The Great Wampum Breakout of '07

It looks as if I've come to the end of a purple patch.

The small vial of Noodler's Purple Wampum that was donated to the Penquod by honorary crew member Stefan is now empty. But more importantly, yesterday, just as I was on the verge of ordering a whole bottle of the glorious colour, I had an unfortunate Wampum incident that has forced me to reconsider my relationship with the ink.

I had filled my Pelikan M200 with what remained of Stefan's Wampum sample, and I set off to work with the pen in my case. I was using it to take notes in my office later that morning when I suddenly noticed that the Wampum was bleeding through the page in a dramatic fashion. So much so, in fact, that the other side of the sheet was essentially useless. Further experimentation under rigorous scientific conditions has suggested that some papers -- Clairefontaine, for instance -- are immune to the bleed-through, while the kind of cheap paper with which we are provided in work is perilously permeable. I present above, dear readers, Exhibit A in the case of the Penquod v. Purple Wampum. What you can see in the image is the word 'Wednesday' as it has leaked through to the other side of a sheet of paper. 'Wednesday' from the other side of the looking-glass, as it were.

But perhaps all hope is not lost. As I sat upon the deck of the Penquod and pondered with sadness the Great Wampum Breakout of '07, I suddenly remembered an intriguing talk on 'genetic criticism' that I heard when I was a graduate student in the mid-late 1990s. The subject was the development of the work of James Joyce from manuscript to final publication. The speaker discussed at one point what happened when Joyce began to mark up the proofs to one of his books. (I think that it was Ulysses, and the resident Joyce expert in my department -- let's call him Lawrence, shall we? -- also believes this to be the case, but he did point out that the mighty Finnegans Wake might also have featured in the genetic account.) As little James' pen made the corrections, the ink began to bleed through to the other side of the sheet. When he turned the page, however, Joyce was not horrified, for his eye was caught by the unusual shapes formed by the mirror-image of his alterations. The shapes soon began to suggest new words to the author, and these were quickly incorporated into the book itself.

In other words, the work of Joyce as we know it owes a debt to an ink that bled through the page. Ulysses is only Ulysses because of an ink-related accident, an inkident. (Did this in turn suggest the scandalous figure of Shem the Penman, whose recipe for ink in the later Finnegans Wake is probably better left undiscussed in polite company?) Perhaps my own Wampum inkident could be exploited for literary inspiration. Does that reversed 'Wednesday' suggest a new word to you? I've been studying it for a few minutes, and I think it's starting to look a little like 'problembrew'. Is this the secret name for Purple Wampum? Is it a 'problem brew' because of the way that it bleeds through paper? And is it only in its bleeding that its secret name reveals itself?

I will leave this image to brew before your eyes for a while, dear readers. yes I said yes I will Yes.

Ink in use today: Herbin Poussière de Lune; Noodler's Sequoia.

Thurible News

We are gathered here today for a brief postscript to yesterday's entry.

I now know, thanks to the saintly Stefan, that the obscure object of my desire is called a thurible -- the OED also gives 'censer' as a possiblity -- and that it contains incense. All I need to know now is where I can buy one of these flamboyant items. There are several currently for sale on eBay, it's true, but they don't seem to be the swinging kind, and swing I must. I might have to pay a visit to the Catholic gift shop on Charles Street in Cardiff, but I don't know if they'll sell a censer to a non-believer. (Do you have to prove membership somehow? Is there a licence, a shibboleth, an online record of names? Should I just genuflect on entering the shop?) I can't believe that I'm on the verge(r) of actually using the phrase, 'I'd like to buy a thurible, please'.

More importantly, I can't believe how many puns I missed out on by not knowing the name of the object in question when writing yesterday's post. I could have discussed 'censership' or the possibility of the Penquod becoming a 'censer ship'. 'Sense and censer-bility' could have been my title, too. I've sneaked a belated pun into the name of this post, of course, but I'm wracked with guilt -- incensed, to steal one of Stefan's jokes -- over how many escaped my papal prose yesterday evening. 'No pun, no fun', I always say. I blame this on my grandfather, who once taught me the following rhyme:

If, for every pun I shed,
I should be a-punishéd,
I would lay my punished head
In a wooden, puny shed.

