Hi All -

I'm now the happy owner of a bunch of notebooks - Clairefontaine, Tsubame, Kokuyo, Apica, Miquelrius, and Black n' Red. I'm willing to mail a sample page of each notebook to the first ten FPNers that PM me with their address AND a creative answer to this question: How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Sincerely,

Yumbo

Two. One to photocopy the octopus, and the other play the bongos.

I'm awash with paper at the mo, but many thanks for the v. kind offer.

How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Only one. He/She holds the lamp and expects that the world turns around him to screw it in.

None...........coz they are already screwed!!!!!!!

517
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
1 to carve a toboggan out of lard
etc.

What a generous offer, but please don't send me any paper as the chances are that I will fall in love with one of them and then not be able to buy them in the UK

Fish.

Ooooo, ooooo, <<hands waving in the air>>, I know, I know!

NONE, they just let it drip in...

And, yes, I'll take you up on your kind offer.

Two: One to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

None cos they all vanished to the other side.

I got those papers today! Thank you very much!

I have not written to these papers, yet, but at least I can say that Clairefontaine has extremely SMOOOOOOTH surface. I have heard all that hype and it is nice to finally experience myself if Clairefontaine really is so good. