Well-Read Life™

Under My Own Tree: My Delightful Dozen for This Christmas

Of course I love all our products, but if pressed, I do have favorites. (It’s okay for Levengerites to have favorites with products—they aren’t children, after all. Well, actually, they are in a way, as we devote a lot of time to making sure they’re the best they can be and well-mannered, too.)

And so I’d like to share with you my 12 personal favorites for Christmas this year. Only one costs more than $100, which is fitting in this bah-humbug economy.

Here they are—my Twelve Delights of Christmas Presents (including a ghost from Christmas Past):

1. Bloomsbury Stocked Bookbag, $58

 Even Santa wants this bag, a delight to give all the booklovers you love. The $30 worth of bookish treasure inside is a bonus; the trusty bag will please for years to come.

2.    Double Zip Eyeglass Case, on sale at $38

Almost anyone can enjoy this superior design for holding two sets of glasses. It clears up one (or two) of life’s little hassles. Gorgeous leather in our gorgeous gratis gift box.

 3.    Shirt Pocket Briefcase, $38

This Levenger classic never needs recharging—except with more 3x5 cards. It’s amazing to me how many technology lovers won’t be without their so-very-retro Pocket Briefcase. Beautifully gift boxed, too.

4.    Bomber Jacket Slim Wallet, $58

Man-o-man, this leather will win him over. It’s instantly worn in, while resisting ever looking worn out. If leather could be comfort food, this would be it. Gift boxed, of course.

5.    Lapreader, $38

 Levenger is the world’s epicenter for lap desk and reading pillow designs, and our new Lapreader has taken off like Harry Potter. Marvelous for all types of readers. (Even our two dorm-dwelling sons dig theirs.)

6.    Lapster, $128

Does someone you know just love to read and write in bed? If so, your loved one is in good company indeed—from Winston Churchill to Edith Wharton. This is the gift of productive luxury they might treasure the very most.

7.    Ledgerdomain Journal, $26

We wanted to make a journal as good as they ever were—maybe better. Our customers concluded that we just may have done it with the Ledgerdomain. And a leading journaler, bestselling author Gail Godwin, has given it two thumbs up.

8.    Circa Irresistible Kit, $40

How do Circa lovers spread the joy? They buy their friends this kit. You may not think paper and plastic is the sexiest gift, but if it’s organization they want in 2010, this is the ticket. The kit includes lots of Circa goodies, plus—and this is what makes it irresistible— a $40 gift card. You won’t have to stand under the mistletoe for them to kiss you.

9.     L-Tech Rollerball, $68 

Does he go for manly tools? Heavy ratchets and socket sets? This solid-brass pen was born in the same factory. You can’t heft it without going “Wow.” And it can write fine or thick and everything in between with our German precision-made refills. (Get the sampler pack to go with.)

10.    True Writer, Kyoto, $46

A traditional pen for Christmas—how wonderfully retro. This Levenger favorite can write either like a liquid rollerball, or for a mile with the long-lasting ballpoint refill (included). Be sure to order the ballpoint sampler, which is such fun for them to try out. Get ready to hear, “Ah…that’s beautiful!”

11.    John F. Kennedy: His Inaugural Address (book and DVD), $48

Watch the actual footage of Kennedy’s inaugural and then see how it came to life. The working documents seem to float off the page into your hands. So many answered Kennedy’s call—including David McCullough—and here’s why the words held such power (still do). Inspire your own loved one to ask how to help this country we love. A coffee-table scrumptious book that’s much more than just pictures.

12.    The Prompt Copy of A Christmas Carol, $48

I had no idea what a prompt copy meant when this project began with The New York Public Library: it’s the copy an actor uses on stage. And this is the gorgeous and quite useful reproduction of the single copy that Charles Dickens himself owned and lovingly edited down for his own public readings. Now you can read it yourself on stage, or in your home, in the version the master storyteller found most rewarding for live audiences.

13.    Book Bungee, $6 (5 for $20)

Because every dozen needs one more—here are five Bungees jumping into stockings with care. These Levenger classics are a sure-fire hit for the readers ‘round your tree. Elegantly do they keep your page and protect your book.

And yes, there’s still time—but not too much—to give these or your own favorites.

 I hope Levenger brings joy and delight to all those whose lives you make merry and bright.

Cheers.

—Steve

David McCullough’s ode to slow (and a tribute to the typewriter)

There was a time when the typewriter was distrusted as being too modern. Typewritten letters requesting reservations were rejected by hotel clerks as ridiculous—the way email was rejected as inadequate for the same task 15 years ago. And how could one possibly compose literature on those clunky, clanky machines? Writers penned their compositions; this served well enough for Shakespeare, after all.

But early adopters in the 1920s and 30s, the kinds of people who today might revel in iPhone apps and Twitter, bought typewriters, including small portable ones that fit into tough little black suitcases and traveled to Africa and war fronts and summer cottages, where American literature was revolutionized by the keystroke rather than the stroke of the pen.

The sound of typewriters—the tappety-tap and the tiny bell signaling need for a carriage return— became part of America’s soundscape in offices and late-night garrets.

Ironically, the new machine imposed its own rituals and pacing that turned out to be marvelously compatible with good writing. And the machine was taken in lovingly by writers, much as doctors took to their stethoscopes, and judges their gavels.

So woven into American literary popular culture was the typewriter—in a publicity photo of Hemingway, in George Peppard’s poignantly missing ribbon in Breakfast at Tiffany’s—we wanted to pay our own Levenger tribute to the now quaint but transforming technology.

