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Transcript
And speaking of notebooks, I had a bug up my butt was like two weeks ago to make some notebooks and thermal.
Was it a cicada?
No, they were just like colored notebooks with really heavy paper and they.
How long has it been there?
Really quick, huh?
Are you all right?
I said how long?
Yeah.
Stolen the bug up the butt.
Yeah.
Hello, folks. Welcome to the Erasable podcast. This is episode 163. The cruelest month is over. And by that I mean we've almost made it through February of 2020 and it is spring ish, depending on where you are in the country. But we are here to have a good old fashioned freshpoints episode. Catch up on some stuff and talk about some things that we're anticipating. Yeah. And so glad to be with you. And I'm of course joined by two of the finest gentlemen I know, Andy and Johnny.
Hello. Where are the gentlemen? It's just us. I thought.
Yeah. You didn't make more friends, man.
Yeah, I was just being nice. But never again.
We used to call these freshpoint episodes Fresh Points of Bel Air. Oh, yeah. Remember how? Remember that land?
You need to get back to that.
Yeah, yeah.
Fresh Points of Bel Air.
I'm gonna have that head that's song in my head all night.
I say we reinstate that tradition.
Born and raised.
Nice. Cool. So you guys doing all right?
Yeah, yeah.
It's been a long week. It's only Tuesday.
Yeah. Yeah. Even my son was sitting up, like, getting ready to go to bed and he had his pgs on. We were asking him to brush his teeth. He says tomorrow, Friday. No, man, I wish, dude. No, it is Tuesday. You're not even close.
See the spirit just go out of the eyes of a child.
Yeah. She's been like, yes, yes. It'll be here faster if you go to sleep.
Yeah, I'm gonna try that.
Yeah, you never know.
Kids go to sleep. Tomorrow's Friday. It is, yeah.
What?
Yeah, we're doing something fun.
I'll just tell them that they. They dreamt it.
Yeah.
You guys. You guys fell asleep on the couch. I carried you to bed.
Yeah, man. Guys were out last night. Wow.
Nice. All right, well, let's. Let's. Let's dig in. Let's start with Tools of the Trade. And Johnny, go for it. Tell us what you've been stealing and showing.
So I've. I guess I think I'm late to the game, but I've gotten really into Austin Kleon's work, so I just devoured steal like an artist and show your work. And the third one, Keep going, is here. It came today, so I'll read it, like, tomorrow because they're pretty quick reads. And like I always say this, I feel like sometimes the terminology that he uses can sell himself short, if that makes sense. I know, you know, there's the pun on show your work, but it's really about getting your work out there. And I feel like if you don't read the back of the book, then you just kind of miss it. And same with Steeler. Like an artist. Like, oh, the book is way better than it sounds like when you look at the COVID The first time I saw it, I was like, that doesn't sound interesting. I want to read that. But it was, like, super great. I love it. And he does a lot of cool zine stuff and he likes pencils, so he's just a very fun person to follow. And I read A World of Wonders that also everyone else in the world's already read. I didn't know what that book was about either. From the COVID I thought it was about interesting, you know, entities in nature that are full of wonder, like narwhals, but it's not. It's really just personal essays, which were really good. That was also a book that was way better than the title would lead you to believe, but totally recommend it. That was, like, really a page turner. And there is a section about narwhals. And I did learn a lot about narwhals. They're so adorable. But there was nothing in there on koalas, which almost ruined the book for me because I love koalas. But, yeah, that's my boring life lately. I'm re watching Shetland because why not?
Did you do the part about the ponies?
I don't think there's a single horse in the whole series. A lot of Volvos.
Yeah, a lot of Volvo.
And I've never been to Scotland, so I can't say that this is just the show. But it seems like everybody in Scotland has three French presses in their kitchen and that's it. Which, like, oh, another reason I need to go live there. But my allergies have been, like, ballistic lately, so shut in with the air conditioning on, even though it's like in the 40s at night, watching my Scotland show with coffee at 11 o'.
Clock.
Cozy life.
Living the dream. Yeah.
And so I'm writing with a Staedtler Norris because I forgot what an awesome pencil this was. And I picked one up recently and like, hot damn, it's just perfect. And I'm just writing on whatever scraps are sitting around, which is a lot of stuff. How about you, Andy?
I was talking to Katie before we started, just to see. Just to remember what all television we've been watching. And we've been watching a lot of things that are. Have, like, short seasons. Have either of you heard of mayor of Easttown?
No.
So there's the. It's this HBO show, and it's. If you took one of those just really dreary British murder shows. Oh. Like with David Tennant that I can't remember the name of Broadchurch. Yeah. Take something like that. But set it in Pennsylvania. And they. And so Kate Winslet stars as mayor, and she's a police detective in a small town in Pennsylvania called Easttown. Yeah. And the. It's. It's just. It's just a really small town. Dreary, but also very good murder. Murder mystery. And it's funny because SNL last week parodied it because everybody has this very specific accent that, to me, sounds like a Baltimore accent. There's a lot of, like. No. Like, I can't even do it right.
East PA is like that.
Yeah, it is. It really is. It's in the. The parody was like. It was. This guy's daughter was murdered. And so it was like, you murdered my dirter? It's like, my dirt is murdered. I found her in the water,
and
I found my daughter in the water.
God.
And.
And so imagine Kate Winslet, this British actor, trying this accent. It's. It's very good. It's very bleak. Very bleak. It's always super gray in this town and raining. I assume that's what East Pennsylvania is like. We're in episode four. If you. If you. If you like the Catholic church, I would recommend watching it.
Let's just say that this is, like, my show. I'm gonna check this out.
