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Thread: How Did You Get Here?

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by CrayonAngelss View Post
    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!

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by CrayonAngelss View Post
    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?

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by CrayonAngelss View Post
    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
    - Will
    Unique and restored vintage pens: Redeem Pens

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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"!

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by christof View Post
    Ps: it's good to have you here again Lisa!
    Thank you, Christof!
    _____________
    To Miasto

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    Senior Member ethernautrix's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by amk View Post
    (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.
    _____________
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    Senior Member Chip's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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.



    Cheers!

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    Senior Member ethernautrix's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post
    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.
    Last edited by ethernautrix; September 12th, 2021 at 03:50 AM. Reason: Adding P.S.
    _____________
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by ethernautrix View Post
    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!

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post
    ...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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post
    ...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.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Or putting time into the content of a letter and getting a few shallow sentences back. Feels like rejection!
    Last edited by CrayonAngelss; September 12th, 2021 at 08:48 AM.

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  21. #32
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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?
    Last edited by Chip; September 12th, 2021 at 05:53 PM.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post


    Here's a Zenith 2, which resembles the Parker P-51 Aerometric pens.
    Yes, it does!

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chip View Post

    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.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by ethernautrix View Post

    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)

  25. #36
    Senior Member Chip's Avatar
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    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/2...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.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    I'm teaching some nature writing right now. . .
    What writers and works are you using?

    Just curious: no critique will follow.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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.
    Last edited by TSherbs; September 22nd, 2021 at 04:46 AM.

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  30. #39
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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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.

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    Default Re: How Did You Get Here?

    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.
    Last edited by Empty_of_Clouds; September 22nd, 2021 at 03:00 PM.

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