moleskinerie

Overcoming Chaos by Tim Baynes

We received this email from Tim Baynes in the U.K.:

"Like so many other people I enjoy Moleskinerie very much and find all the contents inspirational.

I am a painter and have used Moleskine for three years and carry two – one for business and one for drawing to capture the place I visit on business.

I have developed a neat practical idea around how to balance the unstructured taking of notes with the need to index ideas and thoughts."

A two step approach to keep your Moleskine note taking spontaneous and easily access your ideas and thoughts anywhere in your book

STEP 1

Number your pages (as recommended by Bruce Chatwin!). The very easy way to do this is by investing in an automatic numbering stamp. Staples sell the Trodat 5756 for $40 or £40 in the UK(!)

STEP 2

Using Microsoft Excel create a two column worksheet.

Enter the page numbers in column 1 and the topic/idea in column two.

TIP: Be consistent with your nomenclature if you take notes on a topic more than once

Still in Excel, select the table and copy/paste it to the same worksheet immediately to the right of your first two columns.

Highlight the pasted columns and using the Data/sort function, sort the data in your second set of columns alphabetically.

RESULT!

The contents of your Moleskine is indexed by page number and for fast access by topic and its corresponding page number

PRINT IT OUT

Play around with Page Setup in Excel to ensure the table prints out to the height of your Moleskine, a little bit of trial and error required. Print and paste your new index into the inside back or front cover of your Moleskine.

Fat Tuesday Calories

We're getting lots of queries on this oldie so I'm reposting it:
...

Because we can't live on Moleskines alone...

Paczki

Image: Zeelandia

‘Paczki (POONCH-key) is a day we look forward to — but then again we don’t,” says Rose Gjorgjeski, owner of the New Deluxe Bakery. “You don’t sleep, you don’t eat, and all you think about is paczki.”

[Original Detroit News page now invalid]

Bake it with Bobby Flay
...
King Cake

Image: Zymondo

"The King Cake is a traditional Mardi Gras treat, baked and covered with a poured sugar topping in Mardi Gras colors; Purple, representing Justice, Green representing Faith and Gold representing Power. Traditionally, the person who finds the hidden "baby" in his or her slice of cake must provide the cake the next year. Hundreds of thousands of King Cakes are consumed at parties worldwide every year and in fact, a Mardi Gras party wouldn't be complete without a King Cake."

The "Official King Cake Recipe"

"Laissez les bon temps rouler!"

Originally posted 2.24.04

The Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci

The Drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci
Visit.

[Thanks Chris!]

Moleskine in Malaysia

"My first  ruled notebook resting on "mengkuang" foodcover."

Mohd Adib Noh
View his Moleskine Photoset @ FLICKR

© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
...
Update from k tl:

"whilst browsing through the v*rious p*ges in moleskinerie some time *go, someone mentioned th*t she w*s e*gerly w*iting for her boyfriend to bring some moleskines b*ck for her from *ustr*li*....

well, folks in ku*l* lumpur, m*l*ysi*, fret no more. moleskines have been spotted at Borders!!"

AFK*: "The Flag Dancer of Glenview"

When the weather is just right you can see him on the corner of Lake Street and Waukegan Road in Glenview, Illinois. His blue coat says "Liberty Tax Service". You hear no music. He dances to the rhythm of his own iPod.

"The Flag Dancer of Glenview" by ABF
View the photo set at FLICKR.

© ABF 2006. All Rights Reserved.

*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.

Greetings to our friends in Elliot Heads, Nassau, Langley, BC, Kingston, Moita, Nottingham, Basel, Naperville, IL, Navegantes, Ramat Gan,  Backa, Medan, Belgrade,  Doha, Jupiter, FL,  Tamil Nadu,  Caracas,  Akinari,  Atarfe,  Skopje,  Riyadh,  Lima, Malta,  Lakonia,  Shanghai,  Makati, Caroline Hill, Manizales,  Nigeria  and Perm.

Requiem for a notebook

"I'm pensioning off my moleskine with full military honours. Were it not for the strict laws that state journalists must hold onto their notes for, ooh, years and years, I would be interring it in hallowed ground tucked up with violet silk.

We've been close, my notebook and I. We've travelled the nation's motorways and railroads together, chasing copy on almost every subject under the sun. Between its crisply-bound covers are notes on Lee Miller, at least 13 pages on ceramics commerative of Lord Nelson, two short stories, a gig review complete with a love letter scrawled in a unknown and manly hand and, of course, the cocktail piece.

