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Transcript
Cool. Tim. Tools of the trade.
Fresh ones.
Yes. No fresh points. Okay, let's start again. Hello and welcome to episode 164 of the Erasable Podcast. I'm Andy Welfle here with my favorite limited editions, Tim Day Game Wasum and Johnny Autumn Trilogy Gamber. Hey, guys. Hey.
Hey.
I just remembered 164 on the fly because Johnny had 161 in there.
Good improvisation. That's good. Keeping you on your toes.
I can't believe I did that on my feet. So later we're going to have a little retrospective of the field notes, colors, color editions, just to celebrate their 50th quarterly edition which would come out. We kind of wanted to celebrate that milestone. So we're going to talk about our favorite editions, what we love about field notes in general, and also just some feedback from our, from our community. Just some well loved releases there. But first, before we do that, let's jump into the tools of the trade. Tim, how about you?
Well, I have been reading a book that I know I've talked about before, but I didn't get all the way to the end of it because it's very long. But now it's summer and so I started it right before the summer break started and I'm gonna finish it this time. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which I know I've talked about before, when I first had started reading it and was loving it and got pretty far into it, but just didn't finish. And it just seemed like a fun reading experience. It's like I remember talking about it because it was one of the only fantasy books that I like, was willing to read. Like, I hate fantasy, but this one sounded good, so. Yeah, yeah, so, but, and it is, it's very good. I'm enjoying that a lot. And it's like it's part of a three book trilogy and there's going to be a. We've been like, the third one's been in the works for like a decade, but the main character basically sits down with a, like a scribe who's like collecting stories around this world. And he gets three days with this guy named Kavath. And so every book is one day of storytelling from him. So he tells like so everything that's in the first book he told him in one day and then, you know, so on. But tells like his life story or at least how he got to. Yeah, it's a really cool book. And on Johnny's recommendation, I read Steal like an artist in about 20 minutes. And it was really wonderful. I remember the first time I came across it, which would have been a good long while ago, but I remember for some reason it gave me this really, like, eye roll inducing vibe. I don't know, I was just like. I remember, like the first time I saw it and just was not interested. And I don't know why now because I read through it. I just, I mean, blew through it and loved it. And actually I found it after I had read it. I found the audiobook on SCRIBD and just started listening to it again, like in the car. It's kind of back to back. So, yeah, he.
He just released all three of his books together as a audio trip.
That's the one that's on SCRIBD now. You can listen.
Yeah, I wish the. The paper books came that way because they match. It would be so satisfying.
Yeah, that would be nice to have, like a workshop companion style box. Like those, like, cardboard sleeve. Ooh.
Oh, yes.
Make me want to. But I. Yeah, I really loved it. My favorite takeaway during my songwriting times, you know, I've talked about that several times recently, is I love the part where he talks about when you're. Whatever, you're creating, whatever the thing is that you want to create, find the person that you most admire. So for me, I was like thinking about Jason Isbel, and he said, and he just says to spend as much time as you possibly can knowing their work inside and out. Like, no matter how long it takes, learn, you know, learn their songs, study their paintings, whatever it is. And then once you get done with that, find three people that really influence them. And then just kind of keep that chain going as far as you can. So, I mean, that's like years and years of work. So it was just this really cool, like, paragraph that gives you your own, you know, your own MFA or something.
Do you think there's like a. Like a patient zero of creativity? Do you think, like, everybody, like a Kevin Bacon of creativity all goes back to, like. Yeah, like, everybody all goes back to, like, probably Bob Dylan.
Oh, sure. Homer or something. Shakespeare, probably. You know, it's overrated, but probably Shakespeare. Says the English teacher. And I'm not joking. So, yeah, I really loved it. And I'm ready. I'm gonna read the other ones. But I. I did that thing where I. I hold back from jumping right into the second book in a series or whatever. I'm just kind of withholding for a while, and then I'm gonna read it in the next couple weeks at Some point. What's the second one? Is it going, Keep going or show your words? Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, that one's my favorite one. That one's so cool. So good.
Well, yeah, I'll probably.
I mean, they're all good, but that one's got a lot of practical stuff in it.
Yeah, I might listen to that one while I. I've been playing a lot of disc golf recently, getting back into that, which has been a really fun way to get outside and get some exercise, and I can listen to it while I do that.
So is disc golf and Frisbee golf the same thing?
Yeah, same thing.
Okay.
And as far as listening to. Something really strange comes over me every summer when the weather gets warm and I am free of work obligations temporarily, suddenly all I can do is listen to the Grateful Dead. Just comes over me like a. Just a flood of good vibes and hippie dancing. And this time. And I. So I went about. There's this insane podcast. I don't know if you. Do you know who Stephen Haydn is? He's a rock critic. He has a podcast. He used to have just, like a music podcast, but now he has one that's called 36 from the vault that I've been listening to, where they review the archive releases, or they do episodes on every archive release from the Grateful Dead, which is, like, there's been 36 of them, so that's 36 from the vault. The title of this series is very unfortunate these days. They didn't know this when they picked it back in the. Back in the, you know, 90s, when these started coming out. The series is called Dick's Picks.
I wondered when you. You wrote. You wrote this down in the notes,
like, what is he gonna talk about? Yeah, they. They spend, like, most of the first episode just talking about, like, got everybody who's listening. Just get used to it. You're gonna hear us say Dick's Picks a lot. It's not that. It's because the guy who was the archiv. Archivist for the. For the Grateful Dead chose, you know, the 36. Or. I don't think he did all 36. I think he did, like, the first 19, but he. He hand selected shows from the archives to release to, like, a, you know, wider audience. And I've been listening to volume 14, Dick's Picks 14, which is maybe my favorite one that I've ever listened to. And it's. It's helped me discover it. That's the great thing about the Grateful Dead is that it. You find like there's like a little pocket of their music that you hadn't listened to in a while or didn't know that you liked in 1973 as a year that I haven't listened to many of their shows. And so now I'm just kind of, I don't know, obsessed with 1973. Grateful Dead. That's me. So, so back. Back with the Dead. And I am writing with a Mitsubishi 9800 in F that I just got recently from Jetpens. I. I did a big F in order, meaning I got a bunch of F pencils, like everything I could find on. On Jet. Got some high uni, a dozen high unis in F, because that was my favorite. And then I got another mono 100 in F and I've got. No, sorry, I got mono one hundreds in F. I got another high uni in F because I like those two. And then I got this one. So all these different F grade pencils and I've really been enjoying them lately. And I am writing in a notebook I mentioned last week, which is the Maramon B5 report pad, which I think I had said was going to be my letter writing kind of pad when I actually sit down and do the letter writing that I've been meaning to do. And it's a. It's a really good notebook for a hard pencil. It's super smooth paper. And so I'm. This is a perfect combo. I'm very satisfied. Yeah.
Yeah.
How about you, Johnny? Nice.
Thanks. So my first book is a. Keep going, the third book from Austin Kleon, continuing my minor obsession with Mr. Kleon clean on Cleon lately. So this one is about, you know, how to keep going, being creative when the world is starting to look really effed up. So this was before COVID so it was like extra relevant now. But you know, it was the same sort of format as the other ones. They match, which is nice. And this one had the title that's most related to what's in it. That makes sense. And so I sort of have a hobby of reading thorough biographies and Hemingway biographies. So I'm reading A Life of the Mind by Richardson, who wrote Emerson. The Mind on Fire. I think that's the title. And I commented to Cleon that that was a good book because he mentioned something else and he's like, oh yeah, I read that. I'm reading the James one. Like this guy has one from William James. So that makes me happy.
Jesus Christ.
It's not my fault. Sorry.
That's him right so,
well, so what just happened that that is terrible for podcasting is that in the, in the show notes that we're kind of going through, somebody wrote keep going by Austin Klingon instead of Kleon. And I just dropped in a very large picture of Gowran who is the chancellor of the Klingon Empire in Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space Nine.
And startled Johnny a little bit, I think.
Yeah. And startled Johnny because he has very scary eyes.
Yeah, he has the same green eyes as I. That I have.
I thought you two are practically twins.
Yeah, just as much hair.
I mean. Yeah, my beard grows up a little
higher on my cheeks than him.
That's true.
Oh. So yeah. Anyway, the, the Thoreau biography skips all of the stuff before college, which is good because that stuff's pretty boring. And it's just like an intellectual biography of Thoreau as a writer and a thinker and talks a lot about his, his reading how much he loved Homer. And it's like really, really cool. I'm ashamed that I hadn't already read it. And I'm also consuming crap tons of colored paper making my Tuesday zines. But that's fun because colored paper is fun. And I'm writing with a Brood X notebook by Story supply company and headbone with a Musgrave single barrel because I kind of like the theme of things remaining hidden for a while. Like that wood was and like these really terrifying bugs are. Have been. How about you, Andy?
