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Transcript
So I was making pocket notebooks before field notes was a twinkle in Draplin's eye.
Hello, and welcome to episode 174 of the erasable Podcast. This is Johnny on hosting duties tonight, and I'm joined by Tim, my co host, and Les, who you will all recognize from RSVP and like 10 episodes of this podcast.
Hey, guys.
Hey, Johnny.
Hello.
Hey, Les.
So Andy cannot join us tonight, but he had the idea that we should talk about bookbinding. So when he brought it up last time, most there's no way in he double hockey sticks that I can talk about that myself. So we had to get Les on board and luckily Les was willing to join us. So we're going to talk about bookbinding later and we have a lot of releases to talk about. So why don't we jump right into tools of the trade so we can talk about all of those branded items that you could buy. You want to go first, Les?
Sure. So I have been consuming a lot of TV lately. My partner and I have been binge watching Lucifer on Netflix, which is. I was never really interested in it when it was on the air. And then the last time I visited my mom, she was watching it and I got hooked. So hooked. So when we signed up for Netflix again, I started watching it. And it's great. It's ridiculous and fun, which is exactly what I need this time of year. Just ridiculous. And I have been listening to a lot of different playlists on Spotify. I. So I use my own Spotify account at work, and the only rule that work has is that things have to be clean, so I have to play other people's playlists because if I run out of. So if I run out of songs on my Spotify playlist, my Spotify algorithm is completely broken because I do this thing to my partner where I drop a song like Wap or my Neck my back into the middle of a playlist. And then one of my co workers and I made a not safe for work play playlist.
So when you sent me that, I had it in my head for two weeks. Oh my God.
It is literally the raunchiest, nastiest, most hilarious playlist I've ever put together in my life. But ever since I've made that playlist, my Spotify will just drop. And the fact that I do this on a regular basis anyway, Spotify now, when I run out of songs, will randomly drop stuff like My Neck, My Back, Wap and Peaches. And if for listeners who've never listened to Peaches, don't Google it while you're at work. It's probably a fireable offense. Yeah. So my Spotify will randomly play these raunchy songs in the middle of a playlist. And I'm. I know I can't, like, I can't have that happen. So I've been flying, finding these really long Spotify playlists, like, at least four hours, because I know that will run the length of one of my groups right now. I've had the kids listening to the video game soundtrack playlist, which is actually kind of fun because a lot of the kids play video games, and they'll be like, wait, which game is that from? And then, oh, yeah, I like that game. I would. Thankfully, none of them recognize the God of War soundtrack, but, yeah. So anyway, I've been listening to a lot of different Spotify playlists that I have not made because mine are broken.
That's a good. I listen to that one in my class, too.
The video game soundtrack. Yes.
Yeah, yeah. When we're writing, like, I'll put something. I forget what the name of it is, but I think it's the official one. But yeah, like, video game soundtracks. And they. They dig it.
Yeah, I use it. So at the beginning of some of my groups, I have sketchbook time. So they have 15 minutes where they're sketchbook, where they sketch, they draw, they doodle quietly while they eat a snack to kind of ease them into being artists for the afternoon. And it works really well. And that video game soundtrack, it's not exactly relaxing, but it's great for, like, sketch time.
And the stuff that we find relaxing is often not what they find relaxing, which is so interesting. It's like, I had a kid who, like, to relax, would listen to what I would call, like, Mario Brothers soundtrack music, and, like, he would play it. And I'd just be like, what in the world? Like, how can that possibly be relaxing? Like, is student constantly. Like, that's incredible. But I'm glad it works for you. So do it.
I had a kid introduce me to Nightcore, which is terrible. It was the most, like, jarring, aggravating music I've ever listened to. So Nitecore is designed for the ADHD brain? Yeah. It's great for people who are. Have ADHD or other neurological things going on. It helps them focus. But for everyone else in the group was like, what is this? They take, like, regular music and. And they increase the speed. So there was like. I finally was like, I. I just can't take it because there was one song that sounded like Chipmunks and just like, yo kid, I this. That. That sounds like Chipmunks enough. We. We're like, let's listen to some metal or something. Anything with the Chipmunks. I. I just couldn't take it anymore. And I think even the other kids who weren't into like metal or anything else were like, oh, thank goodness. But yeah, it's just like I'm getting to know a lot of different music too. The other thing that I like to play for the kids is Vitamin String Quartet. Like the hits for a particular year and watch to see who recognizes what songs. So like the 2021 had Montero on it, which was an interesting thing because like I have older kids who are there in there as an assistant. They're like, that's Montero. I'm like, no lyrics. It's cool. But other than that, I am consuming a lot of espresso. I managed to score a vintage espresso machine that needed a little maintenance, so I maintained it and now it's pumping out lots and lots of sweet espresso. So I've been drinking lots of espresso.
I'm coming over.
Hey, you're welcome. I'll make you some espresso and even foam some milk because I've been able to foam milk decently with this machine.
Oh man, that's awesome. I need one of those.
Everyone needs a good espresso machine at home. I. Not everyone. If you like espresso, you should have one at home. It saves me money because I'm not buying espresso based drinks. Out. But in terms of what I'm writing with and on, I have been writing on the most bougie 3x5 cards I've ever used in my life.
I.
So when I started my new job, I helped clean out the print shop and bring it back to life. I found stacks and stacks of old prints and some of them were really long and narrow, which you can't do a lot with. But I realized they were 5 inches high. So I just chopped them into 3 inch chunks. And the paper is. It's printmaking paper. It's 100% cotton. Some of it was handmade just like amazing 140 pound stock paper that I cut into three by five cards. So one side has printing on it, the other side is blank and they're just amazing. I whip out these cards and five of them looks like 20 regular three by five cards. They're so thick and I can just write on them really casually and it Just really just. It's. It feels so lush and, like, wrong that I'm making notes on these 3x5 cards because they're such nice paper. I also have a handmade pocket notebook that I'm using, and I also made a sketchbook out of some old that I didn't make the cut. So I'm using the back side of those and also the side that had art on them. I kind of run some gesso over it and then use that. I have one that I've been using for, like, my meetings, my meeting notes. The one downside to my new job and sorry, Ale, if you are listening to this is we have so many meetings. We have meetings on meetings. And the meetings are great. They're all useful meetings, but a lot of meetings. And then I'm writing with a Statler Norika in blue, probably from around 2014, 2015, when I. When everyone was buying them. I ordered two packages of the blue Noricas off of Amazon, and they're super nice. But I also went through my entire pencil collection. I was like, yeah, I'm not going to use all of these. So I took a giant. And when I say giant box. Giant box into work, I was like, okay, I'm just donating these. We're going to use them. And I've been chewing through pencils there like no one's business. I also have been using a variety. Variety of cheapo fountain pens that I got off ebay. That's it. That's what I'm writing with and on.
Did you get the Jinhao 86 yet?
No, but I'm gonna open up ebay right now.
