Login
Enlarge / A myriad of ways one might react to Gfycat's closure, trending on Gfycat itself at the moment. (credit: Gfycat)
The Internet continues to get a bit more fragmented and less accessible every week. Within the past seven days, Reddit finished its purge of third-party clients, Twitter required accounts to view tweets (temporarily or not), and Google News started pulling news articles from its Canadian results.
Now there's one more to add: Gfycat, a place where users uploaded, created, and distributed GIFs of all sorts, is shutting down as of September 1, according to a message on its homepage.
Users of the Snap-owned service are asked to "Please save or delete your Gfycat content." "After September 1, 2023, all Gfycat content and data will be deleted from gfycat.com."
Sailor's Delight was one of two ink formulations chosen by the /r/fountainpens community on Reddit earlier this year, continuing a wonderful trend by Diamine in working with many collaborators - big and small - to create inks. Given all of the recent changes with Reddit, will they continue this project? Who knows, but let me be the first to ask: Mastodon ink when?
If you are Mastodon curious, check out the wonderful community being built at Penfount, where you can find all the details you need. And if you are shimmer ink curious, well, Sailor’s Delight is one you will want to take a look at asap.
The most interesting thing I noticed out of the box with this ink is the underlying color. I thought it would be bright red, and there is plenty of that shade, but the base color underneath that red is peach. That took me by surprise, in a positive way. My 1.1 mm stub nib in the TWSBI 580ALR Prussian Blue pen I used for this review spreads the ink thin at the top of the line, with the ink pooling more towards the bottom of stroke. That’s how shading happens, and in this case, that’s how the peach shade pokes out from underneath the red.
But let’s be clear, you aren’t buying this ink for the peachy-red color - you are buying it for the peachy-red color with shimmer! Diamine says the shimmer is silver, but I see a faint light blue tone where the shimmer breaks through. I think that shade is a perfect match for this ink, giving the ink a purple tone in some areas.
When I bought Sailor’s Warning, I was interested in how it compared to another favorite shimmer ink of mine, Wearingeul Dracula. My guess was that they would be close enough to be interchangeable, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Dracula is very red in comparison, with a brighter blue shimmer. In the end, these two inks are very different.
If there is any downside to Sailor’s Warning it is that it seems dry, even from this 1.1 mm nib. I expected more ink flow, which shimmer inks need to show off their primary property. I want to give it a try in another pen and a different nib to see if I feel the same way, but I’ve tested several shimmer inks in this pen and flow has never been an issue.
At $22 for a 50 ml bottle, Diamine Sailor’s Warning is priced well. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it, but I would make sure to use a wide, wet nib. That goes for all shimmer inks, so that should come as no surprise, but I find it to be especially true with this one.
That’s my Sailor’s Warning.
Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.
Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!
Guess what’s here?
2023 St. Louis Pen Show Recap (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). It concerns me to hear that the St. Louis Pen Show, being as well-run an event as it is, continues to have attendance issues, even after last year. I wonder if it has to do with the time on the show calendar, as June tends to be a slow(er) business month in general given vacation, etc.
2023 St. Louis Pen Show (via Rachel’s Reflections). Rachel has another great review of the St. Louis Show.
One More for the Community’s Exploration of #21PenQuestions (via mnmlscholar). My own answers to #21PenQuestions will be forthcoming this week! Stay tuned. I’ve enjoyed thinking on these.
Maruman Mnemosyne Twin Ring Notebook Review (via Blake’s Broadcast). The Mnemosyne spiral notebooks are quite durable, come in a wide range of rulings and sizes, and give rise to endless debates about how to properly pronounce the name.
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Swap Nibs (via mnmlscholar). I’ve long been a proponent of unapologetic nib swapping. Several of my best everyday writers are bonafide “frankenpens” where none of the nibs and bodies match.
Packing Cubes for Notebooks? (via Stationery Pizza). I use the modular Plotter cases that come in three different sizes. Intended to fit plotter binders, they also hold other similarly sized notebooks and make it easy to swap stationery between different desks and bags.
Ink of the Week: Troublemaker Petrichor (via Fountain Pen Love). Now this is a cool grey color that I need to try out….
Kaweco Bronze Sport (via SBRE Brown). I love the warmer tone of the bronze as opposed to the more yellow brass. I wish more penmakers worked in bronze….
What I’m Enjoying (via From the Pen Cup). Flea beetles are the bane of my gardening existence.
A Journaling Streak - Holding on a Little Too Tightly (via Pete Denison). Sometimes it is best to remember why you started doing certain things, and not just continuing to do them for their own sake.
Mini-Review: Retro51 Rainforest Trust (via Well-Appointed Desk). Now THIS is a cool Retro, and for a good cause!
This week on the blog, I continued the Mid-Year Review, with a recap of the five most popular posts according to a combination of reader comments and statistics. I also wrote a post on a notebook I recently built out for brainstorming - one of my “single purpose” notebooks I keep in rotation.
The Heat is on!
The big news from this week is something that’s actually going to launch NEXT week (unless you’re a Patreon subscriber) - more on that below. But we also launched the pre-order for the TWSBI ECO Heat, an orange TWSBI to celebrate summer! Pre-orders are still available, and the pens will go out tomorrow, so reserve yours now. We also received a new shipment of the Laban Greek Mythology Inks, including the previously sold out Aphrodite Pink (which is still in short supply).
