moleskinerie

Featured Artist: Joyce Cole

"I have always sketched, but usually I would put off drawing in order to do the more "urgent" everyday stuff. Sometimes months would pass with no drawing. Not anymore. I started by joining in the challenges at Danny Gregory's "Everyday Matters" yahoo group. Now after about 8 months, sketching the everyday stuff is an almost daily habit. I take my Moleskine everywhere....draw in waiting rooms, in boats, on trains. I just take my little black book, a Faber-Castell PITT artist pen (S), and sometimes a waterbrush and a little set of pan watercolors. It's amazing...the freedom to mess up in my sketchbook has allowed me to try to draw all kinds of things. After all, it's never going to have to hang on a wall as a finished piece...it's just another sketch among many. I love the plainess of my Moleskine. I feel like I can take it out and sketch without drawing alot of attention. I'm filling these little books up with bits and pieces of my life. In the process, I'm seeing my life a little more clearly and appreciating it more along the way."

Joyce Cole

View her works @ FLICKR.
More at her website, drawdaily.com
© 2006 JC All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

Submissions or nominations for featured artists, writers, poets et alii are welcome.

Paperitif.com, Official Sponsor of the Wandering Moleskine Project.
Thanks to Jen Leo, Pencil World Creativity Store, Frances Mai-Ling, C.M. Mayo  and Dave Gray of XPlane.

Discover and join the Moleskine communities at MYSPACE, FLICKR, ORKUT, SQUIDOO, LIVEJOURNAL & GOOGLEGROUPS.Visit the newest Moleskine-centric blog on the block, Robert Strohmeyer's Moleskinner.com.

I leave you with this thought via JC in Wien:

"Writing has ... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer."

Henrik Ibsen

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

Essay on Daylight Saving

"I took for the basis of my calculation the supposition that there are one hundred thousand families in Paris, and that these families consume in the night half a pound of bougies, or candles, per hour. I think this is a moderate allowance, taking one family with another; for though I believe some consume less, I know that many consume a great deal more. Then estimating seven hours per day as the medium quantity between the time of the sun's rising and ours, he rising during the six following months from six to eight hours before noon, and there being seven hours of course per night in which we burn candles, the account will stand thus;--

In the six months between the 20th of March and the 20th of September, there are
Nights     183
Hours of each night in which we burn candles     7
Multiplication gives for the total number of hours     1,281
These 1,281 hours multiplied by 100,000, the number of inhabitants, give     128,100,000
One hundred twenty-eight millions and one hundred thousand hours, spent at Paris by candle-light, which, at half a pound of wax and tallow per hour, gives the weight of     64,050,000
Sixty-four millions and fifty thousand of pounds, which, estimating the whole at-the medium price of thirty sols the pound, makes the sum of ninety-six millions and seventy-five thousand livres tournois     96,075,000

An immense sum! that the city of Paris might save every year, by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles. If it should be said, that people are apt to be obstinately attached to old customs, and that it will be difficult to induce them to rise before noon, consequently my discovery can be of little use; I answer, Nil desperandum. I believe all who have common sense, as soon as they have learnt from this paper that it is daylight when the sun rises, will contrive to rise with him; and, to compel the rest, I would propose the following regulations; First. Let a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun..."

Benjamin Franklin's "Essay on Daylight Saving" 
Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Paris, 1784

LINK

Remember: DST begins on April 2nd at 2 A.M.

Pictured:
Benjamin Franklin Clock
Eight-day time & strike movement
White metal case with rosewood base
Excellent condition
Available at Kenneth Sposato's

Meet Geoff C. and Lady Bracknell

"I here neyther that ne this, for when my labor doon al ys and have made al my rekenynges I goon hom to my hous anoon and, also domb as any stoon, I sitte at another book tyl fully daswed ys myn look. Certes, I oghte to get outte more."

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog

"It has recently come to Lady Bracknell's attention that there exists a blog suitable for those readers who find her ladyship's own prose style to be somewhat too modern and avant garde for their linguistic tastes: Geoffrey Chaucer has joined the blogosphere!

There has, perforce, been a considerable gap between the publication of the Canterbury Tales and Mr Chaucer's current work, but Lady Bracknell is pleased to note that the gentleman in question has lost none of his wit or sense of mischief during the intervening centuries. Indeed, she would go so far as to say that Mr Chaucer demonstrates an admirably sprightly intellect for one of his advanced years...."

The Perorations of Lady Bracknell
....
Spring greetings!

Our pal, Danny Gregory is home and posting again *whew*. Visit.

Love is a Many Moleskine Thing

“Hello, my name is Gary, and I am a journal addict.” Or so I might introduce myself at the local chapter meeting of MA (Moleskine Anonymous)…if there were such a group.

Packing my briefcase on Monday for yet-another-office-trudge, I noticed the pile of Moleskines on the coffee table next to my shoulder bag I use on weekends for carrying all my crap from café to café. (The life of a nomadic writer is all about creative pack-n-tote.) So there I was, doing the usual Monday-morning chore of gathering up the appropriate office-necessary Moleskines, when I realized (admittedly for the first time) that I am rather dependent on Modo e Modo’s famous product line...

