moleskinerie

Daniel Pearl Music Days

"On February 22, 2002, a day after the world learned that kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had been brutally murdered by his captors in Pakistan, conductor George Phelivanian, Danny’s neighbor and friend from Paris, was scheduled to lead the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra as a guest conductor.  Deeply troubled by the news, he was reluctant to perform but defied the horror by proudly dedicating the concert to Danny.  “As the orchestra played Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, I finally understood the triumph of hope over despair” said Pehlivanian. It was an emotional and exultant concert, ending with fifteen minutes of sustained applause.

After Danny’s funeral in August 2002, his family continued to inspire hope through music. As a fitting tribute to Danny’s life, the Pearl family invited people to create or support a musical event in their communities on the day he would have turned 39 years old - October 10, 2002. Thus, the seeds were planted for Daniel Pearl Music Days, now 10 days of worldwide “Harmony for Humanity” concerts ringing the world with the universal language of music in repudiation of hatred and cruelty and in celebration of tolerance, friendship and respect for diversity."

Daniel Pearl Music Days
October 1-10, 2005
Learn more.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!

Happy birthday to our friends @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:
Marcus Tenes September 29,  Ademar Fuke Jr,  October 01 and Jim Six on October 02.

Thanks to Mr. Fredrik Nordström for his donation. Be a part of our Moleskinerie communities and friends at GoogleGroups, Orkut, LiveJournal and FLICKR.

Happy 2nd Anniversary to Chocolate & Zucchini!

Get out, have a life - and write about it!  Be back on Monday.

From Moleskine to canvas

The Moleskine sketch

The finished painting, "Mother and Child"
By Diong, Indianapolis, IN.

Visit his blog, Objects and Pixels.

Toast and Honey

"I initially decorated it with a picture of Vita Sackville-West in the garden at Sissinghurst, but have since found a photo that suits the mood of these little black books to perfection. It is of a gang of Paris intellectuals, lined up in Picasso's studio at a party in 1944. Camus and Sartre are squatting on the floor, hands clasped about knees, while Picasso smirks, arms folded, at someone to the left of the photographer. Simone de Beauvoir is very chic and buttoned up, Zanie de Campan sports an improbable hat and Lacan, hair falling across his brow, stands at the edge, oblivious to the camera, exchanging a wry look with Jean Aubier.

Well. I may not have a salon of existentialists loafing about my flat, borrowing corkscrews and eating up all my Gentleman's Relish, but I strongly suspect at least half of them had the same notebook tucked into their breast pockets."

Olivia Laing
Visit her blog, "Toast and Honey".

Image courtesy of the author.

Rene Enriquez

"I just bought a Moleskine. In all honestly, it was only recently that I came across this word. I don’t even know how to say it!...

 

I’m such a sucker for good sketchbooks. My wife knows this addiction all too well. The last time we were here in KL, I hoarded two large Winsor and Newton sketchbooks from Nanyang, a small but very well stocked art shop, in Jalan Petaling right smack in KL’s Chinatown. Sadly, those two haven’t been dirtied up with any pencil lead at all.

 

But I’m smitten with this oilskin covered one I have now. Its smooth surface lends very well to lead and its slightly toned paper is very easy on the eyes."

Rene Enriquez
Visit his blog, "Football, Brushstrokes, et al..."

Care for Caruso?

"A big chest, a big mouth, 90 percent memory, 10 percent intelligence, lots of hard work, and something in the heart."

Enrico Caruso

The Collected Works of Caruso
MP3 @ Archive.org

LISTEN

Moleskine on the Menu

"...I tried using a Michelin Guide once, but it wasn't nearly as useful as I'd hoped, in part because my French was rusty, but also because the guides don't actually provide much description of each listing. Fortunately, the web community will be sure to blog the 3-star winner(s) to death.

Michelin's inspectors have been paying anonymous visits to 1,200 NYC restaurants since February. During this time, I have been tempted, on more than one occasion, to stroll into some of NYC's finest restaurant with a Moleskine notebook and Mont Blanc pen, wearing some stylish metal frame glasses and sporting a French accent. I'd look all about me like a tourist entering a cathedral in Europe, and after the first bite or two of each dish, I'd jot notes in my notebook.

You laugh, but simply bringing my camera into a restaurant and snapping photos of my dishes before eating them has led to no shortage of free dishes, compliments of the kitchen, and face-to-face meetings with the head chef."

Eugene Wei
Visit his blog, "Remains of the Day"

Image: ABF

Inked

"I remember, before I knew how to drive a manual transmission, that admiring high end sports cars would leave me feeling vaguely ashamed. What right did I have to ogle a Testarosa, if I'd be completely unable to put it to good use?

