This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Like, I know what I should do when I'm podcasting. Drink bubbly water.
Seems like a great idea.
Hello, and welcome to episode 119 of the erasable Podcast. I'm John Gamber, your official unofficial host for the evening. And I'm joined by the hottest co hosts that a co host can ask for. Andy Welfle and Tim Wasem. How's it going, gentlemen?
Hello, John.
Hello.
How can you both be official and unofficial?
I contain multitudes.
Okay,
you guys, I think you guys both read the article the Yorker about Walt Whitman. No, no, he's our boy. Oh, okay.
What is that?
Put that in the Fresh Points.
Yeah, it's about the. Just a really quick thing they wrote about the 200th birthday. Oh, cool. How you shouldn't go to any of the things in New York. You should just read his poetry.
Like, okay, cool.
Saved myself a lot of money.
Whitman wouldn't go to those things.
Yeah, but what. What Whitman do. That's a lot of W's.
Oh, my God.
Lie in the grass and talk about, you know, www.
We know that he would sharpen both ends of his dicks and pencils. We talked about a couple of episodes ago. So that's cool. So it's summer, which usually means new releases. And we usually like to do our summer release schedule, but only Blackwing has released their summer stuff, so we'll split it up. But field notes, like, I don't know if they've ever done this before. They said on July 8th we're going to unveil them. So maybe they were getting a lot of emails and they were just like, please, people, shut up and wait till July 8th. Like July. Still early summer, but so we could talk about Black Wings today and hopefully field notes next time and write notepads. Hopefully at some later date. That would be good. But it's been a few weeks since we've put out some audio graphite. Goodness, we gotta find a German word for that. But. So we'll just do a cool freshpoints episode and we have lots to talk about. And it's not like we couldn't spend an entire episode talking about every new Blackwing release, especially a cool one like this one. So shall we jump in and get started and start with Mr. Andy or. I'm sorry, Andrew.
Andrew.
Hello, Andrew.
Well, we just got done watching the first season of Gentleman Jack.
Did I?
I think we talked about this last time, right?
I think so, Yeah.
I think so.
Because I thought on. I was looking on HBO and saw it up there. I was like, oh yeah, that's the
one Andy was talking about.
So yeah, we talked about it.
Andrew.
Sorry.
One more ringing endorsement for Gentleman Jack. It's really good. I guess my other two things that I'm consuming are both like kind of San Francisco related. There's a movie, the Last Black man in San Francisco, which is an indie film that won a few awards. It's really good. It's about, about San Francisco and gentrification and you know, just, just a little also bit, just bit about like, you know, family roots and just like telling your. Your family story. I was expecting something really kind of low budget indie because it's kind of an indie film. But it is beautiful cinematography and of course it's set against like the backdrop of San Francisco, which is, you know, hard to make look ugly. But it was really good movie. Definitely recommend it. It was kind of meta seeing it in San Francisco. We were watching at the Alamo Theater, which is in the Mission and has this big bright green marquee on it. And one of the scenes is set in this real estate office that is across the street from that theater. You can see the marquee through the window. So it's just really weird watching a movie and seeing the theater in which you're watching the movie.
In the movie, see yourself walking into the theater and you're like.
And then you fall into the movie.
Exactly.
Where did Andrew go? There he is. Help me.
Do you ever see Spaceballs when there's like, you know, they're watching Spaceballs the movie and they can. Where they're in. They're in the movie. What we're watching now is. Now. The other thing I started watching is just popped up on Netflix I think last week. Tales of the City, which is based on an old Armistad Maupin book and book series just about San Francisco and about a bunch of people who live there. And this is the 20 years later follow up to a movie made in the 90s with Laura Linney about Tales of the City. So it's also filmed and has lots of really great sweeping shots of San Francisco. And yesterday we went to the grocery, went to a Safeway and then went back home and sat down and made dinner and then watched it. And the big opening shot sequence was right in front of that Safeway that we were just at an hour ago. So that's really, really weird to see. But that's a really good show. It's a really good, I think, update to the original book and the original series, which had a very 1970s kind of like quippiness about it. So it's great. And I'm writing with my Blackwing 10, which we'll talk about a little later in my. Actually it's in my. The remaining pages of my. The James Brand field notes that I'm finishing up before July 8th rolls around. So Timothy, how about you?
Well, thank you, Andrew. I am almost done. The first thing I was going to bring up is the Deadwood movie. Did either of you ever watch Deadwood on hbo?
I didn't and I should.
Oh, it's so good.
Okay.
It's so good. It's one of my, one of my all time favorite shows. I've watched it a couple times. I borrowed the DVDs from my brother in law and kept him for like three years because I just kept watching it. I eventually did give it back, but the. So the movie that's on HBO right now, it just came out like three weeks ago maybe. Definitely. It hasn't been very long, less than a month. And the show went off the air in 2008. The. The movie takes place 10 years later. So it's just like stays in time.
Yeah.
When a couple, a couple characters are coming back to Deadwood and then the whole town kind of falls into its similar patterns that it had known back in the old days of the show. So it's, it's excellent so far. I like 30 minutes left, but I can't imagine it ending poorly. And it's like a 98 on rotten tomatoes for that's worth anything to any of you. But it's really good. So I'd recommend that. I'm reading. We've talked about Fire Season on here a couple times. I know Johnny, you're a fan of it and I read it fairly recently and it became one of my favorite books I think ever. I just really enjoyed that. And that was by Philip Connors. That was a book about being a fire watcher in the Gila National Forest. And so he's come out with a follow up to that which he's. They're calling a direct sequel which is called A Song for the River. And he's writing about three, like just some traumatic stuff that's happened in his life basically like since that last book he went through a divorce. A close friend and fellow fire watcher was killed on a ride with his horse out into the Gila. And then a young woman who like she's like 15 or something but was an activist trying to help save the Gila river. That's going to be dammed up soon that died in a helicopter crash.
Oh, God.
