WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. We're talking about artist pencil sharpening. I kid you not. Cartoonist David Reese is the number one expert on sharpening the number two. He honed in on his passion for honing when he worked for the U.S. Census. There they had to hand sharpen pencils the slow attentive process had recent books he's turned this craft into a one person enterprise. The tricks of the trade are the subject of his new book The how to guide that honor's hands on work. It's also a tribute to the pencil as an elegant tool as Reese puts it. If Steve Jobs had designed the pencil the world would hold in great esteem. But first we talk to the president of Boston's north Bennett Street school which offers hands on training in traditional trades from bookbinding to violin making. Up next Everything old is new again. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh the National Football

League has doled out punishments to players with the New Orleans Saints who participated in a bounty program. NPR's Mike Pesca reports that as was the case with Saints coaches the league's punishments were severe. Jonathan Vilma a Pro Bowl linebacker for the New Orleans Saints offer his teammates $10000 to knock opposing quarterback Brett Farve out of the 2009 and FC championship game. The NFL suspended Vilma for the upcoming season. It's a huge blow to the saints who depend on Vilma as their best defensive player and team leader three other members of the saints who play during the bounty era will also serve suspensions. Anthony Hargrove who signed with the Packers a few weeks ago is suspended for eight games. Will Smith still with New Orleans was suspended for four games and Scott Fujita now with the Browns will miss three. Mike Pesca NPR News New York. The U.S. is denying reports that an embassy official had spoken with Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng about threats Chinese authorities allegedly made against Chen's family although in a

statement today the administration said Chinese officials indicated that if Chen elected to stay at the embassy where he sought shelter after escaping house arrest reuniting him with his family wouldn't happen. As NPR's Michele Kelemen reports a blind activist has left the embassy to seek medical care at a hospital. U.S. officials say that U.S. doctors do remain at the hospital and that they've gotten some assurances from China that there is no case against him. And the U.S. is calling on China to make sure there's no retribution against anyone who helped him reach the U.S. embassy. NPR's Michele Kelemen in Beijing. A private payroll report shows far fewer people in the U.S. expected were hired in the business sector from March to April payroll processing firm ADP says. One hundred nineteen thousand jobs were added last month. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports that's well below the 170000 jobs projected. Most of the jobs growth came in the form of service sector work and mostly among small and

medium sized businesses. Manufacturing in construction each lost 5000 jobs marking the first decline in each of those industries in many months. Hiring is now at roughly half the level of the prior month an indication that employment activity has tapered off from earlier this year. This comes ahead of the April government labor report on Friday. Economists expect the jobless rate to remain unchanged at eight point two percent a modest employment gains. Yuki Noguchi NPR News Washington. Taking a look at numbers from Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 26 points at thirteen thousand two hundred fifty four in trading of 1 billion shares. Now DAX is up slightly at three thousand fifty four and the S&P 500 down five points at 41. This is NPR News. Good morning from the WGN and radio news here in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with the local stories we're following. Authorities have arrested the son of one of the two women found dead near a Saugus school. Twenty three year old Jeffrey Wright was taken into custody at about 6:00 p.m. last night as he crossed the border from

Maine into Canada. Wright is the son of 54 year old victim doner Breaux of Lynn. The Globe reports Wright allegedly admitted to Canadian customs authorities that he had slit the throats of his mother and grandmother and then dumped their bodies out of Saugus elementary school. Earlier in the day Wright will face murder charges in the killing of his mother Donna Breaux and his grandmother Mila but her hunt. A Fall River dentist has entered the race for the state's redrawn 4th Congressional District. Republican Dr. David Steinhoff says on his Web site he's running because he has witnessed the effect the economy has had on his patients and their families. Incumbent Democrat Barney Frank is retiring. Harvard and MIT have joined forces to offer free online courses to anyone with an internet connection. Harvard president Drew Faust and MIT president Susan Hockfield announced the initiative this morning. The new partnership will be called X and beginning this fall X will offer an array of courses developed by faculty at both institutions. The parents of a New Hampshire teenager who was tattooed against his will have sued the school district. Michael and Tammy Austin are saying the Congress school district officials could have prevented what happened to their son. The Concord Monitor reports the suit says the

school knew the boy was being bullied and missed classes but didn't help him. The parents say he has a learning disability. The weather forecast for the remainder of the afternoon is a cloudy one with some patchy drizzle and a near steady temperature in the upper 40s tonight mostly cloudy with overnight lows in the mid to upper 40s right now it's 50 degrees in Boston 50 in Worcester and 52 in Providence. Support for NPR comes from a vital projects fund supporting the Museum of Modern Art now presenting the retrospective Cindy Sherman more at MOMA dot org. And from Harry and Richard gold to help extend the breadth and depth of NPR news programming and coverage of global events at 1 0 6. It's 50 degrees in Boston. I'm Christina Quinn you'll find more news at WGBH news dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. Today we're talking about timeless hands on work that manages to persist and thrive in today's digital high tech age. Joining me in the studio is Miguel Gomez a bunny is the president of the North Bennett Street School in Boston's North End. The school has programs an eight hand

