Tonight, we’re celebrating Field Notes’s fiftieth Colors edition — uh, Fifty — with a pocket notebook retrospective: How did we first encounter Field Notes? What’s our favorite editions for aesthetics? Color? Writing experience? Plus: an amazing new sampler pack from Musgrave.
Show Notes & Links
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Johnny Gamber
Pencil Revolution
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Andy Welfle
Woodclinched
@awelfle
Tim Wasem
@TimWasem
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Episode transcript
Andy: Uhh. Tim. Tools of the Trade. Cool. Yes. No. Fresh Points.
Okay.
Let's start again.
(Erasable theme music)
Hello, and welcome to episode 164 of the erasable podcast. I'm Andy Welfle here with my favorite limited editions, Tim “day game” Watson and Johnny “autumn trilogy” Gamber. Hey guys. Hey. I just remembered ‘164’ on the fly because Johnny had ‘161’ in
Johnny: yeah.
Tim: good improvisation. That was good. Yeah. Keeping you on your toes.
Andy: I can't believe I did that on my feet. So, later we're going to have a little retrospective of Field Notes Color Editions, just to celebrate their 50th quarterly edition, which would come out. We kind of wanted to celebrate that milestone. So we're going to talk about our favorite editions, what we love about Field Notes in general, and also just some feedback from our community. Just some well loved releases there, but first, before we do that, let's jump into the tools of the trade. Tim, how about you?
Tim: Well, I have been reading a book that I know I've talked about before, but I didn't get all the way to the end of it because it's very long, but now it's summer. And so I started it right before the summer break started and I'm going to finish it this time. “The Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss, which I know I've talked about before, when I first started reading it and was loving it and got pretty far into it, but it just didn't finish. And it just seemed like a fun reading experience. Like I remember talking about it because it was one of the only fantasy books that I was willing to read, like a, I hate fantasy, but this one sounded good. So, yeah.
Andy: yeah.
Tim: So, but it, and it is, it's very good. I'm enjoying that a lot and it's like, it's part of a three book trilogy and there's going to be like, The third one has been in the works for like a decade. The main character basically sits down with a, like a scribe who's like collecting stories around this world.
And he gets three days with this guy named Kvothe. And so every book is one day of storytelling from him. So he tells us like, so everything that's in the first book, he told him in one day and then, you know, so on, but tells like his life story - or at least how he got to it. Yeah, it's really cool. But, and on Johnny's recommendation, I read “Steal like an Artist” in about 20 minutes and it was really wonderful.
I remember the first time I came across it, which would have been a good long while ago, but I remember for some reason it gave me this really like eye-roll inducing vibe. I don't know. I was just like uuggghh. I remember like the first time I saw it and just was not interested. And I don't know why now, because I read through it and I just, I mean, blew through it and loved it.
And actually after I'd read it, I found the audio book on Scribd and just started listening to it again, in the car. It's kind of back to back, so yeah.
Johnny: He just released all three of his books together as atrilogy
Tim: Yeah. that's the one that's on Scribd now.
Johnny: Yeah. I wish the paper books came that way. Cause they match, it would be so satisfying in a box.
Tim: would be nice to have like a workshop companion style box, like those like cardboard sleeve.
Andy: Oh, yeah.
Tim: Yeah, I do it, make me one too, but I, yeah, I, I really loved it. My favorite takeaway during my songwriting times, you know, I've talked about that several times recently is I love the part where he talks about when you're, whatever you're creating, whatever the thing is that you want to create: find the person that you most admire.
So for me, I was thinking about Jason Isbell and they just said, and he just says to spend as much time as you possibly can, knowing their work inside and out. No matter how long it takes, learn, you know, learn their songs, study their paintings, whatever it is. And then once you get done with that, find three people that really influenced them. And then just kind of keep that chain going as far as you can. So, I mean, that's like years and years of work. So it was just this really cool, like paragraph that gives you your own, you know, your own MFA or something.
Andy: Do you think there's like a, like a patient zero of creativity? Do you think like everybody...
Tim: Like a Kevin bacon of creativity.
Andy: back to like, yeah. Like everybody all goes back to ...
Tim: probably.
Andy: Bob Dylan or, or....
Tim: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say like Homer or something. probably overrated, but probably Shakespeare... says the English teacher and I'm not joking. (laughs) It's like, so yeah, I really loved it and I'm ready. I'm going to read the other ones, but I did that thing where I hold back from jumping right into the second book in a series or whatever, I've just kind of withholding for awhile and then I'm going to read it in the next couple of weeks at some point.
What's the second one. Is it going, keep going or
Johnny: “Show your work.”
Tim: Yeah. So
Johnny: Yeah, that wasn't my favorite one. That was so good
Tim: Well, yeah, I'll probably,
Johnny: I mean, they're all good, but that one's got a lot of practical advice.
Tim: nice. I'll yeah, I might listen to that one while I've been playing a lot of disc golf recently getting back into that, which has been a really fun way to get outside and get some exercise. And I can listen to it while I do that.
Andy: okay. Is disc golf and Frisbee golf the same thing?
Tim: Yes.
Andy: Okay.
Tim: And started listening to... something really strange comes over me every summer when the weather gets warm and I am free of work obligations temporarily... Suddenly all I can do is listen to the Grateful Dead. Just comes over me like a flood of good vibes and hippy dancing. And this time and I, so I went about, I there's this insane podcast. I don't even know. Do you know who Steven Haydn is? He's a rock critic. He has a podcast. He used to have just like a music podcast, but now he has one that's called “36 from the vault” that I've been listening to, where they review the archive releases or they do episodes on every archive release from the Grateful Dead, which is like, there's been 36 of them. So that's “36 from the vault”. The title of this series is very unfortunate these days. They didn't know this when they picked it back in the nineties when they started coming out, the series is called “Dick's Picks”. <lots of laughing> Yeah.
Andy: wondered when you, you wrote, you wrote this down in the notes and I was like, what is he going to....?
Tim: yeah, yeah. They spend like most of the first episode just talking about like, ‘gah, everybody, who's listening to just get used to it. You're going to hear to say Dick's Picks a lot.’ It's not that... it's because of the guy who was the archivist for the Grateful Dead chose 36... or I don't think he did all 36. I think he did like the first 19... but he hand-selected shows from the archives to release, to like a wider audience. And I've been listening to volume 14, “Dick's picks 14” which is maybe my favorite one that I've ever listened to.
And it's helped me discover it. The great thing about the Grateful Dead is that it, you find like, there's like a little pocket of their music that you hadn't listened to in a while, or didn't know that you liked. Like 1973 is a year that I haven't listened to many of their shows. And so now I'm just kind of, I don't know, obsessed with the 1973 Grateful Dead. That's me. Back back with the Dead.
And I am writing with a Mitsubishi 9800 in F that I just got recently from JetPens. I did a big effin order meaning.... I got a bunch of F pencils. Like everything I could find on JetPens, I got some Hi-Uni, a dozen Hi-Unis in F. Cause that was my favorite.
And then I got another Mono 100 in F, and I've got. Oh, no, sorry. I got Mono 100s in F. I got another Hi Uni in F, because I like those two. And then I got this one. So all these different F grade pencils, and I've really been enjoying them lately. And I am writing in a notebook I mentioned last week, which is the Marumon B5 report pad, which I think I had said was going to be my letter writing pad when I actually sit down and do the letter writing that I've been meaning to do.
And yeah, it's a, it's a really good notebook for a hard pencil. It's super smooth paper. And so this is a perfect combo. I'm very satisfied.
How about you Johnny?
Johnny: Thanks. So my first book is, “Keep Going” the third book from Austin Kleon. I'm continuing my minor obsession with Mr. Kleon lately. So this one was about how to keep going, being creative when the world is starting to look really effed up. So this was before COVID, so it is extra relevant now.
But you know, it was the same sort of format as the other ones - they match, which is nice. And I think this one had the title that's most related to what's in it. That makes sense. And so, I sort of have a hobby of reading Thoreau biographies, and Hemingway biographies. So I'm reading “Thoreau: a life of the mind” by Richardson who wrote “Emerson: the mind on fire”. I think that's the title and I commented to Kleon that that was a good book. Cause he mentioned something else and he's like, “oh yeah, I read that. I'm reading the James one”, like, “ahhhh this guy’s into William James”. So that makes me happy. <laughter> It’s not my fault. Sorry.
Tim: Well that's him, right? yeah.
Andy: yeah.
Johnny: Well, he
Andy: So what just happened that is terrible for podcasting, in the show notes that we're kind of going through, somebody wrote “Keep Going by Austin Klingon”, instead of Kleon. I just dropped in a very large picture of Gowron, who is the chancellor of the Klingon empire in Star Trek, the Next Generation ... eh, Deep Space Nine.
Tim: And startled Johnny a little bit, I think.
Andy: Yeah and startled Johnny cause he has very scary eyes.
Johnny: Yeah, he has the same green eyes that I have. I thought...
Andy: You two are practically twins.
Johnny: Yeah.
Tim: Just as much
Johnny: I mean, my beard grows up a little higher on my cheeks than him.
Andy: That's true.
Johnny: Oh. So, yeah. Anyway, the Thoreau biography skips all of the stuff before college, which is good cause that stuff's pretty boring. And it's just like an intellectual biography of Thoreau as a writer and a thinker and talks a lot about his reading, how much he loved Homer and it’s like really, really cool. I'm ashamed that I hadn't already read it. And I'm also consuming crap tons of colored paper making my Tuesdays zines, but that's fun cause colored papers one. And I'm writing with a Brood X notebook by Story Supply Company and Head Bone with a Musgrave single barrel cause I kind of like the theme of things remaining hidden for a while like that wood was, and like these really terrifying bugs are, have been. How about you, Andy?