And so he's, he's processing those three things that have happened and then also writing about focusing not just on the whole, like Gila Forest, but on just the river and like the conservation of the river. And so far it's, it's. I mean, the writing is just as beautiful as you'd expect. If you've read Fire Season. It's, it's really, really gorgeous. Actually was going to read for you guys. The. It's one of my, it's like one of my favorite first sentences, any book. It's just like you read the first sentence of this and it's just jam packed with so much. I mean, just emotion and good writing. So here's, here's the first sentence. After illness and divorce did a number on my body and soul. After wildfires burned the mountain and an airplane fell from the sky, after a horse collapsed on my friend and two hip surgeries laid me up for the better part of a year, loss piled on loss. Pain layered over pain. I found I wanted nothing so much as to be near moving water. So it's a really gorgeous first sentence of a book. So.
So, Tim, your, your reading, your reading voice is really good. You do that on the membership a lot, so thanks.
I do it a lot at school. I read like entire books out, so I guess I get a lot of practice. But thanks. Yeah, I, I'm really enjoying that book. I really, I couldn't recommend it anymore. Philip Connors is. He's climbing my list of just special living, you know, young writers out there. I've also been reading Run the Red Lights, which is the most recent poetry collection from Ed Skoog, one of the co hosts of the Lunchbox podcast, which I've talked about on here a few times. I just was wanting to read some poetry and so I picked up that newest one and it's, it's really fun. It's really good, really good book of poems. I initially found out, of course, on the, on the podcast, but he read an excellent poem on the podcast called Grateful Dead Tapes, which caught my attention. So I was like, I'll see what the rest of the collection's like. And that one's really good, but I think some of the other ones in the collection are even better. So that's really good. And lastly, and I don't have a whole lot to say on it, but I just started watching it last night. I'm late to the game, but I started watching Veep and it is super funny. So Tony Hale is awesome. That's the Buster from Arrested Development.
I don't know if I will ever be able to see him act in a show and not just think it's Buster.
It is pretty close, though. It's like. So it's this character is. It's Buster. If Buster didn't spend, like, 11 months in the womb. Like, if. If Buster was born on time when he was supposed to and had, like, the same neurosis, but a really good memory because this is. He's basically the body man for the vice president. And so he's, like, kind of an incompoop in a lot of ways, but. But he remembers everything. And he's. And he's actually super helpful. So it feels like Buster, if Buster wasn't like a cartoon character, you know,
like, I'm a monster.
Yeah, it's really funny. And one of the first few episodes, he, like, gets their. Their rasing him for, like, you know, would you take a bullet for the vice president? And he's like. It's like, well, I mean, it's not in my job description. I wouldn't do that. Like, I'm not going to do that. But then finally he gets embarrassed, and then somebody with, like, a viral infection, like, almost sneezes in her face, and he, like, dives in the middle of him and he's like, I did it.
I took a bullet.
Not bullet. For the end. It's like. It felt like a Buster moment, kind of. It's really good. It's like Parks and Rec in the White House with lots of cursing.
So.
So lots of cursing in my. My recommendations. Deadwood and Veep. Deadwood just.
Yeah.
Makes me want to curse all the time because it's like. It's like Shakespeare with tons of cursing.
So I think Veep is filmed here, I think.
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised.
Two shows.
Yeah. Well, it's a good one. I mean, wasn't the other one like House of Cards? Yeah, Cards. Yeah. Yeah.
So we'll talk about that now.
Never mind. And I am writing with my CW pencils. Baseball. A CW pencils. Baseball scoring pencil. CW baseball scoring pencil. Couldn't figure out the best way to say that. And my gray black wing slate.
Oh, my God. That would bother me. Gotta use a black wing. And the black win.
Just breaking free. Yeah. Awesome. All right. How about you, John?
So, John, if you're following along in Johnny's Mental Health Book Club, you can add to your book club the highly sensitive person, which is like. It's one of those books with a lot of good ideas, but really badly written by the lady that invented the concept of highly sensitive person, where, you know, 15 to 20% of any given species has an overactive nervous system to, like, you know, help the tribe see danger and da, da, da. So it's gone through a lot of addictions.
Don't you mean Snowflake Johnny?
Yeah, but so instead of revising it, she just keeps putting new forwards and pointing out that she's not revising it. So just. It sounds dated and it's all like, you're an HSP and you have superpowers, but it's sort of like the Mensa thing. It's like a certain percentage of people this applies to. It's not like, special. You were born into it. It usually just kind of sucks. But, yeah, if you. If you think you're a highly sensitive person, I guess read it. If you take her test. I don't know how you could not be a highly sensitive person unless you're a zombie the way she writes it. But I also read a book called Overcoming Intrusive Thoughts, which is the current OCD bestseller on Amazon. So if you find yourself plagued by unwanted intrusive thoughts, as opposed to the intrusive thoughts that you like, like, ooh, new field notes coming out. It's one of those books, it's short and to the point and not condescending.
So.
And it's very recent. The research is all current, so that was. It's interesting and helpful book that apparently a lot of people that shop on Amazon are finding helpful. And so we've been on a big kick, like, binging the crap out of Jamestown, the show on Masterpiece about the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, which is. We were talking about this earlier. So violent for a Masterpiece show. But, you know, on the PBS app, they blurred out all of the shit words for some reason. Okay, we can just.
Like an app, guys.
Yeah, Like a musket shot through the chest. And, you know, maggot infested face is not as bad as the word. So they're protecting you. And the interesting is they're not, you know, it's Virginia and not Massachusetts Bay Colony, so there's very little religion and judgment, which is cool except for, like, the second episode. But Jason Fleming, who you might recognize from, oh, help Me Guy Ritchie's films, is in it. He's really good. He plays the governor. He's so, like, creepy and hunched over all the time. And I think season three is the last season that's on. It's coming on this summer. Or if you have a PBS passport on the app, you can watch it all at once, which is exactly what I'm doing. We also watched Love, Death and Robots, which we were talking about, which is a collection of short films on Amazon, many of which are, like, very violent against women.
Yeah.
Like, really, like, I can't believe this came out in 2019 kind of way.
Which was your favorite episode, Johnny Zima Blue.
Definitely. How about you?
Oh, absolutely.
That was perfect.
