moleskinerie

AFK*: At the Town Fair

"Caloric Colors"

"Master of Gravity"

"Watts Tower"

A town fair somewhere in middle America.
© 2005 ABF

 

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!
...
Birthday greetings to our friend @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:

George Brett, August 3
...
Barbara Demarco-Barrett recently asked me a few questions. My email interview is posted on her blog, Pen on Fire.

Visit Pencil Revolution

Get out, have a life - and write about it! See you on Monday.

Lock Up Your Private Writing

"If someone has read your diary, or even rifled through your desk drawer looking for it, you can relate to my feelings of anger and betrayal. In an ideal world, we would all respect each other's privacy and wouldn't dare to read another's diary, even if it were lying open on a table. However, human nature is curious, and so our private writings are vulnerable. This doesn't mean we should abandon them, though. It just means we must become more determined — and creative — in our resolve to protect our diaries from prying eyes..."

"Lock Up Your Private Writing"
Guard your diary from trespassing eyes with a little creative protection.
by Diane Weiner

writersdigest.com

Image: © 2005 ABF

Roswitha Guillemin

Roswitha Guillemin

LINK

Pigeons pigeons pigeons

Photo: Auburn University

"St Mark’s is like this – rows and rows of pillars with curtains draped in the arches, and glass globules on the tops, looking like pawns, like round domes.  The pillars are darkish, grey rather than gleaming white, and the black etchings on them look like they have been drawn with an inky black pen, much like I am using now – oh the funny thing is that upon arrival in London, I found both Em and Lyn had moleskin diaries too, and I was laughing at how similar we are, and how much I love these girls, that they understand this deep desire to write…  And at how poseur we are in a sense, wanting to be like Hemmingway, which is of course the great selling pitch of such stationery…  And we insist on using black ink pens, but mine is running out!  The black looks like it is smudged, pulled downwards.
 

There are so many tourists milling about, all t-shirt clad, riots of colour and languages, people with black camera straps around their necks taking photos, and one of them is Emily, but this time she has her green lomo out."

chronic malcontent

LINK

Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel

Image Link

Kathrin Jebsen-Marwedel
© All rights reserved. Used with permission

See more of her art @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Happy Birthday Clotilde!

Best wishes to Clotilde @ Chocolate & Zucchini.

Joyeux anniversaire !

From your friends at Moleskinerie

Notebook note holder hack

"This idea came to me a week ago. By folding a paper in a zig-zag pattern and flatten it you'll get two, three folds that can be used to keep notes available and readable without falling out of the notebook...

Its made of regular copier paper and fastened with scotch tape. I think this is a good alternative to Moleskines accordion pocket, and you can keep loose notes in the notebook without having to use clips."

Mekkaniak

LINK

100 Photographs that Changed the World

"Words. Ever since chisel was taken to slate, it has been accepted that words can and do change the world. Whether it be the Torah, the New Testament or the Koran, the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence, J’Accuse, Oliver Twist or Catch-22, Common Sense or Silent Spring, the effect of words can reach so many hearts and minds that it impacts the human condition and the course of mankind. Speeches incite, editorials persuade, poems inspire.

Can photographs perform similarly? 

LIFE solicited an-swers to that question on its own Web site (www.LIFE.com) and that of the highly regarded Digital Journalist (www.digitaljournalist.org), an online publication affiliated with the University of Texas. We received many opinions, most of which supported our conceit that a photo could change the world—music to our ears—along with one detailed, intelligent rebuttal. “I really do not believe that photographs actually change anything, least of all the ‘World,’” wrote Joshua Haruni. “To suggest that photographs, like the written word, have had a profound effect on our lives is simply wrong. Just imagine suggesting that Picture Post or Time or LIFE had as much impact on our lives as Das Kapital, Mein Kampf or the Bible . . . Photographs can be very beautiful, informative, ugly or anything else the photographer chooses to show. Photographs can definitely inspire us, but the written word has the ability to spark the imagination to greater depths than any photograph, whose content is limited to what exists in the frame.” Mr. Haruni is, by the way, a documentary photographer.