I think you would like it, Johnny. I think you would really like the first episode. Katie and I were like, I think Johnny would like this. Also watched and finished season. The final and third season of Shrill. That is. That show with A.D. bryant from Saturday Night Live that's set in Portland is really good. They just posted all of that end of last week, I think. So we watched. We watched all of the episodes because they're short, went fast. We didn't have a lot else to do this weekend. Watch that. And finally, there's this other show that we are in the middle of that is on Peacock. It's a Peacock original show, which is NBC streaming app. Have either of you heard of Rutherford Falls?
Sounds familiar, but I have no idea what it is.
Yeah, this one, it's really good. It's starring Ed Helms, who played Andy in the Office. And is this guy lives in this place called Rutherford Falls, which is named after his ancestor.
That sounds like a fake name that Andy Bernard would come up with.
We're not sure that Andy Bernard is not just, you know, playing this character. It's really good. It's kind of a quirky comedy. It has a lot of Parks and Rec vibe to it, I think. And it is a little bit about colonialism, interestingly, because his forefathers built this town, but they built it kind of using this, like this trade agreement with a Native American tribe. And that tribe is still in existence. They run like a casino in town. And it's a little bit about that. It's a really good show. It's funny and it makes you think and it's just seems kind of sweet. So I'm liking it so far. And last thing I'll mention is this book that I started reading a couple nights ago called the Effort. It is a science fiction ish book. It takes place in the. I think. I think it takes place during the Trump administration because they talk about that, but. So it's a dystopian fiction book.
Like every book of fiction written during
the Trump administration, there is a comet currently hurtling toward Earth. Earth. And this is about, like, different nations trying to pull together an effort to stop it. So it's a little bit Armageddon that movie meets. Have you ever seen Station or Red Station 11?
I need to. I have it, but I haven't. Haven't read it yet.
It's a really good book. It focuses on characters, but in all sorts of different sort of circumstances. And it talks a lot about sort of like what happens to society when there's just sort of a mass panic and, you know, a comet might just destroy all life on Earth.
Yeah.
So, so far, so good. It's a really well written book and I am writing with my Palomino Blackwing Palomino, which we'll talk a little bit about in freshpoints in my. Some of the final pages of my Blue Loitch term, which I will also talk about in freshpoints. Tim, how about you?
Nice. We have been first and most importantly, we've been rewatching Gilmore Girls.
Oh, nice. So it's funny how I feel like you have what this will be like your second run of Gilmore Girls since we've Been doing this podcast.
Oh yeah, definitely. Because the first time was. Well, like we had started it twice, I think. And so like the time, the first time we watched it in the podcast, I was finishing it, finally finishing it for the first time. But I had seen some of them more than once. And then I've watched random episodes since then. But we just started right from the beginning. So we're on like episode eight, something like that. So that's been a really good fit for like what we. What we need right now. And we're also. Because it's also an antidote to the other thing we're watching, which is Yellowstone. Have you guys watched Yellowstone? It's so good. It's got Kevin Costner and basically he's this like super powerful rancher in, in the Yellowstone who owns an absurd amount of land and who's going to like crazy means to keep control of the land. So it's. There's part of it where he's this like righteous dude who's trying to save the land from like modernity, like taking over and turning it into casinos and hotels. But he's also got like a sort of Walter White side to him where there's just. He's willing to do some evil stuff if he has to to. And so there's these developers that are trying to encroach on his land and then the. But there's also the. The local Native American tribe that's trying to take back sections of the land. And it's just a family drama about his family that runs this ranch called the Yellowstone. And it's very good. It gets pretty dark. But we, I mean, we love it. It's on. I think you can watch it on Peacock. But it's. It airs on Paramount originally, so the third season comes out or the fourth season comes out this summer sometime and we're somewhere in the second season. It's fantastic show. Yeah, it's really, really good. So if it's sort of like a mix between a Western and like a Breaking Bad style show, so. Which is right in my wheel. Right in my wheelhouse.
Deadwood. Breaking. Breaking. Breaking Deadwood.
Yeah, it's like modern day Deadwood sort of. I don't know. Breaking Deadwood. Yeah.
Okay.
And then I'm reading, I'm finishing up that Hank Williams biography which I told you guys about. I think I've got like 20 pages left, which has been really good, but also really sad ending because it's like the whole last chapter is just about his like really pitiful death. Like he just. I mean, he just sort of drinks himself into oblivion and just fades away and like dies in the back of a car. And they don't know he's dead for four hours and just drive because they're just assuming he's passed out. It's. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty ending. Yeah. I mean the whole book is. I'm glad I read it and I would recommend it to music fans. But I mean, it is just basically a book explaining just how much he drank, which is really wild. I mean, like people describing it as him drinking bottles of whiskey. Like you would drink a bottle of water, like just incre. I mean, just incredible amounts. And then he had these like quack doctors that would follow him around and basically after he'd drink, they'd give him these weird shots. They would make him throw up and then they'd give him like amphetamines to go up on stage. And then you get done with the show and then he'd just start the cycle again. It was just. It's. It was awful. And he. He died at 29.
Oh God.
And so this is all. So he died of like heart failure from like drug abuse by 29. It's. It's really wild. The movie. I think I talked about that last time, but the movie gets it right. So you can just watch the movie if you're not interested in a 300 page book about Hank Williams. But I saw the light and then I'm reading. So the other. The last two things I'll mention is I. We were in Asheville recently and I got the new and selected poems of Ron Rash, who I've talked about on here many times. But I got the. A physical copy of his selected poems, which is really, really great. And that's been a good source for songwriting inspiration the last several days that I've been looking through that. And then once I finish the Hank Williams book, I am going back and I am reading the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. The Name of the Wind. We talked about that on here before.