Just the, like, style of that. That, like, every single scene was just like this, like, well composed artwork. And it was that same kind of like. Like wispy, kind of ethereal future kind of like, like, you know, future voice they used as well. That was really good.
Yeah. So Amazon, Amazon, Netflix doesn't number them, so there are a couple different orders that you'll get randomly assigned. So if you just, you know, they're 10 minutes long or so. If you just watch it and just let that thing happen on Netflix where it skips the. Yeah, the credits, then you have no idea what's coming next or what it's supposed to be about. So you just, you know, sort of sit through all of them, including the few that weren't very good.
Yeah.
But on the whole life, they were super enjoyable. And then being short, there are no. There's no boring part of it. So the whole time you're like, oh, crap, two and a half hours just went by. I need to go to bed.
I also really like that one that was. Those people were on a farm and they were defending their. Oh, yeah, that was giant, like, Mecha robots against suits. Yeah, Just the animation style. That reminded me of like, a video game or something. It was really cool.
Yeah, that one had the best twist ending. Besides Zima Blue, I think that was cool. And the one about the Red army was pretty interesting.
Oh, yeah.
So violent. But the animation was amazing.
Yeah. Yeah, that was really great. And the one that you were. The one that you were. I think the one that had the most violence against women and the most nudity was, like, stylistically really great. Like, it was. They, like, shaded in the cells of, like, you know, over something. Like, it was live action and they just sort of like pieced in. It kind of looked like those renderings of, like, the Google. Oh, what's the name of the Deep Dream or whatever. Like that AI like, neural net rendering. Yeah, just like. It was gorgeous animation style, but, like. Yeah, you're right. Lots of, like, you know, like, gratuitous nudity and dead people Yeah, I mean,
I'm not, like, so uptight about nudity, but the episode just seemed like a vehicle for a lady running around with no clothes on, being scared. Okay, this isn't interesting, but, like, it was a really boring story, but. So did you guys watch Good Omens on Amazon? So good. What did you guys think?
Still reading.
So, yeah, after. After watching it. This is not a spoiler, Tim. I think that. I think it's best that. Yeah, like, reading it before the show, I think is the best way to do it because there's a lot of. There's a lot of specific, like, little bits that I think you probably wouldn't catch unless you read it. And then there's also a lot of interesting additions that are not in the books that will be obvious. So. Yeah.
And the book doesn't have David Tennant, who is amazing.
It's true. Yeah. But he and Martin Sheen. Not Martin Sheen, the other one. Michael Sheen.
Michael Sheen. Yeah.
Different Sheen.
Oh, yeah, Martin Sheen. That'd be awesome if he was in there somewhere.
Yeah. They just so good together. They did such a great job.
I saw a pretty amazing tweet from Neil Gaiman responding to somebody who said, it's like something like, God, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett really need to pull it together and write a second one. And he just. He just retweeted and said, I don't know what to say to this or I don't know how to respond to this. Yeah.
Oh, man. I don't want to spoil it for you and talk about it too much, but it was so good. I really, really enjoyed it. And so my last thing we just watched last night, and I thought of you guys. I just saw a film called Genius, which was about the relationship between Max Perkins, who was famous for being the editor for Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, among other people. It was between the relationship between him and Thomas Wolfe, who was played by Jude Law, who. Who is basically like WP Inman on speed with, like, the way he was, you know, chewing up the scenery with his Southern accent. But, you know, Hemingway had a brief little cameo, which was cool.
That's cool. I love Jude Law so much. He's like, yeah, he's never like, somebody who I just, like, adore as an actor, but, like, every single role he's in, I just love so much. And so eventually Katie was like, I think that Jude Law might be your favorite actor. And I was like, it's like, oh, God, I think you're right. I love the young pope. I loved I Heart of Huckabees.
Oh, yeah, that was good.
Two of my favorite, like, Jude Law roles.
And then Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. His opening scene, he's like, F U G D B. We say that all the time around our head.
And even like that Spielberg movie, the A.I.
he was good in that movie.
He was so good at that. Yeah.
Haley Joel Osmond, not so much. I was like, is this kid gonna die? Like, yeah, finally. But where did you watch Genius? Okay, I can help. I can help you with that later.
All right, Sounds good.
Oh, no, you know, it's. It's streaming on the Roku channel. On the Roku. If you want to watch it with commercials.
Piratedmovies biz.
Yeah, but.
Oh.
Max Perkins was played by Colin Firth, who is one of my favorite actors. So that was really good. I had Laura Linney, who I really don't like, and Nicole Kidman was in it, so it was good. And the guy, Hemingway is played by Dominic west. Just like, one scene on a fishing pier. He was in the new Les Mis. Colette. He was in the Wire. Modalisa Smile. He's the guy who's been in, like, everything. And you have no idea what his name is. I know that guy. He was a good Hemingway. He didn't chew it up too much. He did a good job. And Guy Pierce plays Fitzgerald, who spoke well, but doesn't look a damn thing like Fitzgerald because Fitzgerald was so damn good looking. Guy Pierce is not so good looking. So that was.
They should have got Jude Law. He was already.
I didn't know that Thomas Wolf died in Baltimore and so did his father at the same hospital at Johns Hopkins in the same, like, hallway, I think, like, oh, that's crazy.
Attacked by peregrine falcons.
Yeah. I wonder if he's so really. We really have a. Andy sent me an article earlier about pigeons in Baltimore. So, yeah, I live across from, like, this giant colony of peregrine falcons. So we have no pigeons in our neighborhood because it's their favorite snack. But, like, sometimes if they hunt close to home, you'll find, like, half a blue jay. Oh, my God. And that's the logo for the mascot for Johns Hopkins, which is right down the street.
Half a blue jay.
Yeah, it's really gross. Like, there's a wing, like, mid surgery. Yeah, the young ones did. They didn't eat. The whole thing got full.
The Baltimore Orioles.
The fighting. The fighting. Half a Blue jays.
Just half of an oriole, just like on the ground.
That's pretty accurate for the order.
Yeah, that's their season.
Alrighty.
So you want to move on to fresh points, Timothy?