His argument forced us to once again confront our premise. We compared Mr. Haruni’s thoughts and those of other respondents and finally determined: A collection of pictures that “changed the world” is a thing worth contemplating, if only to arrive at some resolution about the influential nature of photography and whether it is limited, vast or in between. We do not claim that LIFE’s 100 are the 100 or the top 100, but that they, and the other related landmark images presented here, argue on behalf of the power of pictures."

100 Photographs that Changed the World - LIFE

digitaljournalist.org

Benjamin is the New Black

" It's kind of scary how literal and intense the phrase "consumer culture" really is. It's not just that we are a culture of consumers, but in fact our cultural icons and symbols and sources of meaning and identity are often brands and consumer products. I wonder why people's performances, practices, and understandings of their identity and group membership are often so easily tied to objects -- be it a Jesus hanging from the rearview mirror, or a Moleskine notebook. For devout Catholics and serious Moleskine fans, these are much more than mere objects or decorations. Though Lovemark's articulation of it is a bit over-the-top, these "brands" do inspire intense feelings of love and respect in their fans. If the object is so much more important than its rational material use would dictate, then it might be that associating oneself with it provides a special feeling of being close to greatness, or confirming/creating some aspect of identity."

Benjamin is the New Black

LINK

Image: yeahboone @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Some rights reserved.

The Paper "Wrap"

"the moleskines come with that brightly colored strip of paper wrapped around the cover.  i love the "graphic" look it gives the books.  i can also see the benefits of color coding [i use multiple moleskines in multiple formats].  but, they never last.  once or twice out of my bad and the things are in tatters.

has anybody been able to keep their's intact?

oh, and hi.  i'm relatively new to the group, though i've been using moleskines [mostly the sketchbooks] in both sizes for about 4 years."

david @ Moleskinerie/GOOGLE GROUPS

Paige Pooler

"...a slice of Metropolitan life. I thought about illustrating something with more hustle and bustle, crowds or even a more elegant moment with skyscrappers filling the skies . BUT, I just kept finding myself thinking of a more European/Soho/ parts of San Fran kind of setting instead, though my drawing depicts none of these specifically. A bazillion years ago I studied for a semester in Paris and more recently dated a man in San Fran...and the perfect day was to walk around the city neighborhoods and stop somewhere to loiter over a nice latte or glass of wine. That's MY idea of true city life. Here in Los Angeles, my life is more Suburban than Metropolitan...like the song says "Nobody walks in LA". Ahhh... but someday, I would love to live in San Francisco with a scruffy little dog. I hope I won't be 80 then and unable to walk those hills!"

Paige Pooler
eyes wide apart

LINK

[Thanks Leslie Russell]

Eric Hoffer

"When he published his first book, in 1951, Eric Hoffer has been a longshoreman for eight years and had toliled another twenty years before that as a migratory worker. The book, an abstract and lucid analysis of mass movements called The True Believer, was a critical success and is now considered a classic...

Hoffer always carried a notebook with him. There are 131 of them in the archives, still creased from being  carried about in his capacious pockets. Many people carry notebooks but Hoffer's are unusual. He was more disciplined than some imagine. He once said his writing was done "in railroad yards while waiting  for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck," conjuring up Jack Kerouac more than Eric Hoffer - two very different writers. His entries, in his workingman's hand, are polished, with few erasures or corrections, even when written on a park bench. His thoughts are always original, and one reads them with an abiding sense that some new revelation may be at hand."

SPARKS
Eric Hoffer and the art of the notebook
HARPERS' Magazine/July 2005

[Thanks Christine!]

Moleskine Alike

There are so many envying Moleskine's success, we've seen some vendor copying certain aspects of the great quality and created mimics. This time I met a vendor in Japan trying to launch a new series of notebooks in October, the quality is not bad, despite the fact that the idea of such configuration is not that original. I can't wait to see the final product and do some comparison work. Will keep everybody posted about this.