Oh man, what have I. I'm still reading that book I think I talked about last time called the Effort, which is a kind of a Station 11 style near future disaster like disaster story. There's a meteor heading to Earth and there's a team that's team of scientists who are trying to work on ways to stop it. But also it has a lot about sort of societal collapse and what happens in the wake of. Of imminent death. Right. So it's pretty good. Depressing, but very good. And last night Katie and I started watching this show called Hacks. It's on HBO and it is a. It's about Gene Smart plays. This kind of like superstar comedian, stand up comedian who just does. Has done thousands of shows in Las Vegas and this who's just starting to kind of decline in popularity. And this woman who is a comedy writer who's. Who's new kind of new in the industry and is looking for, looking for a break after she gets fired from working on a TV show and goes to, goes to write for, for this woman. And it's Pretty good. Just a. It's like a buddy cop movie. If it wasn't cops, it was women comedians. But it. Yeah, it's just a really good show. And then we're also the second to last episode of Mayor of East Town was. Was yesterday as we record. And I'm looking forward to that thrilling conclusion. So a really good. It's a really good show. I still maintain. Johnny, you would really love it.
So, yeah, I was trying to remember what it was called when I was looking for a new show this weekend.
Yeah. Mayor of M A R E. I don't know if her name is Mary and people call her Mayor or if her name is Mayor. Like a. Like a horse. Right. Mayor of E of East Town. But, yeah, sometimes they just drop in some East PA accent, which I'm sure you can distinguish the difference between that and a Baltimore accent. Johnny.
It's pretty close.
Lots of. Lots of water. Water.
A lot of water down there under the bridge.
It's water.
Water under the bridge.
The bridge. And I am.
Right. I was just imagining Andy, like, driving in his car and, like, listening to a tape that, like, is teaching him how to speak Baltimore. Like.
Like repeating this stuff. Yeah.
Johnny, you have to repeat after you have a conversation with the tape under.
Don't try to sound smart. It won't work.
I'm writing in my field notes 50 ledger, which we'll talk about with a. It happens to be America's finest pencil. It's a prestige black pencil that Tim sent me that. Where did you get Tim from? A Kroger.
The finest Kroger in the land.
Those things never went super mainstream like they said they would.
Yeah. Yeah. I really like it. It's definitely one of those ones where it's not a amazing pencil, but it is way better than you think it's going to be because it's a pencil from Kroger. So. Yeah. Right with that. Cool. All right, let's move on to Freshpoints. And, Tim, you're right.
I got one pretty cool thing to talk about from Musgrave. They just released something new which they're calling the Heritage Collection, which a bit big. Thank you to Musgrave for sending us a sample of this really awesome, awesome product. Got it with a nice note from Nicole the other day. And it is. If you haven't seen it yet, you should go check it out. It comes in. I think my favorite part of it is the tube that it comes in. It comes in this pencil, a tube that looks like a pencil, and then inside are. Is It. A dozen. I'm counting it right now.
6, 8, 10, 12. Yes, 12.
Basically, a sampler pack of Musgrave pencils. So you get the test. Scoring 100 is in here. The Hermitage. The red one. The Harvest. The Cub. The Choo Choo. The tot. Is that this one? I don't know if I've ever had one of these before. The tot. Yeah, it's like a mini jumbo. I'm excited about that one. The news, which we've talked about here before. The. My pal, which I think I talked about a lot when I used to be obsessed with the Laddie, which, you know, still, because it's kind of in the same ballpark. The Tennessee Red, of course, the. The Unigraph. Those always make me think of our old pal Cody, because he gave me like a. Gave me like a thousand of these back in the day when he was kind of like, downsizing his stash. But this one, the one I have is an F. Oh, I'll set that aside. I didn't. I didn't notice that before the series. And then it also comes with the Bugle. So that's the spread that you get. That's a really cool spread of sort of classic Musgrave pencils. And yeah, like I said, the. The tube is just some really, really killer design. Huge pink eraser on the bottom. Love it.
It looks a lot like the. The tube that the Baron Fig archers come in. Just.
Just bigger. Maybe like 20% bigger. Like, it's just like. Because that Archer one was like. I mean, you could barely fit 12 pencils in there. It was super tight. Like, they had it locked down. This one's got some wiggle room.
They had to do math in order to make that work.
Yeah, they had to math that. And this one just. It looks. It looks. And It's. It's like 13 bucks, which is a pretty good deal, especially, I mean, with the tube, because this is just kind of. I mean, it carries the pencils to use. But I. I can also imagine using this for years to come to keep. To keep pencils in on a desk or something or even to. To travel with. Yeah, yeah. Pretty good deal. Do you get. What do you guys think?
Swoon.
I. I love. Love sampler packs. Like, I remember when Kelser started offering them kind of. I think it was even before Blackwing was. Maybe it was just one of the sampler packs, but they had one that had like, the. The Palomino and the Golden Bear and the Prospector and the Spangle. Like they had. They had a really good sampler pack. And that's. I mean, honestly, a sampler pack from pencil things is what got me into pencils. So I love the idea, especially sampler pack of Musgrave pencils that are all just. So. Just the colors are different and the designs, like, the stamps are so different. I just. I just love that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So I'm a. I'm a big fan of this. And then that. That ca. That tube, too, is just such a good, like, display item. I actually put mine on the shelves. I have in my. My zoom backdrop.
So, people, that's a good call. Now here's. Here's a big question.
Yeah.
Do you put it eraser down or do you put an eraser up? Because I feel like they want us to put an eraser down, but it also feels so. Right. That's a good point. Eraser up. And then on the website, it's eraser up. Right?
Like, yeah, I definitely do an eraser. Yeah.
But, like, with the sort of inner sleeve, it seems like it's meant to be the other way. I don't know.
But, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely do eraser up, but I will. I will tinker around with my display.
Yeah, it's definitely the more natural way to set it down, but I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think that was a really cool addition. Yet another cool addition to the Musgrave catalog. I know they've got new stuff coming out all the time, and they just. They're working really hard to. Yeah. I don't know, like, kind of. This sounds like. I don't mean this to be mean, but, like, bring musgrave into the 21st century, you know? And this is. This is a great, great addition. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're doing everything right.
They're very good at what they do.
I've said this already.
Yes.
Right. Get it.
That's all I got.
Can't eye roll one Zencaster.
Is that good? Yeah, that's perfect. That's all I've got. So how about you, Johnny?
So I got out my latest pencil zine a little late because I changed the format. So instead of it being, like, 20 pages on one theme that is really hard to write, it has sections, which is cool, and then still a special theme. But then it turns out that doing all of those sections is, like, trying to do NaNoWriMo with short stories and so much effin work. So, yeah, it was late, but it won't be late next Month. And it has comics by my daughter. I had to pay her, which I'm not happy about. An interview with like my oldest pencil friend. So. And it's bright yellow. So go get it while they're shipping free because when the new one comes out, they don't ship free anymore because this is breaking my back.
And Charlotte's agent is Henry, right? Because he's rough. I mean he's like, he's, he's a brutal negotiator.
He is just the right height to kneecap you.
That's what it says on his business card.
I think he just, I think that the, the. The hen. Henry Wasm and Henry Gamber have, have an agency. It's. It's Henry and Henry
H. Square. Yeah, he. Henry picked up an old brass roller of mine today that I didn't even know was on the shelf. He's like, can I have this? I'm like, oh my God, hell no. He was taking a yardstick and acting like a ninja with it one time. I'm like, oh my God. But yeah. So if you are a patreon Supporter of 5 or more dollars a month, then you get our quarterly zine. And you also would have gotten a notice today from Patreon with a really short two question survey before we put the next one out next month. Just regarding the size and suggestions for topics that you want us to cover at some point. So thank you to everybody that already answered it, but it's anonymous. So if you asked us a question, we can't really answer it back. But thank you for the feedback. And if you want, what's their cutoff
for becoming a patron? To get the zine when I print
it, I guess like the second week of June, the third week of June. Yeah, like that. Yeah. I tried to put them out around the equinox and the solstice just because it feels good. So, yeah, by the end of June I'll make some extras. Last time I checked, we have well over a hundred folks due to get it. So that's good. And yeah, I. So far the votes are to do it in quarter sheet again, which is cool. That was. I thought it would be fun to stretch out, but it was. It felt weird. It felt like I was doing my other zine and for my last one.
I can't wait to hear about this one.
Yeah, I was. I got my second Covid shot a week and a half ago and took Charlotte with me because I figure that, you know, the kids are probably going to get them soon and I wanted Them to see that it's not a big deal. So then we sat outside for some coffee and a bird took a giant crap on my Brude X notebook. I mean like, it was like an eagle. I looked at it for a second. I'm like, there's no way.
Oh girl, like Jesus, pour a yogurt from like second floor window or something.
I mean, it would have been like five yogurts. I'm like, what? It was bad. Like, wow.
I would love to know if, if with this brutex notebook if there have been any like birds dive bombing the notebook thinking it was a cicada, I
would be the cicada from hell. That thing is big. Like I would run very far.
That bird's about to get angry and carry you.
Yeah, I mean it's a. The drawing is super realistic. So I don't know, I mean they're everywhere. But apparently they come out in such numbers because predators can't keep up. And that way enough of them can breed without getting eaten something.