What better way to salute the typewriter than to reproduce the iconic machine still used by a beloved historian who demonstrated just how well the machine could perform?

I’ve asked Levenger Press editor Mim Harrison to tell the story that came from our idea to reproduce, in bookend form, the typewriter of David McCullough.

—Steve

“I don’t want to go faster,” writes David McCullough. “If anything, I probably ought to go more slowly.”

The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Truman, John Adams) and recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation may be talking about the way he types, but David McCullough is revealing how he thinks.

“When rewriting, I’m not just typing it all over again, I’m thinking through it again, rethinking, rewording where need be, saying it a little differently on second thought.”

And David McCullough is not typing on a computer. He’s using the pre-digital dinosaur that requires a considerable force of those digits called fingers: the typewriter. Not even a zippy electric version, but a 1940s vintage Royal manual typewriter that he bought second-hand in the 1960s.

So if you want to know how it is that David McCullough’s books always hit the New York Times bestseller lists, capture Pulitzers, and have never gone out of print, it just may be this old machine.

The mind of the machine

When Mr. McCullough graciously agreed to let us reproduce his typewriter as a bookend, we thought the story would be about the machine. But the real story is how an accomplished mind works—not at the speed of a computer, but at a pace that’s thoughtful, deliberate, contemplative. The machine helps set the pace.

And so you have to wonder: What would happen if we all slowed our thinking down a bit, if we dialed it back to the point where we were actually thinking rather than scrolling and texting, and cutting and pasting? Would we all trade in our laptops/notebooks/smart phones for a typewriter?

Probably not. But it would do us good to remember that machines are supposed to make our lives better, not faster. Perhaps we should unplug just a little before we become undone. Such decompression is why we think so many Levenger customers savor the pensive pause of the fountain pen (which David McCullough also uses).

In fact, Thomas Mallon, who just wrote a book on the letters famous people have written through the centuries, maintains that pens and typewriters have more in common than do typewriters and computers. Typewriting reveals its own quirks of the writer, much like penwriting. Computers can make us all look the same.

Here’s how David McCullough looks on his typewriter; he takes the typed sheets and edits them by hand (click on each image to get the larger view):

These sheets are Mr. McCullough’s original drafts for the ode to his typewriter he wrote to accompany the bookend. Isn’t it nice to know that even the great ones revise?

Another writer, Carl Honore, realized the value of slow when he found himself contemplating 60-second bedtime stories to read to his toddler. He caught himself in time. “The secret is balance: instead of doing everything faster, do everything at the right speed,” he advises.

For David McCullough, that means typing “at a pretty good clip,” as he says. And then typing it again, because what he’s really doing is thinking about it some more.

 He and his typewriter are, in fact, currently at work on his new book about Americans in Paris. What do you want to bet that as soon as it’s published, that slowly written book will hit the New York Times bestseller list in no time flat.

—Mim

The typewriter lives on

On my new laptop computer, printed on the same “enter” key under my right pinky is another word below it and larger. The word is “return.” It makes me smile.

And so we are happy to return, with this iconic bookend sculpture, to the days when putting a sheet into the roller was as common as pouring a cup of coffee.

And if you, like many of us at Levenger, can’t get enough of David McCullough, be sure to read our exclusive interview with him. It’s where he reveals, for the first time, whom he’d most like to write his own story.

Now how about you, dear reader: have you tried a slower pace for better thinking? I’d love to hear what worked for you. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

—Steve

Finding—and Giving—Joy in Small Things

There is a joy in small things, which partly explains why some of our most popular products are also some of our smallest. But I think it’s also because many of our smallest products pack the biggest punch.

Take, for example, our Page Nibs. These tiny slips of phosphorus bronze mark your passages in a book forever or for a day—as you wish. Literally paper-thin, they can be priceless for what they point you to.

Or consider our Wallet Cards. They were born from a common observation: people are always writing on business cards. Ironically, business cards aren’t designed to be written on—it’s just that people have business cards when they don’t have anything else.

Tom Kelley,  the general manager of the legendary design firm IDEO, advises us to observe what we observe when people work around designs. That’s what we did when we designed our Wallet Cards, cards the same size as business cards but optimized for notetaking. You can fit them anywhere you fit business cards and our customers do, which explains why they are so popular, both personalized and not.

There’s an equally tiny leather holder for these cards, our Slim Wallet Writer. And a pen so teeny, we named it Walletini. Munchkin-sized but mega-powered, the Walletini pen is a mere 3 and a quarter inches and weighs less than one ounce. You can clip it in whatever  wallet you’re using and you won’t know it’s there, except when you want it to be.

 My other tiny favorites include our Circa Micro PDAs, which we sell as a four-pack. They’re incredibly handy and fun—I carry a few in my bag to hand out to kids and grownups, and it’s a toss-up as to who has the broader grin. These little notepads are the size Thomas Jefferson used in his carriage rides (although his were erasable ivory) and pocket-perfect even when you’re not in a carriage.

Perhaps never has so much untangling been accomplished by so little leather as with our Pocquettes Earbud Holder.

Small footprints, big impressions

 Some of our best small products are, surprisingly, furniture. Leading the charge is our No-Room-for-a-Table Table, which comes out of the box fully assembled and ready to delight just where you thought you couldn’t fit any useful furniture. It holds more than you’d ever think a table this size could, and looks like something an interior designer might custom-order for you from a cabinetmaker.