Andy: Oh man, what have I, I'm still reading that book. I think I talked about last time called “The Effort,” which is a kind of a “Station Eleven”-style near-future disaster story. There's a meteor heading to earth and there's a team of scientists who are trying to work on ways to stop it, but also it has a lot about sort of societal collapse and what happens in the wake of imminent death, right? Right. So, it's pretty good...depressing, but very good. And last night, Katie and I started watching this show called “Hacks” on HBO. And Jean Smart plays this kind of like superstar stand-up comedian who has done thousands of shows in Las Vegas and who's just starting to kind of decline in popularity. And this woman who is a comedy writer, who's kind of new in the industry and is looking for a break after she gets fired from working on a TV show and goes to write for this woman. And it's pretty good just a, it’s like a buddy cop movie if it wasn't cops, it was women comedians. And yeah, it's just a really good show.
And then we're also, the second to last episode of “Mare of Easttown” was yesterday as we record and I'm looking forward to that thrilling conclusion. It's a really good show. I still maintain Johnny. You would really love it. So
Johnny: Yeah, I was trying to remember what it was called when I was looking for a new show this weekend.
Andy: Yeah. “Mare of M-A-R-E... I don't know if her name is Mary and people call her Mare or if her name is Mare like a horse, right. Mare of Easttown. But yeah, sometimes they just drop in some East PA accent, which I'm sure you can distinguish the difference between that and a Baltimore accent, Johnny, but...
Johnny: Ah, that's pretty close.
Andy: lots of, lots of wooder. Wooder, wooder...
Johnny: A lot of wooder down there. It's what's under the bridge. It's wooder.
Andy: Wooder.
Johnny: Under da bridge.
Andy: The bridge. And I am writing...
Tim: I was just imagining Andy, like driving in his car and like listening to a tape that like is teaching him how to speak Baltimore. Like, like repeating this stuff
Andy: It's Johnny narrative...
Tim: Like, and you have to repeat after... you have to have a conversation with the tape.
Andy: Water...under.
Johnny: Yeah, don't try to sound smart. It won't work.
Andy: I'm writing in my Field Notes 50 Ledger, which we'll talk about with a … it happens to be America's finest pencil. It's a Prestige black pencil that Tim sent me that. Where did you get it, Tim? From a Kroger.
Tim: The finest Kroger in the land.
Johnny: Those things never went super mainstream like they said they would.
Andy: Yeah, yeah. I really like it. I've, yeah, it's definitely one of those ones where it's not an amazing pencil, but it is way better than you think it's going to be because it's a pencil from Kroger. So yeah, right, with that. Cool. All right. Let's move on to Fresh Points. And Tim, you're up.
Tim: I got one pretty cool thing to talk about from Musgrave. They just released something new, which they're calling the Heritage Collection, which a big thank you to Musgrave for sending us a sample of this really awesome, awesome product. Got it with a nice note from Nicole the other day. And it is, if you haven't seen it yet, you should go check it out. It comes in, I think, my favorite part of it is the tube that it comes in. It comes in this...
Andy: Oh yeah.
Tim: ...tube that looks like a pencil. And then inside it are, is it a dozen? I'm counting it right now.
Andy: two, four, six, eight, 10, 12...
Tim: 12, basically a sampler pack of Musgrave pencils. So you get the Test Scoring 100 is in here, the Hermitage, the red one, the Harvest, the Cub, Choo-Choo. The TOT, is that what this is? I don't know if I've ever had one of these before the TOT. Yeah. It's like a mini jumbo. I'm excited about that one. The News, which we've talked about here before, the My-Pal, which I think I talked about a lot when I used to be obsessed with the Laddie, which, you know, still, cause it's kind of in the same ballpark, the Tennessee Red, of course the the Unigraph. Those always make me think of our old pal Cody, because he gave me like a thousand of these back in the day when he was kind of like downsizing his stash. But this one, the one I have is an F, ooh, well set that side. I didn't notice that before. TheCeies and then it also comes with the Bugle. So that's the spread. You guys, that's a really cool spread of sort of classic Musgrave pencils. And yeah, like I said, the tube is just some really, really killer design, huge pink eraser on the bottom. I love it.
Andy: It looks a lot like the tube that the Baron Fig Archers come in. Just bigger.
Tim: Yes. Maybe like 20% bigger. Like it's just like, cause that Archer one was like, I mean, you could barely fit 12 pencils in there. It was super tight. Like they had it locked down. This one's got some wiggle room.
Andy: They had to do math in order to make that work. Yeah.
Tim: They had to math that. And this one just, I mean, it looks, it looks great. Um, And it's like 13 bucks, which is a pretty good deal, especially, I mean, with the tube. Cause this is just, kind of, I mean, it carries the pencils to use, but I can also imagine using this for years to come to keep pencils on a desk or something, or even to travel with. I think it's a pretty good deal. Do you guys, what do you guys think?
Johnny: Swoon.
Andy: I love, love sampler packs. Like I remember when Cal Cedar started offering them. I think it was even before Blackwing was, maybe it was just one of the sampler packs? But they had one that had like the Palomino and the Golden Bear and the Prospector and the Spangle, like they had a really good sampler pack. I mean, honestly, a sample pack from Pencil Things is what got me into pencils. So I love the idea, especially a sampler pack of Musgrave pencils that are all just so, just. The colors are different and the designs. Like the stamps are so different. I just love that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I'm a big fan of this. And then that tube too is just such a good display item. I actually put mine on the shelves I have in my Zoom backdrop.
Tim: Yeah, That's a good call. That's a good call now. Here's the big question. You put it eraser down or do you put it eraser up? Cause I feel like they want us to put it erasera down, but it also feels so right to do it eraser up. And then on the website it's eraser up, right? Like...
Andy: Yeah. I definitely do it eraser up.
Tim: But like with the sort of inner sleeve, it seems like it's meant to be the other way. I don't know, but yeah...
Andy: yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely do eraser up, but I will, I will tinker around with my display.
Tim: Yeah, definitely the more natural way to set it down, but I don't know. Yeah. So I think that was yet another cool addition to the Musgrave catalog. I know they’ve got new stuff coming out all the time and they just they're working really hard to, yeah, I don't know, like kind of this sounds like I don't mean this to be mean, but like bring Musgrave into the 21st century, you know? And this is, this is a great, great addition, so...
Andy: Yeah,
Johnny: Yeah, they're doing everything right.
Tim: They're very good at what they do.
Johnny: I've said this already. Yeah. Right. Get it.
Tim: That’s all I got.
Johnny: Can eyeroll SoundCaster? Sorry.
Tim: That good. yeah. That's all I got. So how about you Johnny?
Johnny: So, I got out my latest pencil zine a little late because I changed the format. So, instead of it being like 20 pages on one theme that is really hard to write into sections, which is cool and then still in a special theme, but then it turns out that doing all of those sections is like trying to do NaNoWriMo with short stories. It’s so much effin’ work.
So, yeah, it was late, but it won't be late next month. And it has comics by my daughter. I had to pay her, which I'm not happy about. An interview with like my oldest pencil friend. And it's bright yellow, so go get it while they’re shipping free because when the new one comes out, they don't ship free anymore cause it’s breaking my back.
Tim: And Charlotte's agent is Henry, right? Because he's rough. I mean, he's like, he's a brutal negotiator.
Johnny: He is just the right height to kneecap you.
Tim: That's what it says on his business card.
Andy: I think that Henry Wasem and Henry Gamber have an agency. It's Henry and Henry.
Johnny: H Square (H2). He picked up an old brass roller of mine today that I didn't even know was on the shelf. He's like, can I have this? I'm like, oh my God, hell no, you'll kill somebody. Okay. He was taking a yard stick and acting like a ninja with at one time and I'm like, oh my God. But yeah.
So, if you are a Patreon and supporter of five or more dollars a month, then you get our quarterly zine and you also would have gotten the notice today from Patreon with a really short two-question survey before we put the next one out next month, just regarding the size and suggestions for topics that you want us to cover at some point. So thank you to everybody that already answered it. But it's anonymous so if you asked us a question, we can't really answer it back, but thank you for the feedback. and if
Andy: Johnny. What's their cutoff for becoming a paid Patreon to get the zine?
Johnny: When I print it. So like, I guess like the second week of June, the third week of June, something like that. Yeah. I try to put them out around the the equinox and the solstice just cause it feels good. So I mean, yeah, by the end of June, I'll make some extras, but last time I checked, we have well over a hundred folks due to get it.
So that's good. And yeah, so far, the votes are to do it in quarter sheet again, which is cool. That was, I thought it would be fun to stretch out, but it was, it felt weird. I felt like I was doing my other zine. And for my last one,
Andy: I can't wait to hear about this one.
Johnny: Yeah, I was, I got my second COVID shot a week and a half ago and took Charlotte with me because I figure that, you know, the kids are probably going to get them soon and I wanted them to see that it's not a big deal.
So then we sat outside for some coffee and a bird took a giant crap on my Brood X notebook. I mean, like, it was like an eagle. I looked at it for a second. I'm like, there's no way
Tim: Oh gross
Johnny: this is bird poop. Like Jesus
Tim: Did it pour yogurt from like the second floor window or something?
