moleskinerie

WE HAVE A WINNER! "Cold Tracks" A Black Notebook Mystery

On January 28th we asked:

What happened here?

List of articles in the evidence photo:

1. Skittles, 1 pack
2. Feather, unknown specie
3. CD, "Symphonic Tango"
4. Foreign postal marking/stamps
5. Mailing envelope, opened
6. Black notebook
7. Letter, partially burned
8. Tequila bottle, small, unopened marked "Cozumel, Mexico"
9. Eyeshade for sleeping
10. Candy pieces, presumably from package
11. Fresh animal tracks, several unknown species

We received 2 imaginative entries, from Tim Moyle of New York and Nicola Cloudhill in the UK. Mike Shea, a Moleskinerie contributor sent a non-competing entry.

After thorough deliberations, we have decided to award the prize to TIM MOYLE!

He will receive an copy of "Everyday Matters", especially autographed for Moleskinerie by artist Danny Gregory.

Congratulations and thanks for participating! We gratefully acknowledge Mr. Danny Gregory and Craig Miles for helping us out with this project.

The Art of Noise

"Excessive loudness alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror."

— Edmund Burke
(A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas
of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1756)

"Noiseways New York is a virtual tour of various scenic and not-so scenic locations in the New York City area that includes pictures and sound recordings from each location. While of course you can't really experience these places through speakers and a computer screen, you'll be surprised by what you find."

Welcome to
Noiseways New York

Copyright 2001, 2002 Zelig Kurland

The Naturalist's Notebook

"Observations: March 16, 1996
Time: 9:15 am
Weather: Overcast and cold, slight snow cover

Tiny Trails

After a snowfall in Irving Nature Park you may see two pair of tiny tracks cut by a short horizontal line from a dragging tail! that zig-zag and then disappear at a small hole in the snow. These are the tracks of the Deer Mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus), a tiny mammal less than 10 cm. long with a tail of 5 to 13 cm in length. Its coloring is reddish brown or grey brown fur with white under parts. This little creature uses tunnels made by burrowing larger members of the same family, like voles, mice or rats. Deer mice eat berries, nuts, seeds and insects. These secretive, quick, tiny animals are occasionally seen in the early evening hunting for food. Sometimes you will see the Deer mouse up a tree. For such a small mammal it has a lot of energy. Deer mice have been tracked travelling over half a kilometer searching for food near home in one evening."

The Naturalist's Notebook

Copyright © JD Irving

Van Gogh's Letters

"I went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam this weekend. I am always inspired to look at an artist's life in retrospect. They break it up by years, or when I saw Monet -- geographical moves, and when I saw the Picasso exhibit in Milan, I saw his work change by lovers and war.

What's inspiring to me is that you can see how much they've done right in front of you on a wall. You might like the piece, or not, but you can see the time they spent on it. And to see so much of their work all at once is mind boggling. You'll know what I mean when you walk through the Elvis's trophy room at Graceland.

I always leave wondering how I can make more of my life. To do justice to the span of the remaining 35-60 years. And what will mark the change in everything I have to offer? I know that I will write, but I'm positive it will not always be travel related. My fascination with movies is just too strong.

Back to Van Gogh. One of the new things I learned about him, was that he was a letter writer. They put large quotes up on the a few walls in the museum. Here are two that I liked:

"The way to succeed is to keep one's courage and patience, and to work on energetically"
—Van Gogh to his brother Theo, Feb 1886"

Jen Leo @ writtenroad.com
View the Van Gogh Letters @ Webexhibits

Light Reading

Miniature books, most of which are less than three inches tall and some of which are smaller than a penny, have delighted readers for centuries. Popular because they were easily carried or concealed, these historic books range from tiny "Thumb Bibles" to illustrated nursery rhymes. The earliest piece of block printing to which an accurate date can be ascribed--a Japanese wooden block print from about 770 AD--is a miniature scroll and part of the Lilly Library's collections.

More than 900 of the library's 16,000 miniatures were on display in the Library's Main Gallery from June 18 to September 15, 2001. This online exhibition pictures a selection of the miniatures displayed in the exhibition and reproduces the narrative text of the exhibition labels.

400 Years of Miniature Books
At the Lilly Library of Indiana University

Indigosky

"I have been filling sketchbooks since elementary school, journals of my visual inspiration and ideas, concepts and words.

I dedicate the late hours of the night to these pages, carry them on my travels and study them for improvement."

"Statement of Purpose"

Corey Senderov Jackson
Indigosky

© CSJ
...
[Thanks SharonB]

Colours on the Road

"About 110,000 trucks and 91,000 buses are moving on a road network of almost 200 000 km. They are the most important means of transport in the country. Every owner of a bus or truck who takes a pride in himself takes care that his vehicle is highly decorated. Busses and trucks in Pakistan are loaded beyond the limit not only with goods but also with images, ornaments and symbols.