crafts including jewelry making piano tech and locksmithing. Thank you for joining us. Nice to be here. I mean I'm always amazed at the stuff in Boston I don't know about this is one hundred twenty seven year old school and I never heard of. Well you're not alone but hopefully fewer and fewer Bostonians will never have heard of it as we continue. This is so great because you have these eight hand crafts and this is what the school has been doing almost from the beginning from the beginning though the first students were immigrants. That's right yeah. I don't know about that. Well the school was started in 1881 by Pauline Agassi's Shaw her mother was the founder of Radcliffe College and her father was the Swiss botanist at Harvard. Louis Agassi. So she had education in the genes. And she wanted to start a settlement house in the north end which at the time was just one of the worst slums in the city with 40000 residents where there's now about 10000. So she opened in a rented building and started a number of programs during the day for children so that the parents could work and during the evenings for the parents to train them so they could get

jobs. And that evolved into North Bennett Street School. She went on to buy the building in 1885 and here we are. So it sort of makes sense to think you know here's the immigrants coming over to the United States I got to you know try to integrate themselves into the system a best way to do that is to have a skill or a hand craft. But as time has gone on and into the 21st century you just would think that would go away. You would think so. You would think so but actually that's not the case. And I think that what what keeps the US in business if you will is the fact that people want to work with their hands that's just the way it is and more and more people nowadays despite the knowledge economy either find themselves trained for office work and unemployed which is really unfortunate or else again fully employed but not really enjoying what they're doing all day. Many of them are come to our school because they start out as hobbyist and they say you know this is where this is my gift my gift isn't sitting at a desk and answering a phone or writing a letter.

So let's talk about the students that come 18 to 60 years of age. Yeah. We take people right out of high school if they really really know what they're doing it's a tough school to get into at that level because we really need a person to know that that's what they want to do. And many 18 year olds are casting about a little bit but also pre-retirees mid career changers. Our average student is 30 years old has tried to make a living at one occupation or another and decided that that's not what they want to with their life. Now you are the perfect example of a person Yeah I'm the poster child. Yes. You were once a student an architect and then I was an architect and I became not disillusioned with architecture because that would be unfair. But I was burned out I just was tired of writing letters and solving problems that would just reappear the next day in some other form. So I decided to take two years off and I had was walking down Newbury Street and I saw an exhibition of student furniture at Boston architectural college and I said hey I'm going to do that if I could build a piece of furniture like that I would feel like I've done something that

was actually worthwhile. So I went there for two years thinking I would return as an architect but. As soon as I got there I thought this is this is what I should be doing and architecture is no longer what I want to do. So how do people find their way to Northman school here I am never heard of it. And here all of the people that you've described who are at various stages in their life looking for something else will be a little bit more fulfilling and they want the hands on work. How do they find their way to you. We've done a lot of research into that and there's really two ways word of mouth which which you would be surprised perhaps and then the Internet search with the rise of the Internet we've got a terrific website that really does explain what we do and what it's like to be there. We're getting more and more national students and more and more in international students. So we're getting our students from Japan and Korea and China as well as all across the country. So let's talk about all of the different things that you teach there because as we mentioned locksmithing in jewelry making.

But there is also the furniture making furniture making bookbinding piano technology which is both piano tuning and complete piano restoration. Also carpentry which is the skills needed to be to build a contemporary wood frame house and preservation carpentry which involves the skills needed to maintain and restore an historic structure from timber frame up to about the pre-industrial 1830s or 40 structures. So I'm curious about whether interest in this school as people find their way to you has gotten stronger in their most recent years because as I look at it it seems to me you're at the intersection of two really big growing trends in America one is sort of the let's take a moment and breathe and get back to our roots I think about the slow food movement where there's a great appreciation for the making of the meal and the appreciation of where the food came from. And then the whole environmental movement we just had a guest on yesterday talking about the importance of reusing what we already have. And so many of the craft that you're taking teaching there have to do with making better repairing what we already have.

Yeah I think there's two levels on which it works. One is the real personal risk. Sense of accomplishment and competence that you get when you can make something or repair something fix something make it right. The other is on the consumer side the sense of owning or buying or participating in a product that is tailored to you. I mean you go to a coffee shop and you you know you talk to a barista you don't talk to you know of a person that has no knowledge there are crafting your cup of coffee you buy artist no bread and you will be followed by a pencil sharpener so I think there's a lot of interest in things that are personal to you to oneself. And it's not that you can't go to Ikea or you can't buy the cheapest something or other at a store but you want some element of your life to involve that personalization that level of contact with one human in another. And you want something that's going to last. Absolutely you know what you're doing is stuff that lasts. We do so and so often our stuff goes away. My guest is Miguel Gomez

he's the president of the North Bennett Street School and Boston's North End and they teach programs an eight hand crafts so how to get in there you said you sort of need to know if you have some skill in the area and it's hard to get in. How many spaces do you have. You know we have a hundred sixteen full time students. And you get in by applying on the web and you do have to evidence some. Some way of telling us that this is really what you want to do that you know what you're getting into. And B that there's some sense that you will succeed. But there are a lot of ways that you can try it out. We have continuing ed courses at night evenings weekends. You can sign up for a two day or three day course in some aspect of furniture making or jewelry making and that's a good way to introduce yourself to some of these crafts and see if it's really what you want to do. Because I have to tell you I am not your target. Hence I'll go screaming into the night if I have to try to make something.

