Look through the window! There, in Berkelouw's - Moleskines, the most sensual notebooks in the world, a whole rack of them. I might just pop inside for a few minutes, and admire them up close. Run my fingers over their soft, supple spines ... Actually, I might pick up some more of the pocket-sized ones. I'm sure I need another pack ...
There are a lot of people out there with a (some might say obsessive) thing for stationery - who revel in the sensory delights of a freshly sharpened HB pencil, and the crisp, virginal smell of pristine paper. And I'm proud to be one of them. Moleskines, however, take stationery luurv to a whole new level. For their many adoring fans, these are the Audrey Hepburn of notebooks - timeless, chic, paired-down elegance.
I first formed an emotional attachment to Moleskines a few years back, after spotting them in a shop in Brisbane, and later spent some considerable energy on their behalf, canvassing for a spot in local bookstores. But alas, in those dark pre-Berkelouw days, I could find no-one willing to give them a gig. (Apart from Georgia in Cooroy that is. I miss Georgia, and her dark sense of humour, and the fat labrador you had to trip over on your way to the non-fiction section ...). Now, thankfully, the Berkelouw brothers have brought us Moleskines on our very doorsteps, not to mention Penguins.
Should you dream of living the life of the writers of those famous cream and orange paperbacks - that is, the sitting in a dimly lit corner drinking coffee staring out the window pensively whilst languidly scrawling in a notebook lifestyle - then Moleskines really are for you. As a quick visit to the moleskinsaholics site will reveal, they've long been the companion of choice for writers from Hemingway to Chatwin. Berkelouw's will happily provide the coffee, and the table in the philosophy section up the back has a sufficiently bohemian ambience.
Is it ironic - hypocritical, even - to write a love lettter to paper and pen on a blog, all the while tapping at the bright, shiny interface of a MacBook Pro? I think not. I'm comfy with being a part-time Luddite - technologically savvy when it suits me, complete ignoramus when it doesn't. And at the end of the day, I feel warm and cosy inside to think of the human race evolving, inventing, discovering brave new creative worlds in cyber space, but without yet losing our love of the earthy, tactile pleasures of paper, pencil and ink - and the sound of one hand scribbling.
3 comments:
Well I'm off to buy one right now. You DO seem to have an unusual spell over me, making me go places and do things I wouldn't even think of otherwise. Ah the power of the pen! and the Mac Pro and the net and the imagination.
Power over Purl Baa ... spells ... this could go to my head .....
When I spied Moleskines at Berkelouw's last year I nearly danced on the pavement. I first bought these elegant little beauties in several sizes when I found them in a US bookshop many years ago. And I would lay in a fresh supply each year when I travelled there to see family. Now my travel days are over, I feared having to switch to something inferior. But no more. One problem: I bought so many different sizes and colours at B's that I can't justify any more (except once a year, the little diary - a perfect size for retirement needs). Best ever gift for any writer, I've found.
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