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Transcript
Before we get started, we have some propaganda buttons up here at the front if you want to stay sharp or declare that graphite is right, you have to promise to wear it to the pen show tomorrow. So come up and it's free. Come up and get. It's free. You only have to sell us your soul.
Hello and welcome to episode 135 of the erasable podcast. So I'm sure that we're all a lot taller than you thought we were
and like Tim is taller than I thought he was or shorter.
Yeah.
So for anyone that doesn't know who we are, I'm Johnny.
I'm Tim.
And I'm Andy.
And we're the guys we just met last night.
Yeah. Yeah. When I got in from the airport from Johnson City, Tennessee, where I'm from, that was the first time at BWI that all three of us had been in the same place at the same time. So that was a really fun moment. I was barely awake and they were standing there with smiles and coffee and it was a great way to.
Coffee was important to unite. Yeah. Should we do just some quick introductions about our background of pencils and in life? Yeah. Tim.
So my name is Tim Wasem and I am a teacher. I live in East Tennessee and I teach 11th grade English and I've been teaching for about seven years now. And I got connected with these guys because I had a very short lived but beloved blog. The beloved was added by me, not by anybody else, but I had a very short, short lived blog and I was really enjoying listening to the Pen Addict and other stationery blog or podcasts and reached out to these guys because they were the first two that came to my mind talking about pencils and said we haven't started a pencil podcast or like somebody needs to start a pencil podcast. So let's do this. I talked to Andy and Andy very wisely pointed to Johnny and that's kind of how we ended up here. So that's. That's me.
So the. I'll go next. Johnny, I think your introduction is more impressive, so I'm going to let you go last. His introduction is very good. I mean, more impressive than mine. I'm sorry, not Tim's. No more.
Obviously mine.
I'm Andy. I live in San Francisco. Used to live in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When we got this started, I boy, I started doing pencil blogging with a website called pencilthings.com which sold Palominos, the precursors to the new Black Wings and other things, and did that for a long time. And actually met Brad when you were blogging for JetPens and just connected with some stationary community people and pencil things eventually folded. I started a blog called Wood Clinched, which has sat dormant for a long time, but is still around. I actually went on an episode of the Pen Addict with Brad and Mike and talked about the case for Pencils, which I think we'll get into. I was actually kind of hoping that Mike would be here so we can just razz him about it.
That's why I contacted you now. Over. You're on that.
And I was like, yeah. I was like, so, Like, I was on it. It was amazing. So much fun. It was thrilling. And Tim started messaging me and was echoing what was in my head, which was, what if there was a podcast about pencils? And I was like, I bet we could do, like, 15 episodes, and then we're done. So we started doing that, sort of with Brad's blessing. Sort of. He didn't have a. He didn't have a choice. So we started the Erasable podcast. That was six years ago. 135 episodes later, Tim and I started talking, and we realized that we needed the original pencil blogger on board, who is Johnny Gamber.
You're making me sound old.
Yeah, because you are.
So. I'm Johnny. I'm the local one. I live in Merlin park with my children, and I started a pencil blog in 2005 when I was working on my doctorate and sort of, like, trying to stay sane and do something that's not homework for a little while. And I have actually known gary since, like, 2004 because of. But we just met yesterday, so. Yeah, like, Andy. Sorry. Andy and Tim had messaged me, and they're like, do you want to be on this podcast? I'm like, dudes, I'm a terrible public speaker. Like, I suck at it. I have a Baltimore accent. And they're like, nah, it'll be all right. So we talked one night on Google Hangouts, right?
Yeah.
And we had video on. And I was like, oh, that's what they look like. And I assumed Tim was my age, but he's not. He doesn't sound, like, very young anymore. He was in his 20s.
He's got a lot of gray hair.
It wasn't the gray hair. It was that. You're not stupid.
Andy's real young, though.
Yeah. But what happened on our first episode? I remember I was drinking something. I was drinking, like, honey whiskey because I was sick and I didn't want to take cough medicine. And, like, talking on my Phone. And now we have like pro mics and like pro ish mics and yeah,
like, and we're all together in Baltimore. We're having fun for the Baltimore pension for the first time.
We got tattoos today.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, check this out. So one of the things we. One of the things we promised ourselves if we ever met in person five, six years ago with, if we ever meet, we're gonna get tattoos. And I was like, that's never gonna happen. So, sure, let's just say that.
Yeah.
So here we are. We all got versions of the same design, which is a pencil that is drawing itself. There's a designer who I used to work with who designed it for a poster. And it's a pencil drawing itself. And there's a quote that's often misattributed to Marshall McLuhan that says we shape our tools and in turn they shape us. And that's like on a poster from the Facebook Analog Lab. And so it's just something that I really love for years and years. And we, we all got a version of that on our, on our arms here. Itches like hell.
It sure does.
For everybody that's asked me, like, how Andy and Tim did when Andy and Tim haven't been around. Like, no one cried, but look at our Instagram. They had poker faces on, like the whole time, but kept checking. I'm like, you all right? Yep, I'm all right.
I get the moments where you, where you thought I was. You're like, man, you're about to fall asleep. And those, those were actually usually the worst moments for me. Those are the moments where I was just closing my eyes just to, like, think about something else. And he's like, are you falling asleep? Like, no, I wish I was.
You might have been crying. I thought it was sweat.
No, I didn't.
But no tears shed. But yeah, Andy. And he was like, I'm gonna go do something. Can you stay with Tim? I'll stay with Tim. I'll be all right.
Thought he needs moral support.
Yeah, My usual tattoo guy came in early in the morning for us, which was awesome.
Yeah.
And we'll talk later about what's going on tomorrow night. So he might be there, so that'd be cool.
So I, I really just wanted to give you some very quick self promotion stuff real quick. If anybody uses Facebook and if you don't, that's totally fine. We have a really, really great group. If you're in the erasable group on Facebook, would you raise your hand? Is it maybe one of the nicest places on the Internet.
Yes.
Yeah, we try really hard to do that. Dr. Hans Noodleman, who is sitting here in the front row, raise your hand, please. He is one of our fellow mods. We also have a Patreon, if anybody is interested. We put out some. Some swag. We have some bonus content, audio content. We have some things. Please join us on Patreon.
We have a custom playlist every month,
custom playlist and newsletter. It's really great. We have a zine, which is kind of a passion project of mine. Twice a year we put out Plumbago magazine, which is fiction, poetry, illustrations, art. I think, Anna, you've contributed to every issue.
I think I missed one.
Oh, you missed one. Well, Gary has been. Yeah, Gary's been in the issue twice, so yay, Plumbago. That comes out. If you go to Plumbago xyz, it's kind of hard to read up here. You can sign up for the mailing list and find out when it comes out. And of course, we're super, super thrilled to be here. So thank you all. Thank you. Corinne, who's sitting in the back for inviting us. She's organizing this thing, Baltimore.
Thank you.
Johnny has a good Baltimore accent.
I sometimes can't avoid my Baltimore accent.
Does anyone want to talk about, like, the main topic? And we'll talk about a few things first, but just kind of set the tone for it. I can do it. Okay. I'm actually really interested to know who here does not like pencils. Does not like wooden pencils. Oh, come on. Some of you. Didn't you just come to hate. Watch this. Okay, so, yeah. So biggest thing we're doing here is just to come to a pen show and make the case for wood.
Case.
Case for pencils. I love pens. I mostly love, like, you know, consumer fountain pens. I know a lot of people will get booed, but we all love ourselves a bit. Crystal. But, yeah, the first time I attended the San Francisco pen show, it was just really interesting to see how many people just didn't give a shit about pencils. And it's fine. But we are here and we're going to try to make you give a shit about pencils. And I'm glad that we have a friendly crowd. So this will be quick.
And I feel like of the three of us, I maybe am the most fountain pen conscious. Or that's where I started. Because that's where I started and then just kind of was lured in by. Started from the bottom.
Now you're here.
Yes. No, but I. I discovered fountain pens while I was just first starting out as a teacher. So I was teaching 8th grade English and was desperately looking for little ways to make my day better because I was dealing with. With preteens and. And I discovered fountain pens, which I had won very previously, but and then found different blogs and found the community and sort of like dove in just like completely headfirst. And then have made kind of a transition since then because I think when my first, when my blog, which was called the Writing Arsenal, that was almost all fountain pens until I met you guys.