So is therapy in order? Intervention? A bigger briefcase?

Nah. Each Moleskine I use fulfills a distinct function, and while I could consolidate (and may when current versions fill up), part of the joy of journaling comes from the tools. Just like selecting the right pen is important for paper and occasion, choosing the right Moleskine is necessary for the utility desired. I do hope the creative ones at Modo e Modo only release new, clever versions slowly, so I am not tempted to further complex an already somewhat confusing array of notebooks. If that happens, then I may just have to get one of those small, sexy buff cahiers to keep track of my Moleskine bad boys." 

"Love is a Many Moleskine Thing"
By Gary Varner
Visit his site, "inkmusings"

© 2006 GV

Sheaffer’s Snorkel

Stephen Lehman sent us this wonderful Pentrace link:

"During World War II, the German navy adopted a device called a Schnorchel (often spelled “Schnorkel” in English-language writings), which was a tube that could be extended above the ocean’s surface by a submerged submarine, allowing the submarine to draw in fresh air without surfacing. In 1952, Sheaffer’s Snorkel TM appeared on the market, superseding the very successful Touchdown TM line. The design of the Snorkel is virtually identical to that of the Touchdown, elongated a small amount to accommodate the additional Snorkel filling mechanism. The pen uses a tube like a Schnorchel, but in reverse; the pen’s tube allows the pen to draw in ink without being immersed in the bottle. The most complex filling system ever applied to a fountain pen, the Touchdown-derived Snorkel system was a last-ditch attempt to fight the onslaught of the ballpoint pen, whose great advantage lay in its convenience: no “dunk” filling, reliable writing, and a long write-out. The system works remarkably well, and Snorkels are considered very reliable pens....

...Most pens have Snorkel tubes made of stainless steel (silver or gray colored metal), but some  Snorkel tubes were made of a gold-colored metal that appears to be phosphor bronze. The Snorkel tube for a Triumph nib is cut diagonally across its end and oriented so that the open surface aligns with the under surface of the feed. This alignment automatically places the slits in the tube‘s end properly. The Snorkel tube for an open nib is cut straight across its end, but it is still aligned to place its slits correctly. (The lengthwise slit at the end of the tube is nearest the nib, and the two transverse slits are therefore at the sides.) The following illustration shows a Triumph nib with its Snorkel tube extended. You can see the diagonal slits at the sides of the tube’s tip, and you can see the end of the secondary feed that runs the length of the Snorkel tube."

Profile: Sheaffer’s Snorkel
by Richard Binder
Read on at Pentrace
[Thanks Steve!]

Moleskine in Korea

Moleskine "Written by hand" is  a new  blog in Korea.

Hwangyong-hamnida!

Visit: moleskine.co.kr

Why I Moleskine

We welcome one of the newest Moleskine-centric blogs on the block, Moleskinner.com by Robert Strohmeyer.

"Within seconds of laying my hands on my first Moleskine, I knew I had found the notebook for which I'd been searching. While I'm not sure I share quite the same level of quasi-religious fanaticism for these little bundles of paper that some other bloggers have expressed, the fact that I've gone to the trouble of starting this blog should suggest that I was not disappointed, either. With their handsome oilskin covers and sleek lines, Moleskine notebooks are the ultimate notebook for the serious journaler. Their precisely stitched bindings lay almost perfectly flat when open to just about any page, and the built-in closure strap keeps the notebook tidy in a pocket, protecting the pages from damage while not in use. And while it's not exactly an essential feature for my own use, the little integrated bookmark is a nice touch, too.

Since adopting my first Moleskine, I've become a devoted convert. And while I still test and review all sorts of PDA's, smart phones, and organizer apps in the course of my daily work, at the end of the day, I'm a pen-and-paper man. Sure, I could use any old notepad to jot down the stuff I need to remember from day to day, but as long as I can get my hands on a Moleskine, I suspect it'll always be my first choice...."

"Why I Moleskine"
Robert Strohmeyer
Check out Moleskinner.com.

Robert Strohmeyer is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. His work has appeared in such publications as Wired, MacAddict, Maximum PC, Mobile, PC Computing, Smart Business, and Official Xbox Magazine. He also writes a regular bimonthly technology column for Executive Travel magazine, review movies for the acclaimed website Filmcritic.com and run a gadget blog called Gear Factor for Wired News. To learn more, visit his website.

Law professor bans laptops in class

One more reason to use a notebook:

Photo: memphis.edu

"MEMPHIS (AP) — A group of University of Memphis law students are passing a petition against a professor who banned laptop computers from her classroom because she considers them a distraction in lectures.

On March 6, Professor June Entman warned her first-year law students by e-mail to bring pens and paper to take notes in class.

"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing," Entman said Monday. "The computers interfere with making eye contact. You've got this picket fence between you and the students."

The move didn't sit well with the students, who have begun collecting signatures against the move and tried to file a complaint with the American Bar Association. The complaint, based on an ABA rule for technology at law schools, was dismissed...."

USA Today/ Tech
March 21, 2006

LINK

Moleskine in the Medford Mail Tribune

" What’s the attraction?

"It’s the feel and the look. They’re classy and basic black. The cover and the paper feel good," says Karen Chapman, co-owner of Bloomsbury Books in Ashland. "We can’t keep them in stock. They just keep going out of here."

