Notes from the Underground

There's treasure 'neath them there floorboards.

But before I tell you about that, dear readers, I must apologize for not appearing on my balcony on Tuesday to deliver the annual Ink Quest Festivus address. (I know that many of you are already familiar with the principles of Festivus, the festival 'for the rest of us' who do not celebrate Christmas, but those to whom the word currently means nothing may wish to click here to find out more.) My speech was written in my latest ink (about which I will have more to say below) and my pocket square had been puffed to perfection, but I was simply too ill to get out of bed. What I had thought to be the virus initially enjoyed by Baby Ink was actually a case of the hideous flu bug that's currently sweeping the nation. And so it came to pass that Festivus, well, came to pass, and I could do nothing but look on deliriously from beneath my duvet. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day drifted by in a similar manner, and it is only now that I feel well enough to take to the balcony of the Penquod and address the gathered masses. Festivus may now be over for 2008, but it is none the less crucial that I deliver my message -- urbink et orbink -- for saving humankind from the ballpoint pen is just as important as saving the rainforests.

The last time I had a case of flu as bad as this was in early 1992. I was an impoverished undergraduate at the time, and I was living in a tiny flat whose bare breeze-blocked walls lent it the feel of a Warsaw prison cell. I remember the onset of the illness with strange clarity: I was several pages into Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground when I suddenly felt faint. I lay down on my bed, fell fast asleep, and awoke in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat. I spent the next few days beneath a blanket, shivering, hallucinating, and occasionally accepting a bowl of soup. When I finally recovered, I found that the mere sight of Dostoevsky's book made me feel ill. It was about fifteen years before I could complete the tale.

I still believe that Notes from the Underground made me unwell in 1992. And I think I know precisely what was to blame for my recent collapse: too much DIY.

Regular readers of Ink Quest will know that the last few months have seen Ink Towers undergo a loft conversion. The company responsible for the construction was quick and efficient, but it's taken us a long time to decorate and return the house to a state of normality. One of the biggest headaches was moving everything out of my old study so that the carpet could be taken up and the floorboards painted. I thought that this would be a simple task, but all sorts of mysteries emerged as soon as the carpet was lifted. In short, it seems to me that the person who renovated Ink Towers shortly before we bought it replaced around half of the original (1901) floorboards in the room. But for some reason, he chose not to nail down many of the new planks; in some cases, the replacement boards didn't even fit together properly. While the thick carpet was in place, these 'nuances' didn't really show up -- I always simply assumed that the creaking was a period feature that would add value to the property -- but they became all too apparent once the boards were bared.

Perhaps it was because I'd recently seen professional carpenters at work; perhaps it was because I'd made so many trips to the local DIY shop for paint (and, of course, protective gloves and goggles) in the last few weeks. We will never know for sure why what happened next happened next, dear readers, but I can assure you that it really did happen: I, the man who refuses to believe that there is any difference between a screw and a nail, armed myself with a hammer and set about securing the loose boards. (This was, I should perhaps add, after I'd spent about five minutes weighing up the feasibility of using duct tape -- and then slapping on an extra coat of paint to hide it.) So rare was this event that I called the Inkette to act as witness. 'Look!', I cried. 'I'm hammering. Real nails. An actual hammer. Not a can of beans, I tell you. An actual hammer. From a DIY shop. Where men go.'

There was, however, one board which refused to be nailed down. This, I quickly realized, was because it was too big for its slot. I also quickly realized that this meant I would need to remove the plank, cut a piece from the end, and reinsert it. Throwing all remaining caution to the wind, I prepared my saw and made ready to hoist the wood.

Thanks to Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain, I always assume that floorboards have something hidden beneath them. (Isn't that the only reason that builders, when constructing a house, leave a gap between the ceiling of one level and the floor of the next? There's no practical explanation, surely; it can only be about creating a sense of mystery.) I fully expected, then, to find gold coins, a bloodied knife, a skull, or perhaps a cryptic note beneath the floorboards of Ink Towers. Sadly, all I discovered were pipes for the central heating (which I'd somehow managed to miss with my recklessly hammered nails). Disappointed, I decided to leave my own treasure beneath the plank for future residents of the house.