Nice.
And then it got good.
And then it got good. Then came the good part, the part where it shut down forever.
Actually found on the well appointed desk blog once by looking for, I think it was Varsity, the disposable fountain pens, which I really love and come in really great colors. So that's how I first discovered your blog. Yeah. All right, so first we're going to do a couple of little segments and this is something we call tools of the trade. And we basically just kind of talk through some of the media that we're consuming. Originally it was, we were talking about like the things that we were drinking and we just didn't want everybody to think we were like just always drinking.
Also it just got boring because it was like, I'm drinking seltzer water. I'm drinking seltzer water. I'm drinking seltzer water.
I started lying. I'm like having an old Fashioned. I'm sitting there with like some coffee.
So briefly, we're going to kind of run through some of the media that we're consuming and what we're writing with today. So, Johnny, do you want to start?
So normally I would list some pretentious books, but since we last podcast, I've been doing nothing but cleaning. So my first tool of the trade has been two boxes of magic erasers. Because not like, not the Koh. No door ones.
Not the Koh I Noor ones.
Mr. Clean, because my children have screwed up the walls. And like, magic erasers are magic. They're really cool. And I've been reading back issues of Poets and Writers because when you clean, you're like, I have two years of poets and writers I've been reading. And yeah, that's it. I am writing with a. Well, we have custom pencils up here because we're special, but Tennessee red from Musgrave on a Baltimore made Black Elk from Write notepads. Yeah, that's it. Who's next?
Anytime I want to travel I always am hyper conscious of what book I'm going to be reading. And this time I made a special effort, like a really strenuous effort to only pick one. Because I'm the kind of person who ends up traveling with like five books for absolutely no reason, because I've read zero since I've been here. But I finally am reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, which is a book that I've started a couple times and stopped for no good reason. It wasn't because I wasn't enjoying it. And it proved to be the perfect partner for going through airports. I mean, I also had the audiobook which is really well, really well read. So reading Good Omens, getting ready to watch, finally watch the show maybe. And I spent what portion I wasn't or wasn't reading. I was traveling, listening to a lot of Mavis Staples, one of my favorite human beings on the planet. So Mavis Staples from the Staples Singers. I'm also a big Wilco fan band. Wilco. And Jeff Tweedy has produced a couple of her last few more recent albums. And I just, I could listen to her talk, I could listen to her sing. Of course, I could listen to her do anything. She's one of my favorite people. So Maeva Staples. And lastly, watching a lot of Schitt's Creek. I'm just gonna stop there. So I just. David. David and I. Yeah, so that's maybe my favorite show in existence right now. And just watch the amazing episode where David has to get his license renewed and just has a stream of his sister telling us about all these insane situations that she's been in with overseas, just like casually. So I love that show. So that's me. And I'm writing with. Got our custom pencils. I also have been carrying a Blackwing natural and I'm also using the Black elk from Write Notepads.
Nice. I just finished a book on the airplane on the way here. It's called the Night country by Melissa Albert. It is a sequel to a, to a book called the Hazelwood. And it's kind of a fantasy novel set in contemporary New York. And there's like a secret fairy tale world. And it's just one of those like, really, it's a really, really good airplane book, if anything needs a novel that kind of moves fast and just kind of advances you through. So I feel like Good Omens is another, another good airplane book. You just, you make progress and it feels really good. So, man, we, my wife Katie and I, in San Francisco have been watching. We finished Grace and Frankie, the latest season, which is really great. Lily Tomlin is one of my favorite human beings. So, yeah, it's super good. And what have we watched recently? We haven't watched the Hunter. Did you watch. No.
So I watched two episodes of the Hunters, that new show about Nazi hunters, which is not as kitschy and funny as it looks.
I don't think I want to watch it after hearing it.
It was pretty serious.
Yeah.
But very good.
Yeah. And other than that, I have been just replaying stress dreams about this show. So. The tattoo stress dreams were a little rough because I just went to me, it did not hurt as much as I expected it to, which isn't to say it didn't hurt.
Oh, gosh.
I mean, you guys were crying a lot.
It hurt like hell. But the watching out. I was telling Andy after we got him, I was like, I'm glad you went first, because I didn't realize that they point the needle in the opposite direction or like along the direction of where they're put.
They're.
They're pushing it. So I was, like, imagining it always being, like, very gentle, but it was like, that seemed like it was gonna tear you open. So I was watching that. And so I waited until after I was like, just so you know, the. This is what it looked like. And so I didn't have the benefit of blindly looking in the other direction and just imagining that it was all fine. I knew exactly what was happening on the other side.
Our tattoo guy told me ahead of time that he was going to put them on the bed they use. For people that are scared,
there's a weighted blanket to help soothe you.
They're not going to sit still in the chair. I'm just going to lay them down.
When I got up to have my wrapped at the end, I was just being over overly conscious about my posture and was like. Kept adjusting. And he's like, are you okay? Are you gonna fall? You gonna pass out? And I was like, no, I'm fine. Just trying to stand up straight.
And I am writing with a Chunghua 6610 made in China, which came in a bouquet of pencils from Caroline Weaver, who has that pencil shop in New York called C.W. pencils. She wrote a really, really great book called Pencils you should know by Chronicle Books. It's really, really good, Brad. You should have it on your show. Talk about it. And I don't want to.
Like,
I should have. If I was more prepared, I would have put, like, a Thing up there. But it has a really big plastic ferrule, which is like kind of weird and top heavy, but it has a really good point retention for being a pencil. So dark, which is, if you don't know about pencils, is a really good thing because it means the graphite was really well formulated. So just sharpened that up a couple days ago. And I'm writing. I do have one of these Black elk field notes. Write notepad. I'm glad Chris Roth isn't here.
I'm calling him.
I'm actually using. I'm actually using a write notepads, kindling, which any field notes fans in the room would recognize. That orange. It's the butcher orange from French Paper company. This was the first limited edition they put out. Johnny.
Second.
Second. Like maybe three, four, five years ago, summer 2016. Okay. And I pulled it out especially for this. The binding that's in it is so good. It has like, almost like a ledger ruling. It's really good for lists. And when I get anxious about things, I make lists. And there's many lists for this, for this trip.
That's the edition that also came packaged in a briquettes bag.
Yeah.
Like a charcoal brigade.
Yeah. The whole thing was like. Was like barbecues. So. And there were some wooden pencils that were like, look like matches.
And they had like 10 or 20 blue notebooks.
Yeah.
And I got two of them.
Put your blue notebooks at the same shop. Yeah.
It was like karma for shopping local.
Yeah. It was like the, like the McDonald's Monopoly game. Like, people, like, there was a limited number of like, blue ones, and people would just buy them just to like, look in the creases and see if they're blue. So if you have an unopened pack of these, like, cut them open and see if there's a blue one, because
there's still one or two unclaimed. There was a prize.
Nice. Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
The next thing I want to know. Do you want to play a game? Yeah. All right. And go through this?
Yeah, sure. This is. It'll be brief, but it's a. We're going to play a game of two truths and a lie. So we've got some moments from pencil history that we're going to tell you about. Two of them are true, one of them is not. And the pencil has a really, really wonderful story of where it came from. And there's actually another CW pencil or Caroline Weaver book. Which is it? Just the pencil. The first one.
The pencil. Perfect.
The pencil. Pencil.
Perfect.
So her first Book has a lot of these amazing stories. And so we picked a couple stories from the history of the pencil and then mixed in one that is not quite true. And so I'm going to read these three. And so we need a contestant who's going to play with. Is anybody. Would anybody like.
I need the most hostile person toward pencil out there.
Our number one enemy.
Sir, do you want to.
Yeah.
Come up here? I mean, you don't have to come up if you don't want, but maybe grab that microphone.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right. What's your name? Jesse. Jesse. Andy. Good to meet you. Good to meet you. Yeah. Have a seat. Okay. Although it's kind of hard to see the screen, so, you know, how about that?
Are you from Baltimore?
I am. Yay. Yes. Are you gonna, like, say Han to each other and stuff?
We have secret, like, tones.
Okay. Where are you from? Around Hampden. I can tell.
I'm from Hampden.
Hey. From Hampden.
Arden.
Yeah. Huh.
I grew up on Rowing Avenue.
Don't distract them too much. Okay. All right.
