Five years of consecutive blogging is no small feat. Stephen makes the pencil world a better place constantly. Write on, Comrade, write on.
While the question of which pencils to use for Nation Novel Writing Month is certainly an important one for pencil fans who are embarking on the one-month writing challenge. But, perhaps almost as important, is the question of what to write on.
There are myriad notebook blogs, on which Comrades can find information about notebooks’ construction, which ones can handle fountain pen ink, etc. What we try to provide with our growing number of paper reviews are pencil-specific reviews. We have a growing stack (er, box) of review samples we are testing for ghosting, point retention, etc. But, I thought it might be helpful to suggest a few great notebooks in which to write (or in which to take notes for) Comrades’ NaNoWriMo work — and, of course, invite others to share pointers.
1) Field Notes. I was hoping my “Raven’s Wing” editions would show up this week, but it is not so. Field Notes are stylish, durable and very pocketable. I might not want to draft much longhand in these (they’re small and not full of much paper), but for on-the-go notetaking, it’s hard to beat a Field Notes book.
2) Rhodia products. There are tiny stapled notebooks (like smaller Field Notes) for your pocket, the beautiful “Webbie” journals for long drafts and all manner of pads to suite your pocket or desktop. The smartphone pocket of my T2 bag usually has a Rhodia pad in it, in some kind of Luddite gesture.
3) EcoJot Workbooks. I was hoping we’d be able to publish a review of these from some samples Mark sent us in time for November, but it’s not to be. The review is coming, but you’ll have to take my word for it that they are like Moleskine Cahiers. Only greener. With attractive covers. And better paper.
4) Whitelines. We’ll have a review of these interesting notebooks in the near future, but I think they bear mention for marathon writing. The idea is that the pages are light grey, with white lines, since dark lines on white paper are harsh for the eyes. It might sound strange, but these are very nice books, and the paper is intriguing.
5) Something FANCY. A big Moleskine. Paper Blanks. Something handmade from Etsy. I have a beautiful journal that my sister-in-law sent me for a birthday a few years ago made from an old library book and big rings that I am considering using, or a giant EcoJot journal.
I thought about listing books I would personally avoid, but I think that’s unnecessarily negative. And, you know, one writer’s graphite mess is another’s silvery-grey paradise.
What are other Comrades planning to write in/on?
With Nation Novel Writing Month beginning Monday and the recent attention that writing by hand has received, I thought we might offer a few short primers on good long-term, long-distance, long-hand writing gear for the intrepid souls embarking on writing a novel (or other 50,000 word text) in a month. This is especially true for the undaunted few who might draft their work by hand. Certainly, this is no easy task. I’m going to give it a shot with a half-time job and a 6-month old at home. If you want to write, however, it’s worth it. I “won” in the only year I tried (2007), and it was great to figure out that I could, literally, write – and something other than a philosophy dissertation. It’s a great exercise if you aspire to be a writer at all or even just want to see what you can do.
I’d also like to encourage folks to sign up for our Facebook group, where we might, perhaps, be able to serve as valuable moral support for one another.
What does a great NaNoWriMo pencil look like?
For me, I consider these aspects:
1) Darkness. Someone (probably you) is going to have to type this thing up before November 30th if you want to be an official “winner.” I don’t have the eyesight or the patience to do this from a 4H pencil. Even if you’re only using paper and pencil for notes, being able to, you know, see what you wrote is a good thing.
2) Point retention. Certainly, sharpening a pencil is one of life’s great pleasures, and all that. But, let’s face it, there’s a crazy deadline. You don’t want to have to sharpen your pencil after every single page.
3) Smoothness. I have hand injuries from a bad bike crash in 2009, and I have to consider that I don’t want to mash graphite onto the paper to get words to appear. This is doubly true for fiction writing.
4) Comfort. A sharp hexagonal pencil or extreme triangular pencil might work for some, but not others. I like rounded hex pencils or round pencils myself.
5) Cost/availability/stock-pile. I’m not going to start on a huge project with a carefully chosen pencil if I only have one or two of them.
