monoceros blogsI have several Moleskine notebooks - a daily planner, a book for ideas, and one for poems (from my bouncy friend at overacuppa). Famous oilcloth-bound notebooks with an elastic band. I discovered them when I was a student in Florence and I got my supply from a little store that sold delightful things like marbled paper, brass seals, and colored wax sticks. I found them also in the U.N. Building in New York City, and recently, in the Borders store in Ann Arbor.
Bruce Chatwin, among other famous writers and artists (see the website for a list, and also explore the link "Stories" - some people have put delightful things in their notebooks), brought them with him on his travels. Sadly, they stopped making the notebooks, as Chatwin notes in Songlines. Legend has it that he emptied a shop (or all shops?!) in Paris of Moleskine notebooks (he ordered a hundred of them for his journey to Australia) - "Le vrai moleskine n?est plus" would have been the reply of the stationery shop's owner if you wanted to buy a Moleskine at the time.
Thankfully, they're making them again. Modo and Modo, an Italian company, are the nice folks behind the revival, and I'm really pleased I can still buy them. I wonder if they're available in Singapore. I'll certainly miss using Moleskines if they don't stock them back home. And here's my daily planner (my ideas notebook is bound in blue fabric) with the traditional black cloth.
And that's my little Stikfas friend, just newly put together, who was designed and made in Singapore. More on Stikfas in another entry!
moleskin rules... :C) they are also on a revival here...
Posted by: tiggie at January 22, 2005 7:55 AMwhat do you use your moleskine for, tigs?
Posted by: monoceros at January 23, 2005 9:50 PMheh, i have stikfas too!
(and a story to boot, but i'll leave that for anor day).
Posted by: a l at January 23, 2005 10:00 PMHa! a l, we have too many things in common. =) Do tell the story soon. Looking forward to it. Do you have plenty of stikfas or just a couple?
Posted by: monoceros at January 23, 2005 10:20 PM=) i have quite a few stikfas, but most of them are still in their boxes! (i'll see if i can take a pic of them later tonight...)
Posted by: al at January 24, 2005 1:12 AMi'm going to start one for my random kitchen experiments because the old one which i've created from a little Muji notebook is getting too small... but i really like the brown pages...
i've been contemplating about putting poems, sketches and thoughts in another one -- the problem is that i've been given so many nice notebooks/journal-like books that need to be used at some point... some i've used e.g. one little book which ruth gave me many years ago, contain some of my silly and crappy poems but i could do with more space... and there's a proper little sketchbook i have which i stupidly left in singapore... it has some silly pictures of cats, flowers and random colourful things in them... would be nice to combine them into one spiffy artsy-travel-log. what do you think?!
Posted by: tiggie at January 24, 2005 8:13 AMsurely you know of www.moleskinerie.com ? Go see. where moleskine lovers converge and share their pages (and even writing instruments used for their moleskines)
moleskines are sold at kinokuniya and mango tango bookshop (tanglin mall). the latter has a limited collection (e.g. when I went to look -- no 2005 diary, hmph)
thanks, queenie. I actually haven't been to the website before, so thanks for the link. Good to know that Kino sells them. I hope they have a wide range of the products. And that they don't jack up the prices!
Posted by: monoceros at January 26, 2005 9:22 PMGosh, Tigs, sorry, I forgot to reply to your comment! I think using a Moleskine for kitchen experiments is a great idea. And fill it with pictures of your food, if you can. And poems and sketches in another one would be great - so one culinary and one literary!
Ha, I have a collection too of unused journals. Too pretty to use! But I think the plain-ness of the Moleskine makes it easier to use for lots of writing. The other nice ones, I feel like I can't just put any rubbish in it, or it'll go to waste.
Posted by: monoceros at January 27, 2005 8:05 PMdon't worry about it!!
can't wait to start on the little 'projects' but there's always so much in the way.... drats... :CP
Posted by: tiggie at January 28, 2005 10:05 AM