Patrick Ng
Moleskineart

AFK*: Lise Sutherland-Fraser

"I've been away here and there as I've said and I wanted to add a very cute little pic to your AFK from a trip I did to Thailand with a disaster management company to help with the tsunami.  I was there for 3 weeks and stayed at the beautiful JW Marriott hotel in Phuket.  After about a week of being here and stashing bits of Baht around the room, I came in to find this divine elephant!!  Then followed a baby elephant, dog, swans and turtles!  It made my trip!  My moleskines went for the trip too!"

Cheers
Lise Sutherland-Fraser  :^)

View the AFK* Gallery

Happy Monday to Lise and all our friends in Oz, NZ and the Pacific.

And here's that Cestrum in bloom. ^_^

Hi to the guys at
particletree


Happy 15th Birthday to our intern and friend Alex Coxe.

Soul Laid Bare

"Several months ago, I bought a Moleskine notebook as a scribble journal to carry around town. Everyday, my brain gets filled with noise waiting to be organized, structured, and fine-tuned. Everything I see has a perspective and story to be told. I want to make sense of my nonsensical inner world and I want to capture in writing the transient thoughts before they escape into the ether. But it didn't really happen; I guess life just got in the way. So this notebook has stayed in my desk for months, unused and unspoiled. Last week, I opened it up to jot down some useless information and I found it came with a quotation:

Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare.
— Guy de Maupassant

"Soul laid bare." The sense of vulnerability in those three words is beyond grasp. Perhaps this notion can feasibly apply to a secret diary that one takes to his grave. I just don't know if the concept can truly translate to a blog where everybody knows your score. Certainly not this blog, which has been more of a creative outlet for whimsical experiences than soul baring ones..."

Riye
This Charming Man

Image: *n*o*o*r* @ moleskinerie/FLICKR
Some rights reserved.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!
...
Birthday greetings to our friends @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:

Marcelo Silva, July 22

Seuss Metivier, July 23

Pedro Cruz Gomes, July 23
...
Before I let you go...

Here's your chance to be a part of Ben Saunders' expedition to the South Pole.

Visit his site.

Related posts on Moleskinerie are here and here.

Be like Ben. Get out, have a life - and write about it! See you on Monday.

Sunset in the Hummingbird Garden

Its Hummer Time!
H3, the third generation hummingbird in our garden.

Salvia "Flare"

Cestrum Nocturnum
The night-blooming jasmine ready for this evening's season premier.

Teastick

"A contemplative toy that gently rocks as it infuses clouds of flavor before your eyes. This is what happens when designers and connoisseurs meet for tea.
      
Ultimate infuser for tea enthusiasts
Intuitive "scoop-slide-steep" functionality
Reflects the aesthetic of traditional loose tea service
Durable enough for industrial use
No breakable mechanisms
Constructed entirely of stainless steel
Holes small enough to infuse the finest of teas
Optimum flow for perfect steeping
Tea fill-line incorporated into design
Fits nicely into glasses and mugs
Ideal for a 10-14oz perfect cup of tea"

The Teastick
LINK

Pencil Revolution

"Stay tuned for news of the Pencil Revolution. The PRevo.
Including pencil reviews, pencil stories, history, benefits, advantages, etc.
On why you should be using a pencil.
Or pencils.
And not the mechanical kind.
Sharpen your pencils, and get ready".

Pencil Revolution

ONWARD!

It was bound to happen. The movement was just waiting for its...lead-er. ^_^

Anyone with a ruler?

From a reader:

"What is the line-to-line distance (\baselineskip equivalent, for TeX users :-) ) in the ruled Moleskines? Is it different between "pocket" and "large" sizes?

P.S. Just to clarify, if I had one of these things I'd measure it myself but I don't, and I don't feel like chasing all across Sweden to find one, pay ridiculous amounts of money so that I can unwrap it, and then find that I don't like the ruling.

(For the record, the grid spacing in the pocket/graph version is 5mm (+/- 0.1 mm or so), and the spacing on the plain ones is undefined. :-)"

Image: Babsi Jones @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Gather 'round and I shall tell you a story...

