moleskinerie

OPEN SESSION: The Moleskinerie Open Thread Discussion

Welcome to OPEN SESSION:  The Moleskinerie Open Thread Discussion.

Moleskinerie invites you, our visitors to share your thoughts on a special topic.

Today it is "Freedom of expression and creativity"

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

- First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Image: Wikipedia

VIEW ALL OPEN SESSIONS HERE.

The Sketchbooks of Joachim Robert

Our friend Joachim is embarking on a round-the-world voyage and has opened a blog to begin sharing his experiences. 

"The sketchbooks I wanted to tell about are those I realised during my studies. My school was the ECV Aquitaine, and my big sister gave me a sketchbook, I don’t remember for what occasion it was. The sketchbook was a Moleskine,you know, one of these little black books with mole-skin (not really) cover on the outside, a creamy paper inside and an oh-so-romantic-but-a-bit-exagerated history wrapped all around… The gift fell just right, because I began to do things in that sketchbook, and the more I did things, the more I needed it..."

LINK

Inspiration: Jeff Scher

Jeff Scher, who describes himself as "a painter who makes experimental films and an experimental filmmaker who paints" has a beautiful animated short in the New York Times.

"Walking is life at its most immediate. The combination of people and places changes constantly and never repeats. It makes you small in the face of sheer numbers, but at the same time it’s reassuring. It’s nice to be one of the fish in this teeming sea. This film is an attempt to capture the feeling of looking at people. And it’s o.k. to stare, they are only flickering watercolor ghosts of people observed fleetingly on a summer afternoon in midtown. Shay Lynch’s score adds drama to the mystery."

WATCH

My Hero, Johnny Long

A tip from Joel Anderson:

"Here's something I think is very cool - Johnny Long, security expert and author of Google Hacking (and more) has relocated to Africa and is blogging his journey via (what appears to be) a Moleskine Cahier..."

Later revised with this note:

"Hm - on reflection, it looks like a pocket Moleskine, not a Cahier..."

LINK

© 2009 JL All Rights Reserved

Crap Detection 101

We veer a bit from the usual for this piece by Howard Rheingold, Internet visionary and Moleskine use.

The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge - the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part - the part a machine can do. The real difficulty kicks in when you click down into your search results. At that point, it's up to you to sort the accurate bits from the misinfo, disinfo, spam, scams, urban legends, and hoaxes. "Crap detection," as Hemingway called it half a century ago, is more important than ever before, now that the automation of crapcasting has generated its own word: "spamming."...

Read the full article at SF Gate

Moleskine: An Affair to Remember

Elviza Michele Kamal is a lawyer by profession and "a struggling writer at heart." She emailed us with a link to a recent article in a local newspaper, Malay Mail where she wrote about her "love affairs bordering on chronic obsession with Moleskine..."

Moleskine's greatest gift is that it resurrects a dying art: handwriting. Lately, with the advent of computers, we hardly write anything on paper for we keep pounding away on the mighty keyboard. But the art of writing down your thoughts on paper lends you the edge of being thorough. It also enables you to compose your point of view creatively in its slow, laborious process. It makes you think - and then, think again.

Read Elviza's full article

Mike Rohde's Alaska '09 Sketchnotes

Mike Rohde with sketches from up north. You gotta love the details.

"Just back from an Alaskan cruise last week where I captured 28 pages of sketchnotes in my Molskine pocket sketchbook. I captured these in a Van Gogh sketchboook (orange) which I discovered the week before at a local art supply store!"

View the FLICKR photoset

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

True Master of his Art.
Thank you. 

A tribute from Adalberto Camperos, an artist from Chapinero, South America. Image link. Visit his website

© 2009 AC All Rights Reserved

Webfind: Andrey Shch

Exquisite pen work from Andrey Shch shared at our Facebook group. Even the photos are elegant.

But wait! There's more!

© 2009 MS All Rights Reserved

Inspiration: Pocket Universes

 

Dave Gray of Xplane has started a group on FLICKR. Cute, intriguing, fun.

"Pocket Universes are small, self-contained video clips that can be looped continuously. Like landscapes, they are tiny reflections of the world and objects for contemplation."

GROUP POOL

Related: Xplane

Update: 6,27

Dave has added a "Moleskine" version. Thanks!

© 2009 David W Gray. All Rights Reserved.

Mark Dwight's Moleskine Clear Window Hack

Mark Dwight shares a snap of his latest project at his FLICKR page.

"Sent off my Clear Window Hack submission to Hong Kong for the My Moleskine 2.0 Competition. Already won 3 Moleskine notebooks, and now in the running for a lifetime supply of Moleskine journals! (max 6 per year -- which is barely enough for me)...."

Go check it out

Related: Moleskine Folio by Mark's Rickshaw Bagworks

© 2009 Mark Dwight All Rights Reserved

Kevin Shannon: The World (bike) Tour

Biker Kevin Shannon left a note at our Facebook group about his project:

"Moleskine are very kindly donating a selection of notebooks to use on my around the world cycling expedition to raise £1 Million for Combat Stress..."

From his site's "About" page:

Whilst flicking through an endless pile of gap year brochures, i quickly became disillusioned with the idea of ‘taking a year out and seeing the world’. It felt as though to travel in this way would mean conforming to predetermined idea of ‘Backpacking’. I have nothing against this form of travelling, it just doesn’t interest me. I was looking for a way to travel that would totally immerse myself in the cultures of the countries i travel through. After a couple of months of trawling through the internet and going through numerous plans, such as using public transport or hitchhiking my way to Sydney and travelling to New Zealand on a freighter. Then i stumbled across a couple of websites about cycle touring and fell in love with the method of travel and so the expedition was born.

Learn more.

Related: Ben Saunders and his Moleskine

Moleskine in 'Pinas

Bradley Farless, who describes himself as an "American blogging about life in Singapore and the Philippines" shared his thoughts on his recent purchase:

"...yesterday, my wife and I bought each other one each, as gifts.  The one I got for my wife is an "Info Book" style Moleskine, with tabbed, labeled sections.  She's a fanatic for organizers and loved it.  I got the plain, ruled paper moleskine.  That's appropriate for what I want to do with it, which is record thoughts that I have that I can later use for blog articles.  I'm sure everyone has had a great thought or idea, only to realize later when they sit down they can't quite grasp it again.  This is my solution.

We picked the pocket sized versions because that makes for easy portability.  It'll slip easily into a bag or pocket.  The quality is really nice.  Each one is hand made, and comes with a defect-free guarantee that's easy to cash in on.  If you find a defect, all you have to do is take a digital image and e-mail it to a provided address.  They'll ship you a new notebook right away.  Quality and service are important to this company.

Visit his blog, "Amused Spectator"

© 2009 BF All Rights Reserved

Found: Moleskine Kiev

 

A reader alerted us to this incredible drawings (?) on Moleskine notebooks, possibly from a users group in Kiev.

Found here.

Free: "Start to Draw Your Life"

Long-time Moleskinerie friend Michael Nobbs has come up with a sequel to his first successful booklet.

"After the success of my 75 Ways to Draw More, I've made a new and larger booklet called Start to Draw Your Life, which can again be downloaded from Flickr. Page 2 of the booklet includes a drawing of our favourite brand of sketchbook!"

DOWNLOAD SITE

Visit Michael's blog.