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Transcript
Turtle Myrtle over here. Hello and welcome to episode 190 of the erasable Podcast. I'm Andy Welfle. I'm back here with my friend and co host Johnny Gamber. Hey, Johnny.
Hey, Andy. Glad to have you back.
Yeah, we. I think that maybe. I don't know how I offended Tim or why he's not here, but he
doesn't want to tell you.
Okay. It's a secret.
It's the holidays, you know.
That's true. Yeah. Just January 2nd, man. He's gonna like, let. Let me have it.
Oh, yeah, you're getting it then.
No, Tim is. Tim is out. There's the. The plague is running through his family. I think that the flu or the cold are just, you know, people are sick. This is not a. This is not a great healthy time of year. So. So yeah, yeah, I think we've all been feeling a little bit. So Tim has a lot going on, man. This is. It's been a. It's been a rough. It's been a rough couple of months. Yep, yep.
Yeah, I was hearing that from a lot of people and I feel like the last time this happened, a lot of good things happened after that. So I hope so at least in my life. So I hope that happens. But no more kids because one of those things was Charlotte. But no.
Oh, yeah. Hopefully that's not. The world has enough Gambers.
Oh, my God. And we're fertile.
Fertile Myrtle over here. So we're. Yeah, we're just having a light episode. It's been a while since we've talked to you. So we were recording the middle of the day, just in the middle of the week, just getting ready for the chaos that's going to come along with the holidays. So thought it would be good just to have a little check in and a little tools of the Trade freshpoints episode because there's been some. A few cool new stuff come out. So it's kind of what we're doing. So yeah, let's jump into it. Johnny, what are your. What are your tools of the trade this week? Sure.
So I finished Bittersweet, How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, which is the newest and I didn't realize, only second book from Susan Cain who is famous for her TED Talks and for the book Quiet, that was about introverts, came out like 10 years ago.
Ish.
So, you know, she is. She's a really good writer and does a good job of working in research and a lot of like memoir. Ish prose in a way that doesn't Seem like, oh, I just want to write this book about myself under the guise of writing about sorrow.
Yeah.
So it's really, really, really, really good. I think, like, her other book, it's. She's a good writer and it's interesting and you read it too fast, then you have to go back and like, okay, what I just read. But, I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Yeah.
And I've been sort of sick for a while and watching so much British TV that I don't want to list all the shows, but one that is on PBS for folks in the US on the Masterpiece series is Magpie Murders. Most emphatically not the Magpie Murders, as you'll find out if you watch the show. But it was a really good miniseries based on a book by Andy Horowitz. I think he wrote the show too. But it was really, really, really good. And now the whole thing's out. So if you have the app, you can just watch them all. Sometimes they'll drop the whole series, sometimes they don't. And in this case, they did not.
I feel like you are getting your $15 a month out of BritBox.
Oh, that's not even on BritBox. Oh, my God, really? Right on Britbox. So we just started a show called Ellen Dobbs that is one of those detective shows that has funny little jokes in the middle of it, but it's definitely not silly. Like, super, super good. Oh, my God. I can't even remember all the things I've watched on BritBox lately, but definitely check that out. And finally I picked up a book that I'd been meaning to read called Rebound, about making books of recycled materials.
Oh, cool.
It came out, I don't know, 2011, 2012, something like that. And it's a nice book. A lot of these book binding books are like print on Demand from Dover or something. They're really not nice. So it was nice to have one that's durable and nice in your hands. And as I'm reading it, I'm like, man, I. I hope that Leslie Herger knows about this book, but I bet she does.
I was, I was gonna make the joke that it sounds like she wrote that book.
And lo and behold, one of the tutorials in there is by Leslie.
Really?
I was like, what? This is? That's awesome.
Yeah.
So the cool experience of reading a book and being like, oh, my God, this is right up somebody's alley. And of course they are. They help make it. So that makes me feel important because I have friends that do awesome things.
Yeah.
But if you're interested in making books or reading about bookbinding, that's a nice little book to read. It's kind of expensive, but I think you can get a used copy pretty cheap.
Yeah.
And I am writing with a general's layout that I just found on the windowsill and forgot what a damn nice pencil this is. And I'm using a notebook I made myself with Nina Classic Crests Natural White, which is becoming one of my favorite papers for fountain pens. And also it's so nice for pencil. Possibly even better for pencil than fountain pens. Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's like 25 bucks a ream. Definitely pick some out if you want some really, really good paper. But that's all I got. How about you, Andy?
