This transcript was generated from an audio file by AI, and may contain inaccuracies.
Transcript
Oh, wait, this is an Animal Crossing thing. The guy with a pencil behind his ear that was made before he was born is calling you a dork. Hello, and welcome to episode 142 of the erasable Podcast. This episode episode is brought to you by our friend John Morris at Kamikokuin, an online purveyor of Japanese stationery and pencils. Stay tuned later in the show for an exclusive discount and giveaway to Erasable listeners. I'm Johnny Gamber on hosting boss duties tonight, and I'm dragging my two co hosts out of Animal Crossing. So would you please welcome back to a different kind of virtual life, my co hosts, Andy and Tim.
Hello.
Excited we are there. They're all just blurring together at this point, so I'm not even sure if I'm playing the game right now.
So I. Here's a funny story about that. I was talking to Will Fengy, who is a friend of ours, friend of the show, Will Fengy, and he also plays Animal Crossing, and he talked about how he's gonna be doing some landscaping, and I was like, oh, cool. Maybe I can come over your island and look at it later. He's like, no, dude.
Like in real life, landscaping.
I just assume it's animal crossing.
My table.
Yeah. So. Hello.
Good to be back.
Yeah. Yeah.
In the real world.
Yep, kind of. Well, we did get together in the real world before everybody got stuck where they were.
Yeah, Just right. We just timing last minute. That was amazing.
Yeah. Pretty amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. I need to touch up on my tattoo because I think I mentioned I fell hiking and put a hole in it. And recently I was talking to my parents. Like, to get your tattoo fixed yet? I'm like, we have not been able to get tattoos. It's been that long, and everyone's been stuck home.
Yeah.
But so tonight we're going to update our top fives because people tend to ask a lot what our favorite pencils are, and we haven't done this in a long time. But before we jump into that, why don't we do our usual tools of the trade? We could, like, flip a coin, see who goes first.
Yeah, Tim, you can.
That was a quick, quick flip. Yeah. I have been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell's new album, so I've talked about him a lot on here, but he's my favorite songwriter these days, and he and his band, the 400 unit, just came out with a new album called Reunions that is just outstanding.
It's.
It's really wonderful. And he put it out he put. He's independent, so he runs his own label. So when all this quarantine thing happened, he chose to release it a week early, but in a way that wouldn't screw over the independent record stores that he relies on so much. And so he released it one week early, but you had to buy it at an independent store, which is really cool. So I actually got it on, on vinyl, a special like orange swirled vinyl.
It looks so good.
It looks so good. Yeah. And it sounds even better. And so I got that a week early. Literally had. I only could listen to it on vinyl, which was a cool experience because even the coupon or like the download code didn't work until it was officially released to the public. So I. I just had to listen on vinyl for a full week, which is really cool.
And I love how he only sent those to independent bookstores.
Yeah.
Record stores. Yeah. Yeah.
It's pretty amazing how they pulled that off so quickly.
Yeah.
But I'm really, really glad he did. I think that was a really cool move. And I've just been loving the album. If you are a Patreon supporter and get our playlist. I added a song from the album called Dreamsicles, which is why they made it like the Dreamsicle vinyl. Like the orange vinyl. But great album. So please, please check that out if you haven't already. And I just finished a book called Sourdough, a novel called Sourdough by Robin sloan. I've had Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore recommended so many times and was literally like going to finally like finish it. And I was like looking into my Kindle and then right next to it, I noticed that there he had a book called Sourdough. And I've been kind of like most of seemingly like most of the male population of this country been obsessed with trying to get a sourdough starter going. So I saw it, I was like, well, I gotta read that one first. And I read the book and it was a lot of fun. And I think. Andy, you've read it before, right?
Yeah, yep. I. Yeah, he's a local San Francisco author and like most of them are set in the San Francisco. So there's a lot of like cool, familiar scenery and stuff in the book to me. So. Yeah, he's really neat.
Yeah. So it's a novel where this. Which sounds a lot like you, anybody, this woman from the Midwest who gets into like working in like a digital world and then moves to the Bay Area to work for this company and she's working For a software company that's. Or I guess would you call that a hardware and software company? I don't know.
Yeah, it's.
Yeah, they're making like these mechanical arms that are like AI sort of enabled. So. And then she gets into sourdough through some like, kind of bizarre circumstances. And it's a. It is a really fun book. And a short book, it was only like, goes really 250 pages, but I read it in just a few days. So that was, that was a lot of fun and it was a good kind of inspiration. As I'm trying to get my starter going.
Do you want to tell the folks what your starter's name is?
Yes, actually today is the birthday of its name. Yeah, today is the birthday of Mr. Mr. Bob Dylan. And my, my starter is affectionately named Blob Dylan. So Bob Dylan is doing okay. So we're. We got our fingers crossed though. But yeah, yeah, today's. Today's Bob Dylan's birthday. And it is the fourth day of existence for Blob Dylan. My second attempt at a sourdough starter. And Jane and I just finished, also just finished Broad Church. So I was gonna just mention that we finished the first season of Broadchurch and we started the second. So awesome show. And I am writing with a Tennessee Red in my field notes craft edition, which has a cub sticker on the front of it. That's me. How about you, Andy?
I started reading a very strange novel called Bubblegum. And it is, it takes place. It's like. It was recommended to me by the io9 monthly, like science fiction, upcoming books. And it's not exactly science fiction. It's sort of like alternate universe, alternate timeline kind of a thing. And it seems like the big difference is, is that the Internet doesn't exist in this other timeline. And instead they have these like, little.
How do they play Animal Crossing?
I know, right? It's my escape from Animal Crossing. They can't go to each other's islands. No, it's a. And instead of like the Internet, there's this other craze that's like these weird little, like, they're like Furbies, but they're really like, made out of like, flesh and blood. So like, they're like little animals. It's really, really hard to describe. It's a very strange novel. But I, I'm just like, pressing on because it's like, strangely captivating. It's written by Adam Levine, who's like, not the. Not the guy from Maroon 5, the author. Adam Levine.
