The Erasable Podcast

We discuss how pencils fit into the environmental movement and some issues to think about when weighing pencils’ environmental impact. As we will see, pencils are much “greener” than one might at first assume, and there are eco-pencils to boot these days. Andy, Johnny and Tim discuss these topics and some of their favorite environmentally friendly pencils. A quick note: We were a week late in recording and producing this episode, and embarrassingly, the day we finally were able to record, Skype was not cooperating. At a few points, the quality of audio seriously degrades. We think we have it edited so you don’t have to ensure much of that, but our apologies if we all sound like robots. We’ll work hard to make sure Skype treats us better in the future.

Although we love nothing more than sharpening up a good pencil and writing with it, there are some pencils we just want to keep in pristine shape. It’s the collector in us — an antique pencil, a souvenir pencil, a pencil advertising a business long since past. This episode is dedicated to those specimens that sit on display or, in Andy’s case, one of several cigar boxes in his basement. We’ll discuss sources of finding these sorts of pencils, discuss some of our favorites, and even let you in on a secret society of collectors, so you can network and trade with them.

Happy National Pencil Day! It was this day in, 1858, 156 years ago, that Hyman Lipman patented the first pencil with its own eraser. To celebrate, we’re breaking our usual bi-weekly format to bring you a special “live” episode. (We can’t, of course, really go live, but we can post it right away without editing.) Rather than a “main topic”, we’ll just cover a few pencil points, and then draw winners for our giveaway!

We humbly present The Pencil Glossary episode, in which you will learn everything you ever wanted to know, and everything which is indispensable for you to know, about the anatomy of pencils and the terms we employ when we talk about pencils. Tim tells us about ferrules and erasers and how the two came to meet. Andy explains the process of Woodclinching and how wood becomes a pencil. Johnny talks about the graphite core and pencils and Thoreau. Before that, we chat about the spring 2014 Field Notes, the new Blackwing 602 vs. the old and assorted other Pencilnalia. Join us next week for a special March 30th Pencil Day episode! And be sure to listen closely to this episode for a fun giveaway we’re conducting (Around 17:30).

So the audio’s a little rough, and we ramble about the philosophical implications of writing with wooden pencils, but Erasable is up and live with our inaugural episode! We’re starting off with some basics: our origin stories, why we started blogging about pencils, our top favorites, and the characteristics of a good pencil. We’ll be back next time with a glossary episode: the terms we use when we talk about pencils.