Category Archives: Writing

Reverting Back to Sharpened Sticks

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One of the strangest things that happens to the pen and stationery addicted is they eventually revert back to using wood pencils. At least for a while.

I’m not sure what causes this phenomenon but most of us already have various versions of mechanical pencils which are sort of, almost, like pens. Moving to wood pencils therefore isn’t that big of a step.

Also, since a lot of us, especially fountain pen users, are already well lost in retro mode, using pencils gets us lost on a different level of retro. Sort of a Retro Retro.

In my case, I’ve always had a few wood pencils around in case the urge to draw and or sketch hits me.

Note: This urge occurs for about three days once every seven years. That’s one day to get the urge and go shopping; one day to actually draw stuff; and one day to find a place to store the new stuff.

Second Note: Yes, I know I have stuff on hand for when the urge hits but using it would require 1) that I remember I have it and 2) that I remember where it’s stored. Also, new stuff is better than old stuff.

For some reason, when I was making a lot of purchases from Levenger, I noticed they were selling boxes of pencils. I was most interested in the wood box they came in. (I have a thing for boxes more on that in another post) and them being stamped with the word “pencil” in six different languages. Each box had 20 pencils.

However, soon after I got them, I reverted back to using pens. Over time I’ve used almost one entire box and the other remains unopened an unused. In fact, the pencils are still in the plastic.

The last three pencils in the first box and the unused second box in the background.

The last three Levenger pencils in the first box and the unused second box in the background.

Now I hear there’s an entire store in New York City dedicated to wood pencils. Suddenly I’m feeling the urge to draw. At least for a while.

Kokuyo IDEA Notebooks–A Good Notebook Full of Bad Ideas

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The Kokuyo IDEA notebook is a great idea in the wrong size and shape.

For those of us sick enough to follow the stationery and pen business, the trendiest paper you can use as a fountain pen user is Tomoe River paper from Japan. (Note: that’s Toe Moe Eh with the last syllable pronounced the same as “day”)

Tomoe River paper is thin but fountain pen friendly, meaning when you use a fountain pen, ink doesn’t bleed through and stain the page below. Unfortunately there aren’t that many products made with Tomoe River paper except thick notebooks and annual planners that are too thick to carry.

However, Japanese stationery company Kokuyo recently produced the JIBUN_TECHO or personal diary system (link in Japanese). It is a personal calendar and diary system comprised of a reusable cover filled with three replaceable and interchangeable inserts: DIARY, which is a daily planner made of Tomoe River paper; LIFE, which is a kind of organized book of lists made from thicker Mio paper; IDEA which is Tomoe River paper printed with dot grid graph paper pattern designed for random scribbles and scrapbooking.

The main problem with the IDEA notebook is the size.  At 21 cm by 12.5 cm (8.26″ by 4.9″) it is too big to fit in a pocket which means you always have to have a bag to carry it in. It’s also too wide  to fit in the popular Midori Traveler’s Notebook leather covers (more on that later) .

The IDEA notebook compared with a Field Notes notebook.

The IDEA notebook compared with a Field Notes Red Blooded notebook.

That, however, is my only complaint. The notebook consists of 40 sheets of Tomoe River paper stitched together rather than stapled and printed with a 3 mm dot grid pattern (with a hard rule on the left). Despite the size, it’s the paper that makes this an excellent notebook. Tomoe River paper is unlike any other paper and is a treat to write on. I use mine to record a daily list of ten or more ideas–business ideas, article ideas, blog post ideas, ideas for other blogs, and lots of bad ideas–and I rotate to through my various fountain pens and inks.

Thus far the only ink I’ve had problems with is Noodler’s Apache Sunset which seems designed to test the limits of every form of paper. It has a lot of ghosting and, especially with a thick nib and/or a flex nib, occasional spots of bleedthrough. This doesn’t bother me as I’ve learned to embrace the bleedthrough, but it can be a deal breaker for some pen users.