Amen.

Ink in use today: Noodler's Purple Wampum.

Waiting for American Blue

Nothing to be done.

Yes, dear readers, I'm aware that I've used Samuel Beckett's wonderful opening line as an inkipit on an earlier occasion, but I now feel that I truly understand the situation in which Vladimir and Estragon, Waiting for Godot's unfortunate central characters, find themselves. I have, you see, been writing with American Blue.

Things began so well. I spent much of the afternoon wading through an exceptionally dull 120-page essay on Hitchcock's North by Northwest, taking notes as I went. I'd been dreading wrestling with the piece, so I felt rather pleased with myself when I got to the end. Before I closed my notebook and headed home, I took a look at the notes that I'd made and was struck by the beauty of the colour. (You may recall, dear readers, that honorary Penquod crew member Stefan sent me a vial of the ink a week or two ago so that I could compare it with DC Supershow, Private Reserve's other vibrant blue.)

I have, however, just reopened my notebook to add a few ideas, and I was shocked to find that the lines written some six hours ago are still not completely dry. All it takes to produce a deadly smudge is a careless brush with a finger. I think that I have discovered the key difference between American Blue and DC Supershow Blue: only the latter dries. American Blue is to the world of ink what those 'hilarious' inextinguishable birthday-cake candles are to the world of incendiary devices.

I've often celebrated ink and fountain pens because they strike me as an antidote to the modern world's obsession with speed and disposability. To write with real ink and a nib is to proceed slowly, carefully, and with a view to permanence. But there's slow and then there's slow. How much longer will I have to wait until my deathless prose is dead dry? Will it still be smudging when I've been smudged off this mortal coil? (Apologies for the morbid touch. This always happens when I read Philip Roth, and Sabbath's Theater is a blazingly bleak slap of misery and misanthropy.)

I could, of course, use blotting paper, and I've often considered adding this material to my ever-expanding briefcase of affectations. (The Inkette would, I'm sure, be happy to indulge me.) But the truth is that I have my eye on something far more flamboyant. As luck would have it, we watched Jamaica Inn last night. While it's one of Hitchcock's weaker efforts (the Inkette was horrified to see the liberties that had been taken with Daphne du Maurier's original novel), there's a scene in which Sir Humphrey, the monstrous villain, writes a note using a quill and then, to help the ink dry, sprinkles the page with some kind of powder from a rather striking utensil. I have no idea what the contents of the shaker might have been, or where one would purchase such a substance in 2007. (I've looked in the Yellow Pages, but there's not an entry for 'Ink -- Drying Powder (Manufacturers and Wholesale'.) But I do know this: I want some of those magic granules. And I think that I might store them in one of those metal objects on a long chain that the Pope swings to release some kind of special cloud. (I must apologize to any Catholic readers at this point: I've only been to Mass on one or two occasions, and I've never quite managed to figure out how it all works or what the gadgets are called. I remember a bell ringing from time to time, candles being lit to symbolize something, and then, in a moment that sent a chill down my misanthropic spine, total strangers thrusting their hands into mine and saying 'Peace be with you'. I think I said 'Thank you' in reply. This was probably incorrect. And I know that I was supposed to turn around and shake some other random individuals' hands, but I kept facing the front until the chilling incident passed. I've seen the baptism episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm; I know it's better not to get involved when you don't know the rules of the game.)

If I am to carry on using American Blue -- and I very much want our communion to continue -- I'm going to need to stop after each page and dust my words. If I can't get hold of one of those papal spheres, I'll just have to do what Cary Grant did in North by Northwest: take the bus out to the middle of nowhere and wait for the crop-duster to appear.

Well? Shall we go?
Yes, let's go.

