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eachan
September 2nd, 2021, 04:43 AM
I'm not entirely sure how I got here, how I became a restorer of vintage fountain pens. I always enjoyed writing with them of course and my interest tended towards old rather than current. I've almost always had and used fountain pens since the age of eight but that's not the full story. There are, perhaps, two things two things that determined that I would pursue vintage rather than new. One was memory of the pens that were around when I was young, not school pens but the rather better ones I saw at home. My grandfather had a Sheaffer, one of those with a Triumph nib. My mother used a green marbled Conway Stewart though I can't say now which of that company's many models.

The other reason arose because I was, for a time, a Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. All records and certificates were written with a fountain pen and Parker Permanent Black ink. I was issued with a cheap Parker, a Vector, I think, which didn't suit me well at all. Ebay got under way around that time and I looked at the pens offered there. I settled on a 1920s Onoto and a later Swan, both of which improved the appearance of my writing no end! I was hooked, between a practical necessity and nostalgia for a time I never knew.

Deb, too, was fascinated by old fountain pens. We both wanted to see and handle all the fountain pens there were. By that time I'd developed some skill and knowledge about pen repair and restoration. She saw a way to fulfil that wish: buy pens, restore them and sell them on. Thus was Goodwriters Pens born.

And it worked, too! We've handled and written about pretty much every British vintage pen and quite a few from other countries too. The pen-selling business keeps itself afloat. If we depended upon it for our income we would be living on gruel in a tent but that was never its purpose. Nowadays around three-quarters of the pens we use every day are vintage: Swans, Conway Stewarts, Mentmores and Summits. The rest are mostly post-war Japanese fountain pens, predominantly Pilots.

That goes some way towards explaining how I got here. There are many junctures in life when decisions are lightly made with no thought that they will influence one's future. In my twenties I was fond of fountain pens but was perfectly happy to to use BICs at work - at first, at least, though I found that they hurt the hand later when I had more to write. That slight preference has grown into the obsession it has become. I liked old mechanical things but I might have chosen watches, clocks, cigarette lighters or pocket knives but fountain pens proved right for me. We are very lucky. Not many people get to occupy themselves with what interests them most.

So how did you get here?

Fermata
September 2nd, 2021, 06:07 AM
Fountain pens were compulsory at my school, the brands are now forgotten although I remember a Parker 45, a Sheaffer Dolphin in grey and various Parker Duofold Juniors. These pens had a hard life being transported in a leather satchel on a bicycle cross bar within a wooden pencil box along with a compass and many pencils. One pen I recall in particular was after I saved up and bought a Parker Duofold Senior in deep red, I thought the world of this pen and it was my daily writer until I went to university. At some point I dropped the pen and it landed nib down. I didn’t really know what to do and took the pen to WH Smiths and asked if they had a repair service. They sent the pen to Arthur Twydle who did a remarkably bad job by today’s standards but the nib now worked and I didn’t know any better. He charged 17/6 for the repair but included a note with the repair offering to buy the pen for £25, quite why he made such a high offer I am not sure. I went to St Johns in Cambridge and used the pen throughout my time there, I gave the pen to a good friend who couldn’t afford to buy a pen for himself. This became a pattern in my life, if someone has a need greater than your own do what you can to help, but I can become very boring about the chasm between need and want.

Moved to London, I had a Parker 61 as my daily writer and saw my first Montblanc 149, I couldn’t afford one at £125 and it also felt enormous in my hand compared to the 61, like holding a baseball bat, I had to pass.

I went to live in China, pens in Chinese department stores were plentiful and very cheap at around 10p for a Parker 75 Ciselle copy, I bought one, the feed lasted around a week before it crumbled away. I kept to my Waterman and Sheaffers plus the Lamy which had just become available

I have had so many pens over the years, in the thousands, they tended to be bought, used for a while and then soldor given away. When Ebay came along I started buying vintage pens in job lots, often 25-50 at a time, fixing them, do a light restoration, keeping perhaps one or two out of the 50 and selling the rest. I used pens all day and every day in my work, which helped to justify the hobby.

About 5 years ago I decided I had far too many pens, I was becoming old without anyone who had an interest in taking ownership of the collection plus one sentence, from your wife Eachan, gave me the impetus to make a change, ‘you need to remember that sooner or later all your collection will return to the large pen pool’.

The Duofold Senior in deep red will be over 55 years old now, I hope that someone is still using it.


eta

In your final word 'here' I have assumed that you mean here at this point in your pen life and history as opposed to arriving at FPG, apologies if I have misunderstood.

Empty_of_Clouds
September 2nd, 2021, 06:20 AM
I don't have a clear memory of how I got here. No doubt it was a very humdrum journey, and I think it may have started when I found an old Sheaffer Prelude in a box of stuff. And then when I looked online for more info I stumbled onto various hobby sites - here, that other place and so on - and got caught in the gravitational whirlpool from which there is apparently no escape!