After I learned how to drop the clutch like a pro, however, those feelings of guilt transfered over to high-end pens. Like expensive cars, it wasn't so much that I actually wanted to own one myself. Rather, passing through stationery or art supply stores, I couldn't help but appreciate the beautiful design inherent in a $1000 Mont Blanc, yet know my chicken-scratching would doubtless make short work of an 18 karat nib.

Back in January, appalled by the steady downhill slide of my handwriting, and increasingly unable to read my own notes just hours after I'd written them, I decided it was time to take action. So, aided by an online copy of Arrighi's Operina, I set out to learn how to write in Italics, a beautiful 16th century hybrid of cursive and print I'd long admired in Da Vinci's notebooks.

It turns out, in fact, that Italic handwriting isn't difficult to learn at all, and, once mastered, it's remarkably easy to write legibly at high speeds. The Moleskine journal I tote with me daily marks my progress - a slow transition from my prior cramped scrawl to the new smooth chirography that has become nearly habit. For the first time in my life, I have good handwriting..."

Joshua Newman
Visit his blog.

Photo: "day one" by lo tek @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved.Used with permission.

Moleskine vs. Wacom ?

Artist rubio2d writes from Madrid:

 

"I prefer sketching with classic paper-and-pencil. I love the sound of pencil scratching the paper. But inking... sometimes I make it in a digital medium (flash or illustrator) time is time, and here comes the wacom. And coloring.... Blessed Photoshop!
Only one reason: Ctrl+Z"

Visit his blog, La Goma de Borrar.

Unleashing the Power of Creativity

"I've always been an optimist and I suppose that is rooted in my belief that the power of creativity and intelligence can make the world a better place.

For as long as I can remember, I've loved learning new things and solving problems. So when I sat down at a computer for the first time in seventh grade, I was hooked. It was a clunky old Teletype machine and it could barely do anything compared to the computers we have today. But it changed my life.

When my friend Paul Allen and I started Microsoft 30 years ago, we had a vision of "a computer on every desk and in every home," which probably sounded a little too optimistic at a time when most computers were the size of refrigerators. But we believed that personal computers would change the world. And they have.

 

And after 30 years, I'm still as inspired by computers as I was back in seventh grade...."

Bill Gates
"This I Believe"
NPR

LISTEN

Write Place: Paragraph

"Paragraph is a membership organization dedicated to providing an affordable and tranquil working environment for writers of all genres. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Paragraph was created by writers for writers, with an understanding that writers work best in a quiet, comfortable space away from the hurry and obligation of urban life.

Paragraph
35 West 14th Street
Third Floor
New York, NY 10011

Oscar Arroyo

"It's about time I did something, and to top it off I was pleased with the results! I was sitting around, bored, frustrated, and couldn't figure out what to do, so I convinced myself it was time to start doing the challenges, and am I glad I did, I feel recharged, I actually did this drawing last night and I couldn't sleep from the excitement after I completed it, all these ideas were running through my head and I just wanted to do them all!..."

Oscar Arroyo
Visit his blog, "Ink Geek".

The Thong Also Rises

Travel writer (and another Moleskinerie "network-er") Jen Leo  has a new book!

Travel girls gone wild! It's not about their underwear, it's about gut-busting adventures. These funny women on the road just can't stop laughing about the global messes they get themselves into. In The Thong Also Rises, Jen Leo brings you dozens of crazy Ms.-Adventures from Egypt to North Dakota and back home again. On a coffee break, right before bed, waiting for the bus, or hiding in the bathroom—howl, cry, guffaw, and commiserate with these adventuresses.

- Go to the bathroom with a pig in your face with Megan Lyles in India
- Congratulate the naked bride and groom on Valentine's Day in Jamaica with Elizabeth Asdorian
- Pity Anastasia Ashman as she competes with a GPS device for her husband's attention on a New York road trip
- Lie to airport security like Deanna Sukkar when they find a sex toy in your luggage with your mother right behind you
- Sit in on Jennifer Cox's hot night with a yogi in Australia while she goes around the world in 80 dates
- Be a diarrhea vaccine guinea pig with Colleen Friesen in Guatemala
- Board a crusty old Soviet bomber in Laos with Tamara Sheward while her girlfriend gobbles expired valium

The Thong Also Rises
By Jen Leo

LINK

The Cult of Moleskine

"I wish I could fully convey to you the burning, vitriolic hatred I have for the whole Moleskine cult. For those who don’t know, Moleskines are overpriced notebooks with a fanatical following.

I should say that I’m sure there are people with legitimate uses for them. I suppose an argument can be made that the paper is particularly good for sketching or whatever. Fair enough, I suppose.