Our ever-favorite Skyline Bookcase can hold 100 books in one square foot, for those books you’d rather store in your home than in memory.

Sometimes it isn’t a thing at all, but an idea, as you’ll read in J. B. Priestley’s scrumptious Delight. Its subtitle is Taking pleasure in the small things in life. And he has found many, from meeting a friend to shopping in small places.

Priestley understood the power that lies in the small but thoughtful gesture. One such small thing I’m doing more of this holiday season is making my gifts personal—adding their monogram or name to the gift when I can. Then it’s not just joy: it’s their joy. And for gift-givers, that’s big.

How about you, dear reader—do you think it’s possible to give great joy with small things? Let me hear your ideas, won’t you? Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Jack London’s call of the book

Many of you have discovered our exclusive line of Levenger Press books. And yet not all of our literary pursuits are bound between book covers.

We sometimes go three-dimensional, as we have with Ogden Nash’s poem on the porpoise and E.B. White’s story and poem about his winsome pooch.

Another author in our pantheon of writers most admired is Jack London. Did you read The Call of the Wild and White Fang? Several of us here at Levenger did and were bowled over by how beautifully crafted these classic American tales are.

The stars of those stories were just begging to be captured in 3-D. And now they are.

 Mim Harrison, our editor of Levenger Press, gives you the back story on our new sculptures of The Call of the Wild and White Fang. (And I have a follow-up question for you at the end of the post.)

—Steve

Jon Bickley just seemed like a natural to create these bookends. A British sculptor, Jon crafted the larger-than-life statue of Samuel Johnson’s cat Hodge, which is on permanent patrol outside Johnson’s house in London. Later he sculpted Hodge in miniature as a bookend for Levenger (sorry, we've sold out). I had met Jon and knew he was an animal lover of the highest order.

There was just one problem: Jon’s British, and Jack London was most emphatically American. How could Jon artistically scale that daunting distance across the pond?

“That’s the great thing about books,” says Jon. “They cross continents and cut through boundaries.”

But his words are far from mere rhetoric. As it turned out, Jack London’s books were all but imprinted in Jon’s soul.

The call to the child

“The Call of the Wild and White Fang were some of the first books I remember reading for myself,” says Jon. “I was about seven years old.”

He was “animal-mad,” as his mum called him, even then. Reading Jack London sealed it.

“The Call of the Wild was the first book I knew that suggested animals had lives outside of human beings’, that they were entities unto themselves and not just add-ons to humans,” Jon says. Then he adds:

“It’s about respect. We have to respect the other creatures in the world.”

Wolf-Man Jon

The two books continued to call to him. At art college, Jon read them again, fascinated by the wild places of London’s stories, so different from the tame and tidy world of England.

And recently, he read them once more, this time in readiness for sculpting the wolves.

“Once I read the books this time ’round, I had an image of what the dogs looked like,” Jon says. “Books create images in your mind, without being fettered by illustrations.”

But here again, there was just one problem: unlike with Johnson’s cat, there are no wolves in England. And Jon is a sculptor whose works are grounded in authenticity. After all, he’d combed many of England’s beaches looking for the kind of oyster that Johnson would feed to Hodge.

“I used to work as a zookeeper in Kent,” says Jon. “We kept wolves.”

Who knew?

Wakes up with wolves

“The wolves had big packs,” Jon continues, “and they were allowed to sort out their own hierarchy. They lived behind the house that I stayed in, and they’d often howl at 3:00 a.m.” A bit disconcerting, he adds.

Symmetry, balance, the fundamental shape of wolves—all these were in Jon’s head when he set to work sculpting the wolves. But what was in his soul? What would make these statues haunting, memorable creatures?

The bases, in part. (Surprise.)

“I wanted the bases to look as if they could have come from Jack London’s period,” Jon explains. “It’s a bit like framing a picture. They’re not part of the picture, but they are part of the impression the picture creates. It’s taking things in context, and it does change the way you view them.”

But there has to be more to it than merely putting these wolves on their pedestals. When you first encounter these sculptures—especially the two together—they’re startling, they’re so lifelike.

Much of it has to do with the poses of each one. Jon took his cue from the quotations we had selected to be engraved on the bookends.

 It was the long wolf-howl, full-throated and mournful, the first howl he had ever uttered.

That was from White Fang, and thus Jon's sculpture shows the creature in mid-howl, crossing the threshold into a place he had not been before, and where humans could not follow.

 There is a patience of the wild—dogged, tireless, persistent as life itself.

For The Call of the Wild, the image in Jon's mind (unfettered by illustrations) when he read the quote was the metamorphosis of Buck. "It's what Buck became as he changed into a wild wolf after being a tame dog," Jon says.

Perhaps this is where some sculptors would have stopped, content that they'd captured the essence of these wild spirits. For Jon, there was something else calling to him.

 “With wolves, the detail is all in the eyes. It’s the difference between a piece of taxidermy and looking at a live wolf. If you can get the eyes right, you’ve got it. It’s as we say of humans: the eyes are the window into the soul.”

—Mim

And now to you, dear reader—are there books you “see” in 3-D? And do you envision them, as Jon did Jack London’s, without being prompted by illustrations? And what of wolves--are there wolves in your mind's eye? Do you find them scary or attractive, or both?  I’d love to hear your ideas. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

—Steve

Why Carnegie Hall is music to readers’ ears

Two of our new products were designed at Carnegie Hall: the Carnegie Hall Ticket Wallet and Carnegie Hall Luggage Tag. Our product designers went straight to the source for their ideas. Bringing along antique leather wallets from Andrew Carnegie’s day, they met one warm September day in an upstairs room of Carnegie Hall with a group of young and passionate musicians who are fellows of The Academy, a program created by Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School.