So the first one. Henry David Thoreau, the author and philosopher, discovered a better way to pulverize graphite powder, a method that endures today and which may have contributed to his tuberculosis, which eventually killed him.
Fact number one.
Fact number 1. Fact number 2. Eberhard Faber originally came to the US to escape being drafted into the German army in World War I as an airplane mechanic. He used his engineering skills to create a high quality pencil and named it after his favorite plane, the Blackwing.
And also, I just want to point out, look at these amazing slight transitions. Thanks for the pity.
Applause. And C, before California Cedar Products, Cal Cedar acquired the lapsed Blackwing pencil trademark, they were still planning on producing a Blackwing like pencil called calling it the Pegasus in early prototypes. Two of these are true, one of them is not.
My thought is that B is not correct. B is not correct. Anybody else have any other opinions? Does anybody here. Don't say it, but raise your hand if you know the answer. Okay. Why do you think B is the answer? Well, C seems just a little bit crazy, so it makes sense that you'd actually have it up there as the trick. True one. Just. Just saying. And I'm pretty sure I've heard A somewhere. Cool. Let's find out. Yay. Jesse, do you like. Do you like field notes? I do like field notes. Please, please accept this Facebook Analog Lab field notes, which was a special, special prize that they did and is much sought after in the field nuts group. If you're in there. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Jesse around?
Thank you.
Yay. All right, on. For the main topic discussion, I. I should probably not stand because nobody else is standing.
It's weird.
Yeah, I. We have. We have a few guests that are going to come up eventually and just kind of like, talk about their perspective and speak to a. Speak to a captive audience. But first I thought we'd just do kind of like a roundtable and talk about how we got interested in pencils in the first place. Not, like, producing media about stationary or pencils, but just why we're interested in it. Anybody want to start?
I'm older. I got into both fountain pens and pencils for the exact same reason, which is that I found myself enjoying the idea of getting into writing tools that required some kind of process or something you have to do do to enjoy them. So I got into fountain pens because I liked filling them. And when people would see me with ink all over my hands, they'd say, well, why do you like. How do you get that? Keep the ink from getting on your hands? You don't. You just don't. That's what happens sometimes. And with pencils, the same thing. They can be fussy, they can break. You have to sharpen them. You have to stop every once in a while. If you have a preference about what the point's going to look like or how sharp of a point you're writing with, then you got to stop and write. And I just like things that have a process as part of them, and I also like things that bring me joy, and both of them happen to bring me joy. And so what I found over time was that writing with a pencil, revisiting it for the first time. Because I don't know if this goes for all of you, but when I was in high school and I was in middle school, mechanical pencils were the only thing you ever touched. They're the only thing that touched your hand if you touched them. Wood pencil, you assumed that it was a piece of crap, that it was the thing that they were giving you because they didn't have a mechanical pencil, because those were the things that were more trustworthy.
Do you remember in the fourth grade when you could graduate to pens from pencils and it was the biggest deal in the world?
It was something like that. I actually remember my fourth period teacher, Mrs. Harveth, or my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Harvith, had a mechanical pencil that looked like a real pencil, and everybody in the class wanted one. It was like we talked about it all the time. But, yeah, that's. That's kind of my main. Like, how I got to it. I started out getting into fountain pens, which I had been given a fountain pen as gift. But I found joy in woodcase pencils because it just gave me opportunity to experience the same kind of tactile function and write and. And fuss with my.
Right.
With my writing instruments, but they only cost 50 cents apiece.
Do you remember the first pencil? What was the first pencil that you ever used that sort of, like, made you really, like, think. Think about it.
I was at my church and was picking up my son from the nursery, and there was a pencil cup, and I saw a round Ticonderoga, which I'd never seen before because I. I was with it enough to notice just the differences in body types and stuff. And I found around Ticonderoga and immediately jumped on Instagram or Twitter or something like that and was reaching out to you guys and was like, have you ever seen these? And I wish we weren't friends at the time. So it's like picking their brains, and they're like, I think, think this. You know, they were giving me what little information they could. And so that was. That was the first one. And so I went about trying to find some more of these round Ticonderogas because I liked having a round pencil. And that was when you two pointed me to the Ladee. So the. The Ticonderoga Ladee was my first. My first love, which if you've never. If. If you're familiar with it, it's a. It's a Ticonderoga pencil that is round, but it's a little bigger than a standard pencil.
And you can just find this at, like, Office Depot, right?
Yeah, yeah, you can find them all over the place. So it's like a semi jumbo, but it has a really. A big core, which gives it a soft writing experience. And so that was my first. First love. Nice.
I should go. Anybody here in their early mid-30s, maybe late-30s, and ever used a Yikes pencil? Do you remember those? Yeah. Quality pencil, but so cool. We actually. Somebody. Somebody left a comment on a blog post I wrote about Yikes Pencils and found the name of the guy who, like, worked on the ad campaign for Yikes Pencils, and we're gonna eventually get him on the show. He was, like, tickled that somebody, like, 25 years later was like, hey, can you tell us all about this ad campaign you worked on, this marketing, branding campaign? It was an extruded yeah. Jesse, on that same timeline, has anyone. Do y' all remember gripsticks? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Grip sticks.
Yeah.
So, yeah. So bright, bright colors. For anybody who doesn't know a Yex pencil, it is bright, bright colored extruded wood. So it's wood that's mixed with, like, compressed sawdust and like, plastic and really bright colors. The core is different, the wood is a different color than the paint. And they always have, like, crazy erasers on them and some different shapes and was marketed to kids. And the commercials that would come on was like some kid like, in his room with like a skateboard or whatever because of the 90s, big hair. And his dad walks in, like, with a tie, and he's just like a nerd. He's like, do your homework. And he gives him, like, this, like, this yellow boring pencil. And the kid, like, throws it. And the mirror in the bedroom, the kid in the mirror hands the real kid out a Yikes pencil. And it's like, use one of these. It's like, not for nerds. I'm paraphrasing here.
He throws his super Nintendo controller aside and starts.
But I was like, mom, I need a Yikes pencil. So got a Yex pencil. And yeah, I had no idea if it was good at the time. It wasn't. But I really loved it. So. Love pencils. I put them down for years and years. I got really into green pens. There's a blogger named Mike Hagen who loves a green ink pen, and he and I almost started a green ink pen blog. It was really bad. It was entitled Green with Pen V. Yeah, we didn't get started on that. And so we. So I picked up pens for a long time and finally I worked at my first career level job. I worked at a small nonprofit and I was the operations manager. And I found myself. I found myself, like, taking. Making lists. And I would write something and I was like, oh, I'd erase that. Write something else. And, oh, I'd erase that just with a pencil that I found. And it was really nice. And it was a. I think it was a really old Marauder Black Warrior, like pre Paper Mate. And I was like, this is really, like, it's round and it's small and it's really dark, but it has a really good point. And then I started going online and just like, looking at pencils. And I ran across pencilthings.com which is going out of business. They have a clearance sale right now. And picked up a pencil sampler pack. And in that pack were a Couple pencils. The company that makes Blackwing now made a pencil called the Palomino hb and it was bright blue and it was really lovely. And they also had one called the Golden Bear, which is a kind of California imagery pencil. And it's really inexpensive. It's like $3 for a dozen also really good. And I was like paying attention to it, so it really got me thinking, like, specifically about pencils. And one of the things that I like about it, I was working on an extended metaphor that I don't think I'm going to successfully get across. But like, if fountain pens. Fountain pens are to wine as pencils are to coffee. Because with fountain pens you can get a really good rare fountain pen for, you know, like under $20 maybe. Some people might argue with me about that, but you can also get a fountain pen, like way up to thousands of dollars. Just like wine with pencils. Most expensive pencil generally you can just buy out. There is like $3 a pencil. And they're like kind of the higher you go, the more the returns are diminished. You know, like you like, it gets better, but it doesn't get like life changingly better after a certain amount. So to me, it's really like coffee. You really have to like, dig into the subtleties of the graphite and the smoothness and the blackness and the way that it looks and the way that it smells. Because cedar pencils smell amazing. So, yeah, I really just like dug into pencil.
Reviewing that metaphor works on also just like the daily basis that I feel like pencil being something that is very.
It's a tool just like coffee is. Sure, yeah, yeah.
Addiction, like coffee is.
Yes, Johnny.
So during my first year of my doctoral program, I met Gary through Moleskinery, which was like a Moleskin fan blog. And all of a sudden people started talking about like fountain pens. So I got a fountain pen.