What gets me are the users who ascribe mystical powers to them, or who seem to think Moleskines are so far superior to anything else that they have spawned their own art forms. For example, there is now Moleskine Art. How Moleskine art is any different than other art produced on paper has yet to be explained. Oh, a few famous people like Hemingway used them. Which means that you are part of some noble, artistic lineage if you use one as well. Or, as one user described it, “a continuum of creativity stretching back through Van Gogh, Matisse, Hemingway, Chatwin”.

Singularities

Previously discussed here. More.

M on Fast Company

"In an increasingly electronic world, it's no small irony that the hot new data-entry and storage accessory is microchip-free. Meet the Moleskine: a supremely analog notebook that's redefining the term "little black notebook" - and is fast developing a cachet even among the techies...

...Moleskines have even inspired a number of blogs, as well as fan-produced T-shirts featuring a Moleskine and the words THEREFORE I AM. When's the last time your PDA inspired that kind of devotion?"

The Anti-PDA
By Paul Lukas
FAST COMPANY 10.05 Issue

Visit the Moleskinerie Shop @ Cafepress

[Thanks Yoko!]

Drawing the Storm: Karen Winters on Katrina

" As Katrina formed up in the gulf, the news was dominated by dire warnings, innumerable talking heads and a dizzying storm of clichés: mother nature's wrath turned trees into matchsticks and Katrina's fury was unleashed. Will someone please buy these people a thesaurus?

This page had an interesting and unplanned evolution. The solid blue background was painted months ago, waiting for a topic. The newscaster was painted with a black water soluble brush pen, scanned then colorized in Photoshop, printed out and pasted in. The hurricane was added, along with the text stamped with a hand-carved alphabet. I am trying to get into a rhythm of working back and forth with digital and 'real' media as you'll see in the following pages ..."

Karen Winters
LINK

Meet...The Hedgehog

"This journal is sized like a small sized moleskine- 3.5X5.5 inches and a half-inch thick. It is entirely hand bound. I start this journal with hand folded paper and stitching. The lined warm cream colored 65lb cardstock pages are sewn with unbleached Irish linen thread. The spine is clamped and glued by hand with acid free glue.

After the spine is dried the book block is then adhered to the cover using the same acid free glue. This cover is made of smooth super soft distressed brown sheep hide. While the leather is tough it's super soft and smooth.this cover will take any abuse you throw at it. The book block is smoothly glued to the cover and clamped for a secure bond and flat covers. Just like the original moleskine this journal has a bookmark- in this case a black satin cord. In the back of this journal is a expanding pocket for notes and assorted ephemera. The journal is held closed with a flat black elastic band, securely glued to the back cover..."

less23
eBay Item # 6979336754

New Pilot G2s

2 New G2s from Pilot!

Here and here.
...
[Thanks John!]
...

Greetings to our friends in Doji (Kanagawa), Mimico, Ontario, The Hague, Karlstad, Sweden, Albuquerque, NM, Beijing, Singapore, Tbilisi, Madras and Benguet.

 

Rise Up Sweet Island

Travel photographer (and Moleskinerie "network-er") Erik Gauger reports on "an epic struggle between a tiny island an an American golf course developer" in Guana Cay on his latest journey.

"Golf courses and coral reefs do not mix," writes Kristian Teleki, who directs the United Nations International Coral Reef Action Network. Director Teleki is referring to the audacious plan to build a giant golf course development on a tiny traditional cay, just seven miles long.

Teleki is not the only coral reef authority saying 'no' to the golf course on Guana Cay. In fact, the entire coral reef conservation world is shaking their heads at the strange events taking place on Guana Cay. 

At center stage is a marine ecologist named Kathleen Sullivan Sealey. She was hired by the Discovery Land Company to help write an Environmental Impact Assessment of, and then work for, the golf course development company. Guana Cay is home to one of the West Indies richest and most beautiful reefs. It hosts networks of labyrinthine caverns draped in silversides, walls of coral, elegant sting rays and foraging hawksbill turtles."

Rise Up Sweet Island
Notes from the Road

LINK

About Erik.

Join us!

Take time to discover the Moleskine rooms at GoogleGroups, Orkut, LiveJournal and FLICKR.
Thanks to Morgaine, Nerdtech and everyone for making these online forums become thriving communities.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!

Happy birthday to our friends @ Moleskinerie/ORKUT:
Anthony Dauer, September 23 &  Razi Abid September 24

Our thoughts and prayers to all those in Texas and Louisiana who are in the path of Hurricane Rita.

Hi to Paula Becker & RetroThing ^_^

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

Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal

"I think we owe it to ourselves to make some record of our lives. I hate the idea of waste in general, and I know how much of my time, how many thoughts, ideas, and memories, would be lost forever if I didn't write at least some of it down. Consequently, I have written journals on and off for around 25 years now; I have recorded my thoughts in diaries and PDAs, written regularly every night, written on an occasional basis, and yet, until now, never been satisfied with my efforts, often giving up altogether after only a few months. My diary often descended into a mundane list of things that no-one, not even me, was interested in. What did I watch on TV? What homework did I do? Who cares! When I wasn't writing lists, my diary became an excuse to descend into maudlin self-pity. Sure, life isn't all roses, and a diary can be a useful medium for sounding off about the world and working off your everyday frustrations, but it's all too easy to overdo it, and ultimately that's not good for the soul. It doesn't make for very interesting re-reading either!..."