While the designers talked about leather goods with the musicians, Levenger Press editor Mim Harrison went poking around in Carnegie Hall’s Archives. She was in search, as usual, of something wonderful to publish. She didn’t come away with a book idea, but she did discover something about Carnegie Hall that makes it especially endearing to readers—to you, in other words. Read on…

—Steve

The archivists’ space at Carnegie Hall is filled with old concert programs, handbills and posters of past performances. Where else do Fats Waller and Segovia, Frank Sinatra and Leonard Bernstein come together?

Before our visit, I knew what most of us know about Carnegie Hall: that it’s a proving ground for the world’s finest musicians. And that the way you get to Carnegie Hall (as the celebrated violinist Jascha Heifetz may or may not have actually said) is to practice, practice, practice.

But did you know that Marlon Brando slept here—in one of the upstairs rooms, when he was young and struggling and needed a place to crash?

And did you know about Gilda, who booked Carnegie Hall for many years? For decades, she hand-wrote, in something reminiscent of an old accounting ledger, the names and times of upcoming performances. During our visit that day, I got to see some of the pages of Gilda’s booking journal. One in particular stood out.

On Wednesday, February 12, 1964, Gilda’s entry included a group scheduled to perform at both 7:00 and 9:30 p.m. (“2 perf”). The princely sum of $1,750 had changed hands. The group was not a familiar name when Gilda booked them. In fact, they’d only been in the U.S. a few days at that point.

The entry reads: The Beetles.

America’s town hall

But my real discovery was that Carnegie Hall, from the first, had opened its doors not only to music but to ideas.

“Carnegie Hall was a nexus of everything that was going on in the country,” said Rob Hudson, the associate archivist and one of our hosts. “Up through the 1940s, there was a town hall feeling to it.”

Its benefactor, Andrew Carnegie, uttered these prophetic words when he laid the building’s cornerstone in 1890:

“It is probable that this hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.”

In its early days it was the Music Hall, not Carnegie Hall, but “music hall” had a lowbrow ring to it, and this was to be a place of loftier ambitions. As early as 1892, Carnegie Hall was hosting a series of high-brow lectures for New Yorkers. Winston Churchill spoke about the Boer War in 1901. Jack London spoke on communism in 1905. And Mark Twain shared the stage with Booker T. Washington.

Where commerce and equality meet

Carnegie Hall may be quintessentially New York, but it is also indisputably American. It sits at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan, the symbol of a place where commerce and egalitarianism have long intersected. Some of the first notes of jazz and the culture it stood for were sounded here. Carnegie Hall was integrated from day one.

Ideas continued to play out as the music played on. Suffragettes rallied here, Teddy Roosevelt campaigned here, the country’s first Congresswoman appeared here. Albert Einstein took the stage. Woodrow Wilson spoke of the Treaty of Versailles.

Martin Luther King spoke here in the last year of his life.

“It’s hard to find something that’s never been done here,” Rob said. “There’s always been an open-door policy.”

In its own way, Carnegie Hall is an extension of those many libraries Andrew Carnegie built. It is another place that fills our head with ideas—and ideals.  Another way that Americans practice, practice, practice the ideas of a democratic society.

—Mim

How about you, dear reader? Do you have a Carnegie Hall memory to share? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

—Steve

Seize the rewards of writing your own handwritten notes…before it’s too late

Only when a technology becomes obsolete can we begin to truly appreciate it—think of candles, or wooden boats, or homemade bread. Today it’s handwritten notes that are now so archaic. It’s time to bring these notes back lovingly into our lives for the unique benefits they bring.

Making time in your busy life to pen a few lines to a friend can become a rewarding ritual you won’t want to live without. Your own handwritten note, sealed inside a hand-addressed envelope, has the power to impress, or to caress, in a way no other form of communication can. Email, texting, social networking—use and enjoy them, but don’t let the digital downpour drown out the quiet pleasures of taking pen to paper. There’s no way quite like it to be so out of date and yet so in touch.

Now, I know that most of you are perfectly amenable to this advice, yet in hearing from many customers over the years, I also know that certain things stand in the way of people taking up their pens and writing by hand those notes that would be so appreciated—even cherished—by others. Most of these barriers are ghosts of classrooms past and deserve to be erased forever. See if I can persuade you to do just that as we walk through these six tips:

Tip No. 1: Don’t fret about your handwriting. Really. It’s fine.

Okay, I may get testy letters from the National Handwriting Association (neatly written, of course), but I’m risking it. Just write like nobody’s watching. Write any way you can. Don’t worry about not forming your Qs correctly or that a forensic handwriting expert might report you to Homeland Security. (Actually, one of the things I came to admire about President Kennedy in publishing our book about him was his truly atrocious handwriting. Such an articulate mind and such an illegible hand.)

You don’t even have to actually write: printing is just fine. (It’s all I do and people tell me they like my handwriting.) It pains this merchant of reading and writing tools to admit it, but good handwriting just doesn’t matter. Beautiful cursive handwriting, which some people still have, is a lovely thing, and by all means aspire to it if you wish and flaunt it if you’ve got it. But it’s kind of like the ability to make your own flaky pie crusts or saw fine dovetail joints in your woodshop—nice, but not necessary. Fine handwriting is a craft I find delightful and thoroughly enjoy when I see it, but it’s no longer important for today’s professionals.