..."They (the smaller ones) go right in your back pocket," says Laramore, an Eagle Point resident. "I love them and use them all the time.

"I do a lot of journaling in them — also collages. They’re very popular in Europe and catching on fast here."

With Moleskines, Mullowney says he has found the perfect solution to all gift problems. He doesn’t just give one, he fills the multi-pocket versions with all manner of keepsakes, letters (from the person), newspaper articles, a poem or postcard, tickets to that special play. "It becomes kind of a mini-museum," he says..."

"THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK: Moleskine notebooks are back in vogue, re-igniting a centuries-old love affair"
By John Darling
for the Mail Tribune

LINK

[via Adam Machado's Hackerati]

Photo by  Mohd Adib Noh @  Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Reminder: Solar eclipse of Wednesday, March 29, 2006

"If you could move freely on the globe, you could enjoy the awesome spectacle of a total eclipse of the sun pretty often. The next one is scheduled to darken the daytime skies on Wednesday, March 29, 2006.

This week, you might be in Africa or Turkey. You might be cruising on the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas right now, waiting for Wednesday's eclipse. Your big concern would be the weather.

This total solar eclipse will rank as the top astronomical event for the year, for those in the right place to see it..."

Earth & Sky

No ticket? Watch it on the web.
More info at NASA's Eclipse page.
The Religion and Mythology of Solar Eclipses
Meet Mr. Eclipse.
Exploratorium
Eclipses Online UK
Space.com
BBC News coverage
FLICKR photos tagged  with "eclipse"
YouTube video of October 2005 eclipse from Valencia, Spain

Updated 3/29 9.21. A/CST

The coolest eclipse pic evar:

By "L" in Lisboa, Portugal @ FLICKR
Some rights reserved.
Welcome BoingBoing people! Thanks ^_^

Protecting Moleskine Cahiers

"I run my own real estate development corp. and I spend half my time behind my desk and the other half running around on construction sites. Usually I'm managing 2-4 construction projects at a time and  have to keep lots of notes for each project. To keep everything organized, I use a combination of Hipster DIY Planner pages and a Moleskine Cahier. The hard cover of the regular pocket Moleskine is too stiff my own comfort. I keep both items in my left back pocket and my moleskines quickly get worn out.  I've usually I use strapping tape along the edges of a cahier to keep my moleskine in one piece."

"Today, I was in the Franklin Covey section of my local Office Depot. And there I found the Task List Wallet. It's slightly larger than a Moleskine Cahier with various pockets: for a pen, credit cards, 3x5 cards and bills. I realized that with a little cutting, I could fit in a cahier and my Hipster cards."

"As a test, I used an old cahier to make sure of the fit. With a few millimeters  taken off the top and bottom, I'm able to fit the cahier into the Franklin wallet. And my Hipster cards fit perfectly into the Franklin wallet since both systems rely on 3x5 cards. In total, the wallet, a small pen, a few 3x5 cards and a cahier are the same thickness as a pocket Moleskine but much more flexible and much more
comforable in my back pocket."

"Although I've only used this wallet for one day, I think this is one of the better ways to protect my cahier notebooks. My only criticism is regarding the pen slot. It's on the spine of the wallet, and most normal-sized pens will force the wallet open instead of letting it laying flat."

Jimmy Duong

This Just in: Moleskine sale at Amazon UK

Bill has come up with another good one:

"In the UK amazon are selling small lined Moleskines for £3! The usual shop price is £8."

Moleskine Ruled Notebook 
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.00 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £15 with Super Saver Delivery. See details & conditions.
You Save: £5.99 (66%)
Availability: usually dispatched within 8 to 10 days.

PRODUCT LINK
SITE SEARCH RESULT FOR "'MOLESKINE"

[Thanks Bill!]

Neverland 2 : New Ephemera

"On the gusty day before winter's first snow, New York commuters could be forgiven for dreaming of vacations to warmer climes. If they happened to pick up one of 400 travel brochures distributed on the Manhattan-bound F train that morning, these Brooklyn residents might have been tempted by a destination boasting average winter temperatures of 84 degrees. They would no doubt have been further intrigued to learn that this island city's leading industries are winemaking and bookbinding, and that it features a Vegetation Museum, the world's largest flea market, "Pools of Certitude," and a natural feature known as the Subterranean Honey Baths.

Sadly for F-train commuters and other lovers of books, wine, and vegetation, the city of New Ephemera does not exist outside the imagination of Amanda Spielman, a 29-year-old graduate design student at MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts....

The brochure--an aesthetic cross between McSweeney's and Edward Tufte--evokes a fantasy culture where poetry and bicycle riding are exalted pastimes, and geographic features have names like Sea of Enumeration and Untold Islands. "I wanted it to seem rich and detailed, like a fairy tale too good to be true," says Spielman, who has worked as a graphic designer for Time Inc. and in art production for Food and Wine and Martha Stewart Living. Her tongue-in-cheek dream city features free ATM machines, a ban on plastic foliage, and an official motto of "people who don't read can't be trusted."

The Ephemeral City
By Karen E. Steen
Metropolismag.com

Visit.