While we heartily invite Comrades to add to the conversation with comments about what you’re going to write with, not write with, what you recommend, etc., this is my own short list of contenders:
1) California Republic Palomino (HB). It’s no secret that this is one of my favorite pencils. The darkness and point retention is a good balance, while smoothness is excellent. The shape and thick lacquer make it comfortable to hold, and they’re not prohibitively expensive. I meant to order a dozen new blue non-erasered ones in time, but I lost track of time.
2) General’s Semi-Hex (HB). The shape is smooth and comfortable, and they’re only $4 a dozen. (On the other hand, they can be hard to find.) Darkness and smoothness are, as I might repeat when we review them soon, what you wish your Dixon would give you. Point retention is acceptable.
3) Mirado Black Warrior (HB). I have to admit that the new (Mexican-made) stock is better. The lead is darker, and I like the matte finish (though I think the last few USA runs had that also). If this pencil had its current lead back in 2005-6, it might have been my favorite pencil in the world — or in the top three.
4) Palomino Blackwing (?). While point retention is not the best, the smoothness and darkness are unmatched in a writing pencil (at least any I have ever used). This pencil is just a joy to write with; that’s all there is to it for me.
5) Dixon Ticonderoga “Black” (HB). I have a few left with the matte paint, from when they were made in the USA. These have a finish that resembles the new Blackwing. The newer, glossier Mexican models are nice, too, and you can get them at Walmart (etc.). Everything good (and bad) about the yellow Dixon applies to this pencil, but it’s more attractive and has a better eraser.
6) Field Notes Pencil (HB). I mentioned it being a little gritty. But the point retention, shape, lack of paint, darkness and price make it a great pencil. I don’t mind a little grit. And, dang, I like this pencil.
7) Faber-Castell 9000 (4B). While I find the 9000 disappointingly hard at most grades, the 4B is great for dark notes and actually holds its point very well. The shape is a little sharp, and the wood (non-cedar) is a little too light. And, come to think of it, it’s expensive. But I think it’s worth mentioning a non-HB pencil, in case Comrades loves a certain pencil but want something similar and darker for NaNoWriMo.
8) Whateverthehellpencilihavearound. Sometimes, the best pencil is the one right in front of you.
What sorts of pencils are other Comrades using for notes, for composing, etc.?
Shameless self-promotion: Pencil Revolution’s Editor was briefly quoted in the Telegraph, in an article about the rise of journaling and paper. Read it online here.
click to enlarge
Our favorite tool of writing is listed on Boing Boing’s Candy Hierarchy, as residing on “Tier so low it does not register on our equipment.” I love candy as much as the next Comrade (and have the love handles to prove it), but this comment makes me almost sad. I’d love to get pencils for Halloween. Anyone giving the youngins pencils this year?
Today’s post comes from Brian E. Manning, a writer and cyclist who works in Porland’s Central Library. Brian is also the editor’s good friend and even was also his roommate in college!
Robert Walser’s Microscripts. [New Directions, 2010. $24.95]
Robert Walser (1878-1956) was a German-speaking Swiss Writer. His writing was admired by Kafka, and Hesse, to name a few names of notoriety. I became acquainted with Walser through his short stories, as well as his acclaimed novel, Jakob Von Gunten, both published by NYRB books. His writings are whimsical, quirky, and fanciful — showing an acute understanding of human nature through subversive, fairytale-like backgrounds. In 1929, Walser admitted himself into a mental ward, and remained there for the rest of his life, essentially ending his professional writing endeavors, quipping to a friend that he was there to be mad, and not to write. However, after Walser died–on one of his habitual walks, in the snow, (hotos of which exist for morbid perusal on the Internet) it was found that he actually continued writing while in the hospital, albeit, in as subtle a form as physically possible: that is, on fragments of paper, in the tiniest of handwriting.
At first, the executor of his estate thought that these tiny markings where evidence of Walser’s mental instability — an undecipherable loony/secret code — but, it was later discovered that Walser was writing in a miniaturized Kurrent script, stemming from the medieval ages, that he had learned as a schoolboy, as was the custom of the time. From there, it took some dedicated scholars, some magnification, and some linguistic guesswork and translation to yield us the English instalment of this endeavor: Microscripts.