Yeah, let's do it. Let's just get it out of the way and talk about Blackwing Volume 10 right now. So the new edition, if you haven't seen it, is out. Blackwing Volume 10. It is in a beautiful color that is very close to the color of my hair, which I appreciate. It's very kind of sparkling, striking gray. Exactly. And then the, it's so it's a, it's a great addition with an extra firm core, a silver ferrule, and a black eraser. It's in honor of Nellie Bly, who was a famous journalist from the 1800s. She was known for doing this really groundbreaking expose on mental institutions where she reported on them from within the institution, which I guess went on to kind of change how things were done in mental institutions and including calling them mental institutions. So it's kind of an early example or a, a new kind of investigative journalism. And she was also known for doing a trip around the world in 72 days like Jules Verne. So it is. Which we've talked, we've talked about this before, but it's cool to have one. That's another one that's about a woman in honor of a woman and a very talented person. I, I. What'd you guys think of this edition? Love it.
Love it.
I think it's stunning looking. Like, I love that kind of like flat gray. I'm not, I'm not 100 sure. I get, like, newsprint out of that.
Yeah, it said newsprint finish. Is that what they said? Yeah, Yeah.
I thought it was gonna be textured or something.
Yeah.
Which would have sucked. They did another roll on.
The ink is a little, A little runny, which I think is like, kind of newsprinty, but. Yeah, kind of rubs off with friction.
Just tell us you did that on purpose.
Yeah, exactly. I love the way it looks like the silver ferrule and the, like, the, like just less than black eraser, I think. Johnny, you mentioned that they probably could have saved money just by using a black eraser.
Yeah. I mean, I don't see the gray. Frankie sees it. I do not.
Yeah. Jason Patterson, who's been on the show before and also runs the hacklings Twitter account, he called it the brutalist wing because it's very like concrete y and polished concrete.
That's perfect.
I think maybe he was kind of deriding it a little bit, but I'm interested in brutalist architecture, so I enjoyed It.
He put up some cool photos today with different erasers.
Yeah.
In his.
Yeah, I'm a. I'm a big fan of this edition.
Yeah. Like, before I held it, I was already in love with it because the theme is perfect. You just did libraries and now you did journalism. Like, I feel like this is.
Okay, the prevailing theory in the group, which. It's great because, you know, whenever they release the number and there's like a blurred background and people just start, like, you know, doing the, like, A Beautiful Mind calculations.
Russell Crowe just starts mapping it out right on Windows.
There's. There's always the. The theory that's, like the most popular and seems the most obvious. And what's great is it's never the one. Um, this time around, it was Mark Twain. Like, everybody.
How did they get there? I was curious because you guys told me and I didn't see. It's the logic.
Oh, man. There was something.
Especially with all the newspapers in the background.
Like, there's something to do with newspapers which was, you know, he. He sold newspapers on a steamboat and he. Something to do with. There's a picture of the Lusitania in one of the, like, shots that somebody identified. And they thought that that had. Because he apparently did a lot of writing about the Lusitania. Just really liked it. And then also volume 10, there was some connection to that, but I don't remember. What, did he die in 1910? No, I don't remember. There's some connection, but that seemed to be the. The prevailing theory. And so people are saying, like, oh, we're gonna have a whitewash wing where they, you know. Yeah. Like, it's gonna be like, you know, Tom Sawyer painting the fence.
That's cool. This. This is so much cooler.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I feel like for a little while there was like, you know, a lot of paying tribute to people. So then, you know, it become. A lot of. It became a lot of white men for, you know, by accident, I'm sure. But lately they're just, like, going into cool stuff like Mars libraries. I feel like they've turned a corner with their themes, and they're all really good. Not even specific to Lake Tahoe. I guess if they did it now, the number would be Lake Tahoe, but the theme would be like, save the freaking planet or Waters.
Yeah, I think they've had a really good opportunity to sort of user test some of these themes and see what really sticks and see what really doesn't. So I feel like this season or the Season. They don't do season this year has, has been really like, really honed in on their audience. Right. Like libraries and poets and journalists and. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, I think that's true. I think they're kind of getting into the groove.
Yeah.
Which I feel like we've said before, but yeah.
Like the surrealism theme was pretty awesome. I really liked that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think they're, they're getting, getting the idea that we, we like the obscure references a little more. I mean, when I think of like early on we had what, like Bob Dylan was one of them. And, and I mean, I, I think this one, this one was just so cool to me because the pulling the, the number from a title of something, just that little detail was like, oh, that's fun. Because nobody's gonna be able to get that right. Nobody's gonna.
Yeah. And if they were, if, you know, if they were going to do investigative journalism, there are like way more pieces of low hanging fruit they could have gone with. They could have just gone obvious in John Watergate.
Yeah.
But they went back and did something like that most people don't know about was really interesting. Yeah.
That's really cool. And it made me want to read ten Days in a Mad House. So.
Yeah.
And are we allowed to say what the subscriber extra is?
I think at this point we can.
Yeah. It's 10 days in a madhouse made like a newspaper and it has a crossword in the back.
They printed it on like a broad sheet like a newspaper and.
Yeah, that's awesome. I didn't even know that.
Okay.
Yeah, good. I mean, that makes sense.
Yeah. People did a good job not, not saying what that was when I opened it up. Like, what is this? Holy crap. This is awesome.
That's cool.
And I think, Nick. Oh, good.
I had to delete a couple posts from some people posting spoilers.
It's okay.
That's okay.
Yeah, it's all good. Yeah.
Nick at Blackwing said that erasable was going to be one of the clues in the crossword, but I think it got cut. But it wasn't like a reference to the podcast. There was some reference to pencils reference.
Yeah.
That it's even in there is pretty awesome. When I saw that, I'm like, oh my God, like I'm geeking out over this really hard.
I figured that literally right in front of me. You, you guys said that. And then like I'm on their website and it was just kind of mindlessly scrolling up and down and there's like the pictures from the community part. And I kept scrolling past the same picture over and over again, and it was that. That Newsprint, like, of 10 days into my mad house. So there it is.
Yeah. Did you guys order, like, many more boxes already?