It's been...er... interesting. Can't say that I've ever been a decent forumite, which I imagine most people will agree on. What I walk away with is that no description/review/video will ever adequately suffice over holding a pen and writing with it. At least that is my perception based on pens I've acquired purely on the merits of a description, review or video. :)

In my earlier days - probably between 2014 and 2018 or thereabouts - I suffered terrible FOMO reading the forums, and ended up buying a lot of stuff that was really unsuitable for me. These days I am bit more resistant, but the feeling is still there under the surface. And it's a curious thing that this does not affect any other aspect of my life. Not sure what that says (if anything) about the influence of hobbyist forums.

christof
September 2nd, 2021, 07:37 AM
I have always written and drawn with fountain pens. In school with Pelikano, then Lamy Safari, later also better and more expensive fountain pens. I started collecting old fountain pens (probably) at the age of 14, when I found a Parker "51" at the flea market. The design fascinated me at first sight and even though I'm interested in Pelikan and LAMY today, Parker are still my favorite fountain pens. My Parker "51" is almost always with me.


When it comes to pen boards, first I was member on Fountain Pen Network. But emmigration waves have occurred on and off over the years there.
I came here in 2010, along with some other members of FPN. For many years I posted on both forums but decided lately to focus on Fountain Pen Geeks (since Fountain Pen Network is not what it used to be for me in past). I now prefer smaller and more personal forums. I am also member of the boards:

www.penexchange.de

and

www.stylo-plume.org

C.

penwash
September 2nd, 2021, 08:32 AM
What an interesting question that can be answered from several different perspectives.

Technically, this FP hobby is my second one that lasted years, the first being photography (also from the vintage-tinted glasses perspective of course). Maybe a more interesting question for myself is why am I always fascinate with old items. A big part of it is that my wife also likes them, but not to the degree of becoming an obsession.

The attraction to this hobby for me started purely as a visual one. I may have mentioned here that I perused a thread about fountain pens in the photography forum that I frequent at that time. That led me to trying to find info about these fountain pens. I had no interest in calligraphy, writing, and I wasn't paying any thoughts at all about what I write with (little that I did as a computer programmer). But this hobby, changes all that.

So that's how I got to where I am now in the hobby, today, I just enjoy one vintage pen restoration after another, and of course, thanks to these pens, I rediscovered my long lost love: Sketching. Plus I get to know many cool pen friends.

ADDED: This forum is one of three that I frequent, the other two being the r/fountainpens subreddit and Pentrace (I know, polar opposites in many regards). Here it feels like a quite village where you get to know the active participants. I never get that feeling on FPN, especially nowadays.

Sailor Kenshin
September 2nd, 2021, 09:33 AM
FPG? Found it on teh innerwebz.

Fountain pens came about from my sketching. I wanted to sketch various things outdoors but didn't want to haul India Ink and a crow quill dip pen. I read in some book about fountain pens being good for sketching; the hand-drawn image was of a Pelikan 120. Which, pre-innerwebz, I could not buy anywhere. Thus began The Great Hunt.

But I had used a fountain pen in sixth grade: a Sheaffer school pen with silvertone cap and translucent yellow body. It had some blue ink cartridges to go with it and even back then, the thought of blue ink emerging from a yellow pen irked my color sensibilities. I don't know what happened to that pen, but I do have a small collection of Sheaffer school pens. They are great writers.

Many years ago, a pen pal, who has since passed away, gave me a Pelikan 120. I still treasure that pen.

silverlifter
September 2nd, 2021, 12:19 PM
I told my story in some detail on reddit a couple of years ago, but I glossed over the early years.

I was taught to write with a fountain pen, once we graduated from pencils, and so for me they were always "proper pens". When I started secondary school, a boys boarding school, fountain pens were banned (they didn't want us having access to tubes that squirted ink), and I remember walking down to the auditorium for the first day of my final exams carrying half a dozen biros and thinking,"this is absurd. When I go to university, I'm going to buy a proper pen so I don't have to put up with this shit."

And so I did (https://www.reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/8anba3/every_pen_tells_a_story/).


I bought this pen (https://imgur.com/a/d4JMP) in 1984.

At the time, I cared or knew little about gold nibs, or fountain pen care. I just wanted a pen that would be a real workhorse, that I could throw into my bag and be confident that when I pulled it out it would do the one thing that pens are supposed to do: write

So, I bought what was at the time for a university student, an expensive pen. Not because of the brand, or the gold nib, or anything like that. Because it was the only one in the shop that had a metal body and I though to myself, "I'll bet this will be practically indestructible." And, all these years later, it turns out I was right.

For the four years I was at university, I used it for every note I took and every exam I sat. All my exams were essays, so that meant between one and three questions in two hours, averaging about 30-40 pages per exam. Three times a year for four years.

Not once then, or since, has this pen failed me. It has never skipped, never burped, leaked or otherwise done anything other than write like a champ. I threw it in my bag every day, with my books, sports gear and all sorts of other stuff. I had no idea you couldn't treat a pen like that. Turns out, if it is a good pen, and you are OK with some cosmetic damage, you are good to go.

