Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 07:38 AM

And get the lead out!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 07:27 AM

I must confess to an unnatural passion for the purple, black and white 'W H Smith's own brand' pencils... a deep violet with a glowing white band, tipped with deep, sparkling, patent-leather looking black... I always bought the 2B or 4B, but once I strayed from the path with a 6B... so soft and deep... unforgetable.

I'm having to make do with Crayola sketching pencils at present... they have the same sort of depth and texture but the outsides are a dull grey with light grey tops.. just not the same as the rich and sensual royal purple pencils of my youth...

LTS

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 09:09 PM

And once more, dear friends, into the breach; turn away from your leads and your rubbers, and give your crayons all a fond farewell; for we, brothers beyond all points, beyond all lines, are bound in our veins to a common duty and we must away.

A

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: quokka
Date: 31 Oct 08 - 05:55 AM

Laughing so much at this thread I've just gotta refresh it

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Auggie
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 07:39 PM

Everytime I start to think that I just might perhaps, be half way intellegent, I read something by Peter T., and all my illusions fade to grey.

I was already lurking tho not posting back when this thread 1st appeared, but must have missed it. Thanks for refreshing LEJ.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Snuffy
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 06:36 PM

The French teacher in Wales lived at Penmaennant

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 07:31 AM

La plume de ma tante.


Some old French teacher, I would think.
Sometime last century.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 03:19 PM

Laissez-nous escriver d'antan, alors
Lorsque nous avons devenu les implements
Qu'autrefois on utilisait pour communiquer
Voila--nous avons devenu rien de valoire
Mais enfin, capable d'etre ecrit!

Antoine D'Exegesis
Montelimar, 1957

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 01:39 PM

It was nearly five years ago that I administered the coup-de-grace to this bizarre but fascinating thread. In the light of the current thread seeking a lost pencil, I was reminded of Miss Eberhardt/Faber, and decided to resurrect this Mudcat Golden Age relic.

Ecrivez-vous avec amour, mes amis
Et les motes tres mal

-Emile Pouilly-Fousse'

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:35 PM

One of their guests was,yep,Ralph Nader. I saw a section of one show that featured John,Yoko and,I believe,Henny Youngman,making random calls to numbers in the New York Phone Book just to tell whoever answered the phone that they loved them.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:21 PM

No, it is absolutely true. There is still some film of it around I have seen. I think they came on a Monday, and Mike was so thrilled that he had them on for the rest of the week. They had one or two odd guests on (a Black Panther or something, I forget exactly). Of course, I was in school, so never saw it. Totally bizarre: this sort of middle class set, and middle class audience, and plonked in the middle, J & Y.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 10:04 AM

Peter, are you pulling our leg? Being a useless info junkie, I'm surprised I haven't heard of this. Perhaps the worst thing is that considering the times we live in I actually think it was POSSIBLE. Please, I'm willing to laugh, and say "Ha, Ha, Peter, you really got me to bite on this one....."

I wasn't fooled for a second on the "Max's April Fool's prank", but this? This? Say it ain't so!

Rick

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 09:38 AM

What I never figured out was how John Lennon and Yoko Ono ended up co-hosting a week of The Mike Douglas Show. What was that?

yours, Peter T. (true ancient history)

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: raredance
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 11:48 PM

I had a bleistift once, but I was so much younger then, I'm older than that now.

rich r

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:49 PM

groan

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Mbo
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:43 PM

Who was the little Italian?

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:38 PM

Ouch! Peter,I don't mind the dagger,but do you have to twist it when you yank it out?

Yeah,Al and I did a stint at the Betty Ford clinic together.He was a Doctor and a humanitarian,I needed prescription drugs and someone to hang with.And Mother Teresa,or "Mama T" as we called her...let's just say she had a bit of a wild streak.Nobody hears about the little Italian heart-breaker in the mini-skirt and white go-go boots who busted her behind to make a living on Division Street anymore.Now she's a candidate for Sainthood.Guess you never can tell.

But why dredge this stuff up? Nobody's interested in me and my Humanitarian past anymore than they'd be interested to hear about you and the one-armed podiatrist from Avenel,New Jersey, and the long weekend at the Seville Hotel in Niagara Falls with all the rubber clothing.Water under the bridge,says I.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:48 PM

"And Mike, LEJ is -- well, how can I put this -- LEJ is a great humanitarian magnet. When he comes into a room, the Albert Schweitzers and the Mother Teresas head for him, like flies to honey. Boom, LEJ Sans Frontieres. Why I once saw the head of the International Red Cross fighting for his autograph. And a blood sample. But, hey. HM."

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Benjamin
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:28 PM

Maybe that's why I have a hard time writing lyrics. I never use the same pencil! I never knew the relationship one could have with a pencil!
Then again, it might be that I have had a hard time gathering my thoughts with life being SO busy these days!
I think I'll try using the same pencil now though! But do they mind being sharpened?