Nice. Well, I've been. One of my kind of, like, favorite things to do this time of year is, you know, if you go into a bookstore and often you'll see, like, a little display for, like, the best American anthologies. There's Best American Essays. There's Best American Sports wr. There's Best American Memoirs. It's always like, you know, what's been appearing, what people have been writing in this past year. And two of my favorite of those anthologies is, of course, the one that's for sci fi and fantasy stories. But then also, I really, really love Best American Food. It's usually. It's usually like, bigger than just like, restaurant reviews or something. It's usually like the. The cultural implications of this or that or like the. The San Jose tofu scene is the one that's like, a big thing I'm reading about. Like, what's, like, really interesting, apparently. Apparently the best place in America to get different kinds of tofu is San Jose, California.
That sounds fake. And also delicious.
Yeah, well, I mean, this. This part of California has like, a huge, like, Asian immigrant population and, like. And an old one, too. Like people who have, like, Chinese immigrants who have come here in like, the, like the early 1900s. And there's just like, a lot of really interesting. Just, like, food that emerged from that and. Yeah. So if you ever come out to the west coast to visit, we'll have to go try some Vietnamese tofu in San Jose.
Hell, yes.
So, been reading those. This is a good time of year for that. I just been watching. Have you ever watched the Good Place?
No, I've never seen that.
It's really good. A friend of mine turned me onto it. It's a really. It's kind of like a. I mean, it's A sitcom. It's about like, you know, this, this woman dies and Ted Danson sort of like welcomes her into his office and he's like, hey, like, you know, you, welcome to the Good Place. You have been an exceptional human being in your life. And this is, this is where you go and here's a house and you can find your soulmate. And you know, it's a good thing you weren't a bad person because you would have gone to the Bad Place. And it's very kind of philosophical and turns out she was not a good person. Like she's not the person that they thought that she was. And it's basically her trying to make sure they don't find out and send her to the Bad Place. And it's, it's obviously a huge kind of like allegory for heaven and hell, but then also it's very kind of philosophical and sweet and about human dynamics and. Yeah, it's just, it's just a really, just a kind funny show. Been watching that I've also kind of been watching. Have you heard of a streaming app called Pluto tv?
Yeah, my Roku TV installs it for me like every couple.
So it has this sort of like radical idea that like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna show you TV shows at a specific scheduled time and we're gonna give you commercial breaks. Wow, I've never heard of this. But I guess the thing that I like about it is there are dedicated channels for Star Trek and classic Doctor who. What? They Show Star Trek 24 hours a day. And there's a classic Doctor who channel where they show like old like from the 60s up through the 80s, early 90s, even just Dr. Who. And it's so good if you just kind of like want a show on that you can just sort of like pay attention to or just have on in the background. I don't usually kind of operate like that, but it's been like this holiday. It's been really kind of like comforting to do that. So been watching a lot of Pluto tv. Watching some old, old William Hartnell Doctor who's from like 1963, some old star Trek the Next Generation episodes, which is definitely my like kind of ultimate comfort tv. And yeah, Pluto, Pluto's great. They have some like weird ass channels. Like they have channels for soaps channels for that. They have something called like Reality Bites or something like that where they just have a bunch of like reality shows. They have a Survivor channel. Like. Yeah, it's.
I see they have an action Channel, Right. Where they're gonna play Shooter later.
I don't know if they still have it, but they used to have an Antiques Roadshow channel. Wow, that was really fun.
So question, is it child safe?
I don't know. I'm not sure.
I don't trust my kids to listen to what I said not to watch.
I'm sure there are some channels that are child safe, but I don't know if you can lock that in.
Yeah. Yeah, that does sound cool, though.
Yeah. And I guess last thing I just got done, I was reading the Sandman graphic novel series that Neil Gaiman wrote kind of in prep for watching the Sandman Netflix series, TV series, which was very good and very, I think, did a really good job of kind of like honoring that original while still kind of like updating it. So if you haven't seen the Sandman series on Netflix, it's. It's very good. Yeah. Just really, really enjoyed that. It's kind of like a fantasy series about, like, you know, the. The Sandman is the Morpheus, the king of dreams. And like, it's kind of about dreams and death and humans and. Yeah, it's just a really good, really good show. Yeah. And it's Neil Gaiman, so, you know, you know, it's going to be good. And I am writing with a pencil King that we'll talk about later by Musgrave. And just in my. Just in my trusty Baron Fig confidant. Yeah. Should we slip into some fresh points?
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
What do you have going on? The thing. I think the thing you're going to be talking about, I have here right in front of me. Yeah.
So field notes, like, I don't really get on Facebook much and I don't pay attention to field nuts. So all of a sudden you get an email like, oh, your winter subscription shipping notice. I'm like, what? What time of year? Oh, it's going to be winter.
Yeah.
So I forgot about it. And then they showed up and they're so freaking cool.
So good. It was I. You. I know you haven't been paying much attention to field notes, but this has been so polarizing, as I'm sure you can imagine.
That's why.
Do you want to kind of describe what they do? Sure.
So for the last couple times where they do a, like, this is Wednesday situation where, you know, if you buy something, you get something cool for free. They've done sort of like a flood coat version of the craft notebook. They did a blue one and a red one. But since that stock they use is really absorbent and also brown. The colors don't look like what you would expect them to look like. So it's like really dark blue and almost like a bloody brown red. So for this one they did three colors. One is bright green. Well, that's the, that's the extra.
Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
They did orange, aqua and this like really bright green. And of course, when you mix them onto the paper, that's not what they look like anymore.
Yeah.
So the belly bands are the original color and then they mix in. And if you're a subscriber, you get an extra set of notebooks which is. What do they call it? Barry.
Barry. Yeah.
Like, I think that's the coolest one. It's really cool.
Yeah.
Like this. I thought I read the word magenta in the email. Like bingo.
Perfect. Yeah.
But so, you know, field notes used to be 10 bucks, now they're 15 bucks. So that's 5 bucks a notebook. So this time around they wanted to do something that was 10 bucks, they said. So they're each just a two pack, so they're 10 bucks a set. If you're a subscriber, you got 40 bucks worth of notebooks, which I'm sure some people are complaining about, but I was very happy about. That's my favorite subscriber. Extra is more notebooks.
Yeah.
But I haven't written them yet. I forgot that they changed the paper stock. Have you tried yours out?
Yeah, I played with a little bit. It's, I don't know. Let me look. The innards. It's The Domtar Cougar 60 pound natural with a fine one color application of double knee duck canvas light brown soy based ink. And so it's, it's, it's dot grid, it's, it's very, it's very smooth. Like it's a, it feels a little bit more supple and it feels like it maybe just has a slight bit of more coating to it. I have not written in it with a fountain pen, so I don't quite know like it. It seems like it's more fountain pen friendly than before, but pencil, it's fine. I wouldn't say it's just like, it's not as toothy as maybe it used to be. Used to be. But it's definitely not quite as coated as sometimes they get. But one thing they, they're doing, you know, it's, it's been a while since I've used just their plain old regular craft bound Field notes. But something they did to this that I've not is that they. They perforated all of the pages.
Yeah. I saw a couple people that were like, oh, they're perfect, except for the perforation.
Yeah. And I. I'm actually. I'm actually okay with it. Like, I'm somebody who always, you know, when there's notebooks that have the back. Several pages that are perforated, like, you know, competence always have, like, several pages worth of perforation in the back. Like, I use those. I. I do a lot of, like, scribbling a note and then tearing it out. So I actually, I don't mind that at all. I'll probably. I'll probably use it. But it's just. It is. It's kind of a. Excuse me. Kind of a weird decision to make. Them all perforated, but not one that I mind. Yeah.
And I forgot what edition it was. There was one that was perforated before, and I was not so into it, but they all held up. State place.
Yeah. Yeah. These. These aren't like. I don't know. These seem pretty. Pretty sturdy. Yeah. Who knows? I guess. I guess we'll find out with where. But I'm actually. Yeah, I'm. I'm super good with these notebooks. I like. I like the colors. I really, really love that, you know, they can do this big wash with the colors, but still really honor the texture of that craft brown because it's such a. Such a good texture. I. I actually have a couple reams of the exact paper that they use. And eventually I'll talk about this a little bit when I talk about zines, but I. You know, we made a plumbago with. With that. That paper, and I definitely want to make. Just. I want to do more with that. So I love the craft brown a lot. I think that they really took advantage of that texture, and it looks so good. And they. They also. An interesting thing they did was they put sort of like the. The start date and the location information. They put it on the front just kind of at the bottom. So it's easier at a glance to kind of like, sort and see these notebooks. So it seems like what they're trying to do is just create a whole new kind of market segment and get people to, you know, if. If this is going to become kind of a new design for permanent stock. Like, they can get people to, you know, just really use the system here.