Johnny: I mean, it would have been like five yogurts. It was, I'm like, what? It was bad. I'm like,
Andy: I would love to know if, if with this Brood X notebook, if there have there been any like birds divebombing the notebook, thinking it was a cicada?
Johnny: That would be the cicada from hell, this thing is big. I would run very far.
Andy: Birds get angry and carry you away
Johnny: Yeah. I mean, it's, the drawing is super realistic, so I don't know. I mean, they're everywhere, but apparently yeah. They come out in such numbers because the predators can’t keep up, and that way, enough of them can breed without getting eaten or something.
But there, there are pieces of them everywhere, like a wing, half of a thorax. And I predicted my very sensitive son would start getting sad and feel pity for the bugs. And he does. He's like, “Daddy it’s so sad,” and I’m like, “Circle of life, man, birds got to eat.” He’s like, “Stupid birds!”
So, yeah. But Corey dropped another one in the mail to me that hasn't come yet. Cause my mail is so screwed up. But thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Andy: Yeah.
There's a really good website that one of the newspapers set up, I have to go remember which one it is, but it's one of those like parallax scrolling stories, where, as you scroll the story and read little sections, it tells you like the screen changes and things kind of animate. And it's about the life cycle of a cicada during, during Brood X.
And it's just, it's just amazing how completely pointless their lives are.
Johnny: In Baltimore, people still call them locusts. Like it's 17-year locusts. No, like if that happened, you know, especially if the election had gone differently, it would feel like the end of the world.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: But it doesn't feel like that end the world, just they're very loud and they move slowly. So it's kind of creepy.
So like literally you're walking down the street and you're like, I don't want to kill any of these things. And you're like jumping around, like, don't break your mother's back. It's bizarre. But yeah.
How about you, Andy?
Andy: I just realized that all three of my fresh points don't have anything to do with pencils, which is funny. The first one I was gonna mention is Issued Three of my 404 magazine came out.
Johnny: Yay. The cover.
Andy: Yeah.
I have one in the mail to both of you guys. And it is, yeah, it's another spread longer than my last one, but it is a really great, if I do say so myself. The zine has mostly original poetry, and I have a section of human–computer collaborations through your, like,2 auto-suggest feature and the auto suggest algorithm in your texts that can sometimes make a really strange phrase or sentence.
So, I'm really, yeah, really a big fan of this one. We had a, really, a lot of really good contributors. My friend Brian Sterling Lewis did the cover, and he was, he's been playing a lot with halftones and kind of like the vintage comic book aesthetic lately. And so when we started talking about this, I was like, Brian, can you make me, like, it just looks like an old, like Batman-comic style computer, that's like the poetry computer, and I don't know what it would have on it. Maybe like a screen that says like, you know, a line from a limerick and a bunch of knobs and patch cables and like little visualizers and sliders.
And yeah, he just, he just really went for it. So it looks amazing. I kind of like promised myself that I wouldn't, with 404 I wouldn't get quite as elaborate with the designs as we do with Plumbago, but I just couldn't help myself. Yeah, big fan of this one. So go to 404.computer, if you would like to buy a copy. And yeah, we have, we have three of them now. I'm really excited.
I'm thinking the next one, just going back to a really simple cover, I have a bunch of kraft brown from French notebook or excuse me, French Paper Company pages left from when we did Plumbago 4. And I was thinking about maybe just like having a really simple design and making a custom rubber stamp and just rubber stamping the covers.
Johnny: What's the weight of that paper.
Andy: I think it's maybe like 65 pound cover.
I have to check and make sure, but it's, it's the exact same paper we used for Plumbago 4, the creative non-fiction and memoir paper.
Johnny: Cool. That could be good for Disposable, maybe in the future. Awesome. Very
Andy: I think I have enough. Let me, let me check and see how much I have, but I spent a crapload of money with French Paper Company when I bought that. So I wanted to get like a bunch, so yeah. Let me, let me check my supply and I'll send it to you or I'll let you know. Yeah.
I want to mention, I, I can't remember if I followed up on this, but I finally finally bought a mechanical keyboard. I've been talking about it and have been thinking about it for so long. I may have mentioned it in the last episode, I think maybe I had ordered it, but it hadn't been gotten here yet, but I don't know if you—I've been trying to like mute myself when I'm typing. Cause you can probably hear the keyboard.
Johnny: A little bit.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: Not too much.
Andy: I'm a huge fan. I love the way it feels. I really like how yeah, just like how it sounds when I'm like typing fast. It just makes me, I just feel like I'm just hacking into the mainframe. It makes me feel like a TV hacker.
Tim: Samuel L Jackson in Jurassic Park.
Andy: Yeah, exactly.
Johnny: Hold on to your butts.
Andy: I have been really just like digging into just like—You know, you think you are really into a hobby and then you realize that you don't even know. Right. Like I'm sure pencils are like that for a lot of people; fountain pens are like that for me. But keyboards man, like there are people who will not only swap out like the key caps and the switches, like the things you actually press down to make the clicky sound, like that's something that I have my head wrapped around. But some people will like open up the, the switches and swap out the springs inside, because you can achieve a certain level of like, like pressure resistance and change up how fast it's actuated when it
Tim: Well,
Andy: when it presses the key, some people, some people will lubricate their switches. So they talk about how they just got like a bunch of lubed switches and I'm like, wow, it's amazing. I don't think I'm quite that ready to
Tim: It's been a while since I've found something that actually made me react like this. Like, cause after like being so obsessed with pencils and all this, like I'm very like understanding of when people are really into something. But like, as you were describing that, I was just like, what is wrong with these people? But that's just, that's probably what I said before I got into a lot of the things that I'm now obsessed with. So.
Andy: Well, I'm trying really hard not to go down that particular rabbit hole because A, keyboards are inexpensive and physically there's a lot of like, it takes up a lot of room. But also like, you know, you can go through pencils pretty quick, relatively quickly. Well, like if you have three keyboards, like there's, you're just collecting keyboards.
Tim: Flash forward...
Andy: You're not like, oh...
Tim: Flash forward six months and Andy's got like that wall behind him for a Zoom background is just like little, like stands on the wall, like little floating shelves covered in like his backup keyboards.
Andy: Somebody remind me in episode 200 to tell me like how right where I was at.
Johnny: Yeah. I remember a guy who hated fountain pens and now has like 80 of them.
Tim: Oh.
Andy: That guy. Well, speaking of fountain pens, that's my last fresh point. You know, in our pen podcast I talked about, for Patreon patrons, I talked about how I bought that new Parker 51 reboot and I'm just loving it. I love the nib. I love the way it feels and looks. The weight is perfect for me. It's not too, it's not too froofy, but it's also not too simple. Like it's really distinctive. I love that Wild Ivy ink that—shoot, who sent that? Was that you Johnny? Yeah.
Johnny: Yeah, I was going to ask you how you like that. Cool.
Andy: Yeah. I'm also like in... We talked about this a little bit on that show, but I also now have, thanks to Johnny, a sampler of various inks that I'm going to kind of slowly work my way through and kind of figure out what I like of, of green inks specifically.
But one thing I realized that I really wanted in order to sort of like make these samplers and collect them and distribute them is I bought a fountain pen accessory kit from JetPens and it includes like a little syringe and a bunch of what would you say - Pipits or pipettes?
Johnny: Pipettes, I think.
Andy: Pipettes. Yeah. It has some O-rings, which I have zero idea how I would use them, but there's some in there.
Johnny: If you want an eyedrop or something that would you can add that in with some O-rings...
Tim: O-ring always just makes me think of Austin Powers. That scene where he's like getting attacked in the bathroom and the dude next to him is like, “Take it easy, buddy. You're gonna blow an O-ring in there.” He's just like being choked by, I think, it's probably like Rob Lowe.
Andy: Who does number two work for?
Tim: Yeah. You tell that turd who's boss. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Andy: I haven’t thought about Austin Powers in quite some time.
Tim: Oh, I think about that scene like once a week. I think for some reason, I don't know. It's just like one of those things that's just like lives in my brain all the time. Rent-free as the kids say. Yeah.
Andy: Don't know how to follow that up. Comes with some vials to send out, comes with some silicone grease, but yeah, it's 15 bucks and includes all this stuff. If you are like me and you're like, I don't want to get into fountain pens as much as Johnny, but I also don't want to just like, I want to like figure out how to do this a little bit.
Check that out. Yeah. Cool. That is Fresh Points. Do you guys want to dive into the main topic?
Tim: Let's do it.
Andy: Cool. Well, we are celebrating Field Notes at 50 editions, which basically means let's see, there's 50 of them at four times a year, half of 50 is 25, half of 25 is 1250. So, wow. They've been around for 12 and a half years, at least the limited editions have. They, I think Field Notes their Kraft Brown editions have been around for a couple of years longer than that, but that's pretty much cool to think about.
Tim: And were the first.. were Butcher Blue and Butcher Orange, were those quarterly or were those just released and then eventually it became a quarterly thing?
Johnny: I think they called them... That was back when they said seasonal. And I remember being confused. I was like, “Orange for winter? What?”
Andy: Yeah, well, I remember and, I guess this is one of the questions that we'll get into, I just want to know kind of like your first exposure to Field Notes and how we learned about them. But at first, I guess, how do you want to do this? Should we talk about this edition that's called Fifty and kind of the things that came with it? Do we want to talk about that at the end? Do we want to talk about it now? What do you guys think?
Johnny: That's a good starting point. I think.