I haven't, but I'm thinking about it.
I'm sharing a dozen with a friend here in town, podcast listener friend of mine from college who moved back and we geek out about pencils together. And so we're splitting one. I'm going to try it out, but I think it's. It's pretty likely I'm end up getting one more.
Yeah, it's really pretty. People were saying that it feels harder than the usual extra firm cores. I didn't notice that, but I. You know, people said that the natural. At least the first shipment was a little softer than usual, and I. I think that's definitely true. So I wonder if it could just be, you know, after that. It feels hard.
It's gotta be. It's gotta be the same pencil base because you can see the kind of like, white layer underneath the gray, but maybe not. I don't know. Yeah.
Do you think weather, like a humidity and stuff affect how hard or soft a pencil feels?
Ooh, I don't know because there's wax in the core, but I think Japanese.
Okay.
I'm just curious because I was thinking about how when you're into this kind of stuff, like fountain pens or pencils, you get so good at telling every little thing. Like, I basically. I feel like I can't use fountain pens anymore because I can always find something that's just a little bit off, like where I'm trying to, like, tweak the nib to get it to write a little bit better with certain pens and stuff like that. And pens is the same way I can always have something to say about it. It's like your, Your. Your senses just become so fine tuned to noticing these microscopic, like, differences between. Oh, it's a little bit harder, it's a little bit softer. And sometimes I wonder if it's. If. If it's just in our head because we're so used to looking for details or if there are elements like. Yeah. Humidity and things that. That can make.
Yeah.
Make those differences, like, actually happen in real. In the real world.
Yeah, that's a good point.
We should get a physicist on to talk about pencils, right?
Yeah.
Somebody who, like.
Or somebody. There's gotta be somebody in the group.
Yeah, there's gotta be.
Yeah. We did chemistry. We should definitely do that. That would be cool.
Somebody talked about once, I can't remember, was it Brad, somebody was in Denver, or somebody talked about how fountain pens, like, the ink flows differently in Denver because you're just so high up. That's. Yeah, that's really interesting. Well, I'm out in the. You know, in, like, fair weather in fair dry weather in the Bay Area right now. But I'm going back to Indiana next week, so.
Ooh.
Take notes.
The heat and the humidity. Maybe I'll. I'll do a comparison.
Do like a 1:1 to 100 scale down to, like the third decimal or something. Like, no pressure in. Yeah, it was like a 99.345. Yeah. But when I went to Indiana, it was 99.4.
That could even be an elevation question.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all those different factors. Elevation, humidity, how, like, chubby your hands are. I don't know. There's got to be all kinds of things that make us think we can tell all the differences.
Distance from its place of manufacture, what
you ate for breakfast. Yeah.
Yeah.
Although, speaking of its place in manufacture, I was. Johnny, you. You got your pencils before I got mine. And you live 2,000 more miles away. I think it's like 3,000 from where they're shipped out than I do.
You know, I got no tracking information. I think whatever package it was on came in a direct flight from California. Right to bwi.
Yeah.
Because I was watching, I'm like, no way. And then I'm stuck in the mailman. Like,
Cool.
Yeah, I was happy about that. Sorry.
This is probably one of my. I can't. I don't have the president's mind to think of my other four, but I would say this is in my top five favorite Black Wings volumes, editions. Like, I like the. The very. Just the simplicity of the. Of the colors. Like, it. It look. It looks real good on my MacBook. And I just like. It's extra firm, which I really like. And also just the.
Yeah, the.
The theme is so good. So, yeah, I'm really into this one. They're going to sell out real quick, I think.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yes. I gotta. I'm just dying for mine to show up. I'll probably end up pulling the trigger before it even comes, but they look real good.
So when are they showing up for you, Tim?
I think. I actually don't know. I haven't checked my shipping since. Since I ordered, which is very unlike me. But usually I would have checked it, like, that night and be like, where are they? But no, I'm not sure.
Cool.
I ordered them Saturday, so I'm guessing it's not gonna be till later this week, like Thursday or Friday or something.
Yeah, yeah. That shouldn't take too long.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was volume 10. Also, Caroline from CW pencils. Caroline Weaver asked a really cool question on Twitter that I was gonna. I don't know if you guys saw this. And then I was gonna pose the question to you. And the question was basically, what pencil accessory do you wish existed? Something that doesn't already exist. So her example was she voted for pencil caps on a jumbo pencil for a jumbo. Do you guys have a. An answer to that question? I see Johnny actually saw that you were on here.
So you guys play two minutes ago. Do you. Do you guys play Nerf guns?
That's awesome. Two minutes ago. Do I play with Nerf guns?
Yeah, there's. There's an accessory that's like, basically a wrist bandolier. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That for pencils would be so badass.
And Henry has, like a Iron man one or something that shoots out of his wrist.
Yeah, it shoots. Oh, my God.
Wait, okay, we're talking about Nerf, right? Wait, what?
Yeah, No, I mean, that's like the.
The wrist, they all shoot.
Yeah, no, they make a. A bandolier. Like, it's like.
Oh, it holds the. Oh, sure, sure.
It would hold the nuts. Yeah, that. Okay, awesome. No, if they made a Nerf pencil gun, I would probably kill somebody or myself with it by accident because I have, like, six of them. Hey, kids.
Yeah, so, yeah, that's an interesting choice there, John. I think it would be useful or like. Like under, like a shoulder holster or something.
Well, I was thinking on the wrist, but that would only accommodate small pencils. But if you did it on, like, your. Your upper arm, you could put full pencils there. And if people are like, can I borrow a pencil? You could pull up your sleeve and be like, yeah, take one.
Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Andy, do you have any ideas? Something that I think.
I think I would like a. A long point, like pocket sharpener that wasn't as fussy as all of the other long point pocket sharpeners out there, like the Pollux or the Long point, like the Masterpiece.
Like.
Like something that was as simple as my just like brass bullet key ring sharpener, but gave me a longer point. There's probably some reasons that. Why it can't be like that, because you have to get the point really, really sharp and it has to be fussy.
But, yeah, that'd be cool.