An example of the ghosting. Surprisingly, it didn't bleed through to the next page.

An example of Apache Sunset ghosting from a Kaweco Sport with an M nib. Also a good look at the dot grid pattern.

Unfortunately, the system isn’t very popular in Japan and I can’t imagine the notebooks being around much longer. That said, Kokuyo also recently released an IDEA mini, which is 18.2 cm by 10.7 cm (7.2″ by 4.2″) that appear to fit in the Traveler’s Notebook cover with some room to spare. They can be purchased from Nanami Paper.

I have a few of those, too. They are built the same and have the same paper and dot grid graph pattern. They just don’t hold as many bad ideas.

 

 

 

 

Levenger Sunset Fountain Pen By Stipula

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It’s really depressing when you open a purchase and your first thought is “How the hell am I going to get this fixed?”

This happened to me when I bought a pen from online retailer Levenger. The pen was the Levenger “Sunset” made by Italian pen maker Stipula. It had sterling silver decorations on top of blue cracked ice acrylic and that made it look vaguely like R2-D2. I liked the look and I liked the Italian pedigree and liked that it was priced to sell after a huge price drop.

This is not R2-D2 and that's a sunburst logo not a sunset.

This is not R2-D2 and that’s a sunburst logo not a sunset.

When I got it the first thing I noticed was the silver was tarnished. I emailed Levenger and their reaction was “Yeah, how about that.” In their defense, it wasn’t worth anyone’s effort or money to ship back to the USA for polishing and then have it shipped back to Japan.

I was also surprised that the word “Stipula” appeared nowhere on the pen. It only says “Made in Italy” under the Levenger Sunset inscription on the barrel to prove it wasn’t made by Levenger’s normal manufacturer.

I started using it and immediately liked the larger size. It’s 11.7 millimeters (just under half an inch) at the grip section and unposted it’s 5.4 inches (137 mm) long. Posted it’s an absurd 6.5 inches (166 mm). With the cap posted it’s too long to use comfortably.

The pen and cap. I like that cracked ice acrylic a lot.

The pen and cap. I like that cracked ice acrylic. The photos, unfortunately, don’t do it full justice.

A size comparison with my Cross Century.

A size comparison with my Cross Century. Note the scuff marks on the shoulders of the nib.

As I started using it I noticed that although it was a smooth writer–it’s a Rhodium plated 14 carat gold nib–it had an annoying problem. As I wrote, one of the tines would click out of place and I’d have to hold the pen slightly sideways to get an even ink flow. If I turned the pen over and pushed lightly I could hear the tine click back into place.

This became annoying enough that I finally put it way for a few years until last year when I sent it off to Mike Masuyama for work. He fixed the tines and smoothed the nib and it’s now one of my favorite pens. Despite its size it’s light and a pleasure to write with. It currently has Aurora blue ink in it which makes it even smoother.

The only remaining annoyance is caused by the silver plating. To accommodate the silver pattern and the sunburst (it’s not a sunset) on the cap, the clip had to be moved down the cap and this means the slot for the nib is small. Also, there’s a lot of metal inside there and it has to be cleaned frequently or it starts to corrode. Over time I’ve scratched the shoulders on the nib. It doesn’t hurt the writing experience, but I also have to be careful that everything’s centered when I put the cap back on or I risk mangling the nib.

That said, I’m pleased that after several years the pen finally became a purchase worth getting and something worth keeping.

The nib and cap. You can see the Levenger logo and the scuffs on the nib shoulders.

The nib and cap. You can see the Levenger logo and the scuffs on the nib shoulders.

Retro 51 200 Series Fountain Pen–Twenty-One Year Review

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I bought a pen in 1994 that I wouldn’t like very much until 2014.

Soon after I moved to Oxford, Mississippi to work on my Ph.D., an acquaintance of mine opened a shop that was way ahead of its time (i.e. doomed to fail) and featured items that wouldn’t be trendy for another ten to fifteen years.