One final anecdote. Years after I graduated, I was out and ran into a former lecturer. We went for a beer and were catching up. He told me that one year, after marking, the staff were chatting about grading in the staff room, and one of them mentioned "fountain pen guy", who wrote every exam with a fountain pen. Some of the other stuff went, "oh, yeah, I've had him come through as well." The first lecturer then confessed that he always enjoyed reading papers written in fountain pen and, when he was on the fence about a grade, always bumped up, not down because of the pen. Apparently, some of the others laughed and confessed to the same!

BlkWhiteFilmPix
September 2nd, 2021, 02:20 PM
Am an emmigrant from the other forum.

My fountain pen journey began when I Cross' ad for their newly-introduced fountain pen in National Geographic. Shortly thereafter, I learned about Montblancs, and eventually I saw Neil deGrasse Tyson's interview on Larry King where he mentioned he preferred his Pelikans.

A more eloquent version of my story appeared in Pen World (https://www.bobsoltys.net/fountainpens).

guyy
September 2nd, 2021, 03:46 PM
Here? As in fpgeeks? I think i lurked & bought a pen or two here before signing up, so i guess it was the For Sale forum. That and dissatisfaction with other internet pen places. I signed up to ask a question about my OMAS. I wasn't able to post it at pentrace, didn't trust reddit and didn't want to post at that other pen site.

If "here" is fountain pens in general, well, it was so long ago that i forgot exactly when & how. They were just around when i was a kid and i liked them. So here i am.

jar
September 2nd, 2021, 04:17 PM
I reached the very last page of the Internet (http://hmpg.net/)and then doubled my tracks back.

An old bloke
September 2nd, 2021, 05:10 PM
My father only used a Sheaffer fountain pen or a pencil. I cannot remember ever seeing him use a biro except one on a chain in a bank, and then only when he didn't have his pen with him. My awareness of fountain pens and ink stretches from my toddler days. My pens were typical school pens. Even as a young family man, Platignum school pens were what I could afford and had. Acquiring a quality first or second tier pen came when the family was grown and disposable income became a reality and not a myth. I had some lust for the vintage pens I had seen and had to forego in the past. Then too, as a lover of history and things historical, the pens I sought and bought were 1920s, 30s, and 40s vintage Conway Stewarts, Mentmores, Burhams, Wyverns, etc. -- all of which still attract me. Later, I began wondering how the 'newcomers' and the makes, mostly German, I hadn't an interest in stacked up against the 'best of the best'. With that, it was time to try Lamy, Diplomat, Schneider, etc. Most recently, I began wondering how some if the modern Conway Stewarts and Onoto compared to the vintage pens (answer: quite well indeed).

And so it goes for the abstract thinker and his tangential exploration of the world of fountain pen use.

Frank
September 2nd, 2021, 05:30 PM
Discovered FPG either thru FPN, or thru my own forum TFPC...

I collected BP/RB Pens as a teen, and then got into FPs when I was teaching full-time. I used to get Fahrneys catalogs in the 80's/90's, and I ignored Fountain Pens (LOL!). When I was working at a school, a new principal got me into them! I started going to the Philly Pen Show in 2006. I was selling vintage by 2009, and working at the pen club table in Philly by 2010. The crazy idea came to me in 2014 that I could actually be a pen retailer. The rest, like my store name, is history!

Frank

Chip
September 3rd, 2021, 04:53 PM
A Lit professor I admired called me in for a chat. He thought I might have a future as a writer, music to my ears. I commented on the fountain pen he was using and he gave it to me: an Osmiroid 65 with a medium italic nib, which seemed like a holy relic.

https://i.imgur.com/KC4bUGv.jpg

He later apologized, saying it was a cranky, scratchy, blotting nightmare. And it was. But I had nothing to compare, and used it to write my first book of poems.

Later, I found some of my grandfather's Sheaffer pens and got a book and the tools and bits to restore them to writing condition. Friends gave me their junkstore finds and I bought drawer lots of old pens on eBay, restoring and selling enough to support my bent for collecting. My collection has grown to the point where I'm no longer trying to enlarge it. I do try to ink and write with my favorite pens on a regular basis.

TSherbs
September 4th, 2021, 05:54 AM
I always wanted to be different and saw myself as different (or just different enough, I suppose). No one in my family had any interest in fountain pens, nor were there any around the house. When I was at college, I became an English major in part because the university was known more as a business and engineering school, and I just don't like swimming in the water in the same direction as everyone else. In high school, I had some of the quirkiest friends, and today as a teacher--nearing retirement--I still gravitate toward the quirky. Freshman year in college, I wandered into the university bookstore and stumbled upon a Sheaffer school pen and some cartridges. I bought it and a small journal. And that was that. While other students were using electric typewriters and the earliest pc's (I began college in the late 70s), I was sitting under trees and writing with my Sheaffer or at my desk in my dorm room with my grandfather's Torpedo manual. I fancied myself a writer (never came true), and in my head fountain pens and manual typewriters were the iconic tools of the trade.

After college, I got a job teaching English, got a graduate degree (wrote my papers on a pc clone), got married and had kids, and did not get out my fountain pen for 30 years.

And then I did, but I don't know why. And then I needed some more ink cartridges, but of course no Staples or Office Max around me sold them any more. The internet now existed, and I entered some search terms.