There's little so glamorous, I think, as a woman alone, preferably attired in green boots, curled in the corner of a chi-chi bar, sipping quietly at her G and T and scratching furiously in her black-bound reporter..."

Olivia
Visit her blog, "Toast and Honey"

Image: © 2006 OL

Doane Paper

"I was in a product design meeting and 1/2 of the room was using legal pads, the other 1/2 was using grid paper. I combined the 2 paper designs and it turned out pretty cool..."

Doane Paper

LINK

Featured Artist: Ruth McNally Barshaw

I have been carrying a sketchbook everywhere, since age 14. I sketch weddings, funerals, births, trips, school events. I don't take photos of things. Only sketches, and usually in a plain Moleskine notebook. I use the little ones for daily life sketches and the bigger ones for special events. And I always sketch with a pen. Otherwise I am too much of a perfectionist; using a pen helps me
to accept my mistakes.

My first children's book will be published next year by BloomsburyUS. It's written and illustrated in my sketchbook style and the inspiration came from my first trip to New York City last year. The book is entitled ELLIE McDOODLE, Have Pen Will Travel.

Ruth McNally Barshaw

Visit her  website.
© 2005 RMB

Next week: Sam K. Harding

[Thanks Joy!]

Here's a thought via J.C:

"The Pilot razor-point pen is my
compass, watch and soul chaser.
Thousands of miles of black squiggles."

from BRAIDED CREEK by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison

To Slimbolala and all our friends in New Orleans:

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Discover and join the Moleskine Communities at MYSPACE, FLICKR, ORKUT, LIVEJOURNAL & GOOGLEGROUPS. Have a nice weekend everyone. Get out, have a life - and write about it! See you on Monday.

Sightings : Mr. Pitt

From JustJared

Thanks Laura and Bradley!

...

Update 2.27.06

Not sure if this is the same location but here's another pic on People magazine's AOL website via Stuart B.

Eric Gauger: The Howling Coast

Photographer extraordinnaire  (and Moleskinerie "Networker") Erik Gauger is back from his adventures in the Pacific Southwest of Nicaragua.

The Howling Coast

Visit his excellent site, "Notes from the Road".

Global Vision

"If everybody would agree that their current reality is A reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity for constructing a reality, then perhaps we could all agree on a meta-agreement for computing a reality that would mean survival and dignity for everyone on the planet, rather than each group being sold on a particular way of doing things."

        - Francisco J. Varela, Centre for Research in Applied Epistemology, École Polytechnique, Paris

JOIN

[via Ottmar Liebert] 

Lifehacker: Moleskine lessons

Lifehacker got some good comments on Moleskine mods and tips.   

"I've recently started doing the HPDA thing and am using the Molskine as my master of the universe. Since I was going to have certain cards I bought some sticky photo tab corners and pasted them in a few pages of my moleskine for frequent to do lists. Works pretty nifty, I say..."

Patrick @ LIFEHACKER.

Inkmusings

Gary Varner expounds on an earlier post about who gets to see our journals:

"...the question of “can one write freely in a journal,” or does our internal censor too frequently override the desire to write without boundaries. Personally, I’ve never felt 100% free in my written journals, either thinking someone might peek or one day my sons would sit and read through Dad’s ramblings, thus evidencing what they suspected all those teenage years: Dad really did have a few loose screws. I have tried using a password-locked computer-based journal, and while that allows freerer expression, the fact it was an artificial protection made me feel too sneaky about what I was writing. Maybe if I had a burning need to express anger at someone or something more often this “write freely” concept would be an issue, but the truth is my journals are largely about mundane, daily things or my repetitions of imploring myself to achieve more, stick to goals, lose weight, yada, yada. In other words, the usual tripe that infects the majority of journals..."

Gary Varner

Visit his blog, "Inkmusings"
Related post.
 

© 2006 GV

Shining Tree of Life

"Weary old faiths make art while hot young sects make only trouble. Insincerity, or at least familiarity, seems to be a precondition of a great religious art—the wheezing and worldly Renaissance Papacy produced the Sistine ceiling, while the young Apostolic Church left only a few scratched graffiti in the catacombs. In America, certainly, very little art has attached itself directly to our own dazzling variety of sects and cults, perhaps because true belief is too busy with eternity to worry about the décor. The great exception is the Shakers, who managed, throughout the hundred or so years of their flourishing, to make objects so magically austere that they continue to astonish our eyes and our sense of form long after the last Shakers stopped shaking. Everything that they touched is breathtaking in its beauty and simplicity. It is not a negative simplicity, either, a simplicity of gewgaws eliminated and ornament excised, which, like that of a distressed object found in a barn, appeals by accident to modern eyes trained already in the joys of minimalism. No, their objects show a knowing, creative, shaping simplicity, and to look at a single Shaker box is to see an attenuated asymmetry, a slender, bending eccentricity, which truly anticipates and rivals the bending organic sleekness of Brancusi’s “Bird in Flight” or the algorithmic logic of Bauhaus spoons and forks. Shaker objects don’t look simple; they look specifically Shaker.