Hammered trims from shining metal, shimmering rosettes, reflectors of all colours, wood carvings, colourful chains and calligraphies beautify the trucks. The sides and the back exhibit the art of truck painters. The wooden sides are divided by struts into small segments which are often completely filled with different motifs. Flowers, animals, landscapes and portraits of women are represented most frequently, twined around with painted garlands and ornaments. The undivided back exhibits mostly a single motif. Mythical images like Buraq, the winged horse of Prophet Mohammad’s the celestial journey, portraits of popular Pakistani personalities or pictures of famous buildings can be found there."

Colours on the road:
Truck Painting in Pakistan
@ Asienhaus

Photography © Martin Sökefeld

Unh!

"It really must be tough being a monster. There aren't any clothes in your size, and people run away screaming, getting superheroes to beat you up. Is it any wonder monsters can only find employment with mad scientists and other societal mavericks? Look at this guy; he's one of the lucky few who's actually getting benefits, coffee, donuts, and a dental plan to take care of those bestial canines. But still, some freak in a robe and a ram-horned headdress has the nerve to come along and call him a freak. Monsters never get an honest break."

The Unh Project
A collection of guttural moans from comics

Edwin Rolfe

"Madrid Madrid Madrid Madrid
I call your name endlessly, savor it like a lover
Ten irretrievable years have exploded like bombs
since I last saw you, since last I slept
in your arms of tenderness and wounded granite.
Ten years since I touched your face in the sun,
ten years since the homeless Guadarrama winds
moaned like shivering orphans through your veins
and I moaned with them."

"Elegia" for Madrid
Edwin Rolfe (1909-1954)

Manuscript Drafts of Edwin Rolfe's "Elegia"

Modern American Poetry, UIUC

[Parenthesis:]

"It is modern art's most powerful antiwar statement... created by the twentieth century's most well-known and least understood artist. But the mural called Guernica is not at all what Pablo Picasso has in mind when he agrees to paint the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair."

Guernica: Testimony of War

PBS Treasures of the World

A Flyer's Notebook

A peek at the notebook of Capt. Rizalindo S. Gigante

"This sketch I made when sitting from my favorite seat and coffee ..this is the only Starbucks in Macau that opened a year ago which I should miss when I will leave by end of April...am blessed though since Starbucks opened in Cebu in the last quarter of 2003..."

"The Captain here is Capt. Bassetto , a Brazilian...we were flying an AirBus A321-200 from Pudong Airport of Shanghai on March 12 to Macau..we flew two legs more to Taipei and back to Macau..."

View larger images at the Moleskinerie Gallery
© 2004 RSG

Wild Life, Hot Air Balloons and other Cool Stuff

Brushtail Possum

"Look who came to visit this morning. I arrived at work early to discover this small friend outside my window. Normally brushtail possums are nocturnal so it is unusual to have one wandering around outside your office looking for all the world as if it would like to have a word with you about the standard of accommodation on offer.

As animals I find them cute and furry even though I know they are a pain if they take up residence in your roof. Not everyone likes these marsupials and they have become a problem in New Zealand

Now that you have admired the wildlife outside my office window...

Vincent Van Gogh Balloon over the Canberra School of Art

Did you know that if two balloons touch during a flight it's called a "kiss". This piece of balloon trivia was discovered after an early morning trip to the foreground of old parliament house to watch the launching of dozens of balloons."

Discover "In A Minute Ago"
Canberra, Australia

© 2004 SB

The Haiku Postcard Foundation

No. 120

"Fiddle me with lips.
I pretend I'm not alone.
Pear without a pair."

The Haiku Postcard began as a series of insults from one brother to another. Gus Ramshackle was born in 1892, and by 1912 had been courting a girl named Rosie for several months. He had fallen well and truly in love with her, writing her poems by candlelight and keeping notes about the best way to propose marriage to her. Gus' identical twin brother, Irving, admired Rosie from afar, secretly and quietly in love with her. Gus and Rosie's courtship lasted years, during which time Rosie succumbed to Irving's wiles, eventually leaving Gus and eloping with his twin brother. Heartbroken and feeling betrayed by his closest blood, Gus embarked on a journey across America, and wherever he went, he sent insulting haiku postcards back to Irving and Rosie.

Visit this fascinating site.

Old Things Are New Again

"I looked through all of the unusual mods and came across a mantle clock mod. The clock was from the 20s or 30s and it got me thinking about the possibility of doing a typewriter mod. I pulled the picture out of my archives and did some measurements. It would work."