Most of us endured handwriting classes as youngsters, and we can still remember those long banners of perfectly formed upper- and lowercase cursive letters parading around the heights of our classrooms. Perhaps we cling to a vague guilt that we don’t measure up. It’s time to let it go and move on.

That said, you might try slowing down a bit when writing with your pen and see if you like the result. Type fast, text fast, but when writing by hand to friends or lovers, slow down. Relish the pensive pause.

Tip No. 2: Keep it short—for your sake and theirs.

Just a few lines can make someone’s day. Think of text messaging and how much you can convey in a few words and symbols. And Twitter has demonstrated how millions enjoy communicating in 140 characters or less. To free your mind further, here’s a bonus fact from the dusty pages of writing etiquette: it’s bad form to write on the back side of a card—just use the front.

And a bit of shameless commerce here: you’d be surprised how a nice-looking 3 x 5 card is just as much canvas as you need to say what you want.

If you do have a lot to say, type it instead and then adorn your printout with your signature, a handwritten postscript and maybe even a few underlines in different color inks. Helen Gurley Brown is famous for doing this on her many personally typed letters emanating from her office at Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Tip No. 3: Don’t worry about having nice stationery and a good pen. (I can’t believe I’m saying this.)

We sell lots of nice pens and cards at Levenger, and if you like using fine pens, I like you already. It does add to the pleasure (see below). But the bald truth is: you don’t need fancy stuff. Don’t let a lack of pleasing pens and decent stationery be any barrier to writing. Use whatever’s handy—including free stuff like leftover envelopes and hotel stationery. Or take a sheet of copy paper, fold it twice, tape the edges and stick a stamp on it. As long as it conforms to the basic dimensions and you put enough postage on it, the Post Office will deliver it. Sure, there are times when you want something more respectable. But just the act of a physical note is so extraordinary today, don’t sweat the small stuff.

Tip No. 4: Use relaxed, conversational language—write as you speak.

Unless you’re applying for a job as copy editor, take some chances with sentence construction. You won’t be graded. Write like you speak (not “as you speak”). As that bumper sticker says, “Why Be Normal?”

Dear Phil,

Finally I slid your new book out from under the leg of my kitchen table and read it. My table wobbles, but it’s worth it. You write pretty good for a professor….

Play with language. Whether it’s the impact of the Internet or texting or blogs, today good writing can be less formal than ever. The important thing is not to let your concern about grammar, sentence construction, or even spelling stand in your way of getting this rewarding ritual into your life.  (I do admit to typing words into spell-check once in awhile before writing them to make sure I haven’t made a misteak.)

Tip No. 5: Make it a habit by making it a ritual.

One of the nice things about coffee is the ritual of it—the stirring, the sipping, the cradling of mug in hand. Writing by hand can be much the same. And here is where having a favorite pen and stationery at the ready can help invite you to a task you want to do.

I know some people who set aside a few minutes each afternoon to turn from their screens and take up pen and stationery to write a few notes to customers, friends, or colleagues.

One such person is Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Zelnick Media, whose portfolio companies employ thousands around the world. “In a fast-food culture, handwritten notes are a homemade meal,” Strauss told me.  “They convey—in a way that email specifically does not—interest, concern and appreciation.  I write, with a nice pen, on heavy, hand-engraved paper.  That’s a brief but rewarding aesthetic experience that I enjoy and I am probably a bit more thoughtful when I write by hand.  It makes me feel good that I’ve taken a bit of time to be courteous.”

You might start by making a weekly appointment for yourself for an afternoon delight that involves pen and paper. And join me in my campaign for Send-a-Note-on-Sunday (more on this in an upcoming post).

We humans love rituals, and this is one that’s rewarding for everyone involved.

When you start to send handwritten notes, you tend to get them in return, and can enjoy keeping them around for a while as trophies of affection.

Tip No. 6: When sending physical mail, make it physical.

Do what email can’t—put things in the envelope that are impossible to send electronically.

Start with obvious things like business cards, photos, that parking ticket you haven’t had a chance to pay. But then literally push the envelope.

What’s wrong with, say, a couple Popsicle sticks? They can be handy for all sorts of projects, and you can write on them as well. “Sorry, I had to eat these because they were too big for the envelope.”

Or how about those expired dog tags? “If you see my dog, please get him to wear these; he keeps leaving the house without his collar.”

Or a plastic hotel room key with a picture of some dreamy place you’ve been to and your friend has not? (Is that wrong?)

Or maybe an exotically scented perfume tester strip. Write on it, “Would you believe he was wearing this scent?”

It’s really pretty amazing what you can send when you think about it. Just open up your junk drawer and see what needs to take a trip.

Then think about unusual stationery. Paper placemats are some of my favorite. Before lunch arrives, write a note to your friend. “Wish you were here to pay the bill…”

The unique responsibility of Generation B

There’s another reason why it’s important to keep handwritten notes alive, and why we must do it now or lose our chance:

It’s because those of us over the age of 45 or so are the last generation of humans who lived when physical mail was the thing. We were young when phone calls were expensive and rare, we can remember a world without fax and email. We are the living history of handwritten notes—those notes we received as children from our elders and the notes we sent back.