Yeah.
And he sometimes does weird things like kind of, kind of John Malkovich's himself. Have either of you ever read anything by him?
I've not.
Yeah, I don't. This is the first thing I've ever read, but apparently sometimes does these like little sort of like self aware John Malkovich things where he like references himself, which I think is a little. Eh, but whatever. The main character smokes a lot. And in sort of like this, this main character's narrative, he talks about how there's only like, you know, two people who he knows of who smokes this much. And one of them is like the novelist Adam Levine.
It's like, shut her.
Anyhow, reading that. And Katie and I are watching the first season. We're finishing the first season of Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist, which is a, I think CBS show.
Lauren Graham.
Yeah, Lauren Graham's in. Takes place in San Francisco. Lauren Graham plays the boss of this tech company. And Zoe is this woman who works there who hears everybody's sort of like inner narrative because they burst out into song. So like, spoiler alert, Lauren Graham's character gets a divorce and she's like singing that Katy Perry song about like hear me Roar just to like, like at the tech office. And so Zoe can like see and hear this, but nobody else sees it and hears it. So it's. It's actually pretty good. It's kind of cute. It has a very Glee likeness about it where, you know, there's a lot of singing and dancing from a lot of like squeaky clean white kids. And there's some people of color in it too. But like, it's very Glee. Like, and it's interesting because there are some scenes that are filmed in San Francisco and there are some scenes that are like, clearly not. It's like, oh, that cafe has like lots of room in it that's like, definitely not. That's on a soundstage somewhere. And so I am writing with my vintage Musgrave text test scoring 100 pencil, which I still need to send you guys in my. In my Leuchtturm Red Dots notebook. How about you, Johnny?
Sweet. So I read book one of the Corfu trilogy by Gerald Durrell. Durrell. I don't know clear on how it goes, but it's so good. It's really funny. Yeah, super funny.
How close does it feel to kind of the vibe that that PBS show had?
I think, like, I assume not.
I've only read.
I've only read the one, so there's a lot, a lot not. But in the first Book spearow is fat, and there's no weirdness between him. And so that changes the entire vibe of everything.
Yeah, it does.
And there's a lot more details about the stuff that Jerry's into, so I had to look up a lot of things. I'm like, what the hell is he talking about? Oh, cool. House geckos are really a thing.
Is.
Yeah.
Oh, shoot. What's his name? The Greek guy who is like, the intellectual who's like, friends with Jerry.
Oh, yeah.
Theo.
Yeah, Theo. Yeah. Is he in the book?
Oh, yeah. Spoiler. In book one, there's no Sven and there's no Hue yet. But, yeah, I took a break from it because it's like a really thick paperback book because they're all in one volume and it was hurting my hand, so I wanted to read something else after that one. So I've been trying to start Mrs. Dalloway. And it's like something from a stupid movie where every time I pick it up, my phone rings and I closed it. I read the first line and my mom called and, like, son. So I. It's been like, a week. I haven't read any books. But my kids have been enjoying some Whitman and Robert Frost a lot lately, so that's been good. We picked up the Robert Frost Library of America edition on sale for National Poetry Month, which is super awesome, actually. I just picked up another one. If you order it from them, like, you've never gotten a book that's in that perfect condition in your entire life. Which kind of sucks in a way because you're like, I don't want to open this.
It's gonna ruin it immediately.
I don't know their magic. But, yeah. We were watching Midsummer Murders, like, every night, which is almost two hours long. So I go to bed at like, 2, 3, you know, normal time.
Wake up at 4:30. Yeah, yeah.
Yes. I wake up at 4:30 and see which one of my children is in the bed. And like, this curly hair. It's Henry. Why are you in my bed? But so I am writing with one of my top fives, which is the Faber Castell Velvet 3557. And trivia. It's Faber Castell. One word, no hyphen. When it was still the American company.
Oh, interesting.
I didn't know that delights. It really delights me. It looks so good in future. Yeah, but how about some fresh points or some dead Dead points?
Deader points.
Deader points. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I can start us out. And I was. Before I even get to that, because I think that's pretty exciting. We'll talk about to some extent, I think Andy's got some stuff to add to it. But before we get to the deader, Prince Blackwing just released some new notebooks and a partial pencil for. To get. To go with. But the slate, which I think we're all, you know, generally fans of, I really enjoy my. My normal size slate. And if you're not familiar with this is their hardback notebook that has the pencil loop on the spine. And so it's a good, good quality hardback notebook. They've now released two new sizes. So now they have a small one which is, I guess, comparable to the. The small moleskin, but it seems. I think it's a little wider. If I'm not mistaken. I don't have one in hand, but
I think they went with like, I went with international sizes. It's like a six.
Oh, nice. Yeah.
So it's exactly half of the A five.
And then they've got. That is bigger, which I guess it would be the A4.
Right.
Yeah. So they've got now those two new sizes, which is, you know, kind of cool, especially if you're a big fan of those. And it's nice to have some variation. It kind of reminds me of when Baron Fig.
Yeah.
Or should I say Baron Fig came out with. It came out with a lot the different sizes in the confidant, which was cool because I really like that big confidant. So it's. It's a cool thing to add to your line. Just gives you more flexibility.
Yeah.
And if you order these small ones, it comes with a part of a black wing.
People were just like, freaking out about it in the group and like somebody. And so I was under the impression that there was going to be like, maybe like a bridge pencil black wing. And I was like, oh, my God, that would be amazing. And then I think, Johnny, you sent me a picture of it and it was just like a black wing with like 3 inches sawed off or.
Yeah. Or even if it was, I was. I was wondering if it would be some kind of pocket pencil setup. You know, people were saying that they would have some sort of other thing to it than just being a smaller pencil.
