Where Were You 30 Years Ago?

One of my favorite photos of Lennon from the recent biography by Philip Norman. It was a Wednesday just like today, I remember because it was the last day of classes at my college where I was finishing the Fall Semester of my senior year. Around 6 am or so I heard my mom and dad getting ready to go to work, and I heard my mom say "they shot him, he's dead."

My first thought was, "Reagan was shot?" It was just after the election, and made sense. But then my mom came in and told me, "John Lennon is dead." Never before or since have I gotten up from a dreamy, warm sleep so fast.

The last class for me was a Fine Arts course I was taking, we were in a small, arena-style auditorium and I was sitting in the middle area above where our prof was lecturing. We were finishing our retrospective of Fine Arts in the 20th Century when he concluded with a musical number that he mentioned was from a performer who changed the world. And then we heard the first words: "I read the news today, oh boy...."

The auditorium had been hear-a-pin-drop silent until that moment, then we all exploded into noisy conversations. Why, why, why came the same word. We just couldn't figure it out. And of course, the minute we were out of class we headed for our cars (or mine, I should say, as I was a day student and drove to school every day) for the one store at the mall that carried Playboy--because the Lennon-Ono interview had come out the day before and we wanted to get copies as soon as possible. And we did, and I still have mine at the house in Pennsylvania.

So where were you?

December 2010 Carnival

The December Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper is now up at Journaling Saves, lots of great posts (especially the notebook section).

And if you're in the mood to submit for the January 2011 edition (which I'll be hosting on January 4), here's the entry form.

Many thanks to Nifty of Notebook Stories for founding this Carnival, check out the many fine notebook posts.

Photographs of The Great War

What an amazing trove of photographs of British and Colonial soldiers photographed just before the Battle of the Somme. According to the article, an amateur photographer, likely a French farmer, took the pictures as souvenirs for the soldiers to send home to their families. The glass plates were found in a barn and thrown out, later to be collected, restored, and exhibited.

The Independent has the exclusive story and over 200 photographs of the Tommies awaiting deployment. Take a look at picture #46 of the three artillery soldiers: two are white and one is black, all from different regiments.

Rhodia Reverse Book

When I first saw the Rhodia Reverse Book, I couldn't figure it out. Obviously you could use it differently than a standard grid notebook, either with the ring binder to the left or at the top and that would effect the way you took notes. But that didn't seem like much to me, so I basically used it as a left-sided-ring notebook.

But I realized I was missing something by not trying it out as both a left= and top-sided-ring notebook, and started playing around. The side nearest the cappuccino (my own personal North Star) is written as with the ring on the left, the bottom side with the ring on the top (I had to blur the writing).

Good, but I wasn't really rushing to use the Reverse Book as anything but a traditional notebook, usually with the ring on the left. I was constantly turning pages back trying to find my notes, and getting frustrated.

Then one day I figured out how to use this to the best of its (and my) ability: when the ring binder is at the top, life up the page you would be writing on and start on the back of that page at the top first, writing down the full page. Then turn the page over and start on that page as your second page, again starting from the top.

What I found is that I could read my notes quickly and more easily by having the pages turn in a specific way, which just seemed to help me find what I needed more quickly. Weird, huh? But with that one little quirk, the Rhodia Reverse Book has now become my favorite notebook for all my current work projects.

I do like the paper, obviously, and the violet-colored grid design is great. I would like to see a blank Reverse Book, as the grid lines sometimes interfere with looking at the words. If you have one but are frustrated like I was, take a moment to go over the Book's layout and figure out the best way to use it. It's really worth the extra effort.

What Caliber Is Your Fountain Pen?

Guest Post by Jack of Youngtown, Ohio (which I've read was one of the main crime centers of the country back in the day).

What Would Pretty Boy Floyd Write With?

Clyde Barrow was one of us in one respect--he was a penman. Murderer and bank robber, Barrow and his frail, Bonnie Parker, took to the fountain pen for Bonnie’s verse and Clyde’s letter to Henry Ford, maker of really good getaway cars for the Barrow Gang’s wheelmen.

Difficult to picture these gunmen genteelly dipping a nib into a bottle of Skrip, isn’t it?


And then there was another penman--Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Born on February 3, 1904 in Adairsville, Georgia and died on October 22, 1934 in East Liverpool, Ohio. I know something about him, as he counted on Youngstown, Ohio as his destination location after being run to ground outside of East Liverpool, Ohio.