We’re also running a Fourth of July Promotion this weekend! Take 10% off inks and pen cases and notebook covers, to help you get geared up for your summer travels! Use the coupon code “HAPPY4TH” at checkout!
You knew the ink was gonna be red, right? I mean, otherwise, what’s the point? ;)
The big news that I announced yesterday on Instagram is the arrival of our exclusive collaboration with Hinze Pens and Starry Night Resins: a version of the Hinze “Elementar” fountain pen featuring a custom TGS-themed resin with a black ceramic-plated stainless steel nib. I’m very pleased with how these pens turned out and can’t wait to get them in your hands when they launch to the general readership next Thursday, July 6! There are 30 pens in this initial run, and each pen will include a bottle of limited edition “Summer Sangria” red ink. The ink will not be available after this pen release, as it’s part of a run commissioned by Hinze and is no longer made. While there may be a giveaway of a bottle or two later, there isn’t sufficient quantity to sell it on a stand-alone basis. Pens are currently open for pre-order to the Patreon membership, so if you want to guarantee yourself a pen (and a small break on the price), now is a great time to consider checking out our Patreon program, which also gives you access to a monthly meetup, periodic sample sales, and exclusive content. That said, I expect there to be plenty of pens available after the Patreon pre-order period ends.
The Gentleman Stationer is supported via purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.
This week we’re going to take a look at Troublemaker Petrichor. Troublemaker is an ink manufacturer from The Philippines. The word petrichor refers to the smell of the earth or soil after it rains. I’m not sure how a color can relate to a smell, but just like the smell, I’m a big fan of this color. Maybe it’s because ... We’re honored to have edtech’s patron saint of resisting student surveillance, Ian Linkletter, join us on July 24th at 12 PM Eastern (9 AM Pacific) to discuss the crucial role of ethical edtech in our current moment. As many of you already know, Ian’s experience battling Proctorio’s SLAPP lawsuit has provided him a uniquely personal perspective on the tremendous costs and dangers of ceding control of higher education’s mission to greedy, unscrupulous vendors. His cause is that of anyone who believes education is not only a fundamental right, but provides the basic toolkit for every citizen to battle tyranny. Join us at https://watch.reclaimed.tech/reclaim-open for Ian’s call to action advocating for ethical edtech in the work we do.
Taisho Roman inks are a new line from Teranishi and I’m continuing on this week with another two colors from the lineup. If you missed part 1 of this review, make sure to go back and read it!
I discovered the entire Teranishi ink brand at St. Louis Art Supply where the ink is offered in 40mL glass bottles for $21.50 (about $0.54 per mL) or in 1.5mL samples for $2.50. Because I have used samples for this review, there is no photo of the actual bottles but refer to part 1 for a look at them.
Taisho Roman Modern Red is a well-saturated red with a hint of shading and a touch of sheen occasionally.
However, I was surprised at how Modern Red reacted to various types of paper. Sometimes this ink shows as a bold, bright red. Other papers reveal the orange and brown undertones of the ink. The ink can also show very different textures on each paper.
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Modern Red on Midori MD paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet is the second ink in today’s review. This purple also has a bit of shading and plenty of blue in the undertones.
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Cosmo Air Light 83gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Tomoe River (TR7) 52gsm paper:
Teranishi Taisho Roman Salon de Violet on Midori MD paper:
Which of the Teranishi inks is your favorite?
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by me for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
The post Ink Review: Taisho Inks, Part 2 appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Archaeologists digging in Pompeii have unearthed a fresco containing what may be a “distant ancestor” of the modern pizza. The fresco features a platter with wine, fruit, and a piece of flat focaccia. According to Pompeii archaeologists, the focaccia doesn’t have tomatoes and mozzarella on top. Rather, it seemingly sports “pomegranate,” spices, perhaps a type of pesto, and “possibly condiments”–which is just a short hop, skip and a jump away to pizza.
Found in the atrium of a house connected to a bakery, the finely-detailed fresco grew out of a Greek tradition (called xenia) where gifts of hospitality, including food, are offered to visitors. Naturally, the fresco was entombed (and preserved) for centuries by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, Venmo (@openculture) and Crypto. Thanks!
Related Content
Explore the Roman Cookbook, De Re Coquinaria, the Oldest Known Cookbook in Existence
How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread from 79 AD: A Video Introduction
Watch the Destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius, Re-Created with Computer Animation (79 AD)
Every spring, the not-quite-pristine waters of Boston Harbor fill with schools of silvery, hand-sized fish known as alewives and blueback herring.
Some of them gather at the mouth of a slow-moving river that winds through one of the most densely populated and heavily industrialized watersheds in America. After spending three or four years in the Atlantic Ocean, the herring have returned to spawn in the freshwater ponds where they were born, at the headwaters of the Mystic River.
In my imagination, the herring hesitate before committing to this last leg of their journey. Do they remember what awaits them?
To reach their spawning grounds seven miles from the harbor, the herring will have to swim past shoals of rusted shopping carts and ancient tires embedded in the toxic muck left by four centuries of human enterprise. Tanneries, shipyards, slaughterhouses, chemical and glue factories, wastewater utilities, scrap yards, power plants — all have used the Mystic as a drainpipe, either deliberately or through neglect.