I have a great appreciation for the handmade however so I am well that's not exactly true value because you just told me you were a great cook. I am a good cook. Now that's true. OK I'm going to say that's where you're going with your hair and making something very very personal. What do the students the graduates say. You know because you told me about what you experience moving from architecture to building something with your hands and the feeling that they gave you. I'm curious about what they say when they graduate and they go off into bookbinding or. Tuning a piano whatever about how it makes them feel. Well it's easier to answer that on a personal basis but I'll tell you our graduation every June in the Old North Church is an emotional scene. There are people who have worked very hard to reorganize their lives so that they can do this and that it's not free. And by the time they get out it's a tearful joyful occasion. For me it was just a sense of competence that I never got as a as a you know knowledge worker or a paper pusher or a desk person. A sense that when you make

something you've achieved some specific goal you leave the building at the end of the day with a real sense of that some finite thing has been accomplished you can look at it. I mean even if I left the earth each day having made a mistake and ruined my work I would leave the building saying I'm going to fix that tomorrow. And it's so elemental and it's so gratifying. So as we said you know this is the find this little oasis in a digital time when people don't think about handcrafting in this way. And a return to interest in it. Schools are not teaching shop. But you all offer some courses in some of the Boston Public Schools for that correct. Yes and it's been one of our worries that schools don't teach shop anymore. That and it's not just that it's a great thing to do. There are many many people in the world for whom working with their hands is their gift. That's what they should be doing. And absent any way of involving yourself in those skills as a young

child you don't know that that's your gift and you may be an underperformer academically and you may be laughed at in school. But when we bring kids from the local K through 8 school into our classes and we have the special needs kids and everybody is in the same class at the same time and you see the people that succeed they're often not the same people that are the people that raise their hand all day in the in the academic setting and it's wonderful to see them that sort of reorganization of the pecking order and see somebody say my God I'm good at this and this is really fun. Now is there a greater appreciation on the other the students from the students themselves from the outside now as people look back on those craft many of them it seems have been lost those skills have been lost and now when you have a situation at the North Bennett school where you are returning those skills to many people and sending them out into the world. We hear so much now about. Too much book learning and not enough work with your hands. Too many jobs going wanting because people can't

perform these skills right. That's absolutely true. There's a lot of. The things that we teach people to do are things that you can't outsource. It's very frustrating not to get a good carpenter not to get a competent carpenter. And the way most people learn carpentry is by just going out and working on the job and if you do that you're like you're likely to learn the skills that the person next to you has absent a real school of training people to be carpenters or restoration carpenters next sort of thing. It's hard to preserve those skills and it's hard to have a workforce that really is competent. So for those of us who can't do this work but who would love to have some of your graduates or be in touch with them do they hire out do they. You know yes we work for the rest of us. Yes. No we have a great office of student alumni services that handles a lots and lots of calls about people that need things done and we connect you with the proper grad or the proper student to get it done. Can't wait to have my very dear cookbook rebound then we can i know yeah

I know that you do that. All right so in the future do you think that there will be more north bit schools in town. Well I don't think in town we're just too good. You wouldn't want to compete with us. But I think there will be more of these schools and I think they'll be more and more people coming our way the lists are getting longer and it's it's certainly something that's whose time has come. All right well what can I say. You learn something every day and that's why I love this job. Thank you so much. Nice to be here. We're talking about hands on work this hour and the craftsmanship that endures even in our high tech digital age. I've been speaking with Miguel Dom as he Bonnie is the president of the North Bennett Street School in Boston's North End. The school has programs in aid and crafts including piano tech and preservation carpentry. Look on our website to see a connection to the school. Coming up we talk to David Reese about artist and all pencil sharpening. You're listening to WGBH Boston Public Radio.

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moved on. See the full list of items and place your bid. At auction. WGBH dot org. New teaching tools are helping students take charge of their own learning. So a lot of this is learning at your own pace. Innovative programs for inner city students on innovation have Saturday morning at 7:00 here on eighty nine point seven. GBH. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. My guest is David Rees from 2001 to 2009 he was the author of the comic strip get your war on one which appeared in Rolling Stone. He joins us today to talk about something completely different. His mail order are Tis an ill pencil sharpening business. That's right. The tools of the trade are the subject of his new book How to sharpen pencils a practical and theoretical treatise on the artist and craft of pencil sharpening for writers artists contractors flanged turners bangle Smith and civil servants David Reese welcome.

Thank you so much for having me it's nice to be here. I thought some of my political affairs had long titles for their books but you're you're you're right up against that in their notes I finally written a work of socio political importance I wanted to have a long title so people would know to take it seriously. There you go. So you were a cartoonist back in the day. What did you at that point have an appreciation for the pencil was that really what started it even if you weren't aware of it at that point. Well I grew up using pencils as a kid and I loved doodling and making graph paper knit mazes and things like that in school. But when I became a cartoonist professionally I actually wasn't using pencils so I was doing it all digitally on the computer using clip art. So for me my re-introduction to the pencil didn't come through my job as a cartoonist but my job as a door knocker for the 2010 census because we had to fill out all the forms and pencil. And on the first day of staff training the. The Census supervisor told us all to sharpen some pencils and I had so much fun doing that on the first day of staff training that I told myself there's a there's got to be a way to get paid just to

sharpen pencils. You were a goner from that moment. Yeah I was sucked down through and into the rabbit hole. All right so what is it about pencils and about pencil sharpening that really speaks to you. For me the point of the project and the point of the book or at least one of the points is to celebrate the humble number 2 pencil which is an object that is so familiar to us that it almost becomes invisible until you need one and you can't find one. But the number two pencil I contend is still after hundreds of years of basically being unchanged a really efficient and elegant writing tool really well designed. It's the result again of hundreds of years of trial and error and perfecting the design and. It's also an exercise in nostalgia because like I said when I when I came back to the pencil at the census job had been years since I'd used a pencil and I kind of remembered all these associations that I had with childhood goofing off in childhood creativity and things like that.