The "Underwood No. 5"
By Joel Zahn, British Columbia, Canada
@ Mini-iTX.com

Image: © 2004 JZ

Real Retro:

"Car record players, 1961

The needle of the Norelco Auto Mignon stays in the groove of our 45s, even when we drive over rough roads. But since there's no record changer, we must insert each record we want to play, then remove it when the song is over."

Consumer Reports

This Week on Moleskinerie

March 22
Fate, eBay Item #3710507099, The Legacy of Genghis Khan (Not Shown), Shawn Eisenach, "Starting the Journal Anew" Day

March 23
One Word, Chatwin, Using the WiFi at Starbucks, Bread, Rolf Potts, Drawn from Life

March 24
Write Space, Eamonn Fitzgerald, Moleskinerie is a love child?, India in India Ink

March 25
Back to the Sea of Cortez, Carrot & Stick Press , Bicycle Haiku , Mark Dennehy, "Spread the Word Contest"

March 26
Mobile Computing, The Rigging Of A Ship, Prompts: Light + Time, Inspiration: BLT Scented Candles, Olivier Théreaux

The Moleskinerie Survey

In order to serve you better we are conducting the Moleskinerie Survey in cooperation with Craig Miles' By Return Post. Results will not be used or shared except within the Moleskinerie community.

Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey HERE.
Thank you.

Olivier Théreaux

"Small collectors of emotions, facts, sensations... and little notebooks,
We collect and absorb information, making it ours, eventually giving it
back.

Moleskines are not just friends, they're our alter-egos."

olivier, vendredi 20 fevrier 2004, 12:00

Visit his gallery

© Olivier Théreaux

Inspiration: BLT Scented Candles

"I’ve invented Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato votive candles. Maybe I’m crazy, but here’s how my mind works: I love the smell of bacon cooking. I fantasize about having bacon grilling on the stove day and night. In my philosophic musings I asked myself what is better than a BLT? As much as I try, I can’t eat a BLT at every meal and I can’t grill bacon 24 hours a day.

Then I asked myself:
"What is the meaning of Bacon? What is the meaning of Lettuce? What is the meaning of Tomato?" What is the meaning of life?

Then the epiphany: BLT-scented votive candles!
Isn’t it obvious?"

One votive candle scented with the aroma of bacon.
One votive scented with the aroma of lettuce.
One votive scented with the aroma of tomatoes.

They are sensual, sexy and tantalizing. You may want to light them in your kitchen, office or bedroom or wherever you seek sensual pleasure and enlightenment; by yourself or with someone special. Depending on your need and sensual mood, you can light them as a set or individually.

Bacon = Freedom
Lettuce = Love
Tomato = Passion"

The Grateful Palate

© 2004 Thegratefulpalate.com
................................................

Update:

11.5.06 Moleskinerie is not connected with this company/website which seems to have ceased operations.

Prompts: Light + Time

"The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Similar examples would be dog walking time or book reading time. Since saving is a verb describing a single type of activity, the form is singular."

Time.gov/IDEA

"Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
They are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness."

Light Is More Important Than The Lantern
Nizar Qabbani
Translated by B. Frangieh & C. Brown

Image: midcoast.com

"Partridge Pea is a lovely annual that will self seed and bloom until frost. The foliage is compound and very fine resembling a Mimosa. It folds up in the evening and also when touched. The seeds must be collected when the pods are brown but before they burst open. Many birds enjoy the seeds in the garden and in the wild."

Plantdatabase

Image: © 2003 Stacey

The Rigging Of A Ship

34. chisel-nits
35. frelts
36. cusksnags
37. claut-snells
38. cleep-sturs
39. clap-slumbers
40. divots
41. chaffle-stays
42. crabhooks
43. clog-hauls
44. crap-hallyards
45. crud-claws
46. slirne-binkles
47. cleeg-newts
48. jig-bludgeon
49. flacks
50. bunnage...

"The Rigging Of A Ship"
A Flashback from the National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, 1973
Animated by Jay Naughton

Flash required

Mobile Computing

"We first removed the hood and seat part (they are detachable as part of the rickshaw's design) as these were impractical for our use. This left us with a flat platform on the back of a sturdy three-wheeled machine.

...Next we added an armchair which we happened to have lying around (left over from the Lost Vagueness area of Glastonbury festival), then a pair of ElectroVoice stage monitor speakers facing outwards with pasting table on top of these. This formed a table suitable for putting a laptop on. We then constructed a wooden frame that held the speakers, armchair and table in place and also provided us with support for a canopy to protect the 'internaut' and laptop screen from the Sun's rays."

iTrike: the World's First* Solar-Powered Internet Rickshaw

Copyright © 2003 Psand Limited
Via Flakey.info

"Spread the Word Contest"

Our friend, Craig Miles is holding a contest at ByReturnpost.com:

"I am proud to announce the start of the "Spread the Word Contest."