Inks in use today: Private Reserve American Blue; Herbin Poussière de Lune.

The Road to Ruink

Georges Bataille only told half of the story when, in the first volume of The Accursed Share, he described how the ancient practice of potlatch could, thanks to the spiralling demand to give spectacular gifts to others participating in the ceremony, lead to the economic ruin of all involved. What Bataille didn't consider in his analysis is the anxiety of choosing a gift for oneself. This, in my experience, is far more traumatic than potlatch.

Allow me to explain. Today marks the official build-up to my birthday. This intense period of campaigning and leafleting begins on 16 April because it is the day after the birthday of one of my three cats. She was three years old yesterday, and she celebrated her special day by lying in the sun, chasing wasps and butterflies around the garden, and, above all, wolfing down a portion of her favourite wet food. There's only so much excitement a lady can take, of course, and by the evening she was ready for a snooze.

As soon as her birthday celebrations are over, it's a straight and unbroken road to my birthday. But that road is potentially the road to ruin, for the Inkette has placed an almighty burden upon my shoulders by asking me to decide what I would like as a present. I know that I want a pen, but which one? What if I choose a particular model but then, when it's too late and the candles on my cake are burning, realize that I should have opted for something else? How, when there are so many objects of desire out there, am I supposed to choose? Can't I just have everything? Would even that satisfy me, or would I still be convinced something better lies just out of reach?

I'm currently thinking about a Pelikan M250 in black and green, but I'm not entirely sure that this is The One. I love my M200 dearly, but I'd always thought that the M250's two colours looked a little mismatched. That was until I saw a black and green M250 in Oxford several weeks ago, however. Until that day I'd only ever seen pictures of the pen on the internet, but it's a rather different creature in the flesh. The colours work together in a way that a photograph can't quite capture, and I've been thinking about the object ever since. I've also been dreaming of a white and tortoiseshell M400, though, and Pens Plus fatally happened to have this model on display as well. (It's often described as a decidedly feminine pen, but you only need to read my previous post to know that this doesn't bother me. In fact, it makes me like it even more.) There, within inches of each other, lay two things of beauty. And there, on the other side of the glass, stood a torn onlooker. That confused onlooker is even more divided now that he's also considering the merits of a Sailor Sapporo with a Music nib.

I have a few weeks to choose my gift, but I'm anxious about looking a gift-horse in the mouth.

Inks in use today: Noodler's Purple Wampum; Noodler's Walnut; Herbin Poussière de Lune.

Masculink

I am man -- hear me roar.

Yes, dear readers, it transpires that I have traditionally masculine qualities after all. I never thought it would come to this: in school I was regularly called a 'big girl's blouse' during P.E. lessons (I may have contributed to this, I admit, in my refusal to play rugby in case I broke the nails that I had been growing to play guitar); my right wrist feels bare if it is not adorned with a bangle of some kind; I keep my loose change in little purse instead of my pocket; I have never been to a football match and have no interest in any kind of sport; I simply cannot exist without Body Shop lip balm; I proudly owned three successive models of a car that was, according to the burly salesman, 'made for chicks'; I feel perfectly comfortable standing with my hands on my hips (what else are they there for?); I spent the morning after my wedding day in the Liberace Museum, Las Vegas. In short, to quote the great Costanza, 'I would drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable'.

What, then, has happened to manhandle and disrupt this lifetime of committed anti-masculinity? Ink, dear readers, ink. I have discovered, thanks to a fellow member of The Fountain Pen Network who shall be protected by the pseudonym 'Anna', that my current favourite ink, Herbin Poussière de Lune, comes in a scented version that is designed specifically for men. According to the official Herbin website (you'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page), 'Ink for Man' exudes a 'spice-scented, masculine fragrance'.

At first I was horrified. How could I, a big girl's blouse, have willingly chosen a colour that Herbin scents and brands as 'Ink for Man'? Why didn't I fall in love with one of 'Les subtiles', the fragrant shades that Herbin evidently intends for women? (If I were running the Herbin company, I would, of course, rebrand that particular range as 'Les subtelles'. My encre-dible advert would run as follow: Les encres 'subtelles'. Pas 'il'. Elles.)

