Bic Accountant Fine Point

I recall using a Bic Accountant Fine Point when I was a kid, and I remember the way the barrel’s edges cut into my fingers. Not a pleasant pen. The BAFP hasn’t been manufactured for some time, and I haven’t written with one in many years. I rediscovered these two in a cup of neglected pens. They’re so old that their caps lack the vent hole that’s meant to reduce the hazard of choking. Bic added a hole to caps in 1991, so these are some seriously neglected pens. Why did I buy them? To use when grading papers? I have no idea.

The Bic Accountant Fine Pt. still commands a loyal following. “I wish BIC had NEVER discontinued them,” says one Amazon review. The lowest price I could find online: $52.95 for a dozen. Highest: $14.95 for a single pen. That’s moving into Blackwing territory.

Notice the little Bic man on the barrel and clip. You can click on the image for a larger him.

If you’re wondering: these pens no longer write. I managed to get a few dim scrawls from one after repeatedly immersing the point in rubbing alcohol. But the ink won’t budge, which is probably a good thing — because if it did, I’d feel obliged to write with these pens. Instead, I’ll install them in a vitrine in the Museum of Supplies.

This post is the twenty-fourth in a series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum and its vitrines are imaginary. The supplies are real.

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Ace Gummed Reinforcments : C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Harvest Refill Leads : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : Ko-Rec-Type, Part No. 3 : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : A mystery supply : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule : Tele-Rest No. 300

Tele-Rest No. 300

[Click either image for a larger view.]

I’ve had a Tele-Rest No. 300 sitting around for many years, purchased (in the 1990s?) from a going-out-of-business office-supplies store. I bought this item only for its box, which predates ZIP codes. The Tele-Rest itself is stamped with a San Diego ZIP code (92109). Herman H. Renneker (1898–1966) must have been a thrifty user of outdated packaging.

A brief obituary describes the circumstances in which the idea for the Tele-Rest was born. It was during the Second World War, when Renneker was working in the purchasing department at Solar Aircraft:

It was one day at Solar, when all the telephones were ringing at once, that Renneker walked out of the office, went across the street for a cup of coffee and hit on the Telerest idea.

Here’s the patent for “Telephone Hand Set Supports” (Dec. 9, 1958).

I have a Model 500 telephone that I used in my office (its ring astonished students), so I (finally) tried attaching the Tele-Rest to the handset this morning. Alas, the device is not especially helpful for keeping the handset on my shoulder. It’s just too small — the Tele-Rest, that is. If I were really using a Model 500 in everyday life, scrunching the handset between my head and shoulder would work much better.

[The box is more attractive than what’s inside. But you can still click for a larger view.]

My Tele-Rest will remain in the Museum of Supplies. But an Etsy seller has a grey Tele-Rest for sale, right now, marked up to $14 from $1.49 — that’s the price scrawled in grease pencil across the box (marked down from $2.25).

This post is the twenty-third in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Ace Gummed Reinforcments : C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Harvest Refill Leads : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : Ko-Rec-Type, Part No. 3 : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : A mystery supply : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

In search of lost art supplies

[“Trash Talk.” Zippy, August 13, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

The panels that follow in today’s Zippy reference Speedball nibs, kneaded erasers, Cartoon Colour Cel-Vinyl White-Out, and a cleaning solution for pen points.

I hope Bill Griffith knows about the Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies.

Orange Crate Art has its own modest Museum of Supplies. The most recent exhibit is here: Executive Ko-Rec-Type Typewriter Correction Film.

Related reading
All OCA Museum of Supplies posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Ko-Rec-Type, Part No. 3

[The secret word is ploks. 2 1/16″ × 1 3/8″ × 3/8″. Click for a larger view.]

This sort of stuff was once ubiquitous. Make a typing error, take out a little piece of correction film, hold between paper and ribbon, hit the offending key, and the mistake is gone. The result: a neater and more discreet fix than what could be had with correction fluid, aka Liquid Paper, aka Wite-Out.