The contest is simple. Share By Return Post with your friends and you will be entered into a drawing for The Art of the Handwritten Note by Margaret Shepherd.

There are a couple of rules or items to note:
- You can fill-out the "spread the word" form more than once.
- The drawing will be done at random.
- There will be two winners selected.
- The contest ends on April 22nd at midnight PST.
- Any submission with invalid e-mail addresses are removed.

The information you share will not be used for any other purpose than this contest. We will not share any of the names or e-mail addresses.

There are no tricks or hidden agendas. I want to get the word out to more people about By Return Post as well as share a wonderful book with two lucky winners.

That's about it! To enter the contest, go to byreturnpost.com!

-- Craig Miles

Mark Dennehy

"Stochastic kinematic system doodlings"

A page from the notebook of
Mark Dennehy
Computer Vision and Robotics Research Group,
Computer Science Dept., Trinity College Dublin

View a larger image at the Moleskinerie Gallery

© 2004 MD

Bicycle Haiku

Bicycle Haiku is a reproduction of a sketchbook I kept while I rode my bicycle across the US in 1979. It contains an ink sketch and a haiku for each day of the three month 5,000 mile trip. A typical scene would be like the day I passed through Francisco, Indiana.

This book will not be a best-seller. It's a book of poetry, and you know what that means. It might appeal to anyone intrigued by pedaling across a continent, or loners fascinated by blue highways and other little-traveled roads, or sensitive souls really into haikus, or sketches.

BICYCLE HAIKU
by Kevin Kelly

© 2001 KK

Carrot & Stick Press

We came across these exquisite creations:

"Our letterpress printed pieces are made-to-order for any occasion. In addition to providing family and friends with the particulars of an affair, our custom designs set the tone for the celebration, whether it be a weekend getaway to an exotic locale or an afternoon tea in the garden.

From wedding invitations and birth announcements to business collateral and social stationery, Carrot & Stick works individually with each client to ensure that they get exactly what they are looking for. Call on Carrot & Stick for your next celebration or venture."

Visit Susie Gelbron and Julie Walker at the Carrot & Stick Press

© 2003 Carrot & Stick Press. All rights reserved

Back to the Sea of Cortez

SHIP'S LOG:
The bad news is our departure has been set back 14 days by big storms here last week, which were particularly strong on the Pacific Coast of northern California, and delayed getting the Gus-D into dry dock to get the bottom scraped and painted (so that we wouldn't have to drag barnacles and seaweed down to the Sea of Cortez). That delay set us back a week, but because we'll be studying tide pools at low tides and the tides are on a lunar cycle, that necessitates a two week shift in the entire schedule. It is the first lesson in the first chapter of the voyage: we are at the mercy of the sea.

The book that resulted from the six-week adventure sailing 4,000 miles around Baja and back—Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research—was published a year later, the day before Pearl Harbor was bombed. A hybrid of natural history, taxonomic catalogue, and travelogue, it was quickly forgotten by all but diehard aficionados of Steinbeck and the marine biology of the Gulf of California. So few copies were printed that it now commands hundreds of dollars in the antiquarian book trade.

The Sea of Cortez Expedition and Education Project

India in India Ink

"During my travels and studies, for several reasons (lack of co-operation, Government regulations, prohibited photography, bad light, poor dark-room facilities, and cost) it was not always possible to document the happenings or artifacts on film. Over the years, I have learnt to authentically reproduce/enhance the experience via line drawings done in India ink. This is especially true of historical sculptures where the originals themselves were in extremely poor condition."

-- K. L. Kamat

An Innocent Woman of Mavashia Community
Madhya Pradesh, 1977
© 1996-2004 Kamat's Potpourri

Visit their website

[Via Plep]

Moleskinerie is a love child?

TJI*:

"Moleskinerie is a new blog that I think is cool. It's kinda like 1000 Journals had sex with McSweeny's."