So the pencil sharpening business is is a celebration of the pencil and the pencil sharpening book is an attempt to empower readers to sharpen their own pencils using all the techniques that I've perfected over my years as a professional pencil sharpener. And people should know that this is that you have a it's a real book it's not a pamphlet and it's got many pictures Oh it's very real. It's very little more detail than I ever imagined about a pencil and how to sharpen it will take that as a compliment it is. A couple of it I never knew what all these things were called the irregular pin tipped the irregular collar bottom the throat the creeping collar the Headless Horseman you want to give people just that. But yeah when I was when I was writing this book and doing my research and also talking to clients of my business I heard so many complaints about common pencil mishaps and and misshapen pencil points and I decided to develop a taxonomy to label and give a name to all these things do you know

what I mean. Kind of like in the book of Genesis when everything on the heaven and earth is named and I decided to pick up that mantle in the context of pencils and so for instance you refer to the color that's a part of the pencil point that I as far as I know had never been named and because I wanted to really get into some pretty deep analysis of pencil points I realized that we needed to expand our vocabulary when talking about these items and so. That's where some of those new vocabulary words come from. And I should point out that there are pictures so you don't have to retain all this in your head you can look in the book and see the picture. Oh and it's corresponds with a name so that that's very helpful. The book was inspired by a bunch of mid-century trade manuals and instruction manuals that I had been collecting and I really wanted the book to feel like an honest to goodness how to manual and so my photographer Meredith and I spent a lot of time talking about how to convey information visually. And then I would just write around the photograph so it it it should be useful even if you cannot read. You should still be able to

figure out how to sharpen a pencil. Now I think it's fair to say that there's a little bit of tongue in cheek in this. Would you not agree. I agree that humor can be an effective learning aid. Yes. OK. Even as you're saying it somewhat flatly but it is kind of funny some of it I have to say it goes on the techniques get more and more esoteric and more and more advanced and obviously you wouldn't want to start with the techniques in the later chapters until you've mastered those in the earlier chapters and it takes a quite a few chapters to master the pencil sharpening technique. I note that you have brought your kit kit which is. Discussed in the book this is my travel pencil sharpening kit and inside this this this case I have everything that I need to offer my clients and on the road pencil sharpening experience. I actually have 12 pencil sharpeners fit inside this kit. I have sandpaper. I have rubber tubing for protecting the pencil points. I have white rags for cleaning the graphite off the pencil

points. I have replacement blades I have toothbrushes for cleaning pencil sharpeners I have pencils. I have labels for labeling the shavings which I bag and return to the client along with the pencils I also have shavings bags in my pencil kit. It's a little bit of a headache to take through the TSA security checkpoints but it can be done. And I've been traveling the country on a pencil sharpening tour. And this kid has been my constant companion. Yeah what do you say to the TSA people when they look inside and see your. Because you know one of the things that you say is that you know a knife really is the best way to do the art is no. Right. Sure obviously I had to I had for the purposes of this tour I have to travel without my pocket knife and my box cutter but I do have a lot of unusual pencil sharpeners in this tool kit. One was misidentified as an antique camera. It was also misidentified at one point as a meat grinder which it was not but which I which I which I found flattering for some reason. And then most recently flying back from the Pacific Northwest on my tour I'm afraid to say that one of my pencil sharpeners actually tested positive for explosive substances which almost

made me miss my flight. Oh wow that must have been the graphite or something so there was a little bit of a snafu there but all is well. Is that a suggestion that perhaps you did not clean it very carefully as you have instructed in this book you know what i caught. Take a lot yeah yeah let's just say I had let's just say that this tour has required me to get up earlier in the morning than I'm used to in my east coast lifestyle and so yes that I might have been remiss in thoroughly cleaning my my sharpening mechanism as the someone who had not read the book you know you could have gotten away with that but I've read it so I know the step I'm very flattered that you are. You're on my heels and I appreciate that very much. Alright alright so you have everything that there is in that kit to sharpen a pencil. If you were doing it the artist in a way that you do it but you also have steps in here to tell the rest of us how to use a hand crank sharpener a manual sharpener. You have insight on the manual I've brought with you what was in my collection so you can comment on it I'm my feelings will not be heard

about whether or not you see my my manual sharpeners or any I have nothing critical to say about what you've presented me with here it's an embarrassment of riches we have a selection of sharpened and sharpened pencils and you also have three fine examples of a single blade pocket sharpener. This is the same iteration of the pencil sharpener that I was given in my census back so for me this is a very primal pencil pointing tool as it reintroduced me to the pleasures of sharpening pencils and you'll know of course. Yet these sharpeners work by twisting the pencil shaft against the blade and then and then you get these ribbons that are produced and these are the iconic like ribbon of shavings these are sometimes called the apple peel effect or my lady's ruffled skirt abandoned on the floor in the throes of our lovemaking. And this is a popular tech again named by you I would imagine that was a name that I came up yeah I found it yeah. The this technique is very popular with my clients who want to display their shavings along with their pencil because of course we all remember these iconic shavings from our childhood. I love those.