Yeah.
Did they say. I think they. I think that they said that this is new permanent stock. Right. Like this is. Oh, introduction.
Oh, I didn't hear that. That would be awesome though.
I could be wrong. Yeah, like it's, it's, it's over there in the main product section. Oh, cool. Original craft and then Craft plus. So I'm hoping that that's what they're going to do, but who knows?
Yeah, I mean I like this design. I'd be cool with them doing a whole year of just four different versions of these. That would be pretty awesome.
Yeah.
Get some yellow on there.
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yellow one. Yeah. So they can kind of. It's, it's also interesting and I think they mentioned this in the email. They were like, you know, it's funny, we're like, we introduced these colors, orange, blue and green and those. It just so happens that those were our first three of our limited edition series colors. So ye think that's a nice little homage to that.
Yeah. And Scout Books I think they're called. Is that the company that does they, they used to make a lot more just like ready made books. I think now they mostly do custom stuff, but they used to do. They called it a composition book and they flood coat at the front and left out just like a little gap for you to put a title in.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, they wasn't so cool.
They were cool books, the Scout books. Their paper, like their craft brown covers were more. Oh, like the. I don't know how to say it. Like the fiber, it felt more like a grocery bag than it did like a nice paper. It was like a little rougher and I think that's probably fine, but I bet it's way less durable than a, than this like craft brown. I wonder. Actually, let me look in the back here. French. Okay. It's the Duratone packing. Packing bone wrap. Yeah. Yeah. It's such a, just such a good paper.
I love the French paper. They just changed their paper stock recently.
Oh, did they?
Like, they sent me some samples when I wanted to get some custom books made before. I was like, screw it, I'll do it myself.
Yeah.
And like paper sucks.
Yeah.
So I mean I understand that they, they prefer it to be recycled than actually usable, but you can do both. And also I, you know, I get the impression that they're for promotional items, not notebooks. That.
Yeah.
For people who are picky about their paper.
I've met Adobe does like sometimes custom things like that. So I've met a couple of the sales reps from Scott Books and they're really nice, really cool. But also. Yeah. Like, I, I've considered doing it too a few times. Like, I actually was thinking about when we did the tiny issue of Plumbago. I was considering using them as basically just sort of out like as a printing vendor before we went with write notepads. But they. Yeah. Just the constraints were just such that it just didn't make sense for us using them. But. Yeah, they're expensive.
Yeah, they turned out really well.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I thought they were. They looked really good. Cool. Yeah. Good, good notebooks. I. I always, you know, I always like the. The kind of simple ones. Right. They don't have to be super. Super on theme of something. I know some people really don't like the simplicity because it makes them think that field notes isn't like trying. They're not pandering or they're, you know, they're using. They're using the, like limited subscribers to try out new things for permanent stock, which I think is perfectly valid and like real smart.
Yeah. I think they've even said that before. They're like, yeah, you guys make it possible.
Yeah. And I just like this a lot. Yeah. They're so the website, they're saying, yeah. At only 995 craft plus two packs make perfect stocking stuffers. They're also wonderful introduction to our everyday memo books. They're like our original craft, but better. In other words, craft plus.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did. I bought things.
Yeah.
Did you get the red and the blue ones that came out before?
Oh, wait, what are you talking about?
When they.
Just the Wednesday ones.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I didn't, I didn't pick.
I mean, I bought things I didn't need both those times. I get it like one notebook. And then when they came, it was like, damn, I would have just paid this much for this notebook.
Yeah.
Yeah. They're. I'm. They. I don't know the last time they did one that I wasn't at least a little enthused of or I didn't appreciate at all.
Yeah.
They've been on a roll for a long time.
Yeah.
And I don't want to like some other.
Unlike some other limited edition subscriptions.
Eye roll or our hometown limited editions, which have been.
Yeah.
Discontinued since the pandemic for a while.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, good, good. Good job. Field notes still going strong. Like it. Who. Who knew that you can do so much, so much with. With a little pocket notebook? Like, it's just. It just continues to really impress me. It's some of the best 100 what, $12 a month that I spend.
Yeah. I don't, I don't get that.
Not a month, a year.