Gary, raise your hand.
Yay.
Yeah.
And there were a lot. There's a lot of topics on. I mean, a lot of talking on there about pens because as people probably know, the Moleskine paper is not so good. So it's really hard to find a balance of a pen that doesn't write like a piece of shit and doesn't leak through all the paper. So after like months and months of this summer came along and I had a really sweet fellowship where I didn't have to teach or anything. And a lot of time, which was interesting. And I was in Illinois, which is a boring place. And anybody here from Illinois, Sorry, it was. It was Carbondale, Illinois. Carbondale, Illinois is really boring. It's like, it's a shithole. But so, you know, I would be in class with like five pens in front of me. I'm like, this is just stupid. So I was reading Hemingway and the Immovable Feast, which I quote from Moleskine's website. And he talks about writing with pencils. And I remember writing my book, like, I wish I could write with something simple like a pencil. And I'm like, you're a grown up, so go buy some fucking pencils. Sorry, go buy some effing pencils. So back then you could go to Walmart and buy like a dozen American made pencils for a dollar. And they were pretty good. So I went and did that. And then like, I kept. You know, I'm writing with this and I'm thinking, this is so simple. Like, it's one color, one. There's no nib size, just a pencil. This is simple. This is making my life more streamlined. I'm getting more work done. And then you discover, like, other pencils. And back then, E commerce wasn't what it is. So if you wanted something like Mitsubishi Haiuni, you had to find someone in Japan willing to go to the store and buy them, send them to you, and not charge you like a hundred dollars. So then it just became another rabbit hole and I was like, shit, like, this was supposed to simplify my life. Now this is my life. So actually, when I was writing my dissertation, I didn't touch pencils because it was really distracting. But yeah, so I fell into pencils out of the idea of simplicity, which did not work well. And. And then like two of my heroes, Hemingway and Thoreau, like, were like big pencil people. Thoreau obviously, like, in a different way than Hemingway. And it sort of flowed. And like, I became known as like the pencil guy at the department, which was like, not flattering at the time because they're like, oh, you have a fellowship, you have a lot of time on your hands. Like, okay, I'm sorry, I'm not teaching logic. But like, then, you know, there was like, just enough of a dork who was from like, really far away and like the kid that doesn't go to the bars and stuff and using pencils. So it just kind of like fit with my little image of the little barefoot guy that people used to call me the hobbit in grad school. So, yeah, it was like, it's a simplicity thing that didn't turn out to be so simple because pencils aren't that simple.
Pencils Aren't that simple.
They can be, though. They can be.
Did you say what your first, like, pencil was?
So my first pencil that got me into pencils was the Papermate American Natural, which was a dollar. And they're, like, in retrospect, completely terrible pencils. They were smeary, they stunk. The eraser was, like, literally wood. It didn't work. But now, like, I. I scooped them up. Sorry.
Was it really, really okay? I believe you.
And now I scoop them up when I can find them and pay, like, a lot more than a dollar for a dozen of them. But it was a good gateway. It was pretty. So I still like natural pencils. And as Blackwing has shown, lots of people like natural pencils.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
Should we get a guest up here, guys?
Let's do it.
Yay. Ana Reinert, please report to the front. Yeah, Anna, I'll stop tackling from the back, so. Oh, you got the I. Anik.
Hello.
Can you tell us. Okay, everybody here knows Anna, right? Okay.
Yeah.
Can you tell us about what happened during the first time you came on our show to, like, chat with us?
Oh, was that the episode you guys forgot to hit record?
Me?
I was tuned.
No, it was me.
Did you record today?
I'm recording today. I'm compulsively checking it. Okay.
Just over and over and over again.
We were all having a cocktail while we were recording, and halfway through, I was like, we did not. We're not recording this. We kept on pouring.
It was a weeknight.
Yeah.
And it was way more than halfway through.
Well, yeah, I was saying halfway through meant that we were like, almost to an hour.
Yeah.
An hour and 45. 45 minutes into it. And he's like, guys. I'm like, oh, no.
So Anna actually was a guest later on in one of our actually most downloaded and lauded episodes. Everybody puts it on the top one, which is about colored pencils.
I didn't know that.
Yeah. Oh, we did not tell you that. And it's something that, like, we're. The three of us are mostly like, writer. Writer types. And you bring a very, very valuable perspective, which is artists.
Thank you.
And I feel like pencils hold a separate place in artists hearts. And I would love to know your. Your sort of, like, pencil story. And if it involves art.
My pencil story. Well, it's probably. I mean, very much like of the other stationary things. Like, I fell in love with any, like, back to school, like, anytime I could, like, go through the department at, you know, whatever big box or target, because I would get new supplies. So whether it was pencils, whether it was pens, because I wanted to draw, I wanted to write, I wanted to practice my calligraphy, which at the time I didn't know was calligraphy. It was really just faking my fancy writing. No, it was faking my parents signature so I could get out of class or permission slips.
Yeah.
Yes. And I was really good and I could actually do other people's parents. So that's how I actually got into calligraphy.
That'd be a booming business in a high school.
Oh, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, so that was sort of the start of it. But when I was in college, I started buying colored pencils because a lot of times they were required for your course. And that was where I first discovered like Prismacolors and then found out that there was more than just one. One kind of colored pencil. And they had different qualities in the same way that graphite pencils do. There's darker ones, there's lighter ones, there's ones that are better for detail work. Ones that are, you know, that are actually erasable where colored pencils normally aren't. So they're used for different purposes. And so again, like, it's a total rabbit hole.
So.
And to this day, like, I just have a ridiculous, ridiculous number of colored pencils. Like, it's absurd.
I remember at the San Francisco pen show, somebody was selling vintage colored pencils. And you were all over that by the box.
Yeah, yeah. Because everybody needs 12 lemon yellow colored pencils, Right? Of course.
Obviously.
Well, they change stuff. And they're like, it's a little different. It's not made in America anymore. So you were just forward thinking, oh, totally.
And like, I'm. I now have like, to this day, Prismacolor is with the one that I tend to like, favor. I just like them better than other ones for no real logical reason except that I think that's where I started. But they have passed through so many different hands, corporately speaking. So it's like, you know, the ones that were made in, you know, originally made in the U.S. you know, as turquoise Prismacolors. And then they just became Faber Castell. And then they were. They've gone through everybody, everybody's touched them. Sanford had them for a while. And then like, you can see, like, some say they're made in Mexico, some say they were made in China. Now they don't say anything, but I'll tell you the truth, they're made in China.
By the way, there are three American pencil companies left in the World. There's Musgrave Pencil in Tennessee. There's General Pencil in New Jersey. And what's the other one? The Moon.
Jrr.
Jrr Moon. I don't know much about them.
Somewhere in Tennessee.
Yeah.
I actually found like, boxes of vintage Junior Moon that I used to sell on my shop, not knowing like, that they were super, super rare because I just found like full boxes. So I would do like assortments on my little shop. And I. Did any of you buy any? I don't remember who bought them. Like, a few people were like, holy crap. Yeah, I'll take two packs of those.
Yeah.
Because I was selling them for like three bucks. Like, here's six pencils for three dollars. Found them at an antique mall.
I was like, are awesome.
I'll take all of them.
Hearing you talk about the colored pencils and those little tweaks and those little changes that happen is one of the things that I think is universal between fountain pens and pencils is that the materials can be exactly the same, but slight little differences in how they're manufactured can totally change the whole writing experience. Like where you get something that is suddenly just a little bit off center when it to comes to a pencil.
Right.
Or you get something that is just not as cleanly machined or something. And I'm also describing a neurosis that I have. I'm describing a really complicated problem in which I notice problems that don't exist constantly. But I. But I think some of them are true. And I think that's. That's one of the fun parts of getting into this is learning those little. The little minutia.
Yeah.
The new kind of thrive on the minutiae. Yeah, yeah.
And like in the past decade, since so many things have moved overseas, or like, they don't make the grades anymore, they don't make the model anymore. You can go to someone's house and find like a box of like American Naturals from 1995. I'm like, can I have those? Like, yeah, trash pencils.
Take them.
I'm like, you sucker. But like, our tattoo guy this morning,
you just saved me six bucks on eBay.