I don't think so.
It's this like one fantasy series that I've been talked into by enough friends to read and not hate fantasy as much as I typically do. So I've read most of the first one. I thought I had finished it, but I actually didn't. But I'm gonna. I'm just gonna start over. I'm gonna read the first one. I bought the second one. They're massive, but it's just kind of like These this big fantasy trilogy. The third book's not out yet, but just that has a huge cult following. And the thing that got me stuck on it after reading the first like 30 pages is that it's fantasy. But he's also a really beautiful writer, which he's not. One thing that usually drives me crazy about fantasy is that they hide behind their like weird made up words all the time or their, their world building, but they don't worry about just writing a good sentence, you know, and he's just a really good writer. So yeah, that's what I'm read. That's what I'll be reading. I listened to some of the audiobook to get it started and. But I bought. I bought a physical copy recently, so I'm gonna read that. And I am writing with. Also while I was on that trip to Asheville, the brief trip to Asheville, I finally got some Blackwing 840s.
Oh yeah.
Which is the, the coast, like the surfing one, right? Is that what it was?
Yeah.
Oh yeah. Yeah. So this place was selling them in singles, so I just got a couple of those.
Remind me which course is.
I think it's pearl. I didn't even look it up, but it feels like a pearl. Yeah. But yeah, I like it. It's a way. I'm. I kind of regret not buying a dozen of them. I mean, I have more pencils than I could ever use, but they're really, really gorgeous in person. I really like it. So I'm a fan, officially. So surprised. Yeah, legitimately surprised because I, I straight up avoided them. I was just like, no thanks, don't want that one. Which I don't know. I don't know why I was so definitive on it. But then when I saw them there in the cup, I was just like, oh gosh, those are actually cool. And I'm glad I got them. So I got a couple of those. So I'm writing with that. I do have my Blackwing Palomino here as well. And I am using. Which I'm going to talk about soon. I'm using a Maramon notebook, the Maruman notebook. That is the Maruman. Oh gosh. C R O Q U, I S. Which Maybe means something 6, 5. Like croque or Croque. I don't know. But it's a. It's a really cool notebook that I'll talk about in a minute. That's me. So let's do. Let's do some fresh points. The first fresh points. Bel Air. The fresh point of Guinness And I'm trying to think of some other. Some other puns. So, Johnny, why don't you get us started?
Okay. I have some points to point out.
Eye roll. Point.
Some points I think we. Andy mentioned the Brood X books that Headbone and Story supply company put together. My set got lost in the mail for a while and they just showed up yesterday. But they are so freaking awesome in person.
What's the paper like?
These are the cicada ones.
Yeah, it's. I'm pretty sure it's their regular paper. So it feels like right notepads, but cream colored and a little thinner Burke's Fine fountain pens. I, as soon as I got on, it's like, what can this. This can handle it. Handled it all well. But the picture was so good. I showed it to Frankie, she's like, no, get that away.
It's very realistic.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I think you can get like a sticker pack with a couple extra stickers that were skulls and one of them is the perfect sticker of a cicada. So I'm glad I got that.
They emerged yet, Johnny?
I haven't found any yet. We've had, you know, the weather keeps going up and down and it's been cold at night lately, so like any day. And right outside my. My tiny desk is by my bedroom window which is by a lot of trees. So it's going to be interesting. Yeah, probably next time we record I'd be able to put the mic on the window. Oh God, that's a creepy thought. Yeah, so last I checked when I went to go get the link for the document, they still have some left. So I'm. I have no idea if they made lots or little or what, but they're definitely. Go get some. Especially if you live in Brudex area because creepy. And speaking of notebooks, I had a bug up my butt was like two weeks ago to make some notebooks and thermal.
Was it a cicada?
No, they were just like colored notebooks with really heavy paper and they.
How long has it been there?
Really quick, huh?
Are you all right?
How long? The bug up the butt.
You know what I should have made? I only made 20 packs. I should have done 17 and called them the cicada books. Now I gotta make some more. Every time I play with a paper cutter, I'm one step closer to losing a finger because oh yeah, it's gonna happen. I've cut my finger in it before and lost a nail and been like, whoa, that was close. There's a finger Guard. But I have small fingers and didn't work. But, yeah, I found some really, really good paper that works well with everything, including fountain pens, and made a bunch of notebooks, and they went really quickly, which made me happy, except that they were really heavy and hard to ship. So hopefully they got everybody safely. And I'm late with my pencil scene this month because I sent out a survey and I'm switching it up a little bit so that instead of each issue being like one long, like, meditation on a theme, it's gonna be something more like a newsletter, magazine, newspaper type thing, or there are different columns and then also a themed column once a month.
Yeah. Nice.
So, yeah, I got the paper. It's. It's bright yellow. It's gonna be awesome. Hopefully. Good.
Did you already talk about your Tuesday zine last time?
Did I? My really obscene. So every. I put out a zine that's a book, and it's called the Tuesday Zine. And this week's is called I effing hate frozen waffles. And it. It turned out to not be about frozen waffles. There's only one line about them where it says, plus, they taste S H I T. But the rest of it was about family. So, yeah, every week I think it gets a little better. And every week I sell a couple less. So I'm just gonna keep doing it because it's fun. I'm not losing any money or making money. It just evens out. So it's all good.
Yeah. Yeah.
But, yeah, I mentioned quickly that I'm super into Austin Kleon right now, but if you go to his website, he's got some really cool posts on there, like the comfort of a pencil, which I really appreciate it. And a lot of cool stuff on there, but making zines and journals and I don't know, it's not inspirational. It's really motivational. Hey, I'm doing some awesome work. You guys can do some awesome work. And that's. That's good. That's what we need right now.