"I don't use a typewriter. I write longhand, with a pencil. Essentially I'm a horizontal writer. I think better when I'm lying down."-Truman Capote.

And I liked that. I think I, too, am a horizontal writer and definitely think best either lying down or walking. But I don't write in pencil anymore. Being left-handed makes the pencil smudge too easily and some of my earliest journals are nearly illegible now due to the pencil fading. And I use my journal for things other than just journaling-I jot notes, grocery lists and snatches of conversation in it, titles and authors of books I might like to read, songs I want to listen to, rough sketches of things. I have even torn out pages to write notes to leave for people as well. I also tend to leave the last 12 pages blank in every journal. This goes back to when I was living at home as a teenager and early 20-something in the 80s and early 90s. I wasn't allowed to have journals or basically, be creative back then. I used small notebooks that I was able to easily hide inside my shirt or bundled into a sweatshirt when I went out with friends. And even when I moved out, and began using regular sized journals, the habit of leaving 12 pages blank stayed with me. I figured that if I ever wasn't allowed to write again, or became too poor to afford notebooks, I could tear all those sets of 12 blanks out of my journals and bundle them together to make a journal to hold me over.

Gather 'round and I shall tell you a story...

LINK

Image: BJohnson @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Some rights reserved.

Planarity

Arrange the vertices such that no edges overlap.

Planarity
LINK

Small Ads

Funny, short classifieds.

Small Ads from the UK
LINK

Design Kitten

A couple of nice, summery drawings from our friend Trish Harvey

Visit her blog, Design Kitten.

Now what?

Manasses: "Now that I own a Moleskine, what to write ?"
That is my current question: what to write as an opening on my recently purchased Moleskine ? What would be worth writing on it for the first time ?
Have u ever come across this dilemma ?

Sevgul:

"i usually make a small drawing on the inside cover of my moleskine which almost always determines its destiny :P
the second drawing i make is a reply to the first and the third to the second etc etc. but i use my moleskines usually as sketchbook diaries.
well just an idea: if you are going to use it as a journal or something. why dont you go to some second hand book shop and randomly choose a book and open a random page and write down the first sentence you come across :P
can be fun or maybe its just me who likes going random"

Discussion @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT

Chocolate Mole

"Despite being a devoted reader and fan of Moleskinerie, I did not actually own a Moleskine notebook of my own until recently (mostly due to the fact that I overindulged at Monoprix last time I was in France and have enough grid-patterned Clarefontaine notebooks to last quite a while).

Last week a friend gave me a Moleskine notebook and I didn't know it, but -- oh, how I've been missing out! It's luxe just to behold as there is no substitute for the substantive weight of quality and obvious attention paid to details."

Lux lotus

Image: © 2005 ABF

Ed Flores

My Moleskine, Kenwood TH-F6A tri-band ham tranceiver, iPod mini, Windsor & Newton Travel watercolor set

Ed Flores
...

I'd like to welcome our friends from QRZ.com. Thanks for visiting. - ABF

 

Asia Gniady

"My name is Asia and I live in Poland. Several months ago a friend of mine recommended me your site and from that time I visit it almost every day with a big pleasure.

I’d love to have my Moleskine but in Poland there’s still no place where one can buy this legendary notebook. So unfortunately I have to use other notebooks and keep on dreaming about my first Moleskine. Sometimes I also take photographs and after, add words to them. It’s something like a diary or chronicle of everyday life."

Asia Gniady

Me Box

"Me Box" can store your junk, your history, your bills, your shoes, your records, your books - what ever you want it to.

The functionality of Me Box is for the seemingly non - descript container to be given a purpose and an identity. The boxes are made of natural kraft card with a vibrant silkscreen colour finish. Flat packed, they are ready for you to customise and assemble. Push out the perforated discs at the end of the box to create your label, make initials, symbols or text. This unique labelling feature can be extended when boxes are put together to make longer messages. When assembled (very easily), the contrasting inner panel of the box will reveal your mark."

