The Best Thing

I uncapped the bottle of ink. I reached for a Q-tip, Alternator Crimson, found my hand first and a black red pool spread across my workspace. My workspace was in the living room. On our coffee table.

I went to my wife and asked for towels, rags she was standing in front of the bin where we kept them. I strode back into the living room and mopped up the mess. And I was happy. Because the pool of ink was in a giant John Pike watercolor pallet, or palete, or whichever spelling it has. All the ink spread over the surface that, sure as they said, just sat there until I took towels and mopped it up. This counts as the best thing that happened today. I had bought a supply of ½ inch (woo hoo! a reason to use the ½ on my typewriter!) ½ inch stickers. Put one on the top of each jar and sample vials and then dipped into then with the q-tips and colored the tops. Now I no longer need to lift the individual containers to check on the names to figure out what I need. Now I just need to sort through the six types of blue. That is a lot more fun. A lot.

And let us hear it for John Pike and his great honking big holder of theing designed for painting. A palette. I have to look it up. Just like discrete or discreet. Except I know that I use discrete. I guess I need to use palettes more often and write about them more. I don’t want to confuse it with someones tasting abilities. So a bunch of cheers for John Pike and his palettes!

I think tomorrow I will get out my palette and watercolors and see about the collection of watercolors left by the previous owner. There are some honking big piles of pigment ready to be used. This is one great thing about watercolors, you let it dry and with water and patience you have it ready to use again.

Yes, this sounds like a plan for tomorrow. By the way, or PS for now, Austin Kleon wrote about what to write about when you are out of ides. “The Best Thing (cheerful retrospection)” is one of his blog posts. If you run in to problems with ideas, start by writing about the best thing that happened. Note this is not about something that happened. You can get stuck in something nasty. Ask yourself what is the best thing? Which I did and here we are. I spilled ink. Onto a safe surface while I was watching TV. Yes, it worked.

–MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48

Pike Palette

New Typewriting and Hypomnema

Let’s hear it for a new typewriter! This Royal KMM is a Christmas gift from my wife. It is the exact model I wanted. She figured it out with a time tested method, she siad “go buy it, here is some cash.” OK, that is not what she said. But it is what she intended when she gave me a wad of cash and encouraged me to get the typewriter I had wanted. May you all have spouses as kind as mindful as mine.

There has been some talk about journaling here. Cat, are you going to do Bullet Journaling? The rest of you, do you do Bullet Journaling? I am wondering about it. Do I want to get everything down to single line summaries. I am not sure how this works out. If you know, do tell.

Once we figure that out…what was I thinking? OK, look we do have a special place here. We have a HYPOMNEMA. That is a Greek word with “several translations into English including a reminder, a note, a public record, a commentary, an anecdotal record, a draft, a copy, and other variations on those terms.” That is from Wikipedia. Wikipedia got it from Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon online. It helps a lot if you can read Greek. There is a lot of references in the Liddell and Scott to explanations here. Or there. Wherever. But, my god, what a concept of a word. If I did not have a fistful of domains, I would register it for myself. But, Before I stray too far off the subject, yes, we have a hypomemna here in our collective writings.

About journaling again, I am doing it again. Or still rather. Morning Pages to start the day. A sketch journal after Lynda Barry’s example. It comes from page 61 of SYLLABUS. And other pages of other books from Lynda Berry with slight changes. The page is divided into four sections. This is a basic five minute diary. Write down 5 to 7 things you did, 5 to 7 things you Saw, something you heard someone say, and a 30 second sketch, Bang you are done. Except I do not do that. Most of the time. I just write. In other journals I have COOKED for things I have made to eat. Uke, for musical (well, if I can call it musical) bits, there is an empty exercise book. Mostly it is a book of things I wonder about and whatever is going on with that. There is a lot here.

I attempt to do something structured. Like what I plan to do in a day and then ater what I did. But I am distracted by life and not yet playing close attention to what I am up to. I am thinking about that now. I am going to go off and think about it more.

Keep it safe, dear,

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48

Herb Caen Loyal Royal

The “Loyal Royal”, do you know the series of typewriters? They belonged to Herb Caen. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. I first encountered him when I went to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1980. Like many, I read his column, even if it was the only thing I read in the newspaper. In a book I am reading I wondered about Herb Caen. Was he really being read in 1947? Oh yes! He had started his column in 1938 and kept it up until he died. Six days a week 1000 words to a column. He was only not writing for four years during the war. Consider that … 1000 words a day … every day … for over 60 years. If you are in San Francisco you can go by the Chronicle’s office and see one on display … maybe more than one. He coined the term beatnik and popularized hippie and … so many bits about San Francisco. Including … ellipses. Look him up on Wikipedia to get a bit of flavor and see one of the Loyal Royals they have on display.

1000 words a day! A day! Six days a week! For 60 years! What a record he holds. I am considering it. So many words, to capture the minds of people. I have not even drunk coffee that consistently for my life. Thinking on what I have done … I have eaten and slept that consistently. I cannot think of anything else I have done so consistently.

You?

It seems my Royal does a double space every once in a while. I will forgive it.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Introducing Royal KMM

Tomorrow is here today. And as I wrote, typed yesterday, tomorrow is here and so is my newest typewriter, a Royal KMM. It is a beast of typewriter with an extra wide platen 14″ and it weighs too much for me to lift off the table like I can and do with a typewriter like the rest of mine, all portable. This one is not portable. It needs a place to live. Which, temporarily, is a wire frame thing a what is the word? a thing you store things on in bakeries? Yea, one of them. It is more portable with the typewriter on it, thanks to weels. In the platen I found this note:

Royal KMM from 1940 snKMM14-2569109 The strike bar issue was resolved by Matt at ACE Typewriter. It needs a few score of pages typed on it to clean up the key works.

Matt had also mentioned it was used in a TV place or a broadcast place. The platen had been replaced shortly before it was retired in favor of paperless offices like we Know oh so well today. In truth I took it home, Tyred what you have read above and nothing. This page is the most it has received since I brought it home. This beast needs a table. What shall I use? More on that quandry later. For now, wow! It is great to tyre on. That Hermes has some competition for favorite machine!

~ MichaelRpdx :: rkmm