Palimpsest
on writing instruments
Tuesday, 3 November 2020
Saturday, 3 October 2020
Writing in pen in the Canterbury Tales
"Sick-hearted Damian in Venus' fire
Is so consumed, he's dying with desire;
And so he took his courage in his hand
To end a grief he could no longer stand
And with a pen that he contrived to borrow
He wrote a letter pouring out his sorrow,
After a fashion of a song or lay,
Indited to his lady, dazzling May,
And wrapped it in a purse of silk apart
To hang inside his shirt, upon his heart.
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1392.
Thursday, 3 September 2020
Dunhill pen set of Tom Wolfe
There was a large handsome leather-bound desk blotter, a gold Dunhill pen-and-pencil set mounted on an onyx pedestal, a collection of paperweights and medals imbedded in Lucite, several of which had been inscribed to Revered Reginald Bacon by civic organisations, a stack of papers held down by a paperweight consisting mainly of the letters WNBC - TV in thick brass, an intercom with a row of buttons, and a large box-shaped ashtray with leather sides framed in brass and a brass grillwork over the top.
Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, first published 1987.
Monday, 3 August 2020
Blue and red pencil of Borges
I found what I knew I would find. The American watch, the nickel chain and the square coin, the key ring with the incriminating useless keys to Runeberg's apartment, the notebook, a letter which I resolved to destroy immediately (and which I did not destroy), a crown, two shillings, and a few pence, the red and blue pencil, the handkerchief, the revolver with one bullet.
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, first published 1962.
Friday, 3 July 2020
Pencils in the time of Covid
Community spirit in the time of Covid: one of the neighbours is sharing writing and drawing supplies during the first lockdown in north London!
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