BMW

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:26 PM

Christ,what is this "The Mike Douglas Show"?

"Ladies and gentlemen,this guy is one of the foremost actors in the business,and a genuinely wonderful..."

"NOW wait a minute,Mike! I just wanted to say to the audience that this man has done more for this business than most people even dream about,in addition to the fine humanitarian.."

LEJ(a terrific bullshitter,and one hell of a great American)

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:10 PM

But can he figure out bass runs? No. For that you need the real BM (babe magnet, the guy is electromagnetic)!!!

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 04:58 PM

Rick,it doesn't really sound like he needs any help right now,the Silver-tongued Devil.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peg
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 04:56 PM

hey, I'll take Ralph WITH the Camaro!!! He's the MAN!!!

(Peg, who went to the Nader-LaDuke rally in Boston yesterday)

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 04:33 PM

I can tell you for a fact, Mudcatters of the female persuasion, Peter T is a catch! Picture Thor heyerdahl (with better English), Peter O'Toole with real hair, George Martin without the Knighthood (still a possibility) or Ralph Nader without the Camaro.

He's a heck of a nice guy as well.

Rick

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Biskit
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 04:28 PM

:) -Biskit- (:

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peg
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 03:46 PM

Was it Cleopatra who said "He words me, girls, he words me." ???

Beautiful, Peter. If intelligence is the greatest aphrodisiac, eloquence must be an important sub-category: Belgian chocolates, perhaps?

I agree, that piece is publish-worthy, send it out already!

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: mousethief
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 02:36 PM

On a completely different subject, the book "The Pencil" by Henry Petroski is a wonderful jaunt through the history of non-ink-based writing implements, and particularly the graphite pencil. Delightful book for us geeks who think "adventures in engineering" sounds like a fascinating name for a new TV show.

Alex
O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: GUEST,Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 02:22 PM

Thanks for the compliments, and the contributions. I forgot to mention Heather - 4H - a farm girl.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:59 AM

Gawd you guys are good!

"Etymologically , a pencil is a 'little penis'. It originally denoted a 'paintbrush' - the current sense 'writing implement filled with a graphite rod' did not emerge until the 17th century - and came via Old French pincel from Vulgar Latin *penicellum, an alteration of Latin penicillum 'paintbrush'.

This was a diminutive form of peniculus 'brush', which was in turn a diminutive of penis. Penis originally meant 'tail' (whence the metaphor of the 'brush'), and only by extension was it used for 'male sex organ' (in which sense English adopted it as penis."

-Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins, John Ayto, 1990

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 02:45 AM

Don't speak to me of pencils.What good have they done me...no,I mustn't say "they"...for in truth there was only the one.She was an Eberhardt/Faber #2.Modest,unassuming,lying in her box with her sisters among all the other stationary products in the High School bookstore.But I knew she was the one. I would tuck her away in my pencil-box,and we would go for mad spins through the countryside on my Raleigh 5-speed.Together,we would collapse laughing beneath some gnarled elm,where I would take her firmly in my grasp and together we would create the poems that are the only things I have left of her.Beautiful,sensitive things like
"The windmills of my mind turn slowly
Breezes of inspiration brush the ever-turning blades
Immune to onslaughts by the Don Quixotes of Conformity"
..and we would collapse,breathless and sated in that leafy bower.

For months,years I kept her by my side,safe in her little plastic box,taking her out only for those special spells of inspiration that would oft come upon me in those days,or perhaps to(gently)sharpen her.And though my love remained strong,my loyalty unquestionable,I was well aware that a grotesque change was coming over her.For...she was growing shorter.Slowly,inexorably,and even though I was completely meticulous in the sharpening process,I knew what was happening.She was turning into a stub.

I began to use her less,slipping a ball-point into her old spot in the pencil case,leaving her at home on the dresser,or on my desk at work.Until,one day, she was gone. Oh I searched for her. I looked in every coat pocket,under every bed,in darkened corners...in short,everywhere a pencil gone wrong might end up.Sleep eluded me.I even went to my physician for a prescription for sleeping pills.I watched in shock as he pulled my pencil from a desk drawer and scribbled incoherent babblings on his pad."No!"I shouted,"For God's sake don't abuse her in that way" and I seized him by the throat.As the pen toppled from his hand,I saw the Big Chief stamped on its side,and knew it was not her at all.

But that was many years ago.I now use only keyboards or cold mechanical pencils,and with the help of massive doses of St John's Wort,I have put her quietly in my memory.But sometimes,on a warm summer day,I drive past the old elm where we spent so many creative moments,and a tear comes to my eye.And just for a second, I seem to smell the thinnest aroma of graphite in the sun-laden air.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: sophocleese
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 01:03 AM

Peter T. you have done a marvelous job of describing your tools. You have caressed them and flattered them with loving names and poignant memories. You have plunged the depths and left the surface unremarked. But what have you used in this exploration? What have you stained, crumpled up and thrown away?