I think, like, my favorite Austin Kleon thing is just when he, like, periodically shows back up on Twitter and is. What are you people doing here? You know this place is terrible, right?
Yeah, he doesn't get on there much.
He's get off. Start a blog, send a newsletter, get off this website, and then he just disappears. I always love those moments.
Telegrams. Just sent telegrams.
Postcards, Postcards.
He's got a nice Instagram account. He does. He weighs the notebooks when they're Finished like on a scale to weigh, like all the stuff that's in them. It's pretty funny.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, yeah. And he has a post on there where he links to all the stuff he uses. Before you ask me, here's all the stuff I use and links to it. Like that is thoughtful and probably took a long time. So. Yeah, yeah, I'm definitely go check his stuff out. If you like creativity at all and also subtle humor which I. I super appreciate. He also has a post on there about how to break in a Sharpie that's totally legit. So I gotta find links for these. Sorry. So those are all my few fresh points. What do you have, Mr. Andy?
I actually have a bunch this time around. The first one that I'll mention, I think is the. The one that. I think this came out like literally the day that we published the last episode. And so I wish it came out just like slightly before, but I'm talking about the newest of the Blackwing era collection, which if you remember the last Blackwing era, it was a. It was made to look like the. The first Blackwing, right? Like the kind of like the black with the. The darker feral and the stripe. This one is kind of go in the other direction. It is a Blackwing Palomino and it is. It's basically looks like this palomino that HP that the late. The late Sean Malone sent a few pencil bloggers about 10 years ago. Johnny, you got one of these too, right?
No, I don't think so.
I. Oh, I thought you did. Well, he. He sent it. We had. There's like the little email chain going around before social media was like a really huge thing and back when he was still sort of like engaging with the pencil community and he. And before Blackwing re. Released the Blackwing, before Cal Cedar released the Blackwing, I can't. Yeah. And so he didn't have any sort of animosity toward them, but. And he loved the Palomino hb and he basically took a blue capped Pal HB and sanded down the ends and put a Blackwing ferrule on it and made. We didn't call it a hack wing then, but it was the first hack wing that I've ever seen. And this one looks exactly like that. It's. It looks like a. Looks like a palomino blue palomino with black wing cap on it.
I use those like almost exclusively for three years, like in the middle of our podcast. I just wouldn't. I made tons of them. I still have them like all over the house. So it's like, really bizarre to be holding one that's like, official, Right? And it definitely.
Yeah, go into, go into him. I want to hear what, like, your thoughts on. As a, As a big fan of the PAL hb. I want to hear what your thoughts on.
Yeah, no, I mean, it's cool. It's.
I.
My main thing is it's, it's confusing because they just brought back the Palomino hb. Right.
So it's.
They just brought that back. So are they getting rid of it again? And they're just doing this temporarily or is this just. Hey, you know that pencil we sell for $15. If you want that pencil, but with a different eraser, it's twice as expensive. And here's the era. Yeah, that's basically what it is.
I thought it was a joke because, I mean, the Palomino made people, you know, pay attention to them and made the black wing possible. And it's, you know, basically gone by the wayside. So they're like, I thought it was a joke to them. Be like, hey, guess what? F you. Palomino.
It's. And it's the name, the name Bugs. I'm sounding more negative than I feel because I actually really like it and I'm happy with it. But, like, the name also bugs me because it's like them. It's like a car coming out that's called the Mustang. Ford.
Yeah. They've dropped the Palomino Blackwing from the brand Camry.
Toyota.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me, there's this, like, meme that's going around, and I don't even know if it's real, but it's this, like, clothing label called Mark by Marc Jacobs for Jacobs. By, By Mark Jacobs. By Mark Jacobs. Just all on this label. And it's just. Yeah. So it's the. I joke when I say it's the Palomino Blackwing. Palomino. Because we don't call it the Palomino Black Blackwing anymore. It's just Blackwing.
Yeah.
But we're just gonna go ahead and slap Palomino back on it.
But I mean, it's, it is cool. And I, I've been using it, you know, for several days now and enjoying it just fine. I mean, it's not one that I, I, I mean, at. It's kind of nice. It's like getting a bunch of pre hacked wing hack winged hbs. And then I don't have the. As much of the stock up impulse on it because I had been Making them for years before, but because you still have some. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean I've got. Yeah, I've got. I still have 80 HBS left.
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean it's a. To me it's a really, you know, if this were like years down the line and the Palomino had had kind of gone by the wayside, it felt, it feels like it'd be a really nice tribute. But you know, you could still buy the eraser Palominos in the store. Yeah.
And
yeah. Still pretty recent memory. So I feel weird about it because it, as you mentioned, Tim, and I think some pretty cynical person in the group said this too, is they. They're just looking for a way to sell, you know, a twelve dollar a dozen pencil for thirty dollars with.
Just to put a different hat on it, you know, and it's, it's such a huge jump from. Here's the first Black Wing ever that Walt Disney used and here's a pencil we made in the 2000s. You know, jump. Like I thought they would do more. I mean I was hoping maybe there'd be like a. I don't know, like a Van Dyke. I don't know if they have the. Yeah. If they, if they have the permission to do that kind of thing. They might not. But, but other versions of the Black Wing. Just stick with the Black Wing. You don't have to. This is what. Yeah, like you said, this is one for like maybe 20 years down the road. Again, I don't mind that much because I like it. So I'm still gonna, I'm still gonna use them and, and love them, but it just was a really odd second choice for the eras. Yeah.
When the ERA came out, did they sort of announce that it was going to be a series? I thought it was a one off thing.