Yet what the Shakers thought they were doing when they made their boxes and ladders and clocks, and why we think what they did was so lovely, remains something of a mystery, despite a booming market and the books to go with it. How did a sect so small make objects so sublime? Did they know what they were doing when they did what they did? Or were they doing something else, and doing this other, better thing on their way there?..."

"Shining Tree of Life"
What the Shakers did.
by ADAM GOPNIK

The New Yorker

LINK

Moleskines and working methodologies

Lee Hopkins, one of Australia's leading communication strategists writes about his Moleskine:

"The challenge one often faces with a new toy is how to take best advantage of it, how to shape and structure it for optimum reward, both intrinsic and pragmatic.

This is no different with my new Moleskine notebook.

I did think of breaking it into sections:

    * Blog ideas
    * Personal ideas
    * Miscellaneous

as the photo at the top of this post shows.

However, upon reflection I realise that I am very much a ’stream of consciousness’ writer, so partitioning my paper hard drive, as it were, is not how my brain works (much to Mrs BetterComms’ annoyance)..."

Lee Hopkins
Visit his blog.

Coloriffic cupcake notepad and bookmark

"customised moleskine notebook stamped with home made cupcake stamp with beaded bookmark and finally some embroidery supplies."

"Color-iffic"
Craftapalooza

Visit.

© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Making the Switch

Witness the transition:

"Not that kind of switch!!!

From my electronic PDA, my much love TungstenE to a moleskine address book. I'm nto sure I like the molie adress book but I'll see how it works for me. I'm tired of lugging around a PDA thais sometimes charged and sometimesnot, and mostcetainly not always charged when I need it to be. So tswitch from PalmTop to MoleTop is an easy one for me."

Leslie @ LJ

LINK

© 2006 Leslie Herger

Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing

"The Buddha is quoted as saying; "We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience..." 

Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing : Meditation in Action (Paperback)
by Frederick Franck

AMAZON LINK

Thanks Clotilde, Steve, Merlin and everyone!

As we pass some statistical milestones tonight, I would like to thank our top personal website referrers: Steve Makofsky's "The Furry Goat Experience" ,Clotilde Dusoulier's "Chocolate & Zucchini." and Merlin Mann's "43 Folders". Thank you, merci beaucoup!

My grateful appreciation to everyone who has linked to us from Asahi to Astoria and Zagreb to Zaragoza.

On penmanship

"Through the (almost) 5 years since I’ve left college, I’ve been keenly aware of the declining quality of my penmanship.  Like so many others, 99% of the written word I generate is recorded via a keyboard and computer instead of via pen and ink.  About two years ago, I decided that, in order to reverse the declining quality of my handwriting, I needed to be very intentional about regularly picking up a pen and writing.  Around the same time I came to this realization, I was gifted my first fountain pen by Mr. Anderson.  Shortly after receiveing the pen (and ordering some inks from Levenger), I picked up my first Moleskine and started writing regularly.  Since that time, I’ve tried (with varying success) to sit down at least once weekly to write a few pages.  Honestly, I can’t say that my penmanship has improved a whole lot, but that’s okay.  I’ve really come to enjoy the ritual that comes along with “real” writing.  Like the ritual of filling, tamping, lighting, and enjoying a nice pipe with a friend, I take joy in the process of selecting ink, drawing it up into the pen and putting the ink to paper in a meaningful way..."

Andersonfam.org

Visit.

Who looks at your moleskine?

Nadine asked:

"Do you keep your notebook to yourself? Do you show it to others, to who? "

Kathrin2305: "It depends on... who wants to see it... my best friends are allowed to have a look, because I know that they wouldn't read my diary entries. The rest of interested people can look at flickr, because before I load up the moleskine pages I blur the text."

Ana Malha:  " No one, just me! "

djpuppyt: " Mine are used for sketches, poetry, musical notation, and typography so any and everyone is allowed to see".

Join the discussion  @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.

Image: "moleskine" by minkoff @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Moleskine con Cerveza

" En Toledo, haciendo una pausa del turista."