Yeah, so they did that. The Jinhao 85 is a copy of the gold version of the new 51. And this is a copy of the steel one. But they make colors that Parker doesn't make, like white.
So. Did you say 56?
86.
Sorry.
86.
Have you gotten yours, Johnny?
I did, but it was cracked because it wasn't packed well, so I have to get it replaced. But it's pretty okay.
I mean, still makes me nervous.
But if I hold it one hand and hold the 51 in the other hand and close my eyes, I wouldn't think they would look anything like. But it was like, six bucks.
Yeah. All right. I was kind of. I was literally waiting for you to get yours so I could try it out, but.
Oh, it has the same nib as all of their other 51 knockoffs, which is like, pretty smooth, pretty fine, nail ish. It's it does what you want. You want to jump in for your tools of the trade?
Yeah, sure. I got a few things I've been really excited about. First thing that I actually finished today is is that Malcolm Gladwell released, I almost said podcast. And it'll understand. You'll understand why soon he's. He started to release audiobooks. So basically like he's. He's still writing and he's still coming out with books, but he's figured out that there's this like middle ground between writing books and creating podcasts, which he's very good at as well. Like Revisionist History is great. Broken Record is great. And so he. His newest just straight to audiobook production is called Miracle and Wonder and I just finished listening to it today and loved literally every second of it. It is about Paul Simon and so he interviewed Paul Simon, who is, you know, one of my top two like musician songwriters ever. And he, he interviewed him I think ten times for these four hour sessions. And she interviewed him a bunch. Then he curated or whatever you want to call it, produced this audiobook called Miracle and Wonder, which is about him. Which it's not just like a straight biography because I've read the like most recent authorized biography and it was very good. This is more about his songwriting and he goes and it's like the chapters are split up by songs and he also has interviews with people who are talking about songs of his that they appreciate. And it's excellent. So I, I absolutely loved it. I can't recommend it enough. It's available on Audible. It's basically like a six hour podcast episode.
Oh wow. I'm surprised we haven't done one of those yet.
Is. Is how it listens. It's just like interviews with Simon. So you're hearing Simon's voice, you're hearing the interviewers, you're hearing like interviews with other people. You're hearing stuff that Malcolm Gladwell or his co host have just written and they're just reading and performing on audio. So it's pretty cool format and I'd like to hear more of it. It's kind of like their version of how Audible is now doing those like Audible originals, which are shorter and just straight to audio but highly recommend. And this is sort of like a side consuming thing, but connected to that is I've discovered for the first time I've never spent much time with the album you're the one by Paul Simon, which so much Paul Simon. But that album for some reason just slipped between the cracks and I haven't spent much time with it and it is incredible. So I'm enjoying that quite a bit. I've also been reading over the last 48 hours a book called Call Us what We Carry, which is by Amanda Gorman, who's was the incredible young poet who read at Joe Biden's inauguration. And I ordered her upcoming book on January 21st of 2020, like the day after the inauguration. It was like, like available for pre order and I ordered it and it showed up yesterday. And so I've been reading that and she is such an incredibly talented woman. A bit to. To take this book to school to read to my students and be like, you need to hear what she has to say. She also has a children's book called Change Sings, which I read to my daughter tonight and is incredibly beautiful. So I'm just obsessed. I think she is just a genius. I love this young woman and I hope she does end up running for president someday because somebody with a brain like that deserves a platform. So I. But Call Us what We Carry is her first collection of poems, which is a big beefy collection of poems with all kinds of crazy form poems. And she uses a lot of. Or not a lot, but she uses several Artifact Texts of 20th century, like veteran diaries and things that she incorporates into her poetry. She's. She's amazing. So yeah, call Us what We Carry by Amanda Gorman. Anything by Amanda Gorman. And then I've been watching along with a healthy share of people on this planet, the Get Back documentary. But the Beatles on Disney plus which. Have either of you watched any of that?
Man, I never heard of it.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
That is totally okay. No, it is. So Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame and Hobbit shame for some of those ridiculous scenes in the Hobbit. But so Peter Jackson was given access to 60 hours of audio and video recordings from the recording of the Let It Be sessions for the Beatles. And the documentary that originally came out about the Let It Be sessions was so dark and negative. And so he basically got access to this to redo it to give everybody a new view on what was going on during Let It Be. And he produced, he was able to whittle down 60 hours to seven. And so there are three parts on Disney plus and it's long, but it is just incredible. If you're a beetle, it is definitely made for Beatles super fans because it's a. You are a. You're a fly on the wall, which is what we all dream of. Like we are. You just get to be a fly on the wall for the recording of the Let Be sessions. And Stephen Haydn, who's a rock critic I really love, he had a tweet after it came out where he said that if he could sum up every scene and get back, it would be this. And it was the producer. And so it had like a quote from every. Everybody in the band. And it said the producer's name. Who. I forgot. Whatever. He seemed kind of like a tool, so I forgot. But he was saying, you guys should record your comeback concert in Libya. Everything he said was about this. Like he wanted to take them to Libya. And then George Harrison, his quote was, you're idiots. Everyone here, they're. You're all idiots. And then it was Ringo Starr, I love you all. I love everybody. And then the next one was John Lennon. It just said in brackets stoned. And then Paul McCartney was like quietly writing a beautiful song in the back corner of the studio. And that's like the perfect summary of it because it's. He's just. You get to see Paul McCartney like accidentally write, get back or act, or like stumble in to Let It Be. And you are ridiculous. It's amazing. So I can't recommend enough. You can watch on Disney plus. And then last thing is just. I've been listening to my Spotify wrapped playlist a whole lot, which has been a whole lot of fun. So
I like her first one.
Her first wrapped.
Yeah. And she's so. She's so upset that it missed a 12th of the year. Like, why is it coming out now? It was a whole other month.
Okay.
Like you're a kid, so you would think a month is actually a period of time and not just like what a month went by.
Yeah, that's funny. But yeah, it's a fun tradition. I'm getting used to it.
I'm afraid of mine. It might be kind of dark and obscene.
Yeah, mine's been obscene.
So I have the playlist that you were talking about on mine. I don't know, I added it to follow and it's affected my algorithms. So it's definitely made my Spotify much more interesting.
I don't. I have a Spotify account that's just for me and the rest of my family has a Amazon, like unlimited account to use together. Because I'm like, no, I'm not gonna end up with friggin Baby shark and whatever, like showing up in my algorithm. This is sacred. Today we were like having trouble with our Alexa and I played music and I was like, okay, play whatever I wanted to play on Spotify, and Henry was like, oh, you can say on Spotify. I was like, no, you cannot. You do not say on Spotify. That is my. That is daddy's account. You do not play.
That only works on moist.
Yeah, my voice is it.
We have a Spotify family, so they all have their own, you know, little algorithms to play with.