It seemed like it was going to be a recurring kind of.
Yeah. The way that they said it, it. It seemed like it was going to be like there were going to be several or more than one sort of in that collection. But they really just commit. Commit to anything. Yeah. Yeah.
Just like occasionally we'll revisit one kind of.
Occasionally we'll put out three different pencils in two weeks.
Yeah. Just for. Jeez. Meanwhile, they're still assembling like pages over at Field Notes. Yeah.
I think somebody who works there has to have an interesting sense of humor about completists to be like, hey, you know what, let's change the imprint. Let's like put a different eraser on it. Let's change the box. Let's really mess with these people because, like, you would really just go so broke chasing all their stuff down.
Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we. We. The three of us kind of split a subscription, or not a subscription, but a box. And you can get them in both the orange and the blue, which I think is. Is like a cool idea because you could get the original Palomino and the
orange and the blue.
But. Yeah.
Yeah. I wonder why they did it that way. Instead of just doing one box of, you know, six of each, what do
you think that was? How do we get people to buy two dozen?
Yeah, so $60 instead of.
Yeah.
I don't know how many people are going to buy them. We're only going to buy one box anyway.
Yeah.
Like, I need three for later, one for now, and six for eBay.
Yeah. It really does feel like this is. These. This collection is for, you know, the wonks, like, the. Like the people in our group and our listeners.
Right.
Does anybody. Does anybody just out there who might pick up impulse buy some fancy pencils from an art store? Do they care that this is like an homage to a pencil they made 15 years ago? I don't know. I do wish I was saying to the group that they don't seem to be doing a tribute to the foil stamps on it, but I really wish it had that California Republic logo on it, like, in tribute.
Oh, that would have been awesome. You're right.
I missed that. I missed that brand. I thought it was cool.
Yeah. Did the original Blackwing have that on there or did it just say Palomino? I can't remember even.
Oh, gosh, I don't remember. I'll have to look at that. I have a couple old fleck Blackwings in my stash. Yeah, I'll just. You know what? Let me pull out my little box right now. Nope. It had the horse, but I don't believe it had the California Republic logo on it.
Oh, that was classy. I loved that.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Interesting. Interesting.
New.
New era from. From Blackwing. We talked about the independent bookstore day pencil last time when I was distributing these. I also included one of those. One of those in it. Just even though I know y' all hate it, I thought I'd tell you
they're even worse in person, by the way. So, I mean, I appreciate the gesture.
I've grown to like that.
Okay.
I've grown to like that really weird little, like, random gold stripe that's at the bottom at the base of it about a third up. I don't know why, just weird. Okay, cool. So I also want to mention, I think I talked about this a little bit in Tools of the Trade. I am coming up to the end of my Leuchtturm and we're getting. I'm in the pot. The part where the pages start getting perforated. So coming up toward the end, and it's been so long since I've started using this and, and I have not really thought about using another sort of like daily notebook. I don't know what to do next. Do you have any suggestions, either of you?
I am in the same boat and in my Amazon cart, I have a brighter colored one for spring, so I'm flirting with that. Or a Rhodiarama or one of those cool vintage French notebooks because I found a seller on ebay that makes plastic covers for them. So I'm beside myself. I can't decide either. I might just wind up letting the kids pick it.
Yeah, Yeah, I, I can't decide if I should go back to Confidants, which I usually do, or if I should stick with Leuchtturm or if I should look at one. Look up one of those other like brands. Logan Jotter or Marken. Not Logan Jotter, Mark and Fold. Or. Yeah, I can't decide yet if anybody has any suggestions. Yeah, right.
Notepads, Hardcover book. That's also on my possible list.
Oh yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
You're specifically looking for a hardback book, like in that style.
Not necessarily, but that's kind of what I was thinking. I. I would, I wanted to be the A5 size. So I was also thinking maybe one of those like, large field notes like the, the Roastery editions that are like much thinner. But a 5.
1. Two things that popped into my head were. One was the one I'm going to talk about later, which is a Maramon. It's a spiral notebook, but it's a really nice spiral notebook. Like a real. It's like a larger size. When I say really nice, I just mean like, it's, it's not. It's shaped like the cheapo ones that you would find at the Walmart or whatever. But it's, it's really nice quality and it lays really nice and flat and the paper's great and they come in graph paper too. But the other one I was thinking about was the, the notebook that Blackwing put out with the Woody Guthrie pencils that like. Oh yeah, yeah, that thing's pretty cool. So.
Yeah.
Are you going to use any pens or just pencils?
I. I use a little bit of both, I think probably every day. Mostly it's my pencil, but I tested out that fountain pen in here. Sometimes when I'm making a list, I pick up a fountain pen just to play with or ballpoint. So probably a little. A little bit of everything.
The Claire Fontaine book that Tim sent me when we did the. Or those other guys did that thing on Indelible where they bought each other pension on Amazon. They're like nine bucks. And they come in a lot of colors and they have amazing paper.
That's. That's a. That's a good. Actually another spiral one that I. I still love and I've talked about it on the show, like, a long time ago. It's Claire Fontaine. It's a little larger spiral notebook that I bought at a art store. And I'll send you a link. They're like nine bucks, but they're incred. The paper's incredible. I'll send you a link, too, because these are.
Okay.
Yeah. The one that Tim sent me was hard to open, but I just broke the spine in a bunch of places and it flips open and it's solid. It's really freaking nice book.
Interesting. Okay. Okay.
I think I just picked my next book.
This was helpful. Thank you. No, man, thank you.
You've got color, he's got his picked, and you're still, like, trying to figure out what you're going to use.
Yeah.
So here's. Yeah.
