Chortling to the Oldies

There was a bumper crop of NEWS this week, and this prompts me to retreat into comedy which is at least two decades old to be topical.

The past is a different country, isn’t it?

Today’s pen: Sheaffer 300
Today’s ink: Pelikan Violet

 

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
23 April 24 April 25 April 26 April	First draft of “Stuckman’s Miracle Men.”	29 manuscripts pages.	TWSBI Mini Pelikan M600 Parker “17” Super Waterman Super Master	Skrip Black Diamine Oxford Blue Diamine Blue Steel Waterman Florida Blue

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Back from the Future, Part II

A little while back, I offered a hair-raising trip through a pedestrian-filled San Francisco of yesteryear.  Let’s have a look at the other coast now.

That some pretty good foley work.  For some reason, I was particularly startled by the horse-drawn vehicles coming off the ferry– Reason says “Well, of course,” but Expectation was completely dumbfounded.

Today’s pen: Waterman Super Master
Today’s ink: Waterman Florida Blue

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
16 April 17 April 18 April 19 April	First draft of “Stuckman’s Miracle Men.” “Lucky Day,” a draft-and-a-half flash.	26 manuscripts pages (four of which didn’t work at all). 999 typed words.	Parker “17” Super Pelikan M600 Sheaffer 300 TWSBI Mini	Diamine Blue Steel Diamine Oxford Blue Pelikan Violet Skrip Black

Just a little note on the pens to finish off– I found myself wondering why the Parker doesn’t get into the cycle more often when I filled it on Monday morning.  Two hours later I was reminded.  There’s a factory-original vent hole in the cap at exactly the level of the point, ensuring without fail that it will dry out before next use.  Someone at Parker UK in the mid-1960s really dropped the ball.

Oh, Damn It.

The question frequently comes up on forums– “Will the security people at the airport get bent out of shape about the fountain pens I carry?”  The answer has, hitherto, been a resounding no, because (a) no one who doesn’t use them ever notices a fountain pen, and (b) they are less suited to poking a hole in a person than a ballpoint, with the pokey bit being also very bendy.

And then this nonsense happens:

Shown in picture: Absolutely no fountain pens. Not one. Because they’re boringly innocuous.

Now, if you read the whole story, you’ll find that nobody was hurt, and that one could as probably make the headline read YET ANOTHER ENTITLED GUY IN AIRLINE FIRST CLASS FALLS TO STRESS, but then we lose the exoticism of pointing to a fountain pen as a deadly weapon (which did not actually do anyone any harm).  Why couldn’t he have used a plastic airline fork, or his tie?  At least it didn’t happen with a US carrier or in US airspace, so it may not enter the script of modern security theatre.

Of course… I probably shouldn’t be making noise about it, should I?

Today’s entirely harmless pen: Pelikan M600
Today’s non-toxic ink: Diamine Oxford Blue

A Little Jaunt on a Sailboat

Today’s film is just what I say– a romantic little getaway in a canvas-powered craft.

By “romantic,” I mean “none for me, thanks.”  Just try to picture the mindset of people who would get into one of those things without any clear sense of in which precise direction or how far away the next land was.  Nuts.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M600
Today’s ink: Diamine Oxford Blue

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
2 April 3 April 4 April 5 April	Second draft of “The Monster in the Cabin,” which is, despite appearances, a much better title. “Bag of Bones,” which is a result of a Steal-a-Title Challenge I decided I should get in on.	3,627 words typed. 1,040 words.	Pilot Elite TWSBI Mini Waterman Super Master Sheaffer “TM” Triumph	Diamine Syrah Skrip Black Waterman Florida Blue Herbin Lie de Thé

I will admit that I’ve actually spent some moments giggling and clapping at the scale of the latest story– not only being able to get to “show it to the readers” stage so quickly that I can actually remember what the weather was like when I began, but being able to hold the whole of the narrative in my head easily.  All the more giddy to find I had sufficient think-tokens left in my reserves to work on a second story at the same time!

Something else I got around to setting myself up with this:

I’m not going to give it any more time on this branch of my online existence than this mention, but over at the writing preserve, it’s now an inescapable fixture in the sidebar.  I do not expect it will make me a rich person.

…but I will hope, every so slightly.

The sharp-eyed will notice that I’ve done away with the “Duration” column of the chart.  I know none of you care how long I’ve been at the task on a given day, and I’m finally convinced my own inward monitor that however long it is, it’s long enough.

Upping Their Game

I have been distracted lately, by both my (over-documented) artistic endeavours and the collapse of my site… in addition to all the other current events stuff people spend much of the day screeching about.  The distraction momentarily cleared recently, and I find that the world as I knew it has changed and one of the bedrock foundations of my understanding has become alarmingly wobbly.