Yeah this is a great way to sharpen a pencil and you will note that that is an Alvin which in your book you say is your favorite hand crank. That's right. My preferred single my preferred single blade Pari sharpener is the Alpha and brass bullet which is a well machined solid brass pencil sharpener that you can buy replacement blades for and I'm not paid to endorse that product but I do so happily. And this Alvin also made in Germany this is a nice heavy glass pencil sharpener with a removable top in which we find. A single blade pocket sharpener here. You know good is very handsome. Yeah you know I commend you have exquisite taste in single blade pocket sharpener someday Well here's a confession I just got that impress you. OK. Well you know what. Mission Accomplished put on your flight suit and land on an aircraft carrier because you got the job done. OK. I want to know the cost of this the sharpener you have in your the the s l ask 0 0 0 minutes ago.

What you say is so expensive and you hint at how much it is but I want to know exactly the Casco is a is an amazing device a tanned assembled in Spain by a company that used to make revolvers and handguns in the NW in the Great Depression they had to diversify their product line and they started making hand assembled office equipment so you can can you can take that the device apart completely without using any tools. If you buy one of these devices you should be warned that it will sometimes be mis identified as an antique camera or a meat grinder. It may also test positive for explosives substances. OK but as to the cost. Mine was a gift I have to admit a very very thoughtful friend gave me one for Christmas but they run between four hundred four hundred fifty dollars wow. It's a pretty expensive pencil sharpener but it's the it's the crim to look Rahm now understanding that you are the guy who and what before I go there let me just ask the question. Your book focuses on number two pencils. So is there no use for the number one or the as I've learned in your book The HB I didn't know the names of all of these

pencils right. The HP is the European equivalent of the number two. OK. The American system for grading pencil lead says a numerical system. And the European system runs all the way from 9 H which means extremely hard to 9 B which means extremely black extremely soft so HP and number two represent kind of the middle of both of those grading systems. My business in my book focus exclusively on the number 2 pencil because I just think it's appropriate to specialize in today's economy. I can offer some hit's hints as to how to sharpen color pencils or eyebrow pencils because I get asked about those a lot from my clients. Oh yeah and although I don't do work on this pencils I can tell you that there are a number of good hand-crank sharpeners for number two pencils and the the tip for sharpening an eyebrow pencils to freeze at first. Well I have. Oh really. You know. Oh put it in the freezer before you try to sharpen it. Yeah OK that's really wonderful. I am utterly

amazed. Well first I didn't know that you existed and that you had this business so I'm I've been very impressed with the number of people who've already written to our Facebook page and sent us tweets this morning before your arrival and my conversation with you because they're really into pencils so this just says to me about the pencils. The return of our Tis an ill appreciation for art has no work but also the pencil itself. Power to the pencil so let me read a few few comments from our Facebook page. Cost to rights. Aside from their obvious utility two of the reasons I use pencils are there aesthetically pleasing simplicity and their wonderful smell the aroma of a freshly sharpened pencil. Invariably trance more points me back to moments of peaceful and solitary childhood ebbs or option in writing or drawing and brings with it a sense of limitless creative possibility. I appreciate that comment about the smell of pencils very much and you'll know that in the back of my book there's an appendix that features wines that taste like pencils.

Absolutely and we're going to get to that because you know I'm a wine wine girl I love that so I'm very interested in that. All right Betsy writes Love pencils I can write whatever I want and erase that in a minute. Life is fleeting and man a shadow. I have to say I agree with Betsy I love the whole erase thing to the power of the erase. Now here Adam writes I'm a musician composer songwriter. I still love writing with a pencil although I'm guilty of not taking the time to flip it over to the eraser side. Sometimes I just scratch it out. For me there is something about working in pencil and then really savoring the transformation from a work in progress meaning the pencil to completion meaning the pin. And here's a comment from our Twitter Nicole said there's something about the sound of a pencil scratching on paper that makes everything feel more academic and people can tweet us at Cal across it so there you have it. These are my people this is my tribe. This is your tribe these are your people will find out how many more there are in just a minute we're talking about art is an ill pencil sharpening with my guest David Reese.

His new book is how to sharpen pencils. You can catch him at 7:00 tonight at Brookline Booksmith. But right now you can talk to him here. Call us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Do you want to share your own love affair with the pencil architects illustrator school teachers civil servants. We want to hear from you at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can send us a tweet at Cal across our right to our Facebook page. If you have a question about the craft call in. This is WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is on WGBH thanks to you and UMass Memorial Medical Center and its gynecologic surgeons providing minimally invasive and robotic techniques for cancer

fibroids infertility and more. You can ask questions on line at UMass Memorial dot org slash Gyi and surgery. And design associates any time anyone has heard design associates on WGBH. It's an enthusiastic response Chris downness principal. I feel that for design associates and help to set us apart from the field and establish design associates as. Premier architectural design firm and the greater Boston area to learn more visit WGBH dot org slash sponsorship. Investigative journalist Steve Coll has written extensively about Afghanistan and Pakistan and the uses of government power in his new book Private Empire. He turns his attention to ExxonMobil and its power and influence on the next FRESH AIR we talk with Steve Coll joins us. This afternoon at two point seven. WGBH.