Did you start with a cheap, corner store diary? Its binding stiff and inflexible, you had to coax it to open. It may even have had a lock with a key that rested in some safe place close to your heart or your desk. In a frantic hurry you would wrench it open to pour forth graphitic meanderings. You held it close and secret until you filled it, then you abandoned it, lost in some lonely, dusty corner of your room, or bound silent in a cardboard box.

What came after? Were these pens and pencils, these women in your life used then to cover page after blue-lined page of three-holed notepaper? Exciting in its dual capabilities for order and anarchy. Arrange them neatly in a binder and you have a story. Then a click of the metal button, a subtle twist of the wrist and they scatter, fall, form and reform themselves through chance and breeze into new orders, easily stirred by the passing footsteps of classmates and strangers, and you have a screen play.

Or did you choose instead to scrawl in the margins of other's works? Tracing the imaginations of published writers to mark your own thoughts on drab pages; highlighting the best parts and leaving the others in merciful oblivion.

What of that frantic time when funds were low and infrequent? Did you use the backs of torn envelopes, old posters and tax receipts;exquisite descriptions of external landscape sprawled over the endless, minute calculations of internal revenue and postage due.

And that last experiment with a luxurious pad of high quality sketching paper. Paper you could sink your pencil into for days at a time, over and over again. Rich, warm paper that distracted you so you doodled and drew and forgot all language in your exploration of its ivory perfections.

Tell us Peter, tell us of the papers that you have used. The wine has got to my head and I want to know.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Tinker
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:48 PM

Not sure when I'll stop laughing. I didn't mention on the previous thread that my husband was so agreeable to a new guitar, because he wanted a new pen. His heart is set on a Diablo, and his budget by my new guitar.... But for pencils he swears by Black Warriors.
I've been definatively taught that no keyboard can compose like a fine tool.
Still smiling
Tinker

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:16 PM

Yeah, Mbo...pretty sure of it!

LilNeo, would that be Past Wives, as in women you were married to, as a man, in past lives?**BG**

Nice to see your humour back amongst us, darlin'!

kat

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:14 PM

Does anyone get the impression the Peter is a babe magnet?

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 06:01 PM

Very good Peter
How about I start your next chapter about rubbers and removing error and sin from our lives and the people we have vainly tried over and over to erase from our memory.
I know, I'll start a new thread and call it Past Wives in homage of the Past Lives thread.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:51 PM

Peter, Funk of Funk and Wagnells, wrote that grammar and glamour were once the same word? My little Ox agrees etymologically. Today you shoved those two words back together with your magnificent piece of prose. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:48 PM

Spaw wished a woman would eat his pencil.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:44 PM

Poetry and SATIRE??? say what? HOLY SHIT! You mean this was a joke? Well shitfire bub.......

Spaw

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Wavestar
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:39 PM

Poetry and satire well blended.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:16 PM

You never cease to enchant and astound with eloquence and imagery, Peter! Superb! May I be your next pencil?*gentle smile*

kat

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Lanfranc
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 05:07 PM

"For oft, when on my couch I lie, in vacant or in pencil mood, they flash upon that inward eye that is the bliss of solitude"

As one who vividly remembers the blueish tongue that came with licking copying ink pencils, I now have a new concept of oral sex!

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:53 PM

Well I fell in love with my pencil (it says 0.5mm Pentil P205) many years ago and have always remained faithful.

Jon

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:31 PM

However, it must be said that Nosepicks are de rigeur on this thread.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:31 PM

Rick, I first read that as 'writing couch'!

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:27 PM

Now I know this will be controversial, but I prefer a mahogany model to the accepted Rosewood. The words may not be louder, but they have a "sweeter" meaning. Now let's face it, you're not going to become Shakepeare just because you have a pre-war HB, but if you practice two hours a day, buy all the books that were written with the same model, get yourself a writing coach....well you COULD become as good as the Earl of Oxford.

Now nobody's mentioned erasers. I strongly advise "Gummo Supremos". Yep you're right they are named after the "Talented" Marx Brother.

Whether to wear finger picks or not? Some decisions are entirely personal.

Rick

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:14 PM

hahhahahah So funny. Thanks, Peter. And I hope Rick gets as big a laugh out of it.

I have always liked being a woman- but at last I know what pencil envy is. (Thanks, flattop!)

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Dizzie
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 04:04 PM

Well Peter you sure took the lead out of Rick's pencil.
Shug

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: flattop
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:45 PM

Are you getting pencil envy too, spaw?