I’ve had this little box of Executive Ko-Rec-Type Typewriter Correction Film for many years — probably from the early 1980s, when I was a graduate student banging out papers on an Olympia manual typewriter. I like the matchbox-like design (“one strike is all it takes”) and the strange contrasts: fancy script over stencilled letters, secretarial pink clashing with the word Executive. (Is this film reserved for executive secretaries?) I like the (unnecessary, to my mind) “Part No. 3,” which names a product that isn’t part of anything larger than itself. I like the spelling of Ko-Rec-Type, perhaps a joke on the mistakes the film was meant to hide, or perhaps just a space-age spelling. I really, really like the arcana on the side of the box: “To correct colored originals ask your dealer for Part No. 1-ES.” A more complicated part!

The box bottom has a bonus in the form of an adhesive strip:

Peel off protective covering
Attach to typewriter or any surface

I guess then you would really be in the executive lane.

I have a second, less interesting container about half full of Ko-Rec-Type Opaquing Film, which appears to be Typewriter Correction Film with a newer name. This container, from which films slide out like sticks of gum, has an address for the Ko-Rec-Type Corp.: 67 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Here’s a post from Forgotten New York with some photographs of the building. As of 2018, the company, founded in 1955, was still in business but looking to sell its Brooklyn properties. As of this morning, Ko-Rec-Type was still selling newer-fangled correction tape and other items on Amazon.

I would now like to imagine a scene in an office-supplies store:

“Good day, sir. Please, a box of Ko-Rec-Type’s Part No. 1-ES, with a vignette effect, if you would.”

This post is the twenty-second in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. The vignette effect in the photograph is by the Mac app Acorn.

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Ace Gummed Reinforcments : C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Harvest Refill Leads : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : A mystery supply : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Ace Gummed Reinforcements

[“No 2. Size.” 2¼″ × 1½″. Click for a larger view.]

We took some items to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore. And there I found these reinforcements — mysterious, shadowy. What were they doing there? And what did they want from me? They wanted me to ask how much they cost: 75¢, but I paid a dollar.

I have vague memories of retro packaging from my youth, so my guess was that the box dates from the 1970s, with a design to make a dowdy school supply seem cool. (I thought too of a Tot Stapler ad featuring Stevie Staple-Freak.) The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies has a similar box, dated to the 1930s. Turn the box over and it does look like we’re further back in time.



Several eBay sellers offer Ace reinforcements made by Dennison. Did Dennison buy Ace? Was Ace always a Dennison name? The mystery deepens.

This post is the twenty-first in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. The vignette effect in the photographs is by the Mac app Acorn.

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Harvest Refill Leads : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : A mystery supply : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Harvest Refill Leads

[5″ × 3¼″. Found in December at an antiques mall. Click for a larger view.]

There’s so much to like about this display card. First, that it is a display card — in other words, that pencil leads were deemed important enough to be given this treatment. (My guess is that the cards stood upright in a holder on a store shelf.) I like the contrast between the sharp serifs and the italic script. I like the repetition: 5H, 5H, and the five appearances of leads. (The fifth leads, hidden from view, is on the cardboard tube.) I like 5H, which suggests that any store that sold these leads sold a great range of replacement leads. (“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re all out of 6H right now. I can offer you something in a 5H, if that would be satisfactory.”) And I like the lines above and below Harvest, four above, four below.

I’d never heard of Harvest Refill Leads, a product of the venerable Musgrave Pencil Company. (The manufacturer’s name appears on the tube.) The Internets return nothing for harvest leads, with or without the word refill. But Musgrave still manufactures a Harvest pencil (wood-cased, not mechanical). From the company’s website: “It’s rumored that our great-grandmother named this premium line ‘Harvest’ after the yellow harvest moon.” Shine on, Harvest pencil!

*

January 29: Henry Hulan, whose grandfather started the Musgrave Pencil Company in 1916, tells me that Musgrave sold refill leads in the 1930s and ’40s. But the company has never made mechanical pencils, only wood-cased ones. I am following Henry’s lead (no pun intended) in using the word wood-cased instead of wood.

This post is the twentieth in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : A mystery supply : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Notebook sighting: Stage Fright

[Stage Fright (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1950). Click either image for a larger view.]

Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich) and Sergeant Mellish (Ballard Berkeley) speak of self-incrimination and stationery supplies:

“So they’ve heard everything I said.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s all in that book.”

“All in there, in shorthand.”

“How clever of you.”