Dispersi0n @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
Some rights reserved.

Cat vs Moleskine

Fade Theory.

Visit.

© 2006 Fade Theory

Putting Pen to Paper Anew

Dan Morse has a nice article on the Washington Post today:

(Photo: Linda Davidson - The Washington Post)

"Sitting in a coffee shop, Eric Henning, an occasional but aspiring cook, asked himself: What dishes do I want to learn to make over the next year?

It was the kind of welcoming thought that can drift into the mind of someone leading a hectic life. Before it drifted out, Henning had two options to record his answer.

One was a hand-held digital assistant, rigged with an extra 128-megabyte memory card. The other, a little black notebook called a Moleskine, the style similar to those used by Hemingway, van Gogh and others who hung out in Paris cafes.The 44-year-old Laurel businessman didn't hesitate. He opened the Moleskine to two fresh pages. He jotted down 20 dishes: oyster stew . . . grilled fish tacos with dill-lime sauce . . . Maryland red crab soup . . . pecan pie.

That urge -- to take command over a tidy, small expanse of paper, to quickly write in your own hand -- has turned the smartly marketed literary throwback into one of the odder trends of the instant-information age. Moleskine use has erupted in Washington and elsewhere, driven in part by a subculture of tech-savvy people otherwise electronically gadgeted to the hilt..."

"Putting Pen to Paper Anew"
By Dan Morse
The Washington Post

LINK
LINK 2
Related post: previous press mentions of Moleskinerie.

[Thanks Mike Shea]

The death of handwriting ?

Stuart Jeffries has a piece on The Guardian:

" Patrick McGoohan's words are becoming less and less true as technology extends its cheerless remit. "I am not a number," he declared in The Prisoner, "I am a free man." But increasingly we are numbers - digitised and quantified, rewritten as algorithms and asked for our personal codes to confirm who we are before call centre workers will deign to bandy words with us. As if to prove the point, from this morning anyone with a chip and pin card will be obliged to use their pin number and not their signature when making a purchase. It seems odd that the powers-that-be have used Valentine's Day as the deadline for their unromantic automatisation project. Who, after all, writes poetry about pin cards? Let's have a go. "Roses are red, violets are blue, my pin number is 3, 5, 4, 2" (It isn't, incidentally. I'm not that daft).

Rather than sinuous penmanship, our identities are increasingly confirmed by numbered sequences that have been imposed on us. And, if signatures are becoming increasingly irrelevant, what then is the future for handwriting in a world when (according to a new Lloyds TSB Insurance survey) one in three children has a computer in the bedroom, many more are accustomed to writing on them at home and school and, if I had a penny for every time I have heard or read parents and teachers bemoaning the poor state of pupil's handwriting, I would have enough for a £335 Mont Blanc Meisterstück fountain pen in precious resin with a gold-plated finish?"

LINK

Image: "Fernando Pessoa Quotes"
By thisisyourbrainonlithium @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Some rights reserved. 

Greetings to our friends in Madrid, Reno, NV, Moose Jaw, Hainan, Krung Thep, Momoxpan, Turramurra, Bargfiled, Giraltovce, Arezzo, Medronhal, Bristol, Kansas City, MO, Langset, Kalkaji Devi, Tateno, Richrath, Agana, Nassau, Shiraz, Kampala, Fox and Geese,  Dnipropetrovsk, Guayaquil,  Bandar Seri Begawan, Kaohsiung,  Sana'a, Vaud, Lublin, Uttar Pradesh, Yaracuy, Nantes, Lagartena, Parana, Sungai Besi and Senegal.

Under The Loupe #4: Keeping a Sketchbook

"Sketchbooks are about as basic as it gets when you are talking about visual design. You, a pencil, and some paper. But oh, the power these simple tools hold! Sketchbooks take many forms, and at times the actual sketchbook can be it’s own form of expression. They range from the stylish Moleskine, to basic art store brand, to handmade stacks of stapled paper. You don’t need to be a great artist to have one, and you don’t need to be trained in… well, anything. Sketchbooks aren’t as expensive as software, but they can be much more powerful.

 

Designers need to be visual leeches, constantly cataloguing and recording information like a camera that’s always snapping photos. As designers we really never stop working, every thing thing we see, every thing we hear and experience shapes our creative process. A sketchbook serves as a physical repository for all of those outside stimuli. I use my sketchbook often to scrawl down ideas before I forget them or to quickly flesh out concepts. It serves as a timely archive of where I have been and what I’ve done. Because I created everything inside, it takes on a new life as a book of my ideas. It’s not a design annual or a gallery of websites; it’s a book of my concepts that I can always go back to and reference for future work..."