R Dench
"Dr. Moleskine, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Journal"

D.I.Y. Planner

Making Smoke Prints

"...Now lay this black paper on a flat surface, black side up, and the leaf on it--usually the under side of the leaf prints better than the upper--cover this by laying a clean sheet of paper on it and press or rub all over this with the finger tips till every part of the leaf has been pressed against the black paper. Then lift the leaf and lay it, black side down, on a clean white sheet with a clean sheet over it. Hold it steady with one hand and press or rub all over with the finger tips as before. Lift the leaf up by the stem and, lo!  you have a beautiful print of the leaf in permanent black ink..."

"Smoke Prints"
Ernest Thompson Seton

LINK

Image: ABF

No longer a tablet owner

"It’s kind of sad, but I’m no longer a Tablet PC Owner. I had a Toshiba Potege 3500 and then a Toshiba M200 for the past 3 years. I truly believe in the tablet platform, but not in convertible notebook designs. I ended up getting a regular old non-sexy boring looking laptop and I could not be happier (well I have some problems I need to blog about later).My #1 reason for getting a normal laptop? The Screen. I stare at a Laptop for way to many hours. I need a bright, high resolution screen that is beautiful. The Tablet screens have an awful plastic coat to them and are not very crisp. Also I found that I would use the pen stuff about once every 2 months. I now have a Moleskine to write in, so I stopped using digital ink."

Omar Shahine
_______________________________

Image: "MontBlanc-Meisterstuck146"
By starfield @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR © All rights reserved. Used with permission.

"This photo's MontBlanc pen is this year's my birthday-present from my husband. 22 September is my birthday."

 Otanjoubi omedetou. Happy Birthday Yumi Oshino/Starfield!

The Stowaway

Stowaway pen in original packaging

Turns out that Fisher has a new pen called The Stowaway.

This is an unusual addition to their line up along with the Bullet, Astronaut, Mars, Millennium & Zero Gravity pens

The remarkable thing about the pen is the size that is just slightly larger than a Fisher refill.  Essentially the pen body and cover just fits over the refill.

Compared to the body of the bullet the Stowaway is even smaller.

Unlike its brethren the Stowaway does not have a clip but easily fits in a pocket or wallet.

Both barrel and cap are made of plastic, so for those looking for a smaller version of the machined bullet pen will find themselves disappointed

Because of its small size the pen is not good for writing volumous amounts but will suffice for jotting down quick notes or getting a phone number.

Montblanc Meiserstruck, Stowaway, Fisher Bullet pen & Parker DuoFold fountain pen

In general the Fisher pens are dependable in the field and can stand up to a great amount of abuse.

Besides, ever since 1967 Fisher Space Pens have been used by American astronauts on all manned space flights and is now used by the Russians as well. Even Tang didn’t have a run that long.

The pen can be found at REI outlets in black (pictured), red, blue & green.

Ed Flores
Writer

Photos courtesy of the author

Autumn

AUTUMN
by Christopher Brennan

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world's middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
that speaks the winter's welcome malison
to fix it in the unremembering sleep:
the silent woods brood o'er an anxious deep,
and in the faded sorrow of the sun,
I see my dreams' dead colours, one by one,
forth-conjur'd from their smouldering palaces,
fade slowly with the sigh of the passing year.
They wander not nor wring their hands nor weep,
discrown'd belated dreams! but in the drear
and lingering world we sit among the trees
and bow our heads as they, with frozen mouth,
looking, in ashen reverie, towards the clear
sad splendour of the winter of the far south.

Image: ABF

Right Where You Need It

"Artist Anna Maltz models the utility belt designed for her by fellow artist Helena Keefe. The centerpiece of the utility belt is a pocket custom-made for Anna's Moleskine..."

curiousyellow @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR

Is Octopus Ink Similar to Fountain Pen Ink?

"What Is Octopus Ink?

The ink of the octopus, or any cephalopod, is composed of highly concentrated melanin. This is the same dark pigment that we humans have, and which is responsible for skin color and the color of dark hair. It is a natural dye that cephalopods manufacture in an ink sac. Most, but not all octopuses have an ink sac and produce ink, but a few, such as the deep-sea octopuses, have lost this ability....

  What is Fountain Pen Ink?

