moleskinerie

Featured Artist: Alberto Meda

Alberto Meda represents the fusion of art and science, reason and imagination, technical innovation and formal virtuosity that characterizes the best of Italian design. He is among the young designers whose individual talents became visible as early as the 1970’s and have continued to grow through the end of the century, making design a force that affects every aspect of modern life.    …more

Play Video

Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.

Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.

Dealer List (.pdf)

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles. Get out - have a life and write about it. See you on Monday.

Update: Those of you who may have heard of my little adventure can join a mini contest here.

Moleskine in Mecca

I took along my Moleskine to record my umrah (pilgrimage) activities while in  Mecca and Medina  this Ramadhan.

Mohd Adib Noh

Visit his blog, "The Reader"

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© All rights reserved

Writers need to get out of the house.

1940: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre take up residence, almost, in the Café de Flore in Paris. They work in the morning, see friends in the afternoon and write more in the evening. The café is warm and provides succour for body and mind during the Occupation.

2007: I sit in my local café and feel like a knob. The café itself is great: it's situated in the road where the district I live in gets posher (Lower Highgate, or Lo-Hi as no doubt an estate agent will soon refer to it). But I still feel like a knob. Perhaps it's because they sell organic rye bread and fresh anchovies to passing sophisticates. Maybe it's because I often see food critic and Birds Eye peas fan Giles Coren having his eggs benedict, or Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh sipping a latte in his rock star sunglasses. It might be because I'm sitting here, paying real (what my grandmother would have called good) money for pots of tea when there's PG tips at home. Six pounds spent in a couple of hours, five days a week, plus a newspaper and fizzy pop for the way home. Even more if you add a quick spot of lunch. That's £70 a week, easy. Would sharing an office be cheaper? Or moving to Deptford where you can get a cuppa for 30p?

"How to get your creative juices flowing"
By Sian Pattenden
Read more at Guardian Unlimited

Inexpensive Pens With Good Ink

My current favorite, the uni-ball 207, uses an ink that contains color pigments which are absorbed into the paper fibers. The ink is in effect trapped on the paper fibres and can’t be washed off, as some forgers do to alter cheques. Refills are available. Uni-ball 207 is sold worldwide in stationery and office supply stores and other outlets. Mike Shea did some interesting tests of the ink in the uni-ball 207 and the G-2 and three other inks. The G-2 survived water but not soap and bleach. The uni-ball ink survived all the tests.

The Pilot G-Tec-C4 or the G-TEC-C writes with a very fine line. I use it for corrections and margin notes. They are so thin they write like mechanical pencils. The G-TEC-C seems to have a more durable ink, but it is hard to find in North America.

If your handwritten records have to survive intact for a long time, then you have to carefully consider the ink used to produce them. It seems I’ll be using the uni-ball 207 a lot more from now on.

The Confidential Resource
Investigate further.

Sleepless in NY

"The Tired, Sleepless Huddled Masses"

I just returned from NY. Got stuck on a plane at LaGuardia runway for more than 4 hours, returned to the gate to refuel only to be told that the flight was canceled. Spent the night sleepless in a freezing lounge without even a blanket (ORD would at least lend you one and a cot). Thank God I'm home. Will be back to normal posting tomorrow. I just need some sleep. Thanks for your patience.

- Armand

All images © 2007 ABF

Update: Something good has to come out of this so here goes:

The first person to correctly guess (or closest) my outbound flight (ORD-LGA) seat number (AA MD S80) wins a mystery gift. Deadline is this Sunday, Sept. 30 at 11P Central.. Just write your entry as a comment and include your active email address for confirmation. Enter only once, please. I'll announce the winner on Monday.Good luck!

Update:10.1.07

The correct answer is 17B. The closest guess is  Jim's (17D). Congratulations! I'll email you for confirmation

Japan sketchbook

A Moleskine of inspired sketches by Emma in Scotland. You gotta love all those details.

"This has been an ongoing project for many months. I want to fill a whole Moleskine sketchbook and turn it into my own little encyclopaedia of Japanese culture. I've been doing a bit of work on it over the past week, so I thought I would post some of my favourite pages. It's about a third full at the moment, so it will be a long time before it is finished! I have lots more ideas of things to go in it, though..."

Emma
Visit her blog

Images © 2007 Emma

Note: I'll be out of town until Tuesday (9.25) evening. Comments and emails may take time to be responded to. Please be patient. -ABF

Featured Artist: Gordon Cheung

Gordon Cheung was born in London in 1975 where he lives and works.

He studied at the Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design between 1994-98 and he graduated at the Royal College of Art in 2001.