Ew.
But there are, there are pieces of them everywhere. Like a wing, half of a thorax. And I predict it my, that my very sensitive son would start getting sad and feel pity for the bugs. And he does. He's like, daddy is so sad. Like circle of life, man. Birds gotta eat. He's like, stupid birds. So. Yeah, but Corey dropped another one in the mail to me that hasn't come yet because my mail is so screwed up. But thank you very much, I appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah, it's. There's a really good website that one of the newspapers set up. I have to go remember which one it is. But it's one of those like parallax scrolling stories where as you scroll the story and read little sections it tells you like the, the screen changes and things kind of animate and it's about the, the life cycle of a cicada during, during Brudex. And it's just, it's just amazing how completely pointless their lives are.
In Baltimore, people still call them locusts. Like it's a 17 year locust. Like, no, like if that happened we, you know, especially if the election had gone differently, it would feel like the end of the world. Yeah, but it doesn't feel like the end of the world. Just they're very loud and they move slowly so it's kind of creepy. So like literally you walk down the street and you're like, I don't want to kill any of these things. And you're like jumping around like, don't break your Mother's back. Bizarre. But yeah. How about you, Andy?
I just realized that all three of my fresh points don't have anything to do with pencils. Which is funny. The first one I was going to mention is issue three of my 404 magazine came out.
A cover.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
I have one in the mail to both of you guys and it is, yeah, it's another spread, longer than my last one. But it is a really great if I do say so myself, it's a zine that has mostly original poetry. And I have a section of human computer collaborations through, through your like auto Suggest feature and like the auto, the auto suggest algorithm in, in like your texts that can like sometimes make a really strange like phrase or sentence. So I'm really, yeah, really a big fan of this one. We had a really, a lot of really good contributors. My friend Brian Sterling Lewis did the, did the COVID and he was, he's been playing a lot with halftones and kind of like the vintage comic book aesthetic lately. And so when we started talking about this I was like, Brian, can you make me like, it just looks like an old like Batman comic style computer that's like the poetry computer. And I don't know what it would have on it. Maybe like a screen that says like you know, a line from a limerick and a bunch of knobs and patch cables and like little visualizers and sliders and yeah, he just, he just really went for it. So. It looks amazing. I kind of like promised myself that I wouldn't with 404. I wouldn't get quite as elaborate with the designs as, as we do with Plumbago, but I just couldn't help myself. Yeah, big fan of this one. So go to 404computer if you would like to buy a copy. And yeah, we have, we have three of them now. I'm really excited. I'm. I'm thinking the next one. Just going back to a really simple cover. I have a bunch of craft brown from French Notebook or excuse me, French paper company pages left from when we did Plumbago 4. And I was thinking about maybe just like having a really simple design and making a custom rubber stamp and just rubber stamping the covers.
What's, what's the weight of that paper?
I think it's maybe like 65 pound cover. I have to check and make sure. But it's, it's the exact same paper we used for Plumbago 4. The creative creative, non fiction and memoir paper.
Okay, cool. That could be good for disposable yeah. In the future.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I think I have enough. Let me. Let me check and see how much I have. But I spent a crapload of money with French Paper Co. When I bought that, so I wanted to get a bunch. So. Yeah, let me. Let me check my supply and I'll send it to you. Or I'll let you know. Yeah. I want to mention. I can't remember if I followed up on this, but I finally, finally bought a mechanical keyboard. I've been talking about it and have been thinking about it for so long. I may have mentioned it in the last. In the last episode. I think maybe I had ordered it, but it hadn't been gotten here yet. But I don't know if you. I've been trying to, like, mute myself when I'm typing because you can probably hear the keyboard a little bit. Yeah.
Too much.
Um, Huge fan. I love the way it feels. I really like how. Yeah, just like how it sounds when I'm like, typing fast. It just makes me. I just feel like I'm just hacking into the mainframe. It makes me feel like a. Like a TV hacker.
Samuel L. Jackson in dress.
Yeah, exactly. It's like I have been really just like, digging into. Just like, you know, you think you are really into a hobby and then you realize that you don't even know. Right. Like, I'm sure pencils are like that for a lot of people, but fountain pens are like that for me. But keyboards, man, like, there are people who will, like, not only swap out, like, the key caps and the switches, like, the things you actually press down to to make the clicky sound, like, that's something that I have my head wrapped around. But some people will, like, open up the switches and swap out, like, the. The springs inside. Because you can, like, achieve a certain level of like, like pressure resistance and like, change up how fast it's actuated in which, like. Well, when it presses the key. Some people. Some people will lubricate their switches. So they talk about how they just got like, a bunch of lube switches. I'm like, wow, it's. It's amazing. I don't think I'm quite that. That ready to.
It's been a while since I've found something that actually made me react like this. Like, because after, like, being so obsessed with pencils and all this, like, I'm very, like, understanding it when people are really into something. But, like, as you were describing that, I was just like, what is wrong with these people? But that's just. That's probably what I said before, I got into a lot of the things that I'm now obsessed with.
Yeah, well, I'm. I'm trying really hard not to go down that particular rabbit hole because a. Keyboards are inexpensive and physically there's a lot of, like, takes up a lot of room, but. But also. Also, like, you know, you can go through pencils pretty relatively quickly. Well, like, if you have three keyboards, like, there's. You're just. You're just collecting keyboards.
Flash forward. You're not like, oh, flash forward six months and.
Exactly.
Andy's got like, that wall behind him for a zoom background. It's just like little, like, stands on the wall, like little floating shelves covered in, like, his backup keyboards.
Somebody remind me in episode 200 to tell me, like, right where I was at.
Yeah, I remember a guy who hated fountain pens and now has like 80 of them. That guy.
Yeah. Well, speaking of fountain pens, that's my last fresh point is I. You know, I've. In our. In our pen podcast, I talked about. For Patreon patrons, I talked about how I bought that new Parker51 reboot. And I'm. I'm just loving it. I love the nib. I love the way it feels and looks. The weight is perfect for me. It's not too. It's not too froofy, but it's also not too simple. Like, it's really distinctive. Love that Wild Ivy ink, that shoot. Who sent that? Me. Was it. Was that you, Johnny? Yep. Yeah.
Really love that you like that.
Cool. Yeah, I'm also, like, in. We. We talked about this a little bit on the. On that. That show. But I also now have, thanks to Johnny, a sampler of various. Various inks that I'm going to kind of slowly work my way through and kind of figure out what I like of. Of green inks specifically. But one thing I. I realized that I was. I really wanted in order to sort of like, make these samplers and collect them and distribute them is I bought a fountain pen accessory kit from Jetpens, and it includes like, a little syringe and a bunch of. Would you say pipettes or pipettes?
Pipettes.
I think pipettes. Yeah. It has some O rings, which I have zero idea how I would use them, but there's some in there if
you want to eyedrop or something that would add that in with some O ring.
Always just makes me think of Austin Powers. That. That scene where he's, like, getting attacked in the bathroom and the dude next to him's like, take it Easy, buddy. You're gonna blow an O ring in there. He's just, like, being choked by the. I think it's by, like, Rob Lowe's. Yeah.
Who does number two? Yeah.
You tell that dirt who's boss. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Powers in quite some time.
Oh, I think seen, like, once a week, I think for some reason. I don't know, it's just like one of those things that just, like, lives in my brain all the time. Rent free, as the kids say.
Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know how to follow that up. Comes with some vials to send out. Comes with some silicone grease, but, yeah, it's 15 bucks and includes all this stuff. If you are. If you are like me and you're like, I. I don't want to get into fountain pens as much as Johnny, but I also don't want to just, like. I want to, like, figure out how to do this a little bit. Check that out. Yeah, Cool. That is fresh points. Do you guys want to dive into the main topic at hand?
Do it.
Yeah.
Cool. Well, we are celebrating field notes at 50 editions, which basically means, let's see, there's. There's 50 of them at four times a year. Half of 50 is 25. Half of 25 is 1250. So. Wow. They've been around for 12 and a half years. At least. At least the limited editions. Have they? I think field notes, the craft brown editions have been around for a couple years longer than that. But that's. That's pretty.
And were the first. Were Butcher Blue and Butcher Orange? Were those quarterly or were those just released and then eventually it became a quarterly thing?
I think they called them. That was back when they said seasonal. And I remember being confused. Like, orange for winter.
What?
Yeah, well, I remember. And I guess this is one of the questions that we'll get into. I just want to know, kind of like your first exposure to field notes and how we learned about them. But first, I guess, how do you want to do this? Should we talk about this edition that's called 50 and kind of the things that came with it? Do we want to talk about that at the end? Do we talk about it now? What do you guys think?
That's a good starting point.
Okay.
I think.
Yeah.
So. So, yeah, the. The 50th quarter edition came out. They're calling it 50. And I. I know that I tend to gravitate toward. The more. I guess, generally the more like, simple additions. Right. Like the ones like Shenandoah and Autumn Trilogy that just have, like, Kind of a really bright cover or something that's kind of a simple execution. And to me, this kind of feels like it's in that vein. What do you guys think?
