Thursday, July 17, 2014

“Avoid haphazard writing materials”

Walter Benjamin, 1928:

Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.

One-Way Street, in “One-Way Street” and Other Writings, trans. Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter (London: NLB, 1979).
Benjamin here anticipates my dad’s thinking about abundance and office supplies.

Like Benjamin and my dad, I too eschew the haphazard, though I also believe in “any available paper, any available Bic”: any port in a storm.

[The Chicago Manual of Style, 8.171: “A title of a work within a title, however, should remain in italics and be enclosed in quotation marks.”]

comments: 2

Sean said...

"[The Chicago Manual of Style, 8.171: “A title of a work within a title, however, should remain in italics and be enclosed in quotation marks.”]"

Ooh...nice one—that rule was not on my radar.

Michael Leddy said...

I always end up checking these things. Must. Set. Good. Example.