But today, the water is clean enough to sustain fish and many other kinds of fauna. As they push upstream, the herring may hear the muffled sounds of laughter, bicycle bells, car horns and music coming from riverside parks. They will slip under hundreds of kayaks, dinghies, motorboats, rowing sculls and paddleboards and dart through the shadows cast by a total of thirteen bridges. At three different points they will muscle their way up fish ladders to get past the dams that punctuate the upper reaches of the river. They will generally ignore baited hooks and garish lures cast by anglers. And they will try to evade the herring gulls, cormorants, herons, striped bass, snapping turtles, and even the occasional bald eagle that love to eat them.
Last year, an estimated 420,000 herring made it through this gauntlet and into the safety of three urban ponds where they could lay their eggs.
And almost no one noticed.
That an urban river should teem with wildlife while serving as a magnet for human recreation no longer seems remarkable to the people of this part of Boston. Few are familiar with the chain of human actions and reactions that produced this happy outcome. Fewer still know that for most of the past 150 years, the Mystic River was seen as an eyesore, a civic disgrace, and a monument to inertia, indifference, and greed.
In this sense, the Mystic is an extreme example of a paradoxical pattern repeated in urban waterways around the world.
First, humans discover the advantages of living next to rivers, which provide a convenient source of drinking water, food, transportation and waste disposal. For a few decades — or even centuries — these uses coexist, even as people downstream begin to complain about the smell. A Bronze Age settlement eventually becomes a trading post, which grows into a medieval town and, centuries later, an industrializing city, smell and waste building up along the way. Until one hot day in the summer of 01858 a statesman in London describes the River Thames as “a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors.”
Civil engineers are summoned, and they deliver the bad news. The only way to resurrect the river and get rid of the smell is to install a massive system for underground sewage collection and pass strict laws prohibiting industrial discharges. The necessary infrastructure is staggeringly expensive and will take years to build, at great inconvenience to city residents. Even after the system is completed, the river will need at least half a century to gradually purge itself to the point where swimming or fishing might once again be safe.
The implication of this temporal caveat — that politicians who announce the project will be long dead when it delivers its full intended benefits — would normally be a non-starter for a municipal budget committee. But the revulsion provoked by raw sewage, and its power as a symbol of backwardness, make it impossible to postpone the matter indefinitely. In London, the tipping point came during the “Great Stink” of 01858, when the combination of a heat wave and low water levels made things so unbearable that Parliament was forced to fund a revolutionary drainage system that is still in use today.
In city after city, similar crises set in motion a process that can be neatly plotted on a graph. Increasing investments in sanitation infrastructure and stricter enforcement of environmental laws gradually lead to better water quality. Fish and waterfowl eventually return, to the amazement of local residents. Riverfront real estate soars in value, prompting the construction of new housing, parks, restaurants and music venues. Generations that had lived “with their backs to the river” rediscover the pleasures of relaxing on its banks. In many European cities, once-squalid waterways are now so immaculate that downtown office workers take lunch-time dips in the summer, no showers required. In Bern, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, some people “swim to work.”
Then, in the final stage of this process, everyone succumbs to collective amnesia.
In Ian McEwan’s 02005 novel Saturday, the protagonist briefly reflects on the infrastructure that makes life in his London townhouse so pleasant: “…an eighteenth-century dream bathed and embraced by modernity, by streetlight from above, and from below fiber-optic cables, and cool fresh water coursing down pipes, and sewage borne away in an instant of forgetting.”
While the engineering, biology and economics of river restorations are relatively straightforward, the stories we tell ourselves about them are not. “An instant of forgetting” could well be the motto of all well-functioning sanitation systems, which conveniently detach us from the reality of the waste we produce. But the chain of events that brings us to this instant often begins with the act of remembering an uncontaminated past.
Call it ecological nostalgia. A search of the words “pollution” and “Mystic River” in the digital archives of the Boston Globe turns up nearly 700 items spread over the past 155 years, and offers a useful proxy for tracking the perceptions of the river over time. We think of pollution as a modern phenomenon, but in the late 19th century the Globe was full of letters, reports and opinions recalling the river in an earlier, uncorrupted state. In 01865, a writer complains that formerly delicious oysters from the Mystic have been “rendered unpalatable” by pollution. In 01876 a correspondent claims that as a boy he enjoyed swimming in the Mystic — before it was turned into an open sewer. Four years later a writer laments that the river herring fishery “was formerly so great that the towns received quite a large revenue from it.” And by 01905, a columnist calls for the “improvement and purification” of the Mystic, urging the Board of Health and the Metropolitan Park Commission to work together on “the restoration of the river to its former attractive and sanitary condition.”
These sepia-colored evocations of a prelapsarian past are a recurring feature of river restoration narratives to this day. “Sadly, only septuagenarians can now recall summer days a half century earlier when the laughter of children swimming in the Mystic River echoed in this vicinity,” writes a Globe columnist in 01993. Last year, in a piece on the spectacular recovery of Boston’s better-known Charles River, Derrick Z. Jackson quoted an activist who believes such images were critical to building public support for the project: “people remembered that their grandmothers swam in the Charles and wanted that for themselves again.” Whether or not anyone was actually swimming in these rivers in the mid-20th century is irrelevant — the idea is evocative and, as a call to action, effective.