Andy: Yeah. So, yeah, the 50th quarterly edition came out, they're calling it Fifty. And I know that I tend to gravitate toward the more, I guess, generally the more like simple editions, right? Like the ones like Shenandoah and Autumn Trilogy that just have like, kind of a really bright cover or something that's just kind of a simple execution. And to me, this kind of feels like it's in that vein. What do you guys think?
Johnny: Definitely.
Tim: It's kind of like a return to the roots or whatever, you know, like, but with like a little taste of like, we've learned some tricks, you know, in the meantime.
Andy: Yeah, yeah.
Johnny: I feel like the whole thing, there's a good mix of “Hey, here's some really old-school looking Field Notes” and also “This completely off-the-wall, extra.”
Andy: Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. The Field Notes themselves are bright red covers. I'm trying to, oh, they used a cover that they have not, surprisingly, used before. It's the French paper company, Red Hot, which is just a really, really bright red. And I think that they said that they have not actually used this particular one with a nice, like silver application of ink on the front. And what's interesting about this one is the “O” in “Notes'' is punched out, just a circle and the sort of inside cover has a “50” right where that front cover would lie, like right, so it just peeks out through the hole. And each notebook in the pack, there's one that is black with a silver print, there's one that is...what color is that? Sort of, let's see what they say it is. I'm looking for that here. I don't see it in the usage notes. There's like a silvery... Okay, here we go. So there's the inside cover reveal, the flyleaf as they call it, reveals callbacks from other quarterly editions. So there's like a safety orange one. Is that what they used for the cover of Dime Novel, which I didn't even realize that until I'm reading it. They use Nightshift Blue from End Papers for the one that's kind of like a bluish black. And then there is a green one that is extremely recognizable, which is Gumdrop Green from Grass Stain Green. So that one I got pretty quickly, but the other ones I did not. So they kind of like call back to a few old editions, which was cool. Yeah. And I'm trying to think if there's anything else that's like of note for these, for the actual edition themselves that...
Johnny: Stickers!
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. They released some stamps. You can't actually use them, you know, to send mail. Maybe in Baltimore you can, I don't know.
Tim: You might as well. You might as well try.
Johnny: It wouldn’t get there any faster.
Andy: When, Tim, when you're the postmaster general, maybe you can like, you know, count these in.
Tim: Oh yeah. I'm doing away with stamps completely. Or you just make your own yeah. Pay for them. It’s all free.
Andy: Yeah. And just make your own stamp.
Tim: Yeah. People are going to love it.
Johnny: Yeah. I mean, if you're that creative, you should be able to mail stuff for free.
Tim: Man. What is this? What is this - North Korea? Yeah.
Andy: Yeah, so I'm a big fan of these, these notebooks themselves. They're very simple. Not the thing that delayed Field Notes by two months. That is the subscriber extra, which honestly, if you, if you decided to become a Field Notes subscriber for this edition, I think this thing is well worth it. Do you, does anybody want to take a stab at describing this?
Johnny: I don't have mine in hand yet. I think you're the only one that has it.
Tim: Yeah.
Andy: Oh yeah.
Johnny: YOU do it!
Andy: So it's a, they call it a ledger and it, it's a desk ledger and it's oh, like nine inches wide by just a little under like six inches tall and it's maybe a hundred pages and it is extremely ornate. Like, I can see how this could take so long because it's just really elaborate and intricate. So the cover, it says “Fifty” in cutout letters and each letter has a different color paper behind it. And, as you start flipping, like each of the little section headers about the history is on some of the paper that makes up the word “Fifty.” So like the first one. Yeah. The second page is a kind of a brown color. I'm trying to look for the "By the Numbers" of like, where, like what pages these are, but I think this is a Traveling Salesman page that says “Fifty.” Turned to the next page, it's the kind of like a pink and that's that, like has the “I” in it. The second, like, yeah, it, they just do an incredible job at, it's just full of like, "By the Numbers" and ephemera from the history of Field Notes. So yeah. It's gonna be pretty great. And just different kinds of printing in it as well. Like the first page has like some silver halftones just for graphics, you know? When you get further in, they have like some throwbacks and some really gorgeous just prints from before. And then the second, let's say four-fifths, or three-fourths of the Ledger, is a dot-graph paper. There was a little controversy, as there always is in the Field Nuts group because the spine, the way that they bound this, they did not put like a, like book tape on it. And so they kind of left the spine exposed. So you can kind of see the threads, that kind of thread that ??? through, and they put a kind of a generous application of glue on it, but then when they wrapped it in cellophane to send it out. Some of them got hot and the glue kind of melted to the cellophane. Johnny, you said you had a really good - somebody talking to a really good resolution to that.
Johnny: Yeah, someone in the group mentioned, just put your book in the freezer and it hardens, the glue and slips right off.
Andy: Such a good idea.
Johnny: Whoever that is, you are the best. You like fixed it for everybody. Cause I noticed after that, a lot of the, you know, noise settled down. That was good.
Andy: And mine is real, I mean, isn’t sloppy at all. It was just like a little bit of glue that has kind of like bled to the cover, but with some people it was much, much thicker and gloppy, gloppier. So yeah. I just think this is such a gorgeous piece. What I like about this as it is celebrating, put bookmaking and like printmaking, which is what I like about Field Notes is they always, they often just sort of like go back to that where some people don't give a crap about like the effort and the materials and the craftsmanship it takes to make one of these books. They're in it for like a different theme or the collectability. But this one is just sort of like a celebration of making.
Tim: I'm going to steal this from the Take Note guys, but I was listening to them the other day and they were talking about, and this edition wasn't even out yet, but they were just kind of talking about why they are attracted to Field Notes. And this kind of goes along with what you're saying is that they, I can't remember, I think it was Adam who said, or I don't remember which one it was that said this, but that they love Field Notes because there's an author behind it. You know, I think it was Ted, but just that, like, it's a notebook that is not anonymous that, you know, the people who are behind it, you know, that there's a creator who's like just setting out to just make this, rather than just like create some piece of crap that's going to end up like, you know, on an end cap at Target that...
Johnny: Or eBay.
Tim: Well, yeah.
Johnny: That's it?
Tim: So, but I thought that was a....
Johnny: Yeah, the yeah, they don't know. They just seem like they care. And plus who was it? Somebody found out from Draplin in the early days that they broke even or lost money on all the quarterly editions. They just did them because they liked it. So, you know, they don't throw out these like weird money grabs and stuff like some other brands do. It's like, “Hey, we promise it's coming. And also when it comes, you're getting this book that probably costs us a fortune to make for free because you're a subscriber.”
Andy: And I actually, that's a really good, I think, transition into, you know, some of the retrospective. One question I had for you both just to, just to hear about how you were first sort of exposed to Field Notes or first learned about them. Johnny, do you want to start, since you were talking about that?
Johnny: Sure. I heard about them when they came out, but I don't remember how, because I read so many stationary blogs back in the aughts. So someone just posted a link and I remember looking at them and thinking, Hmm, those look a lot, like Moleskine Cahiers and then the special ones came out and I was like, ah, and then, I think it was 2010, they sent me some samples and there was like, that's it. I love these. And I've been a big fan ever since.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. Tim, how about you?
Tim: My first edition, I got, I actually looked this up and, in preparation for the episode, I looked up and I got my first set. I ordered my first set of Field Notes in 2013 and it was a Red Blooded, which is kind of like similar, you know, kind of similar to this one or at least it just kind of, colorwise. this. Which I didn't tell you guys this, but the Fifty, I am loving lovingly referring to it as the Sally O'Malley edition. I'm Sally O'Malley and I'm 50.
Andy: I like to kick!
Tim: So this is that's, yeah, that's my official, that's my behind the scenes name for this edition. And yeah, but I ordered it. I remember ordering it on, I got it just on Amazon or something and I'm not totally sure how I found out about them, but it’s probably like a 90% chance that I heard about it on the Pen Addict, because I looked back and there's this - it's almost like funny that this is such like a big deal - but in 2013 I made an order around the same time on JetPens, like my first order on JetPens. Like crazy order on JetPens. I ordered like 15, you know, 15 things I got like, I just was like stocking up and I got all this stuff that I kind of still have around. And I was just looking back at it. It's like so fascinating. I got like a Kaweco and I got a Retro 51. It was basically a list of things that they talked about on the Pen Addict. Retro 51, Kaweco, High-tech Cs or whatever. And then right around that same time I ordered Field Notes. So yeah. So I think I'm pretty sure it was Dowdy and...
Andy: Which in 2013, you were listening to the Pen Addict and you heard me on the Pen Addict, and then we started talking.
Tim: Started heckling you for pencil recommendations and then tricked you into doing this for seven years or whatever.
Andy: It's the long con.
Tim: So how about you, Andy?
Andy: Oh, wow. I'm pretty sure. I first heard of Field Notes in general from like, oh, I would guess Boing Boing which does anybody remember that blog? Like 2006 through you know, not that long ago I would read Boing Boing every day. It was kind of like a blog about just interesting things on the internet and a bunch of people who I still follow, like Mark Frauenfelder and Xeni Jardine and Cory Doctorow and people would just post there. And I'm pretty sure I wrote Mark Frauenfelder posted something about Field Notes and I was enamored with the, with the Kraft Browns. I just liked the way that they look and I'm pretty sure, I ran into them at a gift shop somewhere and picked up a pack. And I was just starting to blog about pencils at that point, still on the Pencil Things blog. And I ran my set of Kraft Brown Field Notes through the washer. I left it in my pocket and my wife did the laundry and it came out and of course it was ruined as a notebook, but a lot of the pages were still intact to sort of like read and transcribe. So I remember I submitted a little article on my pencil blog about that to Boing Boing and they ran it.