His exhibitions include:
- “NLK”, Soho House, New York in 2005;
- “The British Art Show 6”, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead in 2005-06 (touring).
- He features in “Arrivals/Departures”, Urbis Museum, Manchester in 2007.
To see forthcoming solo exhibitions click here.

Play Video

Learn more about the new Moleskine City Notebook.

Learn more about Detour Exhibitions.

Dealer List (.pdf)

Be Happy

I'll be going to NY for yet another meeting so comments and emails will take a while to be attended to. Please be patient.

Before I go, here's a short video clip by H.E. Situ Rinpoche.

As we always say, "Get out! Have a life - and write about it."

- Armand

Watch the video

[via NotCot]

Discover and join our Moleskine communities on LiveJournal, MySpace,  Moleskinerie FLICKR, FACEBOOK and Meal Moles.

1000 Stories: On The Road meets The Motorcycle Diaries

GERMAN FILMMAKER SAYS: "AMERICANS WANTED"
AS HE EMBARKS ON TRIP TO GATHER 1000 STORIES

On The Road meets The Motorcycle Diaries, remixed for the 21st century

NEW YORK (September 17)-- The Goethe-Institut New York, a branch of the Federal Republic of Germany's famed global cultural institution, today announced the launch of its most innovative artistic endeavor to date, 1000Stories. On Thursday, September 27, from 6:30pm – 9pm, the Goethe-Institut New York will host "New Yorkers Wanted: the 1000Stories Launch Party," featuring filmmaker Florian Thalhofer, DJ Maxx Klaxon (SPLICE, Popular Front Records), projections by video artist Katja Loher ( www.katjaloher.com ), and more. Admission is free, and all are invited (RSVP to LCERAND@gmail.com). The Goethe-Institut New York is located at 1014 Fifth Avenue at 83rd Street, tel. (212) 439-8700.

Starting in New York on October 1, Florian Thalhofer, a new-media artist and documentary filmmaker from Berlin, will travel all over the United States by motorcycle (provided by BMW), while U.S. filmmaker Mark Simon will travel throughout Germany by car. During their month-long journeys, each filmmaker will write about his experiences, collect stories, and conduct interviews, posted daily as a video weblog, or "vlog," at 1000stories.com . Their route will be determined by interested folks in the U.S. and in Germany who reply to their "Americans wanted"/ "Germans wanted" online ad. Readers are invited to get in touch via 1000stories.com to suggest itineraries and potential interview candidates and to comment on the project. Members of the media can download hi-res photographs, etc. at 1000stories.com/press.

This fall, as Americans celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a paean to the restless spirit and innate desire to explore the unknown that thread their way through popular culture, a German filmmaker embarks on a "social experiment" that marries this legacy with technological innovation and harnesses the best of social media to determine and document his experience.  Influences such as Easy Rider, jazz, and abstract expressionism will become even more apparent as we discover what lies at the heart of America and how it continues to evolve today.

Florian Thalhofer (thalhofer.com) was born in 1972, and lives and works in Berlin. He is a documentary filmmaker and new-media artist who invented the [Korsakow system] ( korsakow.com/ksy ) to suit his unique form of expression, based on the principle that in reality, things occur simultaneously rather than in succession. With this software, Thalhofer has conceived an effective nonlinear way to tell his stories that utilizes the computer as an ideal medium. Like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, the highly interactive Korsakow system allows the user to navigate the film as a series of individual choices. Thalhofer has been the recipient of the Literatur.digital award, the reddot design award, and the Werkleitz Award, among others. He studied at Universität der Künste Berlin, where he lectured after obtaining his degree. He was a visiting professor at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig and teaches at the Mediamatic-Institut Amsterdam. Several of Thalhofer's [Korsakow] films are available on DVD, and [13thShop] and [Forgotten Flags] are scheduled for release by mairisch-Verlag, Hamburg, and Mediamatic, Amsterdam, respectively.

Moleskine Morph

"Here’s a practical solution of sorts that occurred to me about three weeks ago. Often needing a notebook and my planner simultaneously, they were rarely in the same place and oftentimes I wouldn’t even have my planner with me at all. It would be at home, on my desk, buried at the bottom of my bag, in the car, etc. Frankly, I was not very good at keeping track of it properly. However, I had made a habit of essentially always having at least a small pocket notebook with me.

The solution that has proven to be very effective has been to simply take the two and tape them together. Yes, that’s right, tape them together..."

David R. Munson
Visit his blog, "Convergence Factor"

Image & Text © 2007 DRM