Factory 37

[via Design Sponge]

Everything Eastbourne

"One of the things I really enjoy about living and working in Eastbourne is the sunshine and fresh air. Recently it's been getting really hot, so I thought rather than sweat away in my work, I'd make my workspace more pleasurable."

Alastair Johnston
Everything Eastbourne
LINK

AFK*: The 2005 Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival

Images from the Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival
17 July 2005
Evanston, IL.

© 2005 ABF

A Heavenly Craft

"A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books is a Library of Congress exhibition that presents for the first time all the woodcut-illustrated books purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald at the Dyson Perrins sale, now part of the legendary Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress. These books were printed within the first century after Gutenberg mastered the art of printing with moveable type."

A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books
The Library of Congress

LINK

A Wizard's Notes

"A Wizard's Notes"
by A.B.F.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!
...
Birthday greetings to our friend @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:

Arthur Vanderbilt July 17. Also to Donnie Jeter, July 14.
On a personal note, I'd like to thank all those who called, emailed and sent presents, I  am truly grateful.

Have a happy weekend Internet people. Accio!

Bahamas Moleskine

"Here is a journal I just added to the site.  I have journals for everywhere I've been; they are my notes and my own personal compact guidebook.  For me, it is the ultimate travel writer's tool."

Erik Gauger
Notes from the Road

LINK

Plant porn

" Shooting pictures of pretty plants is like shooting pictures of pretty people: you know folks are going to love your pictures by sheer virtue of the subject matter. Plants don't move, and plants in a botanical garden are, well, planted to be pretty: they're cultivated and pruned and pampered. In other words, a trip to a place like the US Botanical Garden, right in the shadow of the Capitol, is a surefire recipe for blog fodder. Who doesn't like flowers, and how difficult is it to take breathtaking close-ups when gorgeous flowers are everywhere?"

Lorianne DiSabato
Hoarded Ordinaries

Marc Orchant on GTD

How much of GTD is about computers/technology? What kind of software is out there that people are using for GTD? Looks like it’s not just about software - where do the Moleskin notebooks and Hipster PDAs come into this and how do they weigh up against, say, a Palm Treo?

It’s not about technology at all. The technology aspects of GTD are are a side-effect of the agnosticism I mentioned earlier. Particularly on the web and in discussion groups and blogs, you’re talking about a demographic group that has a deep affinity for technology and putting it to work to help solve problems. So it’s a natural consequence that much of the online discussion of GTD tends to get wrapped up in discussion of gadgets and software. The threads that have emerged about the Moleskine journal or Hipster PDA are, IMO, a manifestation of some techies’ desire to get back to basics, to simplify. The tactile experience of writing in a journal is gratifying for many of us. The “cool factor” of a life hack like the Hipster PDA is a sort of Luddite indulgence practiced by people who have too much technology in their lives already. So it’s ultimately not an either/or proposition. I’ve written a number of blog posts about how I use both a Treo and a Moleskine in my daily work and life. Each provides a useful piece of the puzzle in my personal approach to GTD.

Marc Orchant
Interview with WIRED News

LINK

[via LS]

Image: sideshowmom @ MOLESKINERIE/FLICKR
Some rights reserved.

Firmly Planted

Firmly Planted

Vespa

"You don't need a steel hull to crack open a bottle of champagne. Come to think of it, opening the bottle from the top allows you to fill a few glasses as well as celebrate a launch. To mark the maiden mission of a new Vespa we recommend waiting until after the ride, when your head is already bubbly from the breeze. To mark the beginning of this Vespaway blog here, go ahead and get that chilled Prosecco out of the fridge already. If you insist on nothing but the French stuff, that's fine too, but not even a clean Californian combination of nuts and pears would lessen the occasion. Cin cin!"

Jonathan Ogilvy
Vespaway

Medieval Spanish Poetry

Kharjas definition, Ibn Sanâ al-Mulk (ss.XII-XIII)

"The Spanish lyric has been considered the oldest in Romance Europe, since the discovery of the kharjas. These were written in Mozarabic dialect -a variation of Romance, derived from Latin- with Hebrew or Arabic characters. They are the core and end of the "moaxajas", poems widespread throughout the Iberian peninsula written in Semitic languages. Samuel Stern managed to decipher the first ones, in Hebrew poetry, in 1948.