I don't get the sense that they're running out of ideas either. Turned around like how did you come up with that? That's awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. They, and there's still like it's funny because there's still all the in the field nuts. There's all the additions that people talk about wanting like you know, the national parks edition was something that like people have wanted for years in that group and they still have, they still have their like you know, American train system notebooks and they want, they want to do like. Yeah, people have all sorts of really interesting ideas and I love, we've talked about in the show but I love that they partner with the USPS on some stamps.
I might have all those.
Those are really cool. There's a, there's a new stamp that came out that I need to get a hold of for. It's American women cryptographers.
Yeah, I have some of those coming for azines.
Yeah, I need to go pick some of those up.
Look awesome.
Yeah.
I, I, someone sent me the link to all of the ones coming out next year so I saw them all at once which was a little disappointing because now I know everything, you know.
Yeah.
No more surprises like oh yeah. But yeah, they did. The cool thing about buying those from the USPS is they ship, they ship free. They charge you like a small handling fee.
Yeah.
So it's pretty cheap and they come really fast.
Yeah. Yeah. I need to get on that. I have some mail to send out and I still, I still have a little cachet of T. Rex stamps which are pretty awesome but I've been using those. Yeah. Cool.
Yeah. I'm gotta love the usps. It's always something cool and new.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Yay. Excuse me. Sorry I took off.
No problem.
So my only other fresh point is that I've been like crazy busy making books. Like I don't want to use the term speed binding to make it sound like I'm not doing my best work but speed binding, which is cool. So a few weeks ago I bound 30 books in three days for the Made in Baltimore holiday. Pop up. Two weeks ago I did a private edition of 25 books for I don't know if I'm supposed to name the author but an author whose work I like very much and they all have hand marbled covers and stuff so they're all unique and fun. So if you want your own Private edition. You know, get in touch.
Oh, yes.
Getting busy. So if you want them for the holidays, like, don't delay. I don't like turning away work, but I have to sleep sometimes.
Can you text me the name of the. The author that you.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Also, volume discounts are a thing.
Yeah.
Just saying.
But, yeah, I love that you just turn this into a business.
Yeah. It's time consuming, but I'm sure so fun so that now when I have something to do, I'm like, I don't feel like doing that. I want to make books. I'm like, oh, wait, that's the thing I have to do.
Yeah. You can use that as an excuse.
Yeah. I do not like marketing them. And that stuff is icky. And I think I'm really bad at it, too.
So I'm told. You seem to be.
I don't know what I'm doing, but custom stuff and private editions are, like, the thing that's fun. Cause you don't have to guess what people like. They tell you.
Yeah.
Like, oh, okay, we'll do that.
Yeah, that's really good.
I did one recently where I doubted the colors. Like, no, that thread's gonna look dumb, but that's what you want. And I did it. Like, damn, that looks cool.
Yeah. So I need to talk to you soon about. I really, really want a. Something that's like a confidant. Like a Baron Faye Guardian, but not leather. Like, not the Guardian Pro, that's like a little, like, carrying case, but something that's just like a little slip cover that's just. Oh, yeah. Out of, like, a nice vinyl or something.
I've made stuff like that out of a craft text before.
Yeah.
Which turns out looking really cool.
Yeah, that would be really good. Yeah. Yeah. We'll chat.
I'll talk to you about colors. And I can marble craft text now. I'm getting better at it. Really cool.
That is really. That is really cool.
Yeah. My only other thing is if you submitted something for the fiction issue. Thank you. And I'm just really behind because I was sick, but they'll go out, like, in the next day or two. The covers are finished, so if you hear this, they might even be on the way. And your miniature book for your submission
will be on the way.
So thank you to everybody that sent stuff. I appreciate it. I'm not ignoring you, I swear.
Yep.
How about you, Andy?
Yeah. A few things to talk about. One of the. A couple different pencils. One of them, when I talk a little bit about the Blackwing labs that came out for Black Friday, which I do not. I actually did not buy these. I'll be interested to know what you think about this. But it's. I don't know, like, it's. I, like, kind of like field notes. They often use the labs to try some new stuff out. Right. Like, they wanted to try out holographic imprinting, and so they did an addition with that, and they wanted to try out, like, different kinds of barrel colors. And I think that they even had a. Labs that was about a different core of graphite.
Yeah. Those super fines that never came back. So.