Definitely.
It's kind of like a return to.
Yeah.
The roots or whatever, you know, like, but with like a little taste of like we've learned some tricks, you know, in the. In the meantime.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like the whole thing, there's a good mix of, hey, here's some really old school looking field notes and also this completely off the wall extra.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. The, the field notes themselves are bright red covers. I'm trying to. Oh, they, they used. They used a cover that they have not surprisingly used before. It's the French paper company Red Hot, which is a. Just a really, really bright red. And I think, I think that they said that they have not actually used this particular one with a nice like silver application of ink on the front. And what's interesting about this one is the O in notes is punched out just a circle. And the sort of inside cover has a 50 right where that front cover would lie. Like. Right. It would just. So it just peeks out through the hole. And each, each notebook in the pack, there's one that is. That is black with a. With a silver print. There's one that is. What color is that? Sort of. Let's see what they say it is. I'm looking for that here. I don't see it in the usage notes. The. There's like a silvery. Okay, here we go. So there's the inside cover reveals. The flyleaf, as they call it, reveals callbacks from other quarterly editions. So there's like a safety orange one. Is that what they used for the COVID of Dime Novel, which I didn't even realize that until I'm. I'm reading it. They use Night Shift blue from Endpapers for the one that's kind of like a bluish black. And then there is a green one that is extremely recognizable, which is gumdot Gumdrop green from grass stained green. So that one I got pretty quickly, but the other ones I did not. So they kind of like called back to a few old editions, which was cool. Yeah. And trying to think if there's anything else that's like of note for these. For the actual edition themselves.
That stickers.
Yeah, yeah. They. They released a. Some stamps. You can't actually use them, you know, to send mail. Maybe in Baltimore you can. I don't know. You might as well. You might as well try yeah. When. Tim. Tim, when you're the Postmaster General, maybe you can like, you know, count these in. Oh yeah.
I'm doing away with stamps completely. Or you just make your own. Yeah. Not pay for them. It's all free.
Just make your own stamps though.
Yeah. People are gonna love it. Yeah.
I mean if you're that creative, you should be able to mail stuff for free.
Yeah. What is this? What is this, North Korea?
Yeah. So I big fan of these, these notebooks themselves. They're very, very simple. Not the thing that delayed field notes by two months. That is the subscriber extra. Which honestly if you, if you decided to become a field notes subscriber for this edition, I think I, I think this thing is well worth it. Do you, does anybody want to take a, take a stab at describing this?
I don't have mine in hand yet. I think you're the only one that has it.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, you do it. So it's, it is a. They call it a ledger and it a desk ledger. And it's oh like 9 inches wide by just a little under like 6 inches tall. And it's maybe hundred ish pages and it is extremely ornate. Like I, I can see how this would take so long because it's just really elaborate and intricate. So the COVID says 50 in cutout cut out letters and each letter has a different color paper behind it. And as you start flipping like each of the little section headers about the history is on some of the paper that is, that makes up the, the word 50. So like the, the first one. Yeah. The second page is a kind of a brown color. I'm trying to look for the. By the numbers of like where, like what pages these are. But I think this is a traveling salesman page that says 50. Turn to the next page. It's the kind of like, like a pink and that's that like that has the eye in it. The second, like. Yeah, it. They just do an incredible job and it's just full of like by the numbers and ephemera from, from the history of field notes. So, so stoked. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty great. And just different, different kinds of printing in it as well. Like they have. The first page has like some silver half tones just for graphics. You know, when you get further in they have like some throwbacks and some really gorgeous just prints from, from before. And then the, the second, let's say four fifths or three fourths of the. Of the ledger is, is paper is a dot grid Paper. There was a little controversy as. As there always is in the field Nuts group, because the spine, the way that they bound this, they did not put like a, like, book tape on it. And so they kind of left the spine exposed so you can kind of see the. The threads that kind of thread the signatures through. And they put a kind of a generous application of glue on it. But then when they wrapped it in cellophane to send it out, some of them got hot and the glue kind of melted to the cellophane. Johnny, you had a. You said you had a really good. Somebody's talking a really good resolution to that, right? Yeah.
Someone in the group mentioned just put your book in the freezer and it hardens the glue and slips right off.
That's such a good idea.
Whoever that is, you are the best. You, like, fixed it for everybody. Because I noticed after that a lot of the, you know, noise settled down. Yeah, that was good.
And mine. Mine is real. I mean, isn't sloppy at all. It's like a little bit of glue that has kind of like, bled to the. The COVID But with some people, it was much, much thicker and. And gloppier. So. Yeah, I just think this is such a gorgeous piece. I. What I like about this is. It is. It is celebrating bookmaking and, like, printmaking, which is what I like about field notes, is they always. They often just sort of like go back to that, where some people. Some people don't give a crap about, like, the. The effort and the materials and the craftsmanship it takes to make one of these books. They're in it for, like, a different theme or the collectibility. But this one is just sort of like a celebration of. Of. Of making.
I'm gonna steal this from the Take Note guys, but I was listening to them the other day, and they were talking about. And this edition wasn't even out yet, but they were just kind of talking about why they are attracted to field notes. And this kind of goes along with what you're saying is that they. I can't remember. I think it was Adam who said, or. I don't remember which one it was that said this, but that they love field notes because there's an author behind it. You know, I think it was Ted, but just that, like, it's a notebook that is not anonymous, that, you know, the people who are behind it, you know that there's a creator who's, like, just setting out to just make this rather than just like, create some piece of crap that's gonna end up like, you know, on an end cap at Target that. Yeah, so I thought that was a good.
They. I don't know. They seem like they care. Plus, who was it somebody found out from Draplin in the early days that they broke even or lost money on all the quarterly editions. They just did them because they liked it. So, you know, they don't throw out these like weird money grabs and stuff like some other brands do. It's like, hey, we promise it's coming. And also when it comes, you're getting this book that probably cost us a fortune to make for free because you're a subscriber.
And actually that's also a really good, I think, transition into, you know, some of the retrospective. One question I had for you both just to, just to hear about how you were first sort of exposed to field notes or first learn about them. John, do you, do you want to start since you were talking about that?
Sure. I heard about them when they came out, but I don't remember how because I read so many stationary blogs back in the aughts. So someone just posted a link and I remember looking at them and thinking, hmm, those look a lot like Moleskin Ca. And then the special ones came out and I was like. And then it was 2010, they sent me some samples and I was like, that's it. I love these. And I've been a big fan ever since.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim, how about you?
My, my first edition, I got. Actually looked this up in, in preparation for the episode. I looked up and I got my first set. I ordered my first set of field notes in 2013 and, and it was red blooded, which is kind of like sim, you know, kind of similar to this one or at least just kind of color wise this. Which I didn't tell you guys this, but the 50 I am, I am loving, lovingly referring to it as the Sally O' Malley edition.
I'm 50. I like to kick.
So this is. That's. That's. Yeah, that's my, that's my official or that's my behind the scenes name for this edition. And yeah, but I ordered it. I remember ordering it on. I got it just on Amazon or something and I, I'm not totally sure how I found out about them, but I'm. It's probably like a 90 chance that I heard about it on the Pen Addict because I looked back and there's this. It's like funny that this is such like a big deal, but in 2013 I made an order around the same time on Jetpens. Like my first order on Jetpens, like crazy order on Jetpens. And I ordered like 15, you know, 15 things. I got like, I just was like stocking up and I got all this stuff that I kind of still have around. And I was just looking back at it, it's like, so fascinating. I got like a Kaweco and I got a retro 51. It was basically a list of things that they talked about on the pen Addict, a retro 51 Kaweco, high tech Cs or whatever. And then right around that same time, I ordered field notes. So, yeah, so I think. I'm pretty sure it was Hurley, which
in 2013, you were listening to the pen act and you heard me on the pen Addict.
And then we started talking, started heckling you for pencil recommendations, and then tricked you into doing this for seven years or whatever.
It's the long con.
So how about you, Andy?
Oh, wow. I'm pretty sure I first heard of field notes in general from like, oh, I would guess Boing Boing. Which. Does anybody remember that blog? Yeah, like 2006 through, you know, not that long ago, I would read Boing Boing every day. It was kind of like a blog about just interesting things on the Internet. And a bunch of people who I still follow, like Mark Frauenfelder and Shani Jardin and Cory Doctorow, and people would. Would just post there. And I'm pretty sure I. Mark Frauenfelder posted something about field notes. And I was enamored with the. With the craft browns. I just like the way that they look. And I'm pretty sure I ran into them at a gift shop somewhere and
picked up a pack.
