A What!?

Herewith a cultural note. I was looking for what looked like a rather nice product, a Staedtler 5-nib Calligraphy Set—intended as a gift. The Web told me that Walmart had it, and so to Walmart I went to get it. Amazon had it too, but Amazon imposes a wait.

I confess I kind of doubted that Walmart would really have it. The nearest such store to us is a sad ghost of Walmarts in more aggressively prosperous regions. But I went anyway. As I marched along I came across two rather young Walmart ladies, best to call them girls: they seemed barely in their twenties. Not trusting that the word “calligraphy” would have much traction here, I asked: “I’m looking for some fountain pens.”

Both ladies gave me strange, puzzled looks. “Fountain pen? What’s that?” I swear to you their puzzlement was genuine. I said: “It’s a pen that you write with.” Just at that point another Walmart lady came out of an aisle; she, however, was in her middle forties. The girls turned to her. “He is looking for a fountain pen,” one of them said to her. “What is that?” The older lady fortunately answered them in exactly the same words I had used: “It’s a pen that you write with.”

Long story shortened. I bought the calligraphy set from Amazon after all. Walmart failed me as did Office Depot. And so did a more local stationary store. But I truly do wonder what images flashed up in the minds of those two young girls when they heard the phrase “fountain pen.” Some kind of fountain? Which also acts as a play-pen?

How do you write “I am a has been” if you don’t have an iPhone or your thumbs are sore?

Of Pens and Nibs and Ribs

The pen’s an object writers must possess!

A means, of course, it doesn’t spell success.

And of the pen itself the most important part,

The thing that gives it spirit, soul, and heart,

Is that metallic tip of it, its nib.

It is, let’s say, the writer’s thirteenth rib—

To make a nod, with tongue in cheek, to God

Who, if the text is right, instead of flawed,

Used Adam’s rib to write the script for Eve.

Or perhaps that rib meant to deceive.

The Hebrew might be read another way:

God might have nudged Adam a bit astray:

“From your own rib is where the woman sprang;

She’s merely yin and You are proudly yang,

(But as for Eve, she was right up My sleeve,

A wonder a mere man cannot conceive.)”

Now as for nibs, to get back to my subject,

The finest nib’s the worthiest of object,

And the writer lucky who gets as a gift

Two fine-nibbed pens to labor on his shrift.

The Fountain Pen

I met my very first ballpoint pen at age nine in 1945, and immediately felt repelled. The object has come to symbolize decay for me. In those days people thought the new instrument amazing and advanced:  “Imagine, you don’t have to fill it!” But its performance left much to be desired, especially the early incarnations. Their ink flowed unevenly and frequently left little blobs adhering to the letters at random points. At nine, yes, even in war-torn Europe, I already owned a fountain pen; it was my prized possession, more honored and valued even than my folding knife. — I have to laugh. I glanced at my desk just now and saw—I hadn’t consciously noticed until the last sentence triggered something—a three-bladed folding knife next to three pens on my desk—still. Nothing’s changed in six plus decades.

But actually much has changed. The ballpoint pen has become better and better and better—cheaper and cheaper and cheaper too. Roller-balls and all sorts of other “markers” (as in Hank Dooda, his mark) have displaced it. And real fountain pens have been transformed from utilitarian objects of everyday use into symbolic tokens or collectors’ items. To be sure, there is a hardcore out there tenaciously clinging to the fountain men—in numbers large enough to maintain a large industry—but in everyday use, and in a visit to Staples or Office Depot, you look in vain.

Now, mind you, I’ve never been a Mont Blanc fetishist or anything even approaching that. I’ve never owned one. I’ve used Sheaffers, Parkers, Watermans, and Pelicans all of my life (still do) and liked them all. My most used pen has always been the cheap Sheaffer cartridge variety, fine nib. These used to sell for less than $3 and came with three cartridges to get you started. Then, some years ago, Sheaffer stopped to sell such pens and with a flourish converted to the roller-balls. And those of us who used the pens were “rolled,” as it were.

The secret of the fountain pen is in its nib, two pieces of metal joining at its tip. Using such an extension, the hand, the brain, and finally the heart receive a kind of faint, heavenly feedback, especially if the paper is decent. And on the paper itself, the subtle shifts in motion of now the left and now the right side of the nib itself leave a visual impression much more pleasing than the drab ball or roller-ball leave behind. At one point many years ago I discovered calligraphy. I bought myself a set of Osmiroid pens but only really used the finest nib—and for writing ordinary things, like diaries. The tactile and visual pleasure of using such a pen is difficult to convey. It occurs to me, pondering this, that the fountain pen, in an odd sort of way, represents one of the interesting points of fusion between sensory and spiritual experience. Writing certainly belongs to the latter category. I owe the photo to Greg Minuskin’s site: a place pen-lovers ought to visit.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Yes. But is the ballpoint? Or the roller ball?