I have been fascinated with Walser’s story of late, and have been looking forward to getting my hands on this book. For the most part, the writings are small sketches and musings, sometimes unfinished, but this is understandable since Walser most likely never meant for them to be “read” (deciphered) by us, which makes them feel even more intimate to read. Although they are brief (sometimes not exceeding 5-6 pages in length) Walser’s wit and style are still evident in these works–whether he is writing of marriage proposals, or the experience of listening to the radio, or putting characters at play in their settings, Walser’s humane style abounds in these small scripts. I find that the real treasure of Microscripts, however, are the sporadic color facsimiles of the microscripts themselves included throughout the book. These examples of Walsers diminutive sketches not only show how impossibly tiny his writing was (1-2 millimeters in height), but also conveys how visually stunning they are. Whether written on the back of a business card, or on a letter, they are a fine of example of visual art rendered through small script. (It is also worth mentioning that there are plenty of footnotes throughout this book, giving more detail behind Walser and the individual microscripts; and for those of you who can read German, the original, enlarged German renderings are also included in the back of the book.)
(Mr. Manning's Microscript -- Click for full-sized image.)
But, you may be asking, why should readers of Pencil Revolution care about Walser and his tiny writing habits? For that matter, why did Walser even start writing in this fashion? I was surprised to find that the answer to this, as given in the intro of Microscripts, lay in the formative power of yielding a pencil. According to Walser, he found that using a pen became a physical & mental stumbling block, one that he could only overcome by using a pencil, as wrote to a friend:
With the aid of my pencil I was better able to play, to write; it seemed this revived my writerly enthusiasm. I can assure you I suffered a real breakdown in my hand on account of the pen, a sort of cramp from whose clutches I slowly, laboriously freed myself by means of the pencil. [Microscripts, pg 13.]
Although this does not necessarily explain why Walser started shrinking his script, he definitely found his voice again through using a pencil; this is of such critical importance that the original six-volume German edition of the microscripts is entitled Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet, or “From the Pencil Zone.” In Walser’s Microscripts, then, we find a man whose salvation was imparted through this modest writing utensil. I can’t help wondering, however, how often he would have to sharpen his pencil in order to write such tiny script…?
[Photo, C. Rondo; Microscript, B. Manning. Used with kind permission.]
I was in the storage area of the department in the university where I work yesterday with another lady in my office. We were talking about the archival quality of the creepy basement and ink and paper. When we got back upstairs, I had to check-out certain archived materials with her so that I could take them to my office to peruse them. She wrote down everything that I took with a pencil bearing our university’s logo. I noticed a yellow pencil by her keyboard that she had been using earlier. More in cups.
J: R, do you like pencils?
R: What? Oh, yes.
J: Me, too (in a whisper).
R: I don’t trust pens. They never work when you need them to.
J: I’m taking some boys camping this weekend, and I told them to bring a notebook and pencil because it’s likely to be too cold for ink to flow where we’re going…
And I went back to my office glad that I’m not quite the only pencil at work.
(Low) Tech Writer muses about our favorite writing implement. This is a great post you should really read in its entirety (here).
“I have a mild obsession with pencils, especially the General Pencil Semi-Hex 498 2 2/4. Mmm, ceder. Some years ago, I needed a pencil to mark up a book I was reading for seminary, and went looking for one. I did not find one pencil. I found fourteen scattered through the house. I would have stopped at one, but my curiosity was piqued to see all the different brands and styles that we’d accumulated. I decided that I couldn’t just pick one at random, I would pick the best one. So I sharpened them all and put them to the test. Of course I had to smell each one before writing, just to take note of the “nose” (the winner had that powerful ceder aroma that true pencil aficionados prefer. I think.)….
….Low-tech wonders stand out when compared to their replacements, the products that are manufactured to improve and supplant them. I think of all the ergonomic mechanical pencils and gel-grip disposable pens, none of which impress me or replace my pencil. The pencil has a beautiful simplicity to it, and an efficiency, and 95 percent of it is compostable (versus the landfill that is the fate of plastic writing tools). And there is some mystery to the pencil too. How does rubber (named for it’s ability to “rub” pencil marks away) erase the marks of the graphite without causing it to smudge? It’s the original word processor, complete with backspace.”
