Of course one can have too many pens, and this year my buying slowed down. (Stop rolling your eyes. You know who you are.) The thrill of acquisition does fade, and in its place the joy of discovering newness in what one already owns glows more brightly. It doesn’t mean I didn’t get new pens …
Friends, hoarders, creatures of habit, lend me your fears. I have come to compare Sanzen Tomoe River paper with the original Tomoe River, and the good news is – it’s a solid performer. You’ll find similarities between my thoughts and the Gentleman Stationer’s first impressions, and also a couple of differences. That’s because I am …
Bloat is as real for stuff as it is for holiday stomachs. Binge and purge, catch and release, glee and guilt; we are shades of these states, most days. It takes an effort to not want, or to (more productively, for me) shape the want into something else. Given my heightened awareness of uncertainty, it …
Your eyes are probably more tired now than they used to be, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you were listening more instead of watching or reading. I certainly am. Writing, the careful arrangement of words into sense, doesn’t come easy nowadays. My writing brain creaks like a forgotten rocking chair. I used to joke …
Fountain pens aren’t only about looks. Aside from a comfortable grip, heft, and length, what’s important for you to notice is way the nib and flow of ink interact with how your hand moves across the paper. With practice and attention in the beginning, you can end up with a pen so attuned to the …
Content is a commitment. It remains a challenge, year after year, to just be myself, and not to pander to the audience and the machine (sometimes, sadly, the same thing now). For many of us who went on Instagram to express our creativity then realized it was all too easy to manipulate that creativity for …
One of the painful privileges of a conquered people is to point out the blinders of conquerors, whose descendants usually live unaware of the ongoing commentary of history. Take comfort women. The Philippines, South Korea, and China still smart from a long-denied apology from the Japanese government for institutionalizing rape during the Second World …
Vampire epidemics, zombie apocalypses, werewolf plagues. They all begin with Patient Zero: the guy who keeps coughing in flight, the rat with bulging red eyes that falls asleep in a sack of rice and never wakes up again. Pen collections begin in the exact same way, minus the unquenchable desire to drink human blood. 💀 …
Raise your hand if you begrudge the five minutes it takes to pack clothes for a two-week trip, and then happily fritter away the next ten hours plotting which pens and journals to carry. I’ve never had a system, only the desire to a) not facepalm for forgetting a pen that would have been PERFECT …
With a ton of comparison reviews out there, and new iPhone and Pixel models coming out later in the year (notches for the holidays!), why this one? Most phone camera shootouts feature landscapes, portraits, and some kind of petal-power macro. Pen people want to know if the phone will take great pictures of nibs, ink …