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Transcript
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We've got all kinds of nuts. Pistachio nuts, walnuts nuts, guitar nuts. Hello and welcome to episode 204 of the erasable podcast. You might remember us by our RPG avatars from the last couple of months worth of content, but we're back down in reality to our regular identifying personalities. Today I'm Andy Welfle, played by Andros Golden Bear, here with Tim Wasem and Johnny Gamber, with whom I survive an extended foray into graphia. We slayed monsters, we solved puzzles, and we came out alive and on top. Since we've left podcasts ourselves, there's been some new limited editions and we've each been up to a lot. Tonight we're going to come back to reality and rap about the latest field notes, Black Wings releases, and some other pencil less goodies. So how are you guys?
Okay. How are you? Pretty good. Yeah.
How does it feel to be yourselves as your podcast Persona?
Feels weird. I feel a lot older.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of. Kind of miss the powers true.
Our spells. Yeah, that thunderclap was really, you know,
that came in handy. Yeah, I'm using a thunderclap right now.
You never know. Yeah, it feels weird not to have Monica here. So.
Yeah, it's three bizarre.
Yeah, yeah.
We say thank you again publicly to her for all she did for that. That was so awesome. Yeah, so fun. And she did. She did a fantastic job. So thank you again, Monica.
If you're, if you're brand new to this podcast, if this is your first episode, go back and listen to episode 200 on. And that is when we started doing the Erasable spellcast, which to celebrate 200 episodes, we had a little Dungeons and Dragons campaign with one of our listeners, one of our patrons, Monica Corwin, who is also a talented dungeon master and professional author. So, yeah, that was really fun. And then also if you support us at any level on Patreon from $2 a month on, you can watch the video from that. And of course, the video isn't much more than us, just our faces while we talk. But, you know, sometimes it's nice to have video. We're not going to do video for this episode, but I would like to regularly record video along with our audio to share with patrons. So keep, keep that in mind for the future.
Yeah, we should do something like chart someone's beard growth or something like that. Like my hair's getting pretty long.
Chartable.
Anybody doing Movember? I mean, you guys, at least Tim, you have. I mean, you have a beard anyway.
Yeah, I got A beard. I'm not doing mustache thing again this year. I did that last year, and I kept it for longer than I should have.
We could chart some chin hair growth. You could do some braids.
Yeah. Oh, boy.
So get back into that Dungeons and Dragons character.
Yeah.
Chin braids. I've.
I've had facial hair for the last just about a year, and, yeah, it is. It is not. Not very full. It's still. I keep it trimmed down, but it just has a. It's still a little patchy some hours, so. So I don't know. I don't know if I'll keep it.
I mean, that could be a good thing. Mine comes in really full, and it's white.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Santa Johnny over here.
But most of my hair is not white yet, so it looks really weird. Like I, like, put my face in something.
All right, we should dig into fresh points. Just talk about what we've been up to, Tim. What. What have you been up to? I know right now what you've been up to. What's going on in your world.
Yeah.
You're standing in your nuts right now.
I'm standing with.
Yeah.
Just sneaking in a quick nut sanding before the podcast, which I will. Yeah. So we're talking about guitar modifications. So everybody gets.
I don't know what you all. We were talking about.
I don't know. Yeah, that's. This is the part where my son would pop in through the door and go, hey, yo. Because that's what all of his friends say when everybody. When everybody says any of those words. That's the days we live in today. Yeah. So. But that is kind of what I've been up to. I've been a lot of music stuff. Been learning a lot about guitar repair, which has been really fun. Like, kind of like a super long, like, a majorly overdue thing. I got, like, I've gotten a couple, like, pretty cheap guitars and learned a lot about, like, refit. I refinished one. Like, it was super shiny. It looked like a toy. And so I learned how to. Got the tools, learned how to strip it down and buff it out to make it look kind of like a matte finish so that it looks sort of older. I didn't do the thing where I, you know, busted up like those overpriced jeans, but, you know, with all the old holes in it. But some people like to do that and go. I just learned how to do that. And I got a really cheap Squire Stratocaster guitar that I got off Facebook Marketplace just With the channel, it was, you know, it was like 75 bucks just for the challenge of. I bet if I like really treat this thing well, I can make it sound awesome. And so far I am proving myself right. And that is the nut that I was. I was grinding earlier was to put. So that it'll stay in tune. Yeah. So playing a lot of music, screwing around with guitar pedals, that kind of stuff. I've got another new. A new analog obsession that I don't think I've talked about. I don't think so. I definitely, definitely haven't talked about it since I've gotten like really into it in the last couple months. But I started playing solitaire. I don't know if I told you guys, I got. I like randomly. I think this was over the summer. At some point, I just bought a pet. We were at the Coke Museum in Atlanta and I bought a deck of cards, like while we were traveling. And I was like, I just want to do something that's not screen related. And so I, you know, started playing solitaire and just kind of like fell in love with it. I would just put music on and play solitaire and it felt like an antidote. Like an antidote to scrolling. Like a scrolling antidote or something. And so it was just so relaxing. And so I started learning about like cool decks of cards. And so I've gotten in. I've got my little pencil display thing that I've talked about. When I got it a few years ago, it used to have field notes in the middle. And I've started putting in my decks of cards there. I have a kind of a mini collection going. That's been fun. There's the. Have you ever seen the brand theory 11? It's a. It's like a super nice cards that you can buy. They're like a commercially available really nice deck of cards that you can get at like Target and stuff. And so they make. They make some that are just like their own designs of cards, but they're like a really high quality. But they also do some themed ones. Like I have a. The first thing. The first nice deck I ever got was a Mandalorian deck.
