien, and he's got a really cool signature. It's. It's nothing special, but when you look at it, it's just. I don't know, it feels like him, you know? Know. And then Walt Disney, of course.
Of course.
Oh, yeah.
Which they turn into a whole brain. Yeah, yeah.
Right. Which is, you know, I mean, that's. That's what. It's. That's what a signature can be. Kurt Vonnegut has a. Just a great. Yeah. He draws himself and. Fantastic.
Yes.
And then finally, you really got to go all the way back to the 15th century to Albert Albrecht drawer. He was the guy that did all the engravings that your friends who think you're into alchemy use. And. And his signature was really a. Just his. His. His initials.
This is. It's almost more like a logo mark than a signature.
Yeah, it's like a logo mark, but, I mean, it's still a signature, you know, and.
Yeah.
And I think it's not written, so maybe it doesn't count here, but it was really one of the ones that caught my attention, and I always, always liked it. So those are the ones
one of my favorites is. Or at least recently, like, when we started thinking about this topic and talking about, though, the one that jumped immediate, immediately to my head was that I really love President Obama's autograph or his signature.
Yeah.
Like, when you see how he does the. The really big B, and then it's. And then the O, he overlaps the B on top of the O, so it goes, like, right through the. Through the center of it. I really. I just think that's really, really distinct one. A really memorable one. And as I. Excuse me. As we were talking, I had searched it because I wanted to look it up again to talk about it. And I just texted this to Johnny and Andy, but I found someone online who had taken his Signature and then basically made a drawing out of the lines that he created, which makes it look, it looks like a dinosaur, like playing with a ball of yarn or something. But it actually is the exact out, the exact outline of his signature that kind of took those lines and turned into something is pretty clever. But I think it's a memorable signature.
Yeah, it is. I almost, I almost put it on the list, but I just thought it was like, you know, it's, I didn't want to put on it because I almost had to look it out. I'm a, you know, he's a, I live in Chicago. Obama's my, my jam. And. But here's the cool thing about his signature. Look at it. I know you've got on the screen right now, look at it and think to yourself, what's it going to look like in 20 years?
Right.
Because. Because 20 years from now, he'll have been signing that signature for an awfully long time.
Yeah.
And signatures evolve. Right. And I'm curious to what it's like. And you bring up something weird that I didn't talk about earlier when you're talking about how I made my signature and that is the letter B. So I mean, I, you know, for 30 odd years, 40 odd years, I signed ch, blah, blah, blah. Letter B was simply not something that I ever did in a signature. There's not even close. And so when I started to do Bill Garland, it really hung me up. I had to learn how to learn how to draw the letter to sign the letter B in cursive. And then I had to kind of learn how to do it with a flourish and make it, you know, make it natural. And it took me just, I had pages and pages filled up with that signature and then just with the letter B until I got it down. So it was, it was. Right.
Interesting.
So speaking of your practice, we were sort of going to move the discussion a little more into your. So when you were practicing your signature, can you tell us a little bit about what tools you did you use? Pencils, pens, paper, etc.
So it, you know, it's a lot of things like that are really well planned out and that was one of them. I just one day I was like, yeah, I gotta, I gotta have a new signature. It was about that much thought went into it. And despite whatever I said earlier, earlier, the truth is I was like, crap, that's not gonna work. And I had to do a new signature. And so I was sitting at my desk and whatever was at hand, which was probably a pilot G2 gel pen, which is my backup pen. And. But when I sat down, that was when I first tried it out. Like. Like, can I do this? And. But when I finally kind of like, okay, here's. Here's phase one, you know, and I kind of got the hang of it. I did go back to the Blackwing 602, and I. I got a whole box of the Palominos, and. And I use them rarely because I just. I consider them a precious resource on my desk. Right. Yeah. And so. So here's. Here's. I'm sitting here. I actually have the whole practice thing in front of me right now. Not the actual pages, but what I did. And so it's that. Oh, what is the name of the. The Brass. The Rupert the Mobius and Rupert Bullet.
Oh, yeah, the Brass Bullet. Yeah.
I had that, and I had the Black Wing, and I had my legal pad and some of my 3304s, and that's what I used. And. Because I wanted. The thing about the. The Black Wings is that I like the way they degrade while you're practicing. Right. Because it gave the signature some. Some interesting evolution as I was doing it. And I got to see it in different ways simply because lead degrades.
Yeah.