Jason Santa Maria
Visit his blog.

AFK*: "Cars? What cars?"

I was at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show over the weekend. You are invited to view my photoset at FLICKR.

Images by ABF

© 2006. All Rights Reserved.

*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.

The Idea Book

LINK.

Moleskine-inspired background

Kinda difficult to see but you'll know what I mean when you see it:

"I always wanted a moleskine inspired background for my desktop background..."

Lost in Scotland @ FLICKR. "Ruled" version.
Some rights reserved.

[Thanks Jake!]

HAPPY PRESIDENT'S DAY!

Commentator Michael Hood reflects on the dreariness of winter. Every President's Day, he braves the cold to plant peas -- hoping that spring will soon arrive. The combined birthday celebration is a time, he says, to perform an act of faith.

Listen on NPR's "All Things Considered"

Featured Artist: Nathanael.Archer

Being a wanderer in Asian culture.

I discovered calligraphy about two or three years ago. I was writing poetry and a friend of mine drove my attention to short poems, haiku and calligraphy. I was seduced by what can be achieved by calligraphy and may be associated with the notion of satori or a sudden poetical enlightenment / awakening.

I tried Chinese, Japanese and Arabic calligraphies. Tibetan calligraphy was the most appealing to me. Maybe because Tibet's culture is endangered. Tibetan people have to struggle to keep their culture alive and struggle against the mechanisms with which the Chinese government tends to erase one of the most ancient cultures and languages. Nevertheless, my path is the one of a profane, I am neither Tibetan nor have an extensive knowledge of this culture. I am wandering in the Asian culture like a barbarian, playing with brushes, ink and knives. I am neither a purist nor a traditionalist, but I have been influenced by many books (In praise of the Shadows, by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki ; Essays by Shitao ; The art of calligraphy : joining heaven and earth, by Chogyam Trungpa ; see also Jigme Douche’s Tibetan calligraphies). I have the deepest respect for the art of calligraphy.

Nathanael Archer

Continue reading.

...
We will resume The Wandering Moleskine Project  soon.

Suggestions are welcome at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups.

I leave you with this thought:

"Write to save yourself, and someday you'll write because you've been saved."

Anne Michaels, FUGITIVE PIECES

[Thanks JC!]

Winter jasmine season is on!

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

Feltrinelli Moleskine Ad

Apparently there's a new ad campaign for Feltrinelli. Here's part of the copy from our Italian sources:

"EXCITING! the new promotion  labelled "la Feltrinelli":
Arouse your mind, revile boredom and  rouse your curiosity......

EXCITING! La nuova promozione targata la Feltrinelli
Risveglia la mente, combatte la noia, stimola la voglia di libri, CD, DVD e videogame con sconti fino al 40%. Dal 14 febbraio al 12 marzo 2006...."

What can I say, when in Rome...shop at Feltrinelli ! :)

Alexadex

Alexadex is a place to buy virtual shares in websites, with the share prices set according to Alexa.com's site traffic ranking.

"price:$32per share
shares available:111shares
last price change:2006-02-15 09:24:51"

ALEXADEX

Meanwhile, on Blogshares.
Know how much this blog is worth, here.

Lost My Moleskine, But Found Out We Live In A Small World

Steve Holden writes:

"In my rush to get to the airport on Friday afternoon in Washignton DC, my Moleskine fell out of my jacket, and I accidently left it on the floor of my rental car.

I didn't know it was missing until I checked my voice mail at LAX, and Christy left me a message that someone had found it in the car after they rented it (nice cleaning job Enterprise)...."

Visit his blog.
Related post: "How much is your Moleskine worth?"

Image: ABF

"Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906"

      San Francisco – On Thursday, February 9, 2006, the California Historical Society opens its earthshaking centennial exhibit, Jack London and the Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906, guest curated by author and historian, Philip L. Fradkin, (The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906, University of California Press, 2005).       

On the morning of April 18, 1906, Jack London and his wife, Charmian, were in Glen Ellen shaken awake, like everyone else in the Bay Area and northern California by the earthquake of the century.     

To create this exhibit, Mr. Fradkin has combined photographic images taken by Jack London, as well as images from the collections of the California Historical Society, utilized text references from the May 5, 1906 article in Collier’s magazine, and excerpts from Charmian London’s diary and scrapbooks. Some of these images have never been seen before or been available for public display. The images come from the diary of Jack London’s wife and are a part of the collection of the Hurlingthon  Library.

