Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell is one of my three favorite counts. He recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal about pencils:
Q. Will the pencil go the way of the quill pen?Yes, there are executive types who have their e-mail printed out for them, but e-mail annotation seems like a dubious basis for resisting extinction. And Faber-Castell pencils are hardly the semi-disposable supply-room products that disappear from desks in a workplace. I wish that the Count had spoken of the pencil as a tool for writing. People are indeed writing things out on legal pads, on music paper, and in notebooks. Why not proclaim the tactile joys of writing on paper?
A. May I ask you a question? Have you ever seen a paperless office? People may not be writing things out on legal pads but they like to print out e-mail and make notations. Then pencils and pens disappear and you go grab another.
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6:54 p.m.: Here’s the Count talking about pencils with, of all people, Martha Stewart. Thanks, Sean.
Related reading
All pencil posts (Pinboard)
[My other favorite counts: Basie and von Count.]