Oh my God.
The Star wars ones are really nice, which are incredible. So I've got those. I got another Star wars deck. I got a Beatles deck. It's like a Sgt. Pepper themed. And so all the Beatles are like the face cards and characters from their songs. And I actually got a Yellowstone one too from theory 11, which is kind of cool. But yeah, I don't know, it's really fun. And I've learned, like, 50 solo card games. There are so many out there, and I could do a whole episode on that someday. Just can't stop playing them. There's some really cool, cool games. My favorite one is called. It's called Clear the Dungeon, and there's another one called Scoundrel, but they're this. It sort of like simulates a video game where you have, like, weapons and you're clearing out all the, like, monsters from this level that you're playing.
It's fun.
You get into vintage playing cards soon and go down that rabbit hole.
No, no, no, no. Yeah, probably.
No, no.
Yeah, it's a, it's a similar thing, though, because I was, I. I joined like, Reddit groups or what do we call those, Reddit subreddits for, like, playing people like, who, like, collect these. And this person's. I got the holy grail of, of vintage playing cards. I was like, oh, no, what, what's happening? But, you know, they got it on ebay, it's for 12, and it was, I don't know, 35 bucks or something, so. So look, it's like pencils. It's not as expensive, but. Yeah, but that's been really fun. And I just love playing card games in general, but nobody else in my house wants to play card games, so I'm just learning a lot of cool solo card games.
Are you. Have you learned, like, met card tricks? Like magic tricks?
That's where I'm headed. I just remember when I was a kid because my, my. I gotta take a video of Lila. She knows a card trick that's, you know, basic, you know, is this your card? Kind of thing? But when she does the trick, she says, okay, pick a card and you pick it. And then she says, okay, now look at it real close and concentrate on it to make sure you don't forget what your card. And then while you do that, you hear her, like, flipping the deck around and flipping things over so that she can do her trick.
Pretty soon we're going to be podcasting. You're going to be like, andy, look under your keyboard.
You ever seen that video of Harrison Ford with what's his name? David, Chris, Angela?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's been really fun. I don't have a lot of pencil or like, stationary news, so I just been kind of using, using stuff, using my old bullet pencils some more recently. Been carrying around this sweet baseball hall of Fame bullet pencil that I have. And then I've Got another baseball one from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I think it's from like a minor league team or something.
It doesn't have any branding on it
and I think that's it. I'm dipping my toe back into the blogging world, but I'm not going to talk about that yet. But I've got, got my, I've got that ball rolling. I'm starting to, to write some content. Not pencil stuff, but I am, I'm very excited about it.
So can I ask you a question about your cards?
Yes.
I, I'm just speaking on the website and there are like, you know, half a dozen Star wars ones. So do people collect these or do you open them and use them?
Oh, people collect them. I've used, I use them all. They're super high quality cards. Like they're really nice.
Yeah, they look like they'd be fun to play with. I wouldn't want to.
Oh, no, I play, I play with all of them. I have. I don't.
I do want them kept sealed, high Victorian. Oh my God.
They have them at Target. They carry a bunch of them and they'll do. You know, like they have a Saturday Night Live custom one. There was, I think there was like a Jimmy Fallon one at some point, which is.
Why is it, is it not funny?
It laughs at its own jokes and. But yeah, the Star wars ones are amazing. I've got the blue like general Star wars set which has just a mixture of characters for the face cards, the
design cards, like the, like the foiled again, field notes, packaging.
Yeah, yeah. The company apparently does a lot of cards. I wonder if there's a crossover. Yeah, there can't be. Too many people do like insane quality foil work. Yeah, I'd like to live in that world.
Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I think that's it for me. How about you, Johnny?
Um, I have also been busy with music. I joined a new band with a friend of mine who I've been playing music with since the previous century. But all three of them are firemen, so it's hard to schedule our practices, but it's been like really, really fun.
You're just like, you know, playing a song and then a bell goes off and, you know, they're just disappearing. You look behind you and you slide
down the pole out of your practice space.
In Baltimore, they have 24 hour shifts, so they show up at 6 in the morning. So if you have a car accident at night, like those dudes have been on the job for a long time. Just it's running Them all totally ragged. My. My buddy just got a like, gorgeous Les Paul recently and a Marshall tube amp.
He's.
You know what? We're not getting younger. Damn. Finally there's a good thing behind this middle age thing. So I'm on the market after the holidays for something new and ridiculous.
Yes.
So that'd be fun. So toward that I've been making and selling lots of books. And you can go to the Made in Baltimore store at the harbor this holiday season and go buy some and help finance the purchase of something that costs too much money from Fender.
And.
Yeah, the only other thing is that I'm looking forward to incvent. I don't know if you guys have yours on order or on hand, but we're just days out now.
Remind me what that is.
Oh, it's the Diamine calendar. That's like a little bottle of ink for the first 24 days of December. And on Christmas Day, you get their normal 30 milliliter bottle of ink. Oh, that's really cool. All new when they come out. So last year they added Chameleon inks and sent it. And this year I forgot what it is. There's some other descriptor. I've never heard of that they're debuting.
So what's a Chameleon Ink?
They're sort of like shimmery and sheeny, but they look like a different color from different angles.
Oh, that's cool. Like an iridescent kind of shimmery and sheeny.
Yeah, they're like a.
They're crazy pop duo or something.
It's Brother and Sister Birds.
Next on Meet the Music, we have Shimmery and Sheeny.
Oddly enough, it's all very dark progress.
Goth. Goth music.
I think that's.
Yeah.
Johnny, when you and Tim start a band, that's your band name. I think we'll switch instruments.
Which one's gonna be shimmery and which one's gonna be sheeny?
I think I'm obviously shimmery.
I sweat a lot. What does that make?
Yeah, sweaty. I'm in that. That could be our first album. I sweat a lot. Just pictures of you and I both wet wearing a T shirt in the winter. But yeah, everybody who had Black Friday sales excluded this from their sales, which was like bs. So, you know, if you want to stick it to the man, you buy it on Amazon like I did. So comes tomorrow.
Got to support those. Those small websites. Yeah. Top website.
I'm like, at this point, I need Amazon or I'm not going to get it in time. But it's fun. A lot of people, they'll try them out and put them on Instagram every day and you know, I'll see one I don't like and then see it in someone else's handwriting. I'm like, oh, wait, the problem is me. That's really beautiful ink. Yeah. And they're not all, you know, red and green.
Nice. What's going on in my world? I just last night finished a batch of 404 magazines. It's been, wow, about a year since I've made some sort of. So I have 50 of each of the first three issues and I'm hoping to have a fourth issue. I need to lay it out and print it out and assemble it, but hoping to have that after that I'm going to. It's going to have some sort of theme of like generative AI So chatbots write bad poetry is kind of the, the hope and the plan. So I'll have links to that.
What, they write good poetry?
Well, that's the thing is I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm scared. It's been a while since I like thought of this theme. So maybe it's improved to the point where they write good poetry.
By the way, just have a mail in. Is this good or bad? Yeah, publish your answers in the next issue.
Exactly.
And people like rewrite the bad poetry from A.I.
oh yeah. Oh, that'd be fun.
Like just.
Could you get AI to critique it?
Well, I mean, probably, but whether the guest editing is being a robot, have
it be like, have it be the guest editor, edit its own poetry.
Maybe I can just get chatgpt to like edit, you know, the next plumbago.
There you go.
What else is going on here? I don't know if I have anything beyond kind of what we're going to talk about as far as pens and pencils since the last time we talked. But yeah, I did go to a, just really, just kind of crazy place in Oakland over the weekend that had. It's just this huge, huge, huge like hangar sized warehouse that's full of stuff. Like they have old psilosope scopes from the mid century. They have this like 1920s, like Dennis Chair and they, they have a file cabinet that's just full of pencils and just junk pencils. And most of them are just like weird junky promotional pencils or you know, regular old Office Depot yellow pencils. But they had some interesting ones. I did not, did not buy anything from there, but it was just fun to kind of like dig in and look through. Cool. That's about.
Do you have any idea where it all came from?