Mason-Dixon Knitting

"Just for the record, you should know that I too, unbeknownst to my co- author Kay, am a loyal Moleskine user, too. See? Our entire friendship is based on these weirdo coincidences."

All best,

Ann Shayne
Nashville, TN

Their book, Mason-Dixon Knitting will be released  today.  Congratulations ladies!

Debossing your Moleskine

No, its not taking your notebook off management's hands. Eric Au, a Master's Candidate in Industrial Design at the University of Calgary has come up with this very cool M Mod:

"I have been a user of moleskines since about 1 year ago. I found that they were great b/c I could cram alot of stuff into them and at the end of each one, would be filled and ultra thick with information and design. I am an industrial design masters student and since joining the formal design community, I found it useful to make things very personalized, but keep them designer-ish. So I set out to make a debossing effect on the front cover."

" After careful thought, the best solution would be using some old typewritter fonts that would be used for a Canon electric typewritter that had exchangable wheels for different fonts. I aquired some through a very nice resource centre friend and staff. I carefully taped down the letters to form my name and the word design since that would be the purpose of this moleskine and each successful one from now on. Then taped the pattern of letters on the cover and tapped them with a hammer to depress the letters in the soft oilskin."

"The results were impressive and I enjoy it immensely. I will be doing these with maybe themes since I have a few sets of fonts. Stuff like differentiating the differences between the multiple moleskines I currently employ as my devices. I use the large and small grid ones."

"I hope this provides another way to personalize the front of the moleskine, but keep the clean and classic look of the book. For those who understand typography and care, the font is Orator size 10. Enjoy!"

Visit ericau.net.

View larger versions at Moleskinerie/FLICKR: 1 2 3 4

Homework help:

"Debossing: an inverted form of embossing in which a relief plate is placed under the sheet of paper as it is run through a press. That area of the paper is thus lowered, rather than raised.

Embossed print: a print in which a three-dimensional effect is achieved through the pressing of the paper into the crevices of the plate or wood block."

[via Silent Partner Consulting]

Greetings to our friends in Ypsilanti, MI., Medellin, Southbourne, Tai Tam, Russian Federation, Haarlem, Ajax, Tuskegee Institute, AL., Ansan, Jining, Caen, Padernello, Saksvik, Ibiricu, Colombo, Estoril, Kruishoek, Momoxpan, Kampong Haji Mohamad Sariff, Alto Peru, Kanaya, Ramat HaSharon, Hsinchu, Kryonrion, Accra, Egge, Mumbai, Vientiane, Gorgan and Maracaibo.

They're coming!

Surely, summer can't be far behind...

The 2006 Hummingbird Migration Maps (as of 3.15)

LINK

E-mail and text 'replace writing'

"The decline of handwriting and the rise of e-mail and text messaging has been highlighted in a new survey of media consumption in the digital age.

It suggests that half of written communication is by e-mail, 29% by text message and just 13% by pen and paper.

Among the over-65s, pen and paper remained popular at 39%, but among the young, the figure was much lower.

The IPA TouchPoints survey was based on 5,000 people who updated an electronic diary every half-hour for a week.

The research cost a £1m and is backed by the BBC, ITV and national newspaper groups.

It builds on the BBC's survey of Daily Life, which has been conducted every 10 years since the 1930s...."

LINK

[Thanks Neal!]

Image: "My Favorite Pen...and another Moleskine"
By DigiPicker @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR.
© All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Featured Artist: Wilfredo Pascual

I thrive on memory and displacement whenever I take pictures and write stories. I grew up in the Philippines and moved to Thailand more than ten years ago. And then year ago, I left Thailand. I have been constantly traveling since, the first six months around Southeast Asia, and the last six months in the United States. I have always been restless. I first ran away from home at the age of twelve. In 1990, I fell on a ravine in the remote Philippine highlands and spent New Year’s Eve there. I once traveled in search of a stranger’s missing brother and found him in a drug rehabilitation center where I was allowed to spend the night. I have traveled across the United States and the Philippines to document six generations of my family history.

I used to move around a lot because I wanted to run away from home. Nowadays, I move because I want to find connections with my past and my home, everywhere I go. I’m hoping that my pictures and stories would reflect that. I have spent a total of thirty days in a Buddhist monastery where I did not utter a single word. I had my back tattooed the traditional way in Cambodia and spent time with former Khmer Rouge leaders and transvestite loggers. I have spent three days in a boat, moored in the western coast of the Philippines, with an old woman, her rooster and her dog. I have taken the Greyhound bus and traveled across fourteen states in the US for four days. My works have been published in the Philippines, Thailand and the United States. Two years ago, I won a national award for my essay about fandom in the Philippines. I lost my medal the following day.

My stories can be read at personalwilli.blogspot.com; my pictures can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/wpascualjr .

"While Traveling in Asia"
By Wilfredo Pascual

 © All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Paperitif.com, Official Sponsor of the Wandering Moleskine Project. Thanks to Pam Nesmith Beard for her donation of 2 large sketchbooks.

Discover and join the Moleskine communities at MYSPACE, FLICKR, ORKUT, SQUIDOO, LIVEJOURNAL & GOOGLEGROUPS.