I soon realized, however, that I have nothing to worry about. First of all, scented inks, no matter what they smell of, are never going to be stereotypically masculine, are they? We're talking inks that are scented, after all. But beyond that, there's the question of colour. I wasn't at all surprised to see that Herbin has chosen blue and black for their masculine shades. They're simple, unflashy, straightforward colours that would raise no (unplucked) eyebrows, and blue, of course, signifies masculine in the conventional pink/blue opposition. But Poussière de Lune? A pinkish burgundy 'Ink for Man'? (Anna said that this surprised her as well, adding that she would have expected something like a green; I would have predicted either that or a dark brown.)

I have no idea if Herbin is being deliberately subversive here. Is the inclusion of a distant relative of pink in the genre of masculine inks a Parisian ruse? (French is a language in which 'le genre' means both gender and genre, after all.) Or is the presence of Poussière de Lune a reminder of a moment in history when things were very different? I pose this latter question because Marjorie Garber points out, in a brilliant book called Vested Interests, that the early years of the twentieth century were ones in which the blue/pink colour coding was the other way around. She quotes from texts that describe blue as 'delicate’ and ‘dainty’, and pink as ‘a stronger, more decided color’. Boys, in other words, were to be dressed in pink.

Herbin has been making inks since 1670, so there's a possibility that the colours in the 'Ink for Man' range were decided upon at a time when Poussière de Lune, with its dainty pinkish hue, would have suggested rugged manliness. Either way, Poussière de Lune always puts me in a bien luné. I'm tickled pink.

Inks in use today: Herbin Poussière de Lune; Noodler's Walnut; Noodler's Lexington Gray.

Econ

Do you see any green in my eye?

I pose this question about gullibility because I discovered in yesterday's newspaper the advertisement pictured above. As you can see, it's for a new ecologically friendly range launched in Britain by the Pilot pen company. The green instruments, says the advert, are available in ballpoint, gel, rollerball, marker, higlighter, and pencil formats, and there's also the option of correction tape. These new objects, the advert adds, are there for those who want to be 'positive with the planet'.

Recycling is a hot topic in Britain at the moment, mainly because we're so far behind the rest of Europe in learning not to dump all of our household waste into landfill sites. I heard an item on Radio 4 this morning, in fact, about how a recycling plant in Belgium is so advanced that it generates the energy that it needs to recycle products from the products themselves. Britain, implied the reporter, has a long way to go.

I agree entirely, but I don't think that the new range of writing instruments from Pilot is going to help one little bit. While it's true that Pilot sells, according to its website, refills to accompany the BeGreen ballpoint, there are still several key problems. First, the ink used by the pen is oil based. Second, the plastic used to make the pen in the first place undoubtedly relies upon yet more oil. Third, while refillable, the green stick itself is clearly not designed to last a lifetime. It's a lightweight affair; it wouldn't take much to inflict a green-stick fracture upon it, I feel.

Missing from Pilot's new range, of course, is a fountain pen. At first I thought that this was a strange oversight, but I quickly realized that such an object does not need to feature in an ecologically friendly family because it's inherently and eternally green. I'm sure that the initial creation of a fountain pen involves materials and processes that are damaging to the environment. After that, however, it's as green as can be: it's built to last a lifetime, it's meant to be refilled when it runs out of ink, and that ink is not oil based. The new Pilot offerings are, in other words, something of a con. An econ. (I was so outraged by the advert, in fact, that I asked the Medinkette -- the Inkette's younger sister who is a trainee doctor -- to check my blood pressure when we visited the Family Inkette at Del Boca Inka yesterday afternoon. It was, you'll be pleased to hear, dear readers, a healthy 120 over 70.)