And, at that point Boing Boing, was a big enough internet thing where you would get a massive bump in traffic if they blogged about you; they called it getting Boinged. And so I basically was responsible for Boinging Field Notes, which I'm sure that they had lots of other coverage before that. But I remember after that happened, Jim Coudal emailed me and he was like, ”Thank you for submitting that to Boing Boing. I'm sending you a new notebook because you ran your old one through the washer. For free.” And it was just like, oh man. So I just sort of had like a personal connection. Right. I have like a person to connect to it. That was really cool. But I remember, I didn't really care about the colors. Like I remember when they first said, okay, we're going to do different colors besides the brown. And I was like, okay, whatever, like there, that's fine. Like, oh, oh nice. There's a blue one. Oh, nice, there's an orange one. Okay. Whatever. Didn't really like pay much attention to those when they came out. And of course kicking myself that I didn't. Cause Field Notes were just like just expensive enough where like 10 bucks, or how much they cost back then, for like a three-pack of pocket notebooks seemed like a lot. Still, I mean, when you think about, it seems like a lot, but you know, you're paying for the story. But I didn't really pay attention, but when Balsam Fir came out, I was looking for some Christmas presents for a friend who like really liked pocket notebooks. So I bought a couple of packs of Balsam Fir, saved one for myself and someone to him didn't think much more about it until much later when Aaron Draplin did a talk in Fort Wayne. It had a little pop-up shop and I picked up some America the Beautiful, which were, I think, just done being the edition. So I think they were just a little bit old stock and I took those home and opened them and I'm just like, wow, this is gorgeous. I really loved the aesthetic they're going for here. I love the story behind it. Right? Like the graphics and the way that they printed it and that offset that little decal’s really cool. And so that's that for me is when I started just really thinking about how much I liked those quarterly editions. Yeah. So after that, I've, I think after America the Beautiful life I have either purchased or subscribed to every edition after that.
Johnny: That one was so great.
Andy: Yeah. And, to me, that was the big game-changer. Like it's, they kind of, that was the first one when they really went kind of out of their usual way. You know I'm saying that I really appreciate the really simple ones, but at the same time, I really loved the first one that had like a kind of a departure from their usual aesthetic. So yeah, I think America the Beautiful, it was like for me, like the big, when it clicked for me about these quarterly editions. So a question, I guess, just for discussion: how do you think that Field Notes has influenced (a) lot of the other pocket notebooks out there in the world but (b) also like quarterly limited edition programs. Right? Like we see... I think that even Blackwing would admit that, you know, their volumes program is heavily influenced by Field Notes.
Tim: Gosh, I mean, in the stationery world, it seems like it's everything, right? I mean, it's the original, I mean, anybody you said, or any company that says they weren't influenced by it is like full of crap, because I'm trying, I mean, I wasn't as plugged in back then as like you guys were, but I don't know if anything else back then, like any sort of stationery company that was doing anything like this besides maybe like, you know, Retro 51 will have different like versions of the pen come up, but it was never like super limited and it definitely wasn't a subscriber-based set up.
Andy: Yeah. If anybody had subscriptions, that would have been like basically refill packs, right? Like, oh, hey, every three months we'll send you a new, one of the same thing, because you probably have filled up your old one or whatever.
Johnny: They, I still think they do it best. They always, well, for one thing, they have kept at it longer than anybody and they don't you know, they do partnerships, but they're different enough from their quarterly editions that they don't sort of confuse you. Does that make sense? Like, you know, nobody's going to look at any of those, like it's just a regular Field Notes or quarterly Field Notes. And also that they don't, I don't know, they keep true to doing the same thing, just doing it like super differently. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. I think, I mean, some of it could be just because they're really amazing storytellers or maybe it's just easier to tell a story through the medium of paper and books and books like printmaking than it is to do it through pencils. But I think that, I feel like they, consistently, over Blackwing, just tell better stories and have better themes connected to their editions.
Johnny: Yeah, at least I get the sense that at least somebody involved with Field Notes is really interested in everything and one of the themes. And everything they do, somebody at Field Notes is like super into it and that's why it happened. It wasn't like, oh, this is timely, let's do this.
Andy: That makes sense.
Johnny: And I think that comes out that people can pick up genuineness.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: I'm getting teary. Yeah. Michelle Forman in our Facebook group said something that was really interesting, and that was that this edition would really appeal to people who have had a sort of emotional connection to the brand for a long time. Like, it seems weird to talk about an emotional connection to a brand, but it's not the brand. It's really, I mean, I'm not saying that she's saying it's weird, but it's, you know, it's the people. Like I've been emailing with Brian for 10 years. Not that like we're super buds, but I know who he is. I'd recognize him in a crowd.
Tim: And not to mention all the connections that you make because of them. You know? I mean, like just the fact that we have this group and we have these friends that we've made through this podcast, which, you know, I mean, Field Notes is probably a major reason why we're doing this. If you really sort of break it down.
Johnny: Yeah. Before them, it was Moleskine. That's it.
Tim: That's exactly.
Johnny: And they didn't even do all the colors and stuff back then.
Tim: Cause they didn't need to, because everybody was just buying it.
Johnny: Yeah. Sometimes I remember they would do, it was all black and sometimes they'd have red. It was like, woo, red! Now, I don't even, can you buy black Moleskines anymore?
Tim: Yeah, you can. But...
Andy: I guess Moleskine did, they did tie-ins sometimes. They did like, was that before they did like, oh, like a Mario notebook?
Johnny: Oh yeah. They, I think they had done The Little Prince around then, that I really wish I'd bought because man, they were cool.
Andy: Yeah. Cool. Any other sort of like broad discussion points we want to cover before we get into some of our tops?
Johnny: Yeah. So I think that they used to--well, they still sell them, but they don't send them out as much--they just have like one pencil and one pen that are nothing fancy, but very, very carefully designed. Just like the notebooks where they're like, okay, these are things we want you to use and have fun and like, connect with them. But in the end, they are tools that we want you to bust up. I appreciate that.
Tim: Yeah. And, I think, like one of the, to kind of go along with that, one of the reasons why these notebooks have such a following and have such staying power is because the original design, like of Draplin loving the agricultural memo books, which were probably created and used by farmers and stuff, they were created and used out of need, I guess is what I'm saying.
Right. So when something's created out of a need, then its design, the idea of them, is going to last forever, forever. I'm sounding very like high-falutin’ now. But I, I think, I believe, I think I believe myself.
Andy: You're
Tim: I'm convincing myself, yeah. That they're so pleasant to use and they're so nice because it's almost like they've landed on some kind of little design that we all need or something, even if we don't realize it. And so whenever people get one, they, you know, you tend to get hooked. I love them.
Andy: Well, I remember talking with my friend Bruce, who is an American but has spent a lot of time in Japan and has been kind of trying to figure out how to expose more Japanese stationery to the US and vice versa, more US stationery to Japan. And he was just telling me about how people in Japan really, really love Field Notes because it's such a good purveyor of Americana, right? Like it's not, it's very, it does it in a very genuine way. It has a lot of like, really interesting, like aesthetic history of America and the US but also connects them to really good, you know, other stories as well. So, yeah, they're just like, it's, it's a very authentic purveyor of the good parts of American culture.
Tim: That's good.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah.
Tim: I'm glad somebody is paying attention to the good parts of American culture. Cause it's out there.
Andy: Which has now been, you know, being brand-ified and, and commodified into, into just an aesthetic look. So, Yeah. Well, we had a little time, we reflected on a few things that just a few of our top three favorite editions for X, right, for various things. So I was thinking, maybe we could go down the list and talk about that a little bit.
One of the big ones is the overall theme. What are our top favorite three editions for theme? Tim, what do you think?
Tim: My number one is Day Game, because baseball nut. And I've been fortunate to have a couple packs of those. And I'm actually still using one at the moment, I've got it in my backpack. But Day Game, it's a favorite. Three Missions is a favorite ’cause I'm just a space nerd and grew up watching Apollo 13 every week. So that one really like excited me. And I really loved that edition and also the little models that came with it. And then National Parks. So those are my three favorite themes: baseball, space, and national parks. Very American. Yeah.
Andy: National Parks rank really, really highly in the top lists that Field Notes put out; that they put in the ledger, like it was consistently National Parks was at the top of the list.
Tim: So I don't know how I had missed this, but I was in Asheville and I was at a bookstore and I found a really cool set of postcards because I was just shopping for postcards, and I looked and I was like, wait a second. That looks familiar. And I picked it up and it was one of the pieces of art that's on the front of the National Parks edition. And I was like, I had not, I...
Andy: The fifty-one postcards project.
Tim: I knew they were working with someone else to do that, but at the same time, I was like, it hadn't registered that they exist out there somewhere already in other forms or something, but still, it was pretty cool. And I bought like a pack of like a hundred or something like that, of these postcards, but yeah, anyways, but those are my favorites.
So how about you, Johnny?
Johnny: I'm going to start off with National Parks because they're so pretty, and I'm even--the way that they, you know, they don't place the logo Field Notes in the same place. They make room for it in the art. I think that's amazing. Shelterwood, ’cause that was just off the wall, so cool. And National Crop, because damn, that was a sweet one. Like when this one was late, I kept thinking National Crop was late and it was so worth waiting for. But I think that was the first one that was a six set.
Tim: Oh, Yeah. It had to have been, yeah.