It falls to our generation to carry the torch forward. It’s not the same torch our grandparents or even our parents had. But it is our turn to show the younger and the youngest how the old form of taking pen to paper still burns bright and carries a warmth all its own. Our transition generation must become the wise elders, and pass on to little hands so facile at texting the joy we know when holding a pen, poised and ready to release our thoughts. “Do you like that fountain pen, Allie? Isn’t it nice how it leaves a line of ink on your paper?”

So how about it, dear reader: have I convinced you to convert to this obsolete technology? I’d love to get your comments. Let me know what tips help you, and please share your own ideas and practices that can help all of us keep alive the obsolete, but lovable, handwritten note. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

By the way, my physical address is: Levenger, 420 South Congress Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33445.

In an ancient book, wisdom that still works

“It is a very great indication of progress in virtue
 to transfer our judgement to action,
and not to let our words remain merely words,
but to make deeds of them.”

If Levenger had been around 1900 years ago, we would have hoped to have the writer of these words as our customer. Instead, we’ve done the next best thing by publishing his words for our customers. Mim Harrison, the editor of Levenger Press, takes you behind the designs of our new book—On Contentedness of Mind, by Plutarch.

—Steve

Plutarch was one of those ancient seers whose name kept popping up in much of our research for new Levenger Press books. So many biographies cited his Parallel Lives as the basis of future biographical works. When we would read about writers who influenced Shakespeare, Plutarch would be there. Then we went in search of Emerson, and lo and behold, he’d written a lengthy paean to Plutarch. Just what was this old Greek’s magic?

“Plutarch understood the foundation of ethics for any enterprise, and he spoke his views in language that echoes through the ages. This was a philosopher who realized the importance of the little things and who can remind us of that lesson in many ways. ”

These are the words of contemporary philosopher Tom Morris (that’s Tom in the photo, BTW—not Plutarch). Tom gave us two virtual thumbs up when we told him we were publishing some of Plutarch’s Moralia, his observations on the business of living.

If Plutarch had tweeted…

Tom just published his own book of  ’Twisdom, which draws from his lively conversations with his Twitter following. The technique wasn’t around in Plutarch’s day but, says Tom, Plutarch would be right at home with the medium.

“A philosopher like Plutarch, who was a man of action as well as of thought, was often able to crystallize important insights into short wisdom nuggets that were easily remembered and easily used,” says Tom.

Here are a few of those Plutarchian nuggets from our book:

“Men teach us to speak, but the gods teach us to be silent.”

“Seek discourses whose footsteps turn inwards rather than outwards.”

“View the changes of the moon, like the changes of our mortal life, see how it waxes and wanes.”

Recession-proof wisdom

In a most difficult year for many people, what struck us about Plutarch’s wisdom was that it resonated so well for the time.

“We would not change virtue for wealth, for while virtue abides, wealth changes hands.”

Plutarch gently reminds us—and reassures us—of what’s truly important.

As our friend Tom observes, “In our current period of challenge, we need the wisdom of the great practical philosophers of the past. For a hundred years, we've taught the most theoretical philosophers in our universities and we've lost touch with some of the most insightful thinkers of the past, like Plutarch, who had such influence among the leaders in his time. It's about time for a rediscovery of his wisdom!”

Emerson felt much the same, more than a hundred years ago. “His sterling values will presently recall the age and thought of the best minds,” he wrote. (We excerpted much of Emerson’s essay on Plutarch as the introduction in our book.)

Sometimes nothing works like what’s worked for centuries. Or, as our wise old Greek would say:
“That work is most excellent, where the model stands the test of the nail.”

We think you’ll find in reading On Contentedness of Mind that Plutarch ably stands the test of time—even, and most especially, the time in which we’re now living.

—Mim

And now to you, dear reader: do you find great solace in the words of the ancients? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

—Steve

The quill is back: Levenger reintroduces pens from other makers

A few years ago when Levenger stopped selling pens made by other manufacturers, I got a phone call from an angry customer. “What do you mean you’re not selling Pelikan anymore?” came the gruff male voice on the line. “You got me into fountain pens in the first place and now you’re only going to sell your own brand? Big mistake.”

The customer was an attorney and a persuasive fellow, and I explained my thinking like this:

Customers could buy Pelikans and other brands elsewhere, I told him, but they could only buy Levenger from us. And what customers bought the most from Levenger were, indeed, our own pens. I wanted to pounce on the opportunity and improve our own line of fine writing instruments. It would be a chance to explore new designs and while we were at it, to build up our line of refills.

The customer conceded I had a point and then signed off by reminding me we were making a big mistake.

We continued to explain ourselves to many disappointed customers in our stores and over the phone and in emails. We had a lot explaining to do, since at the time we stopped selling pens from other makers, Levenger was the largest retailer of fine writing instruments in the nation.

And now, I’m happy to report, we’re going back to selling those pens from other
makers.

I guess we have some explaining to do—again.

Windows into a new world

In truth, while focusing on our own product development was the biggest reason we stopped selling other brands, there were other reasons as well.

Fine pens were all the rage in the late 1990s, happily coincident with the cigar-smoking craze. But the yen for both cigars and pens fell off a cliff at about the same time, around the time of the dot-com bust. The fine-pen craze of the waning years of the 20th century turned out to be the last lucid moment of a dying patient.

By the 1990s, fine-writing instruments was a fashion business, with a gloss of technology about improved ink flow or resistance to leaks on airplanes. But those kinds of technological advancements were already quaint—not like back in the 1920s or 30s, when fountain pen technology was leading-edge. In the 1990s, fountain pen technical advancement was laughable. At Levenger we joked about developing new fountain pen ink (which we did) while Microsoft was coming out with its new version of Windows.