I noted in a recent entry how the loft conversion unearthed a ghostly signature beneath layers of wallpaper, and I have also mentioned in passing that I am now the proud owner of a bottle of Noodler's Prime of the Commons Blue-Black ink. This beautiful dark blue was designed to stand the test of time: it is immune to water and other liquids, and any attempt to erase the ink with bleach turns it into a tell-tale teal. With the spectral signature of G. Fitzgerald and my new ink in mind, I took a break from hammering nails and wrote a very brief note on a small piece of paper. I will not reveal precisely what I inscribed -- that is for other eyes only -- but I will say that I identified myself by name, gave the address of this blog, and ended by giving the date. I then folded the sheet, placed it beneath the floorboards, used my saw to trim the plank, and hammered home the nails.

I have no idea who will be the recipient of my note. Perhaps no one will ever find it. Perhaps it will be discovered at a date when I am no longer alive, when all that remains are my remains and my assorted inky marks. Perhaps it will be read at a point in the future when the internet no longer exists, when 'blog' is marked 'Obs.' in dictionaries (if they still exist).

The possibility that Ink Quest will not survive in an archive is a distinct one, of course. Who on earth (or on some other planet) would want to preserve this? And as I consider the transience of this blog, to which I have given over three years of my life, I can't help feeling that the ink-free nature of blogging is a problem. Ink Quest, for all its commitment to the materiality of writing, is wholly immaterial (and not in the sense intended by the Inkette). Yes, I usually write each entry by hand before typing it up, but I don't keep the scribbled sheets. This is all that there is. Zeros and ones. Pulses. Waves and radiation.

Perhaps, if I may hold the floor for just a few more moments, I should start depositing a handwritten copy of each entry beneath the floorboards of Ink Towers. That way, if the internet should disappear one day, I will still have my notes, my notes from the underground. (I'm a sick man ... I'm a malicious man. An unattractive man, I am ... But my archiving is impeccable. Flawless, you might say.) My paper trail has gone by the board for long enough; it is time for such carelessness to walk the plank. The plans for the survival of Ink Quest have been duly hammered out. I think that ought to nail it.

Inks in use today: Herbin Lie de Thé; Noodler's Prime of the Commons Blue-Black.

Je Reviens

The Penquod probably ought to change its name to Je Reviens, in honour of the boat owned by Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, dear readers, for I have spent a fair amount of time recently apologizing for returning after long silences. The latest hitch has come in the form of Baby Ink's falling ill with some kind of chest virus, which he has thoughtfully passed on to me. On top of that, Ink Towers is stil in a state of utter disarray following the recent loft conversion: while the construction work and the decorating are now finished, everything needs to be returned to the place from which it was moved to make way for the builders. The simplest journey from one side of the bedroom to the other, for instance, currently involves a complicated slalom through piles of books.

I hope, then, to return with my annual Festivus address on Tuesday, and I can promise a fascinating tale of a magnificent new ink and treasure hidden beneath the floorboards of my house. While you are hovering on the edge of your seats, dear readers, I will leave you with the cartoon posted above, which I offer for all inkthusiasts who are being driven insane by the approach of Christmas. It's from the new Christmas book by the makers of the gloriously misanthropic and irreverent Modern Toss, and it made me laugh out loud yesterday afternoon. Readers who dislike 'potty-mouthed language' are advised to hide their sensitive eyes behind a mince pie.

Je reviendrai...

Ink in use today: Noodler's Prime of the Commons Blue-Black (about which I will have more to say in the Festivus address).

Hand, Ink, Glove

Finally, the gloves are off.

Ink Quest's recent silence, dear readers, has two principal sources. First, I have had a couple of urgent work-related deadlines, so every day has been spent racing manically towards the completion of projects that will make no difference whatever to the way of the world. Second, now that the Ink Towers loft conversion has been completed, the Inkette and I have, as soon as Baby Ink has gone to bed, been filling each evening with the delicate aroma of paint fumes. As the splattering is now coming to an end, I finally have time to sit down and turn my thoughts to ink.

Actually, ink has been on my mind while I've been Pollocking with paint brushes and rollers. For the first few evenings of glossing, I foolishly took up the tin of paint without covering my hands in any way. By the end of each session, my delicate fingers and palms were covered in thick gloss paint, which I could only remove with white spirit. It didn't take long for this brutal routine to cause havoc: after a couple of days, my skin had reacted to the harsh chemical, and I began to worry that my sore hands would never again be able to hold a fountain pen.

