Tranquility

During my recent trip to New York City, I stopped in at the New York Public Library. The main reading room is an island of peace and quiet above the taxi horns and jackhammers of the streets below, even though it's only on the 3rd floor. (You get to it by walking up marble stairs.) Apparently, the thick stone walls are very insulating. The walls are lined with books, but the heavy wooden tables are equipped with computer screens. Maybe a hundred of them. Internet access is free, but on a Sunday afternoon, most of the stations were not in use.

There was a sign prohibiting flash photography. I guess they have a problem with that. But I couldn't resist snapping a picture of my personal, portable information companion with one of the historic copper lamps. I thought about how many people had been in that room before me. Writing with quills or fountain pens, pencilling notes on index cards, and now, interacting with an electronic screen. But maybe one thing has stood the test of time: a personal, leather-bound book, worn from use and seasoned by skin oils. A private reference volume, a distillation of the volumes of information out there in billions of books and Web pages. A tranquil island refuge in a swelling sea of facts. A Filofax.

Madison Signatures

I'm back. There's no place like New York City, and Madison Signatures is a quintessentially New York shop, nestled just east of Central Park in a cozy 2nd floor walkup. I almost missed it because I was expecting a storefront. The proprietor, Phil, is a dapper gentleman who sports a feathered hat. His shop specializes in beautiful personalized stationery as well as Filofaxes.

If you're visiting New York, you'll be impressed by Madison Signatures' selection of Personal and Pocket sized leaves. In Personal, there are some harder-to-find papers like Cotton Cream and Clouded. There's an impressive selection of Mini leaves as well. The selection of A5s is a little more limited, and there's even a small section for the discontinued Deskfax. If you use Personal, Pocket, or Mini, you'll probably find what you're looking for. With the larger sizes, I'd recommend calling or emailing first.

Where Madison Signatures truly excels is in service. Phil held his last packet of A5 Project Planner leaves for me for 2 months, sight unseen, even though he could probably have sold it to someone off the street during that time. He even offered to open early for me, since I went in to pick it up on the morning of my travel day. (It turned out not to be necessary.) As I was leaving, a woman was coming in about some custom-engraved stationery or invitations, and she was clearly a repeat customer, for she was greeted warmly, like a friend.

While I was in NYC, I also scored some A5 binders at a Japanese bookstore, which I'll use for archiving. I'll report on that in a later post.

Pencil News

My life is now divided across three Filofaxes. (To be honest, it's really two: My A5, for general purposes, and my Personal, for financial items. The red Mini Domino I purchased is largely unused. I may have to relegate it to a mental junkyard that has grown to huge dimensions in my life: The Land of Failed Experiments.)

My A5, God bless it, has two loops for writing implements. I have been keeping a Uniball in one, and a Pentel 0.5mm pencil in the other. This combination has worked magnificently. This weekend, I bought a couple more Pentel pencils, in order to stock the Personal Filofax.

Ho hum. No news.

This is the news: I bought some darker pencil leads. Oh yes. Hold me back. If I have simply become too crazy and unpredictable for you, feel free to take a break in order to gather your senses.

I've alluded in the past to the fact that I am a cheapskate. So it was a big deal for me to say, "I shall abandon these faint-hued HB leads that came with my pencils, and instead spend several dollars on a bunch of 2B leads that will show up more clearly on the page." But I did it, damn it. I had to take a shower afterward.

The 2B lead really makes a lovely line, contrasty and dark. It isn't as precise as the HB lead, because it grinds down faster and more quickly becomes a broad line. However, I'm not sketching critical safety mechanisms for nuclear reactors here. I am writing things like, "Dog - Vet." Or, "Make reservation for anniversary." Or, "Purchase gift to atone for failure to make reservation for anniversary." Or, "Purchase gift to atone for failure to purchase gift to atone for failure to make reservation for anniversary." Optical precision is not necessary. (Moral precision is more important.)

Anyway, I'll be enjoying these leads for years to come, because they came in a package of 144 leads. Maybe my old HB leads would make a good anniversary present...

Road Trip

I'm off, a little later today, to New York City for a couple of days. Going to see friends, lunch with a colleague, take in a couple of shows, and (here's where this post actually becomes relevant to the blog) pick up some discontinued A5 Filofax forms at Madison Signatures. Maybe they'll have the hole punch I've been needing, too. I'll see what they've got; maybe buy my 2007 refills while I'm there. I'll report on my experience at the store, maybe post a few pictures. If time allows, maybe head over to Japantown to see if they have A5 binders that I can store my archived pages in.

What else does this trip possibly have to do with Filofax? Well, the whole journey started out as a list in my Filo. One of those "Next Time in [Placename]" lists. I started planning the trip once I realized I actually had enough things on the list to justify the journey. It was the timing of the shows I wanted to see that clinched the timeframe.

Sure, my Filofax didn't help me book a hotel room, or figure out how to afford it. As far as driving there, I'm on my own. But the Filo helped me germinate the idea, helped remind me who I had to call and email to set up my engagements, helped me see which parts of the planning it made sense to delegate to my husband. When I'm there, it will remind me where I need to be and when, and to do the things I went there to do in the first place.

Since my return to the Filofax fold earlier this year, I believe this trip is the first project that I've taken all the way from idea to realization relying solely on Filofax support.

Let this be just the beginning.

Leather Tickler

Curiosity got the better of me, and I checked out the site statistics for this blog; namely, the Google search terms that brought people to this address. And I found that someone arrived at Philofaxy by searching for "leather tickler." Now, Filofaxes are certainly made of leather, and they make great tickler files, but somehow I think that searcher had something else in mind.

Now that I've finally stopped laughing, I just thought I'd mention it, in case it turns it out to...er...whip up more site traffic.