I suppose I could link to Armand Frasco’s Moleskinerie every day as there is always something there worthy to read or look at. One of my favorite additions to the site has been the Moleskine Notes Essay Series. If you haven’t read the latest essay from Renee Altson – I urge you to do so. And if you want to get caught up with the series, you can read all of the essays published on the site here. The magic of the Moleskine.
I want a nice, new set of encyclopedias.
Yes, yes, I know – the Internet is one big encyclopedia. All the big encyclopedias are online. The CIA Factbook is online. A thousand country profiles are online. Heck, countries are online – we can even visit the official website of North Korea! So yes, I know, it’s all online. But….
While I spent a week in bed not feeling well, I was craving a set of good old-fashioned encyclopedias. You know, those multi-volume sets, (Britannica is 32 volumes for 2006), that you maybe last saw in High School. I know, I know, there I had my laptop right on the bed with me- connected at high-speed to the Internet – and I wanted a set of $1400 encyclopedias.
It’s that paper thing again.
You see, no matter how many sites are on the web that tell me everything I could possibly want to know about Ernest Hemingway (for example), nothing beats being able to pull down a nicely bound volume of “GE-HI” to read about PaPa Hemingway. No links to click, no pop-ups, no slow-loading sites hosted on Angelfire or Tripod, no links that go nowhere; just a nice book I could have laid back with and absorbed myself in – without all the flash and flicker – for a good hour or more. And in a few hours if a taste of the life of Virginia Woolf calls my name – it’s as easy as “TA-WR.” Ahh, I had a craving in a bad way and had no fix. Clicking from site to site or surfing to, er, Wikipedia, just didn’t do it for me. I wanted the original thing, a true-blue set of tightly bound encyclopedias. Britannica or World Book – I’m not picky. A set of World Book encyclopedias runs 24-volumes and is a cool $1.085.00 (2010). Quite a bit less expensive than Britannica, but, truth be known, I’m fond of the World Book graphs, charts, full-color pictures and tiered-for-depth-of-interest articles. But heck, this last week I was craving a set so badly I would have settled for a supermarket set of Funk & Wagnalls. I guess it wasn’t the amount of information I was after, per se, it was the experience. I wanted to feel the book in my hands and turn the pages. (The paper thing.) I also wouldn’t have had to wonder if some ILoveHemingway.com website was put together on a whim by a 12 year-old who doesn’t get out enough.
The world is at my fingertips, right on the keyboard, a click away….but sometimes it just doesn’t feel right. (And don’t even remind me that, “encyclopedias,” are all available in CD-ROM editions.) It’s the look on the shelf. The smell as I open a volume. The dark ink on the pages. The well-written entries. The feel of the paper. Surely I’m not the only one who, in 2006, says, “I want a set of encyclopedias.” The real thing. The real deal. On my shelf.
Thank You, Oprah…
Oprah Winfrey did the right thing today. As a lover of books – and especially the memoir genre – I was disappointed in her earlier call to Larry King Live defending James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces. I was very proud to see Oprah stand up to Mr. Frey and his publisher. The truth matters. It matters in the paper world, the digital world, the real world. It just matters. Thank you, Oprah.
Why certain activities become associated with certain places is an interesting phenomenon that would be worthy of serious research, far more than this blog can offer. There are many examples, but I am going to focus on the literati. Just take a look at writers and their places. It’s almost a rite of passage to compose something worthy in a cafe. Even better if it’s in a café. (Note the acute accent which truly makes it a place to write.)
Writing in a café is something writers do. It just is. There isn’t really a reason other than writers write in cafés. It’s like you drink milk with Oreos – you just do. Most every writer, or potential writer, knows by now the story of J.K. Rowling and her first book; of how she was on public assistance and wrote the first Harry Potter book in a café. Well, of course she did! Did we expect her to write it at McDonald’s? Seriously…..why don’t writers go to Burger King and sit in a corner and write? Why not an outdoor patio at Sonic? And while we’re talking places, what do we drink while we write at the café? Ask most any writer and they’ll tell you they write while sipping on tea or coffee. If they really had a Pepsi they probably wouldn’t tell you. Everyone knows you don’t write and drink Pepsi. (At least not while you write anything of importance.) Of course, you could always write the Great American Novel on the dining room table drinking Coke Zero and just claim you wrote at the café fueled by cup after cup of house blend coffee. Just make sure you’re not booked for Oprah if you really didn’t.
So, what is it with writing and the café? Where do you write?
Me? I just write at home with my notebook propped up on…. Oh!…wait!…I…uh…I always write with pen and paper at this smoky little café with a slowly rotating overhead fan, pictures of Kerouac and Hemingway on the walls, lots of wood and brass, an outside patio with umbrella tables, a breeze that comes through with just enough oomph to quietly lift the papers but not actually blow them away; at night there’s always a small band playing a little New Orleans jazz, the door to the bustling sidewalk is always propped open by a simple stone and there are copies of The New Yorker and The Paris Review lying about. Honest. You don’t believe me? Well, huh! That’s how I remember it!
So, where do you write?
D. Keith Robinson is a writer, designer, artist, publisher and associate editor of Gawker Media’s best site (in my opinion), Lifehacker. He has written a Lifehacker Special Report titled, “Getting To Done: Long Live Paper!” It’s a nice piece. Robinson comes down firmly on the side of paper for productivity.
“Sometimes you’ve got to go with what works. More and more I find that when it comes to productivity and Getting Things Done, I’m leaning on paper-based solutions. Who needs Web 2.0 when you’ve got the most flexible, scalable and reliable solutions around—pencil and paper?”
That’s the way I see it and Paper Notes In A Digital World couldn’t have said it any better.
“Paper is the only way to brainstorm and get those ideas going. Some pencils and pens, a notebook (or Moleskine) for sketching, construction paper for cutting, constructing and drawing up big ideas and a bunch of post it notes are the perfect tools for getting creative. The possibilities are almost limitless.”
Again, Robinson hits the nail in the head. This is a must-read from Lifehacker.
Love that paper!