We have a Spotify account for work, and I was locked out of it in one of the studios, and I kept going to play, and someone was using it at home, and I kept booting them off. Then they'd boot me off. I'd boot them off. They'd boot me off. And we went back and forth, and the kids were like, like, just enwrapped, watching me, like, go, nope, I'm still at work. I get to use this account at work. Nope. They was high school students. They thought it was really funny.
Yeah. That checks out. Yeah. And as far as what I'm writing with, I am writing with a Tennessee round from Musgrave.
Nice.
And I am using the beautiful new Musgrave pencil company standard writing notebook. You are on brand, which is so good. We'll get to that. But I love it. How about you, Johnny?
So I've been watching too much tv, too. I binged the first season of the Mandalorian in, like, two or three nights, because they're not that long. It's 10 minutes of credits at the end.
You watch Star wars stuff, so this
is a longer story, but Henry is really into Star wars now, and it reminded me of how into Star Wars I was when I was a kid.
Mandalorian is, like, the best thing Star wars has done in so long. So it's a good.
I love Pedro Pascal already.
Yeah.
So, like, when I saw it was him, like, oh, yeah. I'm watching this show, and it's so violent. Like, geez, early on.
It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Henry really wanted to see it. I'm like, I don't know. I heard this is pretty violent. You should let me watch it first. Plus, like, I'll binge it at night when nobody's bothering me. And. Oh, boy. But good. Yeah, I'm enjoying the heck out of that. And so I have a little ritual. I drop the kids off at school, and then I pop in my Bluetooth headphones, listen to Radio Headspace, which is a daily podcast from Headspace that's just a couple minutes long. And it's not like a meditation. It's more just like a, hey, here's something to think about. Today. So I. I don't think it was exclusively on Spotify. I think you can just listen to it anywhere now. But it's cool.
They.
They change the voices out pretty regularly, which is good. This week they have the original Andy Puddicomb on with some sort of, like, flashback. But he's really good and he's shorter than everybody else because he's confident he knows what he's doing. I don't know, maybe he edits a lot. And I just finished a book finally called the Midnight Library that was a big hit. And I never read it and I don't know if I liked it. Did you guys read this?
It's on my list, but I haven't
read it yet, so I don't want to give any spoilers. Like, the premise of it is that the Midnight Library exists between when you're alive and dead. And in it is a book that's every version of a life you could have if you made different choices. So when you think of this premise, you think, oh, there's gonna be like a Darren Aronofsky level mind F word in here somewhere. And there wasn't. So I can't figure out if that made it good or not. And the main character majored in philosophy and misquoted Thoreau early in the book. So I was like, oh, maybe this means that the main character is full of crap. But no, the author doesn't know how Google works or something. It's that quotation that people put in greeting cards that Thoreau never said. And anyone who's ever read Walden who knows he didn't say, okay, but it was. It was a good story. And it's about a library, so that's always a plus. Yeah, I'm like, very lazy about reading because I'm spending all my evenings bookbinding because that's relaxing. But it's relaxing. It can be. Sometimes I go a little ballistic. I'm like, I'm gonna bind three books tonight. And then at 10 o' clock, I'm like, why did I do that? My back hurts. Yeah, actually, my back just always hurts now. Yay. I'm gonna make it quick. I'm writing with my F wording Waterman Corinne fountain pen and marine amber that I got for free with Amazon points, which makes me so happy because I would never spend that much money on a pen that I didn't see. But it's that one with the in inlaid gold nib that's really smooth, but it's like a little hose that squirts ink everywhere. It's awesome. Yeah. Want to jump into fresh points?
Good.
Wanna. Wanna go first? Less sure.
So I have not been into stationary new things recently. I'm kind of eh. On a bunch of the stuff that's come out. So I decided rather than rail on stuff, I'm going to talk about the stuff that I'm actually using. So my new job, I'm. I'm teaching art with a art therapy bent to it. So I have been using a lot of printmaking supplies and I picked up the. This red rubber carving block by a company called Innovart, which is a terrible name. I hate the company name. But their carving block is actually really nice and it's really nice and thick. So technically you can carve both sides though I don't. But what's nice about it is that it's a good height and if you do things right, you can actually put it through the letterpress machines so the machine will ink it and then print it, which is amazing. So I've been using that and I've also been using in my horizontal home shop Speedball super graphic black printmaking ink. It's for relief printing. So all of the blocks that I'm printing, I ink it up with that by hand. Print by hand. It puts this thick, deep black layer of ink on everything that is just the. I'm gonna say it's delicious, but I don't eat it because it's not great for you. But it's just such a nice layer of black ink. It does take forever to dry. My basement's humid, but just like super nice, Stu. And those are my. The new things in my life. And I think. Tim, you're up next.
All right. In honor of my teenagers I work with, I will say Innovart made me think in a fart. So I will get that out of the way.
I'll share this with you. When I was explaining something to the kids I met, I meant to say font and I slipped and I said fart. And I will tell you, every single middle schooler in the room went heat. I was like, yep, yep, yeah, I did that.
Surprising. That is not surprising. I will start by talking about the notebook I've been using, which I mentioned earlier, which is the Musgrave standard writing notebook that Musgrave sent us a copy of. And I have been absolutely loving this notebook. It is made by Iron Curtain Press, which is based out of Los Angeles, I believe. And they made this notebook. It's a very cool spiral bound notebook that is in what they call lemon drop yellow, which is anything lemon related, just makes me happy. It's a very nice size. It comes in. I've got to look up at the dimension. The dimensions are like seven by. Oh, here it is. Seven by eight and a half. And it has. It kind of scratches that itch of the notebook that I have talked about on here and I think on Indelible as well. The kind of vintage spiral notebook. It's kind of the elevated version of that, but it has a very strong vintage feel to it. And as far as, like, the COVID design, cover says Musgrave Pencil Company Standard writing Notebook, the oldest and largest pencil manufacturer in the south, which I think is fantastic.
Oh, that is cool. I didn't notice that part.
Yeah. And on the inside cover, it says, may we present the man behind the harvest line. And there is a. What do you call this kind of printing. I should know this by now. 174 episodes in. But it's like a embossed image. Halftone image there. Yeah, yeah, I know what that is. Of J.R. musgrave. J.R. musgrave, from an early marketing picture of him. And one thing I love about the notebook is that every page is perforated. So it makes. I've been using it mostly for my songwriting notebook, along with just kind of odds and end stuff. But every. Every everything's perforated. So if you enter it, it's great. And also it is the first notebook I've ever had that is a dot grid notebook that also has a header, like a blank header space at the top, which is pretty cool. I like that. I think that was a good touch and a good choice by the folks over at Musgrave.
So that blue that they used for the dots is possibly like the perfect blue to put in the interior of a notebook.
Yeah, totally.
I freaking love it.
It's very satisfying, calming, sweet kind of blue. It's. And I've talked about my animosity towards. See, I almost called it dork grid just because I can't help. I just can't help it. But like, towards dot grid. But that blue helps a lot and it makes it kind of trick my brain into thinking it's invisible and it gives me some sort of guiding lines but doesn't distract me. I love it. So I think this Notebook is a 10 out of 10. I love it so much.
