Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Write to history

Posted August 4, 2011 by
in Cabinet of Curiosities | Add your comment »

Another thing from France that I’ve been meaning to share for a while is this post about the site Dialogus, where you can discuss, ask questions, and engage in a fictive dialogue with historical figures like Marie Antoinette and John F. Kennedy (who answers in perfect French) as well as fictional characters like Emma Bovary and Peter Pan. “Who are you?” someone asked Lolita. “I’m not really sure how to answer that,” she responded.

I’m not aware of anything like this in the US, but it strikes me that this is the Internet at its best — engaging, educational, and diverting in the best sense. If you speak French (or, like me, muddle through), I highly recommend it. There are a few letters in English, too, though the answers strike me as somewhat less spirited.

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Nice paper, good pen, deep thoughts

Posted August 1, 2011 by
in Editorial, Pens, Paper & People | 4 comments »

I had to smile when I read Palimpsest’s recent post about handwriting:

There is pressure. G. Lalo invites me, nay demands of me, to perform not only my best handwriting but also to put down my best thoughts lest I defile with meaningless outpourings the ribbed writing surface, and what then? Erasure is of course impossible.

I, and I suspect many others, go through something similar every time I start using a new, non spiral-bound notebook… do I have a purpose for this notebook? Is this thought really worth recording? Once I’m a few pages in, the anxiety dies down, and I realize there are more important things than good handwriting and perfectly articulated ideas.

Do you have new notebook anxiety?

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Victor Hugo’s ink

Posted July 13, 2011 by
in Beautiful Creations, Cabinet of Curiosities, Pens, Paper & People | 9 comments »

Usually, it helps to take claims of historical authenticity with a grain of salt… That famous dead writers used your notebooks, for example, or that James Dean wore your khakis.

This is closer to the real deal. In 2004, J. Herbin discovered an authorization in its archives by the writer Victor Hugo to produce a black ink especially for him. The authorization remains in the archives, but the recipe has since been remade into a couple of bottles of ink. Karen managed to get her hands on one of them, and was then kind enough to pass it along to me.

This is not a fountain pen ink; Hugo wrote with goose quills, though steel nibs were becoming increasingly popular. Personally, I haven’t had much luck with feathers, but that did not put me off from trying it out with a glass pen. And what fun it was! The ink is shiny, dense, and saturated. It pops on bright white Clairefontaine and looks handsome on my ivory Habana, too. Because it’s so thick, you have to be a little more careful about bleed-through, and clean your pen carefully (and immediately) after you’re done. Still, it’s an awfully fun ink to play with. About the only complaint I have is that the bottle cap’s a bit finicky and is tough to get off and on.

There aren’t very many bottles left, but if it’s something that interests you, please let us know in the comments, and we’ll ask Herbin if they’d be willing to make more.

Here’s a picture of the bottle:

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Do you prefer textured paper?

Posted June 1, 2011 by
in Editorial, Pens, Paper & People | 12 comments »

I read a Pen World piece about fountain pen friendly paper the other day (it’s not online, alas) and was interested to see what people like and why.

No feathering, no bleedthrough — those are givens, really. Another thing people felt strongly about was texture. Several sources voiced a preference for smooth paper, praising Clairefontaine and Rhodia because, as Pen World contributor Jil McIntosh explained, “The fine and extra-fine nibs I prefer just glide over them.” Others were partial to so-called “toothy” paper, particularly for correspondence (McIntosh, for instance, believes it’s more pleasant for the recipient to hold).

Which do you prefer?

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Habanas in Italy

Posted November 9, 2010 by
in Product Reviews, Videos | Add your comment »

Stephen Lloyd Webber, a New Mexico based poet, teacher, and our current Writers’ Project interviewee, has run writing and wellness retreats in Italy for the past few years. (“A peaceful, richly enlivening environment where people can truly dedicate themselves to their health and their writing.”)

Last summer, Karen donated a stack of Habanas for Stephen to give his participants. In this video, Stephen describes their reactions… Me, I just like watching the waves roll up against the shore.