But the notion that a watercourse can be healed and returned to an Edenic state is also disingenuous. As Heraclitus elegantly put in the fourth century BC, “No man ever steps into a river twice; for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” Biologists are quick to point out that the Mystic watershed will never revert to its 17th century state. As chronicled in Richard H. Beinecke’s The Mystic River: A Natural and Human History and Recreation Guide (02013), when English colonists arrived they encountered a thinly populated tidal marshland where the native Massachussett, Nipmuc and Pawtucket tribes had lived sustainably for at least two thousand years. Since then, the Mystic and its tributaries have been dammed, channelized, straightened and dredged into an unstable ecosystem that will require active maintenance in perpetuity.
As the physical river has changed, so have the subjective justifications for restoring it. The Boston Globe archives show that for a 50-year period starting in the 01860s, people were primarily motivated by the loss of oysters and fish stocks described above, and by fears that exposure to sewage might lead to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. But by the time of the Great Depression, the first municipal sewage systems had largely succeeded in channeling wastewater away from residential areas, and concerns about the river had found new targets.
Writers to the Globe began to complain that fuel leaks from barges on the Mystic were spoiling “the only bathing beach” in the city of Somerville, one of the main towns along the river. In 01930, the Globe reported that local and state representatives “stormed the office of the Metropolitan Planning Division yesterday to request action on the 29-year-old project of improving and developing certain tracts along the Mystic riverbank for playground and bathing purposes.” A decade later, not much had changed. “For years,” claimed an editorial in 01940, “the Mystic River has been unfit for bathing because of pollution and hundreds of children in Somerville, Medford and Arlington have been deprived of their most natural and accessible swimming place.”
In the 01960s and 70s, this emphasis on recreational uses of the river broadened into the ecological priorities of the nascent environmental movement. Apocalyptic images of fire burning on the surface of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River galvanized public alarm over the state of urban waterways. President Lyndon Johnson authorized billions of dollars in federal funds to “end pollution” and subsidize the construction of new sewage treatment plants. And the Clean Water Act of 01972 imposed ambitious benchmarks and aggressive timelines for curtailing source pollution.
Suddenly, the tiny community of Bostonians who cared about the Mystic felt like they were part of a global movement. Articles from this period feature junior high schoolers taking water samples in the Mystic and collecting signatures for anti-pollution petitions they would send to state representatives. The petitions worked. News of companies being fined for unlawful discharges became routine, and the Globe began inviting readers to report scofflaws for its “Polluter of the Week” column. An article in 01970 described a group of students at Tufts University who spent a semester conducting an in-depth study of the river and recommended forming a Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) to coordinate clean-up efforts.
The creation of the MyRWA, which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, mirrors the rise of activist organizations that would become powerful agents of accountability and continuity in settings where municipal officials often serve just two-year terms. In a letter to the editor from 01985, MyRWA’s first president, Herbert Meyer, chastised the regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for ignoring scientific evidence regarding efforts to clean Boston Harbor. “Volunteer groups like ours have limited budgets and no staff,” he wrote. “Our strengths are our longevity – we remember earlier studies – and objectivity. We speak our minds: Not being hired, we cannot be fired, if we take an unpopular stand.”
MyRWA volunteers began collecting regular water samples and sending them to municipal authorities to keep up pressure for change. They also found creative ways to get local residents to overcome their preconceptions and reconnect with the river: paddling excursions, a series of riverside murals painted by local high school students, periodic meet-ups to remove invasive plants and a herring counting project that tracks the fish on their yearly spawning run.
For the last two decades, coverage in the Boston Globe has celebrated the efforts of these and other volunteers (as in a 02002 profile of Roger Frymire, who paddles up and down the Mystic sniffing for suspicious outfalls: “He has a really sensitive nose, particularly for sewage”). But it has also continued to display the negativity bias that is perhaps inevitable in a daily newspaper. In a 02015 editorial, the paper urges city officials to “Set 2024 goal for a swimmable Mystic” as part of an (ultimately abandoned) bid to host the Olympic Games. “If Olympic organizers moved the swim… to the Mystic River, the 2024 deadline could spur the long-overdue clean-up of Boston’s forgotten river,” the editorial claimed, as if the Boston Globe had not chronicled each stage of that clean-up for more than a century.
For Patrick Herron, MyRWA’s current president, this “generational ignorance” is to be expected. “If we could all see what our great-great-grandparents saw, and then we zoomed to the present, we would be appalled,” he said in a recent interview. “But we can only remember what we saw 20 or 30 years ago, and things today aren’t that much different.”
Baselines shift: each generation takes progress for granted and zeroes in on a new irritant. Herron said that MyRWA’s current crop of volunteers, like their predecessors, brings a new vocabulary and fresh motivations to the table. The initial focus on water quality has morphed into a struggle for “environmental justice,” which explicitly elevates the needs of ethnic minorities, lower-income residents, and other marginalized groups that have been disproportionately affected by the Mystic’s problems. Climate change, and the increasingly frequent flooding that still causes raw sewage to spill into the river, is now at the center of debates about the next generation of infrastructure investments needed to protect the Mystic.