Like, I think just over the, just over the years, people. People just sell stuff there. It's. It's somewhere. It's somewhere between an antique shop and the dump. Right. I think that there's probably a lot of people who own antique shops who go there. And there's some interesting things, like some really like just old AV equipment that either doesn't function. They had some kind of a. I don't even know if it was a typewriter or like an adding machine or what. They had something that I couldn't identify. Just really cool stuff. But it's all just sort of like set up on just shelves and cabinets and there's some like trash right next to something that's really cool. And yeah, it's. It's quite an experience. If you guys come visit. We're totally going to Oakland, I think. I think it's in Berkeley. Totally going to check this place out. Yeah. All right.
That's kind of a good segue into
Reese's talking about buying our trash. Yeah.
So we're.
It's been a while since we recorded, so we're just here to kind of like catch you all up on some of the latest releases from our favorite stationary brands. And the first one, which they just announced on Black Friday, so they just came out on Friday is the. The so called Blackwing Buy Our Trash labs.
Yeah. And oddly enough, this is Monday. They're not sold out yet.
I'm shocked.
$25 a dozen for factory rejects. Because they say Blackwing, really?
So when, when Musgrave sells factory seconds, it comes bulk in a big box for like. How much does that cost? It's 30 bucks. I can't remember. I'll have to look it up. But yeah. Black Wings Blackwing decided to sell their factory seconds for the same price as a regular dozen. And they're calling it, you know, an experimental labs release.
Yeah, I'm. I'm gonna be a jerk. But they couldn't have donated these. They said they've been saving them for three years. And they have this whole like, we support education, we support creativity thing. I'm like, so you saved trash for three years to sell it to us?
Yeah.
When you could have given them away.
In fact, as of the time of recording, it probably won't be like this once we release it. But the Musgrave factory seconds, you can get a gross of them. $144 for $11. Normally it's $21.
So. Yeah, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they maybe donate. They do donated a lot of stuff. Yeah. Before Blackwings.
Correct me, I mean, they're still good quality pencils, right? They're still the black wings, but you know, aesthetically speaking, they're. They're a little wrong.
Yeah. And I mean, part of why people buy Black Wings is for the aesthetics. They write nicely, but not 30 bucks does nicely.
Yeah.
So I don't get it. Oddly enough, I resisted buying this one.
I'm trying to remember. I don't think I got last. Sorry. Tim goes.
Well, I was just saying, I mean,
that seems like a.
Those would have been a pretty cool idea for. I think we were talking about like the advent, like the ink to it. Like just put like some unreleased ones and make it a good deal.
Yeah, I. I didn't read the whole description. Are they donating money with this to an environmental group or literally selling us trash or selling whoever buys the trash.
I'm reading the description now. They don't have anything they're saying there about it.
Maybe they're just not saying it. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Here we go with this lab. We're experimenting with misfit pencils from past releases that didn't quite make the cut. We've been gathering pencils for over three years for this lab. These misfits contain off spec standard black wings, volumes, deviations, experiments and more. Imperfections include primed pencils with a single layer of lacquer, minor physical defects, irregular color blends and top coat variations, et cetera. I would actually be really interested to see some of the experiment experiments in here. Right. If they, you know, were just like trying something out and they were just kind of like offshoots like that, that might be kind of cool.
Yeah, I mean, it's just the big issue is just with that term experiment. They're not experimenting with anything right now. I mean, I guess you did maybe sort of experiment with some. With something you're experimenting with, Seeing if people will buy these.
Yeah, they're experimenting with. They can sell to us.
How suckerish are some people? Most Blackwing fans, I'm sure, are not suckers.
Yeah, I mean, I. I buy many of the. Many of the collabs or the. The eras or just, you know, those in addition to my. My quarterly subscription.
So the eras have been, especially the last year, so nice.
Oh yeah.
And they're still for sale. They must have made a ton of them.
Yeah, yeah. Those arrows are on fire. Anything else to say about these labs. Sorry.
No, I mean, I was. I was thinking about just not saying
anything else, but it is just.
I mean, I just have such a big problem with, like, the tone of the whole thing, you know?
Aren't you lucky to buy this crap?
Yeah, there's just. There's. I had such a strong, like, reflex response of like, how dumb do you think I am? You know, And I'm sure some people are gonna buy it, and I'm not. And by the way, if you bought them, I'm not saying you're dumb.
That's cool. I hope you get some cool ones.
No, Tim is personally attacking you and saying you're done.
I'm calling you.
No, it's just like.
Just Tim, not us say.
Call it exactly what it is even. I think I would have had less issue if they wouldn't. If they didn't call it a lab, you know, like.
Yeah, that just.