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

Soy Andina

"The dazzling story of two New York women raised in different worlds — an immigrant folk dancer from the Andes, and a modern dancer from Queens, NY — who journey to Peru in search of roots and dance.

After 15 years in New York, Nelida Silva returns to her birthplace in the Andes to fulfill a lifelong dream and host the fiesta patronal — an astonishing week of dance, music, and ritual from Incan times. But Neli's changed, and so has the village. What's it like to go back to the Andes when you've become a New Yorker?

Two years later: Cynthia Paniagua, a dancer raised in Queens by a Peruvian mom, embarks on her own Peruvian journey after meeting Neli — determined to "quench a burning desire to know the real Peru, to unearth the mystery of the dances." Does she find what she's looking for? Well, you'll have to see the movie!

Soy Andina is an exuberant cross-cultural road trip, bursting with traditional music and dance rarely seen outside the country. But the core story is intimate and universal: a yearning for roots and connection in turbulent times...."

MOVIE LINK
Listen to Latino USA/NPR Interview  (MP3)

Bonus points - The filmmakers are all Moleskine users:

Mitch Teplitsky (producer/director)
http://www.soyandina.com

Ingrid Patetta (editor)
http://ingridpatetta.blogspot.com/

Bud Parr (web/blog guy)
http://www.sonnetmedia.net

This just in: Mystery notebooks?

"Are we seeing the rise of a new brand? The birth of a new breed of journals? On sale at $1.19! Pretty,  nifty and supersized, too! More from my sources on Monday."

Mr. Bill, Man of Mystery

Update >

Chocolate Library

Again, because man can't live on Moleskine alone..."check this out".

"Willy Wonka should sue! 100% chocolate is a remarkable chocolate concept store in Japan's Kyobashi, Chuo-ku. Offering 56 different flavored chocolates, the store looks more like a chic cocktail bar then a chocolatorium...."

STORE LINK (in Japanese)

[via The Cool Hunter]

Yarn on Moleskine

Here's an example of how a Moleskine grid notebook fits perfectly into the whole scheme of knitterly things:

"1. Knitting the squares onto each other by picking up stitches. This will form the 4-square blocks without sewing. It also means that the striped squares will be differently oriented, creating interesting challenges and opportunities for messing around.

2. Joining the blocks, be they 4-square or be they 2-square or even 1-square, by picking up stitches along the edges to be joined, and doing 3-needle bind-offs. The 3-needle bind-off will be another design opportunity..."

Kay @ Mason-Dixon Knitting

Visit.

[Thanks Caroline Laudig]

Update:   

"Our book, Mason-Dixon Knitting, is being published on March 28 by Random House/Potter Craft.  A very fun, new kind of knitting book."

Yours in Moleskin Love,

Kay Gardiner                        

BOOK LINK       

Namiki Vanishing Point

This journal entry was written with the Namiki Vanishing Point.

I have found a fountain pen I love and recommend to whoever will listen to my fanatical raves about Moleskines and pens: The Namiki Vanishing Point, Fine Nib, the only retractable fountain pen available. They can be ordered online at bertramsinkwell.com in many colors, although I suspect that lovers of the sleek Moleskine will go for the brushed silver pen. At $100 the pens are an investment in this little obsession, but it has such a nice heft, the nib glides smoothly and you don't have to keep track of a cap. With a refillable reservoir, the pen can use any fountain pen ink you please. Though I do love my Namiki, it does run dry from time to time, so always keep a Micron 01 in my pocket for backup!

Rod Torrez

Annapolis, MD

Photo courtesy of the author

Write Places: O2 Sustainability Treehouse

How would you like to do your journaling in one of these?

"Designer Dustin Fieder took inspiration from the simple Japanese paper lantern, and from what we can tell from the photos, it glows just like one when illuminated at night. This seems like a great place for kids (and adults) to play. Sure beats the ramshackle plywood nailed-into-trunk treehouse of my youth! This treehouse would make the Ewoks proud."

Inhabitat

Visit.

Moleskine (among other) Mac Icons

Check it out @ pixelpressicons
Join the discussion at Moleskinerie/GoogleGroups here.

[via Christopher J. Meisenzahl]

This Just In : Moleskine on sale at Barnes & Noble

Ken Broman wrote:

"Don't know if you noticed, but large, ruled Moleskines are on sale at Barnes and Noble for $5. Putting them at $9.95."

Black Moleskine Ruled Journal 5x8

List Price:$14.95

B&N Price:$9.95 (Save 33%)

Member Price:$8.95

STORE LINK

[Thanks Ken!]

Pencil holder for notebooks

Radiorental has posted detailed plans for adding a pencil holder to Moleskine notebooks:

"Step 3 Cover top

Final fifth piece of tape goes on to give a little rigidity to the structure.  If you wanted you can lay down another two pieces either side if you think the pencil holder is going to take a little abuse.."

There's even a video!

More @ INSTRUCTABLES

[Thanks to Chris]
...
Update 3.22.06 1.10P CST

A nasty ear ache and watching a chef on the Travel Channel making lunch by the beach in Bora Bora. Priceless torture.

Kindly excuse the lag in response to your emails/calls while I wait for the antibiotic to kick in.