The sergeant’s notebook appears to be what might be called a police notebook, top-bound, with an elastic band at the bottom. In the first image, the bottom end of the notebook is facing up. The elastic band is visible next to Mellish’s right thumb. In the second image, Mellish is holding the notebook sideways. The elastic band is on the left.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Time Table : T-Men : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window

A mystery supply

[Actual size: 1¾″ tall.]

Our household likes to repurpose household objects: bakeware as a laptop stand, a cardboard box as a blog post (really), a cork and a doorstop as iPad stands, a dish drainer as a file tray, tea tins as index-card holders, a thermostat as a paperweight, tiles as paperweights.

The mystery item in this photograph is a household object of sorts that I turned into a “supply” — something at home in the world of stationery and office supplies. What is the object? And what might be its supply-side use? Leave your best guesses in a comment. I will add a hint if needed.

*

Chris identified the object: a stopper from a bottle of sparkling wine. Here’s a hint: this object’s supply life also involves liquid.

*

The mystery revealed: this stopper is the perfect accessory for filling a fountain pen when a bottle of ink is nearly empty. Pour some ink into the tube, insert the pen, and fill. It’s like filling the pen from a full bottle.

[This post is the nineteenth in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
C. & E.I. pencil : Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

C. & E.I. pencil

[From the Museum of Supplies.]

Great pencil!

Thanks. Your voice sounds familiar. As do your italics. I mean, your italics look familiar. Are you the same guy who interviewed me about my Illinois Central Railroad pencil?

Look — let me ask the questions, okay?

Okay.

So what can you tell me about this pencil?

Not much, really. It’s a gift from my friend and colleague John David Moore, who likes all things old. He’s an excellent pianist, and he and Elaine have been playing recitals together for years. He’s also an expert mycologist.

Shall we keep to the pencil?

Sure. John David —

The pencil?

— likes antiques stores and flea markets, so I suspect he found this pencil in one of them. C. & E.I. is the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad, which ran from 1877 to 1976, from Chicago to St. Louis, southern Illinois, and Evansville, Indiana.

So you knew that all along and were holding out on me?

No, I had to look it up. But about the pencil. I like the sincerity of its motto: “Friendliness is a C. & E.I. tradition,” a motto that sharpens much better than, say, “Don’t use drugs.” And I like the numero sign before the numeral: № 1. And I like that it’s a № 1 pencil, a nice soft lead for the railroaders as they sit and drink coffee and write in their pocket notebooks.

What a cozy little scene. [Rolls eyes.] Sentimental fellow, aren’t you?

Yes and no. It’s really Elaine who’s the sentimentalist about train travel. You may wish to speak to her. Oh, and thanks, John David.

[This post is the eighteenth in a very occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. A bit of the dialogue in this post comes from Citizen Kane.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Esterbrook erasers : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Esterbrook erasers

[Esterbrook erasers, 13/16" × 1".]

Ramona Quimby’s eraser is a brand-new Pink Pearl, “just right for erasing pencil lines.” Long before I bought these erasers (from a fading stationery store), they had hardened into uselessness. They’re just right for erasing nothing.

Esterbrook was a venerable name in nibs, fountain pens, ballpoint pens, and mechanical pencils. I imagine that at one point this tiny box sat behind a counter, in a drawer with other tiny boxes of erasers. No blister packaging in that world.

[This post is the seventeenth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Pentel Quicker Clicker : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Things to do in Los Angeles

[An incomplete list.]

Meet Rachel and Ben at LAX. Hi, Rachel and Ben! Driving back to Rachel and Seth’s place, discover that Rachel’s car has a tire with a leak, the work of what looks like a big plastic spike. Buy a can of Fix-A-Flat. Hope. Hear the sound of rim on street. Pull over by a hydrant — the only available spot — and change tire. Everyone participates: guarding against traffic, reading jack directions, finding the spot for the jack, loosening lug nuts, jacking up the car, changing the tire. Appreciate the benevolent neighborhood elder who watches over us. The only person strong enough to loosen the lug nuts: Rachel. Talk about this point often, with pride. Go to El Coyote, “Serving Los Angeles Since 1931.” Look at pictures of the stars who have eaten here: Shirley Temple Black and Fred Willard mean the most to us. James Hong (from the Seinfeld episode “The Chinese Restaurant”) ate here. Eat. Drink. Chips, guacamole, salsa: excellent. Fajitas, okay. Margaritas: weak. Ambience and neon: extra great. Before going to sleep, have a cup of tea: first caffeine since the early afternoon.