And you guys are talking about how, you know, you could have donated. I'm sure, like, they could, but they could have sold them and just been like, all right, these are 20 bucks a dozen instead of 26. And it's just kind of a mixture of stuff that we didn't end up using unless they just didn't explain it well. And they actually did have to remake a bunch of these. That would be kind of impressive.
Yeah.
You know, they actually had to say, okay, we're going to do these ones. Didn't end up going with. But we. Now we have to print, like, a bunch of extras. But it just didn't seem that way to me. It seemed. Let's clear out the storage closet.
Yeah.
If you.
If you, dear listener, have purchased some of these and there's any, like, real interesting ones in there, send us some pictures and let us know. I'd really love to kind of see. See what's in there.
Yeah.
On.
On the website, they look cool. I'm assuming that's not what anyone's going to get because that's their photo pack.
And are they.
Are they all different? Is every set like a different.
They just scoop it up out of some big box.
They do.
Or is it, like, in 12?
All it says is pencil colors and graphite cores will vary in each pack. And it looks like they're. It looks like they're foil stamping them with the date of the release. So these must be. These factory seconds must have been collected. Like, this must be before the foil stamping.
All right, whatever.
Yeah. So the next one I'll talk about. So We've had a couple different field notes releases since. Since we last recorded. And interestingly, the one for autumn and the one for winter, I kind of thought should have been swapped.
I could see that. That makes sense.
Does anybody want to intro. Intro us to the. The birch bark edition?
I'll do that because I really like this one, if you don't mind.
Yeah, yeah.
I like when they do naturey stuff. So this. The birch bark edition that you picked a paper stock that looks like birch bark.
And I was. I was really excited when I first saw it because I was hoping it was going to be like the cherrywoods or something and have, like, actual birch bark. But, I mean, this is very nice, too.
Yeah. That they. What did they do? They did yellow for the fall, green for the spring and summer, and black for the winter on the inside. And the staples. So I don't think the staples thing was that cool, but the inside were pretty cool. The yellow and the green look a little weird, but that's minor quip. You could easily replace those.
It. It just feels. It feels so wintry to me. Like, it's. Yeah, it's white. It's very textured. So I wonder if something was going on with the. The winter edition, which we'll talk about here in a second. But.
Yeah, that one seemed complicated. Yeah.
Yeah. I think these look. I mean, they look fantastic. I don't have any of these in hand, like, because I'm not a subscriber right now, but I really like, like, the look of them for some, like, birch. When I see even, like with the video, you know, where they show the shots in birch bark, whatever, it just reminds me of, I don't know, like, Indiana, I think I like where I lived. Like, there was. I saw a lot of that.
I grew up.
Which, you know, of course, makes sense. Field notes, Chicago.
It's sort of like the unofficial Minecraft pencil, because. Big thing in Minecraft.
What's a big thing in Minecraft?
Birch trees. I mean, so. So Henry tells me. I don't play Minecraft almost every day, but that's how I got Henry interested.
What.
What Minecraft. Kind of.
Kind of trying to remember how these were received. I think that there were. I mean, there's. Whenever there's sort of a more broadly conceptual, more abstract product. Like, generally there's some people who just aren't into that. They want something that's a little bit more specific and maybe thinks it kind of looks boring, but. So I think that there were a few who were just not a fan but it's, you know, it's a. It's a white. Kind of a white stamping on that white paper, which I think just looks really good.
Yeah.
It's just a very nice, subtle, wintry addition.
Yeah. And they did some really nice debossing on it.
Yeah.
Looks just ridiculously good. It reminds me of some of the old ones. They would do, like, the nature you kind of seasonal ones that were like, season. Back when they called it seasons before. Just quarterly.
It reminds me a little bit of the. Oh, the shoot. What's it called? It was like the third or the fourth one. The. The pine one. It was a winter.
Oh, that balsam fir.
Balsam fir. Yeah.
That one was really. Wow.
It kind of feels. Feels within that same sort of, like, vein. Yeah. Nice. Should we talk about the. The fall Blackwing release?
Yeah, yeah, I can.
Yeah. So sure. This was volume 17, which is the gardening edition, which is. I thought these ones were pretty cool. I think these ones were pretty well received, too. I am a total sucker for earth tones.
Yeah.
And I would almost buy these just to have that eraser color.
Yeah.
Which is pretty awesome.
A burgundy eraser. Yeah. Yeah. And that kind of. What do they describe that? It's like a. The ferals. Is that a reddish tint to it? Because I don't have these in hand.
Oh, it looks chocolatey.
They're. Yeah.
There's a little bit of a reddish, like a. Like a very deep kind of burgundy color. It looks like. Yeah.