Goulet Pen Company came up first in the results, I soon had another pack of cartridges and a few more cheap pens.

The rest is just addition. Now I write all my letters and grade all of my papers with a fountain pen. I have even submitted a self-evaluation to my employer in the form of a letter written in fountain pen. This irked them; I smiled in pleasure. Institutions are 50% evil. I am not a professional writer, but I have to write volumes every week. I don't know how I ever did that with those Bic pens. I remember my fingers being calloused. But no more.

Here at FPG? I migrated in one of the shutdowns at FPN.

I still have that Sheaffer (and the Torpedo manual).

Sailor Kenshin
September 4th, 2021, 08:02 AM
What color was your Sheaffer?

TSherbs
September 4th, 2021, 08:43 AM
Navy blue.

Sorry for the blur. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210904/96265cce497da833f3a8aebd89af378f.jpg

Sent from my moto g power using Tapatalk

ethernautrix
September 7th, 2021, 07:22 AM
I was alone in buying "too many" fountain pens until a Google search (for a Visconti travelling ink pot) brought me to FPN. I couldn't believe it. People were even using my own jargon (e.g., "rotation") in the same way!

FPG owner Eric and moderator Dan had a weekly Google hang-out that I never participated in, only catching it as an upload. I didn't particularly want to join another forum ("too many forums!"), but then somehow I was convinced to sign up over here.

And then here became a haven when the situation at FPN went sideways now and again. I'm still posting over there a bit, not so much, probably cos I'm not collecting nor even buying pens much anymore and would rather pare down what I have (still not motivated enough to make the listings and mail pens from Poland, although I'm sure postage is cheaper from here).

As for fountain pens, it was an organic progression from a probably extreme attention to pens since I was a kid, choosing between ostensibly identical Bic ballpoints which was my favorite one.

In my late teens and early twenties, I'd stop by stationery and art supplies stores and pick up their pen catalogues and page through them the way people had paged through Sears catalogues generations before me (according to American social mythology), dog-earing pages with the extravagant ballpoint pens I dreamed about owning one day, if I were lucky.

At the time, i didn't like rollerballs. Too... skippy and rough. Probably cos of my high-angled pen grip. But I looooved Pentel's Ceramicrons (precursor of today's needlepoint tips, which I love!) ("Love." You know.), which dovetailed with finally considering fountain pens, like the Pentel Varsity, the Parker Vector. I had a Pelikan (don't know the number, but the body was a solid, darker green), which I ruined with India ink. I hadn't known!

I bought and enjoyed using a bunch of Varsities and Vectors before I yearned for The One Pen -- something luxurious and magical (thus only one), like something from the pen catalogues that were still available in San Francisco's abundant stores. That quest led to immediate failure at my first purchase at Michael's Art Supplies Store's (on Stutter Street) 40%-off everything sale. If you bought something at the sale, you were given a coupon to return the following month for 40%-off everything. So every other month on a Saturday, there was the 40%-off sale with the potential of spending more money on a Saturday during the following month. I was ruined from the starting gate. Too many pens!

I still have too many pens, and I have to say, it's a good problem to have.

FredRydr
September 7th, 2021, 10:50 AM
...it's a good problem to have.
:bounce:

christof
September 7th, 2021, 01:17 PM
...it's a good problem to have.
:bounce:

one of the best I know!

Ps: it's good to have you here again Lisa!

CrayonAngelss
September 7th, 2021, 01:52 PM
Well, one day just last summer, I sent a certain pen pal a message asking what was so special about those fountain pens he always writes with. Now I have 14.

An old bloke
September 7th, 2021, 01:56 PM
Well, one day just last summer, I sent a certain pen pal a message asking what was so special about those fountain pens he always writes with. Now I have 14.

LOL!

FredRydr
September 8th, 2021, 04:29 AM
Well, one day just last summer, I sent a certain pen pal a message asking what was so special about those fountain pens he always writes with. Now I have 14.
These things happen. Serendipity?

penwash
September 8th, 2021, 07:18 AM
Well, one day just last summer, I sent a certain pen pal a message asking what was so special about those fountain pens he always writes with. Now I have 14.

Curious what his answer was, that resulted in a convert with 14 pens a year later :D

amk
September 9th, 2021, 03:24 AM
I had fountain pens at school. I remember a 45 Harlequin and a Vector and some horrible Osmiroids. Then when I started working I decided to buy a new Waterman Laureat every year. I now wish I'd set my sights a little higher.

And then I got into Chinese pens because they were cheap. And then I went to Cambridge Pen Show and met Oxonian and some other really nice people and my eyes bugged out at all the lovely pens and lovely nibs... and then I went hunting all around the UK and France and bought some great bargains and some, er, less good bargains at sales and charity shops... and travelled all round India looking for fountain pens...

...and then I got to the point when I ordered the Pelikan m600 red torty from Fritz Schimpf with a specially ground italic nib, and "we're not inKansas any more"!

ethernautrix
September 9th, 2021, 04:03 AM
Ps: it's good to have you here again Lisa!