Get a new tire. Get three more new tires. They’re needed. Walk many blocks while waiting. It’s counter-cultural to walk in Los Angeles. Visit a used-record store. One curmudgeonly owner, one assistant, many, many LPs. Walk to pick up car. See Jane Lynch having lunch at a restaurant table right on the sidewalk. We love her from Christopher Guest’s movies. Walk on by, in appropriate leave-the-stars-alone fashion. Get car and go to Larchmont Bungalow, a lovely place to have lunch. Have lunch. Bison burger. Salads. Turkey melt. Note to self: “tea” in Los Angeles doesn’t always mean “black.” Go to Salt and Straw. Freckled Woodblock Chocolate? Yes. Notice that the ice cream becomes more enjoyable as one continues to eat it. Go to Landis Gifts and Stationery. Buy paper for writing letters. Look in many other stores. Looking, not buying, is plenty of fun. Return to home base. Sing many songs with guitar and ukulele. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” now with fambly-improvised lyrics on two coasts. Go to Pann’s before dropping Ben at LAX. But it’s Monday: the restaurant’s closed. (Diners close on Monday?) Go to Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles instead. Great chicken, great cornbread, great macaroni and cheese, good waffles. Iced tea, black and unsweetened. See Ben off. Hug. Watch Karen Kingsbury’s “The Bridge Part 2” on DVR. It’s rather dull, and not nearly as bad (that is, good) as “Part 1.” There’s no Bridge (the bookstore) in “The Bridge,”  which takes away most of the fun. Have a glass of wine.

Wake up to horrible news from Belgium. Go to an office-supply store. A kind employee does Rachel’s xeroxing for free. Go to the post office to buy stamps. The post office doesn’t take cash. Go to the Hammer Museum. See the exhibition Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957. Look for evidence of our friend Seymour Barab’s sojourn at Black Mountain as a visiting musician. He’s not in the exhibit but he’s quoted in a book in the gift shop, recalling a summer of “esoteric incomprehensible conversations” between Charles Olson and Stefan Wolpe, each trying to out-talk one another. As far as Olson is concerned, that sounds about right. See the exhibition Still Life with Fish: Photography from the Collection. Allen Ruppersberg’s photographs of roadsigns with magazines are terrific. See the exhibition Catherine Opie: Portraits, photographs that look like paintings by Old Masters. One photograph looks like Jonathan Franzen. Yes, it’s Jonathan Franzen. Then discover a Millet and two Van Goghs in the permanent collection. The Hammer is a perfect museum: lots to see and find interesting, but not exhausting. And free, always. Go to Simplethings for lunch. Cobb salad, Cuban sandwich, meatball sandwich. A tie with Roscoe’s for best food. Go to The Grove. Looking, not buying, is plenty of fun. Go to Clifton’s for dinner. Experience vague film-noir feelings in the downtown parking garage. Experience vague film-noir feelings on the downtown sidewalks. Where is everyone? (Aside from the panhandlers.) Experience strong surrealist feelings in Clifton’s. It’s like the Grand Cosmo of Steven Millhauser’s novel Martin Dressler , with meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Look: here, or here. Stuffed animals. A sequoia. A chapel. Four floors of cafeteria, the upper floors now closed. And a basement with a phone booth (minus phone). Wonder about the large blue object on a desk in a Red Bull billboard. (A Bluetooth speaker.) Watch the news. Give up. Watch Fixer Upper . Have a glass of wine.

