Mountains of Moleskines

With the demise of many Borders outlets, printed magazines and newspapers, there seem to be a lot of books being written about the topic. Sort of like a Dodo bird support and discussion group on extinction.

I've been reading one of them, Hamlet's Blackberry by William Powers. Like others he makes a case for taking time for being unplugged or at least having a balance. The fact that he has a website for the book shows he's not for complete removal of the wired life.

Midway through he makes a case for the Moleskine. I have my fair share of Moleskines as well as other variants. I am also an obsessive journal keeper. I have a basic daily journal that I do on my laptop but also yoga journals, gardening journals, travel journals, house journals, health journals, dog health journals...I tend to call my Moleskines "flash journals" in which I paste photos, make collages, line art, fleeting thoughts. I'm also fond of my Flip Notes which come with a built in pen and are about a third the width of an iPhone.

The German film maker Heinz Emigholz even did a series of films called The Basis of Make-Up which are nothing but clips from his Moleskines or whatever brand he uses. Double spread pages flash on the screen for a fraction of a second interspersed with flash clips of unedited field video.
So I was thrilled to discover the page Moleskines: One Page at a Time and The Sketchbook Project 2011 at the Brooklyn Art Library which features 10,000 of them. Indeed, there is talent out there!