I'm Brian McRae from WGBH has classical Mandarin. Normally I think of summer as kind of a drag. So how would you like to escape to the clean crisp air of the Swiss Alps for six days of great food sightseeing and incredible live classical music with plenty of time left over for shopping or just relaxing. Then join us for a classical New England learning tour through the Swiss Alps August 25th through September 2nd. Space is limited and time is running out. Ensure you secure your spot at WGBH dot org slash learning tours. Hey this is Jad from Radiolab. Have you ever watched a movie. On your radio. That's what Radio Lab is like we think. We hope cinema for your ears. Saturday afternoon on WGBH radio. This is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in my guest is David Reece from 2001 to 2009 he was the author of the comic strip get your war on which

appeared in Rolling Stone. He's with us today to talk about his latest enterprise his mail order our Tis an ill pencil sharpening business the tools of the trade are the subject of his new book How to sharpen pencils a practical and theoretical treatise on the artist and craft of pencil sharpening for writers artists contractors Flans turners angle Smiths and civil servants. You can join us at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Call if you have a question about the craft of our Tis an ill pencil sharpening. Give us a call if you want to sing the pencils praises illustrators contractors teachers. Why do you still use a pencil. 8 7 7 3 0 one eighty nine seventy eight 7 7 3 0 one eighty nine seventy and you can write to our Facebook page or send us a tweet at Kelly Crossley. All right Henry from Eastham you're on the callee Crossley Show eighty nine point seven WGBH go ahead. Well this is one of my favorite topics and I'm a pencil lover and have been

since my school days and I'm afraid your guest is going to think this is what I'll do. Ask for make up my pencil preferences my ancient and PowerPoint 5 millimeter pencil with a to be read which is a little softer. Do you think that's blasphemy. Next caller please. I guess so. I wanted to pick up on the on the owner business because when I when I empty my crank pencil sharpener. When I smell that smell of cedar shavings it really takes me back not only to when I was a student but when I was a teacher and I love the red pencil. And in those days but today they seem to be making pencils not out of cedar entirely but sometimes I like a plastic composite and the LED is really awful so the craft. It's really terrible you you are speaking to a common complaint among both pencil enthusiasts and the general user which is that the quality of pencils that you buy today varies extremely widely

and fewer and fewer percentage of pencils are available in the United States are actually made with the red cedar that defined pencils of 100 years ago. You are seeing inferior woods a lot of times the these woods are harvested in China where a lot of the contemporary pencil production takes place and then yes you're also seeing these kind of plastic composite substances especially on the finish of a pencil rather than actually being paint a lot of times. Now with the special designs and logos and things you have a plastic veneer over the pencil which can which can become really an unwieldy during the sharpening process you know that there's no way that pencil seem to find their way into your house you don't have the kind of like coding that you're not really quite sure where they come from but when you when you come across a really good pencil it you really can have. Preserve that and mark it and maybe even hide it away because some of the people don't get their hands on it because they know they are really getting rid of the fine one that has a really great

smooth feel. Absolutely I agree. I thank you very much for the call Henry. Thank you for the topic its really great. Thank you. Now what I have noticed even though Henry is that it's hard to find a really good pencil I think that's a really good number 2 pencil something that I just became aware of even before knowing about you David Reese and your book was the new interest in Black Wing pencils which I just purchased recently because I was like What is that all about and now that's the new hot pencil. Right this is a this is a legendary pencil the black queen that was originally made by Everhart Faber. The name was lapsed in a California company called Cal cedar who actually specialized in producing the wooden slats for a number two pencil production bought the name and if and if. Relaunch the blackening brand. And so there are there are pencils that are a cut above the kind of thing that you would buy at a Staples or an office max. And there are people especially online pencil collecting enthusiastic who will swear by a particular pencil but

these again are not the kind of pencils that you'll be able to find at a Wal-Mart or a big box store. Most of those pencils the ones that you that you buy at the mall or whatever even American brands like Dixon Ticonderoga those pencils are now usually made in China or Mexico I told you the quality can vary widely. There are very few. There might not even sure they're more than three American companies now who are making number two pencils here in the United States whereas you know Henry David Thoreau of Walden fame his family was in the pencil manufacturing business that's how he made his money. That's how he could afford to go live in the woods was was his family's pencil dynasty. You mention in your book that's what you usually bring up to to convince people that this is an intellectual topic. Let me speak frankly here because I mean I'm in New England that's where I mean I'm in Austin and yes in my chapter on sharpening pencils for children. I remind my readers that if they want to have children visit there are two small pencil sharpening work places part of a school field trip. If you mention Henry David

throws rule in the pencil world that will give the visit a patina of Yankee exclusivity that most parents will find irresistible. And we love that in New England. All right Aaron from Lexington you're on the callee Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven WGBH Go ahead please. And they're just going to put in my two cents. I am a very avid temple user and in addition that I actually I happen to sell pens in a retail environment. Five time I think I spent probably two or three years of my life actually trying to find the right deal. Pencil Sharpener I am incredibly incredibly neurotic about my pencil point I want to be so sharp that I could probably perform a biopsy after going through goodness knows a dozen or more different sharpeners from Germany England China where have you I came across the automatic one point sure.