Thanks Jen Leo
written road blog
...
[*This Just In]

Eamonn Fitzgerald

"This is a story of diaries and coincidences. It's now almost 16 years since I first read Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir, by Paul Monette. The book is a journal of the author's final two years with his partner Roger Horwitz, who died of AIDS in 1986 in Los Angeles. It's a heartbreaking love story and beautifully written. The two travelled regularly to Europe, especially to Paris. When we join them, they're on the edge of the plague minefield, except they don't know it. Monette notes:

"Roger kept a diary only sporadically, and one night I left mine in a taxi near Saint-Germain-des-Pres… Roger and I went to Gibert Jeune the stationer, near Place Saint-Michel, where we bought blue-cover student notebooks lined with graph paper. At the time I was reading The Name of the Rose, a sort of cracked guide to Tuscany, and Eco speaks at the beginning of the cahiers of Gibert Jeune. Roger filled only five pages of his, but on October 31 he writes of us sitting by the Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. He's full of the 'drag of nostalgia' and remembers reading Gide's Counterfeiters on the selfsame spot twenty years before. There's a brief aside to me: 'Paul — the book opens with a scene at the Medici Fountain.' Then at the end of the entry: 'These spells of fatigue… age? Some virus?' "

When I read that passage for the first time, I was struck by the pleasure and the pain of keeping a diary."

Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Drawn from Life

"Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731) was a Dutch anatomist and a pioneer in techniques of preserving organs and tissue. In addition to his scientific contributions, he made artistic arrangements of his material. He had his own museum of curiosities, and among the displays were a number of dioramas assembled from body parts and starring melodramatic fetal skeletons. A few of these were captured in meticulous detail "drawn from life" by the engraver Cornelius Huyberts. These engravings were inserted as foldouts in various early 18th century editions of Ruysch's works."

Visit the The Zymoglyphic Museum

Original engravings courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

Weather Forecasts

"April and May will be warmer than usual, with near- to above-normal rainfall. The summer will be hotter than normal, primarily due to an exceptionally hot August. Rainfall will be very close to normal, with the heaviest rains in July. September will be wet and mild, with heavy rain to close the month. October will also be wet, but with below-normal temperatures."

Annual Weather Summary (Region 9)
November 2003 - October 2004
The Old Farmer's Almanac

"We skip clumsy backyard sensors that provide only local temperature. Know if rain, heat, or cold is on the way ahead of time with forecasting data from the National Weather Service. The Beacon uses the nationwide wireless Ambient Information Network to provide current and forecast conditions. Premium users can even receive 5-day forecasts, barometric pressure, wind speed, pollen forecasts, and more for over 2,000 worldwide locations."

The Weather Forecast Beacon
@ Ambient Devices

"In his journal for January of 1806, then-Commander Beaufort wrote, "From now on I shall evaluate the force of the wind in accordance with the following scale, since nothing gives a more indefinite representation of the wind and the weather than the previously used expressions like moderate wind or cloudy weather."

The Weather Legacy of Admiral
Sir Francis Beaufort

Learn more @ Islandnet

Write Space

"I have a room with a life of its own.
Some call it my office,
I call it my space.
It’s not the place
where I hide
or lay down and die,
but one where I can be alone."

Carmen Ruggero

"Cloud by Monica Forster, is a portable room for rest, meeting or concentration. A space of its own that can be used within any space, cloud instantly defines an area and a mood apart."

Urbanpeel

Image: © 2001-2004 UrbanPeel.com

Rolf Potts

"This afternoon, Old Lady Goodall manages to outdo herself. As I am toweling off under a tree, she strides up and starts to run her fingers over my chest and shoulders, like I'm some sort of sacred statue from Angkor Wat. If this woman were 40 years younger and had a few more teeth, it might be a rather erotic experience; instead, it's just kind of strange. Without warning, Madame Goodall leans in and licks the soft white flesh above my hipbone. Comically, furrowing her brow, she turns and makes a wisecrack to Boon's mother, who erupts into laughter.

I can only assume this means I'm not quite as tasty as she'd expected."

Up Cambodia without a phrasebook
by Rolf Potts on Salon

Visit his website.

© 1999 RP All Rights Reserved.

Bread

"The highlight of the 1990-91 field season was the discovery of two rooms, connected to a larger complex, which turned out to be the remains of baking facilities. Here bread had been baked in large, cumbersome, conical, ceramic molds, weighing up to 12 kilograms each, called bedja-- a style unique to Pharaonic Egypt. These two small rooms were far more significant than their modest contents, seen in the map to the right, suggested. The data they yielded, after painstaking excavation, helped flesh out some of the details of the baking process that was previously known only through reliefs from Old Kingdom tombs."

Bread Ancient Style
© Ancient Egypt Research Associates 2001

"This is the breadman. He cruises around yelling, "Roti, Roti!" muliple times a day past my house. Some of it's not bad. Someday I should do a series of photos displaying the immense variety of objects that show up on motorcycles - familes of five, panes of glass, 50 live chickens, color TVs, bamboo stalks 4 meters long, small trees, sowing machines. No joke."