Damn it. Add to cart.
So if I can piggyback on your fresh point, they have that really damn sweet new pencil case, the wax one, the waxed canvas one. So For a couple bucks more than the notebook and the case. You can get the notebook, the case, and the tube full of the variety pack.
Yeah. Totally worth it.
Oh, they're, like, dropping such cool new stuff, like, all the time. And they have that new sharpener out.
I saw that today. Yeah, that looks fantastic. I don't have anything. Yeah, yeah. They are living up to we, I think, flashback several years when we were sort of making fun of some of these pencil companies and how outdated their websites were. And Musgrave has just sprinted ahead of.
Yeah, yeah.
And they haven't gotten. There's nothing gimmicky. They have that new carpenter pencil, which, no offense to the sidekick, which is gorgeous, is probably the prettiest carpenter pencil anyone makes currently.
Yeah.
On earth.
Yeah.
But they do something smart, too. On their sharpener page, they actually show the point it produces. That is always such a nitpicky thing that I have. But like a lot of sharpeners, when you want to buy them, the seller does not show the point it produces. Show me the point. I want to know the point.
And I like that they're right off the bat, like, guess what? Replacement blades.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Blackwing made us wait four months or something for replacement blades.
Yeah, this. I've had some stuff from this company, and they were really nice. They made some that were like that CW had that were shaped like animals.
Yeah, yeah.
And it looks like it came from the dollar store and a pack of sharpeners, but it writes. It works so great. Speaking of which, I'm gonna steal that from him. He doesn't use it.
There you go. Just sneak into his room. We'll cover you for a second. Go sneak in, Sneak into his room. Steal the sharpener, or else you'll wake
up, want to cuddle.
So that. Yeah, that sharpener looks awesome. It's NJK Musgrave collaboration Double blade pencil sharpener. I think that is. It looks very cool. So I didn't. And I honestly had never come across an NJK sharpener, or at least that I know of. Maybe I have some in my stash that I don't know about now, but it's a company that's been around since 1933, making sharpeners for stationary and cosmetics. Oh, gosh, that reminds me. I was driving through downtown Johnson City, the metropolis that I live in over here, and there was a sign for a stationary shop.
What?
And it was. It said. And I don't remember the name. Sorry, bad podcaster to remember the name. But it was like something stationary. It was like Holy crap. Then I pulled around to the side, I saw the name again. Something stationary. And next to it a giant picture of hello Kitty. So I am so confused as to what I'm getting into because it shares a building with a pawn shop. Some like, pawn shop, stationery shop, hello Kitty, Johnson City. Don't know what I'm getting into here. So I will report back on that. But I'm very excited. I'm hoping that it's something cool. I think it's. Yeah.
Paulie's stationery Shop.
Yes. Yeah. What do you find out? I haven't even googled it yet.
I just googled it there. They opened it, went at nine o' clock tomorrow. So get on it, man.
I'm gonna take my. I'm gonna take my students on the. We're on a field trip tomorrow. I'm gonna take them to Paulie's and see what they.
That could be a lesson. Thank you, kids. Here's five bucks. Come out of here with a year's worth of writing equipment.
Yeah, yeah, totally. Oh, God. I'm going through the. Stationary, my butt. This is not stationary. Okay. Anyways, I'm gonna move on. It's like Funko pop characters. This is stationary. Whatever. Okay. The other thing I was gonna bring up was the new Blackwing pencils. So we've got some new Blackwing volumes. Blackwing Volume 93 just came out, which is a tribute to Create a Kent, who is an artist and activist, I guess you'd call her, who created this piece of art on, as far as, if I'm remembering this correctly, was on the side of highway. It was Highway 93. Is that what it's called?
Or just generally around here it's just 93 interstate. You're cursing that. You have to be on it.
Yeah, it's down by Dorchester.
Okay.
So I used to go by the. I went by it every day when I lived in Boston because I lived in Quincy. So on my way up to town, we passed it constantly. And I didn't make the connection until I read the bottom of the box.
Yeah.
But that made me very happy.
Yeah, it's a. I mean, it's a very cool concept. It is also. And. And I'm not like, disclosure wise. I'm not a subscriber right now. I just kind of buy as I want them. And I think it was. Who was the first. Was it unexposed? Was that the first field notes edition? That was kind of the, like, middle finger to the.
Yeah, yeah.
So I feel like this is Black Wing's first middle finger to the collectors. Because six different pencils, you get two of each. Right. So, like, you can't just buy a couple singles to, like, have the collection.
Oh, I didn't even think of that.
Like, you have to have the whole set pretty much, or at least half a dozen to have everything that they have. So I kind of appreciate that if it is indeed an accidental gesture towards. We're not designing these so that you can collect them. We're designing these because this is what it needs to be based on the source material or whatever. So that's interesting to me.
Like, I think they could have picked some different art.
Yeah.
What they picked was iconic, the Boston gas tank. And now that I'm looking at a picture of it, Johnny and I were pregaming and talking about the black wings. Now that I see it. Yes, I know it. But, like, she did so many other interesting things.
Well, and the weird thing is they talked for a long time about cool stuff she did. And then they're like, oh, yeah, this looks like an oil tank that's in a place in Boston that when they put it there, was not where you wanted to live if you were not from Boston. Although it's all pretty gentrified down there now. But. Yeah. So the white aesthetic, like, I liked, but then mine came, and they all have a gap between the white of the pencil and the white of the feral. Every single one of them. I guess I have to unglue them and install them myself. That's not unexpected, unfortunately.
That's kind of infuriating. But whatever. Like.
Yeah, I mean, this is the first
black wing with a white feral, which is something, right? Yeah, not really. That's. That's what I said when the volume one came out. I was like, it's the first round of blackwing. It was also the last round blackwing, which is kind of crazy that they haven't done another round one. I don't know.
I wish they would go back to interesting finishes like that one. And the Ken pencil instead of a roll on every time because it looks like I got it at Target, but it was 30 bucks.
Yeah. That friggin Kenken pencil, though, I don't even know how to hold that.
I love that thing.
I feel like I'm holding it with. I need to hold it with both hands. Like, this doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, I can't stand it.
They've had a couple pencils with interesting finishes, like the. The non photo blue one that was half blue and half Natural. That was freaking cool. But been a little not my taste.
Yeah, yeah, I would. If this makes no sense to say it this way, but this Blackwing 93, when I look at the set of the six different colors, if they were all the purple color, I would buy it immediately. I think that one looks the best. For whatever reason, I'm just like kind of indifferent about it. I probably won't be picking up a dozen of them just because I am personally not in like the collector mode. I've officially hit that point where I'm missing enough of the additions that I don't care anymore.
Oh yeah, same.
I'm not stressed out about getting everything. So with this one, when it shows up, like, cool, I'm probably gonna wait. Unless I go to Asheville and going to a bookstore that has them and maybe I can pick up a couple or whatever.