Walk to LACMA. Learn from a helpful LACMA employee going in to work that the museum is closed for the day. We got our Mondays and Wednesdays crossed. Cross the street to visit the Craft & Folk Art Museum instead. See the exhibition Little Dreams in Glass And Metal: Enameling in America, 1920 to the Present. Learn about enameling. See the exhibition Made in China: New Ceramic Works by Keiko Fukazawa, witty commentary on consumerism and patriotism in the People’s Republic. Like the Hammer, just enough museum. Walk to Farmers Market. Notice a billboard for Mad Old Nut. Notice how few people are walking on any given stretch of sidewalk. Browse in Farmers Market. Buy two apples at Farm Boy Produce. It must not be unusual for people to buy single pieces of fruit: they have napkins. Eat lunch at Lemonade. Ahi tuna, avocado and cherry tomatoes, beef with miso, chicken and kale, chicken with mozzarella and pesto, chili soup. A best-food tie with Roscoe’s and Simplethings. Go to Book Soup. Looking, not buying, is plenty of fun. Go to Magnolia Boulevard, Burbank, a street full of old furnishings and old clothes. Try on hats. Feel the weight of a 1940s(?) men’s coat. Looking, not buying, is plenty of fun. Be impressed by the array of books and supplies in The Writers Store. Screenwriters need brass fasteners, brass washers, and mallets. Go to Genghis Cohen for dinner. Something happened there to inspire the Seinfeld episode with James Hong. The food really does taste like the New York Szechuan of bygone days. Do Facetime with Ben. Watch the news. Give up. Watch Modern Family . Watch Flip or Flop . Have a glass of wine.

Learn about peripheral vision and flexibility. Go back to LAX. Hug.

Thank you, Rachel and Seth, for a wonderful four days in your city. We are fam-b-ly.


[A hydrant in Flattville, as seen in Google Maps. Thank you, hydrant, for giving us a place to stop and fix a flat.]

More things to do in Los Angeles
2014 : 2012

Pocket notebook sightings

Fresca pointed me to Where the Sidewalk Ends (dir. Otto Preminger, 1950) as a film rich in stationery supplies. Yes. I’d seen the film years ago but had little memory of it — until it began. And then the plot and its people kicked in. And the supplies.

Detective Sergeant Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews) carries a pocket notebook. Bad guy Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill) carries what must be Benzedrine inhalers. That’s Karl Malden as Dixon’s boss, Detective Lieutenant Thomas.


[Click any image for a larger view.]

Dixon’s partner Detective Sergeant Paul Klein (Bert Freed) also carries a notebook. Useful when interviewing Morgan Taylor (Gene Tierney).



Then there’s a wonderful scene that Fresca mentioned, in which Scalise spells things out for small-time hood Willie Bender (Don Appell): “Take out a pencil and write this down.” Willie’s in a phone booth, the perfect place to take dictation with his no-name pencil.



Mark Dixon sits at a desk to write a letter to be opened in the event of his death. I think he’s using a military-clip Sheaffer.



I’d forgotten how much our household liked this film. Six years after Laura , it’s a Preminger-Andrews-Tierney reunion, with supplies. Thanks, Fresca, for recommending it.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The Lodger : Murder at the Vanities : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : T-Men : Union Station : The Woman in the Window

[Where does the sidewalk end? As the opening credits make clear, in the gutter.]

Honeymooners notebook sightings

[“You owe me a hundred and seventy-six dollars and thirty cents.”]


[“BEnsonhurst 0-7741.”]


[“Her husband’s busy on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, you know. Just make sure you call before six. The phone number is BEnsonhurst 0-7741. Got it? And her name is Alice Kramden.” Click on any image for a larger view.]

The world of The Honeymooners is not rich in stationery supplies. I imagine the Kramden apartment as holding just a pencil or two (sharpened no doubt with a knife) and a “writing tablet” for grocery lists and messages. “The Babysitter” (January 21, 1956) must be the most stationery-rich episode of the (endlessly syndicated) 1955–1956 season, with four — or is it just two? — pocket notebooks playing parts.

They are notebooks, not address books. Norton has been using his to track the cost of Ralph’s phone calls over the last fifteen years. Mrs. Simpson, a neighbor (uncredited), jots down Alice’s number to give to the Bartfelds, a couple in need of a babysitter. Mr. Bartfeld (Sid Raymond) recommends Alice to Harvey Wohlstetter (Frank Marth), who needs a babysitter. Wohlstetter writes down the number first. Granted, he could be making an entry under B (for babysitter ), but I’d rather imagine that he’s using a pocket notebook.

Related reading
All OCA Honeymooners posts (Pinboard)

And more notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : Murder at the Vanities : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : T-Men : Union Station : The Woman in the Window

Pentel Quicker Clicker

[Click for a larger view.]