A

Friday on Moleskinerie.

Little working hands

Sometimes we just need to pause and appreciate the beauty of the people and things around us.

"If I had a pen
I'd draw in the morning
I'd draw in the evening ... all over this land,
I'd draw out danger
I'd draw out a warning
I'd draw out love between all of my brothers and my sisters
All over this land...."

A snapshot of Songlines' daughter sketching.

"Little Working Hands" @ FLICKR.
© 2006 Songlines. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Ribbon Irritation

"Does anybody else get annoyed with the placemarker ribbon on the Moleskine?  I cut mine off. . ."

- Rogue Explorer

"Sometimes I find it annoying when I flip open to the page and it's in the way when I'm trying to write. It can also be a pain when it's on a page behind the one you're writing on and you get too close to it and your pen or pencil punches through the paper, if that makes sense - I've done that a time or two. I've never considered cutting it off, though." - ae

"No, I love mine! It's one of the selling points..." - newsbean

"Yep! - I thought it would be a great feature but it just gets in the way - well done to you for being brave and getting rid of it!" - violetrose

Join the discussion at the Moleskine Users' Group @ LJ

Image: SlipstreamJC @ Moleskinerie/FLICKR
Some rights reserved.

Recent comments

I can usually be found carrying a Moleskine around.  Notes from seminars, research ideas, phone numbers, lessons from church, and even college basketball scores can be found within.  They are great little black books for just about anything.

But is quality declining as popularity and mass production increase?  Within the last five months, Barnes and Noble (the only local supplier) has doubled the number of notebooks and increased selection variety (oddly enough, the small blank notebook is not stocked and cannot be ordered).  I carry the small blank notebook on my person, usually in my backpack, but also in my back blue jean pocket while walking around, taking care to remove it when sitting.  My current notebook developed small tears along the spine within three months.  Today, the rip measured 2.9 cm. 

There are many quick fixes to rips, but the best is not to have one.  Perhaps I am the only one to whom this has happened.  I justify the flaw in the indestructible Moleskine by saying it was from a bad batch.  But would Hemingway or Chatwin be as easily appeased as I?  I will fix the slit and continue to use the great black book and hopefully my next will have more luck.   

Brady Allred
Las Cruces, NM  USA

Photos courtesy of the author

Welcome to our visitors from Chicago Public Radio / WBEZ 91.5

"Technologies of Writing"

"Technologies of Writing," which examines the history and style of writing and its related technologies, runs from Jan. 31 to Aug. 6 at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

The phrase "technologies of writing" refers not to the script or alphabet, the calligraphic or marking system that a text employs, but to the practical methods by which these systems are applied—pencil, brush, quill, ink, paint, print, machine key and pixel—and to the material surfaces and sites of writing itself—clay, animal skin, parchment, linen, wood pulp and cyberspace.

"The exhibition invites visitors to think about writing as they may never have thought about it before," said Kurt Heinzelman, curator of the exhibition and professor of English at the university. "Writing is perhaps man's greatest invention. Not even the emergence of language is comparable, for all species have a means of communication. Writing, though, is what enables language to be copied and stored. Writing is memory. It is what makes us human."

The exhibition showcases rare, original artifacts, dating from 2000 BCE to the present. Featured items range from the oldest writing system to electronic texts/novels, showing the development of writing is ongoing, responsive to technological innovations..."

"Technologies of Writing"
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
University of Texas at Austin

LINK

[via Chris Meisenzahl]

"The Power of Purpose"

"The Power of Purpose begins with a simple but remarkable statement: “The more you focus on helping others, the more you will succeed in reaching your own goals.” Peter S. Temes builds on this fundamental insight to share a simple plan for living with the truest and most enduring kind of happiness.

At the heart of The Power of Purpose are the “three levels of thinking.” At the first level, we ask, Who am I? and What do I want? At the second level, we ask, Who do other people think I am? How do I look to them? But the real magic happens when we hit the third level, forgetting about ourselves and asking the questions that lend a powerful sense of purpose to our lives: How do others look to themselves? How can I help others become the people they want to be?...

The Power of Purpose is a map for finding the confidence and power, the opportunities and occasions, and—most important—the techniques and strategies for centering your relationships and work on helping others. It is a book with a point of view: the clearest path to your own success and happiness lies in helping others get to where they want to go."

"The Power of Purpose"
Living Well by Doing Good
By Peter Temes

LINK

iPod in a Moleskine

No, its not an iSkine' yet but close:

"My two (current) favorite things to have with me are my 60Gb Video iPod (amazing machine) and my Moleskine notebook. Or rather my Moleskines, since I keep one (with graph paper) for work and one (with sketching paper) for personal/diary use.

I thought I'd have a go at combining these two (design classics) by buying a mini-Moleskine, carving out its innards, and fitting the iPod into it. The leather covers and the elastic strap for sealing it provide some decent protection, especially when the iPod itself is wrapped in a soft cloth.

This is definitely V1, but I though it was fun..."