Which is a pocket sharpener two steps. First it shaves the wall and and then shaped the graphite in the second step is incredible. Well Aaron I know you know you'll be pleased to know that David has a whole chapter on the the two point there are the two barrel sharpener. But David you speak to that. Well first of all I am holding the sharpener of which you speak in my hands because it's a constant companion in my in my little jewelry case of pocket sharpeners. But yes a lot of people swear by the multi whole multi-stage pocket sharpener which breaks the pencil pointing process into two discrete stages like you mentioned the first is exposing the graphite and then the second blade is used for shaping the graphite and this is a way to put a longer point on a pencil than you could usually create just using a single blade pocket sharpener. So I commend your research and I'm happy to announce that that I have reached the same conclusion. Thank you very much Aaron for the call. Thank you Kelly.

I have to say that that chapter on the multi prong sharpener was really instructive to me because I always thought as I'm sure others did you just put any with the size of the pencil. I didn't realize it was two steps so I ended up with the problem that you mention in the book with no sharp pencil. Right. And this is a common mistake and the easiest way to tell if a multi hole sharpener is to separate holes for two separate sized pencils or two separate holes for a single pencil is to check the diameter of the hole. If one of them is larger than the other that means that the larger hole is her oversized colored pencils and there's no need to take a number 2 pencil into that second hole. But if both holes are the same diameter that usually means that the first hole is for shaving the wood away and the second hole is for shipping the graphite. You are listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH and online a WGBH dot org. I'm Cally Crossley and my guest is David Rees. We're talking about his new book How to sharpen pencils. You can join the conversation at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89

70 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Or you can write to our Facebook page or send us a tweet at Kelly Crossley. Let me read one of these other Facebook comments we got this is a great one this is from Gwenyth. She says I use a pencil almost exclusively for the crossword. It's a lot out ritual for me in the digital age. I play Scrabble on my iPod every day but I slow down and turn everything off when I do the crossword with my pencil. And that's she speaks to a big point. Are there people returning to the pins to the pencil because they appreciate the fact that it takes them. It's something you can do hands on. I think so I think there's some truth to that because obviously I mean just looking at my own career as a cartoonist who did everything to totally and I spent most of my life. Over the last 10 years online looking at screens of one kind or another I think that as we do as as technology becomes more and more invasive and more and more ubiquitous and harder and harder to get away from the pencil does stand as a nice kind of

antidote to these other more modern tools of communication and expression. I mean a pencil can only be used by one person at a time unless you're doing something I haven't imagined yet. And it is fundamentally a simple and elegant device that still made from wood I mean the pencil manufacturing process is essentially unchanged over hundreds of years and so there is something that can be very personal and and reflective about using a pencil and so it doesn't surprise me for instance to learn that last year pencil consumption in United States was up by I think six point seven percent six point eight percent something like that. So it is on the rise. Oh great. Jennifer from Waltham Go ahead please you're on the Calla Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven WGBH. Jennifer Oh well how I I have a question. I am left handed and so I often encounter the problem when you. Thing apart from that and I can't go over it much.

I can speak to this. So what do you do about this my jizz. I'm a southpaw myself which is one reason that I put aside pencils as a child and in return to them until until I was conscripted into their use by the United States Census Bureau because like she mentioned if you're a lefty you will get graphite all over the side of your hand and it looks like you've been karate chopping chimney sweeps in the neck by the end of the day. OK but there are certain ways to hold the pencil to try to minimize the graphite exposure on the side of your palm and there's and there's no reason that left handed people should be denied the pleasure of pencil use they just probably have to be a little more FA studious about clean up and things like that. You might have to put that on your blog or something so that you know because that's not in the book I don't think. Well I think there is a footnote in the book where I say that it's assumed the reader is left handed like myself and if not they should just wait for the right handed version of the book which I don't have the time to write. Christina from Lowell Go ahead please you're on the Cali Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven WGBH.

THANKS I LOVE YOU think and hope that I. I myself always find getting sad would make it too short to use any wire you can't. Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt but I was so excited because I wanted to let you know that you can buy pencil extenders These are devices again these devices are 100 years old. They're just shops that you put it that you put a small short stubby pencil into and then that literally extends the pencil and thereby extend the life of the pencil. I think I just don't have go that makes me feel so much better. That's why I'm here. Christina thank you so much thank you. I need to know that there's a couple of pencil a couple pencil related apparatus and one pencil in general that you do not like. I cannot repeat what you say about the mechanical pencil on this family program but can you express why you don't like mechanical pencils. Well there is a chapter in my book on mechanical pencils It's called a few words about mechanical