Stay tuned for the Pencil Revolution review of General’s Semi-Hex pencils, which we’re hard at work testing and enjoying!
[Image, LTW.]
With National Novel Writing Month fast approaching, some Comrades might be flirting with the idea of writing a novel longhand – or, at least, parts. We’re planning on featuring some equipment to make this easier on Comrades’ hands and spirits.
First up is some very interesting gear from Idea Sun in the UK. John sent us an Easyriter pencil, sharpener and pen, gratis, for review. First, the pencil.
Vitals:
Material: Extruded plastic, with wood pulp.
Shape: Triangular, concave/flat sides.
Finish: None.
Ferrule: None.
Eraser: None.
Core: Polymer/graphite composite. Available in #2/HB.
Markings: “EASYRITER…IDEASUN.COM”.
Origin: UK.
Availability: From IdeaSun.Com and brick and mortar retailers.
This is a very striking pencil. As you can see, it is very plain and very oddly-shaped. What you cannot see is that it is also somewhat flexible. This is due to the fact that the lead and barrel are both extruded plastic. This marks a first for Pencil Revolution, where we usually seem stuck-up enough to only discuss wooden pencils (and usually only cedar at that). But that doesn’t mean that there is no place for plastic. The “wood” in the Easyriter is made of recycled wood, mixed with polymer. At first glance, it looked like a large, weird golf pencil. It’s nothing fancy to look at.
But that’s not the point of the Easyriter. Rather, its shape mimics the grasp of a three-fingered pencil hold. We’ve seen this general concept applied to different triangular pencils. But the Easyriter takes it a step further. The three sides are not equally-shaped. One is flat (the part that meets your middle finger), while the other two are concave. Because of this innovation, increased pressured merely squooshes your fingers into one other, not into the pencil. This wide pencil is, honestly, incredibly comfortable for writing. The woodpulp/polymer barrel provides a nice grip, and the pencil is also extremely lightweight. And, while I’m not generally a fan of plastic pencils, this pencil would be ridiculously expensive to make out of wood, since each one would have to be shaped either by hand or by special machinery. The wood pulp content does make you forget, and it’s got a nice texture. The lead is surprisingly dark for a polymer pencil, and it’s nice and smooth. I’d rate the darkness in general as pretty middle for an HB (Dixon-dark), and that says a lot with an extruded core. I usually have to hammer those things to make a mark at all. If you have to press too hard to make a mark, this pencil would defeat its own purpose. But. You don’t, and it doesn’t. The lead is probably the best extruded cored pencil I’ve ever used.
I really like the included sharpener. It’s a large-diameter sharpener, but with only one hole! [Here it is next to one of my favorite sharpeners, a KUM brass wedge.] John at IdeaSun tells us that it’s a stock item from India but they they are thinking of using their own specs in the future. This is the only single-holed, large diameter sharpener I’ve ever used, and I hope that, if they do re-spec it, they keep this general design.
Technical Information (For Sharpener):
Type: Blade.
Material: Magnesium-alloy.
Shavings Receptacle: None.
Point Type: Medium (for wide-body pencils).
Markings: None.
Place of Manufacture: India.
Availability: From IdeaSun.Com.
Frankly, it’s a great sharpener, and I think the Dixon Tri-Conderoga would have been better with this than with the cheap-looking (though nicely-performing) plastic sharpener with which they come. Sharpening is not as easy as with a round pencil, as is the case with most triangular pencils. In fact, my first sharpening with the included sharpener was a little awkward because the angles of the factory sharpening were different that what this cool little sharpener was making. After the first sharpening, however, it was smooth-going. Triangular pencils produce really interesting shavings (see here for a great photo by Comrade Mark). This pencil makes extremely cool-looking little shavings. And, once you get the point in line with the included sharpener, they are long and smooth, just like sharpening a cedar pencil in a good wedge sharpener. You certainly have to take care because of the severe angles. But I am usually a careful sharpener anyway.