See, Rosie likes rainbows, so I'm covered. Otherwise I feel wasteful. But she's always happy to take something that's brightly colored. Rosie. Like rainbows. Yes. Here you go. But also, at the risk of sounding, I don't know, some like overwork pro. Dude, if I were going to do rainbow black wings, I would have waited to do pride black wings because as low hanging fruit and if they had lacquered them, they would have been so freaking awesome and like pretty. Like the. The colored pencils, they could have even just done the same damn colors and knocked out black and white. That would be cool. So if you do that, that would be interesting.
If they did a volumes that was just a 12 pack of colored pencils,
that would be the ultimate fu to collectors.
Yeah, it would be just a cool idea too because like it would be a boon to them because I think they're like black wing or palomino brand colored pencils are pretty underrepresented. Like people don't seem to pick up on those that much that if they threw them into a black wing, like people would maybe catch on and be like, oh, another option for colored pencils as opposed to Prismacolor or whatever the.
Yeah. And plus they're so expensive that I don't think you're gonna get them for a kid. But if you're serious, they only make 12 colors. But I mean, they're nice. I like mine wherever they are.
The only problem that I have with them is that they're not light fast.
I wouldn't even notice that.
Yeah, I. Well, so I am art supply nerdy enough that I do lightfastness testing with almost all of my colored pencils inks and whatnot, if I'm going to use it for like finished artwork. So I did have a pack of them at one point and I tested them and some of the colors were not light fast.
Oh.
But I don't know if that's still the case.
That sounds like a subject for a podcast episode we should talk about. I didn't even know there was such thing as light fast colored pencils.
A lot of the professional colored pencils like Prismacolor and of course I'm blanking on the other names. The ones that I actually like will have light fast colors in them as well as some fugitive colors I like.
They call them fugitive.
Yeah, I. I do too. It's kind of fun.
This is some badass red fugitive. It's gonna fade, run away.
That's so. That's all I've got. So, Johnny, why don't you.
Awesome. So, next new thing, field notes ignition. I kind of love these. How do you guys feel? I guess I should say what they look like. They're what, white, gray, and black. And there are two 26 month planners and a check checklist book. But there's a, like, drop of yellow on everything. So if you're a subscriber, you got a yellow pen, a yellow calendar, and some book darts that are on a yellow card. So, like it's the bonanza of subscriber extras. And the yellow is sweet.
Oh, I'm just looking at the field notes page. I haven't bought field notes since the Carhartt collaboration came out. Those are cool, but I'm a sucker for any black and yellow or black and orange. Like safety colors.
Yeah. And they have covers, which is cool.
What does that mean?
Oh, it's the stuff they put in the expedition books.
Plastic.
Gotcha.
So I. It did feel weird. I wanted it to have the Yupo paper inside, but the pen is like. When I opened my pack, the pen fell out. I'm like, oh my God, it's so pretty. And yeah, the little card. I don't think they mentioned this, but it's not paper. It's like a really thin plastic. This is nothing I would expect, but I really like them. I feel like Blackwing has not been making things that are my cup of tea lately. Field notice has been on a roll, so it'll switch over at some point.
Did their prices go up again? Yep. Okay.
They. They mentioned that the cost of paper and scarcity and stuff was going to
make them go up and $15 for three packs. That's $5 per notebook.
Yeah.
That's hitting like a little steep. That's hitting a dangerous level. Like. Yeah, for just. For just like the average user kind of thing. It's not. I understand. And they put 10 times more work into it than most. But that's a dangerous like price point to be like five bucks for a pocket notebook to that some people fill up in a matter of a week.
And what one thing I do appreciate they do is any of the old ones they have in stock that were 1295 are still 12.95.
Yeah.
So they didn't raise those. And the original crafts are a little cheaper too. But you're right, like something 15 bucks is getting up there.
That's getting.
Until I also have to wonder like how many people like they pay the $15 and are going to be disappoint that they're not getting all the extras.
Yeah, yeah. I haven't been in the field nuts group for a long time, but there's sometimes a lot of hurt feelings in there when the extras were things that you could buy. Yeah, but I mean, you got them for free. You didn't have to buy them.
Yeah, $15 for this one. So just knowing. So this has been an interesting education for me as I start to open up a print shop. Paper is so darn expensive. And it is really hard to get right now. If you are working with a company that does massive printings and they're doing huge printings now. Right. Like, how many of these books are they're printing at a time?
I don't even know.
Yeah, but so they're like doing like hundreds of thousands of these at a time. But Yupo is also super expensive. I had to buy some. I didn't have to buy some. I chose to buy some from one of my groups. I'm not going to explain the project. It was a super cool project. Yupo is a really cool sheet plastic. But it's so expensive. Even if you're buying it in like small packages, it's just really expensive. So I'm not surprised that it went up for this one. And the fact that paper is really hard. But I agree, like $15, that's just seems almost ridiculous. I'm not gonna pay five bucks a notebook.
Okay. I don't know if this is a market price, but on Amazon, Yupo is a dollar and up a sheet.
What's a sheet?
Like letter and legal size 9 by 12. That's bonkers.
Yeah. I spent. I bought 9 by 12 pads and it was over a dollar a sheet.
Wow.
Pads are really nice, though, I will say that. And it does come in different thicknesses. And for my students, I did get them a slightly thicker stock, so it was nicer than just your run of the mill. So Yupo comes in a bunch of different thicknesses, but super expensive.
Whoa. That would be fun to play with a huge sheet of that, though.
Yeah. I have a friend who. This is getting a little off topic. I have a friend who does 4 by 8 foot paintings, watercolor paintings on Yupo.
Oh.
So she plays around with water tension and how, like, the viscosity of the paint will pull it up into a bubble and then as it dries, what it does. But they're beautiful. I don't even think she's selling them anymore. But anyway, it's a lot of fun to play with.
Well, so my only other fresh point is to plug my own zines because I have new zines out, believe it or not. And in two weeks, I'll have more new zines out. But my next one is about libraries. And the COVID was done by a certain Brian Bedell, who works for a certain company in Chicago and now has his own letterpress company. He offered to do them, and the paper shortage meant the color I wanted was out of stock. So I went with gray instead of. There was this linen black or linen finish black. That would have been badonk, but yeah, they're on the way. So. Yeah, that'll be cool. And we're taking submissions for anything you want to write about libraries in your life. We have a couple, but we have room. Plus, it's mine. I'll just make it bigger.
So.
Yeah, that's. That's it. Do you want to talk about the main topic, Mr. Tim? And now we, like, trade off and.
Yeah, that sounds good. One thing I'm gonna throw in there, this is just this kind of a throwback to, like, what we were talking about a second ago, but with field notes. I was just looking on their website. The county fair edition is now 15 a pack. You were what you said about them sticking to the former price is right. Except for the county fair, which in pitch black. Pitch black is also now $15.
What? Not.