Dark brown. Feral.
Yeah.
Yeah. So very cool. I mean, like, a very cool addition. Of course they had to. I feel like they're always trying to decide if this is the time where they can sneak in a balanced core. Amazing. It's like, balance. All the different cores have a union, and they're, like, supposed to get a certain number of, you know, certain number of additions in their core. Hey. There hasn't been a balanced time in a while.
I wish their rep would be quiet. It's a balanced rep. Yeah.
Come on, man. But I. Yeah. And I love design down the side. That's.
Yeah, it was neat.
Yeah. Like, seedling growth. 10 centimeter ruler seedling growth. I think that was a. That was a really neat idea. I like. I think this is a good addition of where they, like, pull off a simple. Where they have a simple topic, but also do it in a simple way. Yeah. You know, rather than those ones that. It's like a simple topic, but we're going to make these weird or this is a crazy, complicated topic and we're going to do something really simple. It's. It's just kind of like a nice balance between white. That's why they pick. Balanced, man.
Yeah. I love the colors and I really like. I like that green a lot, I think. Yeah. It was a really good execution. You're right. It's a good balance between just like, conceptual and like, specific. And I don't really care about gardening that much, but I still really appreciated this.
Yeah. They could have done without the. The length marking on the side and just still call it the garden pencil. But I. I appreciated that touch.
Yeah, that was fun.
Yeah. They. They actually matched the birch barks. Really nice visually. Oh, yeah.
Very nature.
Yeah. It was a good fall.
Yeah.
That's a limited bruise.
Yeah. Well, since. Since we recorded it just came out a couple weeks ago. The field notes Winter, which I feel like that came early, right? Am I.
Am I wrong here? Yeah, they should do it a little
before Christmas or Thanksgiving.
Yeah. It's always that weird, like, period. But fall ones came out kind of late this year and they got delayed even then.
Oh, that's right. That's right. There was some. I can't remember. There was some process thing with it.
Yeah. But I wonder if you're right, if they were reversed and Heartland was just really taking too long and they were like, dude, just get the birch barks out.
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we'll talk about that. Field Notes Winter Edition. It is called Heartland and it is something that feels very akin to campfire or national parks or even kind of like America the Beautiful. Whereas it has a graphic cover and it has an illustrator, which I think. Let me go look at their page. Yeah. This is the. The. The sort of description says some field notes are field notesier than others. And our winter 2023 edition Heartland might be the field notesiest of them yet. So. Yeah, it just has a picture of a barn.
Like it.
It's very rural and just kind of like farming scene.
They have.
Each of the three are in a different, like, stage of daylight. There's one that's in the day, there's one at dusk, and there's one at night. There's a combine. There's a barn. There's a. Like a. Like a. I don't even know what to call it. Like a really tall barn. Yeah. Just love, love the way these look. They are trying to see here. They're illustrated by the same people who did the national parks. Is that. Am I correct?
Yeah, yeah. There were a bunch of artists who did that one.
Okay. One guy, Dan McCarthy, who illustrated three of the covers from the national park series. So. Okay, I see he did. He did this and has just a, you know, just a plain old graph on the inside. Not super dissimilar from. From the birch.
But that blue, blue grid is really sweet.
That blue is really nice. Very subtle.
So did you. Did you get a keychain?
Yeah.
Yeah. What'd you say?
I was just gonna say that, like, with this edition, you know, like the. I. I love when they do, you know, the covers that extend around the back or whatever. Like, it's a complete picture. And did you guys see the print? Like the signed print?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That has them all connected together. I, like, I'm. I'm really tempted to. To pick that up.
Oh, dude, they're gone, guys. Are they just doing here because I wanted one?
Yeah, I never jump on this stuff.
And then this is what happens. Oh, and there's. I mean, people aren't going to hear this. 50 right now.
They made 500 of them.
There were 500 prints and 50 signed and numbered prints.
Oh, they're out of the triptych.
Son of a. Crap.
Yeah, they looked really good. They. Yeah, each design is kind of a contiguous, like, pattern, so. Yeah. Yeah. Johnny, I got the. Oh, the. The daytime.
Oh, nice. I got Evening, which is the one I wanted. Oh, nice.
Very nice.
But on the back, I noticed they're made in America. I don't know how they pulled that off. I found someone that makes keychains in the US So interesting that. That was cool.
I didn't notice that. That is cool.
So, yeah, I mean, I thought it was gonna be like, tchotchke level, but it's totally, you know, you could bang it around your pocket level.
Yeah, I had. Gosh, they made a keychain once. Oh, I think it was. It came with the utility one and the crappy one. It fell apart.
