There are lots of things that I like. Many of the things I enjoy aren’t the kind of things that appeal to most of the people I know. This socio-cultural pressure has never stopped me in the past. Some people like large fancy boats. I like notebooks. Big deal. So here we go, a new series on stuff I like.
Moleskine notebooks. I’m sitting very near a couple at the moment. It was exciting over the weekend to be in a variety of bookstores and stationery type places that all carried Moleskine notebooks. As their advertising propaganda will tell you, these notebooks were incredibly popular in the olden days. (I’ve banned the phrase “back in the day” from this blog and my vocabularly in general. I haven’t quite made up my mind on “old school”. ) Hemingway, Picasso, and Bruce Chatwin all used these little black covered beauties to record their thoughts and images. Let me describe the notebooks. These sheets of blank paper (some lined, some graphed, some blank, some calendar-depending on the kind you buy) are bound in a black moleskine cover. Yes, I’ve paid money for blank paper wrapped in a moleskine wrapper. You mean there might be another way of writing on paper? Apparently so. I do enjoy working in coffee shops. Starbucks can be ok but I prefer the smaller, independent types. When enjoying a cup of coffee, I am usually at a smaller table, surrounded by a few large religious tomes, a small netbook computer, a kindle, and a moleskine notebook. Why, on Earth, would I need both a moleskine (or two) and carry a netbook computer? Wouldn’t the instrinsic coolness of one simply cancel out the coolness of the other? I can see some logic behind that argument. Please, allow me to explain. Most days, it helps my thought process to start by taking notes and outlining in the moleskine. If I like what I’m writing, I’ll then transfer it to the computer, but that’s only if I like what I wrote. Somewhere, the Holy Spirit works somewhere in the transmission of ideas between the notebook and the netbook.
One of the most satisfying aspects of moleskine ownership comes when you actually fill up your first one (from cover to cover) and have to go back to the shop and purchase a second one. When that happens, I believe you evolve into another level of creativity. However, you must be careful when approaching “two moleksine” people. If you’re in one of those coffee shops and you see someone with two notebooks, if the oldest one isn’t full and stained with coffee cup marks on the cover, and covered with a sticker from a brothel in Uzbekistan, then you’re probably looking at a poser. Steer clear! Order your redeye, move to the side of the room, find a Robert Ludlum novel, settle into the comfy chair and start mubling softly about the meta narrative of the Jason Bourne saga. You will be left alone.