Yeah. Something like that might be like the,
the long point charger from KUM that has the long blade.
Which one is that?
It was magnesium, then it was aluminum and now again. Yeah. And it has like a longer blade and the blade says long point. They're kind of ugly, but they're, they're cheap and they work really pretty well.
Yeah.
So it's not that long.
Yeah. Something like that that I could put on my keychain because I.
That would be cool.
Yeah. Because often I'll. Often I'll sharpen my pencil like at work with my classroom friendly and then I'll be out and about and using it and use my pocket sharpener. And you have to like. Because the, the brass bullet like sharpens so much shorter. Like you have to really, you know, work it down a little bit. But probably something like that.
That'd be cool. That makes me think of, you know, the Faber Castell sharpener that kind of like folds into itself or whatever. Oh yeah, like have that but like with a masterpiece in it. Like something like that that you could sharpen into a container then just close up and put it in your pocket. That would be pretty incredible.
They have the regular comb to hole that you can put in your pocket. It's not as attractive as that though.
It's messier because the holes are still open like to your pocket. Yeah, I guess that's. Yeah. Because this one has like the covering on it. So when you close it up there's a piece of plastic that covers the holes. So that like.
Yeah, I really like that green too.
Yeah, that's good. My, my answer for this. Well, at least to her tweet is I was. Remember when I talked about that global art design pencil case that I got that. Yeah. John Pattinson told me about. It would be really cool to have one of those that was black wing length and, and skinnier. So it only instead of holding like ridiculous 24 pencils or whatever, it just held like a dozen. It was just longer and maybe even with like a little pouch on the outside that you could keep a sharpener in.
Oh, that would be nice.
Yeah, that was my answer. But I said it was a fun question. There were, there are some other answers. Harry. Mark said a fountain pen humidor to keep his inks from drying out on brand. A lot of them are about pencil caps. Yeah. So there's a lot of pencil cap ideas and then mechanical pencil bs. So what? Yeah, but yeah, that was a good one. I like that question. And last lastly, I've got this. This will be quick, but I have a little bit of a notebook existential crisis going on right now.
With your tweet last night?
No, actually. No, not really. I actually just did want to start a new notebook, and I'm happy. It's the. It's the slate, and I'm loving it. But, no, the problem is that. So I've been writing a little more this summer and trying to, like, I'm not going to get too far into it, but, like, get myself back into writing like I used to. And, like, not because I've gotten just so. Because I don't do it for, like, as long periods as I used to. And I've, you know, just distracted with parenting stuff and all that that I. I just wanted to stop, like, get out of my own head, basically. Like, cut loose a little more, which is hard to do these days because I always feel like the time's so precious. But one thing that I noticed is that what makes it even worse for me is writing in notebooks. And, like, writing by hand like, drives me nuts because I, like, I get so fussy about, like, should I use this or should I use this? Or, oh, this just doesn't feel right. Like, oh, I'd be writing better if I was using this other thing or whatever. And so I finally just had to say, like, screw it. So I've been only writing on my computer this summer. I still keeping my notebooks. And I reread that excellent Joan Didion essay on keeping a notebook. Have you guys ever read that? Yeah, I think we've talked about it before. So reread that. So I've been trying to, like, work on how I use my notebook intelligently to, like, gather my thoughts, and then I've been, like, struggling to actually do my writing on paper. Theo is having a very spirited wrestling match with a large stuffed cat behind me. So I don't know if you guys can hear that.
No, I can hear something, but that's. That's adorable. As long as it's not Asha, right?
No, but it looks just like her. They. They gave it to us at the Humane Society. Like, here, you can put this in his crate. Can you hear that?
Yeah, a little bit.
Do it. Yep. He stopped. Now he's just staring at me. He's just Mike shy. Yeah, there he goes. Who cares? What was I saying? Something about it. Something about a notebook. Yeah. Writing by hand has been a problem for me. Jesus.
All right, here.
All right, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna Call it a call that the end of my fresh point so that I can mute and get him out of the room. So, yeah, just be thinking about me with my existential crisis. I'll figure it out.
The world may never know.
Yeah, we'll never know. We'll see if I come back from this. So. All right.
Even here in the first place.
How about you, Andy?
So I know that we talked a little bit about the TWA Blackwing. I think it was the episode when I wasn't here. Right, Johnny? Is that right? Yep. We missed you. I finally bit the bullet and I ordered a pack. It is like so much like nicer than I was expecting it to be. Like, the pictures did. Did it justice. Like that red glossiness of the like paint is just amazing. So I'm. I'm definitely, definitely into these, these TWA Black Wings. I hope they do more like brand, like collaborations like this. And yeah, I just hope we see more of these. I wonder how many of them are out there that we just don't even know about. Right?
Yeah.
Someone I won't name say that this is the first one that's public, but he didn't say it's the first one.
Anyhow, yeah, I'm a big fan of those. Probably just don't need to order like indiscriminate, like, you know, $30 packs of black Wings every.
Every once in a while.
But I'll try to. I try to. I'll try to abstain. I also want to mention I was gifted by my co author, Michael Metz. We finished our first draft of our book and sent it on. Yay. He got me a little like, little like good job present. And it is one of those Leuchtturm red dot notebooks which are really gorgeous. Like, I haven't used the Leuchttur notebook in a long time. But Johnny, have we talked about these notebooks in the show before? I do not remember.
Not that much. We. I had a bullet journal, one that I was disappointed with, but I heard they have batch differences, like moleskin.
Yeah. So this one.
Yeah. By the way.
Oh, hello. Do you exist?
Yeah, I took the. The cat into our like split level stairs and just threw it up to the second floor and he ran up after it.
You're talking about the stuffed cat, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
No. Yes, that's correct.
Shut up, Johnny.
Not the real cat. The only good cat.
Yeah. This notebook. So what's different about it from a regular Leuchtt term, I think is that a. It has like red dot grad It's a dort grid, but it is. They're red. They're red Dorks. And there is an extra bookmark. Johnny or Tim, do the leashmarks have two bookmarks usually, or is it just one?
No, I think that. Do they have. I've only ever had the gigantic one.