There’s also an Easyriter pen, if you just have to use dirty old ink (!). Actually, it’s got a nice weight and feel and is at least as comfortable as the pencil is to write with. My father was visiting my daughter and I for lunch (dill potato soup!) the day that the package came, and I think he was coveting the pen (he cannot use pencil at work). It’s a black ballpoint pen with the same shape as the pencil.
If you’re thinking of doing some loooonnnngggg writing next month for National Novel Writing Month, you might seriously enjoy the Easyriter pencil (and pen). If nothing else, it’s just a really cool, really comfortable pencil. I can picture these in different colors, with capped ends being very attractive. A ferrule might be nearly impossible (without being very expensive), but different colors (black!) with a dipped end and no factory sharpening, and this pencil could be quite beautiful. As it stands now, it’s, again, COMFORTABLE, and that’s the point.
Mark at EcoJot was kind enough to send a package of samples to Pencil Revolution HQ in Baltimore (thanks, Mark!) a couple of weeks ago. We’ll be dealing with the journals in this post, with a review of the “workbooks” closer to NaNoWriMo, since I think they’d be a great tool for intrepid souls bent on writing their novels in longhand.
EcoJot is known as such because they are a brand of 100% post-consumer recycled stationery. Sure, there are myriad such brands these days. EcoJot is unique because their paper quality is top-notch (as we’ll discuss); their philanthropic efforts really excel; and because, well, these don’t have that “feel” that a lot of “green” stationery has. You don’t have to sacrifice writing pleasure to save the planet.
Vitals:
Cover Material: Very thick, very stiff recycled board.
Paper: 100% recycled, acid-free paper with vegetable-based inks (green lines and unlined).
Binding: Steel spiral.
Size: Varies (Test units: 6X9; 5X7; 3X4 inches).
Page Count: Varies (Test units: 150 lined; 80 lines; 50 unlined).
Unique Characteristics: 100% post-consumer recycled and still high quality; huge variety of cover art and formats.
Origin: Canada.
Availability: From select online and brick-and-mortar retailers (I even found them at the bookstore of the university at which I work).
One of our test units is a Giant Panda from the line supporting the Jane Goodall Institute. “Ecojot’s ‘Buy One, We Give One‘ campaign is our company’s new business model committed to directly advocate children’s arts and literacy in developing countries.”
EcoJot’s eco-claims are the real deal:
* We use acid-free, processed chlorine free paper & board.
* All our inks & glues are vegetable based, therefore bio-degradable.
* No new trees are used to make our paper & the paper mill is powered by biogas harnessed from a nearby landfill.
* All our protective packaging is corn-based. Furthermore, we try and use as much locally made raw material as possible.
But this is a review of EcoJot’s journals for the purpose of being something for pencil writing and drawing. And this is where EcoJot’s books really set themselves apart from other “green” notebook lines.
Frankly, I love this paper! It’s white with soft, green lines. At first I thought the spacing was a little wide. But, for pencil, I like something wider than tiny lines like we find on a lot of notebooks. It has a very nice tooth for pencil writing. Too-smooth papers (like Moleskine’s regular paper) leave graphite all over the place, since there aren’t enough nooks and crannies for graphite to hide in. This has a nice texture to actually wear away some graphite, without rendering it necessary to sharpen anything softer than an HB every page. It’s not as shockingly white as Rhodia paper, and it’s not as smooth. Neither of these are bad aspects to me at all, but quite the opposite. This paper doesn’t “feel” like other recycled paper. It’s relatively thick, very stiff (for paper) and doesn’t have chunks of anything in it. This texture lends itself very well to erasing, even the new Blackwing (which some folks report erases badly in general). Smearability is really minimal. And, my favorite part, no ghosting! It took a heavy hard and very soft pencils to product any ghosting at all. Writing pencils (General’s Semi-Hex and Cedar Pointe; Faber-Castel Grip 2001; modern Mirado Classic; old USA stock Dixon Ticonderoga; Palomino; Forest Choice — all HB grade) didn’t leave any ghosting whatsoever. If you journal in pencil, you might appreciate this pleasingly unique characteristic in a spiral-bound book.
