Sumi-e, 95 degrees

Yesterday was one of those occasional days everyone complains about here in the Pacific Northwest, where the temperature hovers around 95 F, and a stifling, airless heat settles inside your house like an itchy wool blanket. I was raised in a central California valley town where the temperatures remained rooted in the triple digits from June to September, so you'd think it wouldn't bother me, but you're forgetting about the A/C factor. Yes, we don't have them up here.

And thus I was driven outside in the still daylight hour of 9:30 PM to sit on the front lawn with a beer, a Moleskine watercolor notebook, and a sumi-e painting set I acquired in a quest to emulate my idol Lynda Barry, who wrote about using a sumi-e ink stick, grinding stone, and paintbrush to create comics in her book One Hundred Demons.

I also brought along the '53 Hermes Rocket from Blue Moon, because it's always sensible to have a typewriter nearby, but I ended up spending the fading light on mixing up the ink, drinking the beer, and trying, badly, to paint the front yard.

Typecast: Hermes 3000, no regrets

Here's the machine in question, and here's its busted platen knob.

Hermes 3000, script

My script Hermes 3000 finally arrived today, tragically sporting a shattered platen knob (I'm told these are brittle on this particular machine), but otherwise gorgeous and working fine. I wrote two pages on the thing, but you are not seeing them here for a reason: they are all part of the Great Typewriter Experiment currently hosted by Clickthing, in which a ragged band of obsolete technology fans sends around paper documents in snail mail.

Stay tuned for my inaugural script typecast. Oh, and I need to add my knobless Hermes to the Strikethru Flickr pool... you're going to want to head over there right now and take a look, because Duffy Moon's typewriters are at it again, gamboling around in bucolic settings, as typewriters are wont to do. Well, at least his typewriters. Mine tend to sit around on an old Ikea bookshelf.

Notebooks: Rhodia and Myndology

I'm on a notebook kick lately (this really ought to be pencasted) and gradually scrawling my way through all the notorious notebook brands out there, the latest being the traffic-cone orange Rhodia. Legend has it that these notebooks work well with fountain pens, unlike most other paper I've tried (including Moleskines and Apica notepads, both of which I love anyway).

Yesterday I put Rhodia to the ultimate test: a medium-nib fountain pen screed on one side of the paper, and typewriting with an old platen on the other. Surely this kind of text-intensive stunt would result in braille-like punch-throughs, or bleeding ink? Rhodia paper doesn't *look* like anything special. And yet, it held up. You can use both sides of the page! Amazing.

Rhodia has a large legion of fans who've flickerized their obsession, like any proper fanatic should (do I need to remind you again to get your typewriters up there on the Strikethru flickr site?).

Was a time I studied the Japanese language, and greatly enjoyed the kid's books and study aids I could obtain at the Kinokuniya book store. One of my favorite products for memorizing hirigana and vocabulary words were these tiny little decks of flashcards, strung up on a keychain ring. Apparently commonplace in Japan, these innovative, yet simple study tools were nowhere to be found outside of Japanese-specific stores in the United States. fortunately, since then, it looks like Myndology has stepped up to fill the gap. I don't own any of these notebooks yet, but they look intriguing. In addition to the clever ring-bound notebooks, Myndology makes disc-bound notebooks, which apparently enable you to remove and rearrange sheets, use refills, and put different sizes of paper in the same notebook. Clever.

Problem with notebooks is, they are theoretically affordable, and easier to hide from a hoarding-phobic spouse than a Remington Quiet Riter. Thus, it's even harder to resist the urge to collect. Will I be able to say no to a Myndology notebook? As the Magic 8-ball might say, outlook not so good.

Pencast: Tornado Retro 51

Here is the pen in question, and oh, here's the Signet. Also I forgot to say thank you to everyone who offered a summer reading suggestion. I've compiled the list and will no longer appear clueless and afflicted when wandering the aisles of the library or bookstore.