He had the whole set of Faber Castell color Castell Prismacolor colored pencils. And they were all the old American made ones. And they did not look the same score. I was like, oh, you have the American made one. He's like, I know.
Tina Koyama. Yes. Koyama just emailed me the other day that she got an entire box of the Prismacolors. It's like a 48, maybe 60 set that came in a gold box. And she's like, I want to know, why is this a special edition? And I'm like, because it comes in.
I would evaluate them for you.
I actually have the exact same box. So I get like, took it out and we're looking at it and she's like, are there different colors in it? I'm like, no. We both like went through the whole process of trying to figure out, like, is there some difference to them?
But there's a spell caster with them.
So, Anna, if you were. If you were talking to people who were into many, many different colors of inks and. And fountain pens and they grind their nibs, no pun intended, and they are really into fountain pens, what would you say to them to get them to pick up a wooden pencil and just like, think about it?
Funny you should ask. I made a list.
Really?
I did. Oh, how convenient.
So I'm going to speak in pen terms. Pencils have an extended cap off.
Thank you. Thank you.
I don't understand what you just said. No, I do.
You can grind your own nib anytime you want.
Pun intended.
Totally. Then a little bit more. Seriously, there are non fading options, unlike fountain pen ink, which most of it fades, that's called graphite. And if you want some that may possibly fade on you, they're called colored pencils.
And by the way, a lot of people don't realize this, but a pencil is often more permanent than ink. It is archival quality. The big thing is obviously with friction, it will rub off. So if you have sheets of paper that is in pencil and not touching other things or not being moved, that will last forever because that is, I mean, as long as the paper.
Yeah, when I. Oh, sorry.
No, go ahead.
Sure.
Show.
When I was in college, I worked for the archives at our college. And one of my jobs was to transcribe the letters from the founder of our school. And so it was letters to his wife when he was traveling and letters back to professors there. And I noticed later, I kind of went back and looked at them, that a lot of them were in pencil. And the ones that were harder to read were the ones that were in some sort of ink or whatever, because these were letters that would have been written in sometime around the 1870s or the 1880s.
So that brings me to point number four, which is pencils are allowed in museums and in library special collections. They will take your pen away.
Yeah.
Built in VIP badges.
Nice, Nice.
We need to make a pencil called the vip.
My point Number five. They're available in a variety of shapes, like hex, semi hex, round, lots of finishes, natural dipped, all the lacquers. You can get them in sparkle if you want. And those also have colors, you know, red, yellow, natural, and sizes from the jumbo down to the bridge pencil.
Bridge pencil, of course, is the really, really thin pencils that I think. I think you like, folded them into a card deck right when you're playing
bridge, when you're done.
Something I never have figured out because it's also about the same size as a stenographer's pencil. And I don't know why, like, why did stenographers need super skinny pencils?
Oh, it was a gender thing.
Yeah, because ladies have, you know, thinned hands and that's the.
It's about the size of a chopstick.
Pencils also come with awesome accessories like erasers, sharpeners, point protectors, and cases.
That makes me think about the fact that with pencils, sharpeners are maybe even more important than the pencils themselves. Because I remember discovering good sharpeners for the first time. And once you have a sharpener that actually does a good job, then it just, it makes every pencil a little bit better. And so when figuring out classroom friendly sharpeners for the first time, these kind of crank sharpeners that put a super long point on it, or even just sharpeners that were made with any sort of thought that they would even be used to sharpen pencils. Because a lot of the kind of the stuff that's given away for free, it's like you can just imagine this company's plastic chassis. Yeah. Just doing it because it's like, we need to sell a pencil sharpener. It doesn't have to sharpen a pencil. We just need to sell a pencil sharpener.
If anybody needs a good sharpener recommendation, check out the new Blackwing One stage long point sharpener that's on the Blackwing website. Brad, have you tried one of these? Okay. They're really, really good. I have one if anybody wants to try one. It has a concave point, which is really cool.
I haven't tried one yet.
Yeah, I have one. We can play with it later.
Right on my Tennessee Red.
Hell yeah.
Go walls. Number seven pencils are cheaper than pens. But you mentioned that already. It's easier to get graphite off your hands than it is ink. Proof positive. I still have ink on my hands from earlier today. And it's a lefty. This can kind of be important.
Yeah, Here we go. It's the lefty salute.
Let's see number nine. Some pencils are erasable. Mentioned that earlier.
And like a bell to ring every time somebody says erasable.
Ding, ding, ding.
It's money in your pocket, right?
Yes.
We get paid for every mention the word erasable.
Sesame Street.
And my very last one, because I did decide that it needed to be a list of 10 is because OCD, it just had to be done. Is that pencils do not actually have to be wood cased.
Yeah.
I like graphite sticks. I like colored pencil sticks. I like.
Check out the new Rhodia mechanical pencils at the Van Ness booth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's my list.
Can we give Anna a round of applause for preparing more than I did? Yeah. Anything else that you want to chat about?
Do you have.
Do you have any recommendations of pencils, like graphite pencils for everybody to pick up?
The Tennessee. The Musgrave Tennessee Red.
Yeah.
It is amazing.
So this pencil is made out of red cedar. Usually they're made out of incense cedar or some other wood. They smell super good.
And the reason being that the red cedar was not as easy to grow and replace. Right. So that was originally American pencils were made out red cedar. But they were phased out because it was so much easier to regrow incense.
It was gone. Like, that's why they were all in Tennessee because that's where the wood was gone.
Now I don't want to use that.
It's gone.
Deforesting Tennessee.
Well, it's all growing banks ruining my house. Yeah, there was a good replacement speech in abundance out west.
Our latest episode of the Erasable podcast features the folks, Nicole and Tim Delger, who are helping Musgrave, which is this really, really, really old American Heritage pencil company with like, kind of just like a really old website, kind of kitschy, just kind of rebrand and become, quote, unquote, cool again. And they're doing a really good job.
So it looks so good. And I'm always, always wanted to go and visit there. And I actually lived and went to school in Tennessee. So, like, I have like.
Yeah, field trip.
Yeah, yeah, that was that interview. And if. If you haven't listened to it, that was one of my. That is one of my favorite things we've done because it was getting to talk to somebody who's doing. It's kind of in a dream situation within the pencil world, like, and they're doing really good job. And you can tell they really care. And it was. It was fun to hear them talk about.
In episode 106, we had Henry, hewlen who is the president of Musgrave Pencil. The first time he's ever been on a podcast or maybe even heard of a podcast. Yeah, yeah.
The Delgers made that possible. They drove out with a microphone and helped him out and explained what a podcast is and what he had to do and gave him the questions, and it was great. It was like he'd done it 50 times. Maybe he had, and we just didn't know.
Ana, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Do you have anything else you want to add before where people can find
you on the Internet?
Wellappointeddesk.com thank you.
Okay, more of the usual suspects. Some guy named Brad Dowdy. Would you report to the front. Once again? He needs no introduction, but I will say I feel like it's, like, the darkest. I'm in the darkest timeline. Brad is in the, like, you know, the most successful timeline because we kind of had, like, parallel tracks for just a minute. I had a pencil blog, and I worked at Cal Cedar, which is the company that makes Blackwing. As, like, their marketing guy. Well, he worked at Jetpens as their marketing guy, and then he found this thing called the podcast. And you also have a much more, like, broader, interesting, like, subject matter, and you're way more dedicated and better at
it than I am.
So. Any other reasons why he's better than you?
I'm not at all jealous, Mr. Tattoo, but you don't.
You don't know.
He doesn't have a tattoo.
So, yeah, Brad, you are. You came on a show pretty early on the Erasable podcast, and you talked about. We talked a lot about pens, actually, but we did kind of go into pencils, and I would love to know kind of your pencil origin story.
Like, what.
Like, what made you start thinking about pencils? Maybe the way that you thought about pension.
Yeah. So my entire reason for liking stationery when I was young and in high school and all that was to write as tiny as possible. Like, all I want to do is write small. And back in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was in school, mechanical pencils were the way to go. Like you were saying in school, you just kind of use that because, like, all the pencils were just cool crap at the time. Like, and you don't know that when you're a kid, it's like. But you could still. Like, I don't really enjoy writing with this. So I used mechanical pencils forever and ever. And then I got into this whole pen blogging thing, and I still wanted to figure out how small Can I write? And so I found all these Japanese pens, right? And that's where the Jetpens connection came in. And that's how we talked. And let's find the smallest, tiniest little writing that I can do. And woodcase pencils never seem to be an answer to that question that I was trying to solve. How small can I write? And consistently and enjoy it. And then you start talking with friends who have a lot of experience in that, and you start figuring out what other things are out there, and you find out that pencils can actually be nice. Not just the school pencils that you would use back in the day.