pencils and it's a pretty short chapter and that's probably true that it can't be said on this. That's right and this is a media platform. But I am not a fan of mechanical pencils and there's many reasons why but I think the main one is one of aesthetics which is that mechanical pencils today make such a show they make such a display of their engineering in that they're usually translucent or transparent and you can see the springs and you can see the graphite plastic graphite casing and you can see the advance mechanism for clicking and all that. And I would contend that when you really look at a mechanical pencil against a number two pencil as an engineered device the number two pencil is actually a better engineer device because it is more efficient. It's it is simpler it's more elegant and it doesn't make a big show of its engineering. And so I think even even taking the mechanical pencil on its own terms the number two pencil comes out on top. You also are not in favor of the electric sharpener and you have a chapter in your book in which you talk about how one should

respond to the electric sharpener I'll skip over much of it but it involves a mallet and taking the mallet and bringing it down hard on the electric sharpener so as to destroy. Here's what you say in your book. You should work in silence. The impulse to how in ecstasy deliver a full throated monologue about the dignity of hand labor and the decadence of mechanization or simply scream die die my darling should be resisted. However tempting such outburst will only draw attention from passers by and encourage invasive queries from busybody neighbors that's how you feel about electric sharpener and I'm not a huge fan of look your pencil sharpeners although I will say that on my tour a couple weeks ago in Salt Lake City I was giving a lecture and on the front row there was a man who identified himself as literally an electric pencil sharpener salesman who knew nothing about my book but just heard that somebody in Salt Lake City was going be talking about pencils. And in spite of our differences we were able to get along and he actually took for studious notes throughout my lecture no matter how insane it got. It's really

flattered me to know and then we shook hands at the end of events so we can all get along. I'm telling you they talk about dysfunctional democracy here we go Nathan from what. Go ahead please you're on the Cali Crossley Show. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Oh yes right. I actually went to Antarctica about two years ago and during the training and everything that's leading into that we had a whole day in which it was how we were going to take notes and everything like that and they and you know everyone breaks out there and everything like that and it was really great because the person who was instructing us walked by and took everyone's attention from us and told us that we were going to be able to take us. So we all inquired why and apparently pinch free. Exactly and so you know being that we were we decided to take things with us just to see what would happen. And they froze so style it that you could throw that in down and they would break. It was spectacular. Wow

it really spoke to the console and you know. Well it worked compared to you know a useless of course. And this brings to mind the famous story of you brings to mind the famous story about the space race in which NASA was spending thousands and thousands of dollars on research and development for a pen that could write in zero gravity the space spin right. Yeah and meanwhile the Soviet Union just decided to use pencils because obviously pencils work in zero gravity. So it's the same principle. There you go with artists you know pencil sharpening which is your business I mean you have the book to talk about how to sharpen pencils. I want people to understand that when we say artist No we really mean hand-crafted and it's expensive so give us a little hint. Well I in my opinion I don't think it's not expensive. OK $15 domestic and you get a pencil really sharp in a plastic shatter proof display too. You get the shavings bagged and labeled for display as well.

And you get a certificate. The whole thing is then mailed mailed using the United States Postal Service and I've done over 500 pencils and I've never once had a complaint about a pencil breaking in transit. You got a lot of testimonials in the book from a number of celebrities but also I love the students particularly the one that said she loved her pencil and what was your tropical fish or bit your favorite tropical fish. That's right. Yes I was contracted to sharpen pencils for about 25 fifth and sixth graders in New York City before they took their standardized exams. And so that was a fun job that was a big job. But it was a fun job and the kids sent me some really great thank you thank you letters and so I knew that I had to include those along with testimonials from some of my clients and some a book blurb ors who were kind enough to to weigh in on the virtues of my book. So as we look forward you said already interest in pencils coming back even though not many people making them in America anymore. A lot of a lot of pencils coming from China. Where do you see the pencil in the future.

I think that pencils will I mean the black wing is a good example I think that as some people get into high end stationary like most skin notebooks and field notes brand note pads and things like that that there will be people who are willing to pay a premium for a really really well-made pencil the tree liable that is pleasing aesthetically that has a predictable sharpening experience. And these are things that you can't get from an inferior pencil and so I think that you will see a subspecialty pencil market rather in the way that we see a specialty pen market. And I hope that as people come to appreciate the pencils they will come to appreciate what a great bargain I'm offering with my services. Only $15 per pencil. In general do you think this speech speaks of are our growing appreciation for the artists and for the handcrafting. I think yeah I think this is I think that's definitely a cultural moment that I wanted to exploit when I decided to brand my business. I live in the Hudson River Valley which is thick with farmers markets and expensive jars of pickles and handmade bread and all these

things and so when I was trying to figure out how to get paid to sharpen pencils I realized that if I called it an artesian well business I could probably up my price a little. And it's working it's working at five hundred pencils. I never I never thought I never thought I would be able to say that. But yes I have been paid to sharpen 500 pencils. It's very impressive I have to say David Reese I learned more about pencils and how to sharpen them than I ever thought possible. Quite detailed here. Oh thank you Can I ask you a quick question or so I have taken the liberty of sharpening one of the pencils that you presented me with do you know why there are two colors on this band of cedar shavings. Two different woods were used exactly they were sandwiched together and they were Miss Milo I read how to sharpen pencils. I've been talking to David Reese about his new book How to sharpen pencils a practical and theoretical treatise on the artist little craft of pencil sharpening for writers artists contractors flanged turners angles myths and civil servants. You can catch him tonight at 7 o'clock at Brookline Booksmith. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter

and become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook. We are a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.