The ink that we use in fountain pens or ball-point pens today bears little resemblance to octopus ink. In it's simplest form, the ink we write with is a pigment or dye and a binder. The first ink for writing and drawing was invented simultaneously in China and Egypt, around 2500 BC. This first ink was made of lampblack (soot) mixed with aqueous binders. In the middle ages and up through the nineteenth century, ink was made from such ingredients as gum arabic, copperas (vitriol), gall apples (source of tannin), and water...."

"Is Octopus Ink Similar to Fountain Pen Ink?"
By Nancy King
Tonmo.com
The Octopus Newsmagazine Online

LINK

Image: Octopus Netsuke, MFA Shop, Boston

A Beautiful Revolution

"I can sense him sitting there, in the corner of the room, smoking his Havana cigar, vigorously noting my every move in his moleskin pad. The way I smile. The way I almost allow the opinions that fill my head to scatter across a room full of strangers. The way I flirt, curtsey; humbly bow to anyone that looks me straight in the eye. The way my shyness covers the fear of contributing to the debate. The way he shakes his head as my confidence builds. The way he checks his watch the moment my heart begins to fall. The way he knows my deepest secrets - if I don't play your game - you can't beat me. If I don't raise my hand - you can't reject me. If I don't stand up - you won’t notice me. If I tell you I'm stupid - you'll never see how smart I sometimes think I am. He's always watching. Always. I hope he isn't watching me tomorrow ..."

"Every breath you take."
a beautiful revolution

Moleskine Pouch

"So I made this little quilted pouch for my moleskine journal/sketchbook, and drawing tools. I like it. Tonight I cut a bunch of fabric to size so I can sew more of them tomorrow. I'm thinking of using patchwork to decorate the outside, or maybe some applique or acrylic painting (or all three!). I'm also making some sketchbooks out of paint chip samples. I'll be selling them together with some pens and pencils, as sketching kits. Keep an eye out for that!"

Shannon Palmer

Visit her blog.

Image: "insidepouch2" by skipgo shannon @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved.Used with Permission.

"The Never Ending Drawing"

" Every day I document my movements by drawing them on a map. From that, patterns and images appear."

-Oskarlin

"The Never Ending Drawing"

How to Bow

How to Bow

Glass Soup

Our friend, novelist Jonathan Carroll  has a new book:

"An ambitious retelling of the cosmic struggle between good and evil, with a little Judeo-Christian mythology and a smattering of popular culture mythos thrown in, make Carroll's latest a delicious dish—one that's lighter and better plotted than his White Apples (2002). A group of 30-something Americans living in Vienna (where Carroll himself resides), find themselves caught in the middle of a battle between God (a giant polar bear named Bob, or possibly a mosaic) and Chaos (most often John Flannery, a rapacious sex demon—when he's not just raw ectoplasm inhabiting a leather sofa). The McGuffin is Anjo, the unborn baby of Isabelle Neukor. In a reverse Orpheus, Isabelle has already crossed the border between life and death to retrieve the deceased Vincent Ettrich, Anjo's father. As the contest for Isabelle's child heats up, more and more characters—some good, some evil, but most indifferent—are drawn into the fray, while the world, both real and unreal, living and dead, constantly blends, shifts and changes dimension..."

Publisher's Weekly @ Amazon

"An extraordinary writer. . . . Jonathan Carroll is a cult waiting to be born."
--Pat Conroy

"Jonathan Carroll is a changer. He's one of the special ones, one of the few . . . . He gives you his eyes to see with, and he gives you the world all fresh and honest and new."
--Neil Gaiman

"Jonathan Carroll is a master of sunlit surrealism--his beguiling, impossible novels are like Frank Capra films torn open to reveal the Philip K. Dick or Julio Cortázar mechanisms ticking away at their cores."
--Jonathan Lethem

"Jonathan Carroll is far superior to most writers working today, anywhere."
--Spin Magazine on Kissing the Beehive

Glass Soup
Read on.

The Bulky Way

"I found that trying little things on M always lead to some kind of iteration thus new way to use M. I was opening up a new mind.deposit.4 and I had dozens of magazine clippings for shops I wanted to visit in Tokyo. At first I was using a clear folder to hold all of the clippings in A4 papers, but my experience told me that holding such big a file is difficult to write anything down and take picture (in stealth mode) at the same time. So this time I cut and paste every shop info on the front part of my mind.deposit.4 and it became so bulky I started to wonder if I did the right thing.

Well, the first thing I discovered was that I could use the elastic band in a whole new way by wrapping it across the bottom right corner AND then the bottom left corner of the M. It holds everything securely inside and it also allows some larger clippings to be protrubed from the top side of M. Then I found that M's back pocket was so full of name cards I collected it became super bulky to add any more. So I found some very nice large size money or paper clip from a book store called Maruzen. It was so useful I could actually add more and more things on the front cover and organize them later on. Using two such clips also helps to increase grib and allows me to insert new stuffs from various angle pretty fast and secure.