Visit.

© 2006 All Rights Reserved. California Historical Society.

[Grazie Silvia!]

Wyoming Border Collies

A typical day for a group of Border Collies working cattle on farmland near Wheatland Wyoming.   

A photo essay by Moleskinerie pal Dan Milnor.

California based photographer Daniel Milnor specializes in long-term, black and white documentary work relating to a variety of topics including, Sicilian Easter Processions, Big-Wave Surfing, Portuguese Bloodless Bullfighting, California Off-Highway Vehicular Recreation Parks, Exotic Game Ranches as well as Los Angeles Urbanization. He has worked in the newspaper and magazine fields and was a photographer specialist for Eastman Kodak Company.

Link to "Wyoming Border Collies"

Visit the photographer's websites. 1 2

"Pilot Error"

Erik Engstrom reports of a *gasp* G-2 malfunction:

"I was scribbling a shopping list in my moleskine this morning with my favorite Pilot G-2 0.5. A bit later I went back to make an addition, and discovered that the pen wasn’t writing anymore. Closer examination revealed that the tiny ball had popped out of the tip, and a little spring-loaded wire was sticking out in its place. Strange! Alas, finding a ball that measures less than one millimeter in diameter in the carpet was utterly hopeless, not to mention the challenge of putting it back, so I gave up after about two seconds..."

Full report at his blog.

Readying a New Notebook

"Some people make lists of things they need to do. I write down what I have done. Being chronically afflicted with a sense of never accomplishing enough, this device is tremendously illuminating. Each day starts at the top of the page with month, day, and day of the week printed. The entry itself is bulleted.

Not only can I see what I've done at the end of each day, I also have a useful record for reference. All sorts of things merit a bullet on my lists and I frequently find myself flipping back to look up something.

For less orderly notebook scribbling I've taken to carrying a soft grid Moleskine cahier as my notebook's baby brother. Together these two small notebooks are my brain. I wish I'd developed this system years ago.

So, why not a PDA? Oh, I have one, a nice Palm Tungsten. I use it to read ebooks and to organize addresses. It's quite useful, but when I need to think, I need pen and paper, to flip pages through my contemplative fingers, to compare and to assimilate, to feel all that information is right there and not at the mercy of a dying battery..."

"Readying a New Notebook"
By Rana K. Wlliamson

Visit her blog, "Notes From an Eclectic Mind"

Image: "Kink in the bookmark" by Visual Impact
Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
Some rights reserved.

Passing of Trees

Requiem for a tree.

"...Five years I walked by this tree every day and not once did I fail to stop and admire it, even if only for a second. Now it is gone and no one will ever lament its passing. What a waste of a life."

Laughing Knees

Visit.

Moleskine vs. fine art

"I had a debate with a fellow artist this weekend. I've decided to start using moleskines a la journals/graphic scores/art books as my artwork to start showing in galleries and he's under the assumption that journals and sketchbooks are not finished artwork. I create real minimal art pieces and I like to work small and in this way I'm working small and my studio is portable.

Age old debate, what is everyone else's thoughts on this?

I select moleskines for their durability, small size, and acid free paper over every other journal/sketchbook."

DJPuppyt
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/FLICKR.

Image: "the graph system" by Djpuppyt @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Happy Valentine's Day

"The Promise...... a mother's Valentine message for her daughter"

By Kathleen Marie
Visit her blog, "So Many Stars"
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.
...

Valentine's Day Lexicon fun

amoraphobia
n. an irrational fear of Valentine’s Day.

blue bawls

n. an emotional, romantic version of flirting that leaves you feeling sad and crying.

bud light
n. the blatantly cheap flower selection from a guy who needs to be dumped ASAP. (How was your V-Day? Bud light.)

carniwhore
n. a girl who puts out for carnations.

do-or-diamond
adj. as in, if I don’t see a ring today, he’s dead to me.
long-stem posers
n. people who send themselves flowers from a “secret admirer.”

lote
v. to walk the thin line between love and hate. (I lote Johnny. One day he’s a dollface; the next he’s a total wanker.)

ménage à flaws
n. when you crash your friend’s Valentine’s Day date only to talk about all your relationships gone wrong.

PDR
n. public display of rejection: when your valentine takes you somewhere lovely only to break your heart in front of strangers.