I helped out by buying a dark green Retro 51 fountain pen. I liked the look and liked that it was heavier than my old Cross Century. The grip section wasn’t much thicker, but the barrel was and the extra weight made it much more comfortable to hold.

It turned out I didn’t like much else about the pen, though. The wood pen coffin it came in was cool, but it didn’t lock closed. If I grabbed the coffin incorrectly, I dumped the pen on the desk. I also didn’t like that it couldn’t hold two small standard international ink cartridges. (One installed, one backwards in reserve.)

Also, although the cap was apparently designed to be posted, it had to be pushed on hard to get it to stay. The cap flipped off several times when I was writing. Without the cap it was too small to use comfortably.

I could have forgiven that, though, if the nib had been better. I always found the steel M nib scratchy and dry. After several months of use and attempting to like it, I ended up switching back to my Cross Century (until I discovered the Pilot Vanishing Point).

Also, almost as soon as I started using it regularly, it got chips in the enamel paint, exposing the brass underneath. Even worse, the gold plating on the clip and the band started wearing off.

I stored the Retro 51 and almost literally let it rot as I didn’t bother cleaning it much before putting it in storage.

 

Here you can see the corrosion and the size.

Here you can see the size and the corrosion from all the years of neglect.

Detail of the lost gilding and the Retro 51 Logo.

Detail of the lost gilding and the Retro 51 Logo. This all used to be shiny.

Me being me, I took it out of storage after 10 years or so and tried to use it. Me being me, I dropped it and left it with a nice hook style nib. Me being me I put it back in storage until I heard via the Pen Addict of a nibmeister named Mike Masuyama. Because I had another fountain pen/questionable purchase that needed nib work, I decided to send the Retro 51 along for repair. (More on the other pen in another post.)

Mike Masuyama did a great job on both pens and the Retro 51, after twenty years, finally entered my regular pen rotation.

Now, however, the pen is going back in storage. It’s too small to use for a long time and I have other pens I like better. I’m still annoyed it won’t carry two cartridges and that it won’t accept standard sized converters.

I may still have the annoying wood coffin, but I have no idea where it is. That’s also me being me.

A wider size comparison.

A wider size comparison showing the cap posted.

 

 

Cross Century “Classic” Fountain Pen Long Term Review

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I used to claim, back when I was in school, that I’d never thrown out a pen. This was not because of hoarding tendencies, but because I would always lose them long before they’d run out of ink.

Then, sometime in the early 80’s, my father got a pen and pencil set from Cross that included a fountain pen he didn’t want and he passed it to me. The first hit was free and I was immediately hooked. I kept that pen longer than any other pen I’d ever owned and actually used.

Eventually, of course, I lost it but somehow (student loans) managed to replace it guaranteeing that my student loans were spent on at least one thing that was useful.

The first hit was free.

My oldest fountain pen and maybe the only useful thing purchased with my student loans.

I used the Cross Century all through college and graduate school and am still impressed by how neat my notes were when I used it. It also survived two years in Albania with the Peace Corps.

I was partial to blue-black ink although I tended to cycle from blue to blue-black to black to blue quite regularly. It has a gold plated steel medium nib that was always very smooth and the black matte coating on the barrel looked cool–I’ve never been a fan of the gold and silver versions–and kept it from getting too many finger prints.

I used it until I bought a Retro 51 200 series and then used it some more when I didn’t like the Retro 51 as much as I thought I would. I didn’t replace it until I moved on to harder stuff: Pilot Vanishing Points. Even after that, I used it a bit, but eventually it got tucked away in a box.

A couple years ago, out of nostalgia, I broke out the Cross Century, cleaned it and re-inked it. I immediately began to wonder what I saw in it. It is surprisingly thin, much thinner than I remembered. In fact, it’s about the same thickness as most woodcase pencils. After several attempts to writing something longer than a signature, I cleaned it and returned it to the case.

The Cross Century next to a Levenger and a Palomino Blackwing.

The Cross Century next to a Levenger pencil and a Palomino Blackwing.