Lynda Barry: What It Is

When I was just out of high school, I knew a couple of people into comics, drawing them, I mean. Artistically talented people, unlike myself, but I had something that every comic artist can appreciate: an interest in reading comics. One of them introduced me to Lynda Barry, who remains my favorite author and cartoonist today.

Such is my fandom that I once wrote her a letter (full of my terrible attempts at comic book art) to ask if she had any art for sale, and she sent back a hand-written response on Japanese stationery covered in flying, saucer-eyed cats, in addition to a drawing of her character Marlys (that looks rather like this) eating a bag of BBQ potato chips.

Just this afternoon I heard that she'd published a new book (full of her collages of vintage children's school papers and her subconscious-demon illustrations and fountain pen text that wavers from printing to cursive within a sentence) which is sort of distillation of the course on writing that she currently teaches, and so of course I had to immediately proceed to the book store to purchase a copy. I'm not yet finished, but this quote beautifully expresses what I tried to say with this post awhile back:

Handwriting is an image left by a living being in motion.

That's what is lost, anymore: the human evidence.

Moleskine iPhone + Brett and his Typewriter

Very funny, people. We get it: we're backwards, we paper-based folk. Thanks to Wedgie for the link.

Oh, and one more. This is great. This guy writes mock-outraged letters to random companies with a typewriter. Brilliant.

Typecast: Collecting with a focus

You know, dammit, I meant to correct those misspellings before I posted. And another thing, me and my collecting issues go way back. Tell me again, what paper works best with a fountain pen? I used to have another, somewhat unfocused blog for many years (tagline: "Bringing you random content since 2001"), and it was the kind of place where I might have rambled about my love for The Fleet Foxes. I've been waiting a long time for Jesus beards and five part harmonies, if this is what it sounds like.

Deus ex machina

Check out Dirk van Weelden's site - he has been blogging about typecasting and typewriters for a bit now in Dutch, but is now typecasting in English as well. I really enjoyed this post about how we share with machines the burdens and beauty of possessing a mechanical form (and by inference, a soul).

This subject was also touched on in one particular comment on the typewriter Metafilter discussion I mentioned the other day. Search the page for the remark by "sonascope"-- it's worth it. Among many apt and thoughtful remarks on typewriters, he said: "As physical beings with an inbuilt object fixation, it is natural for us to fine-tune our technique to our tools, which is why guitarists are so finicky about their instruments, effects, and amps, or why Glenn Gould toted that damn chair everywhere. There is something synergistic in the relationship we have with our tools, and much of that synergy springs from the actual effort and physicality of their use."

I think both of these sources explain well why admiration for typewriters is more than a nostalgic affliction; it is rather a sense of awe for the process of creating language.

Typecast: Café typewriter

Notebook nirvana

When I was in school, there were these certain notebooks I coveted, that I could only seem to find for sale at the college book store. These notebooks were not your typical mega mart spiral-bound floppers with the wide ruled lines and glossy cheap covers, no. They had tidy legal-ruled lines, cream-colored paper, and heavy manila card stock covers you could use as a writing surface in a pinch. I still likely have a few in the giant cardboard box of diaries up in the attic; they were that good. I remember each time I bought one, I'd walk outside into the outrageously verdant glory of my particular seaside forest college campus, feeling that the greatest sentence in creative writing history was possibly a half hour and a coffee cup away.

Since that time, I've bought and used many notebooks, but none have been quite the same. Isn't it always so, with first love? But like most of us, this disillusionment hasn't stopped me from sometimes taking a chance.

I use Moleskines, of course I do. Who can resist the basic black ruled 3x5, or the cahiers, with those great kraft paper covers? You know you have a favorite permutation of this classic; what is it? And yet, sometimes Moleskines are just a bit much. They're too black tie. Maybe it's the fancy pleather covers. Maybe its the ribbon bookmark. I sometimes feel that if I'm not up to penning a new chapter of King James, I should just use a Post-It.