We have some unsigned works from the 10th century and others signed by identified authors. It is assumed that they were written during an earlier epoch - even before the Arab invasion - but the Andalusian muslims were able to understand them and mixed them with words from their own language. For this reason it proved difficult for the modern philologists to decipher them. In the Arab kharjas we find arabisms mixed perfectly intelligibly with Romance phrases. The kjarjas are the oldest lyrical poems of all Romance poetry."

Medieval Spanish Poetry

LINK

[via plep]

Handmade pens

HANDMADE, AMBOYNA BURL, Jr. GENTLEMEN'S FOUNTAIN PEN

"If someone needs to buy a present for those who appreciates pens, these are wonderful and really affordable. The producer makes everything by hand and chooses only beautiful rich (and usually exotic) woods so that the final product is really one of a kind. I bought a "Gentlemen's Rollerball" in amboyna burl wood and love it, although it is very large. I would suggest for folks with smaller hands the jr version, which also happens to be cheaper. Great stuff. He'll also make up anything on special order."

Vorwarts,
JC"

Visit jimthepenman on eBay

NoteTaker Wallet

"This is not a cheap piece of gear (if you want cheap chic, build yourself a Hipster PDA out of some index cards and a bulldog clip). But the quality shows in how long this wallet has held up. I figure that if I amortize the cost (about $100) over the four years of service it's provided, it has more than paid for itself in the things it has helped me get done..."

Marc's Outlook on Productivity
LINK

[via LS]

David Scrima

David Scrima
LA PREMIÈRE FOIS

Thanks LS !

Klingon Moleskine

"Here's a trivial example of traveling light (yes, this is kind of the excuse for this "holiday travels" podcast) - here's how I work on my Bible studies for these podcasts. I'm fortunate to have plenty of resources - from commentaries and different translations, to a Biblical Encyclopedia. But (considering that I commute to work by bicycle) it isn't practical to carry them wherever I go. I've posted a picture at KlingonWord.org of what I use - take a look; I've found a way to carry "just what I need" in my pocket.

KLINGONWORD

[via LS]

Have you got ICE in your mobile?

"A Cambridge-based paramedic has launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones.

Bob Brotchie, a clinical team leader for the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, hatched the plan last year after struggling to get contact details from shocked or injured patients.

By entering the acronym ICE – for In Case of Emergency – into the mobile’s phone book, users can log the name and number of someone who should be contacted in an emergency.

The idea follows research carried out by Vodafone that shows more than 75 per cent of people carry no details of who they would like telephoned following a serious accident..."

East Anglian Ambulance NHS

LINK

[via JC in Vienna]
...
Also posted @ MeFi.

Related article @ Snopes.

Moleskine 2006 Datebook Review

"Many pages precede the datebook pages themselves--an i.d. page ("In case of loss..."), a title page, a personal data page, calendars for 2006 and 2007 (one line per day), two pages for travel planning, a map of time zones, and pages listing international holidays, average temperatures, city-to-city distances, international calling codes, measures and conversions, and clothing sizes. Finally, there's a 5-inch/13-centimeter ruler printed along a page edge. At the back of the book, a detachable address book tucks into the familiar Moleskine folder. There's also the folded page with the Moleskine story. No writing stickers though.

What makes this datebook useful to me is the switch Moleskine has made away from thin columns and back to lined pages. Having nine lines to write on (eight for Wednesday and the weekend) allows for to-do lists and notes, not simply notations of events. I particularly appreciate the absence of printed hours, which always make me feel that I'm not using a datebook as I'm supposed to be using it..."

"Moleskine 2006 Datebook Review"
Michael Leddy
Visit his blog, orange crate art.

AFK: The Church of Ornithology

Faith-based avian housing. Right or left-leaning depending on how you look at it.