Now, after almost 30 years, I’m thinking about getting rid of it. I don’t see myself ever using it again and there’s no point in keeping it if it’s just going to stay in a box.

I’ll either sell it or pass it on to one of my daughters and see if I can get her hooked.

 

My Daily Log Book is Not My Blog

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When I want to, I can draw. I can also have neat penmanship when I want to. The trouble is, most of the time I just can’t be bothered.

As I’ve written before, I’ve had the same problem with keeping a daily diary. I’ve started valiantly many times but then slowly but surely abandoned the daily entries and, inevitably, abandoned the notebook with at least one third of the pages empty.

This year, as a way to try something different (last year’s project was this blog) and to use up thick notebooks that no longer interest me, I’ve decided to keep a daily log.

The difference between the log and a diary is that rather than writing a summary of the day when I’m too tired to care, a log is filled in throughout the day. I keep track of the weather, work, my various layers of crankiness and all my meals.

Every now and then I have an actual accomplishment to record.

I also like the log because it gives me an excuse to keep several pens inked and actually have an excuse to use them. It also gives me an excuse to use a Muji notebook I’ve had in storage for a few years.

To make the log different than anything I’ve done before, I’ve decided to sketch out the weather as silly cartoons.

More interesting than an actual weather report.

More interesting than an actual weather report.

The little cartoons aren’t great and my handwriting, especially if I don’t support the thin side enough, is worse. Still, it’s a lot of fun and it helps get a notebook that I know I wouldn’t use otherwise out of storage and into use.

There is a problem with bleedthrough on the Muji paper, but I learned to embrace that a long time ago. I even found a philosophical way to justify it:

The words in the cloud seem more profound than they really are.

The words in the cloud seem more profound than they really are. Chicken rice is the proof of that.

The log is still a work in progress and I’m going to add more sketches as I go along. Lately I’ve also been adding a short summary of the day at the end.

The problem is, once I’m done, the notebook will go into a different storage area. But at least it will have been used.

Crime and Crime Again

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I committed my first crime when I was in elementary school. I learned that, if you have to go to jail, steal more than a couple Life Savers. The people inside aren’t real impressed by that.

In my defense 1) the package of Lifesavers was already open; 2) there was no evidence it belonged to the store–it could have been left behind by someone by accident; and 3) I was just a kid so it all made sense.

I helped myself to a couple and my “friend” whose name I’ve long forgotten, reported me to my mom who reported me to the manager of the store. I remember feeling ashamed but I don’t remember anything I was told by anyone at that point. I also don’t remember where it happened.

Then, in high school, I robbed a CD shop. In my defense, the store manager was in on it. I was editor of the high school paper and, in a fit of madness, I thought it would be interesting if we robbed a store as a group and then wrote about it. I was then informed by the school newspaper adviser that it would probably be best if we arranged such things with the store manager in advance.

I still disagree with that conclusion, but went ahead and arranged it.

Three of us went into the store and looked around and, in the end, because I was technically an experienced criminal, I was the only one who actually took something. The others chickened out (which also became part of the story). I then left the store and was chased down by some young lass who caught me in a different store and ripped my jacket open. The moment of panic when she didn’t see the stolen CD remains a priceless memory. She popped another button and found the purloined CD.

(Note to people under a certain age: music used to be sold on small discs from actual stores. This way singers and bands could sell a bunch of crap along with a few good songs to make you think you’d bought something special.)

The brave employee took me to the manager who then described what would have happened to me if I’d actually been caught shoplifting. (The description was similar to things that would eventually happen to characters in Sons of Anarchy.) He also praised his employee for doing her job perfectly. Later, after she’d calmed down, I went back and interviewed her.

It all made an for an interesting experience but I’m still trying to remember if I gave the CD back or not.

Training with Red Flags and Scheming and Shouting

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I once had a trainee talk about cheating on his wife and then yell at his fellow trainees. I had another trainee decide to skip part of the training.