And I was just starting to blog about pencils at that point. I'm still on the pencil things blog. And I ran my set of Kraft Brown field notes through the washer. I left my pocket and my wife did the laundry, and it came out. And of course it was ruined as a notebook, but a lot of the pages were still intact to sort of like read and transcribe. So I remember I submitted a little article on my pencil blog about that to Boing Boing. And they ran it. And at that point, Boing Boing was a big enough Internet thing where that you would get a massive bump in traffic if they blogged about you. And they called it getting boinged. And so I basically was responsible for boinging field notes, which I'm sure that they had lots of other coverage before that. But I remember after that happened, Jim Kudal emailed me and he was like, thank you for submitting that. The boing boing. I'm sending you a new, a new notebook because you ran your old one through the washer for free. And I was just like, oh man. So I just sort of had like a personal connection.
Right.
I had like a person to connect to it. That was really cool. But. And so I remember I didn't really care about the colors. Like I remember when they first said, okay, we're going to do different colors besides the brown. And I was like, okay, whatever. Like they're, that's, that's fine. Like, oh, oh nice, there's a blue one. Oh nice, there's an orange one. Okay, whatever. I didn't really can like pay much attention to those when they came out. Of course kicking myself that I didn't. But because field notes were just like, just expensive enough where like 10 bucks or how much they cost back then for like a three pack of pocket notebooks seemed like a lot still. I mean when you think about it seems like a lot but you know there's, you're paying for the story. But I didn't really pay attention. But when balsam fir came out, I was looking for some Christmas presents for a friend who like really liked pocket notebooks. So I bought a couple packs of balsam fir, saved one for myself and sent one to him. Didn't think much more about it until much later when Aaron Draplin did a talk in Fort Wayne, had little. Had a pop up shop and I picked up some America the Beautiful which were I think just done being, being the edition. So I think they were just a little bit old stock and I took those home and opened them and I'm just like, wow, this is gorgeous. I really love the aesthetic they're going for here. I love the story behind it. Right. Like the, the graphics and the way that they printed it and that offset that little decals. Really cool. And so that's. That for me is when I started just really thinking about how much I like those quarterly editions. Yeah. So after that I've, I think after America the Beautiful I have either purchased or subscribed to every edition after that.
That one was so great.
Yeah. And to me that was, that was the, the big game changer. Like it's, they kind of, that was the first one when they really went kind of out of their usual way. You know, I'm saying that I really appreciate the really simple ones but at the same time I really love the, the first one that had Like a kind of a departure from their usual aesthetic. So yeah, I'm, I think America the Beautiful was like for me, like the big, when it clicked for me about these quarterly editions. So, so a question, I guess just for discussion. How do you, how do you think that Field Notes has influenced a, a lot of the other pocket notebooks out in there in the world, but B, also like quarterly limited edition programs. Right. Like we see. I, I, I think that even Blackwing would, would admit that, you know, their volumes program is heavily influenced by Field Notes. Gosh.
I mean, in stationary world it seems like it's everything, right? I mean it's the, it's the original. I mean anybody you said, or any company that says they weren't influenced by it is like full of crap. Because I'm trying. I mean, I wasn't as plugged in back then as like you guys were, but I, I don't know of anything else back then that was doing like any sort of stationary company that was doing anything like this besides maybe like, you know, Retro51 will have different like versions of the pen come up, but it was never like super limited and it definitely wasn't a subscriber based, you know, setup.
Yeah, yeah. If anybody had subscriptions that would have been like basically refill packs.
Right.
Like, oh, hey, every three months we'll send you a new one of the same thing because you probably have filled up your old one or whatever.
They, I still think they do it best. They always, well, for one thing, they have kept at it longer than anybody and they don't, you know, they do partnerships, but they're different enough from their quarterly editions that they don't sort of confuse you. Does that make sense? Yeah, like, you know, nobody's gonna look at any of those and think it's just regular field notes or quarterly field notes. And also that they don't, I don't know, they keep true to doing the same thing. Just doing it like super differently.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I, I think, I mean some of it could be just because they're really, really amazing storytellers or maybe it's just easier to tell a story through the medium of paper and books and like printmaking than it is to do it through pencils. But I, I think that I feel like they consistently over Blackwing, just tell better stories and have better themes connected to their editions.
Yeah. At least I get the sense that at least somebody involved with Field Notes is really interested in everything, in one of the themes, everything they do. Somebody at Field Notes is like super into it and that's why it happened. It wasn't like, oh, this is timely, let's do this.
That makes sense.
And I think that comes out like people can pick up genuineness.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm getting teary. Yeah. Michelle Foreman in our Facebook group said something that was really interesting. That was that this edition would really appeal to people who have had a sort of emotional connection to the brand for a long time. Like, it seems weird to talk about an emotional connection to a brand, but it's not the brand. It's really. I mean, I'm not saying that she's saying it's weird, but it's, you know, it's the people. Like I've been emailing with Brian for 10 years. Not that like we're super buds, but I know who he is. I recognize him in a crowd.
Not to mention all the connections that you make because of them. You know, I mean, like just the fact that we have this group and we have these friends that we've made through this podcast, which, you know, I mean, Field Notes is probably a major reason of why we're doing this. If you like really sort of like break it down. I mean, so
yeah, before them it was Moleskin. That's it.
That's exactly.
And they didn't even do all the colors and stuff back then because they
didn't need to because everybody was just buying it, like whatever.
Yeah. Sometimes I remember they would do. It was all black and sometimes they'd have red. It was like, woo. Red. Now like I don't even. Can you buy black moleskins anymore?
No.
Yeah, you can. But like I guess Moleskin did. Yeah.
Yeah, they did tie ins. Sometimes they did. Like was that before they did like. Oh, like a Mario Notebook.
Oh yeah, Simpsons.
They had done the little prints around then.
Yeah.
I really wish I bought because man, they were cool.
Yeah, cool. Any. Any other sort of like broad discussion points we want to cover before we, you know, get into some of our. Our tops. Yeah.
So I think that they used to. Well, they still sell them, but they don't send them out as much. They just have like one pencil and one pen that are. Nothing fancy, but very, very carefully designed. Just like the notebooks where they're like, okay, these are things we want you to use and have fun and like connect with them. But in the end just their tools that we want you to bust up.
Yeah.
And yeah, I appreciate that.
I think like one of the. To kind of go along with that. One of the reasons why these notebooks have such a following and have such a staying power is because the original design, like, of Draplin loving the agricultural memo books, which were probably created and used by farmers and stuff, they were created and used for, like, out of need, I guess, is what I'm saying. Right. So when something's created out of a need than its design, the idea of them is going to last forever. I'm sounding very like high flu now, but I think I. I think I. I think I believe myself just that I'm convincing myself. Yeah, that. That this. They're so pleasant to use and they're so nice because it's almost like they've landed on some kind of little design that we all need or something, even if we don't realize it. And so whenever people get one, they, they, you know, you tend to get hooked. I love them.
Well, I remember talking with my friend Bruce, who is a. An American but has spent a lot of time in. In Japan and has been kind of trying to figure out how to a. Expose more Japanese stationary to the US and vice versa, more US Stationary to Japan. And he was just telling me about how. Well, in Japan really, really love field notes because it's such a. It's such a. A good purveyor of Americana. Right. Like, it's not. It's very. It does in a very genuine way. It has a lot of, like, really interesting, like, aesthetic history of, of America in the US but also connects them to really good, you know, other stories as well. So. Yeah, they're just like, it's. It's a very authentic purveyor of, of the good part of American culture.
That's good.
Yeah, I'm glad. Yeah.
Glad somebody's paying attention to the good parts of American culture because it's out
there, which is now being brandified and commodified into just an aesthetic look. Well, we had a little time. We reflected on a few things that just a few of our top three favorite editions for X for various things. So I was thinking maybe we could go down the list and talk about that a little bit. One of the big ones is the overall theme. What are our top favorite three editions for theme? Tim, what do you think?
My number one is Day Game Baseball Nut. And I've been fortunate to have a couple packs of those and I'm actually still using one at the moment. I've got it in my backpack. But Day Game is a favorite. Three Missions is a favorite because I'm just a space nerd and grew up watching Apollo 13 every week. So that one really like excited me and I really love that addition. And also the little models that came with it. And then national parks. So those are my three themes. Baseball, space and national parks.
Very American national parks. National parks ranked really, really highly in the. The top lists that field notes put out that they put in their. Put in the ledger. Like it was consistently national parks was at the top. I was so.
I don't know how I had missed this, but I was in Asheville and I was at a bookstore and I found a really cool set of postcards because I was just shopping for postcards. And I looked and I was like, wait a second, that looks familiar. And I picked it up and it was one of the pieces of art that's on the front of the national Parks edition. And I was like, I had not the 51. I knew they were working with someone else to do that. But at the same time I was like, it hadn't liked registered that they exist out there somewhere like already in other forms or something. But still it was pretty cool. I bought a, like a, a pack of like 100 or something like that of these postcards. But yeah, anyways, those are my favorite. So how about you, Johnny?
Nice, Johnny.
I'm going to start off with national parks because they're so pretty and I don't even. The way that they, you know, they don't place the logo, field notes in the same place. They, you know, make room for it in the, in the art. I think that's amazing. Shelter wood, because that was just off the wall. So cool. And National Crop, because like, damn, that was a sweet one. Like when this one was late, I kept thinking National Crop was late and that was so worth waiting for. But I think that was the first one that was a six set.