So. So, yeah, I guess I. I guess I appreciate that they're doing something similar to. To field notes here, but this wasn't one that was particularly like connecting with me. But they're. They're trying out a new soft eraser, so I'll read you the kind of description here. It's. You know, the one that they just came out with. The sixth installment in our lab series. With this lab, we're experimenting with a soft eraser that is made using. Using the same material as our handheld eraser. Each pencil features a matte gray barrel white imprint balanced graphite. Our new matte gold ferrule, which I think looks really attractive. I need to see one in person. Yeah. And a soft white eraser. Each pack also includes two sets of soft replacement erasers. So I'm guessing that maybe this is probably a little bit more similar to those really soft polymer erasers that, like some of the really soft Japanese ones is what. I guess. Did you. Did you order any of these, Johnny?
I ordered a set for present, and they didn't come yet, but.
Okay.
It's been five days and they're still available, so they made a lot or a lot of people are like, no.
I. I'm actually, now that I'm looking at this a little bit closer, I might. I might want to order a set because the. Not. Not for the eraser, but for the feral. Like, I'm looking at it, and it kind of looks like this feral is in two pieces. It looks like the actual sort of like, ferrule part that clamps to the pencil is one piece, and it looks like the flared part that holds the eraser is maybe a second piece.
It does look like that in the
photos, and I don't know if that's true, but I think it looks really attractive. It looks like. It looks like it's, like, finely machined. Right? Like, it looks like it's, like, machined rather than stamped. Out, which I'm sure is still what it is, but. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Maybe a little order set. Unlike some of the past labs edition, it's still in stock as of we recording this on Wednesday the 30th.
Yeah, that's strange. Maybe they made a ton.
I don't know if I wanna pay 30 bucks and have a whole dozen of these, but maybe I'll find somebody to split it with.
Well, I. I live with the person that I got him as a gift for, so after Christmas I can steal a couple.
Okay, sounds good. But yeah, I'll be interested to see like. Yeah. If these new ferals have been showing up on. I don't think. I don't think these were on the last. The last volumes edition. I need to check and make sure I've.
Yeah, what was the last volumes edition?
Oh, that weird animation thing. Although now I'm looking at the last eras edition and it's kind of shaped more like that, obviously without the little arrow punch out. But I don't know, I need to do a little more research because I'm not sure what has the new feral in it, but to me that's more interesting than the extra soft eraser. But also. Yeah, like, I feel like people in our community have been taking their preferred eraser and cutting them down to size and putting them in a black wing for years.
So I hadn't been paying attention, but apparently it says Black Wing eras 2022 edition. What's that about?
Yeah, that's the one. It's just like the first black wing eras, but it has the little arrow stamp on it and they're using the like, where it says half the pressure, twice the speed. They're doing it in the like the old way of like putting the little arrows.
Oh, is this different from the one they first put them out?
It's different. It still has that black stripe, but it's a little bit. It's just from a different era. It's from when they had the arrow stamped out on the ferrule and it was a more. A more red eraser.
Oh, that is crazy.
Yeah, yeah. Still very. Still very similar to that first one and kind of the vibe, but it's. It's of a different kind of like era. So I did buy some of those just because I can't resist. Can't resist the era.
The eras have a black barrel. Duh.
Yeah. The eras, I think are my favorite of the sort of like collections of black wings. Just because I. I think, you know, even though it's Not Cal Cedar's history. It's still history, and it's really cool.
Plus, I'm. I like the aesthetics of those. Those look really.
Absolutely. Yeah. Like the Palomino eras. I should have bought more. More than I did because they're just the best.
Yeah. I. Someone stole all mine except for the ones I was using. That's okay.
Somebody just snuck into your house and just stole them?
No, one of my minions. But they used them, so that's cool. Henry was having a blue and an orange face, so it's probably Henry.
Yeah. The. The other pencil that is new that I am very excited about is something that I really, really hope we see. It's from Musgrave, and I so hope we see more of this happen in the future. They were brooding around in their basement, which I would love to root around in the Musgrave basement.
Oh, yeah.