The day.
And the first pencil that when I was doing this, like, as a job and doing this for, like, the penitech that I found was the Tombow mono 100. And it was just, like, a random thing that I bought because, well, other people like pencils. And I need to figure out why that is, right? Because people ask me questions. They want to know, you know, they know about pens. Well, what do you know about pencils? And can we, you know, do something with that? So when I got that pencil in and realized how soft and smooth and consistent this is, it, like, changed what I thought about what a wood case pencil could be.
Tombow Japanese pencils, by the way, are like some of the smoothest, darkest pencils out there, which is contrasted against German pencils, which are kind of scratchy, but they keep their point really well. They're not scratchy that they are scratchy.
That brings up one thing economically that that just reminded me of, is that one fascinating thing about pencils where you're talking about the Mono 100. And it sounds like something that's going to cost a ton of money, but it's not something that cost a ton of money. That the jump between, like, in fountain pen terms, like, if you're jumping from a, like, knockoff Chinese fountain pen to a nakaya, like, that big jump in pencils, that's a jump of, like, maybe $2.50 or something for which it doesn't last as long as obviously.
But I was still scared to try it in the beginning because it's a jump. It's still, like, even though, like, I've bought plenty of expensive pens, you go, wow, that pencils 250. Why is it different than a $50? And it's like, oh, maybe I'll think about it later. Which, if you think about that too hard, that's really stupid compared to some of the things that I bought, right? But that's a terrible conversation in your head, but you still think of it that way because that's what that, like, group of product seems to be. And yeah, like, that, that was my jumping off point to, oh, there's something different about pencils that I can figure out.
Nice.
Yeah, it's like the, the lifespan of a pencil of like a well made pencil is probably exactly the same as a jet stream or some, like, pen that you'd buy at a store.
I still haven't figured out how to refill them, though.
We're working on that.
There's a big secret we'll tell you later.
We'll tell you when you're ready.
Illuminati.
What is. What are some properties of a, like a pencil to look out for? Like, if you, if you pick one up? And even if it's like, if it's a black wing, like, it has like a very, like, shiny chrome look about it. But if it's just a regular pencil and it's a really good one, what would you look for?
The thing that I relate the most. Like, you were talking about it. Ana was talking about it, that pencils are shockingly customizable. And like, that's the thing that I always talk about fountain pens. Like, it's the most customizable writing instrument. You can change the nib, you can change the ink color, you can change how it feels on the page, you can change the size of it and how it feels in your hand. Pencils do all of those things too. Like, it's. You don't realize that until you start, like, going down that rabbit hole of trying to figure it out. So what I look for in a good pencil that I use all the time these days is really good point retention.
So.
So I want to sharpen as little as possible while retaining a sharp line. And then I look for smoothness. And that's kind of it. Everything else is kind of secondary to me. Like, I don't care if a pencil has an eraser, for example, that doesn't move the needle for me. So I look for something that's. That's gonna hold a point and just, you know, be nice to write with not to really, really scratch you on the page. Like, would bring back bad memories from school.
What's your. What's your top couple favorite pencils? I don't mean to put you on the spot.
No, no, the, the one I use the most by far is the modern Blackwing 602. Like, I'll just go through those plenty. Like, I really like those. A lot. I do use the.
That one's right here.
Yeah.
If anybody wants to play with one afterwards.
It's kind of the best. Best mix of all the things I like in a pencil, which includes style. Right. It takes the good things that I like. And then on top of it, it looks pretty cool, too. And it's got a good story and all that. I do like the Caran d' Ache Swisswood pencil, so.
Because that's smells real good.
Smells real good.
It does have soy sauce. Yeah.
Or the stinkwood, as certain friends.
Smells like beef bullion cubes. Yeah.
But it's such a unique feel.
Yeah.
Holding that pencil, it feels very, like, strong and durable. The tip feels a little bit different. The graphite core feels a little bit different.
It's heavy.
Yeah. It's like a substantial pencil, which you don't think about. So those are kind of the two that I keep on my desk, like, within close reach at all times.
What's your least favorite pencil? Oh, God. A Wopex, called a Wopex, made by Statler, and it is made from this, like, extruded plastic sawdust. It's kind of like the eggs pencils, except more plastic.
So it's kind of like. It's like it's made from garbage.
It's wood flour.
It starts with woe, which. Yeah. Johnny likes it.
Whoa.
And, yeah, you have to use a special sharpener for it because you will break your fancy. Sharpener.
I can use any sharpener with mine.
Yeah.
But it's an acquired skill.
The only WO was given to me by John.
By Johnny Camber.
Yeah.
Any other questions for. From Spread dy?
What's your favorite pencil sharpener? Since you talk about small writing, like, I'm assuming you want some, like. Super.
Yeah. So the one that lives on my desk is the Mitsubishi. The KH20, I think, is the model. It's got a really nice long point that it'll put on the pencil. And then the second one's probably the classroom friendly.
So follow up question. Can you sharpen with a knife?
I can. I can. I've got pictures of it I keep on my desk. I keep a little box of shavings and an opinel knife there. If I ever get in the mood to just do that, it's very meditative. Like, all of this stuff is like all of these things, like, this little particularness that you can do with those things. And that's one of those things that I keep handy for when I want to just chill out for a minute and Sharpen a pencil with a knife
if you're sitting down to write. That's. There's no better way to just kind of ease into things. Just to sit there and be like, I'm going to take 30 seconds. Make sure my pencil's right, or sharpen. Sharpen a few of them.
Do you want to tell them about John Steinbeck's ritual?
Yeah. John Steinbeck, who we talk about a lot on this podcast because it's kind of a pencil hero. We used to have a segment where we talk about people who are writers and artists who are. Have showed a lot of love for the pencil. And Steinbeck was one of the originals. And he would, as story goes, that he would start every writing session with 24 perfectly sharpened pencils that he would sharpen with at the time, what would have been a really expensive electric sharpener. And he would start with those 24 pencils, and he would begin his writing, which he would typically do in big ledger books. He liked to write in big ledger books or in. Or on legal pads, anything that was big that he could fit a lot of words in because he was obsessed with the economics of it. And he would write, and when one. One pencil got to the point that it was. They had dulled too much, then he would set it aside, pick another one out of the cup, and keep writing. And so his. His day always began or ended with him sharpening these 24 pencils that he would use. And then once they got to. Once they got past the stage that he saw them as useful, which is a stage that we call the Steinbeck stage, which is like when the ferrule. The metal thing holding the eraser would touch your hand once it gets to that point. Then he would cast them off to his children, and those would be the pencils that his children used to draw and write.
Yeah, Brad, anything else you want to chat about?
I just want to say I'm super proud of all you guys. This is a really great thing.
You're our podcast daddy. Oh, no.
The praise from Caesar.
You wouldn't be here if you weren't good at what you did. So, like, I. I appreciate y', all, and I appreciate y' all being part of this community.
No one would have listened to it for us to practice if it wasn't for you.
Thank you.
So thank you for coming up, everybody. Give Brad Dowdy.
I mean, I know most of these people know, but you tell them about, knock or about.
Yeah, I'm@pentatic.com. you can find me there. And I make pen cases is at Knock Co.
If anybody wants to meet him.
If anyone wants to meet him.
So we do have a good friend of ours who many of you may not know. Dade Scardi, would you please come to the front? Yay.
Dan is a bonafide pencil expert.
Pencil expert.
I think I'm the wrong spot.
No, you are in the right spot. I think you want to flip up the switch. There you go. Yep. Can you start by just giving us a little bit background about who you are in pencils?
How about I do toot your own horn. How about I do a pencil origin story, kind of like you all three did? Because that's what really brought me, I think, to this community and to blogging and podcasting. I remember in grade school, the first good pencil I ever used was an Eberhard Faber principle pencil. I remember this because I stole a box from the supply closet. People were using those Bic mechanical pencils, you know, the black ones with the different colored clips and. And those were good enough, but if you. Sometimes they were finicky, so if you were to drop them or tap them a lot, the lead inside would break and then you were stuck clicking and clicking and clicking. So that was my first love. I did have. Yikes pencils. In fact, I went on some late night ebay binge once and bought quite a few. I just heard my wife over there sigh.
