Ninth Wave Designs

NWD Moleskine Gallery Update

I have added a few new images to the NWD Moleskine Gallery.  Both were completed over the weekend in my large Moleskine sketchbook, each with very different mediums.

The first image is an drawing of a crow that I salvaged from an earlier work and attached to the page of the sketchbook.  The original drawing was done with dark brown ink and watercolors and I added some additional color using watercolor pencils and Prismacolor colored pencils.

You can click on the pictures above to go directly to the gallery.

The second image is a drawing I did after looking at a lot of engravings from books about alchemy.  I felt the urge to do a detailed drawing that had the look of a print.  I have also posted an enlarged detail of the dragon in the gallery that you can see HERE.

The more I work in the large size sketchbook the more I like it.  The surface of the paper offers a challenge for some wet mediums, but seems to work well with the watercolor pencils I am using (Caran D'Ache).  It has taken a little bit to get used to what works well on this paper, but it has been fun trying different combinations of pencils and pens to get the desired results.  It has been well worth the effort, and I love working on this scale between the unassuming black covers of my Moleksine.

 

Notebooks: The Soul Reaching Toward Infinity

I came across this great quote on the Alibris website: 

"The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity, and this passion is the only thing that raises us above the beast that perish."  - Alfred Edward Newton

I am regularly buying books, and it wasn't too long ago that I realized I had reached the point where I couldn't possibly read all the books I have in this one lifetime.  This realization didn't actually stop me from buying even more books (i.e., I received three new books in the mail last week), but it did give me a more determined sense of what I will spend my finite lifetime reading.  I now will not finish a book just to be sure I have given it a fair try if it isn't satisfying my expectations.  If it doesn't grab me by the end of the second chapter, out it goes.  There are plenty more where that one came from.

Where there are many books, there are many notebooks as well.  I need any number of notebooks to record my thoughts about what I read, and pages to make the connections from book to book.  This makes me wonder if what Alfred so comfortingly had to say about book collecting can equally be applied to the accumulation of notebooks.  I think it can be said that the buying of more notebooks than one can fill in a lifetime is also a reaching toward infinity.  Instead of experiencing a sense of infinity through information coming into the mind through reading, notebooks provide an experience of an infinity of blank pages to fill with  what the mind makes of it all.  If the infinite is not a part of the process of personal expression that we engage in with our Moleskine notebooks, then would it really matter that the paper they are made of is acid-free?  Yet this is a very important aspect of the success of these notebooks, that what we take the time to put between the pages will last, if not forever, at least as long as we need it to.  Any effort at cheating the effects of time, such as choosing paper that will not disintegrate in a few years, is without doubt wrapped up with a passion for the infinite.

I must also address the second half of the quote, the "beast that perish" part.  I have checked with my resident perishable beasts about collecting books, and as you might expect they disagreed with what Mr. Newton has to say about it.  My cat, who has asked to remain anonymous, said she felt she was speaking for all domestic felines in stating that reading is over rated.  "Books are for those who have no imaginations of their own, I simply have no use for them."  The idea that her superior sense of imagination and clear sense of life purpose would put her at a lower place than a book collector struck her as being so absurd that she refused to discuss it any further with me.

My dog, Pearl, (who takes any opportunity to see her name in print and so wishes not to remain anonymous), says that it makes no sense at all that she should be considered beneath the book collector since you can't eat books.  "What's the point, they don't even taste good?  Why collect something like that, where's the passion in that?  Clearly this book man has an overly high opinion of himself, but the bottom line is that book collecting is completely pointless."  Pearl went back to watching the squirrels at the birdfeeder, and so I figured she was finished, but then she turned around and asked, "Why are humans so worried about infinity anyway?  You don't have to reach for it, it is right in front of you all the time."  Pearl has returned to her Zen-like meditation on the squirrels.  She is sitting so still, I think I will make a sketch of her in my notebook.

Moleskine Writing Project: Series Two

I opened a newly arrived case of Moleskine notebooks and discovered that they came packed with the second series of Moleskine Writing Project promotional items.  The second series of 9 new quotations, numbers 10 of 18 through 18 of 18, have been printed into stamp stickers and postcards which come shrink-wrapped with each Moleskine notebook.

This new series has its visual foundation in the trademark Moleskine basic black, and the mood set by the choice of quotations is aptly represented by the stark black, white and grey printing.  This is a serious set of quotations, from the likes of Kafka, Goethe and Nietzsche, among others.  The combination of color (or lack thereof) and quotation choices leaves me feeling like I have been given a glimpse into the subconscious shadow-self of the Moleskine notebook.  If a little black Moleskine kept its own dream diary this is what it would write down.  These quotations are about fear, alienation, hiding and the unknown, and by the time you get to quote 18 of 18, the otherwise light seeming "Writing is busy idleness", somehow reads like pure unadulterated Nihilism. Somebody please pass the absinthe.