Andy: That is one of the ones I didn't find out about or really come to until much later. And I spent much more money than I was planning on, on eBay, to get a full set of National Crops. Yeah.
Johnny: How about you, Andy?
Andy: I think still, for me, first and foremost, America the Beautiful is like the best thematically for me, that like slightly offset, halftone printing that they do, and that particular aesthetic that looks like a lot of those color agriculture notebooks. To me, that is the most sort of like one-to-one comparison. It looks the most like a lot of those out there and that's one thing I really love. And also that decal that came in the extras, it's just really good. So, America the Beautiful is one of two that I hoard sometimes, cause I really love that theme.
And the other one that I often hoard that is on this list is Night Sky. It was the very simpleness of the front cover, just a nice black little notebook with just whoa, just a big hologram on the back of like a constellation of the back. That's a theme too, that I just think was such a gorgeous execution.
Johnny: And that one's video was amazing. They make some cool videos, but that one was really ...
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a huge Night Sky fan. When that came out, I was just, yeah. And then. Night Sky shows up for me in a lot of these other categories that we're doing. So I'll save talking about the rest of it too much, but the last one, which I just was thinking about that I really like, I had Shelterwood, on my list and I,
Tim: Sweet Tooth, right?
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. Who am I, Tina Koyama? Tina's favorite edition by far is Sweet Tooth, the red ones, ’cause of her urban sketching. She does a lot in there. So she has just so many of those.
I took Shelterwood off because I'm going to be talking about a little bit more on aesthetics because I think that like, and I guess I do think that Shelterwood was just sort of like revolutionary in its execution. Like the, the way that they made that was just incredible.
But I kind of switched that out for Traveling Salesman because I think, thematically, that green ledger paper in the inside is so unusual for modern notebooks. At least ones that are kind of available to the public. Maybe there's somebody out there who is still selling like ledger notebooks, like university bookstores or something. But I, yeah, I love the thematic elements of Traveling Salesman a lot. I don't even think I have a full pack. I think I've just sort of collected singles throughout the years, but
Johnny: It took me until the fourth or fifth notebook before I figured out the perfect pencil for it, because that paper was a little
Andy: Yeah, yeah,
Johnny: That HB Hi Uni, but I'm betting the F is even better.
Andy: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Big F in order.
Tim: Don't forget your Fs. Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. How about color? Some of the more solid, solid color ones. Tim, let's start with you. What are some of your favorite colors?
Tim: So I took this as like, sets or like color schemes, kind of how I was thinking. Definitely number one for me is Ambition. Those colors are so pleasing to me, especially the red that they did. I think that was the graph notebook. But I, yeah, I love the color of Ambition. I really liked Group Eleven, or whatever the hell it's called.
They changed the name. Didn't they?
Andy: The white ones with,
Tim: What, what
Andy: Oh, that's right.
Tim: before? Or they had like a,
Andy: It was Elemental maybe?
Tim: Yeah,
Andy: And they changed it because there's another notebook company out there called like Elements or something.
Tim: So, I really like that. I love that bright white and I love the gilding on the edges, but I really like a nice, bright white notebook, especially as that one, for whatever reason, didn't seem to get dirty as easily as I thought it would. That was just, that was really nice.
And then, Shenandoah. So I love that, which kind of goes right with Ambition, but just those, to borrow a term from Johnny, those autumnal colors. I love them. So yeah.
Andy: Yeah. Cool. Johnny, how about you?
Johnny: I'm going to start with white, but I'm going to go Snowblind because that matte white was just so pretty, but got so dirty. So it was good to go through them quickly. And then I'm going to go with Red Blooded, which was also the same stock as Fire Spotter, but that's on another list here. And Raven’s Wing, because black linen just like sucked all the light out of a room.
Tim: A black hole.
Johnny: Was so damn gorgeous.
Andy: They should make a vantablack notebook that just like eats 99.8% of light or whatever. So, yeah.
Johnny: Oh, that'd be cool.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: How about you, Andy?
Andy: For colors, I think my top one is the one that I missed out on, that I've never actually even owned one of these. I just really love the paper. I have a couple of things in this paper. That's the Grass Stain Green. Those are, at this point, almost as expensive as the Butchers on eBay. So I really, probably not going to get a Grass Stain Green, unless they do some sort of a re-release or tribute release. So that's fine. It's totally fine.
But my, actually my first non-Kraft Brown edition ever is the Balsam Fir, which is - I love that color. It's kind of that like woody green color. It really is the color of like a winter fir tree, for their Christmas, for the edition that came out around Christmas, and they put in like a branch from a, for a tree and it just smelled so good. So every time I see one of those covers, I'm just thinking about the smell that came with it. Just connecting that, so big Balsam Fir fan.
Johnny: Yeah, the white foil was great
Andy: Yeah, yeah. They
Johnny: They're so pretty.
Andy: Good job on that. And then also I really, really liked the--I noticed after I wrote this, that all of my favorite colors in here are some form of green. But my last one is Shenandoah. I think they did such a good job with that. And the aesthetic, they packaged it with that belly band that was made of the like Shelterwood wood.
Tim: And they had, that was the edition that had the different color inside of the notebook and outright. Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. The substrate was like a, kind of a precursor to Autumn Trilogy, I think like the inside had some of the leaves. Yeah. Once they turned. So, big fan of that one too. Those are some of my favorite yeah, like colors that came through.
Yeah. So kind of the overall execution of the theme, like the visuals. Tim, what do you think?
Tim: I think the first one I’ll mention is Workshop Companion. I was actually a big fan of that. It was like, I don't know. It was like, that was the first one I had ever had that had the box. And I liked the idea that they all had a dedicated set of use. Like it just, when I thought about how much went into creating those, like with all the different sets of uses for the different things, for plumbing and woodworking and whatever, I thought that was a very cool visual set of notebooks, which I know that they don't come up a lot.
I don't know how you guys feel about them, but I felt very good about them as far as how they looked. How they worked wasn't as great. They're really stiff, you know, so they weren't as easy. I remember putting them in my back pocket and then just kind of like cracking, you know, like if I sat on them, cause that the cover stock was stiff. I really liked that one. Drink Local is another one that I really love the aesthetic of.
Andy: I always forget about that one. I love that like kind of gummy coated cover for the Drink Locals. yeah. I'm a big fan of those.
Tim: And it came in like the six-pack holder, which was also touched as far as design goes. And, and then lastly, I put Shenandoah again because, I mean, how couldn't you? I don't know. I mean, it's so ... When I see a three-pack of Shenandoah and I've still got one that's not open, it just like calms me down. Just looking at it calms me down, because those colors are so nice and soft green. Anyways, those are my favorite.
Andy: Yeah, that's a really good one. Johnny. How about you?
Johnny: I have to go with Shanandoah also - so pretty. I think that might be the prettiest edition they ever came out with on the whole. And also it reminds me of Harper's Ferry, which is a place I really like to go to. And American Tradesman, which is one that doesn't get a lot of attention, but it was so damn perfect. It had the outside was sort of like a corrugated dark blue with silver stamp and inside was white with red print. God, that was so nice.
Andy: You know, you're right. I'm always forgetting about that. When I think of it, to me in my head, it sounds so similar to Traveling Salesman, American Tradesman, that I just don't think about that one.
Johnny: Yeah. And it came with, that was the first time they put out a carpenter pencils and it had that really cool, the construction sheet.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: That was--I'd dig that out and scan it. Cause mine got busted up various moves. And for the last one, Fire Spotter, because that red was so damn nice and had the letterpress stamp on the back. And I think it was the first dot grid paper. And they came out right after American Tradesman. It was a good streak there.
Andy: That was a really good one. Hmm.
Johnny: Yeah. How about you?
Andy: I immediately, the first one I thought of was Shelterwood. I remember when Shelterwood came out and I watched the video and listened to just kind of their story and how that came to be and how, you know, they're not the first one to like, shave like a whole piece of wood down to like, get that, to get that aesthetic. But I feel like they are one of the first ones to do it kind of in the quantity that they did. And the, just to me, that's when I started getting into, for better for worse, the Field Nuts group, and people were talking about how, like, people were, remember how they were tanning their Shelterwoods, put them in the sun and they, turned darker, and some other people were staining them. And I was just like, oh my God, this looks amazing. So I still love my Shelterwoods. I'm really, really glad when they turned it into a regular edition, they came out with the cherry woods. But huge, huge Shelterwood fan. Just the way that it looks is just incredible. Oh, it's a little fragile. I wouldn't like put that in my back pocket, but
Tim: They kind of bow over time, right? Like the cover kind of like curls. Yeah, yeah,
Andy: Yeah. That and they bow and then they also, like, if you just really sit bad on it, it can splinter a little bit. Yeah, but I mean, it's really well attached, that substrate, that backing. So it doesn't splinter too bad, but you have to really, really try, try hard to make that happen.
Big Autumn Trilogy fan. I love the aesthetics. Just those, those colors are just so good. Looking at the Field Notes list right now to just kind of like remind myself of those colors, but I think I was a huge fan of that yellow, yeah, that has that, that really gorgeous orange, and the yellow and the red.
Yeah. All of those colors together, it was just like, it was the right--I don't think I get into autumnal colors as much as Johnny does, but I definitely was really feeling it when that came out. Love that the leaf prints on it. It was just so good.
Tim: That's good. That's a good call. That, what do you call that, a recessed, or, what is it? Deboss. Yeah, the deboss, that looked so good. Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. And then I think I was really into Ambition. Just the way that it looked. And we were talking a little bit about this before, but that gold leaf on the edges, the gilding edges were just so good. And that little exercise that you, like when you open the pack and you kind of crack it for the first time and it just kind of shimmers. It's like, I think I did it into the microphone for an episode of Erasable just to hear it. And I was just so enamored with that.