Image: A.B.F.
© 2005 All Rights Reserved.

Visit the AFK* Gallery

N. Murray

Neil Murray

Image Link

SITE LINK

Drawing from Life

"Who hasn't, at one time or other, kept a journal? The impulse to record our daily lives on paper is nothing if not universal. Still, only a few of us have the discipline to make it past the first few entries, and fewer still manage to create diaries whose insight and visual beauty can inspire anyone but their authors. Drawing from Life: The Journal As Art is an exploration of these exceptions—books of obsessive wonder filled to their borders with drawings, sketches, watercolors, graphs, charts, lists, collages, portraits, and photographs.

Jennifer New takes readers on a spirited tour into the private worlds of journal keepers—an architect, a traveler, a film director, an archeologist, a cancer patient, a songwriter, a quiltmaker, a gardener, an artist, a cyclist, and a scientist, to name just a few—illustrating a broad range of journaling styles and techniques that in the end show how each of us can go about documenting our everyday lives. Excerpts from journals by such artists as Maira Kalman, Steven Holl, David Byrne, and Mike Figgis give us a peek at how creative souls observe, reflect, and explore.

For those who already keep a journal, Drawing from Life will be an inspiration. For those who have always wanted to—or tried and failed—it might just be the motivation needed to get past that first week.

Drawing from Life:
The Journal As Art

Jennifer New

LINK

Jennifer New is author of the best selling Dan Eldon: The Art of Life. She teaches at the University of Iowa School of Education and lives with her husband and children in Iowa City.

Thanks Laura for my copy. One of the best birthday presents I got. Evar. ^_^

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!
...
Birthday greetings to our friends @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:

David Hughes July 09

Angel Zubillaga July 09

Pablo Berlanga July 11

Giusec . July 11

Libby Meyer July 14

See you on Monday. Have fun!

Find the Moleskine

Mi Antiguo Changarro (My former place)

Taking a careful look at this two-years old photo I just discovered one of my Moleskine notebooks.... My version of "finding willy."

L:E:A. @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Let's Motor

HACKERATi @ FLICKR

© All rights reserved.

Masters of the craft discuss writing

"I'm one thing as a writer: the book is the boss. The writer has two choices when he sits down, he can either say, "I'm the boss of this thing," in which case, he's going to get his ass kicked, or he can say, "I'm going to let this book be the boss and tell the story it's going to tell."

Speaking for a cause - Authors Stephen King and John Irving joined forces for a special event on June 24. "An Evening with Stephen King" benefit for the Maple Street School Scholarship Fund raised nearly $40,000. The money raised will help support one-third of Maple Street School students through financial assistance. Mr. King read from his upcoming novel "Lisey's Story," and discussed the craft of writing along with his friend John Irving in an interview with The Manchester Journal.

The Manchester Journal
LINK

[via Mike Shea]

Gadling

" Keeping a journal is one of the best things you will ever do. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been keeping one since I was 16, and I have literally written over ten thousand pages in an effort to account for many of the things I’ve done, people I’ve met, places I’ve gone, thoughts I’ve had (more dumb thoughts than smart ones, BTW…going back through these old pages can sometimes be embarrassing). BUT! That said, you will never regret committing to paper or bits your life’s details. Trying to keep them all in your head is mostly impossible.

But if this is too burdensome, that is, even if you don’t keep a personal journal about your daily life, you should at least consider keeping one when you travel. And one of the most important things about keeping a travel journal, is having a good notebook to write in. If you scribble in a standard cheapo notebook, the pages will wither and fray, and overtime your memories will be lost, to quote Blade Runner, like tears in rain."

Erik Olsen
Gadling

Lost Newton manuscript rediscovered at Royal Society

A collection of notes by Sir Isaac Newton, thought by experts to be lost forever, have recently been rediscovered during cataloguing at the Royal Society and go on display to the public for the first time next week at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition.