The whole system remains pretty portable and everything in one piece instead of falling all over. Of course adding a pen holder and a Parker pen that has a time zone reference increases the 'travel journal' feel a lot but that's just for the show. Finally, I was very happy with this trip having visited a lot of nice shops, dinning with a lot of fun and laughter, enjoyed reading everything on my M when I was on the plane back home, sipping cab so and drew something on my M and fell asleep."

Patrick Ng
moleskineart.com
...

Greetings to our friends in Seoul, Pueblo, CO., Brussels,  Baden-Wurttemberg, Roselli in Umbria, Tehran, Madrid, Haifa and Kuala Lumpur.

Best wishes to Mary Kindred on her birthday today.

Brazilian Visual Poetry

"Territorio Ocupado" by Carli Moore Portella

Poesia Visual Brazileira/ Brazilian Visual Poetry

Papercasting

Papercasting.net 2.0
Dead Trees Delivered Digitally

LINK

Thanks John!

 

Maize Maze

Sunset at the "World's Largest Corn Maze", Richardson Farms, Spring Grove, IL.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci!

The World Music Festival, Chicago
September 16 - 22

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

Hi to Apartment Therapy! Thanks for the link.

The Write Locations

"Wherever I go to hunt, I am obliged to write-not necessarily completed stories while in the field (though I have done so), but at least notes. So I have written in tree stands and ground blinds; beside campfires in folding chairs; in cabins and tents by candle and lantern light; in iglus, gers, and thatched-roof rondavels; while leaning against a parked Land Rover; while swaying in the deckhouses of fishing boats moving along the coasts of Canada and Alaska; while belted into small aircraft wobbling above various parts of the world; while seated in a meadow watching saddle horses graze nearby; in places where it was so hot the pages of the notebook curled like withering leaves, or so cold the ink in the pen would not flow; by flashlight, lying on the ground under a mosquito net with my loaded rifle beside me; and safely behind the sturdy log walls of a lodge...."

The Write Locations
By Thomas McIntyre
Sports Afield @ Findarticles

Image: ABF

Rebekka Bakken

"”The ”art of how to fall” is the art of how to fall in love, as in the song”, explains Rebekka Bakken of the title of the album. ”But it is also very much the art of letting go. Not holding on, not controlling, is a beautiful art.” The Norwegian born artist knows a thing or two about this. Raised in Norway in the Seventies, without a radio or stereo, but lots of homemade music in the house, she started singing in Pop and Rock bands in her teens. She moved to New York in October 1994. ”That wasn’t courageous. It was just something I wanted to do”, she says with a laugh. ”I went to New York to make music. And was shocked, because nobody called to make me a big star. So I started walking around the city, cleaning my apartment five times a day. Until I realized that if I wanted something in my life, I had to go out and get it. I can’t expect others to get it for me.” She started writing - stories, poems, lyrics. By and for herself, without any intention of ever showing or reading, let alone singing, them to anybody else. ”I wrote because it was the only nice thing I could do during the daytime. The only thing that gave me some pleasure. I didn’t write for other people to hear it, but because I wanted to write. That’s when I started being comfortable with who I am.”

Emarcy

Rebekka Bakken, Official Site.

[Thanks JC in Wein.]

Benjamin Marra

"Beyonce"

Illustrations by Benjamin Marra, many on Moleskine. Some NSFW^_^

Visit.

Stairzart

"Flying Bricks>Real Me"

Stairzart @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
...
Just learned that today is Stairz's birthday! Best wishes from all of us here @ M.

A natural history of birds

"A natural history of birds". Most of which have not been figur'd or describ'd, and others very little known from obscure or too brief descriptions without figures, or from figures very ill design'd.

Edwards, George, 1694-1773.

A collection of antique illustrations from the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. OPEN.

[via peacay @ MeFi]

The Hand Collector

"Where are you based ?
the hand collector lives in italy."

 

"why hands?
on feet is harder ."

From FAQs
The Hand Collector

Coonoor

"I got up at 8:00 and went for a walk. The weather was variable, like spring: cool, breezy, then washed with warm sunlight, then with dark shadows. Tried to look hard at everything, picked up leaves and cones to draw. Later, after lots of breakfast, we sat at a white wrought-iron table on the lawn, and I painted what I had collected...

At dinner I warmed my hands around a hot toddy. I was busy pretending that it was colder than it actually was, with the fire every night and the hot water bottles and all. A piano player stumbled through old Hindi film songs in an almost-empty dining room (because the 'season' was over). At another table the waiter asked someone, "You are full vegetarian?" and she answered, "Not even mushrooms!"