And. And so. And then, you know, once I. I got it to where I liked it, you know, it was me obsessively sharpening, like, every fourth letter, so it'd be perfect. But ultimately I had to move to, you know, the. To my pens. And it's a pilot Metropolitan I used after that until I got it down. Right. And then I realized I couldn't use my pilot Metropolitan when I'm on premises because it. I'm going so fast, it would rip right through the page.
Yeah.
Really, like, ultimately, I have to use a Sharpie.
Yeah.
And I think books are crap.
That's why I think a Sharpie is probably too something. It kind of degrades over time. Like, I feel like I've seen, you know, authors, when they sit down for, like, a book signing session, you know, they have three or four sharpies with them because the point just kind of, like, eventually wears out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And also, I mean, they smell great. So you want a lot.
Yeah, exactly. Shove them all up your nose. So this is a podcast, after all, about pencils and what pencils make good pencils for signing things. I don't know if you have specific pencils in mind, but, like, also just characteristics. Like, to me, something like, you know, like a original Black Wing, an Original Palomino Blackwing. The MMX is like, nice and dark and kind of like now I'm mad, like, soft. Yeah.
I don't have an mmx. Yeah. And I'm kind of mad about that because I think you guys should have sent me like a box of stuff.
That's true. Yeah. Like sign your name with all these things.
No, I. I don't have. I don't have that. Now I'm gonna have to go out and buy a box, so. Yay, more money from you guys. Thanks a lot.
Well, you can go. If you go to. If you go to Greer in Chicago, you can get them by the single.
Are you in Chicago?
No, I've been to Chicago a bunch of times, but Greer. Yeah.
So I don't sign my name in pencil. I mean, who does, really? Except for that weirdo that you talked about a minute ago. You don't sign your name in pencil. Sign your name and pen.
It's true.
And so, I mean, I don't think there really is very many. I would, you know, I would put. I would put the Archer. I really like the Baron Fig Archer a lot and. Wait, is that right? Is it the Baron Fig?
Yep.
Yep.
Yeah, I like the Archer a lot. I think it's a cool pencil and I think that it. I think it. It leaves a really good lead line on the page.
Yeah.
And. And so I like that one a lot. But I'm. Man, I'm in the 602 camp all day long. Yeah. That's the pen that I love more than anything.
I would be interested in seeing a Koh I Noord Triograph sign because it's like this big fat triangular pencils. Yeah, it's a sharpie of pencils. And I would be really interested to see. It'd probably be kind of smudgy because it's pretty soft too.
Oh, man. Yeah, it's like the poster marker of pencils.
Yeah.
I mean, is there value in finding in pencil? I mean, I guess visually, if you find a pencil that gives your signature, its signature look, then yeah, you would want to do that. But imagine. Okay, so imagine if you're an author and you're at a book signing, you're going to do it in pencil. You need to have like 40 of them and you need to have the right sharpener, you know?
Yeah. Well, if it's a. I mean, if it's something like that or in a book, like, you probably don't want to use pencil because the first friction will kind of rub it off. But if it's something where you're signing a document that won't be moving around very much like it. You know, it's better than ink, Right. It doesn't fade. It's mineral on paper, so it's. It's kind of archival quality, kind of by default. So.
Yeah, you never know if the. If they see you pull out a kind of a unique pencil, like an odd thing, they've never seen that. That could add to kind of the story of the signature too.
Right.
Like, yeah. Them seeing you pull out and being like, yeah, it was kind of cool. He signed it and saw him use a. He used this crazy pencil with the flat eraser on the top. I don't know what it was, but it was. Yeah. It was obviously there on purpose.
I'm a relentless merch freak. And if. If. If I was gonna do something like that, then I would. I would buy them in bulk and I would sell them, buy the pen I used to sign my name. Shameless and horrible. But, yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess if we're. When. When you're signing with signatures, are there any kind of, like, accessories that kind of go with it? You see people who have, like, I don't know, little extra things with them when they're signing, whether it's blotter paper or certain things that you just kind of need to have by. Or had. Have as backups or things like that. Yeah. Does that. Does anything cross your mind in that category?
Well, I mean, I think there's a point where you're getting sort of like, you know, steampunk extra. I mean, if you have to.
Briefcase, you open up.
Yeah. Like a little wooden thing. It's got a bunch of locks, and
it's like a whole.
You know, it sounds like you're playing music when you open it because there's so many things to do. It's like a percussion thing, and you take out a monocle and a pink hat.
When Neil Stevenson signs his books, he has. He has this with him. A broadsword and.