Yeah, it was. It was cool to have just, you know, not so useful.
Yeah. So I don't know. I think they've really knocked it out of the park the last couple few editions, like, Foiled Again was really good. I don't remember if we got a chance to talk about that, but yeah. Yeah.
Birch was a good follow up to that because that one was like.
It was real ornate. Yeah. We did have another. I don't want to bust bus blackwings cores too much. They did a collab that I think was pretty, Pretty well received, pretty widely accepted. Johnny, do you want to. Do you want to talk about the blackwing and moleskine, Clyde.
So I don't know what the deal is with the notebook. I didn't look at it very closely, but they, they made two pencils with. They're all black with a foil trim. One is red. Is the other blue? Is that right? They're two different cores. One's, they call them like hard and soft, but they're moleskin black wings. So what? My head exploded. But they had like kits where you can get like the notebook and the sharpener and the pencils. And I don't understand how they're pricing this. And if something's different about the notebooks, but they're neat. Like I think 10 years ago I'd have been like losing sleep over this.
Are you going to get the atelier set, Johnny?
I'm not going to get any of them.
That's the, the fanciest one. They, they have a $400 atelier set which it to his credit looks really cool. They have some pencils, they have some packs of erasers, they have a pencil extender, they have a really nice wooden box and they have the like crank sharpener which is itself like $120. And they have the smaller, just like just single hole sharpener. So it comes with a lot of them, but it is also $400.
Am I seeing things or in one of those photos, it's. There's a silver feral. Yeah. Or is it just a black and white photo of something? Because that would be.
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, it's a, It's a red feral and a. And one of them has a gold feral and.
Yeah.
In that photo.
Yeah, you're talking about.
It's totally. It's like this, the third one in the little like carousel for the, for the atelier set.
I mean people are throwing that word around too much these days.
Yeah, that's gotta be a black and white photo.
That's disappointing because those look really cool.
Yeah, that would be really neat.
I could take or leave those gold ferals. But those red ones look nice. Silver is always a win. Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you guys know anyone who bought the notebooks? Is there something different about them?
But yeah, I would be shocked if there was.
You know, but I mean the pencils themselves aren't crazy priced. They're 35 bucks because a lot for pencils, but guess not for black wings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The sharpener and pencils and notebook are 90 bucks. I'm not quite sure why do we.
Do we know if those notebooks are different in any way.
Nope, just says large Moleskine Sketchbook.
Okay. Yeah.
Oh, wait. Yeah, they use the thicker paper, but yeah, I think it's just a regular thick paper.
Maybe it's a little toothy.
That's what I say. I thought this was confusing because Blackwing makes Moleskine style notebooks, which are like a couple steps above a moleskin, I think, without costing that much more.
Yeah, it was an interesting collab just because they are two kind of like big players in their fields and they. They each have competing products. Like Moleskine has a pencil. Right.
I don't know if they make them
anymore, those square ones or the.
Yeah, name The Carpenter pencil.
Yeah, I always liked them a lot.
Yeah. And. And certainly field notes or. Excuse me. Blackwing has had Moleskine style notebooks like the Slates and whatnot. So.
Yeah, that's a surprising collab. And they have collabs with Kaweco.
Black mane.
Moleskin.
Sorry, Moleskin.
Okay.
I was gonna say.
Although evidently they're gonna stop. Well, the person who tried to correct my pronunciation of Kaweco told me they're not doing the fountain pen anymore, the plastic one. But here it is on their website. Maybe she merely meant they're not making the Kaweco one anymore. They're making the Kaweco one.
How do you say it? Is it Kaweco? Is it Kaweco?
It's Kaweco. They German. She corrected me. I'm like. You just correct my pronunciation. I'm like a customer. Shouldn't you just nod and smile?
Customer's always wrong.
That's why there's so many in here.
Terrible.
They're across the street from Bob Slate. I don't imagine they. They got a lot of folks wanting to spend money there.
Yeah, it's something that like, they. These, that these two brands, like you guys are saying, like 10 years ago you would have. They would have blown your mind or whatever. But these two brands coming together is like, I don't know, what's like a Mercedes BMW Collaboration or something. They don't make the exact same thing.
But it is.
I mean, it is just cool to see two brands that you kind of wish would, you know, come together. Come together. I think I probably would have. I would have been. Maybe even I would have been more excited if it was like Blackwing and Light Charm or something.
Yeah, Blackwing and Field. No, not Black Wing and Field Noise. I'm sorry. Musk. Gravenfield Notes.
Oh, yeah.
Kaboom. You know what? We know people from both. We can make this happen.
I know.
Removers and shakers.
