5 things

[truepenny]

1. The Columbus Zoo has otter pups, and video of the mama otter teaching one of her babies to swim (via Zooborns, and it's heresluck's fault I was over there in the first place).

ETA: also, the Sacramento Zoo's video clips of their new Sumatran tiger cub and her gorgeous mother are marvelous.

2. via @catvalente, this unspeakably awesome cartoon about angler fish. No really. Go read it.

3. "White Charles" is in the table of contents for Paula Guran's Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2010. w00t!

4. Fountain pen geeks, do any of you have comments on Noodler's black inks? I like my black inks REALLY BLACK, and Noodler's Polar Black is disappointing me by being more of a grayish sort of black. Are any of their other blacks better?

5. On Monday, as I was heading to the State Historical Society's reading room (which has just been renovated and is absolutely freaking GORGEOUS), I was diverted from my trajectory by a bookstore, where I found Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem (Elaine G. Breslaw); A Quest for Security: The Life of Samuel Parris, 1653-1720 (Larry Gragg); and The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth-Century New England (James West Davidson). It is possible that I am still smug about these finds.

Comments

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I use the Waterman black and it turns out black as my heart.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Good to know. *g*

Thanks!

[txanne.livejournal.com]

According to the French lady I bought my first fountain pen from, Shaffer black is the best. "Les notaires l'appellent l'encre de dix ans." 'Strue, too, my grad-school notes are still mostly legible.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I even have a bottle of Sheaffer black somewhere.

...

Which, as it turns out, had quietly tipped over on its side and was turning some junk mail from 2005 into a Rorschach test. So it's a good thing I went looking.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

*shudders* Skrip is evil stuff if you're a lefty.

I also don't recall their black being particularly dark. All the Skrip colors shade like mad, which tends to involve less saturation.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm a lefty!

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Huh. Regular or italic? I mostly use the fattest nibs I can get.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Regular, and I prefer fine points.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Ye-ah, that'd do it. So I guess Skrip should have a warning label about italic nibs.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'm in awe of people who can use italic nibs safely.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Thanks :). It's a lot of fun to learn, at least compared to the hideous soul sucking evil that is Palmer hand.

(fwiw, now that I've discovered converters, very few inks torture me as Skrip did... which removes the smearing as a reason to avoid italic nibs)

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

How long ago was grad school? Sheaffer started making Skrip in Slovenia a few years ago, and the formulations have changed, a little bit. I also believe they had a washable black and a "Permanent Jet Black" back in the day.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Looooong ago--1992. Now I'm sad! That was formerly wonderful ink!

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

They changed the bottle design, too, so it doesn't have that little inkwell in the top.

Some guy out there had a website with vintage ink, but if you trawl Ebay long enough, you can find it that way. I have two (mostly, due to my use) full bottles of Skrip Washable Blue bearing the iconography of the Snorkel, and they stopped making that model of pen in 1958. I'm often surprised at the sheer amount of office flotsam out there. If you really liked Skrip, you can probably even find one of those monster 16 oz. bottles used to refill the smaller ones.

The one I'd like is old-formula Skrip Brown. I had one semi-dry cartridge I had to replenish with water.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Noooo do not tell me anything like this, I can't get obsessed with anything else right now!

(also: nooooo I can't believe they changed the bottle do not want.)

[inizitu.livejournal.com]

ZOMG that angler fish thing is fabulous. Also, nature is a fucker. O.o

[midnightsmagic.livejournal.com]

I work at the Historical Society! I am bizarrely tickled by the fact that one of my favorite authors visits it. Perhaps I will run into you there sometime, though this is unlikely, since I spend my time in a dreary, windowless back office, and only rarely get to visit the amazing new reading room.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Cool!

I love the State Historical Society building. If I have time to kill on campus, that's pretty much my favorite place to go and work.

[bummble.livejournal.com]

Noodler's Bulletproof black (wich is their 'regular'black) is *very* intense; it also doesn't pull into the paper as much as some other inks, preventing feathering.

It's the blackest black I've ever blacked, with no nuances or shading whatsoever.
Also, it flows really well even in difficult fountain pens.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I have Waterman black, which works quite well for me, although if you can find it where you are, possibly check out Private Reserve. I haven't tried their black, but I was very impressed with some of their other colours.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I am useless about fountain pens, as I use dip pens and Sumi inks. That said, the mainstay of SCA calligraphers seems to be Higgins Eternal (which I was quite happy with until I discovered the Sumi inks and fell in love). Most of us use dip pens, but according to what I've found online it also works beautifully in fountain pens. It is quite black and reasonably permanent.

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

I second bummble above. Standard Black is pretty dark, and also "bulletproof", using a dye that bonds with the cellulose so it cannot be eradicated short of disintegrating the paper.

I've found it tends not to dry out as quickly as some inks, but it has a nice "lubrication" factor, making the nib feel really smooth upon the paper.

Heart of Darkness is even blacker than standard black. When I used it on a piece of photocopied paper, it was nigh-on indistinguishable from toner. It also seemed to have a little wetter flow, and perhaps more nib creep due to that. Also, possibly more feathering. I believe it dried more quickly than standard black, also.

In terms of price, it seems HOD only comes in a 4.5 oz. 'Boston Round' bottle with a built-in eyedropper. Most of the Noodler's come in 3 oz. bottles for $11.50-$12.50, including standard black, but I believe HOD would sell for their standard "bulletproof" price, which is more like $18-$19. With that big bottle usually comes a free Platinum Preppy pen, outfitted as an eyedropper-filled model, for the same price as a 3 oz. bottle of the more expensive stuff.

If you want it to be really black, HOD seems to be described as such.

(Yearns to leave work early and run comparisons using Lamy Vista...)

[finnyb.livejournal.com]

*lusts after the books, particularly the Tituba one*