Notebooks, travel, solitude
Like all notebook fetishists we believe that the notebook we write in affects the quality of our writing. We know this to be untrue because James Hamilton-Paterson wrote his brilliant history of the Philippines America’s Boy on newsprint school notebooks with artistas on the cover. (Come to think of it we haven’t seen notebooks with artista on the cover lately.) But we like to think it anyway.
The Star Wars notebook is one of the best notebooks we’ve ever had in terms of output: we wrote copiously, met our daily quota of 1,000 words, and liked our penmanship. Plus this notebook got to travel a lot and it went to the Australian Open finals. There are 5 blank pages left so we’ll have to start a new one later today. We hope the Lego notebook is as “lucky”.
Steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Travel is especially conducive to writing in notebooks, travel and solitude. On our first trip to New York we filled up three Mead spiral notebooks. We spent a lot of time alone, walking up and down the city (We walked from the Metropolitan Museum to the Strand bookstore downtown more than once, which is not as insane or unusual as it sounds), getting lost in the subway and having fascinating conversations with strangers. We missed our cat (We only had Koosi then); we sat in the park and fed squirrels despite the admonitions of friends about encouraging the tree rats.
Periodically we would stop for a coffee and a Snapple (We loved Snapple, it was the Seinfeld era. A vendor in the park taught us the best way to open the bottle), sit on some steps (Having been raised on Sesame Street we love stoops), take out notebook and scribble. The great thing about New York City is that you could sit on some steps with a coffee and a notebook, next to bums with hangovers talking to themselves and bankers in Ermenegildo Zegna inhaling hotdogs, and no one would care. We hope Homeland Security hasn’t changed that.
Steps at the NY Public Library
Here’s Joan Didion On Keeping A Notebook, via The Electric Typewriter.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 4th, 2012 at 20:53
Wala pong kinalaman sa post sa itaas pero gusto ko lang ibahagi.
Sa SM Southmall Supermarket, mga alas-singko y media ng hapon, package counter katabi ng payment center:
Nanay sa batang anak na mga labindalawang piye ang layo sa kanya: You stay there! YOU LOOK FOR THE CART!! YOU LOOK FOR THE CART!!!
Nandoon na naman yung cart, kinakapitan nung bata. Hmmm…