Nancy Gandhi
Fire Star Arts
India

"Thoughtless Acts"

"Some industrial designers sketch, some study new material technology, some collect inspiration from garbage. Fulton Suri watches and looks, and then presses her observations into the design of products and environments. The mother at the salad bar might become the foundation for the design of a supermarket, shopping cart, or airport kiosk -- anyplace we could all use an extra hand.

As the leader of the "human factors" group at IDEO, the international design consultancy, she and her colleagues will watch kids brushing their teeth, parents pushing strollers, or patients checking in at the emergency room, trying to find opportunities for design to improve the experience. Yet often that means looking for something less obvious: the ways in which the experience can improve the design.

Their observations have brought rubber grips to Oral-B's toothbrushes, raised the height of Even-Flo's strollers, and streamlined DePaul Health Center's check-in processes. For Fulton Suri it's as if the world is one big beta test, in which every feature is begging for improvement.

PAY DIRT IN PUERTO RICO.  Her IDEO colleagues then help translate those observations into products, often for some of the world's largest companies. They're professionally consumed with the little tricks and rationalizations that smooth our interactions with the world. Last year, for example, they traveled the globe to watch people clean their bathrooms, finally striking pay dirt in Puerto Rico, where they saw a retired hotel housekeeper use a flat broom to reach high up into her shower's murkier corners.

That woman's "thoughtless act" was then incorporated into the Mr. Clean Magic Reach -- a bathroom cleaning system with a telescoping pole. Proctor & Gamble (PG), owner of the Mr. Clean brand, says it expects to sell $150 million of them this year.

And when IDEO experts were asked to redesign kitchen tools for Zyliss, a Swiss company, they observed one mother prop her child up on the counter to help. Fulton Suri saw that as an opportunity for a "transitional tool" -- something between a wooden spoon and a knife -- resulting in the design of a new pizza-cutter with the handle positioned directly above the blade, the better to keep kids' hands out of the pie but involved in the cooking.

The design solution arose out of a social situation -- which could only have come from Fulton Suri's way of designing by noticing..."

Insights from "Thoughtless Acts"
Veteran designer Jane Fulton Suri discerns unmet consumer needs via keen observations of ordinary people doing ordinary things
By Andrew Blum, contributing editor for Businessweek.

BOOK LINK
IDEO

Chocolove

Because one can't live on Moleskine alone...

"Made from Trinitarios, a cocoa bean variety that started near Grenada, this chocolate has hints of port wine in its aroma. On the palate, it starts with flavors of lightly roasted cocoa, transitions to vanilla and then hints of black walnut on the finish. Each vintage of Chocolatour is unique in its flavor profile. The overall flavor and the distinct flavor notes will continue to develop with time. Historically, the Grenada origin has developed the most flavor over time, so this might be one to age a while before eating."

Chocolove.

Conversion from PDA to Moleskine

"i'm floundering a bit in my recent conversion from pda to moleskine. what i liked about the pda [palm tungsten e2] was the size, having everything [planner, contacts, to do's, reference files, et. al.] in one small package.  what i didn't like about the pda was it's refusal to synchronize with the desk top and tendencies to crash. so i went back to analog.  i looked at a bunch of different planners  and decided on the moleskine for a variety of reasons. i'm using the large daily. the pocket daily is too small to have scheduled tasks and to do items for each day.  i've tabbed the months. i have a small battery of 4x6 index cards in the back pocket for non-date/contact info."

dsl @ Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups
Join the discussion

Image: "eric's moleskine 2"
by funky fat girl @ Moleskinerie/FLiCKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Deep Thoughts

"A story about a Taoist hermit in the mountains conveys the truth of our oneness with divine humor. A formal delegation from the Confucian temple below decided to visit and seek his advice. When they arrived at his hut unannounced, they were scandalized to find him completely naked. "What are you doing meditating in your hut with no pants on?" they demanded. "The whole world is my hut," he replied. "This small room is my pants. What I want to know is, what are you doing in my pants?"

- Jack Kornfield

[via Whiskey River]

Image: ABF

The Firebird

A.Glazunov "Firebird" Box. 1929  Palekh

" Once upon a time there was a tsar named Berendey, who had three sons. The tsar's palace was surrounded by a beautiful orchard, and among the trees in the orchard was a wonderful apple-tree which bore golden apples. One day the tsar discovered that someone was getting into the orchard and stealing his golden apples. He was furious, and sent his guards to catch the thief. But though they watched all night they were quite unsuccessful.

    The tsar was so upset at the loss of his golden apples that he lost his appetite too. His sons tried to comfort him, and the eldest told him: "I will go and guard the orchard against the thief tonight, father."

    And he went off to the orchard. But although he arrived there quite early in the evening and walked about for some time, he saw no one. So he lay down on a grassy bank and soon fell asleep. Next morning his father asked him:

"Well, have you good news for me? Did you see the thief?"
"No, father," his son answered. "I did not sleep a wink all night, I did not even close my eyes. But I saw no one."