They have two in the bullet journal. One had three, which was, like, a lot of bookmarks.
Yeah. Yeah, this one has two. But the second bookmark is striped red. And then the accent color, which is cool. And then maybe my favorite, like, visually striking part is that the. The edges of the pages are red as well. Like the. Yeah. So.
Man, these are beautiful.
Yeah. So he got me the blue and red one, which. It's like a. It's like a deep royal blue. Yeah. I really love that army green one, too, with the red.
The gray one's nice, too. All three of those are pretty.
Yeah, they're super great.
They're not, like, crazy expensive either.
Yeah, that's true. I don't really know how they happened like this, but I'm into it. I'm almost done with the confident I've been using to dig into this thing. So. Yeah, this will be my first real lich term.
Their covers are really nice. They hold up really well.
Yeah.
Versus Moleskins. If you like it worn in, you might like a moleskin.
Yeah.
If you're like a horn and you lay him like a moleskin, just like,
to crack them open. Cool. And last thing I'll mention is I am a sucker for Instagram takeovers, which is like a little marketing thing where kind of like brand collaborations, like somebody or some brand will take over a different person or brand's Instagram account. And this week, Today is Monday, June 24th. And all this week, Musgrave is going to be doing an Instagram takeover for CW Pencils Instagram account, which I think is cool. They've already posted some really great process, process pictures from the factory. I have a feeling that Nicole, our favorite Musgrave marketer, Nicole Delger, is behind this. Yeah, it's really good. I love pencil factory porn. So for sure they've been. They've been hitting it, so it looks really good.
Shut up, Shut up, Shut up.
John.
Andrew. That was a poor choice of words or a very good choice of words.
Or both.
I'm gonna go with good.
Yeah. So that is. That is it for me. How about you, John? John Gamber Jr. Mr. John.
So yesterday, you're the third. I'm a junior.
Okay.
Yeah.
I missed my chance for a Third with Henry, but that's okay. So yesterday, Lenore from RSVP was in town with her daughter. So Charlotte and I went to the harbor, and we hung out, like, all day, which was so fun. We got to go to the aquarium, eat some food. Then the kids ate ice cream. Dippin dots, of course. And we gotta go out in the harbor on a. So you guys know those, like, paddle boats you pedal? They have electric pirate boats at the harbor here that are in the same area. So it's like, you know, high seas, bumper car. It's really interesting. So that was. Yeah, that was really cool.
But if you fall in, you get, like, a staph infection or something.
Yeah.
Scurvy.
The children want to put their hands in the water. I'm like, please don't do that.
Don't do that.
You will come up. Not with your hand. Now it's early in the summer, so the harbor just smells like water right now. But I wouldn't do it in August. Yeah. So that was super fun. And I'm going to Boston next week, and hopefully I'll get to meet up with Less and Dade. So I'll have, like, a whole RSVP tour. So, yeah, if people want to meet up next week, drop us a line in the Facebook group.
Tell us what Lenore is really like.
Lenore's, like, so freaking nice.
Yeah.
He's, like, the most pleasant, awesome person and really funny. Yeah. So, yeah, like, I don't. I don't know if I've ever met anybody in the stationary community that wasn't, like, pretty nice, but Lenore's, like, in a whole class by herself.
Yeah. Aww.
And the kids got along really well, like, immediately, which was cool.
Charlotte and Spawn.
Yeah. But you know when before CW you could meet up with somebody and you can have some kind of pencils they don't have and, like, show up like, hey, I got a box of these Japanese pencils you've never heard of. You can't do that anymore. So I, like, dig deep and find some cool, like, Baltimore only stuff to bring. And we don't have Baltimore only pencils. Unfortunately, they would all be called, like, the rat or the bad baseball team.
The half an oriole.
Yeah. Like half a blue jay. What I'm gonna say. But we have Po. Like, literally, we have him. He's buried here. And Philadelphia, like, always wants him back. They want him dug up and sent to Philadelphia. So shame on you. Post Society of Philadelphia. That's kind of messed up, but also kind of cool because I don't think he'd care.
Yeah.
But moving on. So did you guys see the. Well, we all got at the email from Field Notes talking about, you know, hold on to your butts until July 8th and you'll see that the release. They mentioned in passing that they had done a custom edition for our chain of hotels called Graduate Hotels. And it came up in the Field Nuts group a few months ago that there was some other hotel where you could get these notebooks if you stayed there. And there were a couple different sets. And I was like. And they weren't, you know, they weren't that cool looking. Like, I'm not going to chase those down. But these were like collegiate themed. There was a library, a campus, and I forgot the other. Oh, like a, A messy faculty office. I was like, oh, those are cool. And I noticed one is opening in Annapolis. But what I did notice was you could go on Field Notes website and just buy a set. So I did that. And they're so pretty, but the insides look like just lined, which is cool with. I think it's a normal paper. Yeah, but. And the covers are like the whole, you know, you open it up and you get the full picture. And of course, it being Field Notes, my favorite one, it's like messed up. That's okay because I'll use it and I messed up my pocket. But yeah, they're. That's like super nice. They limited to one. So I've already seen, you know, people buying multiple, which is. We won't judge. But I wouldn't do that because I thought my. I thought my wife might want to set and I'm like, well, she could buy her own set because that's not limit one per customer.
If you want to get on Draplin sh T, listen, you can by doing that because they notice.
Oh, I'm glad they notice. That makes me happy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But these are cool. So as of today, they're still on the website. They're just, you know, regular price with, you know, five bucks shipping. You get them to your house and less than 20 bucks and you know, they ship pretty quick. So they were cool. And the. What do they call them? The suggested applications are like college related and pretty funny. They were pretty cool. I appreciate those, but I'll keep those to myself. And my last fresh point is on my blog last week I was talking about this project that I've been stupid enough to get myself on, which is going through my several hundred field notes and trying to find all the writing ideas that I wrote. Down and put them into one notebook. But then you're like, oh, I should make a notebook for my kids with all the interesting stuff they said. Or like, oh, I mean, this is something cool that happens. So it's like, oh my God. It's really. I shouldn't have started this and I shouldn't have said it in public because now, like, I feel like I have to do it. But I'm. So I spent a couple hours taking all my field notes and other pocket notebooks and putting them in order. So now I'm going through them and just pulling out writing ideas and putting them in a big fat most get expanded edition. So, yeah, if you. If you really hate yourself and want to lose all your free time, you can embark on something like this or. And then it's as bad. Yeah, there were some helpful comments from people on the blog about using indexes, which is a really good idea, but I didn't. I'm in trouble. And digitizing stuff, which would be cool, but I don't want to digitize the whole things because my friend and I have one of those, you know, whoever dies first burns the other one's journals agreements. But, you know, we're both like, pretty healthy, so who knows?
