There she goes, my beautiful world
In 1998 I purchased a fine point Rotring 700. This was my first foray into what some would call the realm of fine pens, although Rotring has tended to make pens that are more practical than the ones that usually get categorized that way. Until then I had used the Parker Vector, which generally gets classified as a «student» pen, and I was ready to see what spending a bit more would get me.
In part I wanted to test … Read the rest
For years I’ve been singing the virtues of the Pilot Varsity, which is a sort of odd duck in both of the worlds it straddles. It is a disposable fountain pen, and so far as I know, it is the only disposable fountain pen. It is by far the most inexpensive fountain pen on the market, but please, lets not call it cheap.
The Varsity is a featherweight of a pen, weighing in at nine grams full of ink and with … Read the rest
It’s hardly news that UCSF wants to build a helipad adjoining the new Mission Bay campus. As should be expected, community activists are pounding the pavement trying to drum up resistance. The flyer left on my front porch this morning reads
IMAGINE HELICOPTERS FLYING RIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEAD DAY & NIGHT
UCSF plans to build a helipad at Third/Mariposa!
Join us to tell them NO!
There will be some sort of event at Genentech Hall on June 18th, from 7pm … Read the rest
My apologies to the visitor who arrived here after googling «Chambers Encyclopedia 1884». Mine is actually the 1883 edition and my representing it as 1884 was an error which has now been corrected.… Read the rest
It’s a pretty common myth that’s going around these days, that old-fashioned mom and pop businesses are getting gobbled up by evil faceless Internet stores that have no retail space or human interaction to add to their overhead. We’re supposed to feel sad and guilty for buying a book from Amazon instead of a neighborhood book-seller. Our nostalgiaor more accurately a nostalgic-sounding delusioncalls us to the idealization of in-person customer service, individualized attention, and knowledgeable shopkeepers.
Now as it happens, … Read the rest
I hear all the time about John Law. He’s the guy with a long arm, who will catch you when you do bad things. I became curious: I’ve heard about him many times, but I don’t really know who John Law is. Fortunately, I have my set of Chambers’s Encyclopedia, 1883 Edition handy. Yes, I could have googled it, but that takes all the fun out, doesn’t it?
Turns out John Law was born the son of a Scottish banker and … Read the rest
According to the Book of Genesis, Pharaoh took one part of five of all that the people on the lands of Egypt produced, and the people kept four-fifths, and these were the conditions of slavery. Today the government takes two-fifths and we call it freedom.
I’m not even saying it’s wrong, but it gives one pause.… Read the rest
I have a project that may have just cost me my favorite pen. I’m exaggerating. A little. It’s not quite over yet, and I knew the Rotring 700 was not going to survive this process. I knew there was some risk involved, and I may yet find a solution.
The problem is that my Rotring 700 had seen better days. The barrel had been dented, the cap no longer fit securely over the nib, the cap also would not post … Read the rest
I did mention several weeks ago that Armenian Remembrance Day had arrived. I’ve been meaning to write about that day for some time now. Armenian Remembrance Day, April 24th, is one of the two days out of the year in which the Mount Davidson Cross is illuminated so as to be visible for miles. The idea to go shoot some photos up there had been percolating in my consciousness for some time, and as I gathered my things … Read the rest
Despite my recent grumblings about the paper quality of Moleskines, I’m pleased enough with the design to have a few in my current rotation. I’m embarrassed by how many notebooks I have started right now, each with its own dedicated purpose, at least vaguely. The one that I’m most intrigued by as a project is the Moleskine City Notebook for San Francisco. The idea is simple: they provide the basic ingredients of a city guide, the rest is essentially blank.
There … Read the rest