Johnny goes through notebooks so much faster than I do. Like this. I started this notebook right. Right after quarantine started last year, and I am just now getting to page 233. So I go through them pretty slowly.
Start at that one.
Yeah. Speaking of notebooks, there's a couple new Baron figs that I wanted to mention. One of them is they were making a really pretty periwinkle confidant now of their stock.
Oh, that is pretty color.
Yeah, I just got an email about that today. Light purple, kind of dusty periwinkle. Fun to say, fun to use. It's a really good one. And they introduced another interesting one that is one of their, like, structured notebooks. It is called. And they don't call it a structured notebook. What do they call it? They call it a guided edition. So this one is called a deploy, and it is a code notebook. And I was kind of looking at it. It basically has just some, like, tabular pages for you to write code into
do people write code in notebooks?
Yeah. And so that was my question. So I took it to the Baron Fig fanatics Facebook group where I know that there's a bunch of people who are working code for their jobs like John Morris and Mark Cohen and I'm like, is this useful to anyone? And oh, and Seth, Seth McCombs who's a guy I've been talking to about mechanical keyboards but just asking them all is this something that people would use? And everybody was just like it's an interesting idea. But no. So I'll be really interested to see how Baron Fig kind of suggests people use that and also if people buy it because it's like it's cool. It has a very cool, you know, kind of vector image spaceship on the COVID It looks kind of like a retro video game, Black Confidant. The pages are like pretty, just regular ruled. So it's probably pretty easy just to use it for regular stuff. But yeah, unlike all their other notebooks, this one doesn't feel to me like it has a really actual good use case. Yeah. But I would definitely be interested in hearing if anybody here.
Yeah.
Actually like any listeners actually find, find use out of this because I've just really. I haven't been seeing much from Baron Fig lately. This is the first in a while.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
Since like the fall when they had the orange one. Is that right?
Yeah, yeah, that's. It's been a while. Also want to mention I just bought on Etsy the other day some T shirts that Bob Truby from Brand Name Pencils is selling. He made in the same sort of style as those Musgrave T shirts that have the pencil designs on them. He's made some pencil, some T shirt designs out of like old, old brands. Like he made a, he made a Futura shirt. He made a US Pencil company Electro shirt. He has one at the Wallace Pencil Company Black Oak and a bunch of other ones. Super cool. If you want to get your T shirt collection to be just, you know, different types of old pencils, like you can totally make that happen seven days
of the week now.
So yeah, Lincoln, Lincoln show notes to the brand name pencils etiquette shop. And he has some stickers and stuff there too. He, he's kind of becoming a whole little enterprise.
That's awesome.
Yeah. So yeah, last thing I'll mention and I, you know, eventually I think it'd be cool to have it like a, like a main topic about this but I have sort of been getting into Mechanical keyboards. And I know we talked about this. Did we talk about this last time?
Yeah.
Oh, go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I finally made a purchase. It is a. This Chinese keyboard, this Chinese company called iQunix, IQ, Unix, iQuinix. And it has its really cool colors. I picked out the kind of, like, switches. The keyboard switches that I want to use. They're kind of clicky but aren't too loud. So next time we record, I should have a review of this. I should be getting this next week.
Cool. I'm interested. So I'd like to hear how you like it.
Yeah. Yeah. Just following up on that. I can't remember if last time I talked about how I discovered that there's a website where you own keycaps and essentially letting you design your own keyboard, because I think still upsets.
I think when you first started talking about it, you were like. I've heard you get really fussy and, like, change colors, all this crazy stuff, but I'm not really into that. And then the next thing I know, you're like, so you can put your own font on top. And then dove in really quickly, Which I respect. I probably will, too, at some point.
Yeah, that is. Yeah, that is kind of the depth that I went to. There's a couple. I was talking about this guy now he comes to the San Francisco stationery meet about here, and he has this keyboard that is both ergonomic in that, like, you. You know, the sides of the keyboard are separated and. And they're also ortholinear, which means that the keys are in a straight line instead of, like, slightly offset like most keyboards. Yeah, yeah. You gotta type with your teeth. And then he also uses. He uses, like, a layout called a workman layout, which is more balanced between the left and the right side, whereas the QWERTY is very, like, left hand heavy. And I was just reading about that. And so he. He's a guitar player, so his wrists are just, like, ruined. Apparently the ortholinear keys and the workman layout has better distribution and, like, less. Less movement of your wrists. So. And it's also a really good way to prevent, like, people from using your computer because nobody can use that keyboard. Yeah. So, yeah, as far as deep as I've. As I've gone, Seth has shown me that one can go much, much, much deeper. Cool. So that is. That is it for my very long list of fresh points.
Yeah.
How about you?
