Staple Day 17

A MONTHLY UPDATE FROM INSIDE FIELD NOTES

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Hi, it’s Jim from Field Notes. This is our 17th monthly 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: Looking Ahead, Promises to Keep, LMM, Looking Back, Commonplace, HQ, Currently.

The Thing with Feathers

Jayme Morgan is a Washington state firefighter. His crew was in Los Angeles helping to save homes affected by the Eaton Fire. There was not much that could be done in one area, where virtually everything in the neighborhood had been destroyed. The only thing left standing was a “little library” at the curb in front of the ruins of one family’s home.

Morgan wrote a note about how sorry he was to encourage the residents to “find courage, love, resilience and togetherness through these difficult times.” He tore the page from his memo book and left it in the library.

When neighbors found the note they contacted Mike Rogers, a reporter at the local CBS television station, who set up a video call so the homeowners could meet and thank the firefighter for his thoughtful and inspiring words. One Altadena resident said, “It’s not just a note for us. It’s an instruction manual.”

A Winter’s Tale

Like snowflakes, every Field Notes Memo Book is different. While for our “Snowy Evening” Edition that was literally true, what really makes every Field Notes unique are the notes we write to ourselves on its 48 pages.

For the winter of 2020, we produced a run of 33,333 3-Packs. By combining algorithm-based computer generative artwork with digital printing technology, each of those 99,999 individual memo books was numbered and each had a beautiful and unique snowflake on its cover. “Snowy Evening” was created with the help of artist and technologist Brendan Dawes. The “Snowy Evening” we were initially inspired by was created by Robert Frost.

The Drawer Where it Happens

“And sometimes your wife will be looking for something to write down a shopping list and find Little Mermaid draft lyrics in the tiny notebook next to the scissors.”

Did I Say That?

In “Take Care of Your Little Notebook,” a 2011 essay for The New York Review of Books, poet Charles Simic noted that “Inevitably, anyone, including its owner, perusing through one of these notebooks years or even months later, is going to be puzzled or embarrassed by many of the entries, surprised by others he has forgotten . . . and impressed by an occasional striking passage, which, lacking the quotation marks, he is not sure whether to attribute to himself or to someone far cleverer, funnier and more articulate, whom he happened to be reading at the time.”

Charles and Edgar

As noted in a previous Staple Day, I’m keeping a commonplace book to record quotes that resonate with the present me, so that the future me knows where he’s been. Here are a couple recent entries.

THE WIND HAS DIED

My Little boat,
Take care.

There is no
Land in sight.

Note: After stumbling onto his notebook essay I quoted above, I did some research about Charles Simic and read many of his spare and beautiful poems. My local bookshop had just three of his many collections in stock. Naturally, I chose the one with the nicest cover, which was designed by John Gall. It was only as I was just about finished reading that I realized it was Simic’s final book, and its title comes from its final poem.

“It’s good. But if you continue at this pace you are going to run out of commas before you graduate, and then what are you going to do?”

My Dad, a newspaper man, after reading an essay I wrote for a college course in Modern British Literature.

West Side Story

So you know, everyone who makes a purchase at The Shop at HQ in Chicago receives a “Guest Pass.” We’re open Thursdays and Fridays and for special events like the Launch Party Happy Hours we host to coincide with new Quarterly Limited Editions. Our “Rarities” shelf is always stocked with sold-out previous releases and other oddball stuff from The Archives. When you’re here the best Italian sub you’ve ever had is just one block away and, of course, we know all the good taverns in the neighborhood.

A Flurry

Our Spring, Summer, and Fall Quarterly Editions are all in various stages of research and pre-production. Film shoots are being organized and we’re sourcing references and materials. If you haven’t picked up a “Vintage” Edition 3-Pack, now would be a good time, or better yet, start a subscription and you’ll get them all.

I know, I know. I promised a ridiculous contest. Next month for sure.

Also, thanks for the flock of responses last month. Yes. There will be more birds. Including this one.

^*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.