Speaking of which, construction is outstanding. The spirals are flexible, while the holes don’t have pages catching like happens on cheap spiral-bound notebooks. The covers are very stiff and strong, and the whole thing is cut perfectly and put together very nicely. Each book has a page in the beginning that explains EcoJot’s mission and what the book is made of. The graphics are really outstanding. I especially like “The City” and would love to get my hands on the journals in that line.
And that is the conclusion I drew when I tested this book: I want more! And, thankfully, these are not very hard to find, even offline. The prices are fair, and (especially the jumbo) the journals have a lot of pages in them.
We also tested a tiny green notepad/journal and an orange jumbo “solids” book. Like the medium Panda book, these were outstanding. A box of pencils and a jumbo book has “longhand novel” written all over it. And, of course, a box of Forest Choice matches nicely, in theme and appearance (and works wonderfully on EcoJot paper to boot!).
You can follow developments on EcoJot’s blog. To be perfectly honest, I try to find something positive to say about things I review. Or, put differently, I don’t review things I hate (haven’t done it yet). I don’t want to convey that my raving is par for the course. But these notebooks are really just worth ordering right away if you like spiral books with heavy covers, nice paper and serious eco-credentials.
Little Flower Petals has an interesting post about the permanence of pencil:
“At one point I was worried about using pencil in notebooks I wanted to keep around for awhile, just because it’s erasable. But I got to thinking…*unless* it’s erased, pencil is more permanent than pretty much anything, and the chances of my notebooks experiencing heat or humidity are a lot higher than the chances of a stranger armed with a Pink Pearl breaking in while I’m out and going to town on my old journals. I’m probably safe to use pencil.”
Back when Pencil Revolution first surfaced in 2005 (and before a 4-year hiatus!), my friend was shocked to hear that I still used pens in my journal. I realized I was probably being silly in my paranoia that my meaningless words would not survive a visit from The Eraser Monster or a few hundred brushes with a dirty hand. Still, I worried and ordered a dozen No Blot “ink pencils” and tried them out in my journal. Aside from them being scratchy, I also assumed, after a while, that the dye was probably not safe for long-term use, concerning both the paper and my own skin. I might have been wrong, but there you go.
I went out late one night back then, listening loudly to Alice in Chains, and bought a new “large” Moleskine to begin my adventures in officially journaling in pencil. Didn’t take long for me to sully my book with ink, however. And, despite some forays into graphite journaling, I didn’t start really really really journaling in graphite until this past August. Now my journal is completely archival safe and, strangely, completely erasable.
And, as it were, the pens I was using in my journaling in 2005, when I was too afraid to journal in graphite, were some of the least archival safe implements with which I have ever written. I shudder when I see what only five years have done to the writing. The black ink made the facing page turn yellow with the writing (strange effect indeed), while the blue just faded, especially within a .5-.75 inch border of the pages’ edges. Everything written back then in pencil: fine, save where I rubbed my hairy mitts on some pages to test smearability, out of said paranoia.
Sure, journaling in pencil means that you have to be pretty careful not to go smearing things around. But, well, who reads their journals everyday? Does anyone pet her/his writing? And, anything but the most waterproof inks require at least some special handling. Gel ink, for the most part, gets messy with even moderately damp hands.
Are there others who journal in pencil for the fun of it, or for the archival properties, etc.?
Another post from Comrade Shane in Utah:
In nearly every episode of “Stargate Universe,” I am impressed that Dr. Rush, “the ship’s brilliant Machiavellian scientist” (as quoted on Wikipedia), thought to bring with him a pencil and a pocket notebook. Maybe he just habitually carried those items with him because he and everyone else on the ship fled there in a hurry. Stranded on the ship, he uses his pencil regularly to record notes about the ship’s systems, cypher equations, and look up jottings at the last second to solve pressing technical problems. So far, the camera has not shown him sharpening the pencil, but you know it’s just a matter of time. And what’s he going to do without it?! Sometimes I stress about the longevity of that pencil even more than their other dwindling resources or their quest to return home to Earth. They could be out there for years! It’s fun to see the juxtaposition of Rush’s paper and pencil against faster-than-light technology and tools like alien computer interfaces and floating camera-ball thingies. (Hey, I know it’s called a Kino.)