No, but like, as far as the. Like the 50 edition. Oh, National Parks is 15 too frustrating. Yeah.
Talking about, like, the paper that's gone out of stock. The not national parks. The county fair edition uses that linen finish paper. So anyway, just going to throw that out there. Not that I really want to defend their silly price choices, but here we are.
I have heard that Even companies like them are having trouble getting stuff. I've been like, stockpiling paper. I'm a jerk. I'm like part of the shortage.
Yeah, I'm sure you have three reams of paper.
Wait.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 behind me. That'll fold though.
Is this the time where I should brag that I went dumpster diving and snagged 22 reams of sweet card stock? Yeah, it's in my basement in totes.
Oh, that's so cool.
And I think I had another five reams of really nice cotton resume style paper. So when I finally. We'll talk about it in, in the actual episode. But yeah, that was some epic dumpster diving. I know a guy.
All right, we will get there. We'll get to dumpster diving. That is question number four on the list is have you ever dived into dumpsters? You're dug through trash to find good paper for bookbinding. But so yeah, those of you listening have probably noticed that one certain pencil guy who's on our podcast has been hawking his wares on Instagram lately. Johnny, you've been spending a lot of time making really beautiful notebooks and trying out some bookbinding skills over the last several months. And Les has been making books for years. So tonight we thought we could start by with a sort of interview where I'll, I will ask you two about your craft of bookbinding. So to start out, and we'll start with Les. So when you talk about bookbinding, what do you mean by that? Is this repairing old books, making field note style pocket notebooks? Handmade or sort of like handmade handsome leather bound big books? I don't know, what do you define as bookbinding? And then you can pass it to Johnny when you.
Sure. So I make an assortment of different styles of books. So in the days before the Internet was real big, most artists and bookbinders went to craft fairs. And so when you do craft fairs, you have a range of goods that range in prices. So one of my sort of bread and butter type things was pocket notebooks. So I was making pocket notebooks before field notes was a twinkle and draplin's eye. So I was making and I did, I specialized in, in notebooks with really nice interior paper. And then the exterior was made out of old advertising posters. So you'd go into a grocery store and you would see those posters that were hanging up in the middle of the aisles. I used to gather those and then chop them up and make book covers. They make great book covers and they can't be recycled because they've got a plastic coating on them. So that's what I was doing that. I also made notebooks that looked like matchbooks, which are really super handy. I should make more of those. Note to self. But I also made these massive leather bound journals. They're just blank inside. And then this, the spine was really ornate so all of the stitching was visible. I also made hardcover books with visible spine so you could see all of the stitching. And I also made Moleskine style like that was. I did a lot of those. I did the Moleskine style on a leather spine where you could see all the stitching. And then I did like what you traditionally think of as a Moleskine with that sort of lay flat binding, it's called a Smythe stitch or a butterfly stitch, and that it really just lets the pocket notebook lay flat when you're writing in it. So I did a lot of those. And as for repairing old books, I've tried it. It's nasty dirty, like you got to scrape off the stuff on the spine there. I'm not good at it. I prefer leaving that to the people who enjoy doing it rather than doing it myself. But so sort of a range of things. What about you, Johnny?
So I don't know a lot about repairing old books, but I would like to learn because sometimes my kids will bring home like one of those DK books that's Star wars from the school library and I can't send it back to school in the condition it's in. Get your PVA glue out and fix it a little bit. But usually I just make journals like I would want to do. Somewhere in Moleskine's old marketing thing, they talked about the book that's not written, which sounds stupid, but I like to think of, oh, a book that it's here, it's a book. So you put words in it. Now it's more of a book. So yeah, like blank books.
I've always thought about that in terms of like when you have those blank books that the meaning is given to them when you fill them up. They're kind of, to me, not worthless. They're only worth the. What they're bound with, what the paper is worth until you add to them, when you write in them. And that's when they become valuable.
Yeah. And even in handmade books, if they usually cost a little more than if you went to Barnes and Noble. But I think some of the value you put in there while you're making it, like, hey, I'm wishing you well. While I'm doing this, I'm wishing you a life free of typos and leaky pension.
So it's not like there's a shortage of journals or whatever on the market these days. So as far as the niche of handmade journals, what's the benefit of a handmade journal as opposed to a mass produced journal that's on the market today?
Part of it is the love and the care that goes into the making of it. Like I have sitting on my desk next to me, one of Johnny's journals. And what I love about that is that he made it for me. He went out of his way to send it to me. Even when I buy a journal like that, there are these quirks that each person has as they're binding. Things that you pick up and learn as you learn how to bind. And that's all visible in this. So I think that's part of it. And when I make them for myself, and I make a lot for myself, I get to choose the paper that's in it. I get to choose what's on the COVID I can, to me, they're not precious because I make them all the time. So eliminating the preciousness allows me to fill them up. It doesn't make me think this is so precious. I don't want to, I don't want to fill it. Although with the one that Johnny sent me, I kind of feel like it's precious. Like I'm like, oh, do I really want to fill that? Johnny sent that to me.
I'll make you do one.
And I, I say the exact same thing. So I made a, just a really simple little journal for a co worker and she's. I don't, I don't, I don't want to fill it up. And I said the exact same thing. I was like, I'll just make you another one or I'll sit and show you how to make your own. She's like, oh, okay. And then she got started in it. So what about you, Johnny?
Like, I would chime in on the materials part because being a vegetarian, if I want a wrap journal or a certain aesthetic and I don't do leather, I'm screwed. But so I use some cork leather and synthetic leather and try to make that sort of like old fashioned aesthetic a little bit, but it's not full of an animal. If you're not into using books made of animals, no judgment. And that cork leather is really fun to work with. It's cool, I like it. But yeah, like it's beautiful too. They I like the whole like I've made some hardback books that are just this really weird size that just feels so good to me. But I have never seen them in a store that way because it's a really stupid size. It's not a five, not a six. It's weird. It's actually kind of hard to write in. But I really like it so the whole getting exactly what you want is great. Plus if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a stack of notebooks. Mine costs like five bucks and 20 hours of my time, so mine were cheaper.
Both of you, what was it that got you started in or like, like what planted the seed for you to make your own notebooks? So you've talked about how you use your own notebooks or you make notebooks for yourself to use and both of you also make notebooks that you make available to others. So what got you interested in bookbinding and like what was your starting point? Where did things begin for you?
So for me, I started out with a, I took a workshop in my undergrad. It was just one of those three hour workshops that was after classes kind of thing. And they did a demo on bookbinding and we were able to make our own books. And so that got me hooked in the idea of using books in the process of making art. So that's where I started. And then after I graduated I realized that sketchbooks with nice paper are really super freaking expensive. And at the time this was the late 90s, getting sketchbooks with 140 pound paper was not possible. They did, they just weren't made. Nowadays we have Stillman and Byrne that actually does put 140 pound paper into sketchbooks and there might be a few others, but your, your other option was picking up a wire wrap about wire bound sketchbook with 80 pound paper. And I really wanted that 140 pound paper in there. So that's where I started was with putting watercolor paper like some nice arches into a sketchbook and that's what has kept me going. What about you, Johnny?
