The Long Answer On Yelp

When I was a kid my favorite pen for writing in my Hello Kitty journal was a blue PaperMate.  They sold them in either all blue casings, or white with a blue cap.  They were ballpoints, but I didn’t know any better.

I hated Bics.  Still do.

If there were no PaperMates to be found I would write with Crayola markers.  This was back before my calligraphy class, so my handwriting was shit--I wrote more to play with words rather than to draw them.  I miss those days.

Ballpoints and markers stayed with me through college.  I had a brief stint with calligraphy in the sixth and seventh grades, but that was the tedious calligraphy with a nib, a jar of India ink, and no reservoir.  You dip, you pull off the excess on the lip of the ink jar, you write two or three words, you repeat.  Slow going, even for me.

During my university education I discovered an art supply store on National Avenue in Springfield, Missouri, just up the street from my classes.  (In this regard, Springfield is more cultured than my current town of Carlsbad, and the irony never ceases to strike me.)  That store got me started on Zebra gel-writing pens, and later I ventured to Office Max and had a whole color-cased collection of Dr. Grip pens (pink, pearl, purple, blue, green, and aquamarine, all with black ink).  I even managed to have my father write with the Dr. Grip pens, his in black.

And then I came to California.

By the time I hit California I was playing with a cheap (and leaky) Sheaffer fountain pen, one of those sets that comes boxed in a blister-pack with a collection of three nibs (bold,  medium, and fine) and five ink cartridges.  Natalie Goldberg was right--that pen was visceral, and not so flighty and disconnected as a marker.  But I also feel for other gel-writers, in so many colors, which I gobbled up from Patrick’s in San Francisco.

Once I moved to San Francisco from the South Bay, I found Flax, which is akin to finding the summit of Mount Everest for a mountain climber.  Flax has more pens and pen accessories (inks, rests, wax embossers and seals, papers, blotters, cases, nibs, etc) than anywhere I’ve ever experienced.  So, going into the creative drought of art supply stores and their pen supplies in Southern California, I give you the list of what I love to play with.

Gel-writers, disposable:

• Pentel Slicci pens, 0.8 grade, in every color but pink, from Paper Source
• Y&C Xtremes, 0.7 grade, in natural colors, from Blick
• My favorite of the disposables, Stabilo pointVisco style, fine 0.5 grade, in any damn color I can get them, from Blick, who only keeps them in blue, red, and black, but I don’t care for red ink pens

Gel-writers, refillable (but not in SoCal...probably an online venture...):

• Retro Tornado, twist retraction
• Montblanc Meisterstuck retractable, with the ballpoint cartridge pulled and replaced with a rollerball cartridge in black (I got that one as a graduation gift for college)
• Pierre Belvedere capped, with screw cap that also screws on the end of the pen for storage while writing, in blue ink
• Taccia capped, with screw cap, usually in black ink

Fountains, refillable:

• Sheaffer medium nib, which requires one of two cartridges built for Sheaffer, and the easiest to find of the cartridges at Blick or some Office Max locations
• Retro Tornado medium nib, which requires International cartridges, which aren’t to be found in San Diego County (I’m afraid to try L.A. on this stuff, but maybe someday I’ll get brave)
• A Faber Castell medium nib wooden fountain, which also requires the pesky Internationals, or, for added mess, I can research how to fill the reservoir option, which may be next
• A cheap Japanese medium point retractable fountain with a cap that is my secret favorite of the collection.  That thing cost me 12.95 and never hiccups or leaks.  Unfortunately, it also takes the blessed International cartridge
• A Visconti medium nib Homo Sapien style pen, complete with the vacuum reservoir and volcanic rock housing.  By far the most expensive at $600 (that was a consolation purchase after a bad week/month/year at my workplace), the pen writes with no pressure at all (you drag it across the page instead), and refills with bottled ink.  Since I have bottled ink coming out of my ears, that pen gets the most use.  It is also the most high maintenance of the pens--it’s a mess to reload, and I usually end up with ink  on my right hand like a 16th century playwright.  I save that one for home writing; I don’t want the damn thing stolen, and I don’t want to be covered with ink at the cafe or library

Recently I was asked on Yelp, after reviewing an art supply store in San Diego called Artist and Craftsman Supply, if I had missed their extensive calligraphy section when I visited there in vain hope of pen supplies.  No, I answered the curious reader, I hadn’t missed the calligraphy section.  I saw it, and sighed, wishing it were more than just calligraphy.  Calligraphy nibs are used for short bursts of text, like wedding invitations or announcements.  I discovered last week on Fresh Air that they can also be used for old school comic strip artists; Barry Blitt, cartoonist with the New Yorker, still uses them, as he has no patience for creating his art on the computer.  A guy after my own art, but more his art than mine.  I can’t use a calligraphy nib with the dipping every third word.  I already have to refill the Visconti once a page, the fountain cartridges once every fourth page, and the disposable gel-writers in a week.  It’s been suggested that I write with those seven year pens, which are ballpoints.  Writing with a ballpoint is like writing on paper with a bar of soap.

I write a LOT, on a daily basis.  It’s important to me to have an instrument that keeps up with my pace and fills me with inspiration.  It’s important to have a bridge to some measure of happiness in the process, and pens and paper, in the right choice, lead me me to the point of accomplishment.