This is the great cosmic debate...
Recently a few people made note of the fact that I use pen. First, I used pen on a test at school and my instructor commented: "You must be pretty bold to use pen." (For the record, I got 100%). Second occurrence. I was working on a crossword puzzle and a classmate peered over my shoulder to watch. She saw I was using pen and asked me why. I said, "Pencil smudges, and pens are bold." (Probably still running on the instructor's comment)
Here's the deal. Using a pencil is safe: you always allow yourself a way out. With pens, if you make a mistake you can cross it out or try to write over it--but the mistake is still there for the world to see. Pencils are less precise as well. They are unwieldly and smudge. If I'm drawing a portrait I can use that to my advantage when I shade. With a pen I need to use cross-hatching to shade--it's much more precise.
A mechanical pencil may be more economic since you can refill it with lead, but a pencil is final--if it runs out, you throw it away.
I love pens. In fact, I collect them. I used to carry a pen with me wherever I went, since I never knew when I would need one. In fact, I got in such a habit of putting pens in my pocket that I started stealing them from banks, restaurants, etc., without realizing it. Once, a friend of mine asked if I had a pen and I reached in my pocket only to find I had 7. Now, Chrissa and I have buckets of them from all over the country, printed with names and addresses.
The pen is more powerful than the sword. Where's that leave the pencil?
7 years ago
2 comments:
A good point, Glasnost. Leave it up to you to put a plug in for the Commies. What's funny is that I was thinking about just that quote the other day but I couldn't remember where I heard it.
To quote Tom Robbins:
"Pencils are out of the question, their marks are impermanent. Of course, fountain pens leak; ballpoints have no style, and, moreover, always run away from home. The peacock quill appeals to me, the woodpecker quill even more so...
"Perhaps what a novelist needs is a different sort of writing implement. Say, a Remington built of balsa wood, its parts glued together like a boyhood model...Better, a carved typewriter, hewn from a single block of sacred cypress; decorated with mineral pigments, berry juice, and mud; its keys living mushrooms, its ribbon the long iridescent tongue of a lizard. An animal typewriter, silent until touched, then filling the page with growls and squeals and squawks, yowls and bleats and snorts, brayings and chatterings and dry rattlings from the underbrush; a typewriter that could type real kisses, ooze semen and sweat."
Chrissa: a Bic lighter can start a fire...but does that make it better than a pen?
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