Brandon @ JavaJive

"I wanted to tell you about my favourite bakery here in Jena, and in short about a couple of other ones I like too. Now, bread in Germany is usually quite nice, at least in its traditional forms: rye bread, whole grain bread and so on. I don't mind the compact, heavy texture of the traditional breads. But every now and then I feel like something else, something a bit less down to earth, more frivolous maybe: Italian and French breads. Sadly most bakers either don't produce any of these breads or offer really pale copies. So I was quite happy as, a few months ago, I discovered a market stall selling good looking French and Italian breads. The stall was that of the bakery Panetoni, a bakery from the nearby town of Apolda."

Il Forno

Using the WiFi at Starbucks

Trish Harvey
@ Design Kitten

© 2004 TH All Rights Reserved.

Chatwin

"Fire
"Was he a cold fish?" I asked.

"A fish?"

"A cold person."

"He was hot and cold. He was all things."

--BC, from "Among the Ruins"
On February 1984, an Englishman with a rucksack and walking-boots strides into a bungalow in the Irene district of Pretoria. He is six feet tall, with fair hair swept over a huge forehead and staring blue eyes. He is only a step ahead of the illness that will kill him. He is 43, but he has the animation of a schoolboy.

Bruce Chatwin had come to South Africa to see the palaeontologist Bob Brain after reading his book The Hunters or the Hunted?. It was, Bruce wrote, the book he had "needed" since his schooldays, and it had reawoken themes that had been with him a long time.

"This is a detective story, but rather an odd one," begins Brain's classic text on early human behaviour, based on 15 years' excavation at the Swartkrans cave near Johannesburg. Brain's analysis of fossilised bones raised the possibility that Early Man was not a savage cannibal, as had been generally held, but the preferred prey of one of the large cats with whom he shared the open grasslands of Africa. Around 1,200,000 BC the roles were reversed when homo erectus began to outwit his predator, the dinofelis or false sabre-tooth tiger."

Bruce Chatwin
by Nicholas Shakespeare

One Word

simple. you'll see one word at the top of the following page.
you have sixty seconds to write about it.

as soon as you click 'go' the page will load with the cursor in place.

don't think. just write.

Go.

"Starting the Journal Anew" Day

"As a teenager, I kept a diary for six or seven years--full of the angst or exams and the trials of never having a date--that I wrote in frequently, if not daily. During the dormitory years at college, my diary transformed from lovelorn ramblings to costume sketches and reminders to go to class.

For years, I carried a sketchbook everywhere. That was fantastic. I paid a lot more attention to things around me. Any time I was bored I would grab my book and pen and draw whatever was handy. I did hundreds of little sketches. Some of them are horrible and others are quite good. I took notes in my sketchbooks, too.

But somehow, I stopped doing that. These days (in addition to this weblog) I keep a motley a variety of notebooks filled with to do lists, user interface designs, observations made on the train, grocery lists, meeting notes, and drawings. But I have too many of them. One in my bag, another in a jacket pocket, one on my desk...

So I declare today "starting the journal anew" day. I will keep a better journal. "Better" meaning I carry one with me everywhere and I use it creatively every day. Care to join me?"

Kuri @ Mediatinker

Copyright 2003 mediatinker.com

...
P.S. from K:

"I found the Moleskine in August last year at an upscale interior/art supply store in Tokyo. What a great little notebook. Now it seems that many of my friends have bought them--when we get together it's a flurry of little black notebooks and fountain pens."

Shawn Eisenach

Shawn Eisenach
Wholewheattoast.com

View a larger image

Copyright © 2003 SE

The Legacy of Genghis Khan (Not Shown)

This Chinese handscroll celebrates the nomad's indispensable relationship with horses, and hints as well at the kinds of landscapes that would be depicted in Ilkanid manuscripts. The scroll's right side (not shown) dates to the Jin dynasty (11150-12340). By an unknown artist, the painting presents three nomads and their horses in a simple landscape; the three are perhaps having a respite from the hunt, as one figure has a flacon in his arm (not shown).

Visit the Los Angeles Museum of Art

eBay Item #3710507099

VERY OLD HANDWRITTEN FRENCH DIARY

This very old handwritten French diary has 24 pages and 12 of them have writing on them counting both sides of the page. It is 6" x 9" and is written on hand made paper. There are dates from 1823 - 1824 documented. It is written in French so we can't tell you what the content is. Please email with questions. We will accept for payment cashiers check, money order, and credit card including MC, Visa, or Discover. NO PAYPAL!!!

antiquecenterbroadway
Item number: 3710507099

Places To Write

"If you are a writer don't even think about this place. They even have a sign at the front door that says, "Please...for your own safety, and the safety of those around you...NO POETRY". I hear-tell that they will even slap your hands if you are caught writing poetry there."