What did they do with the rest of them? Yeah, bullets. Like, there's a big crate of like one third black wings.
Maybe they're gonna work. Maybe they're working on a Blackwing bullet pencil.
Oh, my goodness.
That would be pretty cool.
That would be pretty cool. So, yeah, that would Be pretty cool. But it's. Yeah. I was not really sure what to do.
Which.
It makes sense why they would do that. I'm glad they did that actually, because you are basically making a notebook that can only fit like a Steinbeck stage pencil. So I am a little confused as to why it's not a little bit longer. Right. Like, unless they do have some sort of other motive for what's going to happen with the stubs, like to go into some other project they're working on. Because when you. Even when you look at the pictures, there's like another inch and a half of pencil that they could have left on there, you know, like. Because I don't know. Does that strike either of you as curious?
I didn't think of it.
Yeah.
But now it makes sense.
Why wouldn't. Why wouldn't they just give you another inch and a half and add 50 cents to the price or something? I don't know.
Did they raise the prices? I can't remember how much they used to be. They're 25 for an A5.
I think that's right. I think that's what they were before.
I can't remember. Yeah, I think.
Pretty sure there's very reasonable.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was hoping the big one would have more pages. Sort of like the big Leuchtturm books.
Oh yeah. Or that new. Like that big. There's that big moleskin now too, isn't there? Are they doing like the fat ones as well?
Yeah. A fives.
Yeah. Okay.
That is like a beast of a book though. I love them.
Yeah. I saw one at Target the other day. I was like. It was like seeing it Target. I was like, whoa, what is that? Yeah.
Awesome.
And then two weeks later, our Target just sold off all their moleskin and like reduced it down to like only four options. So I guess they were done with that. Yeah. The other thing I was going to bring up was the. Or is the debtor prints from field notes, which has been kind of the craze going around last, what, two weeks on the Internet?
So.
So they. I guess when the first dead prince came out, it was made pretty clear that they're not sure this would ever happen again.
Right.
This is just kind of a one off thing. Draplin had all these extra sample sheets or posters or all these things that he'd made in his studio and they converted those into covers for this really cool special edition notebook. And now they're back. So according to the website, it says that, you know, they said that they didn't even weren't even expecting it to show up until. So it says some boxes showed up from Draplin that I guess I'm assuming were just full of the scraps and then saying like, here you go, make some notebooks. Which is kind of exciting to imagine being there when that happened. When that happened.
Well, that.
Yeah, we'll have to get to the bottom of that. But yeah, they look great. I mean, there's a lot of cool ones in here. I didn't. I. I was too late. So I did not get any, which is.
Okay.
I've got no notebooks. Don't worry, people. I've got plenty of notebooks. Lifetime supply of notebooks. But I missed out on them, which I'm not. I wasn't that bummed about it until I found out that there was a Jason Isbel one and that somebody has. Has found. And there's also a Jerry Garcia one. And that was the. What made me like do a Bart Simpson run and punch the wall kind of when I heard that. Which, you know, one in a million chance I would have got them anyways. But I really love the, the color of the, the foil print. The. The fuchsia. It says fully. Fuchsia is the name of the. The foil they put on the outside cover. And then the inside they used a glistening green metallic ink. So I know you guys got these. So what did you think about them?
You want to go first?
You go. You go ahead.
Oh, I mean, I liked them. I was. I don't want to steal your thunder. I was really excited about the, the green graph because it seems like whenever draft one does something, the graph is cool, but it's too dark and the paper kind of sucks. Yeah, I. I mean, more than kinda.
Yeah. I should have got one of mine out so I can like look in the. The notes. But yeah, they're just not as good as the ones that, you know, they've been using lately. I. I mean, I. I think the dead prints look really cool. And I'm always like really amused by the. The flurry of trading activity that happens in the nuts group whenever this happens. So last, I think, I think it was 2016 right when it came out last time. Like fall the first dead prince. Yeah, I'm gonna pause real quick. Something is very noisy.
Sorry, I dropped something.
Okay. Yeah,
I was trying to get the book out. Okay. I do have the paper stuck, so.
Johnny, do you know what paper that is?
And what's different about is 50 pound accent opaque? Absolutely. Alabaster smooth text with A grid printed in a fine mist of DDC mean green. So it's a different brand and it's the way they used to use.
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.
It's a little toothy.
Yeah. But not like in a good capture pencil sort of way. Just in kind of like a. It's like a loose grain kind of way.
Yeah.
My anything pan I just tried to use in there really looked like, you know, whenever it hit the graph it would sort of lose the ink. That makes sense. I guess they hit it with those green lines pretty hard.
Yeah. But I do like those green lines. They're very good looking.
Yeah. I feel like I got better notebooks this time than I did last time. Last time, like two of mine were white. This is no fun. But I, I don't, I guess I don't feel an emotional attachment to any of the posters that they came from. So I. Maybe I just don't understand why everyone want to trade so much. I kind of thought part of the fun of this was, you know, what am I going to get?
Yeah, yeah, I, I got. So there were a couple different. Like, what am I trying to say? There are a couple different dead prints made from posters that I have, which is cool. Like last time, several like California posters maybe on like the third color run or something like that. So we're like. It's kind of weird and distorted which of course it's a dead print. So that's, you know, that's happens. But this time around they have some when you came here and from this Golden Gate Bridge post that they made that is really in my limit. Two packs that it seems like nobody else on the Internet followed. So I got a Golden Gate Bridge one, which is really cool. And I traded somebody for an Indiana one. And I've been. Our friend and very active Facebook group member Michael Durbin has been gobbling up all of the San Francisco ones. So I think I'm going to wait until he's done doing that and then see if he'll take pity on me and send me one of his duplicates.
There you go.