I wasn't expecting these to arrive until later in the fall, and it is likely that they will take a while to appear with all the notebook styles. The distributor will need to work through their stock that includes the first series before these get wider distribution.  Likewise for me as a seller, as I currently only have these available with one style of notebooks.  So look for these new postcards and stickers to begin showing up with your favorite Moleskines in several weeks time, and make sure you aren't feeling too depressed before reading through the quotations!

As with my previous listing I have created an interactive tagged version of the above image and  posted it in my Flickr account.  You can see the mouseover quotation version HERE.

Moleskine Writing Project Second Series Quotations:

10 of 18:
"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face."  - Michel Foucault

11 of 18:
"Perhaps there is another kind of writing.  I only know this one: in the night, when fear does not let me sleep." - Franz Kafka

12 of 18:
"Writing is nothing more than a guided dream." - Jorge Luis Borges

13 of 18:
"Writing always means hiding something in such a way that it then is discovered." - Italo Calvino

14 of 18:
"Writing is the unknown." - Marguerite Duras

15 of 18:
"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves." - Lewis Carroll

16 of 18:
"One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood." - Friedrich Nietzsche

17 of 18:
"It is in the margins that poems are found." - Osip Mandelstam

18 of 18:
"Writing is busy idleness." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Molesksine Writing Project Stickers

I recently opened an account on Flickr, an online photo sharing community, and have been simultaneously posting images there from the NWD Moleskine Gallery.  Flickr is a great way to post images online and I have been enjoying the format very much. One feature that Flickr offers that the TypePad photo album doesn't is the ability to "tag" your photos with comments, notes, and written details to expand on the image.  This interactive feature takes the old saw "a picture is worth a thousand words" to a literal level, and it offers an opportunity to at least start toward that end.

I posted a scan of the Moleskine writing project stickers on Flickr and added tags for each sticker that include the written quote and quotee for each of the nine in the series.  You can link over to my Flickr account HERE and see how the mouseover tags work.  Pretty fun stuff!

Moleskine Gallery Update: Time Lions

I began reading a new book over the weekend, Time: Rhythm and Repose, by the Jungian disciple and scholar Marie-Louise von Franz.  She explains the use of paired lions at gates, doorways and arches as originating with the symbol for Routi, the resurrection aspect of the sun god Ra.  The double lions represent the time concepts of Yesterday and Tomorrow.

I also started a new Moleskine notebook to keep notes while reading this book.  I added this pair of lions using Pilot pens and Prismacolor colored pencils. It is always exciting to start a new Moleskine, and I like to include an illustration near the beginning. These lions are decidedly Celtic, not Egyptian, which represents my own bias toward Celtic design.  It's less a literal illustration of the quote and more an interpretation of the symbol reflecting my feelings of what the layers of meaning have to say to me personally. The idea of having this pair of Time Lions at the beginning of my new Moleskine is very appealing to me because they represent the gateway into a new notebook and symbolically represent the subject matter of time that this notebook will contain.

You can see a detailed image in the NWD Moleskine Gallery HERE.

Le vrai Moleskine Volant n'est plus.

I want to take a moment to mark the passing of the Moleskine Volant.  Modo & Modo, the Italian maker of Moleskine notebooks, announced last fall that they were discontinuing this line of notebooks in anticipation of the release of their new line, the Cahiers.  I stocked up on all of the Volants I could get at that time and now I am nearing the end of my supply.  This may seem like a small thing (as I commented on another blog recently) but for a company such as Modo & Modo who has made a name for themselves rescuing a notebook from obscurity, discontinuing one of its line does seem a little counter to their mission statement.  The title for this blog entry is a bastardization of a line from the insert entitled The History of a Legendary Notebook included with all Moleskines. In it they include the quote "Le vrai Moleskine n'est plus", the response given to Bruce Chatwin from his Parisian notebook supplier when he tried to buy up all their remaining stock.  Now Modo & Modo can reply likewise, in Italian this time, to those still looking to buy Volants.

In my next entry I will compare and contrast the Volant with the new Cahier.  Please check back soon!

Updated on 9/9/05: You can read the Cahier posting HERE.

Moleskine Memory Bank

I occasionally come across some insightful thoughts on notebook and diary keeping in my reading.  The quote below comes from the book Einstein's Dreams, a novel by Alan Lightman. I don't often read novels but I found this one to be a delightful meditation on the ebb and flow of time.  It ends up reading more like poetry than the usual plot driven novel.

