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Putting Pen to Paper Anew
More recently, Mitchell Henning, 43, was reading a friend's Internet blog about Moleskine and was inspired to buy one herself. She wrote a blog about the purchase, describing how she struggled over the idea of spending so much money on a notebook. In the end, she said, writing on paper can memorialize what's important in life. Inside her new Moleskine, she is writing a detailed account of the day two months ago when she gave birth to her first child, Ian.
Americans are expected to purchase 2.2 million Moleskines this year, up from 970,000 in 2004, according to Modo & Modo, the notebook's Milan-based designer. The national bookstore chain Barnes & Noble counts Washington as its third-largest Moleskine selling ground, trailing New York and Philadelphia. In all, Washingtonians are expected to buy nearly 70,000 Moleskines this year.
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"It is a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem," said Rockville's Ken Britz, 34, an engineer with Dynamic Animation Systems who develops software for training simulators used by the U.S. Navy.
He explains why: At work, things come so fast that the best way to note something important often is to write it down. Britz keeps a 5-by-8-inch Moleskine at hand; it doubles as a mouse pad. Should he need to take notes during a call or sketch out a flow diagram of a graphical user interface, he slides off the mouse and grabs a pen.
Britz keeps two other Moleskines for personal use. In these he writes scenes for his screenplay, which involves manipulated human genetics and King Arthur living in modern times.
A strong literary bent has always motivated journal users, of course, and the Moleskine is no exception. Those at the farthest end of this spectrum don't necessarily consider Moleskines an addendum to technology; they consider them a shelter from it.
Online Moleskine postings started popping up about 2004. One early reader: Jerry Brito, 29, a policy analyst at the Mercatus Center, an Arlington think tank.
"I can't believe I'm saying this," he said of Moleskines, "but I really think they're beautiful."
A former Web site designer, Brito has blogged about dividing Moleskines into color-coded, tabulated sections. That struck a chord with Omar Shahine, 29, a Microsoft project manager. Inside his office, Shahine keeps a PC, two 19-inch flat-screen monitors, a laptop, a webcam, a wireless weather forecaster, a hand-held e-mail device -- and his Moleskine. The Moleskine allows him to think on paper.
"It's kind of like a gadget in itself. It's just an analog gadget," he said.
In a blog titled "How the Moleskine Rocked My World," Shahine recommends Brito's blog.
Brito has written on such heady topics as domestic eavesdropping, Iraq and Internet copyright issues. But his Moleskine advice gets the most hits. At least 20 sites link to it, including ones in Spanish, Portuguese and German. "I'm going to go down as the Moleskine guy," Brito said.
A more recent convert is Annie White, 25, an economic consultant for the International Food Policy Research Institute, which works to cut hunger and malnutrition worldwide. She carried a 5-by-8-inch Moleskine (there's also a 3.5-by-5.5-inch version) while studying in Europe last year. She visited one of Hemingway's Paris haunts, Cafe de Flore , while reading "A Moveable Feast," his memoir of 1920s Paris. She ordered an espresso, as evidenced by the keepsake receipt glued inside her Moleskine: 4.40 Euro.
Among the contents of her current Moleskine are 20 things she wanted to knock off over Christmas break. No. 10: Learn to bake pie with Mom. Check.
"I am a compulsive list-maker," White said. "For me, I feel better when things are out of my head. I make lists constantly. Things to do. Things to buy. Things to worry about."
White checks the Moleskine blogs every few days, seeing what others are up to. But she's drawing the line at $40 extras. "I am not," she vowed, "about to buy these pens that they talk about."