RB.Log

LINK

[via Largehearted Boy] 

Greetings to our friends in Farmington, MN., Tirana, Irua, Zaanstad, Beijing, London, Geneve, Zgornje Gameljne, Antioquia, Fang Leng Lau, Solihull, El Jacal, Damhliag, Osaka, Barrie, Ghana, Shenzhen, Cumming, GA., Kampong Bukit Mati, Cork, Doncaster East, Puerto Rico, Ngauranga, Hanoi, Nepal, Entre Rios, Athens, Senegal, Montevideo, Venlo, Togo, Northern Mariana Islands and Guatemala.

Gary Varner continues his post Chicago narrative about modern pen pals, decadent desserts and other sweet things that make you farklempt at inkmusings.

Meanwhile, Lori synchroblogs.

TROOP 1500

"Girls Scouts behind bars? Be prepared for an unorthodox and transforming story that follows the girls of Austin Texas Troop 1500. Well-versed in the "Be Prepared" mantra of the Girl Scouts, spunky troop leader Julia Cuba guides her girl scouts into the concrete jungle in which their mothers live. The daughters must continually adapt to new emotional territory, and the mothers find that their best intentions are too often trumped by their weaknesses. With its beautiful camerawork and skillful use of videotaped interviews conducted by the daughters and their moms, TROOP 1500 is a candid, moving look at families torn apart by crime but trying to relate beyond prison walls."

- Orlando Sentinel 

"heartwarming and heartwrenching, the film shines a light on an ignored segment of society and considers how America can prevent the children of the incarcerated from feeling punished themselves."       -  "O", The Oprah Magazine

       "Inspiring and compelling, TROOP 1500 steers clear of sentimentality and drives home the magnitude of the difficulty of breaking the cycle of crime."

       -   The Chicago Reader   

   "extraordinary,  don't miss it!"
      - Austin-American Statesman Editorial

      "compelling ... powerful ... dauntingly complex."
      - Boston Globe

Visit TROOP 1500 on PBS.

[Thanks Laura!]

Scrap Sketchbook

" This is a great way to divert a wastestream (remember - recycling is really downcycling), as well as a compromise - don't throw away all those halfway decent doodles; preserve them for posterity, and mull over them for another few weeks as you doodle in your new sketchbook. A modern-day palimpsest.

The best part about this is that as you're drawing or writing, there's already visual material on the page - a kind of stream of consciousness booster, allowing you to make connections you might not have made by yourself. Sometimes a blank page can be intimidating..."

Scrap Sketchbook
Vestal Design

LINK.

[Thanks Chris!]

It's spring!

Featured Artist: Punit Vaidya

"I have always enjoyed painting and drawing.  I recently purchased one of the Moleskine pocket sketchbooks and found that it was a great medium to bring out creativity.  Rather than spending weeks to months painting on canvas and being preoccupied with striving for perfection, I found that the Moleskine allowed me to "loosen up." It encourages creating "small" projects that can be completed within a day and still be presented as finished pieces of artwork.  I find it to be a great way to carry around a "pocket gallery."  These mini paintings also serve nicely as "studies" should I decide to repaint a piece in a larger, traditional format."

Punit Vaidya came to the United States from India  when he was 5 and now resides in Ohio.
View more of his works @ YESSY.

Images: © PV

Lá le Págraig sona daoibh go léir!

Paperitif.com, Official Sponsor of the Wandering Moleskine Project

Discover and join the Moleskine communities at MYSPACE, FLICKR, ORKUT, SQUIDOO, LIVEJOURNAL & GOOGLEGROUPS.

My pals are back at their home bases and have posted reports on their Chicago adventures. Read Lori's impressions at Hoarded Ordinaries and what Gary has to say over at InkMusings.

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

M Is For Medieval: Or How The Irish Invented The Moleskine

"A great deal of my creative inspiration originates with the manuscripts of early medieval Ireland. Perhaps the best known example is the Book of Kells, which reigns supreme among the elaborately illuminated manuscripts from that era. These decorated books are typified by mind-boggling details, swirling spirals, elaborately complex knotwork patterns, and undecipherable letterforms. These images burst off the vellum pages and stand apart from other illuminated manuscripts of that time period as a unique creative expression reflecting many of the cultural complexities of the early history of Ireland.

 

Strangely though, my imagination has been completely captivated by a comparatively small, unadorned assemblage of odd sheets of vellum called The St. Paul Irish Codex (or more formally: MS: Unterdrauberg, Carinthia, Kloster St. Paul 25.2.31). This manuscript was the personal notebook of an Irish scribe working in the early ninth century, most likely in the scriptorium at Reichenau, an island monastery on Lake Constance located between Germany and Switzerland. It contains no color other than the deep brown of the ink, and no illumination of any kind, yet it seems to me to reveal more about at least this one personality behind the long labor of creating illuminated manuscripts.

 

This un-named monk assembled what discarded pieces of vellum he could gather together and used his notebook to jot down interesting text he came across in his daily work (incidentally, the size of this notebook is very close to a large size Moleskine). Written in a very tight script you will find bits of grammar, animal lore, an incantation, and an endearing poem in Old Irish about a monk and his cat named Pangur Bán, all on the same page. Throughout the other pages of the notebook are excerpts written in Greek, an astrological table, and notes on logic, metaphysics and etymology, among other topics..."

