Staple Day 11

A MONTHLY UPDATE FROM INSIDE FIELD NOTES

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Hi, it’s Jim from Field Notes. This is our eleventh monthly-ish newsletter containing a variety of stuff that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. Please respond to this email if you have comments, questions, or suggestions.

TLDR Version: Commonplace, BtS, Making Friends, In Good Company, Extra Extra, Tripping, Democrats.

Back to My Future

I’ve been a bit obsessed with list-making lately. I have made my own list every single weekday since 2010, when we took delivery of the very first batch of our 80-page Steno Books.

This works for me.
The Steno never leaves my desk.
Work stuff on the left.
Life stuff on the right.
Add items as needed.
Cross them off as completed.
Transfer what remains to tomorrow’s page.
Rinse and repeat.

Inspired by the hundreds of entries we received to the last Staple Day contest, and the response to our new “Index” Edition, I’ve been considering the way other folks use our products for various lists, in particular what is known as a commonplace book.

Writer Charley Locke describes how it works and compares the format to a traditional diary.

“But there is one notebook I’ve kept up regularly for a decade: my commonplace book. The slim red book is filled with quotes, lines from books and songs and poems and conversations that stuck with me. Nothing is my original thought, but all of it struck me as meaningful when I wrote it down.”

“Thrumming beneath the pages is a shifting self-image. When I read them, I recognize the past me who saw herself in these quotes, but I don’t roll my eyes at her. With others’ words as intermediaries, the harsh light of hindsight softens. If keeping a journal would be a way to look in the mirror and make an honest appraisal of myself, keeping a commonplace book is more like looking at myself out of the corner of my eye.”

Austin Kleon wrote about how keeping a commonplace book gets more powerful over time.

“Another thing I like about the commonplace diary is that it’s a form of time travel: writing things down is projecting yourself into the future, and re-reading the entries is visiting the past. There’s a kind of hopefulness to a daily project like this, that I can use time to my advantage, that little simple bits of effort over time turn into more interesting and complex things. I used to think that these kinds of efforts were simple addition and cumulative, but now I find that these kinds of efforts tend to multiply and become exponential.

NOTE: I’ve just cracked open a “Dime Novel” note book from my personal stash to hold my own commonplace book. I started it with this, from Paul Lynch’s brilliant novel, “Prophet Song.”

“She sees how happiness hides in the humdrum, how it abides in the everyday toing and foing as though happiness were a thing that should not be seen, as though it were a note that cannot be heard until it sounds from the past.”

And this line which, when softly spoken, took the breath away from the audience during a recent production of “Much Ado About Nothing” at The Globe in London.

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you.”

Three Friends

Our general approach to brand collaborations is simple. We start by making new friends. After that, we make something new with them.

We have three such projects in the works. Two are with folks that we admire for their creativity and the intelligent way they go about producing and talking about their products. We’ll have a lot more to say about these in the next month or two.

The third one is with some old friends, and we couldn’t be happier about “putting the band back together.” We’ll be announcing that one very soon. During our initial communication about the creative, they sent us an amazing image made by “capturing the light through the oak tree leaves at Washington High School.”

So You Know: Cyanotype photography does not involve a camera. Paper coated with a solution of iron salts (potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate) is exposed to UVA radiation and then washed with water to produce beautiful Prussian blue images.

Laughter and Music

Seth Meyers joined Mike Birbiglia on his “Working it Out” podcast. I’m linking it because it’s a great, funny conversation about joke-writing, SNL, and other matters. And also because during the chat, Seth is making notes in the John Stirratt / Brett Stenson Field Notes Memo Book from our long-sold-out and much-beloved Wilco Box Set. Thanks for that.

Ryan Henderson and Matt Carins are Hollow Coves. Their latest album is titled Nothing to Lose and we were suprised and delighted to see an Original Kraft Ruled Memo Book playing an important role in the video for their inspiring single “On the Way.” Thanks a million for taking us along guys.

ICYMI: Our latest musical collaboration is with Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. These 3-Packs are available at the merch table during Jason’s current North American tour, and we have some for sale at our site too.

The Scoop

When we were developing the “Byline” Edition, our reinvention of the classic Reporters’s Notebook, we had the help of veteran reporter, author, podcaster, and CBS News anchor John Dickerson. Together we tore apart every Reporter’s Notebook we could find and tried to rethink all the assumptions that went into making them.

“Byline” eventually became a regular part of our product line as “Front Page,” and for the second year in a row has been named Best Reporter’s Notebook in the New York Times/Wirecutter annual survey. Many of the changes we made to the design were called out in their write-up.

“The spiral-ring binding and thicker paper (70 pounds or 105 gsm—the thickest of the notebook papers we tested) make page-turning much less of a nuisance than with other reporter notepads we tested. The overlapping cardstock cover keeps the double-ring spirals from catching or getting warped in your pocket or bag. And the pocket on the back cover, though open on one side, can serve as a convenient spot for any scrap you need to hold on to until you get back to your office.”

One small but significant change we made is that our notebook is not quite as wide as its predecessors. The original reporter’s notebooks were designed back when almost all newsmen were in fact men. The Front Page fits naturally in the palm of every modern reporter, or list-maker. Thanks once again to Wirecutter and also to John.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Before this summer ends, here’s a new contest. Send us either, a photo of a Field Notes on location on a trip you took this summer, or, the inside pages containing notes, drawings, or maps of a summer trip. We’ll choose ten winners, post their pictures on our site, and send them each a “Mile Marker” Edition and a “Trailhead” Edition to use on a late summer or early fall outing or to start planning for next summer.

Post your pic to Instagram and tag us, or just mail it to [email protected] with “On the Road Again” in the subject line. Good luck.

If you’re in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention this week you should know that Field Notes is just a 20 minute walk from United Center and that The Shop at HQ is open 9-5, today through Thursday this week. Plus, we know all the good taverns in the neighborhood. Thanks for reading.

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Coined a long time ago in the Field Nuts Facebook group, “Staple Day” is traditionally observed when a writer reaches the exact middle of a Field Notes Memo Book, revealing the metal fasteners which bind the cover and the interior pages together.