Anyway, in the latest episode, (Season 2, Episode 2, “Aftermath”), I was able to snag a screenshot off Hulu. Maybe someone who DVR’d the episode in high resolution can give us more detail, but it looks to me like a Mirado Classic — note the distinctive ferrule band. Kinda cool to see some of his scribblings and the favored tool Dr. Rush uses to help keep the Stargate characters alive. I would love to hear from one of the writers or prop directors how they decided to cast Dr. Rush’s pencil. I mean, that’s a character I really connect with.
It definitely looks like a Mirado classic to me. That’s a good choice, given the old Mirado/Mikado advertising about the pencil’s ability to write 35 miles — for a nickel!
From everyone’s favorite pencil tome, The Pencil (by Professor Petroski). Pencils are:
“…a metaphorical bridge that can carry from mind to paper the lines of a daring real bridge, which can cause jaws to drop, or the words of a daring new philosophy, which can cause eyebrows to arch.”
Please see also, from the archives:
Why Pencils? (i)
Why Pencils? (ii)
This is another post from Shane in Utah, about the phenomenon of pencil licking:
Here is a funny editorial from a November 1906 Popular Mechanics magazine. Apparently, even back then people didn’t know why they licked their pencil points. You still see it once in a while now, but it must have been much more common 104 years ago. The author claims that nearly everyone other than “newspaper men and stenographers” wet their pencils. “It hardens the lead and ruins the pencil,” he laments. He tells the story of a pencil-loving newspaper clerk who was tired of customers licking the pencils they borrowed from him, and the story concludes, “Surely no one who reads this will ever again wet a lead pencil.”
(The article is next to news that a US company had just sold Russia the largest-ever gasoline engine for a submarine and an ad for a DIY wireless telegraph that “will work up to a mile.”)
I read somewhere that pencil licking was to activate the dye in copy/indelible pencils. So I licked a vintage red Dixon Anadel and asked my wife if my tongue was red. Her horror that I’d lick a pencil was only matched by the big red splotch on my tongue! Don’t ask me what it tasted like; I hastened to some strong coffee.
I’ve mentioned that receiving pencils from friends is a perk of being someone moderately obsessed with pencils. It’s even better than getting big packages of samples from companies (though we certainly appreciate them also!). These are from my friend Dan, a fireman in Baltimore City and, like Zack and myself, an Eagle Scout. The carpenter pencil is my first such pencil. We were chatting online in the summer of 2004, and I mentioned digging pencils. When I visited Baltimore from Illinois that August, we met for coffee, and Dan had this [really nice, actually] carpenter pencil for me as a gift! The blue pencil comes from the Tower Bridge in London, and Dan brought it back for me from his honeymoon a few years ago. It’s actually the nicest souvenir pencil I’ve ever had. The paint job is better than most Dixons and Mirados.
“They” say it’s better to give than to receive. And I like to give pencils away, for sure. But I can’t say I like it better than receiving great gifts from my excellent friends.
Shane from Utah sent an excellent idea along to Pencil Revolution HQ:
I am a fan of the Kum Automatic Long Point sharpener because of the angle it cuts into our Revolutionary tools. But I hate to haul around all the extraneous hardware attached to the sharpener out of the box. With some force, I extracted the core from its housing and used a small drill bit to place a hole right through the word “STOP”. (In previous versions I put the holes along some of the thin edges, but they eventually tore through. You also have to be careful not to block the path of the sharpening leads.) Now the sharpener travels in my pocket with my keys and a minimum of bulk.
As an aside, I had this sharpener in my pocket while I swam in the Gulf of Mexico. The blades got a little rusty, so I changed them out with the spares that come with the sharpener (thank you, Kum), and it works good as new.
[Text and image, S.T. Used with permission.]
As promised, even if a bit late. Download the full screen here and the widescreen here. I made both this month!
