What's on Adam's Desk? (March 2021)
I’ve put some stationery items in the path of natural light so I can let you know what I’ve been writing with, reading, and listening to recently.
I finished my Field Notes Snowy Evening #54,666 and have begun writing in their newest release, Underland, the pocket notebook with cover artwork by longtime Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood. The notebook commemorates (?) Robert Macfarlane’s 2019 nonfiction book Underland.
The price point on these notebooks is $14.95 — more than 20% more than the typical Field Notes quarterly editions — which had Ted wondering if there was some impressive printing technique or a subtle match between the art and the cover stock like the National Park edition. However, though the cover artwork is bold and captivating, I don’t see a special printing technique and Field Notes isn’t promoting one as they typically would. I really like these new notebooks and I’m happy to have a new lined edition but the price point is a headscratcher.
Artist Roni Horn said in a recent interview:
“I prefer the word ‘log’ as opposed to ‘diary’ or ‘journal.’ I’m not telling you what I’m doing every day but when you add all of these bits together, you get my sensibility.”
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you understand that I will use any excuse to begin a new notebook. The quote above was enough. I’ve begun using the Engineer Notebook from Write Notepads as a “logbook” in which I capture a few sentences about the work I completed that day. The result is less like Roni Horn’s idea of a log book and more along the lines of a Captain’s Log. But I think with time I’ll find a shorthand for my work that begins to capture my sensibility. In the meantime, I really like the beefy yellow paper and I’m eager to find a use for the non-repro blue graph. Nice touch!
I’m writing in that Engineer Notebook with a Pilot G-Tec-C. It was fun to rediscover that pen. Though I mostly write with pencil or the very inky Uni-Signo UM153, I have a habit of buying up any new ultra fine gel pen I find at the stationery shop. I conducted the lousiest pen test ever found on a stationery blog and discovered that this G-Tec-C feels right on the uncoated paper.
What’s on Adam’s Ear? (March 2021) My pencil-behind-the-ear routine has always been ridiculous, involving a too-long pencil and occasionally stabbing one of my children. It has become even less dignified now that I’ve added a face mask to the mix. When I walk into a public place now I will move the pencil from my ear to my pocket to avoid tangling the pencil in the face mask straps. This has happened often and I once launched a pencil in the air with the elastic strap. If you’re going to shoot a pencil at someone, I recommend the Caran D’Ache 541 mini-pencil. It’s 3.5 inches long and has a firm lead that I’ve never needed to sharpen Unfortunately I don’t know where you can find the 541 since CW Pencil Enterprises stopped carrying them.
The Faber Castell 9000 B is one pencil that can’t go behind my ear. Because I borrowed it from my wife. She says it’s the only pencil she’s using and she doesn’t know why I bother with anything else. She found a super fancy 9000B that comes with a sharpener built into the cap. This is another good, firm pencil but when I’m overpaying for a pencil I prefer it to be Swiss.
This month I finished Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet. These books are addictive and thoughtful page turners. They are masterpieces and book one, My Brilliant Friend, is the book you should read next. It’s hard to know what to say beyond that. I also enjoyed Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel, Klara and the Sun, almost as much as I enjoyed realizing his last three books are about my six-year-olds favorite things: clones, dragons, robots.
In a New York Times interview, Viet Thanh Nguyen said:
“I will put a book down if the first sentence doesn’t immediately thrill me. Since I don’t get to read very many books purely for pleasure, I have no time to waste on a book whose every sentence isn’t a delight.”
There’s no way that his first novel, The Sympathizer, could meet his own standards, I thought. But I was wrong. There is a delight in almost every sentence of this smart, sad spy novel.
Recently I’ve been listening to Promises by Floating Points and Pharoah Saunders (his first record in 20 years); Voyage Out, the debut from Chicago band Floatie; and Time Out, by Dave Brubeck, who I have inexplicably avoided for years.
What’s your favorite pencil projectile or Italian novel? Does hyperlinking to everything sometimes feel like you’re pretending Google wasn’t invented? Comment below.