I am shaken to discover that Wing Sung can no longer be discounted with, “Oh, they make the cheapest pens you can imagine.”  At least, not completely.

Two pens of recent development bring this home.  First, there’s this thing:

No, it’s not a TWSBI Diamond.

All right, I guess it is a cheap pen.  In fact, the main expense in getting a Wing Sung 3008 is the cost of postage, and even that seems to be available at a cut rate; some people are getting them for three dollars.  I do go into some detail in my profile of this pen regarding the evident cheapness of the materials, but for all that, it has a functional piston filler and it costs less than a Pilot Varsity.  If it lasts through three fills, it’s well worth the price, and mine is in the middle of its second with no sign of impending failure.

“Well, fine, but that’s just one pen, and it’s still a cheap, rickety piece of plastic.”

True.  But then there’s this other, even more recent development–

Yes, it’s a familiar shape. And yet… it’s not quite what you expect.

A lot of Wing Sung pens can be called a Parker “51” knock-off, but I’m inclined to call the 601 a loving recreation, right down to the Vacumatic filler.  The only things it lacks which the Parker had is a gold point and a network of factory-supplied service centres backing it up.  It also costs more than the 1947 Parker which it closely emulates– about $16.00 rather than $12.50.  However, when you start factoring in seventy years of inflation…

Also, the Wing Sung is very slightly bigger than the Parker. That’s not just perspective at work.

One might say that the Chinese pen is in some ways an improvement upon its predecessor.  There’s an ink window (although, in some body colours, it’s absent– baffling!), and the mechanism is made to be removed with a simple crescent wrench rather than an exotic and specialized tool.

Note also; you can’t just stuff one mechanism in another body. Even if they’re compatible diameters (which I don’t know), a Parker blind cap would have nothing to cling to.

They have even started to improve upon the mechanism itself– I have a variant creeping its way here on the proverbial slow boat from China which sees the diaphragm replaced with the sort of piston-head found in the 3008, which should reduce the rate of filler failure and incidence of serious maintenance.  Since there is not a network of service centres and… well, I don’t know if the (relatively) readily available Parker diaphragms fit the Wing Sung mechanism, a more durable filler seems like a splendid idea.

And all for the cost of burgers and shakes for yourself and a companion.  In Wing Sung terms, sixteen dollars is a massively expensive pen, but on the broad spectrum of genus Fountain Pen it is very cheap indeed.  It’s right in the same neighbourhood as the Pilot Metropolitan, which is my personal go-to as a recommendation when someone expresses an interest in trying a fountain pen but doesn’t want to spend a load of money.  The only disadvantage the Wing Sung has in shoving the Met out of that default position is that it’s not available in so many outlets… at least in North America.  Balancing that is the fact that it has a built-in filler and a huge ink capacity compared to the Metropolitan’s converter, so I’m a little torn.  If the notional someone is expressing interest in vintage Parkers, and has no experience with a hooded point, then I have a pen for them, all right.

What these two new objects from Wing Sung indicate, and I’m not the only one saying this, is a willingness to explore outside the “cheap pen with a press-bar filler” territory they’ve staked out for a long time.  This is excellent news for we fans of fountain pens, and not just because it gives us a couple of new toys to play with at a price most can afford.  If Wing Sung is getting experimental, perhaps their augurers see the continued revivification of the market for this kind of instrument.  That is a thought I will cuddle to my bosom.

Today’s pen: TWSBI Mini (and looking somewhat nervous of this new competition, too)
Today’s ink: Skrip Black

 

Shiny New Things

Not really part of my brief, but I find this all VERY hopeful for the future because it’s mostly “in production in 2019” rather that “perhaps sometime in the next decade but one.”

I just hope I’ll be able to afford the VW van when it makes its appearance… in a couple of years.

Today’s pen: TWSBI Mini
Today’s ink: Skrip Black

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
2 April 3 April 4 April 5 April	First draft of “Destroying the Abomination” (very much a working title).	Seven manuscript pages. Six pages. Six pages. Eight pages.	50 min. 45 min. 45 min. 50 min.	Pelikan M600 Sheaffer “TM” Triumph Waterman Super Master Pilot Elite	Diamine Oxford Blue Herbin Lie de Thé Waterman Florida Blue Diamine Syrah

Yes, it’s the return of the previous version of the progress report form.

I… don’t hear anyone cheering.  Fair enough.  I had meant to do something of more interest this week, but I’ve honestly had hardly a moment free at home, and I need several moments to get some necessary pictures out of my camera.  The coming weekend should offer a span of minutes I can grasp, although I fear my wife’s play director may insist upon more rehearsals at inconvenient times.

I was able, last Saturday, to take this happy snap:

This close, and no closer. So far. This too is progress….