Do you hear that, Dervin? I don't know if he actually listens to the episode to the show, but yeah, it's been, yeah, there's. It's been very active on the. On the field nuts boards. I've also been keeping in an ear out for Chicago or Tennessee ones for Tim too. So we'll see. Somebody got a Chicago one and it had like the bowls on it, which was cool. I don't think it had any cuts.
That's cool. Yeah, yeah, that'd be awesome.
What is the Jason Isabel one look like?
I was literally just googling that as you said that. I was like trying to think because I've just heard about it. I haven't actually seen it.
I think it's kind of in his like thick line style. Like the Bernie Sanders poster and the raconteurs poster. I think it's. I think it's in that kind of style, I think.
Gotcha.
Yeah, I'll see if maybe when is in my packs. If it is yours. I'm sorry, I'm typing. It occurred to me I should just look up draplin. There you go. That's what it looks like. Wow, that's a cool poster.
Yeah.
Geez.
Should I continue on with my freshpoint since I sort of took over your debtor prison?
No, go for it.
Another really cool thing that came in the mail these past couple weeks is our friend Keith McCleary who is random thinks on Instagram and Twitter. Well, really mostly Instagram. I think he's a big Instagram user. He has been 3D printing pencil cups. He has a 3D printer and he's been printing these really cool cups with kind of like an eraser colored bottom and then some like metallic ferrule and then like a, like a, you know, color of the pencil top. And he made. Oh man. I think he's made like a Blackwing one. He made an orange golden bear and I messaged him like, keith, can you make a blue golden bear? He's like, yeah, sure, no problem. So he sent it to me and it looks amazing. I'll include a picture with the show notes. It's, you know, it's. It. Yeah, I think it just looks so good. I took out two dozen golden bears and put them in so like you could see them together and really nerdy and fun. He actually just like 10 minutes ago posted a couple prototypes in the group. He made a Futura one and a 602 one.
Oh geez.
Yeah, they look super good. That Futura one is just like really nice.
Daughter would want that.
Even has metallic purple as like the feral color.
Oh man, those are great.
So honestly like you should go if you're in the Facebook community, you know, message Keith. He'll like commission him to do a. To do a pencil. He has a storefront too, I think. You know what, I think he sells through Gary's store. I think he sells through note based.
Oh yeah, yeah, I'll put that link in there.
Yeah, they're both in the Ann Arbor
area,
so yeah, I love it. I have it on my desk right now, which is my third freshpoint, which is not exactly pencil related, but it's pencil adjacent. So I've been working from home since March and probably keep on working from home for the foreseeable future for another few months or so at least. And I really, I was working from the kitchen table and it just really isn't like in our little apartment's not a great space because I was kind of tearing down my desk at the end of each week to like so on the weekends could have dinner at the table. It's pretty close to the kitchen, so I had a lot of banging whenever, you know, we're doing stuff in there. So I was looking for a desk and I had a very specific like size that I needed. Like I needed something that was big enough to fit my like giant High DEF, like 26 inch monitor, external monitor, but also had to be small enough where I could fit it into the space and finally came across. I think I just got a. I looked at so many desks, I started getting Instagram ads for every single desk. Yeah, I bet this one, this one came up and it's called workfromhomedesks.com and I was like, what is this?
So it's a work from home desk.
Sure. Sure enough they Truth and advertising. So it's interesting because I feel like it's. They started making stuff after the COVID 19 thing and I feel like it was made perfect for me because it is. I also wanted something that could convert into standing desk because I sometimes like to stand. So it's. They're fuglies sin like they're super ugly. Um, but they're, they're made from like these like laser cut from these big pieces of like laminated plywood and they fit together really easily. And then when you're not using them, you can just like collapse them and like slide them under the bed and yeah, you could. They have like these pegs that you can take out and like move it up and down. So it is perfect size for me. It just fits the monitor, it fits my laptop, it fits my pencil cup and a couple other things. So yeah, I, if any. And also it's how much does it cost?
They're like 350.
Yeah, the 350 which was like, like I was at first a little skeptical because I'm like these are just cut pieces of plywood, but they're very good quality, like industrial grade plywood. So again, super ugly, but they super functional. If anybody is like me and you live in a. Maybe a small apartment or you have a small room as your office and you find yourself working from home, check this out for sure. I'll put a link in the. In the show notes. I. They're not paying me to say this. I posted something on Instagram and they like, Instagram messaged me and was like, hey, thanks for posting. And we were just talking back and forth a little bit, and they kind of had the idea before COVID 19 stuff happened. But like, that was kind of the sign to like, go forward with this thing. I'm sure it's pretty easy to produce. Um, and they. They say they've been getting a lot of business in San Francisco because of all the tech workers working from home with tiny spaces.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So just that being like that collapsible put under the bed thing is. That's a really good feature. That's. Yeah, that's a good thing. Because when I first saw it, I was like, nope. Yeah, but. But to have that kind of flexibility, to be able to like, shut it down, put it under a bed or whatever, that's. That's really cool.
Yeah, that's really good. And. Okay, go ahead.
I'm sorry, are they. They're stashable. Are they portable? Could you take it somewhere?
Yes, you could take it somewhere. It's kind of heavy. I mean, it's like, big. There's like several big pieces of wood and it's like, it's heavy duty, but it's like, definitely luggable. They should make like a little carrying handle or something for it. But yeah, you could totally take it somewhere.
Do like old military field desk.
Yeah, yeah. It's 31 inches wide and it's 21 inches deep. So it's like a really good size. And what I like about it is you can adjust the pegs and you can make it a standing desk. And even. I'm 6 foot 2 and so it like, even will still fit me as a standing desk. So. Yeah, it's just. Just not the most attractive desk you've ever seen in your life. And that is my fresh
Johnny.
How about you?
Awesome. So I don't know about you guys, but I've been like, real fidgety lately. Like more fidgety than usual.
And he's pretty fidgety, folks.