There was technical advancement going on with writing instruments, but it was in the highly automated disposable-pen sector, since that’s where the money was (and is still). It takes expensive machinery to make those inexpensive pens for offices, hotels and gas stations—those millions of pens we buy by the box and toss around as common property. (And the problem they present to the fine-writing instruments industry is that those cheap pens write pretty darn well.)

The writing had been on the wall for years that fine writing instruments were on their way to the back of the drawer. Most of the brands were acquired by large companies. There wasn’t much new product development going on as the new owners focused on their big businesses. The luster had left fine writing instruments.

Neither high tech nor high fashion

Their long slide into irrelevance was further accelerated by email. Handwritten notes became nearly as rare as compliments between political parties. People started sending invitations electronically. And while parents bullied children to send real thank-you notes, in envelopes with stamps, those same adults guiltily pressed the send buttons on their laptops. Then came PDAs, and people learned how to text, instead of crossing t’s.

Most traditional outlets for fine writing instruments—those quaintly named stationers—went out of business as Staples and Office Depot kerchunked themselves down at intersections across the nation. I remember a high-end pen rep excitedly telling me how they were pitching jewelry stores as a promising new channel. That opportunity proved illusory: woe to the husband who bought his wife a pen for the big event.

The hard fact was that by the end of the 20th century, the fine-writing instrument business was a fashion business that was unfashionable. Executives hoped they could imbue pens with the same mystique as luxury watches, and for a moment it seemed to work. But in the end, the clock ran out and the ink ran dry.

Focusing on what was True

It was in this milieu of a declining industry that I decided to pull the plug on selling the traditional brands. Since it was mostly Levenger pens that our customers were buying anyway, I wanted our staff to be able to focus on making more Levenger pens, and making them marvelous.

It worked. I’m especially proud of our True Writers, which became more robust and numerous in their colorful, retro resins. And we developed our line of heavy-duty, solid brass pens to fill a niche abandoned by the venerable Rotring company.

Most important were the Levenger refills, which are made with utmost precision in Germany. We expanded our offering, creating the industry’s first six-pack  samplers of ballpoint and rollerball refills  so customers could experience for themselves the many different ways pens can write. We coined the term Pen Outfitting to describe the process of helping customers explore the kinds of refills and pens most pleasing for them, given the various types of writing they do. As a result, customers can now achieve nearly all the kinds of writing they might like—from broad signatures to fine-point note-taking on 3x5 cards—and do so with attractive, affordable, lasting pens.

Time to bring back to Levenger the world’s best pens

So we achieved our goal. And then we realized another truth: Since we’re committed to Pen Outfitting at Levenger, we could do even better for our customers by rounding out—and ramping up—our own assortment with the best other brands in the business. And the good news is that while these companies make fewer pens, they are as marvelous at writing and as beautiful to behold as ever they were—perhaps more so.

So welcome back, Pelikan, with your deliciously flexible gold nibs. Welcome to those big tanks of ink you carry in your translucent barrels.

Welcome home, Sailor, and your amazing gold nibs crafted in Japan for the finest of Kanji-capable fine points, and the broadest of music nibs.

Welcome to Namiki, for your retractable fountain pens that write like a dream and seal away like proud turtles in their shells.

Welcome to Lamy and my favorite weekend pen—that ultra-light ballpoint you can’t even feel when it’s clipped on your polo shirt, and clicks ready-for-action under your thumb.

Welcome to the three pen brands whose ballpoints take Levenger refills: Pelikan, Parker and Waterford. Now our customers can buy a Levenger ballpoint sampler and try them in the full range of pens from these three makers.

Welcome to Waterman and Acme. And to elegant Waterford pens, with their heft of faceted crystals.

Pen zen

But why throw technology into reverse and pedal back to pens? It’s not that we reject new technology at Levenger. In fact, we embrace it. But we also aspire to help our customers (and ourselves) achieve a Zen-like productive coexistence—delighting in the new while cherishing the old, and using both side by side.

It’s why we believe our Circa paper notebooks have a place in the world of electronic note-taking. And why we’re making our Levenger Press books ever more sumptuous with their paper and their ribbon and their gorgeous colors of ink.

Now that the fountain pen—that last mechanical reproduction of the quill—is officially obsolete, we can begin to truly appreciate it. We can revel in the ritual of writing, when we slow to dip our pen in an ink bottle, and accept with gratitude the pensive pause.

Sometimes it’s not about how quickly we can experience our world, but how slowly.

(Just ask David McCullough about that. Ah, but that’s another story, which I’ll share with you soon.)

In future posts I will lobby for the reestablishment of a certain afternoon delight—the kind that involves a pen, a card and an envelope. And I even want to suggest (gulp) that we unplug ourselves once a month.

Until then, do let me know what you think about Levenger reintroducing these grand pen brands. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comment.

And while you can buy most of these pens elsewhere, I hope you’ll let us show you what Levenger customer service feels like.

Stub nib news: and the winner of our contest is…

Wow! Knowing how passionate Levenger customers are about their fountain pens, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the many marvelous comments to my column on stub nibs. But it sure was great to hear from so many of you on why this archaic but elegant form of communication should not leave our hands.

As for giving the ugly-duckling name of “stub” a makeover, to better reflect the lovely swan-like handwriting this nib gives its writer, lots of nominations came in.