Valentiny Tim
n. a man whose masculinity is put in question by his overenthusiasm for V-Day. (I mean, I don’t expect him to be a Valentiny Tim, but he could at least try to hide his total amoraphobia.)

  bandwagoner
n. A once-single woman who traditionally swears off the holiday but is now happily coupled off and suddenly all about hearts, roses, and luuuv …
candy-boxer
n. A cop-out gifter. (“Good old George. He’s a total candy-boxer, but I still love him.”)
cryday the 13th

n. The day before Valentine’s Day if you don’t have a boy/girlfriend.

Read on at Daily Candy

[Thanks JC!]

More Valentine's Day goodness at Barbara Demarco-Barrett's blog
and Lorretine's FLICKR.
...

Love whales? Keep 'em alive. [via Lise]

Biscuits Chocolat et Fèves de Cacao

From our friend Clotilde:

"Soft and cakey and thrice chocolate-flavored -- from the velvet of melted chocolate, the strength of cocoa powder, and the aromatic crunch of cacao nibs -- these bite-size cookies should fit into either one of these Valentine's Day scenarios:

1. You tend to throw yourself rhapsodically into the whole gift-and-card-and-flower-giving thing: it's fun, it's red, and it gives you the perfect excuse to buy and eat chocolate. In this case, you can bake a batch or two of these cookies, wrap them up in all manner of glossy ribbons and heart-shaped tins, and spread the love..."

Chocolate & Zucchini

Savor.
...
Valentine's Day-related Moleskine sighting: "Flirting with Danger" on Lifetime. Crystal says it was a daily diary. Thanks!

Moleskine: A Quest For the Right Pen

Simão M has a series of posts on Moleskine-friendly pens at his blog:

"One of my new year resolutions is "Learn to draw" and my favorite notebooks are Moleskines, so I thought in combining these two.

I like to doodle (aka draw) with pens with a very fine nib, and as I said in an earlier post, I use a Uniball Signo 0.5mm, but it isn't fine enough to draw, at least for me, so I tested these pens..."

Visit SlogPlog.

Where did you find that?

A local ad for Moleskine notebooks.

[via Bookworm]

Set creativo.

Set Creativo:
· Libreta Moleskine Sketch Negra
· Goma Staedtler Mars Plastic
· Lapices Staedtler 0, 2 y 4.

"Image: "Set Creativo" by DidE, Tarragona, España
Moleskinerie/FLICKR.

© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Analog Vs. Digital Journals

"There's an interesting analog vs. digital debate going on out in cyberspace that I first picked up on at Into The Snow. I knew instantly that I am an analog type of gal. I don't own a microwave and prefer to use my stove. I don't care about the type of ring tones on my phone and selected the least annoying one. I don't want a Blackberry but I have three paper calendars that I keep up to date (one in my kitchen, one at the office, one in my bag). I will never get the appeal of reading a book online versus holding a book in your hands, smelling the paper (I sniff paper, I admit it), turning the pages, and looking at rows of books on a shelf.

There's a new word out in UrbanDictionary called anablog, a play on the words analog and blog.

 

ANABLOG

The old fashioned journal you wrote in with crushed tree pulp, binding, and maybe some kind of lock mechanism. For some reason people used to like writing opinions only they read. It is a fad past its prime but Borders still sells them for some reason."

Colleen's Open Notebook

Image: "RIP 2005.04.21 - 2006.02.12" by Verdammelt @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission. Also check out the next frame, " Le Notebook est mort. Vive le Notebook!"

Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile

" This is the story of a tortoise whose real life was observed by the eighteenth-century English curate Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne. For thirteen years, Timothy lived in White’s garden—making an occasional appearance in his journals. Now Klinkenborg gives the tortoise an unforgettable voice and powers of observation as keen as those of any bipedal naturalist. The happy result: Timothy regales us with an account of a gracefully paced (no unseemly hurry!) eight-day adventure outside the gate (“How do I escape from that nimble-tongued, fleet-footed race? . . . Walk through the holes in their attention”) and entertains us with shrewd observations about the curious habits and habitations of humanity. “To humans,” Timothy says with doleful understanding, “in and out are matters of life and death. Not to me. Warm earth waits just beneath me. . . . The humans’ own heat keeps them from sensing it.”

Wry and wise, unexpectedly moving, and enchanting at every—careful—turn, Timothy will surprise and delight readers of all ages..."

Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile

 

Written by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Nature - Animals Hardcover
February 2006 $16.95  0-679-40728-6

Available at Amazon.

[Thanks Marcus!]

I Hate Obsessions

"Like a lot of things, but I've never been one to wave the flag or banner for any of them. I'm not that guy. That guy annoys me.