I realized some time earlier this year that I’ve been using this .05 mm Pentel Quicker Clicker, on and off, for something like thirty years. There are mechanical pencils with more pizzazz — Alvin’s Draf/Tec retractable for one, the Kuru Toga for another — but there can be few mechanical pencils as durable as the Quicker Clicker. Or as durable at least as this Quicker Clicker. The pencil’s claim to distinction is its “convenient side lead advance,” visible in the photograph. No need to press down on a cap to advance the lead. I like the way this Quicker Clicker has aged: the translucent barrel shows ring upon ring from extra leads knocking around inside.

Traveling to Rachel and Seth’s wedding in April, I dropped this pencil’s eraser cap on a plane. Notice: I did not say that the cap “slipped” from my hand. I dropped it while erasing. The guy sitting next to me understood how much was at stake: he and I took apart our seats to search. No luck. He got down on the floor and searched under his seat using his iPhone as a flashlight. No luck. The people one row back looked around too. No luck. I drew a picture and gave it to a flight attendant with my info. “It’s a thirty-year-old pencil!” No luck. Perhaps the cap is still on board, living out its days as a newfangled Flying Dutchman.

The cap now on the pencil comes from a Quicker Clicker of recent manufacture (made with a textured grip). What distinguishes the new cap from the old: darker plastic and small slits for safety. They lessen the danger of suffocation if the cap is inhaled or swallowed. There’s nothing though to keep me from dropping it.

[This post is the sixteenth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Dr. Scat : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

[Note to self: Use a ballpoint next time.]

Things I learned on my summer vacation

Q. Why did the arsonist refuse to answer any questions?

A. He didn’t want to incinerate himself.

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“Are you rolling your eyes?”

“I’m rolling everything.”

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In some ways, I am no longer part of NPR’s target audience.

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Phil Schaap is still Phil Schaap, or even more so. “An immeasurable increase that’s vast.” Sigh. “This plethora, if you will, meaning ‘large.’” No, I will not. From Garner’s Modern American Usage :

According to the OED and most other dictionaries, this word refers (and has always referred) to an overabundance, an overfullness, or an excess. The phrase a plethora of is essentially a highfalutin equivalent of too many.

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Arnold Stang was the voice of Chunky.

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My parents’ first car was a Plymouth Savoy, blue, with fins. I remember the car but never knew its name.

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Working in construction, my dad once saw a fellow tileman ridiculed by his peers for using the word threshold to refer to, yes, a threshold.

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My mom’s mother referred to Special K cereral as Ks. She had her Ks for breakfast.

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Ilities: bizspeak for the section of a document that covers liability and related matters. Used without irony.

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There is a Theda Bara Way in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

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Bibby’s Mediterranean Café in Fort Lee is gone. The owner may be acquiring a food truck.

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The white clam pizza from Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven is a glorious thing. Clams, grated cheese, olive oil, garlic, oregano. Period. Every houseguest should be so fortunate as to have their hosts travel back from Boston with some Frank Pepe pizza. (Thank you, Luanne and Jim.)

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Strip-mall restaurants really do rule. Three in New Jersey: Citrus serves Indian and Thai dishes. Koi serves Chinese dishes and sushi. Tony’s Touch of Italy needs no more than its name as explanation. Especially good: lamb vindaloo, moo shu pork, mussels marinara.

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The difference between chicken tikka masala and buttered chicken: the one is made with cream; the other, with butter.

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In Hoboken, New Jersey, Cucharamama (“mother spoon”) rules. (Our friends Jim and Luanne are friends of the restaurant’s chef, Maricel Presilla.) Such flavors. And such hospitality. My suggestion: order everything to share, just a couple of main dishes and as many appetizers as you dare. Variety is all.

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Our friend Jim’s work lies behind — or in — the gyroscopes that direct the REMUS 6000 (used in the search for Air France Flight AF447) and the Bluefin-21 (used in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370). Jim is a modest guy: this information came up entirely in passing.

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In East Harlem, New York, El Paso Restaurante rules. We were there during the championship football match between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid. The crowd watching at the bar seemed of one mind, though I couldn’t tell you which side they were cheering. Knowing how the match went, I would now say that they must have been cheering Real Madrid.