Places To Write In The Twin Cities
Cyberpoet

Image: © Cyberpoet

[Via Beautifulstuff]

Fate

"Utilizing the now famous Fate bumblebee vibrating wing effect, the Fate Torpedo flies in defiance of contemporary science's understanding of aerodynamics. Powered by superheated steam from the patented Fate flash boiler, the Fate Aerial Torpedo is capable of flight speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour. With a range of over 50 nautical miles, the Fate Torpedo can deliver a 100-lb warhead with an accuracy of plus or minus ½ mile."

Reviresco

© John McEwan 2003

[Via BoingBoing]

This Week on Moleskinerie

March 15
Make Your Own Mondrian, Journeys: Paris, Pragmatik, Little Women

March 16
"Cold Tracks" Contest Closing, Shiokadelicious!, Peter Arkle, Pass the Camera Project, "Cold Tracks" Entry, Say "mol-a-skeen-a"

March 17
Kava Kava, Journeys: Bahrain, Jen Leo, Writing Process, Happy Saint Pat's

March 18
How to Be an Ethical Traveler — more or less!, Flat Footing,
Moleskinerie Profile: Howard Rheingold, Starting 'Em Young, 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words

March 19
Дача: Dacha, Serena Fenton, Humus, Spring is here!
...
Greetings to Kevin Kelly, Rolf Potts, SharonB from Canberra, the students at SIIT, Bangkok, Kristine and Olivier (Japan), our friends from Brazil, Portugal and Mark Dennehy in Dublin.

Welcome to our new members at Orkut:
Jesse from Amsterdam and Nobuhiro from Japan.

Get well Rayco, safe travels to Howard Rheingold and Jen Leo and happy spring cleaning to Mike Rohde. Enjoy your blogging break! ^_^
...
RECENT Logbook Entry:

"...But then my life changed. I saw the Moleskin blank pages and bought it before moving to work on an animal sanctuary. I could slip this little book in my jean pocket and be ready to write down anything. A telephone number, a medicine for an animal, an idea..."

Russ Mead
...
Finally:

Thanks to Christine @ Sushiesque for the cool bookplates.

Spring is here!

Burpee Catalogs Through the Years

View their Gallery

Image Copyright © W. Atlee Burpee & Co.
...

"If you can stand a raw egg on end, it has nothing to do with the Equinox.

This has to be one of the silliest misconceptions around, and it never seems to die. Every year, without fail, some TV station broadcasts a news segment showing local schoolchildren standing eggs on end on the first day of spring. Usually, the newscaster will make some vague mention about how this works, but it is rarely specific, and never holds up to too much scrutiny."

Bad Astronomy
...

Cherry-blossom in the early morning at Yoshiwara by Ando Hiroshige

Slowly undressing
after seeing the blossoms-
rainbow sashes cling.

Sugita Hisajo

Image: B. Stewart
...
Note: The 2004 vernal equinox will occur at 11:49 p.m. MST, 19 March 2004, when spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere.

Humus

Humus

E' un progetto di ZeroUno Design
Copyright © 2004 ZD

Shockwave required

Serena Fenton

"Right now I am working on a series of landscapes using thread painting. That's from my sketchbook (left). I'm trying to extend a painterly vision into a new realm. This has me struggling with the basics: how to create a realistic landscape within a hard-edged medium. To be specific: how to get the distant hills to move into the background and stay there (where they belong!) and at the same time, how to create some crisp edges (my piece is looking a bit mushy)"

Layers of Meaning
surface design, art quilts, & modern embroidery from Serena Fenton

Weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Дача: Dacha

The unfinished dacha near St. Pete

"Being near a lake, and surrounded by valuable cropland, dachas are fiercely fought over, but usually passed down generations with the children sharing the parent's dacha. Also, a very casual atmosphere prevails. Some dachas, like the St Pete one, don't have running water, others like the Zgrad one were the retirement homes of the grandparents, but neither requires more than a pair of shorts and swim trunks."

Wayan @ Bellybuttonwindow

Text/Image: Copyright © 2003 Bellybuttonwindow.com
...
[Parenthesis:]

"Cyrillic alphabet (Кириллица)

The Cyrillic alphabet is named after St. Cyril, a missionary from Byzantium. It was invented sometime during the 10th century AD, possibly by St. Kliment of Ohrid, to write the Old Church Slavonic language. The Cyrillic alphabet achieved its current form in 1708 during the reign of Peter the Great. Four letters were eliminated from the alphabet in a 1917/18 reform."