Yeah. And so, you know, watching British crime dramas until all hours of the night and not going anywhere does not do it. Doesn't do you any favors. In the, you know, keeping on a schedule department. So if you do have to take ADHD medicine, your day is screwed up. You don't know when you took it or when you should take it. And that doesn't help. But my hyper focus has been helping me organize a lot, which has been really good. Like I can find most of my pencils and if not 10 or 15 minutes I can get them like know vaguely where they are. Which is not something I could say when you guys were here and it was an embarrassing cluster f, you were pretty, pretty dodgy.
I probably didn't notice, but Tim and I are just whispering to each other constantly.
I'm still kind of brooding about it, honestly.
Sorry, we have to come back.
Yeah,
we'll have a do over. Do over.
But do over hun.
Yeah, say, how do they pronounce?
Do it, do it again. All right, don't eff it up this tom dum dum. But so I've like, I've gone through once and I got all of my American pencils together. Then I went through again and got all my vintage American pencils together. And I think most recently it was like, now all of my vintage Dixon slash Ticonderoga pencils are together. So, you know, it's very fun when you're stuck home. But you know, it's also the kind of thing where you lose track of time and it's like 2 in the morning, you're like, crap, I didn't eat dinner. But it's also extended to useful stuff like cleaning out your pencil cases, like turn them inside out and get all that graphite off of them. Oh yeah, I've been cleaning out sharpeners, like making sure the insides aren't blowing dust everywhere because it tends to kind of build up and get stuck to the feet and then, you know, gets on your bookshelves and it's really satisfying to take like a magnesium sharpener, take off the blade and steel wool, the magnesium a little bit and buff it. That's very fun. I'm out of steel wool. And yeah, it's. If you're looking for something wholesome to do and you have a lot of crap for stationaries that, that is, you know, more than disorganized, A stronger word than disorganized, Something German. This is a good time to do it. So yeah, I also like, you know, I'm finding lots of stuff that I, I'm not going to use and I know people would use it. So get some, you know, friend fun mailboxes going. But yeah, I could talk about this all night. Speaking of friend mailboxes, Leslie Halls, who has been a blog friend of mine since, like, before I had kids and I had just a regular blog, sent me a cool box of stuff from. I think it was from an engineer who passed away. So I am the proud owner of a slide roll in a leather sheath, like a sword. So my nerd cred is just, like, skyrocketed. But I don't. I mean, I don't know how to use it.
I was gonna say, are you doing lots of calculations now since.
Yeah, I'm gonna figure that out. Like, how many vintage Ticonderogas fit in this weird little Ikea cabinet drawer? And, you know, different generations or different sizes. But yeah, that was super awesome. There are some really cool, like, antique mechanical pencils in there. You know, sort of like the fat lead kind that are, you know, nice. Not kurotoga that, you know, you can drop it. And now it's broken, which is not something I've had a lot of. And now I really, really enjoy them. Like, A nice, heavy 0.9 mechanical pencil is great for scribbling and stuff. I, like, I did crosswords today in a pencil that's older than my dad and the lead is that old. Like, this is awesome.
That's pretty cool.
So, yeah, thanks again to Leslie. Also, I just sent you guys some pictures of some of the other cool goodies in there that I'm still going through. I spent like two days petting everything, and then, like, I'm getting good at cleaning up mechanical pencils, so that's good. Oh, I also, I've gone through all the bullet pencils I own and gotten everyone that I can get together together and clean and full. Like, this is a satisfying time. So like I said, you guys have to come back soon before I disorganize again.
Before it reverts to its natural state.
Like, oh, my God, it's like, open the closet and you just hear all this, like, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. I'm like, son of a crack.
Just goes back to nature.
Yeah, yeah. One of those people with ink all over their hands, but it's graphite and it looks like dirt. So moving on. We mentioned earlier that this episode is sponsored by our friend John Morris and his web shop. So, man, I fucked it up again. All right, sorry. Go right into it. This episode is brought to you by our longtime friend and first time sponsor, John Morris at Kamikucuin. Japanese. That's the kanji pronunciation of paper. And graphite, which is what John sells. If you're in our Facebook group, you're probably already quite familiar with John. He's active, welcoming, and one of the biggest pencil fans out there. If you're in the group, you can even find a thread where John is taking orders for a custom run of erasable community Black wings. The second run.
Yeah.
What you may not know is that he has an online Etsy shop where you'll find all sorts of goodies. Vintage Japanese wood pencils, stickers, magnets, most of which he designs himself with. Interesting stuff like Star wars and space shuttles. Having babies with pencils like shake all that up in a can and dump it out with some cool designs. That's what it looks like. He's got some rare and hard to find Japanese pencils and custom curated sets based on themes like floral pencils, camels, pentel. There were some bullet trains. Those were really cool.
Yeah, bullet trains are cool.
So if you make a purchase from Kamiko kuen today of two or more items, the use the offer code erasable 20e r a s a b l e 20. If you can't spell like me, you'll save 20%. And John will even throw in a fun limited edition sticker that he just produced just for us. So go to Etsy.com shop Kamikucuin K A M I K O K U E N Many thanks to John and Kami Kukuin for sponsoring the erasable podcast.
Yay.
Yay.
Thank you, John. Yeah, he's a lot of fun. He was just right before I went to Baltimore. He was in the Bay Area and we had dinner.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
I feel weird saying my own name.
Yeah, John.
I keep thinking of him as Morris in my head because, you know, it's also a first name.
But yeah.
So why don't we move on to our main topic which is our top five pencil update we haven't done in like three. Three years.
It's been a while.
Yeah. You want to go first, Jim?