I don't know. I've like it's something I've always wanted to do but it seemed maybe not esoteric. I'm not very handy and I tend to cut myself with things and spill things a lot so it didn't seem like something I should mess with. But then the pandemic happened and everything changed. So I was reading Carrie Smith's book the Wander Society. And she mentioned that Walt Whitman would make his own notebooks to carry and had some instructions for pamphlet stitch. And I, I just got a bug in my butt to make 50 of them and just started giving them away and send them to people. And then I took a break because fountain pens. And then I think it's the summer, I was like, damn it, I'm going to learn to make notebooks again. So then that's a. It's such a rabbit hole that one thing leads to another and then you have enough paper that your apartment is a fire hazard.
Which I'm Johnny, I'm curious about those. The notebooks that you made sparked from the sort of Walt Whitman inspiration. Like which ones were those? Do I have some of those here? I'd never heard you probably.
They were really small and I only had black thread at the time and it wasn't booked by Nick thread. It was like, I'm just curious. Yeah, May 2020 ish, something like that.
Yeah.
Okay.
If not, I have. They're laying all over my apartment. I'll send you something.
No, that's all right.
I just like there are a lot of like maps involved.
Yeah.
Okay.
That is interesting. Okay. There are lots of ways to make a notebook. There's lots of binding methods that we've talked about over the years on the podcast. But if you're at this point, if you're making them yourselves, what is your, your favorite binding method and if you could, and maybe if you could explain like a couple of the ones that you use and explain to the listeners like what they involve, what goes into that kind of binding method and which one is your favorite? Unless you jump in and go first.
Sure. This is a hard question because I have a favorite single sheet note folded book. I have a favorite single signature style book. I have favorite like Coptic binding. Let's start with a single sheet. I really love single sheet books. You start with a 22 by 30 inch sheet of paper and then just with simple folds and a little cut you can make super simple. And it's always amazing when you do it. I do this, I've done these books, I've taught kindergartners to make them and I've caught, I've taught 94 year old ladies at a senior center how to make them. And they're always a crowd favorite. And what I really like about them is that you can do it with any size of paper. So you can do it with an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, or like I said, a 22 by 30 sheet of paper to make a larger book. And then what's really cool about that is that you can use that and lay it out and then you can make multiple copies. It makes a great zine. You can like. So I'm gonna have kids in my class make one on a 20 by 36 inch piece of paper, fold it up, and make a giant letterpress zine or chapbook. I know dudes like having access to these big letterpress machines. I'm like, ooh, I have ideas. I have so many ideas. And it's actually really invigorating. And it's awesome to watch the kids do it too. Like, they're just so creative. But anyway, so that's my favorite. And so the single sheet book that I like the most kind of looks like a long pair of pants when you first cut it. And when you fold it up, you can actually extend it out on a table and it looks like a sculpture. So that's my favorite single sheet. And I'm a big fan of a figure eight stitch. So it's sort of a modified pamphlet stitch, but instead of only three holes, it has five. So there's a little figure eight at each end. And then when you tie it together, it's just a smidge sturdier than the traditional pamphlet stitch. And then in terms of, like, multiple signature books, that's way too long a conversation for a podcast. We could just talk about. Okay, let's talk about two signature books, three signature books, four signature books, all the way up to 400 page books that have 15 to 20 signatures. And I have, like, I love a good Coptic style stitch, so that have visible weaving on the spine. And there are a couple of them. And I'm forgetting the names that I really like, but Keith A. Smith, we're going to talk about, like, books later. Keith A. Smith has a exposed spine book that is just. It has glorious, beautiful stitches in there. And if anyone is looking to learn how to do Coptic stitches, that book's amazing. And I could probably. I have them lined up like a series of Bibles on my shelf and they're all tabbed up and so I can get to those instructions super quick. But yeah. Anyway, what about you, Johnny? What are your favorite?
Lately? I like ones that have the binding exposed because since I'm new, I don't want to get in the habit of hiding my mistakes. So if I'm like, that was a little crooked. There it is. That's fun. And also, I Like playing with the different colors of thread. But my favorite things to do now are make wrap journals which are long stitch and have that everything is exposed. Just one long piece of thread, like a Coptic stitch, but less tying and more poking. And my recycled library books are essentially that. But I put a tape binding in there that sometimes I reinforce depending what kind of shape the covers in. But they're, that's a relaxing style of binding to do. And if you sell them on your Etsy shop, then you tend to look at what other people are doing. And there's a lot of leather wrap journal going on and a lot of Coptic stitch and a lot of paper marbling.
Yep.
So I don't want to not do it on purpose, but I'm trying to not just make what everybody else is making. But case bound stuff is fun. But then you're like, you could have bought this at Barnes and Noble. Like they don't sell long stitch books there, at least not that I'm aware of.
So yeah, they, they buy imported long stitch from usually Italy. The paper's terrible.
Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I like, I, I sometimes make an experiment to see like how much paper I can fit into a, a long stitch rep book. So I'm up to 440 and I can do it constantly and not mess it up. Yeah, we call it the fatty 4:40 because I'm bad at math. And first it was the fatty 500. I'm like, wait, that's not 500 pages. So there are. You can't make a 500 page book. But yeah, that's so definitely different versions of long stitch. I like a lot. It's challenging.
Nice. So like all these different types you guys you've been talking about, how do you decide which one to make, which one to go with? Is it purely based on your own preferences or are you guys thinking through what sort of type of user or do you have an audience in mind for the kinds of things you're creating?
It depends. Back in the day I used to take custom orders and so sometimes people would ask me to work into the spine like an initial or a shape. I did a 400 and some odd page book for someone that had a like not a half moon but like a sliver of a moon. And then sometimes people would want the top sort of exposed long stitch to be curved. So like I did a lot of stuff like that that was based off of what people would want. I don't do custom books, so please don't email Me asking me to make you a book. I just, I don't, I make some books. I don't make as many books as I used to. I have early stages of arthritis in my wrists and I can do a few books here and there but I can't do 400 page books because my right hand will be a claw at the end of the night. So now what I do is I focus on. I only do books now up to four signatures and usually with really heavyweight paper. And I'm generally giving these as gifts. So like my co workers if I know that they need a sketchbook, I'll make them a sketchbook. I make a lot of sketchbooks for myself and notebooks for myself and I do pocket notebooks still and I do some saddle stitch which is fancy name for a staple. So I do, I do still do pocket notebooks that are stapled because that doesn't bother my wrist. I can go back and forth with my right and left hand with the stapler which I just can't do when I'm stitching. So yeah, it's one of those. It's really hard on your wrists and, and your back binding books. Unless you have. So sometimes you'll go into a print shop or a place and they'll have a, a table that's elevated and then so that. Yeah. So I actually in the current print shop I will adjust. Just drop down into. We've got these two different sizes of stools. We've got. They're meant for kindergarteners but I'll sit in a kindergartner chair so that the table is around my shoulder height and it's. That's actually a lot easier on my back so I'm not hunched over all the time and I try and get the kids to, to sit like that and they're like yeah, no, I don't want to sit in the kindergartner chair. I can't blame them. It does look a little foolish but yeah. So it like the answer for me is always it depends. What about you, Johnny?