Lisa Brukilacchio, one of the early members of MyRWA, thinks these shifts are inevitable. “Change is cyclical,” she said. In her experience, young volunteers show little interest in what their predecessors achieved. “You fix one thing and it’s, like, over here there’s another problem. People have short attention spans, and they want to see something happen now.”
John Reinhardt, a Bostonian who was involved in MyRWA’s leadership for over 30 years, agrees with Brukilacchio and adds that this indifference to the past may be essential to preventing complacency. “I think that there is incredible value to the amnesia,” he said. “Because of the amnesia, people come in and say, damn it, this isn’t right. I have to do something about it, because nobody else is!”
To generate a sense of urgency and compel action, it may perhaps be necessary to minimize both the scale of previous crises and the contributions of our forebears. Bradford Johnson, an artist based in Somerville, sees the Mystic as a canvas onto which each generation overlays its own fears and aspirations. In a series of paintings (three of which accompany this essay) Johnson juxtaposes archival images of the Mystic, fragments of magazine advertising, photos of local wildlife, and single-celled organisms viewed under a microscope. In each panel, layers of paint are interspersed with multiple coats of clear acrylic, creating a thick, semi-translucent surface that cracks as it dries.
Johnson’s paintings dwell on the arbitrary ways in which we select and manipulate memories of a landscape. They also incorporate details from elaborate charts created by Clarence Larkin (01850–01924), an American Baptist pastor and author whose writings were popular among conservative Protestants. The charts were studied by believers who wanted to understand Biblical prophecy and map God's action in history. I interpret Johnson’s inclusion of these panels as a nod to the role of human will in the destruction and subsequent reclamation of a landscape, and to religious and secular notions of redemption.
It so happens that the timescales required to resurrect an urban river are similar to those needed to construct a gothic cathedral. Both enterprises depend on thousands of anonymous individuals to perform mundane, often-unglamorous tasks over several generations.
But the similarities end there. Cathedrals emerge from a single blueprint in predictable and well-ordered stages. When completed, they preserve the work of each mason, carpenter and stained-glass artisan as a static monument to a shared creed. They are made of stone to underscore the illusion of permanence.
Rivers, with their ceaseless, shape-shifting flux, remind us that none of our labor will last. The process of reclaiming a dead river is the opposite of orderly: it lurches through seasons of outrage and indifference, earnest clean-ups followed by another fuel spill, budget battles and political grand-standing, nostalgia and frustration. It is messy, elusive, and never actually finished.
Yet in Boston and many other cities, this process is working. And as testaments to a different kind of human agency, resurrected rivers are, in their own way, no less majestic than the structures at Canterbury or Notre-Dame.
“Cathedral thinking” has long been a slogan among evangelists for multi-generational collaboration. “River restoration thinking” may be a more apposite model for tackling the problems of our fractious age.
As we head into July, stationery and pen fans tend take a moment to rest, enjoy the summer holidays and then re-evaluate their planner or other analog set-up. It’s just how we roll. This week, several posts feature reviews and reflections on goals and stationery plans that were set into motion in January. How have your stationery or planner approach changed since January?
Also, two more sites have taken time to play along with our #21penquestions tag. Some great answers!
(although some people — who shall remain nameless– don’t deserve it!)
We need each other. Please support us by joining our Patreon and be sure to shop with our sponsors and affiliates and let them know you heard about them here. Your patronage supports this site. Without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Mid-Year Reflections appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
inkophile
Don’t Miss this week’s Giveaway! Closes tonight at 11:59pm CT.
Lumpers vs. Splitters: How Many Paper Notebooks Do You Use at One Time? (via Analog Office). Both? I have multiple general purpose notebooks, as well as notebooks devoted to specific functions.
Half Year Check-in for 2023 Intentions (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). It’s that time of year again!
YStudio - Classic Portable Fountain Pen in Copper (via Weirdoforest Pens). I need to jump back into reviewing the YStudio lineup, as it’s been years since I’ve used one of their products and they have expanded rather dramatically.
The Advantages of Dip Nibs (via KraftyKats). Want a lot of line variation in your writing and the ability to switch between styles without having to have fountain pen nibs ground? Dip nibs are an inexpensive and easy way to experiment.
An Ink You Like Is Too Wet or Too Dry - Do Not Throw It Out (via Dapprman). In addition to awaiting the perfect pen for a specific ink (one that may write slightly wet or slightly dry), you can also consider some of the various ink additives available such as Vanness “White Lightning”. I hear it works great for the Kyoto TAG inks.
Ink of the Week - Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall (via Fountain Pen Love). Papier Plume has been absolutely killing it in recent years with some of their limited edition ink colors, and Bayou Nightfall - a grey/blue/green shader - is a personal favorite. I’m glad I was able to pick up a bottle secondhand.
Conway Stewart Churchill Fountain Pen Review (via S.B.R.E. Brown). Eventually I’ll bring home one of the Conway Stewart Flagship pens from either the upcoming D.C. or San Francisco Pen Shows.
Ink Review #2238: Romania Red (via Mountain of Ink). Dominant Industry Romania Red has turned into one of my favorite dark/blood red inks available right now, and is the preferred substitute for my Montblanc Hitchcock. I might actually prefer this color.
Stationery on the Go: Train Edition (Pen Addict - Sarah). I would love to take a long train trip (cross-country maybe?) solely for the purpose of spending some time with my writing.