The notes are written about alchemy, which some scientists in Newton's time believed to hold the secret for transforming base metals, such as lead, into the more precious metals of gold or silver. Much of the text consists of Newtons notes on the work of another alchemist of the seventeenth century, Frenchman Pierre Jean Fabre. But one page of the notes presents a more intriguing prospect it offers what may be Newton's own thoughts on alchemy, written almost entirely in English and in his own handwriting.

Although the notes were originally uncovered following Newton's death in 1727, they were never properly documented and were thought to be lost following their sale for £15 at an auction at Sotheby's in July 1936. During the cataloguing of the Royal Society's Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection the notes were discovered and, with the help of Imperial College's Newton Project, were identified as being the papers which had disappeared nearly 70 years before.

The notes reflect a part of Newton's life which he kept hidden from public scrutiny during his lifetime, in part because the making of gold or silver was a felony and had been since a law was passed by Henry IV in 1404. Newton is famous for his revolutionary work in many areas including mathematics and the fields of optics, gravity and the laws of motion. However, throughout his career he, and other scientists of the time, many of whom were Fellows of the Royal Society, carried out extensive research into alchemy.

The Royal Society
LINK

[Thanks John]
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Congratulations !

OK Go

Ok Go "is like a boy band that got seduced by Queen and wound up in college instead of Orlando."

Ira Glass

Watch: "A Million Ways" [QT]

Official Site

My Moleskine

"This last trip was to Porto de Galinhas, in Pernambuco state in Brazil. I'm Portuguese and a great enthusiast of the Moleskine. I just started using the new Reporter squared."

_41

Visit his blog.

Ellis Island Portraits 1905 – 1920

"The exhibit features an extraordinary collection of images by Augustus Frederick Sherman, a registry clerk at Ellis Island in the years 1905-1920. This untrained, yet highly gifted photographer created hundreds of images documenting the new arrivals to America. Fascinated by the diverse origins and cultural backgrounds of his subjects, Sherman created a riveting series of portraits, offering viewers a compelling human perspective on this dynamic period in our country’s history."

Augustus Fredrick Sherman: Ellis Island Portraits 1905 – 1920
Aperture Foundation

Sighting:

"CBS Sunday Morning: "Postcard from Lipari" David Turecamo went to small islands near Sicily to trace where his grandfather lived before coming to the US via Ellis Island. The reporter is shown writing his impressions of his ancestral homeland in a large Moleskine notebook. Can't see what kind of paper, bit it's notable that he's close to the end of the notebook, implying he uses frequently or at least wanted to look like he does."

monkat

CBS Sunday Morning

AFK*: Chicago!

OK, so here's what I did over the weekend.

Adler Planetarium, Chicago

The Water Tower and adjacent structures show
the different styles of architecture in Chicago.

Chicago's Sears Tower is framed by a sculpture
at the Adler Planetarium

Finally.

An apparition in Chocolate.
Window display, The Hersheys Store, Chicago

© 2005 ABF

View the AFK* Gallery

The Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner
at the Smithsonian Institution

LINK

 

WMP #13 Emily Gertz

WMP #13
Emily Gertz
Brooklyn, New York

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!
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Birthday greetings to our friend @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT, PJ Alonso on July 4

SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE: TypePad (Moleskinerie's webhost) will experience a two hour downtown on Friday July 1st from 5PM PST to 7PM PST in preparation for new feature enhancements.

You may notice some changes in our graphics in the coming days as our designer Norman Nimer & Co. tweak Moleskinerie for more "good things" to come. Stay tuned. ^_^
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It sure was an exciting week. Thanks to all those who emailed and welcome to our "new regulars". I'd also like to welcome my good friend, Dr. Erwin Lim to Chicago. Yes, the doctor is out for a photo shoot!

 

We'll be back on Tuesday, July 5. Have a fun and safe holiday weekend everyone!

Ron Arias: Notebooks a family obsession

As near as I can tell, my writing habit began more than a hundred years ago on a cattle ranch in northern Mexico. That was when my grandmother, at seven years of age, wrote three words in a little notebook her mother, Cristina Terrazas, had given her: hoy murio mama. No capital H, no accent marks, no other details--