Thank you, Christof!

ethernautrix
September 9th, 2021, 04:07 AM
(W)hen I started working I decided to buy a new Waterman Laureat every year.

For a few years, the Waterman Laureat was my favorite. I bought at least a handful and tended to give them as gifts. And I'd buy extra nibs. I still have my first one, a now beat-up blue marble with a loose cap.

Chip
September 11th, 2021, 11:25 PM
I loved fossicking about in the art supply and pen shops in San Francisco. Bought some nice pens on sale: Parker Duofold International in dark-grey pearl, a Namiki Vanishing Point, and an Aurora Ipsilon. Michael's rang a faint bell (they no longer have a shop on Stutter(!) or Sutter St. nor anywhere in the city). But the shop I recall was on a cross street south off Market, mostly art supplies with a single showcase of fountain pens.

After a few years memorising catalogues, I veered into restoring antique and vintage pens, buying estate lots and drawer sales, fixing up worthwhile pens, selling most, and keeping a few that worked in my collection. I'm no longer actively looking or buying: too many pens and too few chances to use them. It's discouraging to send a letter written with a good pen and ink on fine paper, and then have the friend pop back with an e-mail, or worse, a text.

When I really like a piece by another writer, I ink a favorite pen and write an old-style fan letter. Most writers are pleased to get them, and some pleasant correspondences have developed, along with lasting friendships.

Your post made me curious as to whether fountain pens had been made in Poland. One maker, Zenith, produced several models. Here's a Zenith 2, which resembles the Parker P-51 Aerometric pens.

https://i.imgur.com/QOcHGzm.jpg

Cheers!

ethernautrix
September 12th, 2021, 03:24 AM
But the shop I recall was on a cross street south off Market, mostly art supplies with a single showcase of fountain pens.

Oo, I wonder which shop that was. My first thought was Patrick & Co., but that's on Market, with another entrance on Sutter. I think it's still there; it was the last time I visited the City, jeez, four years ago at least.

I haven't heard of Zenith. Thanks! (Dziękuję! There is one brand, but the name escapes me (as Polish words so often do).


P.S.

I'm no longer actively looking or buying: too many pens and too few chances to use them. It's discouraging to send a letter written with a good pen and ink on fine paper, and then have the friend pop back with an e-mail, or worse, a text.


I do tend to rely on the e-mail more than any other method. I have a list of pen pals that I intend to send actual letters to, but I've found it difficult to write my usual chit-chatty letters these past few years. Even explaining that feels heavy and stops me.

What's weird to me, though, are the "friends" who ask for my address so they can write to me -- and then they don't write. I feel like I've just been added to their lists for weird reasons.

jar
September 12th, 2021, 04:44 AM
What's weird to me, though, are the "friends" who ask for my address so they can write to me -- and then they don't write. I feel like I've just been added to their lists for weird reasons.

Counting Coup!

FredRydr
September 12th, 2021, 06:34 AM
...It's discouraging to send a letter written with a good pen and ink on fine paper, and then have the friend pop back with an e-mail, or worse, a text....

So true. It doesn't happen that way very often, but it is a disappointment when it does.


...When I really like a piece by another writer, I ink a favorite pen and write an old-style fan letter. Most writers are pleased to get them, and some pleasant correspondences have developed, along with lasting friendships....

That's my main motivation in the realm of fountain pens these days.

CrayonAngelss
September 12th, 2021, 08:03 AM
Or putting time into the content of a letter and getting a few shallow sentences back. Feels like rejection!

Chip
September 12th, 2021, 05:49 PM
I kept files of correspondence, with exchanges of handwritten letters over a decade or more. Since I didn't keep copies of mine, the file is all replies and letters from readers, forwarded from publishers: half of the story. I wonder whether the people I wrote to kept my letters?

Got a request from a university archive to start a collection of my papers: manuscripts, correspondence, photos, etc. I boxed up the manuscripts and material from published books along with the correspondence, and they've done an online index. We've been evacuated for forest fires a couple times and I'd hate to have all my tracks and traces go up in smoke. Sorting out the unpublished material now, and then the photos. This year, we've so far been spared a big fire nearby.

Read an article in the New Yorker on nature writing by Kathryn Schulz, whose work I've admired for a few years. Working up to a fan letter.

Which pen? The blue pearl Conway Stewart?

TSherbs
September 13th, 2021, 04:33 PM
https://i.imgur.com/QOcHGzm.jpg
Here's a Zenith 2, which resembles the Parker P-51 Aerometric pens.


Yes, it does!

TSherbs
September 13th, 2021, 04:35 PM
Read an article in the New Yorker on nature writing by Kathryn Schulz, whose work I've admired for a few years. Working up to a fan letter.

I'm teaching some nature writing right now, so I'm gonna look up this article. Thanks for the mention.

TSherbs
September 13th, 2021, 04:39 PM
FPG owner Eric and moderator Dan had a weekly Google hang-out that I never participated in, only catching it as an upload.

I never saw this. Didn't even know of it. Maybe before my time (I started poking around in 2012)

Chip
September 13th, 2021, 05:27 PM
I'm teaching some nature writing right now, so I'm gonna look up this article. Thanks for the mention.