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My mom reminded me that when I was a college student, waiting one morning for the Frick Museum to open, a guard told me not to sit on the steps. Now people sit on the steps with impunity. I did remember being chastened in the museum because I was bending to better see the details in a painting. This time I not only bent: I squatted, to better see the titles on the spines of the books in the library.

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At the Frick: Joseph Chinard’s Portrait of Louis-Étienne Vincent-Marniola is incontrovertible proof that Elvis Aron Presley was a time-traveler.

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At the Frick: figures in Rembrandt’s Nicolaes Ruts and Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid look like they’re holding PocketMods. But we know that PocketMods cannot time-travel.

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My feeling about the Frick hasn’t changed in thirty-odd years: gratitude for the chance to see the art, and a sick feeling about the exploitation and injustice that underwrote its acquisition. Seeing a painting of Saint Francis in this setting makes my irony meter go haywire. I doubt I’ll go back.

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There was more to the photographer Vivian Maier than didn’t meet the eye. In other words, there are some dark elements in this invisible woman’s story. Finding Vivian Maier (dir. John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, 2014) does a fine job of presenting Maier’s life and work. We liked this film so much that we ended up seeing it twice.

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Stevdan Pen & Stationers has a great selection of supplies and great service. When I asked about 2015 Moleskine datebooks, the proprietor called his other location and had someone walk over a Moleskine for me. But only after checking every detail: Large, pocket, or mini? (Pocket.) Hardcover, or softcover? (Hardcover.) Color? (Black.)

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C. O. Bigelow is the oldest apothecary in the United States.

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Duane Reade is a subsidiary of the Walgreen Company. Duane Reade is like Walgreens for New York City, though there are also Walgreens stores in the city.

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Colin Huggins is a pianist who plays a baby grand in Washington Square Park. On the night we saw him, he was set up not far from the location of an earlier performance: Detective Adam Flint’s recitation of an Emily Dickinson poem.

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Century: 100 Years of Type in Design is a wonderful exhibit at AIGA. I didn’t learn about the exhibit on vacation: it was already on our to-do list. Nor did I learn about this short film on vacation: I found out about it back here on the prairie. What I did learn on vacation: Monotype’s Dan Rhatigan is a terrific tour guide.

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W. A. Dwiggins coined the term “graphic designer.”

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The Museum of the City of New York is a gem of a museum. (How had we never been there?) It has five exhibits right now: Activist New York (social activism through the decades), City as Canvas (graffiti art), Gilded New York ($$), In a World of Their Own: Coney Island Photographs by Aaron Rose, and Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile. This last exhibit is spectacular. Also: Timescapes, a short film tracking the city’s growth. Also: stairwells covered in pithy observations about New York. I’ve never paused so often when ascending or descending a staircase. Bad staircase habits!

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It is especially easy to miss my friend Rob Zseleczky when in New Jersey.

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“There are no shortcuts”: Crete Carrier.

More things I learned on my summer vacation
2013 : 2012 : 2011 : 2010 : 2009 : 2008 : 2007 : 2006

My dad on supplies

I told my dad about our visit this morning to Staples, where we bought more (still more) index cards — enough, I said, to last into the next century. Quoth my dad: “It is better to be oversupplied than undersupplied.”

That’s the best thinking about supplies I’ve ever heard.

Related reading
From the Museum of Supplies

[As a regular reader of Orange Crate Art probably knows, supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items.]

Dr. Scat

[The 4 oz. size. Click for a larger bottle.]

I’ve had this bottle for a long time. I probably bought it at a going-out-of-business office-supply store, long after I stopped using a manual typewriter. I may have been channeling Charlie Brown: “I think it needs me.”

Dr. Scat Typewriter Platen Roll and Type Cleaner is powerful stuff. It is made of ten parts ool-ya-koo, five parts shoo-bitty-oww, and one part zot. Any more zot and the bottle would have exploded by now.

The company that produced this item is no longer known as the Dr. Scat Chemical Company. It’s now the Starkey Chemical Process Company, still in La Grange, Illinois. A page describing the company shows the Dr. Scat name on a brick wall and lists “Dr. Seat” as one of the company’s brands. Oops. Or better make that oopapada.