Yes.
Yeah.
He sharpened his pencil.
All right, now we. Tangent, because you just talked about my favorite person, Neal Stephenson. Oh, my God, I adore that guy. I think that his. Of course, I can't think of the name of the three books that he did of the.
Yeah, you're right. I can't think of anything.
The Byzantine Trilogy.
Yeah.
Such. Excuse me. Extraordinary writing. I mean, really and truly. You know, I mean, there's a lot of sci fi and fantasy and stuff. You go, that's really good. But secretly going, I would, I would not tell my real friends I read that, you know, and. But with him, man, it just. It surpassed the genre, really, the way that great sci fi and fantasy books can. And everything he writes definitely borders on literature, but those in particular definitely moved over. I would. I would love to see how he signs his name. I never even thought about that till just now. And it probably is with a broad sword.
Gotta look that up right now. Oh, I think you would be disappointed.
No, just stop. Let's go to the next subject.
I won't.
Yeah.
I don't think that. I think that even though everything I said about this signature, even though I really have thought about it that much, there's a point at which it's. It's overkill. And I think you have to bring accessories. There's. Even when, you know, the president signs a document, he's got like seven pens, but it's just a pen. There's nothing else. And, you know, I think at some point, like blotter paper, I mean, let's get real fancy. It's, you know, if I see somebody break out a corner quill, I'm like, really, man? There's a point of diminishing returns.
Yeah.
And so I don't think you. I don't think you should have. Because here's the. Here's the deal, man. The value of the signature is not in the. Is not in the material.
Yeah.
So your signature should work just as well with a. With a Faber Castell as it does with a burnt match. It just. It's not in. Whatever you're writing with or whatever you're writing on is the act itself. It's all that you use and that you employ when you make that mark. That's the important part. Everything else is distraction.
Yeah, that's interesting.
So sort of wrapping up our personal talk. So you mentioned lots of practice, and I guess the flip side of laziness being the importance of effort. What would you suggest to pencil fans out there listening to this podcast who might want to get started sort of perfecting their own signatures?
Well, learn how to write curses. Yeah, I think that's important. But don't use the Spencerian practice books. Spencerian handwriting, even though it's gorgeous. You're not creating a doctorate degree that you're going to hand to somebody here. You're not doing calligraphy. And Spencerian cursive is just. It's really hard. And it has the strange, brutal unnaturalness that was kind of common in the 19th century that, like, manifest Destiny thing where, like, I will make the world bend to my will, including my handwriting. And it's too hard to learn. There's a method called, oh, now I should have had this up. It's called the italic method. And the two women that are calligraphy experts that actually put it together, they still have a website and a school and books and everything, so you can look it up. And they have a really simplified version of cursive that is easy to read, easy to learn, easy to practice, and it makes a lot more sense than old style cursive. But you need to learn cursive. And despite the fact that Picasso didn't write in cursive and some other people didn't, it doesn't matter. You do need to. And so that's the first thing is that. And then the second thing I think is, I mean, you have to ask yourself why you're, why you're thinking about your signature and why you want to do something with it. You know, is it because you're an author? Is it because you just want to redefine yourself? And if so, what does that mean? And how does that affect the letters that you put down on the page? And, you know, and are you going to have an illustration and, you know, what kind of flourish is you going to have? Are you going to John Hancock this thing? Are you just going to, you know, Charles Darwin in. I mean, there's, you know, there are choices to be made. How big is it going to be? Where's it going to fit? You know, is it going to be loopy and weird with a daisy over the eye? Or is it going to be, you know, crypt and manly and blockish? I mean, those are all the things you have to decide. But once you decide, then you got to knuckle down and practice it. You really do. You have to. If you journal, which I hope everyone listening to the podcast journals, then at the end of your journal entries, sign your name and your new signature. You know, do it two or three times. And every once in a while, when you got a few moments, fill up a whole page. And because what you're doing is developing muscle memory in your hand, and there comes a point where it's just like practicing a musical instrument or anything else. You no longer have to think about it. And when you're at the point where you don't have to think about it anymore, that's when it becomes a signature. Yeah, that's a damn good quote. That's what you should put up front.
There we go.
So does anyone have any other questions for Bull or anything we want to talk about?
I'm interested if there's anything we. We missed. Bull, that you. You want to make sure to mention about this.
Gee, that's. You know what? That's. I asked that same question to interview every interview I do, and I've never thought about how to answer it.
Tables are turned. Yeah.