Here's a link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-do-we-hope-to-find-when-we-look-for-a-snow-leopard

I knew two of the writers she mentions: Ed Abbey and Peter Matthiessen, who was a great help to me. There were a couple finger-wagging letters about her piece, which I thought was quite sensible. Been following her NYer work since I saw a piece a few years back: "The Khans of Wyoming," 6 June, 2016.

Chip
September 21st, 2021, 11:32 PM
I'm teaching some nature writing right now. . .

What writers and works are you using?

Just curious: no critique will follow.

TSherbs
September 22nd, 2021, 04:32 AM
I'm a high school English teacher. We will look at excerpts from Muir, Oliver, Abbey, Thoreau, Momaday, Dillard. Even probably a poem or two by Jeffers and Snyder (and of course Oliver). It's a unit on the American view towards the natural world. We started with the Puritan outlook toward "wilderness," and have moved on. I even have the kids read some Hawthorne and Poe to look at the Romantic/symbolic/aesthetic treatment. And the landscape paintings of Church and Cole.

Chip
September 22nd, 2021, 12:52 PM
Seems like a solid base for further exploration. Thoreau writes incredible sentences, long and intricate, yet immediately understandable. Jeffers was a master of metaphor. Are you using 'The Purse Seine?'

Dillard caused a sensation at the Key West conference years ago when she admitted that the cat with bloody paws (the striking image that opens A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) was fictional, based on a story someone told her. "I never had a cat," she said. Ka-BOOM!

Which got me thinking about imaginary cats: Schrödinger's, for instance.

Empty_of_Clouds
September 22nd, 2021, 12:59 PM
Back in the day (in the UK) I started an English Lit and Art degree (ended up moving overseas and gave it up for work; probably should have kept it going). In the first semester students had to critique 'Horses' by Edwin Muir. This is not the same poem as the (probably) better known 'The Horses' by the same poet. And for a while, I had a bit of a thing for American writers. Of course, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, good writing is good writing.

silverlifter
September 22nd, 2021, 02:26 PM
Jeffers

Jeffers is enjoying something of a (well deserved) renaissance it seems. There was a terrific essay in Harpers several months ago about him: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/bright-power-dark-peace-robinson-jeffers-tor-house/

TSherbs
September 22nd, 2021, 02:35 PM
Seems like a solid base for further exploration. Thoreau writes incredible sentences, long and intricate, yet immediately understandable. Jeffers was a master of metaphor. Are you using 'The Purse Seine?'

Dillard caused a sensation at the Key West conference years ago when she admitted that the cat with bloody paws (the striking image that opens A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) was fictional, based on a story someone told her. "I never had a cat," she said. Ka-BOOM!

Which got me thinking about imaginary cats: Schrödinger's, for instance.I can imagine the Dillard sensation. By the time of Tim O'Brien, readers--students--were just plain pissed!

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TSherbs
September 22nd, 2021, 02:36 PM
Jeffers

Jeffers is enjoying something of a (well deserved) renaissance it seems. There was a terrific essay in Harpers several months ago about him: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/bright-power-dark-peace-robinson-jeffers-tor-house/I'll check it out.

TSherbs
September 22nd, 2021, 07:43 PM
Jeffers

Jeffers is enjoying something of a (well deserved) renaissance it seems. There was a terrific essay in Harpers several months ago about him: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/09/bright-power-dark-peace-robinson-jeffers-tor-house/I'll check it out.

wow, this is a terrific essay

Empty_of_Clouds
September 22nd, 2021, 09:24 PM
Just reading it now, very interesting. I also have a Norton's Anthology at home (have been into and out of poetry all my life), but now I will have to thumb through the index to see if Jeffers graces any page.

Chip
September 23rd, 2021, 08:01 PM
Of course, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, good writing is good writing.

Language being the raw material, it does matter as much as the choice of stone or wood or pigment. While translation can get the basic sense, it can miss the sound and music any decent writer has in their inner ear: the rhythm, the rhymes and near-rhymes, the parallel structure, the quick wit and humour, the cultural resonance.

People are still striving to translate Homer, Sappho, and Dante, with heaps of footnotes, let alone Lao-Tzu, Basho, and Omar Khayyam.

Even Shakespeare, writing in the purest English of his time, requires considerable explanation to come across in the present.

Empty_of_Clouds
September 23rd, 2021, 11:09 PM
You misunderstood my point completely. Translations always lack something, but I didn't say anything about translations. Implicit in my original statement is that the reader is a native reader.

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 04:35 AM
.... Implicit in my original statement is that the reader is a native reader.

Especially those American roughs, writing and reading their backwoods vernacular! ;)

j/k

I got your point. What American writers did you have a particular interest in?

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Fermata
September 24th, 2021, 05:07 AM
Of course, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, good writing is good writing.


People are still striving to translate Homer, Sappho, and Dante, with heaps of footnotes, let alone Lao-Tzu, Basho, and Omar Khayyam.

Even Shakespeare, writing in the purest English of his time, requires considerable explanation to come across in the present.