This all happened because about ten years ago I started helping out with training in my company. Basically, my company recruits, or at least it used to (more on that later) from two locations. Inside Japan and outside of Japan. (This outside the box thinking tells you a lot about my company.)

After the new hires arrive, they are put through four or five days of training. They get basic TEFL teaching instruction, company policy explanations and tips on not snapping mentally and then beating your colleagues with a textbook; and they also get medical checks and, on occasion, go visit their employer.

Along the way, trainers and training assistants are watching them for any and all warning signs that they may cause trouble. We would listen for obvious red flags such as racist and sexist comments; people who didn’t seem to work well as part of a team; and any comments that indicated a too eager interest in being near junior high and high school girls.

In one training session, after I’d had a lot of experience, I was assigned a group of Bulgarian women (long story) and a couple random Englishmen. Near the end of the training, each trainee was assigned a 20 minute demo lessons. Each demo lesson had to have a warm up; introduce a grammar point; and then show a variety of lesson and the trainees ability to transition from one activity to another. They had a couple hours to plan and make materials and be ready to teach. I would also assign at least one trainee to play the part of “obnoxious little shit” (a technical term) to see how the trainees handled bad students.

One of the Englishmen got up and announced that he couldn’t think of a warm up and skipped to the first activity. He passed out a work sheet and then spent five minutes quietly walking around and “observing”. He then repeated that with the next part of the lesson. He finished after 10 minutes and the students had barely spoken. I told him he had to do it again and that he should probably figure out a way to do it right.

My favorite incident, though, happened in one of my first solo training sessions, I had a group of about 20 and most of them seemed to play nice with each other. One guy was dressed a bit casually (suits and ties were expected, at least at the time, even in summer) but he seemed to be working well with the others, although he did tend to go out of his way to partner with women.

During a smoke break, I was talking with him and a group of the ladies and somehow and for some reason he started talking about his wife throwing a remote control at him. He said she did it because he’d told her “if you don’t give me what I want I’ll just go out and find it myself”.

Red flags started popping up all over the place.

Later, I put everyone in pairs for the 20 minute demo lessons (at the time they were a pair activity). I made the mistake of pairing him with one of the quietest women in the group which let him dominate the planning.

When it was their turn, he took charge of the warm up. He then started shouting:

(points at random students) LISTEN! THINK! LISTEN! THINK! (points at own mouth) YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE WORDS COMING OF MY MOUTH BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH! LISTEN! THINK! LISTEN! THINK!

That went on for three minutes. Once the rest of the class were suitably scared to death–even the designated “bad student” was too freaked out to know what to do–he stopped shouting and turned the lesson over to his partner.

I made several notes as red flags clouded my vision. Luckily the other trainees made most of the comments I was going to make, leaving me to only interject that I was glad he gave the response he did because I wasn’t sure if he was serious or just trying to piss me off.

I never saw him again, although he did become a big part of my training as I imitated the shouting to demonstrate a key “thou shalt not”.

I don’t know what happened to him, but I heard things didn’t go very well.

Making Silly Newsletters and Not Working

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There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. –Dorothy Parker

One of the oddest things about my writing history is that it’s full of silly newsletters. One of my strange skills as a writer is taking work events and turning them into occasionally witty silliness. I’ve done this at least three times, four if you count this blog. Well, maybe five.

The first newsletter I remember working on was during the summer I spent working in the Chelsea District of Kansas City, Kansas as part of a Kansas State University development project. I was part of team that consisted of five brilliant women and me (technically the mascot). Oddly, we all got along well, worked together well, and, well, didn’t like our boss. (Long story.)

Unfortunately, although we were often busy, occasionally we weren’t. During those times, I took it upon myself to “report back to headquarters”, which we were encouraged to do, via a strange newsletter I think I called the Gremlin. Its catchphrase was “Because We Know You’ll Pay”. In it I reported the odd news events involving us. Usually I reported our successes, but I also remember reporting on the issues two of our number had with cockroaches. It was silly, but well received, but full of the kinds of stuff you “had to be there” to find funny. (For example, the story of the girl, the cockroach and the towel that had been used for days.)

