Tools of the Trade

Love, love, loooove Chicago's Threadless Tee's. Like this one in particular:


http://www.threadless.com/product/805/Tools_Of_The_Trade

Non sequitur

I just got a catalog for Levenger. As someone with a penchant for office supplies, I enjoyed perusing the pages of fancy pens, desk accessories, and their analog-cool note cards-organization system (the FranklinCovey'esque descendant of the hipster pda). But it was their pads of specialized paper -- or more specifically, their argument for its benefits -- that was blog-worthy. Seems interruption (1, 2, 3, 4) is being invoked to shill paper.

Why Levenger paper may help you think better

How tempting it is online to switch from email to spreadsheet to Internet to document, each time interrupting your flow of thought. Paper, on the other hand, has a way of grounding you, even as your thoughts race across the page. Focusing on the paper in front of you—especially well-designed, high-quality stock—can give you more time to stay with your thoughts.

Try the paper method for at least some of your note-taking and see what—and how—you think. It may lead you in new direction.

The paper is cool; it's the argument I don't buy.

Personalized Sharpie Markers -- Want!

Product page [via BoingBoing]

Projector fetish

Farewell to overhead -- a tribute in lyric, image, and song to the lowly overhead projector.

As a writing teacher and research of writing technologies, I have a special place in my heart for the overhead projector. There's something about the flexibility of the overhead projector that PowerPoint, digital projectors, and whiteboards don't quite capture. It was crucial for one teaching stunt I pulled spontaneously one class period a few years ago.

I was trying to get my students to really understand the flexibility of language. They often know when they'd written something that doesn't sound right, but don't have revision strategies. I find it helpful to rewrite a bad sentence or phrase several times and pick the best version. I stole this method from Desiderius Erasmus who, in his Copia, wrote hundreds of versions of sentences such as "Your letter pleased me greatly." I had a picture of him on an overhead and, while we were trying a similar exercise, it occurred to me to turn the projector 90 degrees and project his picture on a blank wall to our side. At that distance, his bust covered the entire wall and there he stayed, looking over us, like the patron saint of linguistic flexibility. It really created a moment.

Nostalgia aside, I didn't have a projector in my class this quarter and seemed to get along fine without it, from a pragmatic standpoint.

[Ode link via Boing Boing]

Typewriter Fetish

The Classic Typewriter Page is a vast storehouse of information about early versions of a breakthrough writing technology. The site includes a brief illustrated history of typewriters, "typewriter collecting and care", and huge lists of early models complete with pictures.

The most interesting aspect of the site, from my perspective, is the glimpses it affords into the development of the technology. A variety of unusual arrangements can be seen, helping us to imagine what might have been had qwerty not become the standard.


[Image from The Classic Typewriter Page]

Pencil Revolution

Our love of the tools of literacy... Where does it stem from? In some cases, it's nostalgia -- the deep-rooted connection we made to the smell of pencil shavings beginning at age 5, the intense relationship we had with paper ruled with pink & blue, solid & dashed lines and the struggle to get our wobbly letters to adhere to those lines.

In other cases, it's techno-philia in its true geek-guise. The rabid appreciation for the latest, sexiest technology. In both cases, it stems from the time we spend alone with these tools as we work with our ideas. It's why Ray Bradbury named characters Faber and Montag (a paper manufacturer) in what I consider to be his greatest work.

With this relationship in mind, I begin an ongoing series of entries entitled Writing Technologies Fetish. Today's installment -- Pencil Revolution, a blog/manifesto devoted to our little leaden friends (sorry, "graphite" didn't have the alliterative zing). There's a companions site in the form of the Pencil Revolution Flickr Group. [Image from Pencil Revolution]

[Update: Pencil Revolution brings us this piece of web-based zen: images and sounds of pencil writing.]

New Post-It Fiasco!

My vision for Post-It's next product...

[New Post-It Fiasco!] [Fiasco in use]

Co-locating the Tools of Annotation

"Post-it® Flag Highlighters and Pens" -- while innovative and perhaps useful, this company's product proliferation is getting as bad as Oreos'.