Yeah, sure. I'm gonna start with the ones that haven't changed, so I'll start there. I think I feel like all of us maybe have or definitely Andy and I have like the standard sort of like one that's never going to leave the list. I feel like, Johnny, yours kind of jumbles up more than ours, which is very cool. But I just. The Palomino HP is never going to leave my list. That is my favorite kind of just standard. It will always be wonderful. I love everything about it, it's like the perfect pencil for me. So that's definitely got to stay on there. The other one that has remained the same sort of is that I've got the MMX on my list which was I think last time I decided to just put the MMX and then say. And all iterations of. Because I'm thinking mostly of the core. I mean I was tempted to put the volume 4 or the 73 on there but I just ended up going with the MMX one that's more. And I actually, I've been using. Yeah. The archetype but I've been using that one more like on a regular basis anyways. So I think if I were to,
if I were to pick like a favorite MMX core, it would be the 73 or no. 73. 70. Yeah, the Tahoe one. I love the way that.
Yeah, that one's amazing.
That one is a beautiful pencil.
Yeah, that, the, that one. And then I really, I know it was. It doesn't seem like it was super popular but I just really love the Mars one. So. Yeah, I love that. I love that pencil. And so I've got a dozen of those in waiting that I'm just glad I found before they disappeared. But yeah, so those two I think are my standards. If I'm remembering right. I guess I should maybe look at this. I think that's. Those are the only ones that I, that I'm repeating. I didn't even look at our old top five because I didn't want to be influenced by it.
So I didn't either.
Yeah. So I'm going back now and yeah, so those are. That's actually the. Oh my gosh. The last time we did this I didn't even have the MMX on there because it was so long ago. So I guess the only, only repeat for me is the Palomino hp. Gosh, that's fascinating. I had the right notepads jumbo pencil
on here long time ago.
One of you remind me what episode was the last time we did this?
No idea.
No idea.
I could find out.
Are you just looking on our. On the website?
I'm just looking at the link. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
Maybe. Maybe we had updated it on an episode but yeah, so that can't be it. Yeah. So Palomino HB and the mmx. I also just. And this will be the last California cedar or whatever blackwing related thing. But the blackwing natural I have to add on my. Onto my list because of all these that are on my list. That is the one I use the most often on the most regular basis, even more than the Palomino HP these days. So I've been using that one for the last, I don't know, six months. I probably use that pencil more than anything else. I also, you'll see a theme with these last few but the Mitsubishi 9852EW, which I've talked about exhaustively on here, but that is another one of my regular rotation and it's kind of. It's interesting to me that over time the pencils that I've grown to prefer have gotten softer or I mean gotten harder and harder. I've got four out of my five are essentially an HB pencil, which I would not have expected when we started this podcast because when I first got into it I wanted all the soft the to be the four B the. You know, that stuff was so interesting but now I just, I love the hard stuff. So sticking to the hard stuff.
I've noticed that as people get into pencils they start moving toward more practical points. Yeah.
Yeah.
Just what looks like pan.
Yeah. It's because that's when you. I feel like you eventually get. Once you've gotten deep enough into it and you're using them often enough, then part of. Yeah, like you said the practical. Is that what you said? Practical. Is that the word?
Yeah.
At a certain point you're like where are my pencils going?
Yeah. And you also are just like, well one thing I the more I do this, the more I appreciate is a pencil that lasts a long time. You know, so that's definitely been me. But the 9852 VW is a wonderful pencil worthy of stocking up in my opinion. And it's really cool how it's made too. If you're listening and haven't haven't seen them before, but they're made with recycled pencil slats and they just kind of take odd shaped slats and stick them together. And so you kind of get a seam in your pencil at different points at different whatever, different sections of the barrel. And it has a really beautiful kind of dark purple eraser or feral as well. Very beautiful pencil. And the last one, which I think would be the headline in the pencil related newspaper tomorrow would be would be that this is going to get a lot of play on this episode. So I'm not going to say too much because we're going to be talking about a lot, but the Tennessee Red is, is on my top five now. I actually had a friend who I Helped get in, you know, helped him get into good pencils several years ago. And he's. He's living in Texas now, and he texted me today, and he's like, I've been using these Palomino HPs for year, and I want years, and I want something new. Can you recommend something? And it was like, immediately I had. I had the link in, like, four seconds and sent him the Tennessee rep. I was like, you'll love these. Get these. You'll. They're. They're amazing. So it is the other trend in mine, hard pencils, then also, the one trend that stayed the same is that I do still love my natural pencils, like a lot of people. So I've got three on here that have a natural, you know, our sans paint.
Yeah.
So it's just an amazing pencil. It's really good and also has a good story. It's made of red cedar, the wood that we almost wiped out of existence in our country by making too many pencils out of it.
So here we are making more pencils.
So God bless America. It's back.
Yeah.
And then. Yeah, so that's me. That's my five. I got the Palomino HP, the Mitsubishi 9852EW Blackwing MMX, Blackwing Natural, and the Musgrave Tennessee Red.
Yeah. Yeah.
How about you, Andy?
Yeah. So, interestingly, I had the 9852ew on my last list, and it did not make the cut this time. And I don't think it's because I like it any less. But this, this time around, I mostly have been going for the pencils that I just, like, have grabbed the, like, the most. Like, I've just kind of kept it. Kept it around and, like, put it in my pencil cup and, like, just really, really went for. So there are a few on here that's the same. Um, the golden bear is still. I, I, I think my. The golden bear is still my Palomino hp. I think it's still my favorite. Um, it's just. I just love the colors and the way it looks and the price point is so good. Um, so, yeah, still, like, especially the blue golden bears from my. My jam. I think last time I had the test scoring 1/ hundreds on there too, which are still a very. No, I did not have the test scoring 1/ hundreds on there. So I'm looking at my list that's on. So if you go to erasable us/top5, one word, you can see all of these, like, you can see these lists. We'll get them updated for. For our new lists. But, yeah, last time I did this, the test scoring 100 is not on here just because it's such a little weirdo.
So.