Oh yeah, yeah, it had to have been.
Yeah. That is one of the ones I didn't find out about or really come to until much later. And I spent much more money than I was planning on on ebay to get a full professional. Yeah. Yeah.
How about you, Andy?
I think still for me first and foremost, America the Beautiful is like the best thematically for me, like the, the that like slightly offset like halftone printing that they do. And that particular aesthetic that, that looks like a lot of those like color agricultural notebooks to me. That is the most sort of like one to one comparison. It looks the most like a lot of those out there. And that's, that's one thing I really love. And also that decal that came in this, the extras is just really good. So America the Beautiful is, is one of two that I, I, I hoard sometimes. Cause I really love that theme. And the other one that I, that I often hoard that is on this list is a night sky. It was the, the very simpleness of the, the front cover, just a nice black little notebook with just. Whoa. Just a big hologram on the. Of like a constellation on the back. That's, that's a theme too, that I just think is such a gorgeous execution.
And that one's video was amazing. Yeah, they make some cool videos, but that one was really.
Yeah, yeah. So huge Night sky fan. When that came out, I was just. Yeah. And Night sky shows up for me in a lot of these other categories that we're doing. So I'll, I'll save talking about the rest of it too much, but the last one, which I just was thinking about that I really like, I had
Shelter Wood on my Sweet Tooth, right?
Yeah. Who am I? Tina Koyama. Tina. Tina's favorite addition by far is Sweet Tooth. The red ones. Cause her urban sketching, she does a lot in there. So she has just so, so many of those. I, I took Shelter Wood off because I'm going to be talking about a little bit more in aesthetics because I think that like. And I guess, I guess I do think that Shelterwood was just sort of like revolutionary in its execution. Like, the, the way that they made that was just incredible. But I, I kind of switched that out for traveling salesmen. Because I think thematically, that ledger, that green ledger paper in the inside is so unusual for modern notebooks, at least ones that are kind of available to the public. Maybe there's somebody out there who are still selling like, like ledger notebooks, like university bookstores or something. But I, Yeah, I love the, the thematic elements of, of Traveling Salesman a lot. I, I don't even think I have a full pack. I think I've just sort of collected kind of singles throughout the years.
But I took, it took me until the fourth or fifth notebook before I figured out the perfect pencil for it. Because that paper was a little. Yeah, yeah, was the HB Highone. But I'm betting the F is even better.
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Big F in order.
Don't forget your Fs. Yeah, yeah.
How about, how about color? Some of the, the more solid, solid color ones. Tim, let's start with you. What are some of your favorite colors of.
So I, I took this as like sets or like color schemes kind of so how I was thinking. Yeah, definitely number one for me is ambition. Those. Those colors are so pleasing to me, especially the red that they did. I think that was the graph notebook ever. But I. Yeah, yeah. I love the color of ambition. I really like group 11 or whatever the hell it's called. They changed the name, didn't they?
The white ones with what was. That's right. Yeah.
Before or they had like a.
It was elemental maybe.
Yeah.
And they. They changed it because there's another notebook company out there that called like Elements or something.
So I really like that. I love that bright white and I love the gilding on the edges. So. But I really like a nice bright white notebook, especially as that one, for whatever reason didn't seem to get dirty as easily as I thought it would. That was just. It was really nice.
Yeah.
And then that Shenandoah. So I love. Which kind of goes right with ambition. But just those, to borrow a term from Johnny, those autumnal colors, I love them.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Johnny, how about you?
I'm gonna start with white, but I'm gonna go with Snowblind because that matte white was just so pretty but got so dirty so it was good to go through them quickly. And then I'm gonna go with Red Blooded which was also the same stock as Fire Spider, but that's on another list here. And Ravenswing because black linen, it just like sucked all the light out of a room.
It's like a black hole.
That thing was so damn gorgeous.
They should make a vantablack notebook that just like eats 99, 99.8% of light or whatever. So. Yeah.
Oh, it's a.
Sorry to me to.
How about you, Andy?
For.
For colors. I think my top one is the one that I missed out on that I've never actually even owned one of these. I just really love the paper. I have a couple things in this. That paper, that's the grass stain green. Those are. I mean those are at this point almost as expensive as the butchers on. On ebay. So I'm really probably not going to get a gas a grass stain green unless they do some sort of a re release or tribute release. So it's fine. It's totally fine. But my. Actually my first. My first non craft brown edition ever is the balsam fir, which is. I love that color. It's kind of that like woody green color. It really is the color of like a. Like a winter fur tree. For the Christmas. For the edition it came out on Christmas and they put in like A Like a branch from a fur tree. And it just smelled so good. So every time I see one of those. Those covers, I'm just thinking about the smell that came with it. Just connecting that. So big balsam fir fan.
Yeah. That white foil was great.
Yeah. Yeah. So pretty good job on that. And then also, I really, really like the. I noticed after I wrote this that all of my favorite colors in here are some form of green. But my last one is Shenandoah. I. I think they did such a good job with that. They. And this, the aesthetic. They packaged it with that belly band that was made of the. Made of the like shelter wood.
Wood. And they had. That was the edition that had a different color inside of the notebook and out. Right.
Yeah, yeah. The substrate was like. Like a kind of a precursor to Autumn Trilogy, I think. Like the inside had some of the leaves. Yeah. Once they turned. So big fan of that one too. Those are some of my favorite. Yeah. Like colors that came through aesthetics. Just kind of.
Oh, no, sorry, sorry.
I thought Johnny went. Yeah, yeah. So kind of the overall execution of the. The theme, like the visuals. Tim, what do you think?
I think the first one I'll mention is Workshop Companion. I was actually a big fan of that. It was like. I don't know.
It was.
It was like that was the first one I'd ever had that had the. The box. And I liked the idea that they all had a dedicated set of uses. Like, it just. I thought about how much went into creating those, like with all the different sets of uses for the different things for plumbing and woodworking and whatever. I thought that was a very cool visual set of notebooks, which I know they don't come up a lot. People like saying, like, I don't know how you guys feel about them, but I. I felt very good about them as far as how they looked, how they. How they worked. Wasn't as great. They're really stiff, you know, so they weren't as easy. I remember putting them in my back pocket and them just kind of like cracking, you know, like if I sat on them because that the COVID stock was. Was so stiff. Stiff. I really like that. One drink Local is another one that I really love the aesthetic of.
I always forget about that one. I love that like, kind of gummy coated cover for the drink locals. Yeah, I'm a big fan of those.
And it came in like the six pack holder, which was also touch as far as design goes. And. And then lastly I. I put Shenandoah again because, I mean, how couldn't you? I don't know. I mean, it's. It's.
It's.
It's so. It's like when I see a pack, a three pack of Shenandoah and I've still got one that's not opened, it just like, calms me down.
Just.
Just looking at it calms me down because those colors are so nice and the soft green anyways. But those are. Those are my favorite.
Yeah, that's a really good one. Johnny, how about you?
I have to go with Shenandoah, also. So pretty. I think that might be the prettiest edition they ever came out with on the whole. And also it reminds me of Harper's Ferry, which is a place I really like to go to, and American Tradesmen, which is one that doesn't get a lot of attention. But it was so damn perfect. It had that. The outside was sort of like a corrugated dark blue with silver stamp, and inside was white with red print. God, that was so nice.
You know, you're right. I'm always forgetting about that one. I think it. To me, in my head, it sounds so similar to traveling.
Same here.
American Tradesman, that I just don't think about that one. Yeah.
And it came with. That was the first time they put out carpenter pencils. And I had that really cool. The construction sheet. Yeah, that was. I dig that out and scan it because mine got busted up. Various moves. And for the last one, Fire Spotter, because that red is so damn nice. And had the letterpress stamp on the back. And I think it was the first dot grid paper.
Interesting.
And it came out right after American Tradesmen. It was a good, good, good streak there.
That's a really good one. Yeah. How about you? I immediately, the first one I thought of was Shelterwood. I remember when Shelterwood came out and I watched the video and listened to just kind of their story and how that came to be and how, you know, they're not the first one to, like, shave like, a whole piece of wood down to, like, get that. To get that aesthetic. But I feel like they are one of the first one to do it kind of in the quantity that they did. And the. Just to me, that's when I started getting into For Better, For Worse, the Field Nuts group. And people were talking about, like, people were. Remember how they were tanning their Shelter Woods? You put them on the sun and they. They turned darker and some other people were staining them. And I was just like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Like, so I still love my Shelter Woods. I'M really, really glad when they turned it into a regular edition. They came out with the cherry woods, but huge, huge shelter wood fan. Just the way that it looks is just incredible. It's a little fragile. I wouldn't, like, put it. Put that in my back pocket.