[This post is the fifteenth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Faber-Castell Type Cleaner : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Faber-Castell Type Cleaner

A second box has a large price sticker with the code 11983: January 1983? November 9, 1983? I bought both boxes, at a much later date, from an office-supply store that was surrendering, finally, to time’s slow-chapt power. I had no need for Faber-Castell Type Cleaner: I just wanted to give these items a home.

The packaging design seen here — Helvetica type, a black-and-white photograph, a colored flap — was once found on a range of Faber-Castell products. I have a box of Mongol pencils with brown flaps. Blackwing Pages has photographs of similar boxes for Blackwing pencils, light blue flaps and then brown. I don’t know what other products wore green.

Looking at the photograph on this package leaves me convinced of something that I’ve suspected ever since getting an iPhone: that the jumping-up keys on the iPhone’s keyboard are more than practical, visual feedback. I think that they’re yet another bit of skeuomorphic design, meant to suggest the movement of a typewriter’s typebars. I have no evidence, but it’d be difficult to persuade me otherwise.

[This post is the fourteenth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint : Pedigree Pencil : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule

Buehner’s Office Supply

“A window into a world where analog was king”: Buehner’s Office Supply, in Cleveland, Ohio (via Coudal.) They even have Robinson Reminder refills for sale.

The photographs of Buehner’s remind me of the now-defunct office-supply stores where I found many of the items in my imaginary Museum of Supplies. How come I never took a picture?

National’s et cetera

[A conference room at the National Pencil Company.]

“Pearl, would you see that Bill there gets an ashtray? Thank you.” [Then speaking to the group.] “And thank you all for stepping away from your desks for a little while. Boys, it looks like we have a winner here. Let me go point by point.”

[Appreciative laughter. Murmurs of “Good one, Ed.” ]

“This pencil is hexagonal — check. It sits nicely in the hand — check. It can be used by both righties and lefties — check. And most importantly, it has the colors we’ve been trying to put together now for what must be two whole years — check.”

[Dramatic pause.]

“Only problem I see is what to call the thing. Hank?”

“Well, we just finished work on the 515. How about National’s 516?”

“That’s a good suggestion, Hank, a good suggestion. But I think we need for this pencil to have something about it that is going to stick in the customer’s mind. I want something that will make a little light go on and make the customer think of National. Al?”

“How about ‘Fuse-Tex’?”

[Awkward silence.]

“Fuse-Tex?”

“No, ‘Fuse-Tex,’ with quotation marks.”

“Double or single?”

“Well, when we’re talking, single. But on the pencil, double.”

[Increasingly awkward silence.]

“Boys, guess what? I like it! It’ll set us apart from the competition. ‘Fuse-Tex.’ I can imagine a customer in a store: ‘Gimme a couple of them “Fuse-Tex” pencils.’”

“But Ed, what’s it mean?”

[A brief silence.]

“Ed, if I may make a suggestion, it needs something more. How about if we add a touch of color? How about ‘National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint’?”

“Nice handling of your quotation marks there, Ralph. Okay. But Skytint, well . . . that’d make me kind of think of sky. Can’t we get the red in there in some kind of way? Yes, Andy?”

“How about ‘National’s “Fuse-Tex” Skytint Red & Blue’?”

“&?”

“I meant and.”

“Boys, now that’s a pencil that sounds like something! Yes, Hank?”

“Don’t forget the 516.”

[This post is the thirteenth in an occasional series, “From the Museum of Supplies.” Supplies is my word, and has become my family’s word, for all manner of stationery items. The museum is imaginary. The supplies are real. Skytint has a 1931 trademark. Fuse-Tex, first used in 1944, has a 1946 trademark. The names appear on a number of National’s pencils. If you liked this story, you should spend some time in the Museum.]

Other Museum of Supplies exhibits
Dennison’s Gummed Labels No. 27 : Eagle Turquoise display case : Eagle Verithin display case : Fineline erasers : Illinois Central Railroad Pencil : A Mad Men sort of man, sort of : Mongol No. 2 3/8 : Moore Metalhed Tacks : Pedigree Pencil : Real Thin Leads : Rite-Rite Long Leads : Stanley carpenter’s rule