And they found an old die stamp from, I think they said the 40s and the 50s. And it's Musgrave Pencil Co 7900 Pencil King finest graphite. And they were like, you know what? Let's, let's, let's use this again. So they came out with a new pencil. It's round, it's royal purple. It has a number one graphite in it. And they put one of those just kind of like old timey ferals with the three tiers of knurled texture. I don't quite know what to call it. And then a white eraser, and then they stamped it with that Pencil King brand just as a. As a tribute to old times. And I guess what's cool about it is, you know, Blackwing eras are really great because they are paying tribute to, like, an old version of a Blackwing. But what's cool about Musgrave is that this is. This is Musgraves. Right? Like, this has been like the same company made it back then and now. Right. Like, it has just its own heritage. And I think that's really cool. So it's funny how they're using this old die, but still to this day, the way that they kind of stamp Musgrave Pencil co on the pencil is still the same, right? It's kind of like close together. It's just really cool. It's Pencil King and it's nice. It's the number one graphite, which I've always felt is not super, super different than their number two graphite compared to other things, but it's less scratchy. And I. Did you. Did you pick any of these up, Johnny?
I forgot to order them and I'm going to order them as soon as we're finished recording because it looks so cool.
I ordered this and then they. They kind of rebranded the unit. Mixed. Mixed grade pencils too. You can get a dozen of the untipped drafting pencils from 6B to 6H. So I ordered a set of those two and those are lovely but they, they look more slick now. They look like they updated. I mean certainly the new Dilger Studio design like on the, on the packaging. Oh yeah. The other thing I'll mention is they're using those on the Pencil King. They're using that like round, round box that they had. That's just so lovely.
Oh, that's so awesome.
Yeah, I mean you know we've. I don't know, we've sung the praises of Musgraves kind of revival and of Nicole and Tim Delgar and just like. Yeah. Like such a great partnership. They've done so many good things for each other and I'm. Yeah, the Pencil Kings. I'm just such a big. I just, I wish they. I hope they do this with. I hope there's like a bunch more dies that they have in the basement that they can do this with because.
Oh, that would be awesome.
Yeah, it'd be so cool if they, they did that.
They've been on like what a three year or four year roll? Four.
Yeah, yeah, they've been doing this. It was. I remember how. Just bad. We used to make fun of Musgrave but they're crappy website and just. I mean there's still some like quality issues with some of their mass produced stuff. But you know that's, it's that. That's the market. Right. Like people don't want to pay. I bought these writing is designing pencils from them for. I got 500 of them for $150. And you can't expect like perfect quality pencils out of something like that. But I love that they're kind of resurrecting some of their just like really fun boutique line like. Like the Pencil King.
Yeah, I appreciate that. They make colored pencils that are made for writing, not drawing.
Yeah.
Or I mean maybe not writing but correcting things and stuff like that. Yeah, those are super awesome and not stupid expensive like Verithins can be.
Yeah, that's true. So let me go to their website new releases Pencil King. Yeah, I'll read you the description here. Hear ye, hear ye. Pencil King takes us back to the heyday of steel printed pencils. This historic steel die Came from Cincinnati's Greg and Sons and dates back to the late 1940s. While inspecting a long forgotten sealed barrel in our warehouse, we discovered a handful of authentic steel impressions. Ooh, a handful. So maybe there's more to come. Produced from the 1940s through the early 1950s, Pencil King is the first release from this discovery. Okay, so there's going to be more to come. How could we not bring it back to life? A regal purple with shimmering gold foil. It's the perfect pencil for collectors who may even dub themselves pencil royalty. Round pencil, deep, deep purple gold foil tipped with a white eraser. Three knurled ferrule from Stampmaster Clyde. Which is a just a cool old partnership. Clydel makes a lot of ferals. That's just like their business. Which is cool that we should try to get somebody else from Clydale to talk about making ferals.
Oh, my God. Yes.
Ooh. Oh, yeah. Let's note to self, rich number one core set of 12 brilliant pencils in a spectacular round tube. So, so excited about this one. Oh, guess. Last thing I wanted to say is I sorry it's not Flambogo, but I spent Thanksgiving weekend just printing some more 404 magazine of my zines. So if you know that's. That's the zine I've put out. That's screenshots of like, good or bad or sort of like existentially laden, like error messages and app content text. And then I kind of like recontextualize it as poetry. I kind of like try to like, break it out and write it in the form of a poem. And then there's also some original poetry about technology and stuff in there too. And just fun. I had three editions and ran out early last year, so like probably like mid year 2021 and just haven't kind of had the spoons to make more. And finally I did and yeah, so I am. It's back up for sale if you go to 404 computer links to my Etsy shop, which only has those in it. Johnny and I had a big discussion about how for some reason, if you have an order that's over $10, Etsy makes me purchase something with a tracking number. So I can't just slap some stamps on it and send it to you. So I had to raise the shipping price a little bit because I'm only charging $4 for these zines, which is basically just covering printing and assembling and shipping. So I had to like, add a couple more dollars onto, like orders over $10. Because. Because now I have to buy a first class package which is like $4.