Don't you want like some. Some like, museum in the future to like, you know, have your writings and know who you were?
No John Gamber Jr. Collection.
Yeah, no. I'd like to, you know, distill some cool stuff my kids might want to know and leave that in a book for them. But the rest of it, like, you know, a lot of my notebooks are like, here's what I'm obsessed with right now. Or like my anxiety today looks like this. Like, you'd read these and commit me possibly. I'm only half joking.
There's. That was like a big. Those online indexer things were a big thing for like a couple years. I remember, like back like right when we were starting the podcast, People were talking about that a lot. You know, pen addict was talking about them a lot. These places that you could like send your notebooks to and they would scan them or I know them talking about this special. Wasn't there even like a special scanner that people were selling for, like.
Yeah, it was. What's it called? The Doxy.
We talked about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they even had.
For scanning pictures or for scanning, like,
you know, should get one of those.
I remember there were like people making websites and things that like indexed stuff for you and.
Yeah, I mean, Google Lens does some cool Stuff and it seems to recognize my handwriting, but I don't want to put it all up. Plus, like, God, that would take forever. My. My phone heard me talk about Google.
Sorry.
Hey, Google.
Oh, my God.
Hey, Google, play Shania Twain.
That would be a dream come true if, like, Siri could just recognize any voice. Like, I would just walk into all of my, like, every. At the beginning of every class, I would just walk in and say, hey, Siri, turn me off. Or something like that. Or, like, turn the. Turn the phone off. Or, you know, hey, Siri, set an alarm for 2am oh, so Google Home
will do that if you go into somebody's house and just, like, tell them to set alarms? I do it to my parents all the time because I'm a jerk. And there's in their living room. So I'll go in and set, like, really random alarms, just, like, six of them. And they haven't figured out that you can just say, hey, Google, erase all my alarms.
Oh, yeah.
But it won't let me do things like add content without the voice recognition, but crap.
Yeah. So Siri, waking up tomorrow. Siri. Siri heard me too, when I was saying that to you guys, and I'm sending you a screenshot of what just happened.
So apologize for everybody who's listening with their speaker on. And now just had, like, some.
Who knows.
Yeah, yeah, my. My Google is British.
Yeah.
Relaxing. And it's polite. And if I tell it to f. Off, it goes. I'm sorry. You can send feedback.
Look at my text. Yeah, well, that's a. That's an awesome. That's an awesome project. I would do that someday.
I'm sorry. All of the tech podcasters out there, they, like, they haven't agreed upon, like, you know, instead of saying, like, you know, hey, hey, assistant, or whatever they say, yo, dingus is there. Like, when they talk about how they accidentally triggered Siri, they're like. So I was. I was saying, yo, dingus the other day and. Yeah.
Can you change it to, like, anything you want?
I don't think so. I think it's.
Yeah.
Yeah. Google is either okay, Google or Hey, Google.
Damn it.
It's alarming to think that it's listening to you all the time, but my kids have fun with the Google Home. That's pretty neat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can just walk into a room and say, hey, Google, play whatever song and it comes off Spotify and Rosie will stop crying while I change your diaper.
It's like developing horrible. Some, like, bad habits with Henry because, like, we have. We have an Alexa. And he'll. I'll, like, come in and I'll be, like, doing the dishes, and I'll say, you know, alexa, play this right around him, like, listening to some music. And he just assumes that no matter what, if something's playing, he can just walk in and just say, alexa, play. You know, whatever. Like, alexa, play We Will Rock youk. Like, that's been happening, like, every 25 minutes in our house. Like, okay. You can't just, like, always change the song, like, when somebody else is listening to something. Yeah. It's really into Queen right now. Nice.
Good choice. Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
So my Google home mini is graphite, of course, the color. So my mom thought she had a coral one, but she just had it upside down. And, like, the grip is orange. I'm like, this is why it doesn't work, Mom. Watch this now. It won't fall off the table anymore. I love you, Mom.
Trying to hear you through the table.
Yeah, but my mom's journaling, so she wins.
Yeah, she does.
Yeah. Oh, there's a black one now. Oh, son of a. Oh, man. All right, so we'll button this up.
Yeah.
And we can talk about where we can find Timothy and Andrew on the interwebs and social media.
You can find me on Instagram @TimothyWassum and on Twitter @TimWassom.
That's confusing.
I have both of them on Instagram. I have Tim. Awesome. But I forgot how to access it, and I just, like, gave up. And so, anyways, well, you can.
You can find me for being formal@www.andy.wtf and then I'm on Instagram and Facebook as at. Excuse me, Instagram. And the other one, Twitter, as @A Wealthley. Johnny. How about you, Johnny?
So you can find Mr. John at. Which is updated a lot lately, which is fun.
Yeah, you've been on fire.
Yeah, I've been tweaking my caffeine intake with good results. And you can find me on social media at Pensolution. And you can, of course, find us raceablepodcast on Twitter and Instagram and facebook.com erasablepodcast. And if you don't suck and you are fun, you could come to our Facebook group@facebook.com groups/, just erasable. No podcast. We're. We're coming up on 3,000 members. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So, you know, I'm sure we'll commemorate that somehow with the. The exchange of pencils or notebooks or both. And. Yeah. So come spend some time, you'll find this episode at erasable US119. We got the episode number right this time, John. Yeah. Tune in next time and hopefully we'll have our field notes and we'll be chatting about that.
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