Yet again the fountain pen has something to teach the world. It's no accident, I feel, that the Belgian recycling plant discussed this morning on Radio 4 is actually located in Ghent. Longtime readers of Ink Quest will remember that the Penquod made a very successful voyage to that very city a little over a year ago. There I found one of the finest pen shops that I've ever visited, Timmermans, from where I bought -- and here's the real irony -- a Pilot Custom 74 fountain pen. Not too far from Timmermans, meanwhile, is another well-stocked fountain pen outlet called Caron, from where I purchased a bottle of Sailor Brown ink. (I'll be setting sail for the city again in September, inkidentally, and I'm already absurdly excited about pen shopping.)

It's obvious that the good people of Ghent, surrounded as they are by elegant fountain pens, are leading the way when it comes to saving the planet. They know that real ink, regardless of its colour, is green. They are the true pilots.

Ink in use today: Noodler's Purple Wampum.

Matzover

When is a matzo not a matzo?

This is a genuine question, not the beginning to an old Groucho Marx joke. I'm asking because I had a rather strange experience yesterday afternoon. Because I am compelled to graze on tasty treats throughout the day, and because this plays havoc with one's waistline, I always keep a box of matzos in my office. They are, the packaging tells me, 98% fat free and contain no salt, so I never feel guilty about eating them.

I spotted yesterday afternoon, however, a very odd note on the side of the box: Not suitable for Passover use. I checked the sentence several times, thinking that I'd misread it. I hadn't. Now, I've always understood a matzo to be, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, 'a wafer of unleavened bread for the Passover'. How, then, could a matzo -- the classic Passover food -- be unsuitable for Passover? What, moreover, will happen to me if I was spotted with illegal crumbs on my face in the middle of Passover?

I've done a bit of research, and it seems that Rakusen's, the company which makes the product in question, actually manufactures two varieties of my once guilt-free snack. Only the matzos that come in a red box, the Rakusen's website reveals, are Kosher for Passover. I, of course, have been eating the variety that comes in a blue box (pictured above).

I spent much of the journey home from work wondering about two things: when will I be struck down by lightning, and what is the difference in taste between the two varities of matzo? When I got back to Ink Towers, though, the project of telling the difference took a thrilling twist, for a padded envelope from New York was waiting for me. Yes, dear readers, Stefan's ink vials had arrived. One of the samples was Private Reserve American Blue, which Stefan urged me to compare with DC Supershow Blue. I have done this, and I agree with his claim that the difference is 'subtle'. Both are glorious blues; both are made by Private Reserve. While it would be very easy to take the one for the other, though, they're not identical. I wonder, then, if the difference between them is akin to the difference between the two varieties of matzo. Is one unsuitable for certain occasions? And is the other produced according to an ancient set of inkommandments? If so, which is which?

The second of Stefan's three vials contained Noodler's Purple Wampum, a colour which I'd requested mainly because I love its name. But the ink itself, it transpires, is a beautiful dark shade. The scan on The Writing Desk's website had led me to believe that Wampum might be a little garish, but in reality it's nothing of the sort. I've been using Herbin Poussière de Lune a lot this week, and I've come to think of it as a paler version of Noodler's Nightshade; Purple Wampum is close to a heavenly cross between these two colours.

I saved the best until last. The final vial contained what I will call Stefan's Surprise. By mixing Noodler's FPN Galileo Brown with (I believe) Noodler's Black, Stefan has created a truly majestic dark brown. It's not unlike Noodler's Walnut in terms of depth, but it neatly cracks the problem of dryness that often affects Walnut. It's one of the nicest browns that I've ever seen, in fact.

Stefan always says that certain rich browns awaken in him the desire for Belgian chocolate, so he'd very thoughtfully included two chocolates with the ink. The Inkette has already claimed one as her own, so I am about to enjoy the other. I can see nothing on the little gold box that says 'Not suitable for Passover use', so it must be Kosher.

Inks in use today: Private Reserve American Blue; Noodler's Purple Wampum; Stefan's Surprise.

Lunacy

I'm a lunatic.

