Here’s a use for notebooks I hadn’t considered: documenting martial arts information. On the Martial Arts Planet forums, Shadowfax asks: How many of you keep a journal or notebook about your art(s)? I’ve been keeping a journal with diagrams showing various forms, especial fine details, notes from seminars, thoughts about sparing matches, and so on. … Continue reading Notebooks for Martial Arts
I think this photo is adorable: It’s from a blog called The Lily Pad, where the child’s mother writes: Her favorite thing is notebooks. Big notebooks, tiny notebooks, spiral notebooks, journals, blank pages, lined pages; she loves them all. I hope the love of art and writing and her imagination and creativity stay with her … Continue reading Starting Early: Kids Who Love Notebooks
Check out the blog Guitar Dad for a nice appreciation of writing things down in notebooks: Maybe it’s a carryover from my reporter days, but I constantly find myself reaching for a notebook. A lot of my jottings are mundane details that simply connect the dots in my everyday life: driving directions, lists, reminders of … Continue reading Guitar Dad Loves Jotting Things Down
The Art of Nonconformity is having a writing contest with many fabulous prizes. Ok, maybe I’d rather win the Business Class upgrade on any American Airlines flight, but one of the other prizes is a Piccadilly journal: A new journal from Piccadilly Journal. This moleskine-alternative is what I’ve been using recently. It’s better than moleskine … Continue reading Win a Piccadilly Journal
In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, there was a feature on James Corner, a landscape architect whose most notable project so far is the newly opened High Line in New York. Here’s one of the things he had to say in his answers to their questionnaire: ALWAYS IN WALLET: I just bought one of … Continue reading James Corner, Landscape Architect
Ever had that sinking feeling that your favorite notebook might have been discontinued? Here’s one person’s gripe at Moleskine: Dear Moleskine, I know in the past I’ve been a little upset, maybe even a little OCD/freaky about your decision to discontinue Extra Large Ruled Cahiers. To add insult to injury this year you introduced two … Continue reading Moleskine Monday: A Plea for XL Cahiers and Softcover Notebooks
Maybe someday I’ll be able to interview some celebrities about how they use a notebook! I caught this mention of notebooks in an article about the singer Ne-Yo: How do you relax? Writing, not necessarily writing a song, just writing in general. I have little notebooks that I carry around with me; some of them … Continue reading Ne-Yo’s Notebooks
An interesting website: tobaccodocuments.org. Apparently, part of the settlement between the tobacco industry and the states that sued it was to make all the documents used as evidence available online. Here’s a link to one example, which happens to be an 8.5 x 11″ spiral notebook made by Roaring Spring/Top Scholar. It’s hard to read, … Continue reading Notebooks as Evidence
Introducing my first (rather amateurish!) notebook video– this is a look at the notebook I just finished using. I’ll try to post more notebook videos in the future, and if any readers want to submit links to their own YouTube videos of notebooks, I’ll share those too.
Over at Moleskinerie, an interesting discussion of the merits of paper vs. electronic note-taking. What do you think?