Prohibition had brought widespread contempt for law in brawling Youngstown. Scots-Irish moonshiners, Italian and German winemakers and homebrewers, and Mob truckers hauling Canadian booze from Ashtabula’s rum-runners’ coves all made it so. Pretty Boy Floyd would have found good hospitals in Youngstown to patch him up, and a gangster-friendly environment to recuperate had he survived long enough to make it there.

He was gunned down by law enforcement officials. “Bandit” was how his occupation was listed on his death certificate by the Columbiana County coroner. Floyd, like Barrow, was literate. The year before he’d written a postcard to Kansas City police denying his involvement in the Union Station Massacre. What was his weapon of choice then? A sub-$1.00 schoolboy’s pen picked up at a nearby Woolworth’s? Or, freshly shaved and talced between robberies, did he amble to a department store’s fine writing clerk for a look-see at some Parker Duofolds?

English novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton and American folk singer Woody Guthrie both offer tips on just where to place your fountain pens in your personal armory. Bulwer-Lytton is credited with “the pen is mightier than the sword”. I’ll guess that means your broad-nibbed Pelikan M800 will whip the bejesus out of anyone fool enough to approach you with a broadsword or battleaxe.

Guthrie puts the fountain pen on a par with the revolver in his “Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd”. Here’s the penultimate stanza:

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

Guthrie hadn’t reckoned with today’s double-stack Glocks and Brownings, but he knew a thing or two about The Suits. Their pen cases loaded with gold-slathered blingy pens, The Suits are in Congress, our state legislatures, darned near everywhere now, maneuvering people needlessly into misery for the sake of political expedience. Never ends, does it?


Afterthought: Although not a native of Youngstown, I spent my growing-up years there, and live about a 15-minute drive from “the Yo’” now. I meditated back in the 1990s upon the death mask of Pretty Boy Floyd [after I’d gone broke the second time]—for a few seconds at least---then at the C. C. Thompson house, a wealthy pottery maker’s home converted to a small museum in East Liverpool.

There’s also a pretty extensive Museum of Ceramics in the former post office building, as East Liverpool was once a major American pottery manufacturer. Our collectors ‘n’ connoisseurs community helps build us up. I like blingy pens. Wish I owned a few, although I’m pretty happy with my high-quality, moderate-priced Shanghai writers. I object to the poseur’s bullying by way of one-upmanship. [ed. note: who me? *lol*]

(I enjoyed writing this post. We sometimes forget that the fountain pen was a ubiquitous writing tool for sixty-some years, used by youngsters, service station owners, immigrant letter-writers---and gangsters, too.)
Jack/Youngstown

Quo Vadis Blog Enhancements

Leah Hoffman of the wonderful Quo Vadis Blog is enhancing their site and adding a Usages page featuring how people use their planners. Do take a look and consider submitting a post, a new 2011 planner could be yours. (Disclaimer--my post is the first on their site, and I do love their products.)

Ink Review: Noodler's Black Swan

One of the funniest videos I've seen recently was Nathan Tardiff introducing Black Swan in Australian Roses, and explaining that the Noodler's catfish mascot was trying to allay the swan's fears of being eaten (didn't know about the migrating waterfowl being eaten by large catfish). So when Brian of Goulet Pens announced these were on the way and to hurry up and order I got right on it and snagged one. Which is good, as he's now sold out and taking emails for the day new bottles arrive.

Black Swan calls up a lot of thoughts, most recently Nouriel Roubini's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. For quite some time you could barely move without someone wanting to know if another Black Swan was on the way (an interesting question, since the concept of a Black Swan is of something that can't be conceived of, much less taken into consideration--I have problems with this, but that's not for this post).

So when the below video made its rounds I was really interested, and couldn't wait to get my bottle from Goulet Pens. And serendipitously it arrived just as I was making my way out of the office Wednesday afternoon for a 4 day break. The Ink Gods and Goddesses are smiling, I'm sure.

The Black Swan in Australian Roses is a black cherry color, with a tremendous amount of shading on the downstroke. I know that Nathan Tardiff mentions in the video that he wants to create a flex nib that won't cost a fortune, and this ink is specifically for flex pens, but I was surprised as how well it worked in a semi-flex Namiki Custom 823 medium nib.

Definitely a lovely color, but it can take forever to dry. If you're not going anywhere and are very careful (sorry lefties, this may not work for you) then take a look at this ink. Especially if you like unusual or dark colors, it's both!