And I think that was the first one, that I remember at least, that had the, on the insides for the graph paper, it had the title line on it. So it wasn't just graph all the way through, but the first, like, you know, half of an inch was blank and then a double, like, ledger mark. So you could write your title above the graph. Do you know what I mean?
Tim: That was a cool touch. I liked that.
Andy: I think that was the first one that did that. And I, yeah. And I really appreciated that because I almost always put like a title on a page. Yeah.
All right. Something that is important for us as writers and pencil users is the writing experience. So we've talked a lot about the covers, but we haven't talked much about the inside pages. Johnny, would you, do you want to start, what's your favorite writing experience?
Johnny: My absolute favorite one is America the Beautiful….
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: ...because the paper was great. The cover was great. And the blue in the lines is just perfect. For second, I'm going to go with Packet of Sunshine because that orange graph was just--sorry, yeah, orange--the bright yellow graph was so cool, but you know, it hurt your eyes at first.
And then it sort of disappeared. Like, oh, I love this. And finally County Fair, because that linen just feels so good. Sort of softens up. I mean, I know it's not actually linen, but you know, it makes you think of it like, Ooh, cloth book. Yeah. How about you guys?
Andy: Yeah.
Tim: Yeah.
Andy: Tim, how about you?
Tim: America the Beautiful, you said it all right there. That's definitely on my list. That's the only Field Notes notebook that I've ever had that, when I got it in my hands, I was like, I need to save this for something special. You know, like I, I think I used it as like a journal for a while, like where I was just like writing in it actually, instead of using it as kind of a utilitarian catch-all sort of thing. So that one's definitely on there. That paper is so nice. And they're just so nice to look at too.
I think I put Day Game on here and I can't really put my finger on why, but I think it's just because a Day Game, like the paper they were using was thinner. I think it was like, it was almost like a kraft and it just felt exactly like a kraft book, like a sort of cheaper one, but what I really like about those editions and like, what I like about Day Game is that it just lays really nice and flat, you know? It's really easy to manipulate and lay out and write and flip the page. Like I just always, it just works, you know, So that's why I like that one.
And then County Fair is another, like all-time favorite of mine that I love the feel of the cover. I love how it wears in, but also kind of in a similar way. And that, that had like the blue grid on the inside, didn't it? Yeah. Which I really liked that I really like that, that the blue kraft, which
Andy: Forgot the County Fair was a quarterly.
Tim: That's insane. Right? Like, no, you think about that. Like they came out with 50 editions, like all in one day. 52--well, that's new, right? They just didn't, they didn't do that for the release. And so when they, I wasn't subscribing when they came out. But what did they send you when it came out?
Johnny: You got a
Tim: Did they send you like your own state where you were living? Or what did they...
Johnny: I think they did your state, unless you asked for something different.
Tim: Gosh, that's nuts.
Johnny: Don't quote me.
Andy: Yeah, I wasn't a subscriber yet, so I can't imagine the logistics, especially considering how small they probably were at that point.
Tim: Yeah. So yeah, those are, yeah. I think those are some of my favorites, and just anything that, you know, anything but radical grid. As far as writing, as far as writing experience goes, cause that's garbage. I can't, I can't, I just can't stand that. It gives me a headache writing with ridiculous grid.
Andy: Not dark grid, dork grid, ridiculous grid. I kind of had to lump all of the line editions together just because like, I really loved the lined edition from America the Beautiful, and I was really, really glad when they copied that again to Shelterwood. And I'm just a big fan of, cause it's a little, I feel like it's a little extra wide, more so than college-ruled, but not quite as much as wide-ruled, which is to me kind of the perfect size. But I think that I, what I really liked and I didn't even think about this until now, is I had loved, loved, loved when they did the lined edition, but they put it in the colors of the cover and the Autumn Trilogy.
They used, I, I love me a different colored ruling and the, just that orange and that yellow, especially, ruling in Autumn Trilogy was just so good. So fun to play with, so, huge fan of that. And again, I really, maybe it's just an orange ruling that I really liked. Like, that's one of those I love best about Kindred Spirit from Write Notepads is how the graph comes in orange. I'm a big fan of that.
I also, like I put it in here, original reticle graph, which is, I think they introduced that in Night Sky. Right. And I, I kind of liked it in Unexposed as well. I think I liked Night Sky the best, but I wrote that instead of just reticle graph in general because I thought it was a very bad in oh, the, the latest one they did, Coastal. Yeah, where it's just really thick and really dark. And you can't like, unless you're writing like a big fat fountain pen, like you really can't.
Tim: Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. It just interferes with your writing too much. But yeah, I, one thing I do love about that, I know what they were trying to do, which is to have like the gradient of the coastline come through in that graph, but just didn't just didn't work. And then also I just, the paper and the ruling in, in Ambition is really good. I'm a big fan of that one. I guess I'm going to cheat. I also want to put Dime Novel on this list because that paper is so good for
Tim: That's a good one.
Johnny: Yeah, and you can still get that in the what are they, this, this, do they call it, the Signature?
Tim: Yeah.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: I mean, they're really boring compared to the covers of Dime Novel, but
Tim: That's one that I'm very sad that I never had the, like the Dime Novel version I've had the Signature one, but I'm very bummed.
Andy: I thought you were hoarding Dime Novels at one point.
Tim: Harry was doing that.
Andy: You're right. Tell Harry to give you some of those.
Tim: I got the Signature. I'm good.
Andy: Yeah. I wanted to mention this as well. What are some of your weird little--
Actually, okay. Here's one that I'm just going to ask you on the spot before we even get to this. What are your favorite non-standard editions? Like, you know, and there's so few of them, let's just say what's your top favorite non-standard edition?
Tim: I think mine would be the Wilco set. I have to say the Wilco set. Okay.
Andy: I'm sorry, not the--I'm talking about like things that aren't just little tiny booklets, like, so
Tim: Oh, non-standard size. Oh, okay. I thought you meant like non
Andy: Or like Arts and Sciences
Tim: series. Okay. Gotcha.
Andy: Yeah,
Johnny: A Reporter Notebook. Definitely. That paper is great.
Andy: Front page, er, Byline.
Tim: Yeah. I honestly, I have no experience with any of the non-standard ones besides the Signature. So, I don't think I've ever had the, any of the I never, I didn't have the Byline and I didn't have any of the the steno books or anything, so
Andy: Hmm. Did you have Heavy Duty, the little top-spiral pocket notebook? Okay.
Johnny: I forgot about
Tim: Yeah. I've been a subscriber twice now and I'm not currently, so I've only, so there were only, yeah, I guess eight editions that I've gotten like as a subscriber.
Johnny: What about Arts and Sciences? Did you have that?
Tim: I guess I did that. That was one of my, yeah, that's true. I forgot about that one.
Johnny: I think they're going for like $40 on
Andy: Do you remember
Johnny: eBay right now. Not terrible.
Andy: Arts and Sciences? That was, that was the first non, like, you know, three by five. pocket notebook they did. Right? Like I remember just like Field Nuts, just like losing their stuff about it. Some people were so mad because you know, their whole system is based on the packs being a certain size.
Johnny: Yeah. And I think that was the first thing that came out after we started podcasting.
Andy: Oh yeah. I think you're right.
Johnny: And I remember they had videos through, there were hints about what the theme was and I took credit for Frankie guessing it, she guessed arts and sciences.
Tim: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
Andy: Yeah. That's a good
Johnny: just gave [cuts out] her Arts and Sciences that I'd bought her recently. And she was cleaning up the closet.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. I think mine is either Byline or Heavy Duty. I really liked that little pocket notebook size, which is a pretty, pretty recent one.
All right. Last one. What are your favorite little subscriber extra like weird things. Yeah.
Johnny: Can I go first?
Andy: Yeah, please do.
Johnny: When the subscriber extra is a pack, when they're like, Hey, we made three packs and if you're a subscriber, you just got them all. Damn. That's awesome.
Andy: Yeah, yeah.
Tim: I have to go with, I mentioned earlier, but those space models
Andy: Oh yeah.
Tim: they came with Three Missions. That's my number one.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: Good call
Andy: I do not remember which pack it came with, but I really loved the Field Notes Blue Book.
Johnny: Oh, that was the thing. They just sent them out randomly to subscribers.
Andy: That, okay. That's what I thought. Yeah, it was just random. And I wrote an essay and
Tim: Yeah, they actually get their own like, like their own slot in the, like when you go to their website and look through the limited editions, they actually get their own slot, but it's sort of like a sub, you know, a secondary limited edition or something.
Johnny: Yeah, it would have been cool if they kept making them.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. I still have a couple of those and yeah, I had a lot of fun writing an essay and like writing until my hand cramped and then taking a break and then like starting over again. I felt real, authentic experience. I felt like I was back in school, taking a test. Cool.
And really love to know we talked about this before, but I'd love to go back and just kind of see, just know what, what y'all like to see from Field Notes. You know, we talked about, you know, National Parks was a big, like one that everybody really wanted to see before they actually made it happen. What else do you have on your agenda for them?
Tim: I don't think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they've done any editions that are linked to music. Am I wrong?
Johnny: Not really. They did the thing with Third Man
Tim: Yeah, but no, not a limited edition.