But they do kind of bow over time. Like the COVID kind of like curls.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. They bow and then they also, like, if you just really sit bad on it, it could splinter. Yeah. But, I mean, it's really well attached that. That substrate, that backing, so it's. It doesn't splinter too bad. But you have to really, really try, try hard to make that happen happen. Big Autumn trilogy fan. I love the aesthetics. Just those. Those colors are just so good. Looking at the field notes list right now to just kind of, like, remind myself of those colors. But I think I was. I think I was a huge fan of that yellow. Yeah. That has that. That really gorgeous orange and the yellow and the. The red. Yeah. All of those colors together, it was just like. It was the right. I don't think I get into autumnal colors as much as Johnny does, but I definitely was really feeling it. But when that came out, love that. The leaf prints on it, it was just so good.
That's good. That's a good call that. That. What do you call that? A. Yeah, recessed or what is it? Deboss. That's so good.
Yeah, yeah. And then I think I was really into ambition, just the way that it looked. And we were talking a little bit about this before, but that. That gold leaf gilding edges. The gilding edges were just so good. And the. That little exercise that you like when you open the pack and you crack it for the first time, and it just kind of shimmers. I think I did it into the microphone for an episode of Erasable just to. To hear it. And I was just so enamored with that. And I think that was the first one that I remember, at least that had the. On the insides for the. The graph paper. It had the title line on it. So it wasn't just graph all the way through, but the first, like, you know, half of an inch was blank and then a double, like, ledger mark. So you could write your title above the graph.
Yeah, yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
That was a cool touch.
I think that was the first one that did that. And I. Yeah, and I really appreciated that because I almost always put, like, a title on my page. Yeah. All right. Something that is important for us as writers and of pencil users. Is the writing experience. So we've talked a lot about the covers, but we haven't talked much about the inside pages. Pages. Johnny, would you. Do you want to start? What's your favorite writing experience?
My absolute favorite one is America the Beautiful.
Yeah.
Because the paper was great. The COVID was great, and the blue and the lines is just perfect. For a second, I'm gonna go with Packet of Sunshine, because that orange graph was just. I'm sorry. Yeah, orange. The bright yellow graph was so cool.
Yeah.
You know, it hurt your eyes at first, and then it sort of disappeared. Like, oh, I love this. And finally, County Fair, because that linen just feels so good. Sort of softens up. I mean, it's not actually linen, but, you know, it makes you think of it like, ooh, cloth book.
Yeah.
How about you guys?
Yeah. Yeah. How about you?
America the Beautiful. You said it all right there. That's definitely on my list. That's the only field notes notebook that I've ever had. That when I got it in my hands, I was like, I need to save this for something special. You know, Like, I. I think I used it as, like a journal for a while, like, where I was just, like, writing in it, actually, instead of using it as kind of a utilitarian, catchall sort of thing. So that one's definitely on there. That paper is so nice. And they're just so nice to look at, too. I. I think I put Day Game on here, and I can't really put my finger on why, but I think it's just because Day Game, like, the paper they were using was thinner. I think it was like, it was almost like a craft. It just felt exactly like a craft book. Like a sort of cheaper one. But what I really like about those editions and, like, what I like about Day Game is that it just lays really nice and flat. You know, it's really easy to manipulate and lay out and write and flip the page. Like, I just always. It just works, you know? So that's why I like that one. And then County Fair is another, like, all time favorite of mine that. I love the feel of the COVID I love how it wears in, but also kind of in a similar way.
And that.
That had, like the blue grid on the inside, didn't it? Yeah. Which I really liked that. I really like that. That blue graph, which I forgot the
county fair was a quarterly, which.
That's insane, right?
Yeah.
Like, now you think about that. Like, they came out with 50 editions, like, all in one day.
52, because.
Well, that's new Right. They just did. They didn't do that for the release.
Yeah.
And so when they. And I wasn't getting. I wasn't subscribing when they came out. But what did they send you when it came out?
You got a ribbon.
What did they send you? Like your own state where you were living or what did they.
I think they did. Your state. Unless you asked for something different.
Gosh, that's.
Don't quote me.
Yeah, I wasn't a subscriber yet, so I can't imagine the logistics, especially considering how small they probably were at that point.
Yeah. So, yeah, those are, Yeah, I think those are some of my favorites. And just anything that, you know, anything but reticle grid, as far as writing. As far as writing experience goes, because that's garbage. I just can't stand it. It gives me a headache writing with, with ridiculous grid. Ridiculous grid.
Not dork grid.
This is dork grid.
Ridiculous grid. I, I kind of had to lump all of the lined editions together just because, like, I really love the lined edition from America the Beautiful and, and I was really, really glad when they copied that again to Shelterwood and just a big fan of. Cause it's a little, I feel like it's a little extra wide, more so than College Ruled, but not quite as much as wide Ruled, which is to me kind of the perfect size. But I think that I, what I really liked, and I didn't even think about this until now, is I loved, loved, loved when they did the lined edition, but they put it in the colors of the COVID In the Autumn Trilogy they used. I love me a different colored ruling and the just that orange and that yellow especially ruling in Autumn Trilogy was just so good, so fun to play with. So huge fan of that. And again, I really. Maybe it's just an orange ruling that I really like. Like, that's one of the things I love best about Kindred Spirit from Right. Notepads is how the, the graph comes in in orange. Big fan of that. I also like, I put in here original reticle graph, which is, I think they introduced that in Night Sky. Right. And I kind of liked it in Unexposed as well. I think I liked sky the best. But I, I, I wrote that instead of just reticle graph in general because I thought it was very bad in. Oh, the latest one they did Coastal. Yeah. Where it's really thick and really dark and you can't like unless you're writing like a big fat fountain pen. Really can't, you know? Yeah, it Just, it just interferes with your, with your writing too much. But yeah, I, one thing I, I do love about that. I know what they were trying to do, which is to have like the gradient of the coastline come through in that graph, but just didn't, just didn't work. And then also I just. The paper and the ruling and, and ambition is really good. Big fan of that one. I, I guess I'm going to cheat. I also want to put Dime Novel on this list because that paper is good call. So good for pencil.
It's a good one.
Yeah.
And you can still get that in that. What are they?
The signature.
Signature.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean they're really boring compared to the covers of Dime Novel, but that's
one that I'm very sad that I never had the, like the dime novel version. I've had the, the signature one, but I've, I, I'm very bummed.
I thought you were hoarding Diamond.
Harry was doing that.
You're right. You're right. Tell Harry to give you some of those.
Right. I got the signature. I'm good.
But yeah, also wanted to. I, I wanted to mention this as well. What are some of your weird little. Actually okay, here's one that I'm just going to ask you on the spot before we even get to this. What are your favorite non standard editions? Like you know, and there's so few of them. Let's just say what's your top favorite non standard edition?
Oh, wow.
I think mine would be the Wilco set. I have to say. The Wilco set.
I'm sorry, not the, not like in non. I'm talking about like things that aren't just little tiny booklets like so.
Oh, non standard size.
Porter's notebook.
I thought you meant like non.
Yeah, or like Art Science Limited edition or series?
Okay, gotcha.
Yeah, yeah.
A reporter notebook, definitely. That paper.
The front page or byline?
Yeah.
I honestly have no experience with any of the non standard ones besides the Signature, so I don't think I've ever had the, any of the. I never, I didn't have the byline and I didn't have any of the steno books or anything so.
Did you have Heavy duty? The little spiral top, spiral pocket notebook? Okay.
Oh, I forgot about those.
Yeah. I've been a subscriber twice now and I'm not currently. So I've only. So there are only, yeah, I guess eight editions that I've gotten like. As a subscriber.
Yeah.
What about Arts and Sciences? Did you have that one?
I Guess I did.
That was one of my. Yeah, that's true. I forget about that one.
I think they're going for like 40. Do you remember ebay right now?
Not terrible. Arts and Sciences. That was. That was the first non, like, you know, three by five pocket notebook they did. Right. Like, I remember just like field nuts. Just like losing their. Their stuff about it. Some people were so mad because, you know, their whole system is based on the packs being a certain size.
Yeah. And I think that was the first thing that came out after we started podcasting.
Oh, yeah, I think you're right.
And remember, they had videos through. There were hints about what the theme was. And I took credit for Frankie guessing it. She guessed Arts and Sciences.
Yeah, I remember that.
Yeah, yeah, she just gave her Arts and Sciences that I bought her recently when she was cleaning up the closet.
Yeah, yeah, I think. I think mine is either byline or heavy duty. I really like that little pocket notebook size, which is a pretty. Pretty recent one. All right, last one. What is. What are your favorite little subscriber extra? Like, weird things. Yeah, Can I go first? Yeah, please do.
When. When the subscriber extra is a pack.
Yeah.
They're like, hey, we made three packs and if you're a subscriber, you just got them all.
Damn, that's pretty sweet.
Awesome.
Yeah, yeah, I have to go with. I mentioned earlier, but those space models.
Oh, yeah, that came with.
With three missions. That's. That's my number one.
Yeah, good call. I do not remember which pack it came with, but I really love the Field notes Blue book.
Oh, that was the thing. They just sent them out randomly.
Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, it was just random. And I wrote an essay and I sent it in.
They actually get their own slot in the. Like, when you go to their website and look through the limited editions, they actually. They actually get their own slot, but it's sort of like a. A sub, like, you know, a secondary limited edition or something.
