Atlas Stationers

Elaine and I made a post-Thanksgiving stop at Atlas Stationers in Chicago. It’s pen and paper bliss: several counters devoted to pens, one aisle (both sides) devoted to notebooks, another aisle’s worth of shelves devoted to inks, other aisles devoted to dip pens, pencils, greeting cards, stationery, stamps and ink pads, blotters, pen rolls, and other supplies. At the center of things, a master calligrapher doing his thing and talking to customers.

Friendly people were everywhere: I spoke at some length with Therese, Mrs. Atlas, about all sorts of things, including the Leuchtturm A4+ Daily Planner, a behemoth I’d never seen before. Mrs. Atlas explained that it caught on during the pandemic, when students taking online courses began buying it for note-taking. I asked if someone from the Hulu series The Bear, filmed (mostly) in Chicago, had come in to buy notebooks — everyone in that series seems to use a notebook. (No.)

At a pen counter, I asked Sean about the store’s tournament of pens — brackets on a whiteboard, with customers having voted for the Pilot 823 over the Kaweco Sport in the final matchup. Would I like to try the Pilot? Sure. When I learned that Sean likes old Parkers — Duofolds, Vacumatics, and 51s, I mentioned the great scene in the movie Double Indemnity in which Walter Neff’s Duofold is the pen that Mr. Dietrichson uses to sign the accident policy that seals his doom. And then we got talking about the Criterion Channel.

Such a great store, and buzzing with people on a Black Friday. Analog lives!

[And, yes, of course, we spent some serious money: ink, notebooks, pencils, stationery.]