I became interested in Omar Khayyam because I was studying illuminated letters such as this from The Rubaiyat:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63518&d=1632480828

It was only much later when I read the read the Fitzgerald translation that I began to appreciate the work for other reasons. This lead me to collect the book and very early editions.

This one dates from 1914:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63519&d=1632480861


https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63520&d=1632480895

I have kept the image full size for detail.

This run was of only 10 books and had gold leaf page edging but rough cut pages.


eta. apologies are due to eachan, we seem to have moved more towards a discussion on literature than how we became interested in pens and writing.

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 05:19 AM
The thread has mutated into the AmLit variant....

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eachan
September 24th, 2021, 06:03 AM
No need for apologies, Fermata. Thread drift often leads to interesting discussions like this one.

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 08:12 AM
Of course, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, good writing is good writing.


People are still striving to translate Homer, Sappho, and Dante, with heaps of footnotes, let alone Lao-Tzu, Basho, and Omar Khayyam.

Even Shakespeare, writing in the purest English of his time, requires considerable explanation to come across in the present.

I became interested in Omar Khayyam because I was studying illuminated letters such as this from The Rubaiyat:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63518&d=1632480828

It was only much later when I read the read the Fitzgerald translation that I began to appreciate the work for other reasons. This lead me to collect the book and very early editions.

This one dates from 1914:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63519&d=1632480861

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63520&d=1632480895

I have kept the image full size for detail.

This run was of only 10 books and had gold leaf page edging but rough cut pages.


eta. apologies are due to eachan, we seem to have moved more towards a discussion on literature than how we became interested in pens and writing.I can't get these links to open...

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Fermata
September 24th, 2021, 09:16 AM
Of course, it doesn't matter where you go in the world, good writing is good writing.


People are still striving to translate Homer, Sappho, and Dante, with heaps of footnotes, let alone Lao-Tzu, Basho, and Omar Khayyam.

Even Shakespeare, writing in the purest English of his time, requires considerable explanation to come across in the present.

I became interested in Omar Khayyam because I was studying illuminated letters such as this from The Rubaiyat:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63518&d=1632480828

It was only much later when I read the read the Fitzgerald translation that I began to appreciate the work for other reasons. This lead me to collect the book and very early editions.

This one dates from 1914:

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63519&d=1632480861

https://fpgeeks.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=63520&d=1632480895

I have kept the image full size for detail.

This run was of only 10 books and had gold leaf page edging but rough cut pages.


eta. apologies are due to eachan, we seem to have moved more towards a discussion on literature than how we became interested in pens and writing.I can't get these links to open...

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Apologies, I completely forget the correct procedure. I have gone back and inserted the images.

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 12:20 PM
That book is very cool. And one of ten! Way cool!

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Chip
September 24th, 2021, 01:27 PM
Point taken. But I'd not be able to appreciate Lao Tzu, Basho, Dostoyevsky, Garcia Lorca, nor even Chaucer as a "native reader." Ever tackled Old English or even Middle English as written?

Being deeply interested in language, I've studied Spanish, Mandarin, Diné (Navajo), and Mäori, as well as general linguistics and folklore, to gain some insight into how the speakers experience this world.

Recently, and lacking a command of classical Greek, I've been comparing translations of Homer's Odyssey, e.g. Robert Fagles to Emily Wilson.

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 01:55 PM
Recently, and lacking a command of classical Greek, I've been comparing translations of Homer's Odyssey, e.g. Robert Fagles to Emily Wilson.

But not Fitzgerald?

Empty_of_Clouds
September 24th, 2021, 04:27 PM
Point taken. But I'd not be able to appreciate Lao Tzu, Basho, Dostoyevsky, Garcia Lorca, nor even Chaucer as a "native reader." Ever tackled Old English or even Middle English as written?

Being deeply interested in language, I've studied Spanish, Mandarin, Diné (Navajo), and Mäori, as well as general linguistics and folklore, to gain some insight into how the speakers experience this world.

Recently, and lacking a command of classical Greek, I've been comparing translations of Homer's Odyssey, e.g. Robert Fagles to Emily Wilson.


My apologies, I was being too harsh on you. I think that an additional statement should add that some ideas require their original language for proper expression. I can read some older English, but that is largely because it was taught in the upper streams (as they were called then) at my school. Chaucer was read in the original, and of course in the UK if you have any interest in visiting museums and other archives you gain a familiarity with a variety of earlier English variants and their associated scripts. I struggle to read anything written in gothic script, the lettering dazzles my eye for some reason.

Regarding the Rubaiyat and the translation of Fitzgerald, a few years ago we had several Farsi speaking doctoral students here, so I asked them about fidelity in the translation and they told me there was a lot of depth missing. I still like it though as it is probably the best English version available. Had a lovely Folio Society version, but gave it away to an American lady friend.

Chip
September 24th, 2021, 05:42 PM
But not Fitzgerald?

Had a Persian landlady, Mehrangiz Roshangar, who taught me a rich variety of curses in Farsi and the names of her favorite dishes, but little else.