So I'll put it. I'll put it on there. I. So those two, I believe, are the same one that I have recently discovered. And Tim, I know this is an honorable mention for you is the Viking School pencil, which we talked about as our pencil of the month last time.
Yeah, yeah, that was. And you. I had not used those until you sent me those, and then we used them as the pencil month, and they caught on real quick for me. So, yeah, actually had. I left one in Henry's room. And the other day he came in. He's like, dad, is this my pencil or is this your pencil? I just found it in my room. And I was like, yeah. My instinct was just to be like, no, that's yours, or you can have it. And I was like, that's mine. Yeah, those are in limited quantity. Give me that.
Yeah, those are. Yeah, those are really nice. And they're just very well made. I think they look cool too. I also have the Tennessee Red because, you know, since it was made and came out, I just really love it. It looks gorgeous. It writes really well, has a really good story. We sort of like, you know, now we know something has changed since the last time we did this. We know the people behind it. We know the story. That's really fun. I have a T shirt. Both the Tennessee Red and the test scoring 100, I have a T shirt for. So now I just have to find a T shirt for the other three.
Stylish.
I don't know where I'm gonna find a Viking school pencil T shirt, but maybe I'll just make one. Who knows?
There you go.
Yeah, it just says School by Lennon. Be like. Is that like a. Is that like a. Like a Icelandic death metal band?
Way nerdier.
No.
Yeah.
Yeah, that'll be our band name.
Yeah. Oh, that would be a good one. Skull by. And then the one that I. The one that I was kind of surprised about was on there that I've been using a lot, is the just a Camel hp. I have several of them. And the natural one, which I think is my favorite, the highest quality Camel HP with that kind of like grayish eraser. I use that all the damn time. I have it in front of me right now. It's just a really good pencil. I have grown to like the ferrule less eraser.
So do you. Do you have a preference for the gray eraser over the white, or is that just the one you happen to have in front of you?
I. I think I like the aesthetics of the gray eraser better. I think it looks cooler. And also it doesn't show dirt as easily because it's the same color as the graphite. But I don't. What is your preference?
Oh, I don't have a preference. I like them both.
Yeah. Yeah. I really. I get really. Speaking of John Morris, I get really jealous of his Camel collection he has. Oh, yeah.
Geez.
So many good colors. Yeah. If you're in the group, just search for, like, Camel John Morris, and you will see so many pencils.
The.
Which.
What are they called? The pastel ones are in production.
Yeah.
The ones that cw. Those are nice. I feel like they're.
Those are very nice.
Softer.
Yeah. But I mean, the. The natural wood one is, like, it's. It's definitely glossed over, but it looks. Looks really nice. Yeah. That is for me. I'm trying to think of what fell off my. My list. I had, interestingly. So the Nataraj pop was on there. And really, like, I think. I think I just took it off because, like, ever since Apsara, like, they switched the brand to Apsara, they've been kind of sloppily made. I still love the colors in them, but I've had so many that are just kind of, like, poor quality. And, like, the paint is. Was not fully sort of, like, glazed onto the pencil or there's, like, a chip out of a, like, cap on the top, so. Boo. Yeah. Get it together up, Sarah. I also had the CW editor on my list, which is interesting because I do not remember putting that on that list.
So.
Yeah.
It's like looking back on, like, high school and be like. Yeah, it was a weird phase in my life.
Yeah.
My shoes.
What was I doing back then, man? What was I thinking?
Yeah.
It's a different man.
That is it for me. How about you?
So I swear I didn't just copy off you guys, but my first one is Musgrave, Tennessee Red.
Yeah.
Because I'm at the only. I'm thinking if I could change something about that pencil, I would like it in more grades because Tim and I were talking about this or like Tim was saying earlier, and I've discovered in my own life, I'm really moving toward, like, American number twos. And that's a soft pencil.
Yeah. Are we. Is the Tennessee Red the. The first time we've had the same pencil and all the. All three top fives.
Oh yeah, probably, if you don't count. Like, I mean like we've had different versions of the 602core on our lists, but like from different editions. But it almost doesn't count, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it's the most important overlap we've had.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
It speaks volumes about what a great pencil it is. And my other four are all pencils that are no longer in production. But that's what I've been using lately. So first the subscription.
You probably haven't heard of it, you know.
So this is the vintage Velvet fiber Castell 3557 with blue foil. They also had a gold foil one which has a better feral. But you know, blue foil is awesome.
Yeah.
And the original Venus and American Pencil company versions were blue foiled. But Faber Castell makes a pencil that's yellow with blue foil that's numbered 3557 in one of the Asian markets. So I've seen them on ebay, like not for terrible prices, but I think that that particular seller was in a country that can't ship to us right now. But yeah, I'll definitely check back in with those. So the velvet is called the velvet because it was marketed as being very smooth writing. But by the time Faber Castell had it, it was just sort of, you know, a high end yellow pencil with the iconic blue band around a gold ferrule which sort of looks a lot like the USA gold. In fact, the USA Gold looks like they totally copied off this pencil. But good pencil to copy off of there if you can find them. They're like 10 or $15 for a dozen. Is a pretty good price on ebay. Sometimes you can get them a little cheaper if you want to buy more than one dozen. My next one is the barrel version of the mirado marked number one, which they call a 2B instead of a B. But the barrel version has print like going almost all the way to the point of the pencil. So after a few sharpenings you're already taking off the word chemisealed. So it's like really cool. Like hey, here's all this cool stuff with this pencil. You need to know when it's all in one line.
Is that around?
No, it's sort of brand name pencils.
Kind of looks round but I see.
Oh, I think he scan, he scan them. Yeah, it's not round but it's sort of like a soft hex and it was before they started crimping the erasers on like what we're used to. So they were, I don't know, really interestingly placed. Yeah. My next one is Faber Castell slash Eberhard Faber. They're pretty much the same pencil, but Faber Castell bought Eberhard Faber the American, which was their, you know, cheap number two pencil that I had in school. And they're all over the place. You can go on ebay and pick up a dozen of them for, you know, stupid prices or less than 10 bucks. Like I wouldn't pay 10 bucks. But yeah, they're just cheap cedar pencils with a simple ferrule and a pink eraser. And you know, the quality control is a little better than what kids will get these days in their cheap school pencils. And they're made in America and they're cedar.