Andy: not like a
Tim: I don't know. Like,
Andy: I think that's, that's a good
Tim: I dunno, like cities, like cities associated with the blues or something like that would be cool. You know, do like, you know, I don't know, Kansas City, New Orleans, Chicago, something like that would be cool.
Johnny: Motown would be pretty cool. It's
Tim: Yeah. Motown edition would be amazing.
Andy: Yeah,
Johnny: Ever since National Crop came out, I thought a National Railroad edition would be so freaking cool with, you know, six notebooks and a patch and a map.
Tim: Would be amazing. Yeah. That's a good call.
Andy: Southern Pacific edition and the
Johnny: B&O. Ooh. They could also do a Canals edition. That would be kind of obscure, cause they were also short-lived
Tim: Mississippi River edition would be cool too.
Andy: Yeah. We had.
Tim: Like, like
Andy: Oh, yeah.
Johnny: Just call it Big Muddy and they
Andy: The Muddy edition. Yeah, the
Tim: All shades of brown.
Johnny: Brown, blue, and I don't know, dirty green
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: You're welcome, Field Notes.
Tim: Okay.
Andy: The Canal edition would be really interesting. The Erie Canal came through Fort Wayne up in up in like through Indiana. And that was a big one. Just some cool history of that would be neat.
Johnny: Yeah, there's there's still most of the C&O canal here in Maryland,
Andy: Hmm.
Johnny: And I'm also a hardcover book.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: Awesome. I'd love to see what they would do.
Andy: Oh yeah. I'm thinking about that little Japanese pocket notebook that is just like a little tiny hardcover. And has that really tight dot, er, graph paper inside. Yeah. Something like that.
Johnny: What book is that? I'm going to see this book.
Andy: I know I’ll have to find it. I bet I have an extra one somewhere. Brad did a Pen Addict custom.
Johnny: Oh, I know what you’re talking about
Andy: Yeah,
Tim: See, it seems like the, the presidents are something they haven't touched. Right? Have they? No,
Andy: Yeah. I mean then maybe they should stay away from presidents.
Tim: No, but like, I don't know, like branches of the government or something. I don't know. Maybe
Andy: Oh yeah.
Johnny: National monuments.
Tim: Yeah. There you go. National monuments. That'd be a cool one. Like obscure some like less notable ones or something. I don't know.
Andy: Yeah. They could use that stone. That stone paper for the
Tim: It'd be cool if they did one for like the three like the three largest or most prominent native American tribes, or something like that would be cool.
Johnny: They could do a Pike edition about John Brown's raid, which would be really cool.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: Like they could quote Thoreau from one of his great speeches.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: They could do the Transcendentalist edition, Emerson, Thoreau, and then who the hell cares
Tim: They never do people editions though. I feel like they're going to stick with that, right?
Andy: It's probably probably a good idea
Tim: They can do a Trash Wheel edition.
Andy: Considering what oh yeah. Considering how much, how much guff Field Notes or Blackwing gets for people editions.
Johnny: They could do like machinery,
Tim: Oh yeah. Like what am I saying? Oh, what about the, like the automobile industry? Like,
Johnny: Yeah. Or like the diggers, big diggers and backhoes and stuff.
Andy: I would really love to see just more more simple editions with just like celebrating a really beautiful cover or kind of paper. I'm thinking about, I think I've talked about it on here before, but there's this really gorgeous Japanese paper, which maybe means they wouldn't use it. That has just a really great sort of like pressed texture of the moon on the front and just something really just something simple and powerful, I think is good in the vein of like Autumn Trilogy or Shenandoah or you know, that kind of stuff. Ambition was really great. So yeah. Love to see more of that kind of stuff.
I was going to mention a few, Johnny collected just some favorites from the community, which is really, really great. I think we had a lot of love for Expedition, which is interesting. Cause I feel like Expedition is pretty polarizing.
Some people really hate it, but yeah, Larry Grimaldi, Tina, Jemelia all really love Expedition. Tina specifically says Expedition with a Hi Uni 10B in it, which, I mean, at that point it's a crayon.
Tim: That's a piece of chalk. Yeah. It's like a.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. Larry said, yeah, there's, there's no other paper like Expedition Yupo for pencil. It must be a softer graphite. Firmer with a super pointy point will catch when you're writing. He also really loved Northerly, which is the first book that he wrote exclusively and with pencil, which we didn't even mention
Tim: Yeah, that's
Andy: Also a great edition.
Tim: I've never seen one in person, so that's probably just like,
Andy: Yeah. Me neither. Yeah. Chris from the community says that reticle on the Coastal suuuuucks for pencil. You can't read a thing. Um...
Johnny: Right.
Andy: John Morris says love, love, love both the Dime Novel and End Papers--we didn't even mention End Papers--for pencil. Okay. For fountain pens too. I like the extra tooth on those papers, so much so that I've looked into sourcing the paper they use for Dime Novel and making my own new books out of it.
Johnny: That would be awesome.
Andy: And Tiffany really likes those thin Reporter notepads, which she uses a lot. but because the binding was spiral and they were so thin that the graphite with smudge, which I totally see. I do wish that the Front Page/Bylines were just like a little thicker perhaps.
Johnny: Like more pages.
Andy: Yeah,
Johnny: Yeah. That would be good.
Andy: Yeah.
Johnny: But I liked that, that one's gone through so many phases. They did the limited one and then Front Page and then they reversed the covers and that's like, by far the coolest looking one
Andy: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Any, any closing thoughts about Field Notes?
Johnny: I don't know, like I just hope they keep going.
Tim: Yeah. Here's to the next 50.
Andy: Yeah. It,
Tim: like
Andy: yeah, in 20, let's see, 2046
Johnny: Oh geez.
Andy: We'll come back here and talk about a hundred,
Tim: No.
Andy: Like 12 and a half more years. What is ...
Tim: 36, no, 30,
Andy: 20, 21
Tim: 33.
Andy: 12 here. Right? 2033. I don't know
Tim: You scared me for a second. I was like,
Johnny: We're going to be old by then.
Andy: I mean, 2033 is still quite a ways away.
Tim: It is.
Johnny: Will we still be podcasting?
Tim: Yeah.
Andy: Who knows?
Tim: We'll be holograms.
Johnny: You know what? I bet.
Tim: yeah,
Andy: If they can, if they can keep going, we can keep going.
Johnny: And if, if anyone is going to keep doing it, they will. Sure.
Andy: Jim's probably gonna want to retire sometime. I hope that after he does that, Brian'll keep on keeping on or something. But yeah. So yeah, really looking forward to, you know, to what's next. I, you know, I love to, I love to razz on the Field Notes community, Field Nuts community, but I, I mean, it's, they’re such a source of information and detail and, you know, they find
Tim: Frustration,
Johnny: yeah.
Andy: frustration, but there's such an intense, but like really passionate community. And I mean, I think that certainly bleeds through to our community as well, but they're not mutually exclusive. We have like a lot of crossovers. So just a big fan of what they do. My collection is well past SABLE at this point. Maybe someday, like when I die, like somebody will, I'm sure they won't be worth anything at that point, but somebody will get a use out of it. Yeah. All right. Should we button this up? Yeah. Cool. Tim, where can people find you on the
Tim: Find me on Twitter @TimWassem and I'm on Instagram as @TimothyWassem.
Andy: Johnny, how about you?
Johnny: You can find me on the web at pencilrevolution.com and on social media as @Pencilution. And you can buy my so awesome colorful zines on Etsy at etsy.com/shop/pencilrevolution.
Andy: Nice. And I am Andy. I am on the internet at andy.wtf and Twitter and Instagram as @awelfle. If you want to buy one of my zines, go to 404.computer. And this is the Erasable Podcast. We are on the web at erasable.us. To find a recording and show notes and eventually a transcript of this episode, go to erasable.us/164. You can also find us on the socials at @ErasablePodcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and LinkedIn--we're not on LinkedIn. And if you like what you're hearing and you would like to throw a little financial support our way, we have a Patreon that is patreon.com/erasable.
And speaking of which, I would like to thank some of our patrons at the producer level, which is at $10 a month or more. And those folks are: Judy Molnar, David Johnson, Lorre Smith, Phil Munson, Nate Raybeck, Donny Pearce, Bill Black, Miriam Burkout, Harry Marks. Alison Zepeda, Diana Oakley, Tom Keekley, Andre Torres, Kyle, Paul Morehead, Andrew Squish - greatest last name ever- Ali Serra, Jemelia, Stephen Fensali, Erin Willard, O. A. Pryor, KP, Millie Blackwell, Chris L, Hunter McCain, Bob Ostwald, Michael Delosa, Adam Probola, Jacqueline Myers. You know, I just had a thought, you know how like the Animaniacs did that thing where they like sing the nations of the world in like a rhyme. What if we did that with our subscribers?
Well, we'll work on that,
Johnny: We could make that happen.
Andy: but back to it.
Tim: Oh, what we do? Just, we just auto-tune you.
Andy: Yeah. That's a good, that's a good point. let's just,
Tim: Yeah. Just for just, you just read it and we'll just like, make a melody and just auto-tune it. Yeah, let's do it.
Andy: [singing] Tana Felice, Inside Joe Craice, [stops singing] Measure Twice, Michael Hay, Chris Metskis, John Beynon, Bill Clough, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave MacDonald, Mary Collis, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Prevost, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Letsinger. Fourth Letter, Kelton Weins, Scott Hayes, Hans Nudelman, Terry Beth, Jay Newton, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, Chris Jones and [singing] John Wood.
All right, everybody. Thank you for listening. And we will talk to you soon. Bye.