Oh, yeah. Any other releases or equipment or anything that we want to. Want to talk about?
I'm speaking of Musgrave. They have sort of gone big with their harvest packaging. What would you call it? Like a side. I mean, if it was a person, we call it a side gig. But they, like, make boxes for their own pencils and stuff like that in the U.S. like, near the pencil company, which I think is so cool. And it just occurred to me they would look cool with handmade books in them.
Oh, yeah.
What room do I have?
Can you fit that in anywhere?
But really quick, just because I have it sitting next to me. Cause I'll never remember again. People who listen to this podcast often have strong feelings about Hemingway. And we were guests on Harry's podcast talking about. About a book called Paper with Mark Kurlansky. And he put a book out recently that's called the Importance of Not Being Earnest. That's about all of the ways in which his life and Hemingway's life sort of crossed paths a lot.
Hmm.
But really it's not about Hemingway. It's about Mark Karlansky and then Hemingway through his lens. But if you enjoyed his books like Salt and Milk, this one's, like, super good.
I like Mark Karlansky, his books, but, like, I'm knowing nothing about him as a person. I just assume that he's just, like, incredibly, like, academic and single minded and boring, so.
Oh, he's.
It sounds like maybe that's not the case.
Oh, he's awesome. I want to hang out with him one day. Put that on my list.
Get him on the show.
I wonder how impossible that would be.
Only one way to find out. Yeah.
Yeah, that's. I mean, it's adjacent to our podcast a little bit, but if folks are looking for a good winter read, it's definitely a good. A good little thumb through.
That's good to know. Yeah, I've always enjoyed. I read Salt and Paper.
Did you read Milk?
I read cod. I don't think I read milk.
Milk was. Oh, my God, so good.
Yeah.
I didn't know which way that was for a month. After that, I ate a lot of yogurt.
Drinking just a big glass of milk is kind of gross to me.
So, yeah, every time my kids do it, I'm like, what are you, a baby cow? Gross to make cows big cows. Don't drink a glass of put it on your sugary cereal like a normal person. I think he has. He has another book. They're recently out or coming out. And he's written like a whole time that even know about. He wrote about fly fishing also. Might interest Hemingway fans.
Really interesting, huh? Check that out.
And he wrote about baseball.
I'm sure.
Okay.
He wrote a baseball book. Oh, which one? Or what's it called?
What is it called? The Eastern Stars. How Baseball Changed to the Dominican Town of San Pedro D La Chorus Macaroni.
Oh, that sounds cool.
Oh, that's library.
I'll be there tomorrow.
We should try to get him on the show. That would be really awesome.
We should. That'd be fun.
He's getting there.
Well, we ran out of time with Henry Petroski, so I was just thinking that we gotta. Gotta move on this. Sorry. I'm not.
Yeah, sorry, Garros. Sorry.
It's true though.
You just made me choke on my. Sorry.
All right, should we button this up so we can congest? Congest in peace.
So we can congest next time.
We should have more black wings to talk about.
Oh, that's true.
Yeah, Any day.
Congest in peace show title. All right, well, yeah, let's. Let's wrap it up. This has been the irascible podcast, episode 204. Tim, where can people find you on the Internet?
You can find me on Twitter imwassum and I'm on Instagram and Threads. Imothywassom.
Nice, Johnny Threads. I'm on all three of those at Pen Solution and@pencilrevolution.com if you want to buy not overpriced books.
Do not use for overpriced books.
I am on Threads and the Blue sky and I still have a Twitter, although I don't really look at it. And. And just all those ones at aewelfley and Instagram as well. Website is Andy wtf? And this is the Erasable podcast. We are on the Internet@ erasable us. If you want to listen to this recording or see any of the show notes, go to erasable us204. We have a patreon which is erasable us patreon or patreon.com erasable whichever one you want to go to. And we would like to thank a few of our $10 a month or more supporting members. So big thank you to Nathan Raybeck, Dana Morris, Liz Rotundo, Melissa Miller, Angie Aaron Bollinger, Evan Hurtness, Tara Whittle, Ida Umphers, David Johnson, Phil Munson, Donnie Pierce, Tom Keakley, Andre Torres, Paul Moorhead, John Cappellouti, Steven Fansali, Aaron Willard, Millie Blackwell, Michael d', Alosa Tana, Feliz, Ann Sipe, Michael Hagan, Mary Collis, Kathleen Rogers, Dr. Hans Noodleman and John Wood. Thank you all for supporting the Erasable podcast. You can support too and watch videos, listen to our Inky podcast, the and Double Podcast and more by going to patreon. Com Erasable. Thank you very much and we will talk to you soon.
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