So.
But many years went by and I always just in high school, I just had a stash of those Everhart favors. And then I kind of stopped caring about stationery. Life happened. And it wasn't until I went to college at 33 that I started getting back into stationary. And so for me, I knew I wanted to use pencil because at that age, too, I kind of went through this. I don't know if some of you in here have experienced it. This whole idea of nostalgia and the want for how things used to be. And I think, and I'll get to this in a minute, about parallels between fountain pens and pencils, but I think a lot of us in this room probably feel as though you want to use things from a simpler time. So here I am in college, and the first pencil like Brad actually good pencil was the Tombow Mono. I actually bought it from Jetpens. I think they're like $2 a pencil maybe. And it kind of just went from there. And I actually saw your blog, Johnny. And I never really blogged before, but I figured it was a good distraction from school. I was stressed out about classes. Undergrad was Quite the adventure. So I blogged for fun, found the erasable community, and now I have a podcast and a blog and all these other things.
Yeah.
Can you tell us about the podcast a little bit?
So RSBP is a podcast. I'm one third of that podcast. It's myself. It's Les Harper of Comfortable Shoes Studio.
She's been blogging for years and years and years.
She also makes notebooks called no brand notebooks. Little plug for her. And then Lenore Hoyt, who is someone who is active in the erasable group for probably since the beginning. Yeah, she was there before me. So the three of us. RSVP is very different. We are not a pencil broadcast and I'm podcast blogcast.
Oh, that's actually Brody and Slip there. That's what we are.
So it's not about pens, it's not about pencils. It's kind of about everything in the stationary world.
And you had a really, really great episode about chalk.
Yes. So we dive deep into a very, like, interesting stationary items. Lenore is a chemistry professor and there's this huge discussion one time about chalk and how there's this Japanese chalk that they're discontinuing and a lot of professors are stockpiling this chalk. So we did a whole episode on chalk and it was great. So we. Our tagline is a podcast about stationery and so much more because it is so much more for those that have listened. We talk about stuff that's going on in the stationary community. Sometimes buttons get pushed, but I think that that's a good way to open up conversation. I think that's one thing that I find lacking in a lot of my favorite podcasts. Not these two here. But people aren't willing to push the envelope. And I think that that's fun to combine those two things. Something that we love, stationery and kind of talking about the topics that you wouldn't usually connect to station stationary.
What are your top three favorite pencils?
This is tough. So I like the Natraj Neon, which actually there's a story about those. The Casemate Neons. So at Walmart they sell a dozen neon pencils. To the naked eye would just be like garbage pencils. You would never want to buy them. They're 88 cents for a dozen, but they're actually made by Natraj. My guess is that they're seconds, but they are pretty much exact. And the only differences are the fact that there are mistakes on the Walmart ones, but they write the same. And they're always the good in fact, whenever I send stuff to people, I throw in a dozen because I think I'm up to 6 gross. Now,
is that true, Gina?
Yeah, they are. They are. I have a whole shelf in my office, and it's just something fun that I. It's a conversation starter. And I think it's a good way to, you know, get people into pencils because it writes well and it's cheap. Because a lot of times people about stationary, people that are outside of the bubble that we're hanging out in are like, I don't want to get into that. That's too much money. I can't afford that. Or that's too nuanced. I don't want to think about that. But I could say, here's a thing you can use and you can buy it in the store. I think that's the trouble a lot of times with things in the stuff that we all like in here. You can love something, but then you'll have to tell them where to go to get it, and then there's just barriers to use. And I think that that's the thing that I like most about, you know, the Nataraj pencils in general. I also have been loving on the Blackwing natural. I like that it looks like a Blackwing 211 a little bit. Which, for those that don't know Blackwing 211 is a pencil. Right now. It's what, like, $60 a pencil? Yes. So I think the third would probably have to be probably the Tombow Mono, just because that was my. My first re. Entry into quality pencils.
Besides the wpex, what is your least favorite pencil?
Correcting. Correcting.
The Bic. Extra fun.
Oh, that is a terrible pencil.
That is a piece of crap, bro.
It looks so cool.
They suck you in. Because it's. It's a little bit of both. It's. It kind of. It's like a. Yikes. Because the. The g. What? Yeah, the wood is different colors, and they have plastic ferrules, which are really cool. They're like, purpley, and they're. They're fun, and they have white erasers, and they look really awesome, but it's like writing with a piece of plastic.
Just write with a fork and it'll be the same.
Like a sport.
Yes.
A broken spork. That is my.
And they're bendy.
They like. Yeah, you can, like, make them wave.
They're not good.
My kids like them.
And that.
I mean, that's their target audience. But, like, even after a while, they're like, this doesn't work.
Even I saw it for the first time. I saw the plastic feral and I was like, oh, cool. It's like is the story goes during wars sometimes, like, the sources of. Of the metals that they would use for the feral would disappear and they start making ferals out of plastic for that reason. So I remember seeing them being like, oh, cool. But then like, wow, that's a crappy pencil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
One thing I wanted to mention, something Dade talked about was that sometimes you don't know who makes a pencil. You don't know where it comes from, you don't know who makes it. There's a really interesting thing that, I mean, happens in a lot of industries, especially wooden pencils, is there's sort of this, like, shadow supply chain that nobody really knows about. Sometimes you try to, like, source some wood. I think it's Henry Petroski. He wrote the thing about how pencils are sort of a truly, like, symbol of globalism because, you know, you get your erasers made here and you get your ferrules made here, and you get your. Your wood from here and then processed here, and then it comes back to here and it's just. No, no one person can make a pencil. Which is interesting because it kind of takes it out of the craft hands that. That I can't read that.
There's a. There's a very good funny or die video about this subject. So Google that later.
There was a guy who tried to make a pencil, right? Yeah, totally failed.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's just an interesting. Just kind of like hiccup of pencils.
Yeah.
Anything else you want to talk about pencils that people may not know about?
I mean, I think sharpeners. It's one of my favorite things to. It's a favorite pencil companion of mine is to have like right now in my pencil case, I have the Pollux. Quite amazing. If you can. Some people don't like it. It's a little fiddly. It depends. Pro tip. If any of you have a pollux, sharpen it in a classroom. Friendly first. And then it'll start. It'll start the pencil enough to where it won't. The point won't break. I don't know if you guys have noticed that.
Yeah, definitely.
And then also when I was thinking about talking about pencils at a pen show, because I admittedly own one fountain pen.
What is it?
It's a TWSBI.
Nice.
You know, I figure for 30 bucks, it was a good way to try things out and it may work for me again. My job is I work at a college. I'm a writing tutor. I edit student papers a lot. And I would love to use pens, but it's hard to find an ink that works well for me. And I had some conversations today with people that I have some angst to try. So to be continued. But the. The new Blackwing, one stage long point is also great. Won't beat my Pollux ever.
Yeah, it's good. Yes. Dave, thank you so much for joining us.
No problem.
Where can people find you on the Internet?
So you can find me at a weekly pencil dot com. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at the Weekly Pencil and then on the RSVP podcast, RSVPstationarypodcast.com all right, thank you.
Thank you for joining us. I think we're going to kind of wrap it up. I want to leave a little time for Q and A. Kind of get out of here by 8:30. But Johnny, do you want to do to bring us all home?
Yeah.
So could we really quickly state our case for pencils?
Yeah.
Like so to all of you, like, if you're here, you obviously like a rabbit hole and pencils are a rabbit hole. And I mean it can get really expensive. Like I have maybe 120 pencil sharpeners.
They weren't staying within his apartment.
I can verify first time in his apartment. Every surface has a sharpener on it. It's incredible.
Yeah.
I mean even have a lot of fun with it and do the opposite of what I did. Not that simple.
My big case for pencils is the very tactile feel. Like something, I think same thing with fountain pens. Honestly, like you really, really feel the paper and the writing underneath. And some paper that's a little bit more toothy. If you ever picked up a Baron fig notebook, their paper is very toothy and you can feel it underneath your pencil. It's just like one step of level of abstraction away from like writing on cave walls with charred sticks.
Right.
So I'm, I mean, a few levels of abstraction away from that.
Yeah, it's all carbon,
but yeah.