Fading in and out of consciousness, I dragged my savaged frame to the nearest DIY shop and asked for gloves to protect my hands while painting. The burly assistant pointed me towards the appropriate shelf (and I'm sure that he muttered 'You'll find the lavender posies in the florist further down the street' as soon as my back was turned). There, for less than £2.00, I found a packet of five pairs of surgical-style gloves. I limped to the counter, handed over my money, and somehow made it home without lapsing into a coma.

I have to hand it to them: these gloves saved my life. I was a bit worried at first about the 'One size fits all' declaration on the packet, but it turned out that they fitted me like a glove. More importantly, they protected my skin perfectly from the gloss paint: at the end of each evening, I would peel them off and admire my clean -- if slightly wrinkled -- hands. After several days of rubberized bliss, I actually became quite fond of the objects. I have even, for posterity, taken a photograph of myself wearing one, and I have proudly displayed the picture at the top of this post. I suspect that I could make a small fortune in the world of hand modelling. George Costanza, the fictional character to whom I most relate, very nearly made it big in the business, after all. 'This is a one-in-a-million hand!', he says to Jerry, in an episode entitled 'The Puffy Shirt', shortly after his hands have been spotted by a talent scout. 'Well', comes the reply, 'that's what comes from avoiding manual labour your whole life'.

I think that I've enjoyed wearing these rubber contraptions because, in short, I like wearing gloves. I hate the summer, and I hate hot weather; I spend July and August longing for the arrival of November, when I can finally start wearing my winter coat, my thick scarf, and, above all, my gloves again. Human hands simply shouldn't be on show, I feel. Gloves should be as compulsory as socks. (Please don't point out that plenty of people walk around without socks. I know that they do, and it should be illegal, no matter how high the temperature. I have no desire to sit in a café or on a train and have to put up with the sight of uncovered feet. They're feet, people! Listen to the word: f-f-f-e-e-e-e-t. It's the sound of a garment of some kind being pulled over the appendage. Onomatopedia, I suppose you could call it.)

Ink fact, it seems to me that a cultural history of gloves needs to be written. They crop up in all sorts of memorable moments, after all. Think of Van Morrison's soaring 'Madame George', where 'Hey, love, you forgot your glove' slides into one of the greatest vocal flourishes ever recorded: 'And the love that loves the love that loves the love that loves the love that loves to love the love that loves to love'. (I can't find an online version of the original recording from Astral Weeks, but curious readers can consult a recent live version here, where the line in question is stretched out even further, just after the 4:05 mark.) Think of Marlon Brando picking up and then -- gasp -- donning the glove dropped by Eva Marie Saint at roughly 6:15 in the following clip from On the Waterfront.



Think of the magnificent, elegiac descriptions of the glove trade in Philip Roth's American Pastoral. Think of the scene in Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence where Newland unbuttons Ellen's glove. (Scorsese films this beautifully, but YouTube appears not to have the relevant clip.) Think of the tell-tale glove in Hitchcock's Blackmail.

And think, dear readers, of how gloves might help to overthrow the vile rule of the ballpoint pen and return fountain pens to their rightful place in everyone's hands. One of the reasons that many people give when asked why they don't use real ink and a fountain pen is that such things are 'messy'. 'I don't want to get my hands covered in ink' is a sentence that I've heard dozens of times, and I have reported in previous posts how my colleague and honorary Penquod crew member Daphne had to be coaxed back to the world of fountain pens after an unfortunate inkident in her teenage years left her with purple-tinted fingers.

The solution, then, is simple: gloves. As a pure misanthrope, I am never going to love people, but perhaps I can glove people. Yes, dear readers, am I going to take up the glove of gloving the world. (My local DIY shop already has a good deal going, but perhaps I can get a better price for a bulk purchase. 'How many packets would you like, sir? 'Well, let's see ... what's 6.7 billion divided by five?') If everyone were to wear gloves all of the time, there would be no need to worry about getting inky fingers, so all anxieties about using fountain pens should inkstantly disappear. Their hands protected, former ballpoint users would rush hand-over-fist to get their mitts on a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. The future rule of real ink is in hand, in my hands. All hands to the deck of the Penquod, please: we have hands to deck. Gloves will be my mitt-zvah.

Ink in use today: Noodler's Nightshade.
Ink on its way to to me as I write: Noodler's Prime of the Commons Blue-Black.