By Lisa Laughy

Read on at Ninth Wave Designs.

This article was originally posted on 3.17.05.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The sleeping lady

Neal Dench shows us how his "Sleeping Lady" painting came to be. From basic notes on his Moleskine...

To this beautiful acrylic painting

"For a long time now I've wanted to write a longer article that went into more detail about how I created a specific piece: what enthused me about the piece, the different stages I went through to get to the final result, how I chose colours, media, and so on. Just before Christmas, the opportunity presented itself when I worked on a number of pieces based on the idea of a sleeping lady. I posted the first of these as soon as it was finished, but, as I suspected at the time, it ended up being just the first in a series, each of which built upon the last until I ended up with the piece that I'd had in mind to begin with.

The original inspiration for this piece came from the artist Anita Klein . I was walking to work early one morning and passed a gallery that included one of her pieces in the window. I was immediately struck by the deceptive simplicity of her work. Beautiful colours, incredibly assured brush strokes, bold shapes. I knew that I wanted to try something similar to this, and the idea for the sleeping lady sprang immediately into my mind...."

Neal Dench
"The Sleeping Lady"

Visit his blog, Mr. Porkpop

Story Seminar by Robert McKee

"Robert McKee is the easily the world's best screenwriting teacher and consultant. I was lucky enough to attend his fabled Story Seminar in Los Angeles this weekend. He served up 3 full days of almost non-stop insight into both storytelling and human nature. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

I took a pocket Moleskine reporter notebook for notes and filled it front to back, flipped it over, and filled the other side of the pages almost half way. I spotted one other Moleskine there, but the owner was obviously a poseur (who would expect such a thing in Hollywood), prefering to peck away at his laptop once every 10 minutes and leaving his Moleskine under a stack of papers.

McKee himself had these observations on notebooks and note-taking:

"I don't know what the deal with taking notes on white paper. What happened to good old-fashioned yellow pads? Who's got a yellow pad? Hold them up please... THESE people are gonna make it!"

"A writer observes life. Take bits and pieces of life and rearrange them into characters, stories, and ideas. Carry a notebook. Do research. And find your characters in self-knowledge."

Deadmuse
Reports from the Story Seminar by Robert McKee
March 10-12, 2006

[via Deadmuse]

To write again

"...In the years since I have lived in the USA, I never wrote in one of those ever again. Somehow everything that I had been occupied with just stood in the way. In the beginning, maintaining a fledgeling blog was good enough to pour out my thoughts. As I cycled from journal blogger to political commentator and back to where I am now, I find that there was something missing when I would sit down in front of the computer to write.

There was some sort of disconnect I could not get my finger on.

Imagine my delight, then, when I took the pen to my new notebook and started writing. For the first time in the many months since I started my night shift job, it felt good to write!..."

Visit "One Fine Jay"

Text and photo © 2006 Jay
Used with permission.

"Global Networks," an exhibition of the work of Mark Lombardi

"Although Lombardi's work has combined the mesmerizing detail of the engineering diagram and the obsessive annotation of the outsider artist, the man was neither scientist nor madman. Armed with a BA in art history, he began as a researcher and archivist in the Houston fine arts community with a passing interest in corporate scandal, financial malfeasance, and the hidden web of connections that seemed to connect, for instance, the Mafia, the Vatican bank, and the 1980's savings and loan debacle. His initial explorations were narrative, but in 1993 he made the discovery that some kinds of information are best expressed diagrammatically.

The resulting body of work must be seen to be believed — an admittedly oxymoronic endorsement of subject matter of such supreme skepticism. Lombardi's delicate tracings, mostly in black pencil with the occasional red accent, cover enormous sheets of paper (many over four feet high and eight feet long), mapping the deliriously Byzantine relationships of, say, Oliver North, Lake Resources of Panama, and the Iran-Contra operation, or Global International Airways and the Indian Springs State Bank of Kansas City. Because the work visualizes connections rather than causality, Lombardi was able to take the same liberties as Harry Beck's 1933 map for the London Underground, freely arranging the players to create gorgeous patterns: swirling spheres, hopscotching arcs, wheels within wheels..."

"Mark Lombardi and the Ecstasy of Conspiracy"
Michael Bierut
The Design Observer

LINK

"What Color Is Your Jockstrap"

Our friend Jen's new project is coming out soon:

A good story improves with the telling, and nothing improves a travel story more than something going wrong. Once the anguish fades, the frustration, embarrassment, danger, and inconvenience provide great material for a tale that can be told again and again. The adventurers in What Color is Your Jockstrap? encounter just about every absurd, surreal, and wacky moment imaginable, from a monster dildo that won’t go away to becoming the prey of religious zealots at the world’s largest human gathering. The proverbial “hair in my soup” at a French restaurant is spiced up by the proprietor’s remarkable solution to the “problem.” Nothing is too ridiculous on the road, and as these men and women generously share without shame or undue embarrassment, they prove again and again that a sense of humor is the one tool no traveler should be without.

What Color Is Your Jockstrap"" : Funny Men and Women Write from the Road (Travelers' Tales Guides) (Paperback)
by Jennifer L. Leo (Editor)

Coming out on March 28.
Amazon LINK

"Journal Burning Party"