Oh, no, I don't. I think I forgot to mention where I write. But you're going to have it like in your podcast or on your page, so that doesn't matter.
Oh, yeah. When we wrap up, we'll make sure to ask where people can find you and find your stuff.
So I think that I just, you know, people should look up the benefits of writing and they should look up the benefits of doodling, and they should look up the benefits of using a beautiful instrument. Even if it's a three and a half dollar black wing, it's still a beautiful instrument that people have put enormous amount of thought into creating just so that you can make marks and so use it and make marks. And even if you're just doing goofy, dumb stuff on a page, there's. I wrote about it in an article and I called using a beautiful pencil. I wrote specifically about the black wing in the. In a pilot Metropolitan. And I said that that to have two great instruments on hand means that whenever you use them, you are engaging in brief luxury. When you write with a black wing, you guys know this. It is a luxurious moment, and it's micro luxury because you just write in the letter, you know, Q. But it's still just for that brief moment you're engaging in luxuriously creating a beautiful image with a beautiful instrument. And that's just so valuable. And it has to add. The more you do it, the more it has to add to your daily joy. And you can make a poster out of that if you want to, but I think it's a real thing.
Yeah.
So write more.
Write more. Yeah, we definitely are not going to disagree with that.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Well, that was fun. I didn't guess as much as I usually do, so I hope you.
There's always next time.
Yeah, don't worry. I took down the timestamps of when you cuss so I can. So I can typewriter bill it out.
Like, I have to say a brief story before you go. And that is this author event way out in some suburbs somewhere. And I didn't know that there was somebody doing a podcast and they said, will you come on our podcast? I was like, yeah, sure. And I just really wasn't paying much attention, and I really didn't care that much. And there were people in the room that were laughing, so I was kind of performing a little bit, you know, and, yeah, it was a little bit more like stand up than it was answering questions. And I got an email from him later, and they said, listen, we love the broadcast of Wicked on tv. We will never put it on the air. We will play it. We will play it at Christmas parties. But if we had taken out all the curse words, we would have had about seven or eight seconds of usable air time.
Nothing.
Like they said, thank you for a great. A great broadcast we could never use. Okay, I need to work on that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for talking with us, Bull. This is great. Yeah. It was good to meet you.
Yeah. Can you tell folks where to find you on the Internet and social media also, if you like? Yeah.
Bullgarlington.com is my website. And then my Instagram is also Bull Garlington. And if you're confused, just look for the big blue hat with the horns. Long story, but I am often. I often walk around in downtown Chicago wearing basically the Fred Flintstone stone cutters hat because I like to be stupid on purpose. And in Facebook, it's at just look up Bull Garlington or Gebo or if you want to join my secret society. Right. Write this down with your pen on good paper. It's called the Greater Chicago Astrophysicist and Big Game Hunters Music Appreciation Society. Yeah, we do. Well, the way that you join is usually in a bar somewhere and you have to repeat it back correctly after hearing it one time, which no one ever does, which is fun.
And it's a very small society.
Yeah.
There's about 40 of us. And we go out and do. The next thing is in June, and it's called Bill Garlington's Goddamned Impossible Scavenger Hunt. And. And that's really what it is. And it is quite literally impossible. We just go out and wear funny hats and drink together. So check it out. All right,
So.
And that's Andy and Tim. Do you want to.
Oh, yeah, I'm not leaving.
Yeah, sorry. In the same vein, Andy and Tim, do you guys want to say where folks can find you on the Internet?
Sure. I am in woodclinch.com and Andy, WTF? You can find me on Facebook and Instagram as a Wolfley. How about you, Tim?
You can find me on Twitter, Timwassom. And I'm on Instagram @timothywassom and @membership pod.
So you can find me@pencilrevolution.com more often lately and on social media at PennSolution. We are the Erasable podcast. You can find us at Erasable Us. Like wouldn't take Johnny.
Come on, Johnny.
So yeah, you find this episode episode 112 at erasable us 112. You can find us on social media at erasablepodcast. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com groups erasable, which is reason enough to have a Facebook account and indeed for Zuckerberg's endeavor to still exist anymore. Thank you for tuning in. Press your signature and we'll see you for our next episode in which we talk about paint, markers and fountain pens.
Do you like our podcast?
Most people like our podcast, but if you like our podcast, David will turn it off. That was a surprise to me.
That's a cluster.
I assume you edit this out a lot.
Well, sometimes I leave it in because it's really funny. But yeah, I might actually have made it.