Omniglot
...
Молескинерие*

*Moleskinerie in Cyrillic via Mashke

100 Most Often Mispronounced Words

In the interest of public service and our anti-nucular sentiments, we're posting this useful link:

"Heineken remover

Heimlich maneuver (or manoeuvre, Br.) This term is mispronounced many different ways. This is just the funniest one we have heard. This maneuver (manoeuvre) was named for US surgeon Henry Jay Heimlich (1920- )."

Here are the 100 words most often mispronounced English words ("mispronunciation" among them). There are spelling rules in English even if they are difficult to understand, so pronouncing a word correctly usually does help you spell it correctly. Several common errors are the result of rapid speech, so take your time speaking, correctly enunciating each word. Careful speech and avid reading are the best guides to correct spelling.

Yourdictionary.com

[Via Kottke]

Starting 'Em Young

"Reflection involves looking back on experiences. When used in art, reflection can serve as a way for students to learn more about things that are already known in some sense, but will give them deeper meaning. Reflecting helps to reconstruct, analyze and evaluate what happened. At a time and place away from the immediacy of the experience, these mental reconstructions are converted into written form. The use of the Sketchbook/Journal is an ideal place to record the reflections."

How To Use Written Reflection with ART STUDENTS
Jefferson County, Co. Public Schools

Photo: Copyright © 2003 Jeffcoweb

Moleskinerie Profile: Howard Rheingold

"I fell into the computer realm from the typewriter dimension, then plugged my computer into my telephone and got sucked into the net."

Howard Rheingold

Photo: Justin Hall
...
Join us at Moleskinerie/Orkut

Flat Footing

"Schambra looked at ways to make City Knife II lighter and more packable. Her initial ideas were inspired by origami, in which paper is bisected, folded, and tucked. She sketched some quick ideas and then began experimenting with them. One concept involved slicing a piece of synthetic leather so that you could simply slip your foot into it. A second idea added creases to the form that, when unfolded, create structure.

To create City Knife II, Schambra drew on her previous work at Nike in developing new ways to streamline sports shoes. She designed the Avow, an athletic shoe for teenage girls with safety in mind (there's room on the heel to write your name, phone number, and medical information), and created a training shoe for American sprinter John Drummond."

Metropolis

Photo by Annie Schlechter/Metropolis

How to Be an Ethical Traveler — more or less!

Photo © 2003 - Alison Wright

Thirteen Tips for the Accidental Ambassador
- or -
How to Be an Ethical Traveler — more or less!

1) BE AWARE OF WHERE YOUR MONEY IS GOING, and patronize locally-owned inns, restaurants, and shops. Try to keep your dollars (or baht, or pesos) within the local economy, so the people you are visiting can benefit most directly from your visit.

2) NEVER GIVE GIFTS TO CHILDREN, only to their parents or teachers. When giving gifts to local communities — from schoolbooks to balloons, from pens to pharmaceuticals — first find out what's really needed, and who can best distribute these items.

3) Before visiting any foreign land, TAKE THE TIME TO LEARN BASIC COURTESY PHRASES: greetings, "please" & "thank you," and as many numbers as you can handle (those endless hours in airport waiting lounges are a good time for this). It's astonishing how far a little language goes toward creating a feeling of goodwill....

...13) NEVER FORGET KURT VONNEGUT JR'S BEST LINE: "Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." In other words: go with the flow, and give free rein to your sense of adventure!"

The Ethical Traveler

Happy Saint Pat's

Snakes alive! Saint Patrick is driving the snakes out of Ireland. Can you avoid his traps and become the biggest serpent on the block?

Play the Snake Game

[Via BBCi]
...
Shockwave Required

Writing Process

I have had several inquiries about the writing process I use, so here are the details and some pictures.

The majority of content starts as handwritten notes, outlines and a rough draft. I use a "working journal" that I've designed and store in a 3-ring binder. I created this because I needed a specific structure. The pages are created from a template and printed on Crane Bond in 28lbs ivory. I have found that Crane's 100% cotton, tree-free stock is consistently the best paper for writing with fountain pens.

For journaling and note-taking, I use Moleskine journals. I actually use several of the Moleskine products:

Volant Pocket Ruled Notebook, which I always carry with me for quick thoughts and quotes I run across.

Moleskine Large Ruled Journal for daily personal journaling.

Moleskine Pocket Daily Journal which I use for maintaining my daily cancer journal, including blood work, test results and notes on how I'm feeling.

Moleskine Large Weekly Desk Planner which I use rather than a Palm, which I replaced with a Moleskine some years ago.
The Moleskine works very well with my fountain pens and my mechanical pencils -- can't recommend them more!

Jen Leo

"Is there such a thing as a lazy traveler? Or does that automatically make me a tourist? Because I don't want to be labeled a tourist. At least not till I'm much older and can afford