Yeah.
It would have been cool if they kept making them.
Yeah, yeah, I still have a couple of those. And yeah, I had a lot of fun writing an essay and like, writing until my hand cramped and then taking a break and then like starting over again. Real, real authentic experience. I felt like I was back in school taking a test. Cool. And really love to know we talked about this before, but I'd love to go back and just kind of see. Just know what. What y' all like to see from field Notes. You know, we talked about, you know, national parks was a Big like one that everybody really wanted to see before they actually made it happen. What else do you have on your, on your agenda for them?
I don't think. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they've done any additions that are linked to music. Am I wrong?
Not really. They did the thing with Third Man.
Yeah. But not a limited edition.
Really not like a quarter.
I don't know, like, I think that's, I'm thinking like, I don't know, like cities, like cities associated with the blues or something like that would be cool. You know, do like, you know, I don't know, Kansas City, New Orleans, Chicago, something like that would be cool.
Motown would be pretty cool.
Yeah.
Ever since National Crop came out, I thought a national Railroad edition would be so freaking cool with you know, six notebooks and a patch.
Yeah, that's a good call.
Southern Pacific edition and the B O. Yeah.
Oh, they could also do a Canals edition. That would be kind of obscure. They were also short lived.
A Mississippi river edition would be like, like.
Oh yeah, this color.
Big Muddy.
And they could be Muddy edition. Yeah.
All shades of brown, brown, blue and
I don't know, dirty green.
Yeah, you're welcome. The. The Canal edition would be really interesting. The. The Erie Canal came through Fort Wayne up in, up in it. Like through Indiana and that was, that was a big one. Just some cool history. That would be neat.
Yeah, there's a. There's still most of the C and O Canal here in Maryland. And also a hardcover book. Yeah, awesome. I'd love to see what they would do.
Oh yeah, I, I'm thinking about that little Japanese pocket notebook that is just like a little tiny hardcover and has that really tight dot graph. Graph paper inside. Yeah, something like that.
What book is that? I want to see this book.
I, I know I have to find it. I bet I have an extra one somewhere. Brad did a pen edict.
Oh, what are we talking about?
Yeah, See it seems like the, the presidents or something. They haven't touched, right? Have they? No. Yeah.
I mean maybe they should stay with presidents.
No, but like I don't know, like branches of the government or something. I don't know. Maybe.
Oh yeah, national monuments.
Yeah, there you go. National monuments. That'd be a cool one. Like that's perfect. Obscure. Some like less notable ones or something. I don't know.
Yeah, they could use that stone, that stone paper for the COVID Be cool
if they did one for like the three, like the three largest or most prominent Native American tribes or something. Like that would be cool.
They could do a Pike edition about the John Brown's raid, which would be really cool. Yeah, they could quote Thoreau for one of his great speeches or. Yeah, they could do the Transcendentalist edition. Emerson, Thoreau.
And then they never do people editions though I feel like they're gonna stick with that.
Right.
It's probably.
Probably a good idea. You can do a trash wheel edition.
Considering what. Oh yeah. Considering how much. How much Guffield Notes or Blackwing gets for.
Yeah, they could do like machinery.
Oh yeah. Like the. Oh, what about the. Like the automobile industry? Like that'd be.
Yeah. Or like the diggers. Big diggers and backhoes and stuff.
I would really love to see just more. More simple additions with just like celebrating a really beautiful cover or kind of paper I'm thinking about. I think I've talked about it on here before, but there's this really gorgeous Japanese paper which maybe means they wouldn't use it that has just a really great sort of like pressed texture of the moon on the front and just something really. Just something simple and powerful I think is good in the. In the vein of like Autumn Trilogy or Shenandoah or you know, that kind of stuff. Ambition was really great. So yeah, love to see more of that kind of stuff. I was going to mention a few. Johnny. Johnny collected just some favorites from the. From the community, which is really, really great. I think we had a lot of love for Expedition.
Yeah.
Which is interesting because I feel like Expedition is pretty polarizing. Some people really hate it. But yeah. Larry Grimaldi, Tina, Jelia all really love Expedition. Tina specifically says the Expedition with a high uni 10B in it, which I mean, at that point it's a crayon,
it's a piece of chalk.
Yeah, yeah. Larry said. Yeah, there's. There's no other paper like Expedition Yupo for pencil. It must be a softer graphite firmer with a super pointy point. Point will. Will catch when you're writing. He also really loved Northerly, which is the first book that he wrote exclusively in with pencil, which we didn't even mention, which is also a great addition.
I've never seen one in person, so that's probably just like.
Yeah, yeah, me neither. Yeah. Chris. Chris from the. The. The community says that reticle on the coastal sucks for pencil. You can't read a thing.
That is right.
Yeah. John, John Moore says love, love, love both the dime novel and end papers. We didn't even mention end papers for pencil. Okay. For fountain pens. Too. I like the extra tooth on those papers. So much so that I've looked into sourcing the paper they use for dime novel and making my own out of it.
That would be awesome.
And Tiffany really likes those thin reporter notepads, which she uses a lot, but because the binding was spiral and they were so thin, the graphite would smudge, which I. Which I totally see. I do wish that. I do wish that front page slash bylines were just like a little thicker
but like more pages. Yeah, yeah, that would be good.
Yeah.
But I like that. That one's gone through so many phases. They did the limited one and then front page and then they reversed the covers and that's like by far the coolest looking one.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely cool. Any. Any closing thoughts about field notes?
I don't know. Like, I just hope they keep going.
Here's to the next 50. Like.
Yeah, in 20. Let's see. 2046.
Oh, geez.
No, we'll come back here and talk about 100. No, right. Like 12 and a half. 12 and a half more years. What is 30?
36. No, 33.
You're right. 2033. I don't know.
You scared me for a second. I was like, what?
We're gonna be old by then.
I mean, 2033 is still quite a way.
Yes, it is.
Will we still be podc?
Yeah. Yeah. Who knows?
We'll be holograms.
You know what?
Yeah.
If they can. If they can keep going, we can keep going.
If. If anyone is going to keep doing it, they will.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Jim's probably going to want to retire sometime. I hope that after he does that Brian will keep on and keep it on or something. But. Yeah, so, yeah, really looking forward to, you know, to what's twist next? I, you know, we. I love to. I love to razz on the. The field notes. Community. Field nuts. Community. But I. I mean, it's. There's such a source of information and detail. Frustration, you know, they. Frustration. But they're such an intense but, like really passionate community. And I mean, I think that certainly bleeds through to our community as well. But they're not mutually exclusive. We have like a lot of crossovers. So. Just a big fan of what they do. My. My collection is well past Sable at this point. Maybe someday, like, when I die, like, somebody will. I'm sure they won't be worth anything at that point, but somebody will get. Yeah. All right. Should we. Should we button this up? Yeah, yeah. Cool. Tim, where can find people. Find you on the find me on
Twitter @TimWassom and I'm on Instagram @TimothyWasom.
Johnny.
How about you, Alan? You can find me on the web@pencil revolution.com on social media @pencilution and you can buy my so awesome colorful zines on Etsy@etsy.com Shop Pencil Revolution.
Nice. And I am Andy. I am on the Internet@andy. WTF? And Twitter and Instagram as a Wealthley. If you want to buy one of my zines, go to 404computer and this is the Erasable podcast. We are on the web at Erasable US to find a recording and show notes and eventually a transcript of this episode, go to erasable us164. You can also find us on the socials@ erasablepodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Well said, LinkedIn. We're not on LinkedIn. And if you like what you're hearing and you would like to throw a little financial support our way, we have a patreon that is patreon.com erasable and speaking of which, I would like to thank some of our patrons at the producer level, which is at $10 a month or more. And those folks are Judy Molnar, David Johnson, Larray Smith, Phil Munson, Nate Rabeck, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Miriam Burkhout, Harry Marks, Allison Zepeda, Diana Oakley, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Kyle Paul Moorhead, Andrew Squish, Greatest last name Ever. Alicera Jamelia, Steven Fansale, Aaron Willard, O.A. pryor, K.P. millie Blackwell, Chris L. Hunter McCain, Bob Ostwald, Michael Diallosa, Adam Prabola, Jacqueline Myers. You know, I just had a thought. You know how like the Animaniacs did that thing where they like sing the nations of the world? What if we did that with our subscribers? We'll work on that.
We could make that happen.
Back to it. Jacqueline Meyer.
We just would just auto tune you. That's a good point.
Let's just.
Yeah, just. You just read it and we'll just like make a melody and just auto tune it. Yeah, let's do it.
Ton of Feliz, Inside Joe Craze, Measure Twice, Michael Hagan, Chris Metzkus, John Bannon, Bill Clow, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave McDonald, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Prevost, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Lutzinger, Fourth Letter, Kelton Wiens, Scott Hayes, Hans Zunelman, Terry Beth, Jay Newton, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, Chris Jones and John Wood. All right, everybody, thank you for listening and we will talk.
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