Writers are supposed to have some mystical bond with their pens. With solemn gravity, in places like Paris Review interviews, they are asked what they write with, as if their pen strokes were what readers ultimately consumed. At times, I feel as if I should have some weighty, burnished fountain pen that, as that ad for some luxury product goes, I don’t own but merely “look after for the next generation.” But as a left-hander with world-historically abysmal handwriting — in college, college, I once had to read an essay out loud to an indulgent professor from my exam blue book — I have never managed much affection for manual writing instruments.
That changed some years ago when an architect friend introduced me to the pleasures of inexpensive Japanese pens. In a small black notebook with graph-paper pages, he was incessantly sketching or inscribing with a precision that left me achingly envious. His to-do lists were works of Vitruvian wonder. If only my own writing could look so exact, then my very thoughts might become more clear. One day, I took a closer look at his pen. It was thin, plastic and decorated with kanji characters. “Kinokuniya,” he said. “You’ve got to go.”
And so, on a lunch break from the main branch of the New York Public Library, I made my first of countless pilgrimages to that Japanese bookstore. Feeling a bit too much like the sort of trenchcoat-wearing creep who used to inhabit Times Square, I would, semifurtively, repair to the stationery department with a frequency that probably made the security guy nervous.
There, arrayed like a kind of shrine, was the pen collection. Not behind glass, not packaged, just there, a thousand vessels of ink to be held, examined and written with on helpfully supplied pieces of paper. The variety was staggering. Where an American shop would offer some desultory Paper Mate ballpoints in blue and black, here were countless brands I had never heard of, in a ridiculous spectrum of colors, with more nib sizes than I knew existed. In a sweaty otaku fervor — like those fanboys who haunt Tokyo’s manga shops — I would carefully pick a dozen and scuttle back to the library.
The pen that emerged as my favorite, always clipped on a shirt pocket or floating in my satchel, was the Uni-ball Signo UM-151, in black gel ink with a 0.38-mm tip. It is manufactured by the Mitsubishi Pencil Company of Tokyo. (It is not, however, part of the large keiretsu that makes Mitsubishi cars, electronics, chemicals and hundreds of other products — though this is a common misconception.)
For me, the pen’s virtues are multifarious. The cost is such that I do not mind if I lose it (almost inevitably, I will). Aesthetically, there is the sleek silhouette, the smooth barrel, the graceful link of the arcing clip to the gentle curving cap; viewed on its side, the pen perfectly evokes a Shinkansen bullet train. I love the way the silver conical tip sits visible through its clear plastic housing, like a rocket waiting to be deployed. I love the small black rubber grip, with its pairs of dimples, arranged in a pattern whose logic evades but intrigues me. The pen slides discreetly into a pocket, and like a sinuous dagger it just feels meant to be held.
I often make notes in between lines on drafts, so I write in a small script. And yet, as I already find the act of handwriting so taxing — using a standard ballpoint feels to me like shoveling dirt — I need this to be as effortless as possible. The Signo, for me, hits the perfect balance between surgical accuracy and lubricating ink flow; there’s enough ink to help the pen glide smoothly along the page with grace, but not so much that, as I’m a lefty, it smudges. Of course, at times the 0.38-mm nib, like most small nibs, can admittedly be a bit scratchy. Brad Dowdy, who runs the wonderful blog The Pen Addict, calls this “feedback.” Wider tips offer a smoother ride, but with less awareness of what you are doing. I like to use a car analogy: In a small, highly tuned sports car, you feel the nuances of the road. In a big lumbering S.U.V., you drive in vaguely anesthetized comfort.
That changed some years ago when an architect friend introduced me to the pleasures of inexpensive Japanese pens. In a small black notebook with graph-paper pages, he was incessantly sketching or inscribing with a precision that left me achingly envious. His to-do lists were works of Vitruvian wonder. If only my own writing could look so exact, then my very thoughts might become more clear. One day, I took a closer look at his pen. It was thin, plastic and decorated with kanji characters. “Kinokuniya,” he said. “You’ve got to go.”And so, on a lunch break from the main branch of the New York Public Library, I made my first of countless pilgrimages to that Japanese bookstore. Feeling a bit too much like the sort of trenchcoat-wearing creep who used to inhabit Times Square, I would, semifurtively, repair to the stationery department with a frequency that probably made the security guy nervous.
There, arrayed like a kind of shrine, was the pen collection. Not behind glass, not packaged, just there, a thousand vessels of ink to be held, examined and written with on helpfully supplied pieces of paper. The variety was staggering. Where an American shop would offer some desultory Paper Mate ballpoints in blue and black, here were countless brands I had never heard of, in a ridiculous spectrum of colors, with more nib sizes than I knew existed. In a sweaty otaku fervor — like those fanboys who haunt Tokyo’s manga shops — I would carefully pick a dozen and scuttle back to the library.
The pen that emerged as my favorite, always clipped on a shirt pocket or floating in my satchel, was the Uni-ball Signo UM-151, in black gel ink with a 0.38-mm tip. It is manufactured by the Mitsubishi Pencil Company of Tokyo. (It is not, however, part of the large keiretsu that makes Mitsubishi cars, electronics, chemicals and hundreds of other products — though this is a common misconception.)
For me, the pen’s virtues are multifarious. The cost is such that I do not mind if I lose it (almost inevitably, I will). Aesthetically, there is the sleek silhouette, the smooth barrel, the graceful link of the arcing clip to the gentle curving cap; viewed on its side, the pen perfectly evokes a Shinkansen bullet train. I love the way the silver conical tip sits visible through its clear plastic housing, like a rocket waiting to be deployed. I love the small black rubber grip, with its pairs of dimples, arranged in a pattern whose logic evades but intrigues me. The pen slides discreetly into a pocket, and like a sinuous dagger it just feels meant to be held.
I often make notes in between lines on drafts, so I write in a small script. And yet, as I already find the act of handwriting so taxing — using a standard ballpoint feels to me like shoveling dirt — I need this to be as effortless as possible. The Signo, for me, hits the perfect balance between surgical accuracy and lubricating ink flow; there’s enough ink to help the pen glide smoothly along the page with grace, but not so much that, as I’m a lefty, it smudges. Of course, at times the 0.38-mm nib, like most small nibs, can admittedly be a bit scratchy. Brad Dowdy, who runs the wonderful blog The Pen Addict, calls this “feedback.” Wider tips offer a smoother ride, but with less awareness of what you are doing. I like to use a car analogy: In a small, highly tuned sports car, you feel the nuances of the road. In a big lumbering S.U.V., you drive in vaguely anesthetized comfort.
by Tom Vanderbilt, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Hannah Whitaker for The New York Times. Prop stylist: Randi Brookman Harris