The next summer, I did the same thing when I was assigned to work in Jetmore. I don’t remember the name of the newsletter or its catchphrase, although I do remember reusing “Because We Know You’ll Pay” and then changing it.

My next newsletter appeared when I was in Albania. This one I also called the Gremlin and it also had a catchy catchphrase that has slipped my mind. The Peace Corps Gremlin was more angry than the others and was written and printed during my frequent trips to the Peace Corps office. (I may still have a copy one of these tucked away somewhere but the odds are slim.)

The next newsletter came about as my friends were leaving the JET Programme. As I’ve mentioned before, I kept friends up to date on sumo news and Japanese pop culture news. I dubbed it the “Crazy Japan Times” after the slightly more prestigious Japan Times newspaper.

When I put it online, my only real gimmick was a series of ever-changing “Pithy Epigraphs” under the masthead of the page. They were random, often famous, often insane and, to my mind were  often funnier than the newsletter:

Jolly Obfuscatory
A Tale Told By An Idiot
Prohibited Where Voided By Law
Crusty But Benign
Life With the Boring Parts
The Only Sane Man In The Room
Never Better Late
Eas In Crucem  (Note: To hell with You.)
Bobby Thumbed a Diesel Down Just to Watch Him Die

These newsletters have been a lot of fun, but they are ultimately empty and, if I were to go back an look at them, dated. (In my defense, in the last news letter I wrote back in 2006, Shinzo Abe was Prime Minister so maybe it’s not THAT dated.) They also didn’t have any momentum.

As for this blog, well, it’s my latest newsletter.

 

 

 

Putting Off Until This Year What Should Have Been Done

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About thirteen years ago I started a website. Several years ago I pretty much abandoned it. Last year I almost lost it. Something about it, though, haunts me. Today, though it’s a good chance to talk about procrastination.

The website I started was called the Crazy Japan Times. It grew out of a series of newsletters I wrote to former JET Programme members and friends. The newsletters were based around Sumo tournaments, which happen every two months, and I started adding in quirky bits of pop culture and Japanese news along with the tournament updates. Eventually, someone suggested I actually start posting it online.

That part was pretty easy. However, because I only wrote a newletter every couple of months, the site never built a regular audience and I didn’t try to monetize it. I added a section on moving to Japan and getting an apartment that’s been reasonably popular, but once it was done, there wasn’t a lot much more to do with that.

Then, around 2006 or so, I got tired of doing the newsletters and then posting them, old school style (more on that later), on the site. Even though they only came out every couple of months, the newsletters were a lot of work. I’ve added a few book reviews and a couple videos about Japanese knife laws since I stopped the newsletters, but for the most part, the site’s remained untouched. The handful of “posts” I’ve done–Sochi Olympics news and a recent Super Bowl report–have all been done on Facebook.

Last year, I accidentally almost let the name lapse, but managed to get it back. That was more habit and hope than plan, though.

The problem is, the site needs a major overhaul and update. It’s so old-school it won’t show up on mobile devices. It’s also a pain to update without doing a lot of old school html coding (yes, it’s that old and yes I still code by hand. Sort of). Because of this, I’ve been putting off the update for almost two years. (You think you can procrastinate? You are an amateur. I’ll prove that to you later.)

This is mostly because there will be a lot of work in a short amount of time with a lot that can go wrong. (This leads to swearing, some stress, and a lot more swearing.) It’s also because I’m going to have to jettison the old design and start over, which feels kind of strange.

That said, my goal is to start that site again, maybe with some guest contributors, as the daily posts here come to an end or change in 12 days. (My year of posts ends February 19th.)

Tomorrow, when it comes, I’ll start the prelims of updating the CJT. If it goes well, I’ll be really happy this time tomorrow. If it doesn’t, well, at least I’ll have something to write about for post 354.