Welcome + Happy Monday

Ink is the cosmetic that ideas will wear when they go out in public. Graphite is their dirty truth.
—Henry Petroski, The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance

Good afternoon and happy Monday. Over the last few years, I've rediscovered a love for wooden pencils, yet I am not new to pencils. When I taught at two different Midwestern universities over the course of 10 years, I evaluated student project in pencil. When grading, I used either a Rotring 500 0.5mm mechanical pencil or Faber-Castell Grip 2001 wooden pencil. I preferred mechanical pencils because they were always ready to writing and I didn't need to remember a sharpener.

When I first became an instructor of record, I made the conscious choice to grade in pencil. I actually loved grading my evaluating student projects—particularly printed, paper essay. I liked holding my students' ideas in my hands. I liked responding as a reader in my marginal comments and writing a quick note as instructor to each student on the back of their last page—all in pencil. I liked the pretense of impermanence pencils offer. Their erasability quiet connoting that writing is a process, requiring continual revision, further development of ideas, reminding students that nothing is fixed permanently in place. 

Then a few summers ago, my local stationery store (at the time), Wonder Fair in Lawrence, KS, began carrying a variety of wooden pencils for writing and drawing. I picked up a fistful of pencils to explore--Leuchtturm 1917 HB, Absolute Apsara, DOMS Zoom, and Staedtler Mars Lumograph—and a new Möbius + Ruppert brass bullet sharpener. I laid in my hammock and sharpened each pencil while my dog, Diego, napped between my legs. As I sharpened each pencil I began to remember the smell and experience of writing with wooden pencils in elementary, dropping a quarter into the pencil machine for fancy pencils. I next bought a dozen Palomino Blackwing Matte (or MMX as The Erasable Podcast guys call them). I became hooked. Though, to be honest, I prefer the gray Blackwing 602 with a pink eraser. This graphite is perfect for my small, neat cursive. In future posts, I plan to use the 602 as my control when testing new wooden pencils. 

My goals for this blog are

• to test and catalog each new pencil
• to feature pencil quotations 
• to document my COVID-19 work-from-home life

Favorite Shops

• C.W. Pencil Enterprise in New York, NY
• JetPens in San Jose, CA
• Wonder Fair in Lawrence, KS
• Zandbroz in Fargo, ND

 
I am on this adventure and would love to connect with fellow analog travelers. If y'all have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I am always open to feedback and tips. Please reach out, especially as we are all social distancing due to COVID-19. I wish you all health, safety, and food security. 

Thank you very much for your time, patience, and consideration,

Happy + healthy Monday,

Creight