Would you say that the graphite quality of some of these old pencils are worse than modern day? Or is it better? Or is it about the. Does it stay about the same?
I think they're more consistent, which is something you can't say for modern Ticonderoga.
Yeah.
Despite the fact that if you get a good one, it's a really good pencil.
Yeah.
But yeah, I can, I can pull out a Faber Castell or Eberhard Faber American and sharpen it and close my eyes and have no idea which one it is. Which. We're nerds, you know, we'd, we'd be able to tell. Yeah, they're like I said, they're all over the place. I mean, if you find someone selling a gross, definitely drop me a message because that would make me very happy. Yeah, I have a few dozen floating around and my last one is also no longer made, but it's more recently made. That's the papermate version of the Murado Classic that was out in like the early to mid aughts. So this was when they were still made in America and Sanford brand. Yeah, this is when they were. They switched over from Sanford to Paper Mate and they hadn't changed anything except instead of saying Sanford, it said Paper Mate. So it was still like kind of classy looking. And the, the ferrules were really, really shiny brass colored aluminum with red, not burgundy stripe. And they used to brag about having the pink pearl and most of mine that are from 0405 still have erasers that work. So that's pretty cool and unusual. But it was for a long time my favorite pencil. But it was always a little too light for my tastes. But now I'm Getting older. And I appreciate a lighter pencil, but I have tracked down, you know, two or three dozen of the number ones, because. Why not?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I realized I've never had a yellow pencil on here before, and almost all of mine are yellow pencils.
Oh, wow. I didn't think about that.
And this is the first time I haven't put a black wing on here. But I haven't been using soft graphite lately.
That's it. On your old. Your old top five, you had a Faber Castell grip Sparkle Brown.
That's a good pencil.
Yeah.
And all mine are USA made. Score one for me.
Was that intentional?
Nope. No. I was sitting here, I'm like, what am I actually using? So I just kind of like fished around my desk. Like, I've been using these because they're short and blunt. So I guess I'll go with these.
They're all USA made and almost all of them are no longer. No longer made. So that tells you a lot about USA production.
Yeah. But they're all of the vintage ones I listed are pretty easy to get on the ebay's. Yeah. Even the surprisingly, the barrel number one, it's like all over the place, which makes me happy. So maybe we won't wait three years before we do this again. Yeah, Definitely not revisited every six months or a year.
Yeah, that's a good point. A good plan. Yeah. I'm really interested. We should put a call out anybody in the group or anybody who wants to come in, tell us what your top five pencils are. I'm really interested. To see if they're sort of like trends kind of beyond our little bubble.
Yeah, that would be fascinating. Maybe there's a way we could ask. It'd be cool to ask. Put the question out there before we even publish this episode and then when we come back next time we can, like, report on before people hear ours, you know?
Yeah. Like, I'd be really. I'm surprised that the Blackwing 602 wasn't on this list anywhere because that's just such a, like, modern, like, favorite. Yeah.
But amazing pencil. But it kind of like Johnny was saying, I just haven't been using it.
Yeah. There's so many others out there. Yeah.
We're being honest.
Yeah.
Truth in gravitizing. Yeah. So can you guys tell. Can you tell our listeners where to find you guys on the Internet besides Animal Crossing?
Nope. That's it.
That is it, honestly. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter imwassum. You can find me on Instagram timothywassom. And you can find me on the island of Camas in Animal Crossing.
I am@woodclinch.com you can find me on Twitter and Instagram is Wealthley. And you can find me on the island of Candy Land with a K. Really? So Katie and my celebrity couple name is Kandy K A N D y. And so we've always like. We've always named our, like wi fi networks and stuff, like Candyland. And that's the. Even though Katie does not do Animal Crossing, it's still. That's still our island.
There you go. That makes sense.
Oh, nerd.
Oh, man. You can find me@pencil revolution.com and on Instagram and sometimes Twitter at Pensolution. You can find us at Erasable us. This episode 142 will be at erasable US142. You can express your support and appreciation for the programming we provide by supporting us on patreon@patreon.com erasable thank you to everyone who already supports us at the producer level. Chew Witt, Alex, Jonathan Brown, Ann Seip, Bob Ostwald, Bobby Letzinger, Chris Jones, Chris Metzkiss, Chris Ulrich, Dave McDonnell, Dave Tubman, Fourth Letter, Franklin Furlong, Gangster Hotline. Hans Noodleman, Hunter McCain, Jocelyn R. Myers, James Dominguez, Jason Dill, Jay Newton, Joe Crace, John Banion, Johnny Baker, Karen Peabody, Kathy Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Larry Grimaldi, Leslie Touzay, Mary Collis, Measure Twice, Michael Diallosa, Michael Hagan, Millie Blackwell, Random Thinks, Sarah Hunter, Stuart Lennon, Tana Feliz, Terry Beth Ledbetter. And think travel. Eat.
Whoo.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Yeah. Love you guys.
So also, you can find us on the facebook@facebook.com erasablepodcast on Instagram Twitter erasablepodcast. And our Facebook group, the friendliest corner of the Internet is facebook.comgroups erasable. Thank you again to John Morris for sponsoring this episode. And remember, if you make a purchase from Kamo. Oh, my God. Just press through. It's fine. From kamikokuan today of one or two items, use the offer code erasable 20e r a s a b l e 20 to save 20%. And John will even throw in a fun limited edition sticker that he produced just for this episode. So go to Etsy.com K A M I K O K U E n and we'll talk to you guys next time with a very special guest.
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