Pat McDermott suggested it be called the Author’s Nib, or Script Nib; Sallie proposed Nostalgia; and a faithful Levenger editor and friend of 20 years, Luise Erdmann, offered Old Faithful.

It’s a Block-Nib, said Robert Ferguson. It’s Magic, pronounced Sandy Carlson. Expressive, said Nate Hess.

Artisan was David Froment’s nomination; Legacy was Nikita Ferrell’s.

The sibilant S’s were well-represented: Snub from Chad Brokaw; Silk from Rick Dobrowolski; Swoosh and Surf from Jan S., and Stemwinder from Dave Moore. Dave explained that “stemwinder,” taken from the first watches that had their own winding stems versus the old key-winding ones, was, for a time, synonymous with leading-edge cool.

More suggestions from Jan: Flourish, Wave or Flow. Laurel Dabbs nominated 1920s, and Nick Silva coined BeautiForm.

Tim Aughenbaugh had several varieties of Signature and Autograph.

And the winner is…Signature

Thanks, Tim!

We liked how Signature suggested not only an ideal use for this nib, but also the signature style that becomes all yours when you use it. Then another pen friend, Ryan Roossinck, clued me in as to how venerable old Esterbrook, the inspiration for our True Writer pen, used to make a signature nib. The name seemed destined for the nib.

 Henceforth (or at least, pretty soon), our True Writer Stub Nib will be known as the True Writer Signature Stub Nib.

Edith Wharton’s signature style

While these creative suggestions were coming in, Lori and I happened to be visiting The Mount, Edith Wharton’s lovingly-restored home in the Berkshires (more on this in an upcoming column). One of the items on exhibit was a copy of America and the World War, inscribed to Wharton by its author, Theodore Roosevelt.

Notice the thin dash before the bold A in American. We’ll need a TR scholar to let us know what pen he was using, but it sure looks like a Signature Stub Nib to me (even though it wasn’t a True Writer).

All of us who try to keep this artful writing in circulation are in pretty good company from the past.

Thanks to all of you for your creative suggestions on nib names—and for believing still that the pen is mightier.

P.S. Tim, we’ll be sending you your prize of a True Writer Signature Stub Pen.

Comments? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments.)

Why you may love a stub-nib fountain pen (even if you hate your handwriting)

My grandfather, George W. Knock, was a high school penmanship instructor from the 1920s through the 1950s. When his students graduated, he wrote out their names, with his expert hand, on their diplomas. I inherited a number of his fountain pens when my grandmother was cleaning house in the 1980s. She gave me several Esterbrook pens, including a plain black one still new in its mailing box from the company. Of all the pens in my grandfather’s cache, my favorite is a Moore fountain pen with a squared-off nib—what’s known rather inelegantly as a stub nib.

The Moore pen startled me with its writing—or rather, with my writing when it was in my hand.

Fountain pens give strokes of different thicknesses—down strokes are wider, sideways strokes are thinner. Ball pens, by contrast, produce a more machine-like, uniform line. A stub-nib fountain pen like the Moore accentuates the feather-like style of fountain-pen writing, yielding a graceful look sometimes approaching calligraphy. Even bad handwriting looks good with a stub nib.

How True Writer got its stub nib (it may surprise you)

We decided we wanted to give this writing experience to our customers in our most popular line of pens, our True Writers. But to tool up for a new nib is expensive, and stub nibs are such a special item. We thought we would be unlikely to sell the 10,000 we’d have to order from our German manufacturer.

One of our Levenger pen mavens, Frank Weissman, suggested we hire a skilled artisan to make stub nibs by converting our medium nibs through a delicate grinding process. This, actually, is how some of the finest nibs were made during the golden age of fountain pens in the 1920s. Fortunately, there are still a few artisans practicing this rare art.

After finding the right one, we ordered a small quantity and without much fanfare, introduced the stub nib True Writer into our line.

The enthusiasm of our customers for the nib (with the ugly name but the beautiful writing) delighted us. We quickly sold out and had to ask our nib converter to work like Rapunzel and spin out more stub nibs fast.

While we install the stub nib only in a black True Writer, what many customers don’t know is that you can easily unscrew any True Writer nib and screw it into another True Writer fountain pen.

This interchangeability of nibs, incidentally, was a major selling feature of the popular Esterbrook pens. We made this a design requirement when we launched our True Writer series back in 1999. (To read the whole story, click on True Writer History in the How-To section.)

 So we now also sell the stub nib separately. In addition, it’s one of the four nibs in our True sampler set.

What you’ll see in this photo (and others when you click through on the photo set) is my own stub-nib True Writer.

Rediscovering the joys of the handwritten note

Pictured here is some writing I’ve done with my stub-nib True Writer on the Oasis Pad that sits on my desk. Notice the variation in line thickness. As you’ll see, I only print, yet it manages to look pretty nice because of the pen.

People often compliment my handwriting, but the stub nib is my secret. It rewards slowing down and luxuriating as you form letters. Try one yourself. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, even if you think your handwriting—like John F. Kennedy’s—is terrible.

I reach for other pens for intensive note-taking, but every workday I try to take a few minutes in the afternoon—like a rewarding coffee break—to write personal notes to customers and friends. I slow down, take up my stub- nib True Writer, and try to make an art of delighting people—including myself—with that old-fashioned communication of one hand to another.

 How about you, dear reader? Is this an art form worth preserving? And can you think of a better name than “stub nib” for the magic this pen performs? (The gift of a True Writer stub-nib pen awaits the reader who has the best suggestion.)

Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).