So I've been doing some custom books which is cool because folks have requested colors. I would never have thought of pink metallic fake leather which looked like really cool in what's did it like looking at it, I'm like this is going to be a little hello Kitty ish for a grown up. But so some stuff like that. But a lot of it's. Do I like this? Would I use this book and that. I think that speaks toward the materials like the paper and like I Said before the fake leather stuff. But the other thing is I think of somebody who would have a book that they keep for a long time and work on for a long time. I just made a travel book for my aunt because she travels a lot and she always brings me back pencils from wherever she goes. And like I have a travel book that I keep when I travel and when I used to travel and it's a couple of years old, it's got a lot of trips in it and I just, I like the idea of picking up a book and it's got so much of your life in it. Yeah. So books with tons of paper. I tend to think of someone who's going to like beat the hell out of a book and keep it for a while. So I try to go with durability over fanciness and just make them as carefully as I can. But yeah, I think like someone who's going to actually use it.
Yeah. I think in terms of design, the thing that I'm getting into now is putting my own artwork onto the covers of my pocket notebooks because so when I started doing no brand notebooks, the whole thing with it was that there was no brand on it anywhere. In tiny little font in the back of the book you found my, my website address and that was pretty much it. And the joke was that no brand notebooks is the brand. So I've started carving up some of my own designs in that actually the innove art red rubber, the echo block that I picked up. So I started carving up blocks and the intent for those is that they're going to go on notebook covers. So I'm hoping to get some of those printed up relatively soon and just have some fun with it and just make some pocket notebooks with fun designs on the COVID I made a front cover label that says pocket notebook on it. That looks kind of like the front label on a composition notebook. Kind of riffing on that, my love of composition notebook. I made a block that looks like a coffee cup. So I've got a color like so I can do different colors of coffee mugs. And then it's got a black outline for it, which I think is pretty cool. I'm going to play around with doing some letter press on the covers and see what they look like. But that's I think what I'm going to start doing.
Can you recommend some sources for our listeners to check out if they want to get into making their own notebooks? I know like personally I have been interested. I've got Like a. What do you call it? A binding stapler. And I've been interested in the idea of making my own like pocket notebooks to use. So what resources do you have for people who are interested in making their own notebooks? Sure.
So I would. It depends on what kind of notebooks you want to make. If you want to make stapled notebooks, then a long reach stapler, a good one. Don't cheap out. Spend some money on a good long reach stapler.
I don't know if I cheaped out. Did I cheap out?
I don't know it.
It. Well, swing line is that.
That's a good one. So the other like thing is in terms of the staplers, they're not going to last forever either. They wear out, which is very frustrating when you're in the middle of an edition of a zine. Just take it from me, it's a pisser. And use good staples. That's another thing. Spend some money on quality staples because they will make your life so much easier. Just get good steel staples. Staples. Even if like Swingline makes some pretty decent staples, even like their painted versions, some of them are pretty good. I've had some problems with some of the colors flaking. I did, I bought some gloriously beautiful teal swingline staples. No one got teal staples. They just got silver staples because the teal just flaked. Right. Right the heck off. But then I've gotten their standard red, blue, green package of staples and all of those stayed on. I had. I've had great luck with that. You can also, if you get just plain silver staples, you can take a Sharpie and color the entire top and it'll stick for a while. It'll wear off eventually as people handle the. Handle the books. But if you're looking for a pop of color, going over the top of it with a Sharpie works pretty. If you want to do stitched books. Elisa Golden's books on making books are excellent. Her I find her instructions are really easy to understand. They're so clear. All of her books have really great photography. Her she also runs a blog that she updates pretty frequently that's less about making books now. And she does a lot of fiber arts, but she does a lot of printing of things. And she also shows little short animated videos of the books that she's made in the past, which is a lot of fun to kind of. She narrates them as she's flipping through them, which is really nice. And then Esther K. Smith, I can't remember the name of her book and I think I, I took it to work.
It's got how to make books because you recommended that to me. That's my favorite.
I took it to work so it's not on my shelf so I couldn't remember what it was called. That's a really nice clear one with drawn illustrations on how to make the book books, plus some photos. And then Gwen Dine, she has her books are mainly about journaling, but she includes a lot of book binding and she does have a couple of books that are about the binding and those are all relatively simple beginner books. Some of Gwen Dyne's books are higher level. So you might want to start with one of her easier books or the Alyssa Goldin book. And then if you want to get real deep and super nerdy into bookbinding. Keith A. Smith's books are phenomenal. They are all two inches thick. He is left handed. He designed all of his directions with lefties in mind. And he basically in the forward to one of his books was like, listen, I've had to decipher right handed directions my entire life. You can live with these books being lefty. And I actually find his instructions very easy to understand.
Also for source of inspiration for all things creative, I would point to our friend Les who is like the freaking powerhouse of everything. Why don't we button this episode up and Les, can you tell folks where to find you? As if they don't or probably already know, but sure.
You can find me at comfortableshoesstudio.com the RSVPstationarypodcast.com Instagram and Twitter original lcharper and I've given up Facebook. So on to you.
Good for you.
How about you, Tim?
You can find me on Twitter @timwassom and I'm on Instagram @timothywassum. That's it.
Awesome. And I'm Johnny. You can find me at pencil revolution.com on social media at PennSolution and on Etsy at Etsy.com shop surprise pencil revolution. And you can find our Facebook group@facebook.com groups erasable. Our official Facebook page is erasable.com I'm sorry facebook.com erasablepodcast and we're on Twitter and Instagram erasablepodcast. We also have a Patreon which you can use to support our content@patreon.com erasable folks who support us at the $10 a month level are producers officially and we read your names at the end of every episode. And speaking of which, in no particular order here are the producers of Erasable. Andrew Austin, Tara Whittle, Ida Furse, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Nathan Raybeck, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Miriam Bokout, Diana Oakley, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Kyle Paul Moorhead, Ali Sara Jamelia, Stephen Francali, Aaron Willert, Karen Peabody, Millie Blackwell, Chris L. Hunter, McCain, Jocelyn R. Myers, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Measure Twice, Michael Hagen, Chris Metzkis, Bill Clow, Random Thinks Jason Dill, David McDonald, Mary Cullis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Prevost, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Letzinger, Fourth Letter Kelton Wiens, Scott Hayes, Hans Noodleman, Jay Newton, Dave Tubman and John Wood. Thank you for your support and thank you to everyone for listening and we'll see you quote unquote in two weeks. Bye Bye.
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