    The following night the tsar's second son went to guard the orchard. But he, too, slept all night, and next morning he told his father he, too, had seen no sign of a thief, although he had not closed his eyes.

    Now it was the turn of the youngest brother, Prince Ivan, to guard the orchard. And he was so anxious not to miss the thief that he was afraid even to sit down, let alone to lie down. When he felt he was getting drowsy he washed his face with dew, and this made him wide-awake again. About halfway through the night he thought he saw a light in the orchard. It grew brighter and brighter, until all the trees were lit up. Then he saw that the light was coming from a Firebird, which was sitting on the apple-tree and pecking at the golden apples."

The Firebird
Russian Fairy Tales

R & D: A Moleskine with firewire?

"At first, "lovemarks" book was too lovey-dovey for a 230lb photographer. It stayed on my shelf for months. But today I needed inspiration – today it sparked amazing thoughts. The place for those thoughts? My Moleskine. Nearly fell off my chair when I saw Moleskine as a prize! I love Moleskine, it keeps shape even when stuffed into Cargo Pants on a photo-shoot. Yet it’s chique, discreet, intelligent even, pulled from a Tuxedo.

The "in-case-of-loss" section values your thoughts. I pencil in the reward. Sometimes high and sometimes, in a fit of artist’s pique, scratched to zero. But most of all, it soothes. In my digital world, the Moleskine calms me; evokes the intimacy of handwritten ‘Thank You’ notes and of good manners. It’s a friend saying "let's sit, let's dream." My latest dream? A Moleskine with firewire."

Steve, United Kingdom - 7 September 2005
Lovemarks
...

Greetings to our friends in Sao Paulo, Seoul, Auckland, Jalisco, Moscow, Saskatoon, Al Jizah, East Renfrewshire and Marietta, GA.

Best wishes to Khuram Shehzad and Arnault Castel of Moleskinerie/ORKUT on their birthday today, September 12.

AFK*: Tea Time

On my "thinking drive" over the weekend I dropped by a tea house in Antioch, IL. and made new friends - Formosa Oolong, Madagascar and Lapsang Souchong. Also met...

Colleen and her journal.

Tanya with her grande hat.

...and owner Lorrie (with Colleen).

Visit infini-tea when you're in the area. They're journaler-friendly.

*Away From Keyboard

An acronym used in online chat, e-mail, and newsgroup postings. Also the name for this section of photos from weekend trips, meetups, safaris and other pixel moments from friends of Moleskinerie.com. To be featured, send us your images with captions.

PigPogPDA

"What Is It?

-A Moleskine hack.
-An extreme Moleskine hack.
-A simplified GTD system with relatively little actual organising.
-A complete personal management system for those who's needs aren't too complicated.
-A rather over-the-top system for dealing with just the capturing and processing end of GTD."

PigPogPDA with Moleskine Pocket Reporter

LINK

In Memoriam

We remember all those perished on September 11 and victims of terrorism all over the world.

For updates and donations, visit the WMP page.
View the scans at " Journey", the WMP Gallery hosted by  Joachim du Beleg. Merci !

Get out, enjoy life - and write about it. See you on Monday.

Tributes in Words and Light

Extravagant Spirits
BY MAYA ANGELOU

Without their fierce devotion
We are fragile and forlorn,
Stumbling briefly, among the stars.

 

We and our futures belong to them
Exquisitely, our beliefs and our
Breaths are made tangible in their love.

 

By their extravagant spirits, they draw us
From the safe borders
And into the center of the center ring
There they urge dance upon our
Leaden feet
And to our sullen hearts,
Bright laughter.

 

Not the crowd's roar nor the gasped
Breath of the timorous can stay their mission.

 

There is no moderation in their nature.
They spit upon their fingers
To test the wind of history,
They slip into our bonds and steal us
Away from the slavery of cowardice.

 

They skin back their thin lips over fanged teeth and
Rocks in hand, in our presence
Face down our Goliath.

 

These mothers, fathers, pastors and priests,
These Rabbis, Imams and gurus,
Teach us by their valor and mold us with their courage.

 

Without their fierce devotion
We are only forlorn and only fragile
Stumbling briefly, among the stars.

Conceived in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedies, Tribute in Light is a temporary artistic gesture bringing together the vision and talent of numerous individuals who, shortly after the attacks, independently envisioned two beams of light rising from downtown New York.

Tribute in Light

Image: © 2005 The Baltimore Sun, John Makely

Wandering Moleskine on Reveries

Reveries® have picked up the NYT story on traveling journals here.

Help Displaced Designers

"If you are a creative professional with a job, office and internet connection, you have more to offer than you realize, look around…

Find an empty desk or table, boot up an old computer, share your phone. We don’t