Boku-Undo Gansai Aurora Palette (via Well-Appointed Desk). So it looks like watercolor makers are taking the same approach as the fountain pen ink makers, releasing a ton of colors with different properties.
This week on the blog I wrote a piece about proprietary ink cartridges (namely those from Japan that I love due to their high ink capacity and refillability), and I also revisited five of my favorite posts from 2023 as I work through my Mid-Year Review that will be continued this week.
This week in the Curated Shop, we had large-format A4 notebooks arrive, and I also took a look at five of my favorite releases from 2023.
T.G.S. Patreon is currently the only non-shop means of support for the site, and features not only access to meetups and early gently used sales, but more exclusive content. Patreon support starts as low as $3 per month, and if you pay annually there is a further discount. In addition to purchases from The Curated Shop, Patreon allows us to continue to grow the site without relying on advertisements and affiliate marketing. If you’re interested in meetups and exclusive content, or simply supporting the site, we greatly appreciate your support!
This is so powerful. Makes me cry every time I watch it.
– A simple, minimal stripe-y rug. I like.
– The only stroller I want to own.
– Tempted to buy one of these tea infusers. Worth it?
– This is a beautiful carabiner.
– What the web looks like to someone who is colorblind. (via)
– Vintage Analog Photo Booths. Such beauties!
– Graphic Design Reading List (via Chris)
– I remember way back when, putting a resume together is such a pain. I’d totally be down to have an AI tool help me with the first draft.
– A floating shelf with a built in LED light. Yes please.
– I love the You Are Not Alone Murals. Murals are painted by different artists in different communities all around the world.
– One of my favorite necklace pendants: Mudra for acceptance.
– It’s travel season. Get your custom Luggage Tag by Various Keytags.
– Having no obligation to your former self. (via Chris)
– This yellow poncho made me giggle.
– Want to test drive a tattoo? Tattly got u.
According to NPR, “Caffeine is the most widely consumed drug in the world. Here in the U.S., according to a 2022 survey, more than 93% of adults consume caffeine, and of those, 75% consume caffeine at least once a day.” Given the prevalence of coffee worldwide, it pays to ask a simple question: Is coffee good for you? Above, James Hoffmann, the author of The World Atlas of Coffee, provides an overview of research examining the relationship between coffee and various dimensions of health, including the gut/microbiome, sleep, cancer, cognition, mortality and more. If you want to explore this subject more deeply, Hoffmann has created a list of the research papers reviewed here.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, Venmo (@openculture) and Crypto. Thanks!
Related Content
Philosophers Drinking Coffee: The Excessive Habits of Kant, Voltaire & Kierkegaard
How Coffee Affects Your Brain: A Very Quick Primer
Why Coffee Naps Will Perk You Up More Than Either Coffee, or Naps, Alone
Paul Giamatti Plays Honoré de Balzac, Hopped Up on 50 Coffees Per Day
This week we’re going to take a look at Papier Plume Bayou Nightfall. I picked up this ink at Papier Plume in New Orleans. If you ever have the opportunity to stop by, I highly recommend it. Not only is it a fantastically fun and well-stocked shop in the French Quarter, but the owners are a pleasure to chat with. ...
Cartridges from left: Pilot, Platinum, Sailor, Lamy, and “Standard” International
It doesn't take long for new fountain pen users to recognize that all fountain pen ink cartridges aren't created equal. While there is such a thing as a "standard international" ink cartridge and converter, it’s neither “standard” nor particularly “international”, as that term has essentially come to mean that the standard version "fits pens with JoWo, Bock, or Schmidt nib/feed assemblies." Nearly all of the Japanese brands, as well as some European brands like Lamy, use their own proprietary cartridge/converter format. Today I'll talk a bit about why I tend to prefer the Japanese-style cartridges to the standard international format.
Note: Whenever you buy a new pen from a brand you haven't previously used, ALWAYS check whether you also need a specific converter and/or cartridge to go with that brand.
Pilot pens such as the Custom Heritage 912, the Custom 74, and the Vanishing Point all take the proprietary Pilot Cartridge.
Why these two, you might ask? Capacity. While each format is unique to each brand, these cartridges hold a LOT of ink. Moreover, the "wide mouth" format of the cartridge both ensures better ink flow than the typical international cartridge (which has a narrower opening) and makes the cartridge easier to refill with ink of your choice using a pipette or small eyedropper rather than a syringe. Of course, part of the reason why these cartridges tend to work so well may be due to the proprietary nature itself, with the cartridge engineered to fit the brand's specific nib and feed.
Pilot cartridges are among the easiest to refill, so there’s even an “aftermarket” for things like these small rubber stoppers if you want to refill a full set. (Search eBay or your online marketplace of choice.)
As an aside, there has been a lot of speculation as to why Pilot recently released the Iroshizuku Inks in cartridge form, and why they believe they can price these cartridges at the relatively high price point of $14 for six. Personally, I think it's because a large portion of users write with fine or extra-fine nibs (if not finer). Given that Pilot cartridges hold a decent volume of ink, six of these cartridges could last someone up to a year, especially if they don't write extensively by hand and, for example, use their pen to make occasional notes in a planner. (Standard Pilot cartridges are much less expensive, as are Platinum cartridges, and are sold in boxes of one dozen.)