And so the search continues for something a little more dressed-down. (Of course there is this matter of fountain pen compatibility, a subject upon which, still waiting for my new banana yellow Lamy Safari to arrive by mail, I am a hopeless n00b, and will rightly refrain from worrying about at this time. Until fountain pens take root in my handwriting life, the pen that is currently the judge of a notebook's worth remains the Pigma Micron, preferably brown (how I love brown), due to its fine, precise felt tip.)

My four-pack of impossibly small 2x4 Apica notebooks ("Most advanced quality-- gives best writing features") just arrived from eBay's Take Note Writing Gear (which I recommend: they ship at the speed of sound). Featuring inscrutably plain, retro-looking composition book-style covers, these unassuming notebooks are rumored to have fine-quality, fp-friendly paper. You might go with a bigger size than I chose if you are looking to do anything other than scrawl the occasional note to self.

I have to give these Apica notebooks time to ingratiate themselves into my writing routines, but it's tempting to keep looking around. That's the thing about the search for the perfect notebook; it's all about a romantic ideal that can't really be attained. I mean, how can these possibly live up to their incredibly hip promise? Why have I only just now heard of these 80 year old notebooks with the alleged fervent following? And I've been thinking... is it time to chuck technical writing for something a little more outdoorsy?

I know none of these tempting consumer experiences will recapture the euphoria of creative promise (however unfulfilled) that those old college notebooks imparted back in the dawn of the 1990's; such is one of the melancholy concessions of maturity. But that said, stay tuned as I work my way through the notebook pantheon in search of something almost as good.

Bonus: Photo of Strikethru notebook collection, with notes.

Metafilter typewriter discussion

Quite an epic Metafilter discussion about typewriters for your time-killing enjoyment.

Pencast: Handwriting, R.I.P.

Fountain pen obsession: the beginning

As I mentioned in my last post, I've decided to go with a Lamy Safari for my first fountain pen. As it happens, I wondered whether this pen would be of any use with a Moleskine notebook, since I'm told that fountain pens don't always take to all kinds of paper.

Thankfully, someone has already done a test. I love Moleskinerie.com. Tons of great information for notebook nuts. Of course, Flickr also always has some sort of pictoral answer to any possible inquiry in life: here is the Lamy Safari fine vs. medium nib Moleskine test, in addition to other Moleskine/Safari photos. And what is this about Apica notebooks? They sound retro and intriguing. I am sensing that this whole fountain pen thing can get quickly out of control...

Random thoughts, not even typed

I keep intending to typecast, but this weekend I barely had time to think (unfortunately, a prerequisite for typing anything coherent).

• I exchanged e-mail with Richard Lee Merritt of Richard Ink, regarding a good choice for a starter fountain pen. He gave me some great advice on where to begin in the fountain pen world (it seems rather complex!) and so I plan to obtain a pen and do some pencasting. Check out his blog if you haven't already. I know there are plenty of typewriter enthusiasts who already like fountain pens, and I'm just catching up.
• Recently I made some recycled paper notebooks at a friend's house, and I have completely neglected to document or discuss this activity here on the Strikethru blog. My friend and I once took a weekend-long book-binding class from a talented but deeply strange letterpress expert (who made one of the students cry and run out of the class for failing to sew a signature correctly) and so I now approach the art of bookmaking with a little bit of fear.
• I've been meaning to solicit the advice of the typewriterati (that's you) on a new novel to read. I always have the damndest time finding a book I really like. Something contemporary, but literary. I find when I read novels that are very contemporary (here is a recent one I tried and abandoned) that they are too glib and lack nuance and authenticity. Is it really so hard to write a book about the modern workplace without drowning it in irony? And adding a few female characters that aren't completely ancillary? I feel a rant coming on...
• Duffy Moon's typewriters know how to have a good time.

Update: I've decided to go with a Lamy Safari for my first starter fountain pen (thanks again to Richard Ink for advice on first pens to consider).
Can't wait!