Yeah. And oh, Etsy.
Yeah.
Record profits off of those.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. So I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure there's a workaround somewhere that I'm going to just dig into settings and try to discover. But yeah, I'm, I'm just excited. We have had a handful of orders already. It's nice to work with my hands again. Get that out there. Broke out my old paper. Paper guillotine, which I really love to use.
Still have all your fingers?
Still have all my fingers. They make it, they make it really hard to chop your fingers off. There's like a little safety catch that you have to release in order to put it down. So.
Dude, I would find a way.
You have one hand on the safety catch and one hand on the, the lever. So like it's. I mean you could get your toes in there.
Mine minus foolproof. But the blade is so sharp that if you're.
Oh yeah.
Not paying attention, like I've cut myself to the bone on it before. Like.
Oh, crap.
Okay, that goes. That batch of scenes. The blood discount.
Yeah, you should just like, hey, do you want, you know, you know, it's not, it's not a blood discount. You should charge more for it because it's basically like your artist to me. Yeah. Here's a sample of Johnny Gamber's DNA. You could clone me. Yeah. So made some zines. I feel really good about that. If you out there have any interesting examples of error messages or UX writing or digital just like writing in your apps that you think would make good poetry or if you have some original poetry related to, you know, the Internet or computers or whatever yourself. If you go to 404 computer and you can go to 404 computer submit, you can kind of read through the guidelines and submit that stuff. And I'm actively collecting stuff for a fourth edition right now and that is. That is it. Anything else we missed talking about?
No. Hopefully we'll have some seasonal black wings to talk about next time.
Yeah, I got a shipping notification so I assume that it's, you know, they're forthcoming. Yeah.
Maybe there'll be another custom vintage dyed holiday Musgrave. Maybe they found something with like sleighs on it.
Yeah. Oh yeah. We should chat with Nicole about this. I feel like she's always has this really interesting. Just like she messages us about like interesting stories and this would definitely be a good one. I would love to hear more about it. And I'm sure, I mean, who knows? But hopefully once they kind of get through all of those, those vintage editions, they'll release like a sampler pack or something. That would be so cool.
Oh, yeah, My shopping cart's getting bigger.
All right, well, should we. Should we button it up? Sure. Johnny, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find everything@pencil revolution.com and at social media en solution.
I'll speak for Tim. Tim is on Twitter for now as timwassom and on Instagram as timothywasom. I am. My website is Andy wtf? And you can get a link to my other stuff there. I. I do still have a Twitter @AWealthly and Instagram @AWealthly. And if you. If you want to come find me on Mastodon, if Twitter disappears tomorrow, which increasingly is looking likely, I'm on mastodon@grid. Well, hold on.gr.id/d so if you're on Mastodon already, I guess my username is Andy Grid GR id, which is kind of hard to say, but cool to look at if anybody also, like, is interested in joining a little Mastodon server with just a very small community of stationary lovers. So let me know. I can. I can add you to that. Come on, Johnny. Johnny, get on. Get on Mastodon.
Oh, I'm on it.
It's basically like Linux for Twitter users. It's like more complicated and open source.
I'm in it.
I'm in. All right, this is the Erasable podcast. This is episode 190. We are on the web at erasable us 190. You can get access to the recording there and show notes. We are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the handle erasablepodcast. We're also on Patreon, and Patreon is how we fund keeping the lights running on this, on this website. In fact, we have a website renewal coming up in 10 days. So we have to make sure we can keep this website up and going for another year. And we have several Patreon people to thank, including our produce level folks who contribute $10 a month or more. And those people are Daya Marie, Melissa Miller, digitaltent Tech, Aaron Bollinger, Andrew Austin, Tara Whittle, Ida Umpers, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Donnie Pierce, Bill Black, Ed Swift, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, John Cappellouti, Steven Fansale, Aaron Willard, Millie Blackwell, Michael Diallosa, Tana Feliz, Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Mike Hagen, Bill Clow, Jason Dill, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Kathleen Rogers, Kelton Wiens, Dr. Hans Noodleman, Jay Newton, Chris Jones and John Wood. Thank you so much and we will talk to you in a few more weeks. Do you like our podcast? Most people like our podcast, but if you don't like our podcast, David will turn it off.