While Sailor cartridges also feature a proprietary format with a wider opening similar to Pilot and Platinum, and work just fine, they don't hold as much ink. On the other hand, I find that Lamy cartridges have narrower openings similar to the Western-style Standard International cartridge. As a result, the ink doesn't flow quite as well, and Lamy cartridges can be difficult to puncture to the point where I sometimes worry I'm about to break the pen.
Don’t be like me. Use your cartridges.
At the end of the day, the proprietary systems of cartridges and ink converters can be both a pain to navigate and part of the charm of using fountain pens. Sure, it would be much more convenient to have a single universal format for all brands, and to not have to worry about stocking refills from multiple brands, but over time I've just come to accept that "the cartridge singularity" is not going to happen and learned to love the different shapes and peculiarities of each cartridge. My own opinion is that the Japanese pen companies make better cartridges than Western manufacturers. Not only do I get better performance - mainly ink flow - when I use these cartridges, but the cartridges seem to last longer on the shelf. My insanely busy week/weekend of work saw me cycling through several cartridges on the fly, and the number of half-evaporated cartridges I discovered in my office desk drawer stash (mostly standard short international) reminded me that these things don't last forever. Use 'em if you got em'!
The Gentleman Stationer is supported by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.
Tomorrow I head out for St. Louis for the pen show. Will you be there too? If not, I hope you are having a wonderful summer and maybe I’ll see you somewhere else in the future?
Until then, have fun with this week’s links including Mike of Inkdependence’s entry into our #21PenQuestions project.
We need each other. Please support our sponsors, affiliates or join our Patreon. Your patronage supports this site. Without them, and without you, we could not continue to do what we do. Thank you!
The post Link Love: Meet Me in St. Louis? appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.
Let’s just say this week may have gotten slightly off-track with fountain pen minimalism.
Finding Each Other: Social Media (via A Fleeting Ripple). This is a great idea for a post - most forms of social media are constantly changing, including in the fountain pen world, and it’s important to keep up with where people are as certain communities we’ve come to rely on to connect us change (or close altogether). See the last section of this post for details on where you can find me on social media and/or the broader internet these days.
#21PenQuestions from Inkdependence (via Inkdependence). This was a fun read. I’m going to go start working on my answers.
Finding the Purposeful Center of Writing in Analog (via mnmlscholar). A thoughtful reflection on why and how we do the work we do, and may or may not choose to do it in analog form.
Montblanc 149 Calligraphy Curved Nib (via Scrively). Depending on how you hold this pen (similar to a Kodachi or Naginata-Togi-style nib), you apparently can get some very nice line variation in a single nib. It’s interesting to see Montblanc get involved selling these kinds of nibs.
Kuretake Gansai Tambi Portable Watercolor Palette (via Fueled by Clouds and Coffee). While I don’t own a Watercolor Palette, or even any watercolors, I’ve long been curious about how palettes are used and refilled.
Life Schöpfer Notebook Review (via Blake’s Broadcast). Blake reviews a vintage exercise book-style notebook from Japanese stationery company Life.
Kaweco Bronze Sport (via Dapprman). While it’s a more expensive option, I also enjoy how bronze works as a material on pens.
Ink of the Week - Visconti Blue (via Fountain Pen Love). Visconti inks used to receive a lot more attention than they do today. They make a generally well-regarded blue ink that’s aptly described here as a bright “pure” blue.
Montblanc Writer’s Edition Franz Kafka Review (via SBRE Brown). The insect engraving on the nib does it for me.
Seven Years of Morning Pages (via From the Pen Cup). That sort of consistency is a huge accomplishment. Congratulations!
The Pen that Started It All (via Pen Addict - Kimberly). Everyone has that one first pen that kicked off the hobby for them. Mine was a Waterman Laureate.
This week on the blog, we featured a guest post from R.B. Lemberg titled “The Ark of Pens,” which contained their thoughts on collecting and the fountain pen hobby. Since I’ve been doing a LOT of writing and editing this week, I’ve been using a combination of workhorse Pilot pens and blue-black inks. I wrote a post on six of my blue-black inks of choice, after I noticed that they showed a surprising amount of variation. Finally the YouTube Channel has a new “Currently Inked” video, in which I talk about three of the capless/retractable fountain pens I’ve been using lately.
The Platinum Matte Curidas Fountain Pen comes with everything you need to get started writing!
First things first: Through tonight at 11:59pm CT, grab an extra 10% off certain paper and desk accessories in the T.G.S. Curated Shop using the code “DAD10” at checkout. Also, if you’re looking for a last-minute gift (for Father’s Day or any occasions), after repeated request there I’ve introduced an electronic gift card option.
New arrivals this past week include the Matte Curidas Retractable Fountain Pen from Platinum, available in all three colors. We’ve also restocked on Midori MD Cotton Paper in both the pad and notebook format, and have A4 sized Midori MD Light Notebooks.
Prompted by Dennis’ post above, maybe this is a good time to take a moment to talk about where I live in the online pen world, and where you can find me other than here on the primary T.G.S. website. I’m most active on Instagram (@gentlemanstationer), given that the visual aspect of pens, ink, and paper lends itself to a more photo and video-intensive application. While I do repost content to Twitter (@vintagegntlmn), for those of you who I know use it like a news feed, lately I’ve been more active on Mastodon (@gentlemanstationer.mastodon.social) since I feel that community tends to lend itself to more civil discussion and has a growing stationery contingent.
