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The greatest pencil story ever told Sean has added an epilogue to the story of his journey to Stein, Germany, home of pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell.

Bernhard’s cat

When Daughter Number Three identified the typeface on an old title page as Bernhard Gothic, she suggested that I look up the designer, Lucian Bernhard (1883–1972). So I did.

My first discovery: Bernhard was a graphic designer as well as a type designer. The second: Bernhard was an important figure in the development of the modern advertising poster, particularly the Sachplakat or object poster, which depicted an object, a brand name, and little or nothing more.¹ It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’d seen Bernhard’s work before, in an early-twentieth-century Pelikan advertisement. What I didn’t know is that Bernhard’s work was to be found in the advertising of my childhood, most memorably as the logo of the Cat’s Paw Rubber Company, maker of heels and soles.² Here are two versions of Bernhard’s cat, patron cat of "master shoe repairers” and “favorite shoe rebuilders”:


[Life, April 4, 1960. Click for a larger view.]


[Life, October 4, 1963. Click for a larger view.]

The best items about Lucian Bernhard that I found: an essay and a slideshow-lecture by Steven Heller.

¹ Apple advertisements seem to me to owe something to the Sachplakat. I’m not alone.

² I found three different dates for the cat design: 1936, 1941, 1947. Choose the one you like.

[I’ve tinkered with the color in the second ad to make up for Google’s lousy scan. Cat’s Paw products are still available.]

How to be a student a professor will remember (for the right reasons)

[As the semester begins.]

Here are five suggestions. They assume a professor who is willing to engage in dialogue with students and a student who is interested in such dialogue.

1. Don’t blend in, and don’t tune out. Sit near the front of the room. Put away your phone and earbuds well before (not when) class begins. Have the relevant reading at hand. Listen and take notes.

2. Take part in the action. If a class is devoted to discussion, pitch in. Make your contributions relevant to the flow of discussion: if your professor has just posed a question for students to consider, don’t raise your hand to introduce a different topic.

4. Try to get a conversation going. Ask questions after class every now and then (good questions, not “What’s my grade?”). Talk to your professor during office hours, at least occasionally. You can do these things without being mistaken for a would-be confidant or a pest.

5. If you come across something in the larger world relevant to the work of the course, e-mail your professor about it. Everyone appreciates news about things that interest them.

These suggestions have nothing to do with sucking up and everything to do with what it means to be a participant in a community devoted to learning — which is not the same as just being in college.

[I know there are only four suggestions. But five is a magic number on the Internets. That’s Charles Demuth’s I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold to the left. “Everyone appreciates news about things that interest them”: yes, I think singular they is okay there.]

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January 9, 2014: In a comment, Steve Woodland suggests a candidate for the missing no. 3: it’s Rule 7: “The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.” Rule 7 is now no. 3. Thanks, Steve, for the perfect addition to this set of suggestions.

Word of the evening: hobbledehoy

“I have no time for training young hobbledehoys”: Mr. Carson, in tonight’s episode of Downton Abbey.

The Oxford English Dictionary explains: “A youth at the age between boyhood and manhood, a stripling; esp. a clumsy or awkward youth.” The OED traces hobbledehoy to 1540 and calls it “a colloquial word of unsettled form and uncertain origin.” Here’s a wonderful citation from the Pall Mall Gazette (1891):

There is nowadays an immense public of hobbledehoys — of all ages — and there are even men of culture and critical capacity who take a perverse pleasure in affecting hobbledehoyhood.

Still the case, I’d say.

Why am I watching Downton Abbey? It’s about as deep as a paper plate. But there’s some fine acting.

Our future selves, ourselves

The New York Times has a good article on research into self-perception. Psychologist Daniel T. Gilbert:

“Middle-aged people — like me — often look back on our teenage selves with some mixture of amusement and chagrin . . . . What we never seem to realize is that our future selves will look back and think the very same thing about us. At every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we’re wrong.”

Cliffs and metaphors

John Boehner today: “With the cliff behind us, the focus turns to spending.”

Wait a minute: if the cliff is behind us, doesn’t that mean that we’ve already — oh, never mind.

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Mark Trail makeover (2) Otto’s eyebrows and mustache have returned.

Phil Silvers in plaid

[“Phil Silvers wearing large glasses, plaid cap and suit in Top Banana.” Photograph by Ralph Morse. November 1951. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger, plaider view.]

With what the colder weather and all, it seems like a good time to remind everyone that plaid is warmer.

Fair and balanced: Phil Are Go! is not a fan of plaid.

You know you’re really a prisoner of television when . . .

. . . you pass an exit sign for Lebanon and the first thing you think is Levi.

[Lebanon: in St. Clair County, Illinois.]

The greatest pencil story ever told

At Contrapuntalism, Sean tells the story of his journey to Stein, Germany, the home of pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell. These posts form what must be the greatest pencil story ever told. Beautiful photographs too. “The Stein Way” is in three parts: 1, 2, and 3.

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January 8: And now there’s an epilogue.