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The view from Orhan Pamuk’s window

Posted August 4, 2010 by
in Beautiful Creations, Pens, Paper & People | Add your comment »

The New York Times had an interesting feature in Sunday’s “Week in Review” where they asked Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk to describe the view from his window. One sentence stood out in particular:

When my mind is busy with words, all by itself my eye moves away from the page and the tip of the fountain pen.

Also, isn’t this a great way to describe the interaction of a writer with his or her physical surroundings?

But I know some part of me is always busy with some part of the landscape, following the movements of the seagulls, trees and shadows, spotting boats and checking to see that the world is always there, always interesting and always a challenge to write about: an assurance that a writer needs to continue to write and a reader needs to continue to read.

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The box on Philip Johnson’s desk

Posted June 28, 2010 by
in Cabinet of Curiosities, Pens, Paper & People, Where to Go? | 1 comment »

With all our recent talk of writing boxes and file boxes, I thought I’d share this photograph I took on a recent trip to Philip Johnson’s Glass House… Sitting on his immaculate, leather-topped desk (designed by Mies van der Rohe, we were told) was this pretty wooden box; apparently, it was something he’d owned since his childhood in Ohio:

The Glass House served as Johnson’s weekend retreat — during the week, he lived in an apartment above New York’s Museum of Modern Art — and according to our tour guide, when he arrived, he would empty the contents of his pockets into the box so as not to lose track of anything.

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Planners and idea notebooks

Posted June 23, 2010 by
in Pens, Paper & People, Planning Tips | 4 comments »

Many writers keep idea notebooks — myself included — to catch the random thoughts that cross their minds all day. One savvy reader has an intriguing method for keeping things a little more organized; in an email exchange, he explains:

i use planners to keep notes and ideas. i find it’s easier to refer back to the notes and ideas by just flipping back through the days or weeks. it’s much more organized than if i just kept an ‘idea’ notebook. that was just chaos.

Afterwards, our correspondent uses a Habana notebook to elaborate on the ideas he wants to develop. Pretty cool system, huh?

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Why a good pen is like a nice umbrella

Posted May 5, 2010 by
in Editorial | 8 comments »

Image via (((o.kvlt)))

I am one of those people who is constantly misplacing pens… I put them in my bag, in my pocket; I take them out, put them somewhere else, and pretty soon they’re gone. It’s one of the reasons I’m hesitant to let my fountain pens leave the controlled chaos of my desk, because it’s one thing to misplace an inexpensive Pilot V-Ball, and quite another to lose my pretty Waterman Phileas, or one of my Pelikanos.

For environmental reasons, however, I’m trying to cut back on the number of disposable things in my life, and there’s no reason pens shouldn’t be a part of that effort.

Generally, I believe that when it comes to organization, it’s best to work around your habits rather than trying to overhaul them all at once. But then I think about umbrellas. I used to lose them all the time, too, until I spent a year in England and decided that enough was enough. So I went to a department store and bought a pretty black-and-red umbrella for the princely sum of £18. I was a graduate student at the time, and it wasn’t an easy decision. But it’s been 8 years since then, and I still haven’t lost that umbrella.

Anyway, I’m going to start small, and keep one of my less expensive fountain pens in the pocket of my bag. If that goes well, maybe it’ll be easier to use them in other non-deskbound settings. Here’s hoping!

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The Exaclair Writers’ Project

Posted April 27, 2010 by
in Announcements, Beautiful Creations | 2 comments »

Exciting news this morning: We’ve just launched a new feature on the website of our parent company, Exaclair, to celebrate writing, creativity, and the tools and minds that make it all possible.

Called the Writers’ Project, it includes interviews with authors from around the world who share tips and techniques and talk about their latest projects. Australian author Damon Young is our inaugural feature; visit the Writers’ Project homepage to learn more about Damon’s writing habits, his new book, Distraction, and the “tangible, intimate quality to the marriage of pen, ink and paper.”

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