While I’m interested in participating more in communities such as Twitch, Slack, Discord and Reddit (u/gentlemanstationer and r/gentlemanstationer), and agree that all of those platforms have vibrant communities of enthusiasts, my time commitments are limited and I can’t really do anything justice by trying to engage everywhere on a deep level. Because any content/advice/interactions you have on traditional social media can be fleeting and subject to the whims of third-parties who probably don’t have “growing community” and preserving knowledge long-term as their central aim, my central point of engagement will always be here at T.G.S., since I own the platform and have a large degree of control over what happens to my content and can take steps to keep the dialog on a respectful level. If you’d like to participate in more personal interaction (including monthly meetups), consider joining our Patreon. I’m also working on more video content over on the T.G.S. YouTube Channel.
As always, many thanks for your support!
We’re running a sale this weekend in the shop for Father’s Day - through 11:59pm on Sunday, June 18, take 10% off paper and desk accessories using the coupon code “DAD10” at checkout!
A while back I did an "inks of choice" post in which, for the first time, I discussed my favorite inks by broad color category. This wasn't easy, as many of the colors I love and use on a regular basis aren't easy to categorize. Is it a blue? A blue-black? A dusky purple? Is this a yellow or an orange? A red or a brown? Is burgundy it's own color family? (You get the idea.)
Lately I've been involved in a project at my job that has required me to do more writing than I've done in a long time, given my mostly supervisory responsibilities at this point in my career. This has resulted in (1) a lot of different pens getting written dry; and (2) lots of different pens getting inked up, mainly with unassuming blue-black inks chosen for both performance and the fact that they're less distracting than other brighter options. Whenever I get caught up in a project like this one, and find myself looking at multiple inks in the same color family, I end up struck by how much variation there is among supposedly "identical" inks and ultimately realize that it's a key part of why I have so much fun with this hobby. Here, you have six inks that vary pretty wildly, even within brands. At the same time, it’s fun to see the commonalities that certain brands have, like that Pilot red sheen!
My standard ink testing paper is Midori MD Cotton. It accurately reflects color despite being slightly off-white, and showcases ink properties such as sheen and shading fairly well.
Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo. Tsuki-Yo won the "Blue-Black" slot in the "Favorite Inks" post, and as I mentioned in that post, the main reason I love Tsuki-Yo so much is because it's not your traditional blue-black ink. Typically translated as "Moonlight", this ink features a navy undertone with reddish sheen - an office-friendly ink with just enough subtlety to make it interesting for fountain pen aficionados.
Iroshizuku Shin-Kai. Shin-Kai is what I would call the "true" blue-black in the Iroshizuku lineup. Typically translated as "Deep Sea," Shin-Kai somewhat resembles standard Pilot Blue-Black, but dries to an almost steel grey with blue undertones and, again, red sheen.
Pilot Blue-Black. Whenever I get a new Vanishing Point or other Pilot cartridge-converter pen, often the first ink to run through that pen is a standard Pilot Blue-Black ink cartridge. This particular ink has a degree of water-resistance, which is one reason why so many people enjoy it. What surprises me the most with this ink is the degree of red sheen this ink exhibits, which is even more pronounced than its Iroshizuku counterparts.
I forget how much red sheen Pilot inks exhibit, until I swatch them next to other brands. The standard Pilot Blue-Black is kind of crazy, though the sheen only really comes out
Caran d'Ache Magnetic Blue. The "Grey-Blue-Black" of this group, albeit with purple (?) undertones when wet, Caran d'Ache Magnetic Blue is the most "traditional" blue-black ink of this group. It exhibits some shading but no sheen.
Platinum Blue-Black. Another standard Japanese blue-black ink that I use primarily in cartridge form, Platinum Blue-Black is more blue than other options, and also shows a good degree of water resistance.
Sailor Nano Souboku. Sailor makes a line of "nano" pigmented inks that are permanent, yet still "safe" for use in fountain pens. I've reviewed Kiwa-Guro (the "Nano-Black") in the past, but I've had this pack of the blue-black Souboku cartridges for more than a year and figured that I needed to put them through the rotation. Souboku looks almost teal when wet, and dries to a lighter blue-black shade than the other inks shown here. I like the Sailor "Nano" pigmented inks because they are permanent and tend to perform well on even the cheapest of office papers.
These three are the more “standard” blue-black inks that I’ve used.
Note: Why so many cartridges, you may ask? During my office reorganization/clean-out project from earlier this year, I came across more than a dozen boxes of cartridges, some of which had to be tossed because the ink had evaporated. Cartridges don't last forever, so if you have them, use them!
The Gentleman Stationer is supported entirely by purchases from the T.G.S. Curated Shop and Pledges via the T.G.S. Patreon Program.
Look Ma! No Bleed-through!
This week we’re going to take a look at Visconti Blue. When I purchased this ink I was looking for what I considered to be a “pure” blue ink and I think this really fills that role. As you probably know, there are many different shades of blue out there. With such tough competition, how do you choose? I’ll give ... 
FreshRSS 