I've got Fitzgerald's Iliad on my shelf and have read his Odyssey, but don't have a copy. Perhaps I loaned it, alas. I used his Iliad as the basis for a paper on water metaphors, comparing a charge in battle to a flood, etc. Read an article on how the repetitive description (wine-dark sea) functioned as a mnemonic device in an oral setting. Hard to imagine reciting it from memory, but I'm glad it was done.

Comparing translations of Dante is also fascinating. Longfellow, Cary, Norton, Mandelbaum, Ciardi, the Hollanders, and ever on. One pivotal issue is whether to attempt a terza rima scheme in English, which is notably poor in end rhymes. Most translators don't try.

This isn't the sort of discussion one anticipates online, but I relish it: thanks!

TSherbs
September 24th, 2021, 06:33 PM
I love Fitzgerald's Odyssey. I taught it for many years. So compressed. Fagles not so much. And Lattimore I loathed. But, to each their own.

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Chip
September 25th, 2021, 12:37 PM
I love Fitzgerald's Odyssey.

You ought to give this a go. The language is not as majestic as Fitzgerald's, but is perhaps truer to the original sense.

https://i.imgur.com/xHGTXAj.jpg

silverlifter
September 25th, 2021, 01:15 PM
Seeing we have wandered so far off course, this is a fantastic version:

https://imgv2-1-f.scribdassets.com/img/word_document/237139567/original/c91c8362ef/1584365124?v=1

guyy
September 25th, 2021, 03:17 PM
I rather liked this take on the Odyssey:

https://i.imgur.com/5W1omCS.jpg

TSherbs
September 25th, 2021, 06:24 PM
I rather liked this take on the Odyssey:

https://i.imgur.com/5W1omCS.jpgI was recently telling my students about the Molly Bloom interior monologue/soliloquy at the end of the novel.

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joolstacho
September 25th, 2021, 06:34 PM
I find the idea of "imaginary cats" quite intriguing, my two real ones are weird enough!
The only pen I can remember from school is an Osmiroid. Not that I remember much about it, I think it was an object of desire, though not as desirable as a Parker, which by the time I got one had become a mere utilitarian object to me.
What got me here is this. I had been contacted (emailed) by an old girlfriend about 55 years after the event. (And I DO mean event!). She was a young librarian back then, and I was at art school with her best friend, who was going out with my best friend.

There is a longer story but I'll spare you that. One day I received a beautifully written letter in the mailbox. It was from the librarian's 'friend' and was a just full of newsy fun, plus sweet little drawings thrown in. Just full of handwritten, handmade character. The old girlfriend had given her friend my address. I had to reply by pen of course, so I bought a cheap Shaeffer at the local office suppiers because like most, I've been dealing with keyboards and felt-tips for many years. That Shaeffer did the job initially, but like most things in life I've never been satisfied with the basic item. An inveterate 'fiddler'.
I picked up a couple of pens at charity shops and worked on them a bit. Got a couple online.
Then on a phone-call, in passing, I mentioned my enthusiasm for old pens to my ol' step-mum. Irene had been a distinguished educationalist and Headmistress. (We're rather proud of her M.B.E). Well, a couple of weeks later came a little parcel of old pens. Her and my dad's old pens, which I treasure, particularly my father's Rotring 'Artist' (he was an Artist) and the beautiful Shaeffer set presented to Step-mum on 'the occasion'.

Hooked then. By the pen.

Chip
March 4th, 2022, 11:38 PM
My favorite lit prof, after we met in his office in the course of an essay writing class, gave me his fountain pen, an Osmiroid 65 with a medium italic nib.

https://i.imgur.com/sfcv1pJ.jpg

It was a cranky monster, leaky with a scratchy nib that took lots of practice to produce a legible script. But I used it to write my first book of poems.

When I thanked him for it, much later, he apologized and confessed that he hated it.

I spent time on the Fountain Pen Network, but the robo censor function drove me nuts.

Chuck Naill
March 5th, 2022, 07:18 AM
Got interested in restoring Esterbrook and found this and other forums for advice. I bought a pen from Deb before she stopped posting.

Robalone
March 5th, 2022, 04:12 PM
Hi 🙋🏻*♂️. Probably a similar story to Eachan's ….early years at boarding school in England, dip pens with italic nibs and inkwells until we were allowed to get a fountain pen.
Then a Platignum Silverline italic/ the hooded Platignum cartridge pen / an Osmiroid 64….all of which by some strange magic I still have and which still work well !!!

F.P s interspersed with the ubiquitous ballpoint until later someone gave me an Osmiroid with its 'copperplate' nib unit. Which fascinated me but wasn’t very good ….. a big gap of travelling around the world being a hippie until settling somewhat.

Then trying the ‘copperplate nib again and wondering if there was a better type of flex nib…..another big gap working til giving that up…
And discovering Mauricio's site , Vintage pens.com , buying a lovely flexible Blackbird and launching into collecting pens on a ridiculous scale.
Onwards and upwards obsessively til I could do the gorgeous cursive he does…….
Haven’t looked back.

I love pre war bchr…and my main love is early Mabie Todd and Waterman pens.