Art Brown, gone
A fountain-pen store closes.
“Make My Jotter Quit!”
“How does one tell the difference between the so-called refill and the cartridge whose place the refill takes, the ‘original’ cartridge, the pen’s ‘point,’ as it were, imperial, serene, solitary, or so it would seem, yet always to be displaced by a New-man, an identical impostor, one in a series of impostors, each claiming the work of inscription as its own?”
Last-minute shopping
“Just five minutes at a Parker Jotter counter can take a surprising amount of guesswork and expense and time out of your Christmas shopping.”
Parker T-Ball Jotter, 1963
This 1963 Life advertisement recalls a gone world, when everyone wore a watch and close to half of American adults smoked cigarettes.
Sheaffer cartridge pens, 1959
Back-to-school pens. What makes this ad especially great is the appearance of Ann Marget Olsson (last name misspelled as Olson). Yes, Ann-Margret.
Writing instruments
At Submitted for Your Perusal, two poster-like images of Writing Instruments Through the Ages.
Barthes on pens
In the end, I always return to fine fountain pens.
1 PUN MULTI
A pen and some puns.
The Sharpie Liquid Pencil
Writes like an uncooperative ball-point pen.
The inkless pen
Cool, I guess, but I like "supplies."
R. Crumb's supplies
Strathmore vellum, crow-quill nibs, Pelikan drawing ink
Thomas Jefferson's handwriting
Looking a little like an Andy Warhol work
Government-pen success
A good online source
The government-issue pen
Washington Post article on a dowdy writing instrument
Recently updated
Old posts, new stuff
Lawrence Wright on writing tools
Index cards, legal pads, a fountain pen
Carnival of Pen, Pencil, and Paper
Like it says, at Office Supply Geek
Montblanc's Gandhi pen
Ugh.
Eric Gill: control, distraction, and tools
Thoughts on writing and searching, inspired by Gill's comments on letterpress printing
"Plenty of stationery"
A passage from Great Expectations
Proust's supplies
Nibs and ink
Montblanc "Yes We Can" pen
Marketing at its best. Not.
Five pens
Parker T-Ball Jotter, red ballpoint, Faber-Castell Uni-Ball, Montblanc, Pelkan: for National Handwriting Day
Thinking with pens and pencils
Dutch psychologist Christof van Nimwegen has written a dissertation arguing that pens and pencils are crucial in the development of creativity and intelligence.
National Handwriting Day
January 23
Pens, quills, and great big typewriters
In the movie Laura