First one I wanted to bring up was some notebooks that I've kind of referenced a couple times, but I was got sent some notebooks from Michelle with Maruman USA which thank you Michelle for sending these. Kind of reached out and said I've got some notebooks wondering if you'd be interested. What kind of thing are you into? And she just sent this like really awesome assortment of notebooks which is really funny like a super coincidence because the last episode we did my pretty much my only fresh point was about that Hank Williams notebook. Remember about how like I was looking for a certain kind of spiral notebook that Hank Williams had used. Not finding it. I'm still not finding it. I'm probably never gonna find it. But I ended up going on Jetpens and found a craft brown spiral lined notebook that was made by Maramon and so I ended up getting one. So I bought. I bought a ruled one and love it. It's like really really great really tight spiral. It lays perfectly flat. The COVID is nice and stiff. But she also sent me a graph paper one so it's really nice. 80 sheet 5 millimeter squares. And so I've really been enjoying that. But the also got some other really neat things in a smaller. Are you familiar with the Nemosine company or like Nema sign brand? So that's made. That's made by Maramon. Yeah, so. So yeah so the same company and so you're made in Japan. There's another one that was what I've. I haven't messed with it much but it's. I guess you could use it as like a blank planner where you just put in the dates or you can also use it as like meeting notes because it has like sort of an organization to it. There are three sections. You title it. There's a date section or you can number which is pretty neat. But they're really really cool looking. I just. This is. This one's got like a black plastic cover. And then one other standout for me was also I'm trying to get better about writing letters back to people this summer is something that's a goal. And she sent a. They call it the report pad but it's just a lined pad that is. Let's see what size is this? It's in millimeters. So I have no. I don't know what this means but 257 by 182 so if you can. Oh B5 there is B5 is the size but it's the perfect. It's perfect paper. It's super smooth. It's. It's fine almost like a you know like Bible paper or whatever like library of America paper with lining on one side and has a line for the date at the top. And this is going to be my new letter writing paper that I'm really, really super excited about using that pattern for. And then the last one from there that I was going to mention is what I mentioned earlier that I've been using today. And it's called the Croquis C R O Q U I S. By the way, a lot of these are available she had mentioned because the place she asked me to look at to see what I was interested in on her on Jetpens. You can find these on Jetpens and really all reasonably priced. And I love buying things from Jetpens. Good. It's a good place. But this one is. You wouldn't call it a perfect bound. I mean, it has like the square binding on it, but it's basically just like a wraparound sticker on the binding. What do you call that? It's not stitched. I don't know. But you know what I'm talking about. But it's. But it's like the tape binding or whatever is super. You get like easy to manipulate. So it basically it lays perfectly flat, which is really cool. Right? It lays. First, it lays perfectly flat and has really creamy. Like a creamy yellowish paper. And I. And I got it with. With blank sheets in it. So that's something that I thought about maybe using it as a. Like a songwriting notebook, like a lyric thing. Kind of keep it at my desk down here at some point once I work through the ones that I've got here. But I'm just. I'm really impressed. And again, she sent me these to let me take a look at them. And so I'm not just saying it because I got them, but I really am impressed with a few of these a lot. Especially that big spiral notebook. That's. That's by far my favorite. And that's the next notebook I'm going to use because I'm about to finish. I'm about to finish up my Leuchtturm that I use for like, work stuff that I've had forever, you know. And so I think I'm going to. I'm going to jump into the spiral notebook and see how it holds up. The only question I have about how it holds up is that every page is perforated. So I don't know how I haven't tested the strength of the perforation to see how well it'll hold up. Yeah. So. And it might not.
You don't want that just kind of
tearing out on you because the. Because the papers a good quality and not, like, super duper thin on this one. So it might be. And they. It's really well bound with a tight spiral. Like, there's just, like, a ton of holes. So it might be stronger than it looks. I don't know. So that's. Yeah. So that's that from Maramon usa. You could follow my Instagram. I think it's like, Maramon. Maramon usa.
Sounds like a Tokai character, Maybe Maruman.
Yeah. Man. That's conquering that world in our house right now. Oh, Pokemon. Henry's getting obsessed with Pokemon, and I'm gonna.
Oh, really?
But it's amazing because he's obsessed with it, but he's never played it. He just, like, has a book, like, a encyclopedia of Pokemon that he, like, loves looking at, and he has, like, a few little toys. And so his end of the school year made it out of second grade. Gift is I'm gonna get him the new Pokemon Snap first switch. Because it seems perfect because it's, like nature photography. It's not, like, battling. And it just seems a little more, like, relaxing. So we're gonna try.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have that go app on your phone for him to play with?
Because. Yeah.
It's like giving cocaine to a lifetime
supply of pop rocks. Or like, here's a. Here's an endless bucket of fun dip.
Go wild, kid.
So I'm a little. Yeah.
Tim, do you ever want your.
Exactly.
Your phone again? Do you ever want to have a charge battery?
It'll get him outside, which I think is great. But I'm gonna. I'm literally afraid that he's gonna take my phone, just walk out into our neighborhood, and just get himself lost. Yeah. And the traffic did not even. Yeah, that would be bad. But just end up in somebody's backyard, end up trespassing or something, you know, Which I could totally see happening.
Yeah.
So the only other thing I've got. And this is pretty cool, but. And this is also another connection to the Hank Williams stuff. But I was trying to think of how I ended up finding this. I think I was looking up stuff about the Bob Dylan archives that are opening up that are connected to that, like, black wing that came out the. The blue pencil. And in it, I found out about something that has been part of Bob Dylan lore for a long time that I had never come across, but is that I found out that he is a pocket notebook user and has some famous pocket notebooks in his collection that people have discussed for years and have actually sold at, at auctions and stuff. And that in the. The main ones, which there are multiple. And I'll. There's a really cool picture that shows like all of his different pocket notebooks, but the main ones were the notebooks that he wrote the lyrics for the Tangled up in Blue album. And so, so basically like Dylan's archives are becoming available through this, this center for the first time. And people are seeing with these little glimpses that he is so much more like meticulous than people would have assumed. Like, this stuff isn't just coming out that he was doing draft after draft after draft, draft after draft. Right. And he has this like tiny little handwriting in these little pocket spiral notebooks that he was just carrying around and writing all these songs. So I. There have been, I've heard references that they're going to. That someday there will be a book that'll probably come out that'll basically be like a facsimile kind of thing where it's all of the pages in the tangled up in blue notebooks kind of annotated, which would be super awesome to be able to see. And also there's lots of, you know, he writes lots of lyrics that don't make it into the song. And oh, the, the interesting connection to the Hank Williams thing, that's where I kind of got off track. But is that his pocket notebook? And that link that I sent you guys to, that no Depression article, did you notice that it has the same. The spiral logo on the front of it? It's the same, the spiral. Yeah, yeah.