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: catspaw49
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:40 PM

Well stroked. Very well stroked.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: SINSULL
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:30 PM

Peter,BR>This belongs in the Times "Endpaper". Classic.

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: hesperis
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:22 PM

Wow!

Berol Prismacolor for me, although they can be very temperamental. I took some to school once and some Grade 9 guys threw my pencil case across the room. Ever tried drawing with shattered lead? You can't sharpen the things.

For writing , I will use anything as long as it's an HB pencil, but for drawing, I am very picky.

The only pens I like are calligraphy pens, the flowery, romantic, old-fashioned ones. And I use those for word art more than for plain writing. And not for scribbling shopping lists, God, no!

Subject: RE: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: DougR
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:14 PM

Who dares to compete with that? Very good, Peter T!

DougR

Subject: Girls 59 Pencils 60. Holy Cow!
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Oct 00 - 03:07 PM

In homage to the Martin guitar thread:

Now, of course, they are in a special cabinet of their own, with the humidity and the light regulated. I bring them out when I become moody, and seek in memory the roots of my genius, and want to handle the best -- the finest woods, the balance, the history. I set them out on the table, the tools of my craft, the extensions of my self. Somehow they have all become associated over time with the women I have loved and sometimes lost. I line them up accordingly.


Trish - HB - My first pencil, I can hold it up to the light and see her tender, girlish chew marks, how I used to watch her chewing away, like a beaver with those pre- braced teeth, and the day I stole it from her desk when she wasn't watching. It has no markings, so I do not know where it came from before that. Stubby, mysterious.

Katy - 2B - that is the question. From her father's golf bag, blue, short. She scribbled her telephone number on it, as we were necking in the tangled rough by the 3rd hole. We were so young.

Sandra - 3H - hard, blunt, but my first great love, and my first serious pencil. The long yellow shaft with the exotic words, "Caran d'Ache" all over it, redolent of the promises we made to always love each other, and go and live in Paris together, and be famous like Ernest and Hadley. I was 15.

Connie - F - I am sitting in a cafe on the Left Bank, and she sees me writing my first novel, and she says what are you doing, and I say, writing, and it was as beautiful then as it was then and it will always be. She leans over from the next table, and says where did you get that pencil, and I say, from Morley Callaghan, and it is Canadian, from the Venus company, strong pencils, good wood. Not the best, but good. Good to write with. Good to capture truth: good to look into the eyes of truth with and not blink. Connie is American. It is spring. And it was good, there in Paris, writing, with that pencil, for a while. Until it wore down to the nub.

Dominique -- Parker Pen, gold nib - I am writing my second novel, and nothing is working, and Connie has gone, and Dominique walks by and says, perhaps you should try something more permanent? And she hands me her Parker 51. A pen. Perhaps it is time at long last to grow up. And so I learn about ink.

Catherine -- goosequill -- I write through the evenings at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and at the next desk I can see that she is working on 15th century French plays, and one evening she turns to me and says, would you dip your quill in my inkwell?

Tammy -- Bic -- She says, hey man, can I flick your Bic? And I am flustered, since I do not smoke and have never used a ballpoint pen. I have come to New Orleans to study the settings for my new novel - Flaubert and Degas in Louisiana -- and Tammy introduces me to the Bic pen and to the electric guitar. For a time I am submerged in American subcultures, plastic, transparency, mass production, Tammy.

Antonia -- Toison D'Or -- 6B -- I am in New York Sohoat the launch of my book, and she hands me this and says: "Could you write in it: Love is like glass blowing." I take the pencil, a special drawing pencil. She says it is the best. From the Bohemia Works in Czechslovakia. As the Martin guitar is to the guitar, so the Toison d'Or pencil is to the pencil. Black lines, beautiful balance, cuts without tip breakage. Drawing pencils! We go back to her studio, and draw all night. I have never known such a range of pencils: some soft, some hard, some medium, all perfect in their own way. And in the end she is very soft, very 6B.

Jennifer - Rotring Techpen - She sizes me up, no nonsense. An engineer, with sliding rules. Swift, sure, calculating, we'll build that bridge when we come to it. Tragically killed by one of her own buildings falling on her. I pulled the pen free.

Now? The best pencil? Oh, there are contenders. Derwent Graphic. Berol. Canada Venus (such a redolent name), still makes good cheap pencils that are improving. But, you ask the pros, and 56 times out of 57, you will hear Toison d'Or. The Japanese have made copies, pretty good, but in the blind writings, it still comes out the same. And for this I have to thank my Antonia. Which is why, when I look up from my array of writing tools, it is her I see, beckoning me to the drawing room. I have tried all the rest, but pencil me in - Toison d'Or. Antonia.

In the next chapter I discuss the bitter world of erasers, the futile attempt to remove error and sin from our lives: and the women who I have vainly tried over and over to erase from my memory.