 

Obsession is always something I've looked at with distaste. Having never experienced it before, I didn't understand it. I thought it was below me, like wearing trucker hats.

 

I was wrong.

 

The truth of the matter is, I always had an obsession. It went unfulfilled, unspoken for many years. Until now.

 

The object of my preternatural fixation?

 

Moleskine notebooks."

Visit Ron's Modern Life.

Image: VeldaZ @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
Some rights reserved.

Moleskine Group at MySpace

The Moleskine Notebooks for Life group at MySpace is approaching the 100th member mark. Congratulations Jeremy and Co.

LINK

Greetings to our friends in Prince Edward Island, Pristina, Parow, Raleigh, NC, Kruberg, Semarang, Noborioji, Forbes Park, Arad, Solanilla del Tamaral, Limassol, Islamabad, Koputaroa, Amf OHare, Caroline Hill, Scarborough, Amman, Paris, Queretaro de Arteaga, Saint Thomas, Kista, Praha and Turin.

Featured Artist: Allison Sommers

"Currently, I’m working as a graphic designer for a paper in the lovely little hamlet (well, it’s bigger than a hamlet; a ham?) of Charlottesville, Virginia. I’ll admit: though I love my job, it was pure accident. I prefer my mediums more immediate, more tangible, and more of a mess than cold Quark & Photoshop.

Thusly, Moleskine: companion to my wandering imagination, my occasional epiphanies, and my gnat-like attention span. There’s something about its yellowy pages that nullifies the empty brain and anxiousness that an ordinary white sheet presents. And it's small enough for trips to bars and for fitting between my keyboard and the edge of my desk (really, what else does one do when PDFing?). As for my work, I’m constantly problem-solving; I’m in between the answer and the solution but wholly unaware of what either of those are. My best guess is that they involve busty girls, outdated fabric patterns, and sea creatures, with a healthy dose of non-sequitur."

Allison

View her FLICKR photoset.

...
We will resume The Wandering Moleskine Project soon.

Suggestions are welcome at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups.

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

Yakap

Yakap.org

LINK

[Thanks Joy!]

[Yakap = Tagalog/Filipino for "embrace"]

The Secret Notebook of Walter Mitty

"...there are a couple of times where you can see that it is floppy and bendy.

Still, it plays a big part in the movie as his PDA...well you can see here he is listing things to bring home."

Leslie Russell

Flickr Link

 

Sketch Project

Do you sketch? Todd V. wants you:

"What you are looking at is the beginning of a crazy, wacked-out, massive, collaborative, art project. And you are invited to be a part of it!

This year I made a decision to spend more time working on my drawing techniques. To that end I have decided to carry my sketch diary with me at all times and force myself to try new styles and techniques and push myself beyond my comfort zone.

Whenever the mood strikes I am going to stop what I am doing and add to my sketchbook. In so doing I will have dozens of neato sketches to work with each month.

So, I will compile these images into a singular poster print at the end of each month. To make it even more fun, and gain even further inspiration I am inviting you to join in the fun!

I will add your doodles, scribbles, and drawings into my works, if you want to send them to me. You don't have to be an artist to send your drawings in. Just send me whatever you happen to be doodling while you are listening to that telemarketer on the phone, or when you are talking to your mom... (not that I would do such a thing)"

LINK

Armpit of the Mole

Simply amazing:

"Armpit of the Mole is a new compilation of drawings from 44 artists, European and American, gathered in a work of 280 pages in full colour with the cover in a Moleskin texture published by the fundació 30 km/s. This edition is conceived as a compilation of varied and original work. The introduced artists were each invited to show on six pages a sharp outline of their research and various universes..."

Visit.

[Grazie, Tatiana!] 

Zenith Trans-Oceanic & Moleskine Diary

More radio and Moleskine juxtapositions:

A Zenith Trans-Oceanic Clipper (8G005) with a Pocket Moleskine Diary. Thanks to Marc Veeneman & Mike Williams.

Image by ABF @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved

Real Artists Use Unlined Moleskines.

"Hack writers use the lined ones. Real artists use moleskine notebooks. Hack writers use the skinny paper that bleeds and runs if you get seriously water colorish. Real artists undoubtedly pronounce their Sketchbook Of Choice "mol-a-skeen-a", the artsy, Italian way. Hack writers in a hurry call them 'skines, as in "skines" not "skins".

Truth be....I tried the sketchbooks. Really. I have three of them at home and 1.5 of them have stuff in them. I wanted to be a real artist. I was willing to pay the price of admission. But the derned things were