reesesWeb

ct suggests an answer to the question of the appeal of Moleskine. I suggest that blogging is nothing but exhibitionist scrapbooking, and the Moleskine is an excellent substrate upon which to build one's scrapbook.

I started using one about four or five years ago when I decided to make the switch from chemical to digital photography. I could not write on the back of a digital image (JPEG comments notwithstanding) so I started sketching the things I photographed; I could apply comments to the sketch for later reference to the digital image. I'd snap a picture and spend sixty seconds just capturing the essence of what I was looking at, then slap a label on it and head on my way. I hate looking at pictures later and thinking,"Wtf is that rock and why did I take a picture of it?"

People in the early days of blog were chatting about how gear the Moleskine was, so I bought one, then a case. Because of my lack of short-term memory, I make a huge number of notes, and an investment in notepads is not odd. I liked the sketchbooks because the pages don't warp when a little watercolor is applied, and pressing hard while writing doesn't ruin the backside of the page. The Moleskine's elastic band keeps it closed, and you can shove little napkin sketches into the accordion pocket at the back until you have time to transfer them to a page by pen or by tape. All in all, it's a pretty well-made pocket sketchbook.

However, I remember the exact moment I stopped carrying a Moleskine with me outside the house. I was in the DC Metro, waiting for a train to arrive. A perfectly composed woman with her complete set of appropriate yuppie accessories -- Burberry's scarf, possibly-faux LV handbag, and other tchotchkes it would shame me to recognise -- was making notes into her Moleskine. With paper band intact. I can't remember the appropriate name for the paper band, but it saddens me that I know there is a word, and it starts "band----".

I don't claim to first-discoverer status, because I started using them as well when I read a bunch of praise about the notebooks. However, I also don't want to be painted with the hipster brush that would be inevitable at this point, were I to use one in the open. I also don't want to have strangers start conversations with me just because of some accessory or tool I am packing around. It's bad enough with the PowerBook at the airport, I'd rather not have people say,"nice notebook," "nice umbrella," or "nice watch," on the subway.

I currently use a Miquel Rius notebook for work, and a Minerva pocket notepad for walking around, and along with my Namiki Vanishing Point fountain pen, the only comments are around the utility of the thing itself, rather than recognition of the meme. I'd much rather hear,"Damn, that thing solves a problem that I've had for years, where'd you get it?" than,"Ooh, that's one of those hip things, I want to be hip, where can I buy into the subculture?"

The only thing worse than women leaving the paper band on their Moleskines to ensure recognition is people who talk about their frickin' Moleskines on their blogs as if they matter, as if they're anything other than an OK product from some random company. The thing about the blogs that annoys me most is the notion that mediocre work is somehow made less mediocre, or somehow semi-relevant, if it goes into a Moleskine versus a cheap-ass Mead wide-ruled spiral-bound school composition book.

The Moleskine blogs don't talk about how Moleskines solve problems, or how to use the Moleskine in new ways to solve new problems. They're all about,"Johnny Noname writes his journal in a Moleskine, isn't that cool?"

No, it's not, unless Johnny Noname has something to say. Would my blog be anything less than completely useless if I composed it in a Moleskine first?

Well, it might, because I'd be less inclined to post entries if I had to transcribe them first. ;>

(OK, the irony that this is following after a gush on the Dyson, an OK product from some random company, does not escape me, but the Moleskine won't pull up 10# of fur from deep in my carpet.)

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