I'm a big fan of the writer Anne Lamott and she has a really great book about writing called Bird by Bird. And in that book she says that she that she'll use really crappy notebooks because she doesn't want to take herself too seriously. And I think Natalie Goldberg talked about this as well. But like doesn't want to take herself too seriously. And so one thing that I really like about pencils is that it make you can. You can find something that you really love, but you can also find something that you're totally okay with losing track of or something you can throw in your pocket and not worry about. And so I really love pencils for the fact that they can be just totally joyous and all those tactile reasons we talked about earlier in the process that I enjoy. But simplicity, I think is the word that I really enjoy about them.
Yeah.
And even the worst pencil in the world writes, which I don't think can be said for the worst fountain pen.
Wopex. Yeah.
Should we do like. Does anybody have any questions? I would love to do a quick Q and A. If you don't, that's totally fine because we kind of covered every single thing you could think of.
Ask any razor question.
You can ask whatever question you want. Okay. You've already talked a lot about sharpeners,
but I'm going to ask a two part question.
Number one, what is your favorite helical type sharpener? Which I see you've got one set
sitting there on the table. And number two, are there any electric
sharpeners that you would recommend? It's a great question.
So I have two favorite crank sharpeners. One is this, which is the classroom friendly sharpener and apparently exists in different iterations under same, different brands and they're made in the same factory. But the downside is it leaves bite marks on your pencils, which you know, you know if you're putting a really expensive pencil in there, you're like, it just messed my pencil up. So there's another one I have made by a Chinese company called Deli that looks like a shrunken plastic version of
this spelled D A, H, L, E.
This is D E, L, I. So if you go looking for a
deli sharpener, there are doll sharpeners too, aren't there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
The deli sharpener will return like meat slicers. So it's really hard to find online. So you need the number, which I don't remember, but it makes a similar point to this. But no bite marks, which is awesome. And I don't have any electric sharpeners I've ever actually been able to get to work. Right. So my wife is a high school principal and they have like a line of electric sharpeners I gave them. I've just given up on them. Like, take it. They think I'm very generous.
Tim.
I think with the electric sharpeners I don't have a whole lot of experience with it, but every Once in a while I'll come across a place that has like a really good Panasonic one that. And sometimes when you find one of those that that's well made, it'll just last for forever.
Does it have the fake wood grain? Yeah, yeah.
That's what within the world of pencils like sharpeners are still great or getting better in a lot of ways. And pencils are getting better but like the electric ones are just getting worse and worse and worse and worse. The stuff that you can find easily like this stuff I would buy. I would use classroom money to buy them from my classroom. The first two years bought electric sharpeners I was finding at Staples or finding Walmart or whatever. And they would break within a few weeks of students giving them regular action. And then I bought a classroom friendly and I've had the same one. His name is Clark. I always teach my students that I've had that same sharpener for five years in my classroom.
I'll give you an ideal recommendation which I do not have one but I covet it so bad. And you can buy at least two of them here at Paul. Is that his name? Paul. He has these sharpeners called El Casco Sharpeners and they are gold and they're gleaming and as David Rees once said they cost more than some cars that he has owned. So Paul's selling them, he restored them. They're really good price if you want a really good point that like is kind of concave like some of the really good sharpeners out there. That's a good one.
Yeah. And I think, I guess I didn't say my favorite but I'm right along with Johnny. Except that I really like the Mitsubishi Uni sharpener. It's a similar to the classroom friendly crank sharpener but it doesn't put those bite marks in it as well like the deli you were talking about. And also kind of looks like an alien when you're looking at it face on.
Which is even better. One more question. Anybody? Oh, Doctor Hans. So I. I have a question for the three of you about the afterlife.
Oh no.
Good. I've been waiting for this.
My philosophy degree is going to pay off if you're.
If you were to be reincarnated as a black wing special edition, what would be your paint scheme? Your number? What kind of core would you have? What color ferrule and an eraser.
I feel like Johnny's already thought about this.
I have thought about this a lot. So my number would be the 1817 for the year Thoreau was Born, I would be round and not even sanded. It would be like holding a log with a silver ferrule, a pink eraser, and, like, the biggest, fattest core that can fit into a normal pencil without it breaking. But, like, they would also come in boxes of 144, because. Why not?
So it'd be the. I'm gonna go with the Blackwing 1908, because I'm a Cubs fan, and I'm a really big baseball fan. I think it would be really awesome to see a blackwing that was made. Or it could be the Blackwing 2016, when they won the World Series, if you hadn't heard about that. But. And I think the thing that would be the distinguishing factor is that you would get a set of 12. There'd be blue with a red eraser or maybe white with blue pinstripes, but they've kind of already done that. And then the core would be a mixture of all the different cores and different pencils to represent the ups and downs of being a Cubs fan, I think, because I resonate with that a lot.
Justin, I thought you were going to say there's no core in there.
There's no.
I have no idea. My favorite number is 32 for a really dumb reason, which was that. Does anybody remember a game called Cannon Fodder on your PC or your Mac back in the day? You adjusted the power, the powder, which was the power, and you adjusted the pitch. And for some reason, I always, always, always hit the other cannon the first try with the pitch of 32. And that was my number that I've liked since then.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
What would it look like?
Yeah. God, I have no idea.
It would be shaped like a cannon barrel.
Yeah, cannon barrel.
A multicolored eraser that looks like fire.
Yeah.
Are you listening, Blackwing?
Yeah, I have no clue. I think it would be. I lived in San Francisco for five years. I really still am in love with the city. I think it would be international orange, which is the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't know about the core. Probably. Probably like A. Like a 2B. Like a natural. Natural core. Yeah. All right, thank you all so much for coming. Yeah, that was an amazing question.
Yeah.
Johnny, do you want to. Do you want to kind of finish up and talk us out? Yeah.
So if you've never listened to our podcast before, then this might sound really weird and, like, credits, but. So first, we like to say where you can find our guests, but there are too many of you, so we could start on the side with Tim and Tim can tell you where to find him on the Internet and social media.
Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter imwassum and I'm on Instagram TimothyWassom and I also have another podcast called the Membership, which is about a writer named Wendell Berry that I do with a couple other friends of mine.
I am@AWealthly first initial Last name on Twitter and Instagram and I have a website which is Andy wtf which has a lot of other things on it.
I'm Johnny. You can find me@pencilrevolution.com usually and on social media ensolution. And you can find us aside from here on Spotify, itunes, Apple music, whatever it's called, all the things eraseable us and yeah, all the ways you like to listen to podcasts. We're on social media@facebook.com erasablepodcast for our sort of official mouthpiece. You can check out our Instagram and Twitter raceablepodcast and the best Facebook group in Facebook. We got messages about this.
The RSVP group is also really amazing.
We got a message about that too. But it's facebook.comgroups erasable. And yeah, we of course have to give a shout out to our Patreon patrons.
Do you mean read it? Yeah, you read it. It's very small. Alex Jonathan Brown, Ann Seipe, Bobby Lutzinger, Chris Jones, Chris Metzkias, Chris Ulrich, lots of Chris's. Dave McDonald, Dave Tubman, Fourth Letter Gangster Hotline. Dr. Hans Noodleman, Jacqueline Myers, Jason Dillon, Jane Newton, Joe Crace, John Banon, Johnny Baker, Kathy Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Larry Grimaldi, Leslie Tuzo, Mary Collis, measured twice, Michael Diallosa, Mike Hagen, Random Thinks, Sarah Hunter, Stuart Lennon, Tana Feliz, Think Travel, Eat and Thomas Eckerberg Anderson. Thank you all for coming. A couple of you are here.
Can you like stand up?
Yeah.
Do you want to talk about tomorrow?
So tomorrow at. You might have heard of this company called Write Notepads. They are having an open house from 4 to 10 at their headquarters which is somewhere Wicomico Street.
But if you put it into Google Maps, Write Notepads, you'll find Uber's not
going to find it. Right. So if you get lost, you can call us. And we are sponsoring an open house with Mohawk Paper company. So they're going to have Mohawk reps there with Paper, which sounds stupid, but to us we're like, yeah, it's awesome. We will all be there and there will be lots of adult beverages and tours which would be really cool.
All right. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you so much for coming. This is awesome.
This is a dream come true. Thank you. Wait for the ending of the podcast theme. This is Johnny's band, Garuda Face.