And he's just teasing you.
He is following a, you know, self professed Hank Williams fanatic. And so I just had a intense burst of pleasure in my core thinking about the possibility that he had sought out a notebook because he had seen the notebooks used by Hank Williams, that he was like, I need to find one. Just like Hank Williams had. You know, I like had that brief. I, I guarantee that's not true, but.
Oh, I see.
It was really fun for a second to be like, what if he was hunting this down? Just like I'm trying to hunt again. Like I'm just part of a tradition. The spiral, it's the same. Same note.
There it is.
Icon or whatever.
Now I want to read it. And it's like, there's a lyric that's tangled up with Periwinkle. That would be a great.
Like, he's like, oh, no, that doesn't sound right. Yeah, yeah, Tangled up In royal blue.
Not periwinkle. No, no.
Tangled up in Pilot. Man, I can't get this. Forget about did say. It does say in that article that he. The Tangled up in Blue was originally called Dusty Blues and then it was called Blue Carnation one, which is he. He made a good choice there. The revisions paid off. But this is a great. This is a. An unpublished lyric from his pocket notebook. So it says, perhaps you've seen me walking on the highway in your mind had some big ambitions but they all broke like glass Always done my duty and tried to be kind I couldn't stop the progress of a nation going blind. It's like, dang. That was his throwaway. That's a. That's the.
That's the stuff where he's like, this isn't good enough.
But it's very cool. So there's a. I encourage people, if you're interested in Bob Dylan, just to Google Bob Dylan's pocket notebooks. And there's actually a lot out there of interesting pictures from his pocket notebooks. And there's a little bit of lore behind a few of them that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Sometimes I forget he's still alive. Like we talk about Bob Dylan. He's this genius. He's still making pucks out there.
Maybe private, you know, it's wild. And here's. Yeah. And I. Here's this to be a good cover photo, but this is. I'll share it with you guys. But this is a picture of his. Basically a stack of his pocket notebooks from the. From the archives. So here. This is great podcasting, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna paste it into you just let you guys see it. And then maybe if you're. If you're listening, you can. We can edit this out it. You guys. Are you guys ready for this?
This is people.
This is what people want. Get ready.
There it is.
So you're ready?
Are you ready?
Oh, well, it's there. Go. Google's lying to you.
Oh, I don't see anything.
You're loading. Loading. There it is.
It's loading.
Let me reload.
There it is. Oh, yeah. Look at these guys. Yeah, it's pouring a crap that like little really beat up leather one that just notes and embossed, like debossed gold.
That's all I've got. So if you're a Bob Dylan fan, Google Bob Dylan pocket notebooks and there's a whole bunch of stationary goodness out there to wade through. So anybody got anything else you want to bring up before we close things up.
All right.
I don't think so. Yay.
I gotta think of anything. Oh, field notes. Where are you?
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, we'll be able to talk about him next time. So that's, that's good.
Yeah. Hopefully I am just gonna be cracked. Yeah.
Cool.
Surprise.
They do have a weird tease on their website with this beautiful green and letterpress that says 50. Yeah, like it wouldn't be like them about that and if for it to be nothing.
Yeah, yeah, but.
But also, but also not exactly.
We'll find out. All right, Johnny, where can people find
you on the Internet gonna sleep tonight? Oh, you could find me@pencilrevolution.com and on social media at Pencil Ocean.
And I am on @andy WT.
You can find me on Instagram @TimothyWassum and I'm on Twitter @TimWassom. We have a very loving and generous group of people that are supporting us on Patreon. If you're interested in doing that, you can do so at Erasable Us Patreon. We I have some certain kinds of extra content that we give out this year. It included some really cool shirts, T shirts that were designed with the help of our friend Alicera. And we also have some jokers who do a pen podcast for us. It's called Indelible that is released only to our Patreon subscribers. So there are extra content that is made available to you that's always kind of developing and could change over time. But that's a way of us to say thank you for supporting us at different levels. So if you're interested, that's Erasable Us Patreon. And These are our $10 producer level patrons. David Johnson, Laurie Smith, Phil Munson, Nate Rabeck, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Miriam Bokout, Dave Harry Marks, Allison Zepeda, Diana Oakley, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Kyle, Paul Moorhead and Andrew Squish. Aly Sara Jamelia, Stephen Francsali, Aaron Willard, O.A. pryor, K.P. millie Blackwell, Chris L. Hunter McCain, Bob Ostwald, Michael D', Alosa, Adam Prabola, Jacqueline Myers, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Measure Twice, Michael Hagan, Chris Metzkus, John Bannon, Bill Clow, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave McDonald, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Prevost. Sorry. Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Letzinger, fourth Letter, Kelton Wiens, Scott Hayes, Hans Noodleman, Terry Beth, Jay Newton, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, Chris Jones and John W. Yeah, let me, let me start over. So let me take a nap and I'll go for the summit in the morning. Thank you so much to those who support us on Patreon. There are multiple levels you can support us at from as little as, what is it, $2. Yeah. A month or whatever. So yeah. So thank you to our supporters on Patreon.
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How was a dramatic reading of the negative reviews?
It's probably, it's probably been two years since I've looked these much about pencil. Like I hope we have some real bad ones. Yeah,
it'd be cool to get drunk and read some of the like mean ones like you guys, you guys talk too much and I got a fancy
tonight tweets segment or whatever. Let me do that. All right. But yeah, so review us on itunes, recommend us on Overcast, whatever the show notes for this episode will be at eraseable US163. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you soon.
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