"Many walk with notebooks, to record what they have learned while it is briefly in their heads.  For in this world, people have no memories."

In some ways Moleskine notebooks have become my long term memory.  I have a terrible memory, not so bad that I need to tattoo things on my arms Memento style, but still, stuff regularly seems to fall out as fast as it goes in.  I read lots of books, and clearly it is more than I can retain in the small space between my ears.  I have tried several organizational methods for committing the information I want to preserve to paper.  It wasn't until I bought my first Moleskine that I found a method that worked well for me, one that provided an ease of use and allowed an effortless flow if ideas.  Now I entrust all the important things I want to to remember between the pages of my Moleskine notebooks.

Click the image above for a larger picture.

The organizational system that evolved using Moleskine notebooks is wonderfully simple.  I begin by having a notebook for each of the major themes of reading I do - sometimes these are more general, or are specific to a particular author.  I name the notebook accordingly, i.e., "Number Theory", "Jung Notebook", etc., and then I also have one notebook that is a catchall for the rest of the stuff I want to save. I number the even pages and then record the excerpt I want to retain, usually a short quote that sums up the author's point.  I give a brief title to each excerpt using a different colored pen from the main entry.  This system makes cross-referencing very easy -  it is just a matter of making a reference to another Moleskine by notebook name and page number such as "see Jung notebook pg. 26" to link similar entries together.   I can then relax, knowing I have an easy way to refresh my memory of what I have read.  I also have a great way for my collected memories to communicate with one another from notebook to notebook.  This system has given me an enormous sense of comfort as I read, knowing that I have a way to revisit all the important points at any time.  It is the primary reason that I feel such a strong affinity for these black-clad inanimate objects.

I've started reading a new book that just arrived in the mail and so I think it's time to go and make another deposit in my Moleskine Memory Bank.

 

Intelligent Design

This may be stretching the purpose of this blog a bit too close to political commentary, so let me explain myself first. 

I have a strong sense of self-preservation which prevents me from watching or listening to the news most of the time. I am not completely isolated from the happening outside of my quiet little existence, but primarily I get the news in tiny bite-size pieces in the form of headlines on Yahoo or MSN.  It is usually all I can stomach - but from time to time my curiosity gets the better of me and current events leak into my otherwise notebook saturated world.  It was in this way that I was introduced to the concept of "Intelligent Design."  My first thought was something along the lines of "form follows function" (or the Roger Tory Peterson version "feathers follow form") with images of beautifully designed automobiles, wine bottle openers, espresso machines, and of course, Moleskine notebooks popping into my head.  I read on to find out that was not what was meant by "Intelligent Design" at all.

All politics aside (and I really do mean that), what I found most unsettling about this new concept was the unabashed reworking of the English language for political motives, something that I learned in high school to identify as Orwellian Doublespeak. This kind of abuse of language is disturbing regardless of political motivation.   We are so much smarter than this, I know we are.

The image above is the result of reading the news.  It is my attempt to express something closer to what "intelligent design" actually means when language is used clearly and deliberately.  I hope it will be received with the same sense of humor that it was created with.  As for me, I plan to stay away from the news for a while.

Tags: Intelligent Design    Moleskine

Moleskine Gallery Update

I have added a few new images to the Moleskine Gallery, more excerpts from my pocket sketchbook.  You can visit the Gallery HERE.  If you have any questions about materials used please post them, I am happy to reply.

Ninth Wave Designs MOLESKINE Store Launch

The new Ninth Wave Designs notebook store is up and running!  After many months of diligent work the first stage of the www based on-line store has been finished.  The complete Moleskine notebook line is available for sale (including the 2006 Diaries & Planners) in a cleanly designed layout providing easier browsing than the structure of the eBay store template.  Also new is the Ninth Wave Design shipping philosophy designed so that you only pay for the shipping you need, not an average based on everyone else's order.  Take a moment to browse the new web site at www.ninthwavedesigns.com and let me know what you think. You can access the Ninth Wave Designs Store anytime through the permanent link in the menu on the right.

Now that the first stage is up and running it is time for me to start working on the next line of products to add to the store.  Coming soon will be notebooks by Miqulrius from Spain, Rhodia from France, and Rite-in-the-Rain from the US.  Also in the works are notebook accessories, specially chosen pens, pencils and art supplies.  So it's time for me to get back to work!

As an added bonus for readers of this blog I am offering a complete set of Moleskine Writing project post cards (1 each of 9 designs) plus a sheet of labels and a sheet of writing project quotation stamps to the first person that makes a purchase at the new Ninth Wave Designs store and mentions this blog post when ordering.

Tags: Moleskine notebook