Yes, dear readers, the Herbin Poussière de Lune ink arrived yesterday morning, and I've fallen in love with the colour, which is a dusty (appropriately enough), greyish burgundy. Unlike some of the Herbin shades, it doesn't looked washed out; this is an ink that's strong enough to turn the tides, and to do so in an understated, vintage manner.

Just when I thought that yesterday couldn't get any better, I received a phone call from my local bookshop to inform me that my copy of Simon Loxley's Type: A Secret History of Letters was ready for collection. I haven't got to the end yet, but I've already learnt huge amounts from this fascinating book. I now know, for instance, that Univers is possibly 'the coldest typeface ever produced'. I don't actually own this particular font, but I will clearly need to invest in it for writing memos to university bureaucrats whom I hold in utter contempt. I also now know that, in a Herbin-related twist, there exists an alternative to Braille known as the Moon alphabet. And I have discovered to my delight that John Baskerville cared as much about ink as he did about typefaces. He was, writes Loxley, 'determined to produce ink that was blacker than that currently available. Once he had perfected his formula, his ink was left to stand for about three years before he used it'.

If Baskerville were working today, he might have been interested in an article published in yesterday's Guardian newspaper . Entitled 'Brilliantly Boring', it set out to examine what it called 'the cult of banality' on the internet. Its main focus was Cheddarvision, a website 'which broadcasts live footage of a single 44lb truckle of cheddar as it imperceptibly matures'. (The curious among you, dear readers, can check out the cheese in question by clicking here.)

I can't be sure, but I'm willing to bet that Baskerville, if he were alive today, would like Cheddarvision. He might even decide to train a webcam on his ink as it matured for over a thousand days. I'd certainly watch the latter, and I'd even be prepared to give up Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, and The Wire for it. I don't, you see, view Cheddarvision or my hypothetical Inkvision as boring. And I certainly wouldn't call them, as the Guardian article does, banal. If cheese didn't develop slowly, if ink were not refined until perfect, the world would be a deeply tedious place (try the bland rubber that British supermarkets try to disguise as cheddar if you don't believe me). Life would be genuinely banal, in fact. We need what looks like banality if we are to avoid true banality, it would seem.

This, then, is why I like the internet: it's a space where the little things that really matter can be celebrated. Cheese, ink, shoelaces, shaving foam, coffee pots, cufflinks, typefaces -- all of these crucial things, and countless more, can be worshipped online by obsessive individuals who are sent over the moon by the little things in life. Long live the lunatics.

Ink in use today: Herbin Poussière de Lune.
Typefaces in use today: Windsor Light Condensed; Lucida Sans (a new discovery; until I get Univers, I think I'll be using this for work-related documents).

Resurrection

It's alive!

Yes, dear readers, the previous post was a cruel April Fool to mark the beginning of the cruellest month. It was inspired in part by the famous 'San Serriffe' joke published by the Guardian newspaper on the first day of April in 1977. (I owe thanks to two readers of Ink Quest -- let's call them Noelle and Noel -- for reminding me about the non-existent islands.)

I understand that switchboards at offices of the Samaritans all over the world groaned under the weight of calls from anxious Ink Quest readers yesterday, so I apologize for any traumas caused by my fooling around. (The Inkette, of course, said that she wished that the post were true.) The quest for the perfect ink can never come to an end, and certainly not when new and exciting colours are on their way to me. First, I have ordered a bottle of Herbin Poussière de Lune (it's close to the lilacs that are supposed to emerge from the dead land in April, I suppose). Second, honorary Penquod crew member Stefan has informed me that a package containing three vials of ink is on its way to me from New York.

The Ink Quest is more alive than ever, in other words, dear readers. Shantih shantih shantih.

Ink in use today: Sailor Brown.
Typeface in use today: Garamond.

RIP

It's all over.

I've decided that I like ballpoint pens after all, so the Ink Quest has come to an end. Adieu, inky fingers. Adieu, dear readers.

Ink in use today: Bic Blue.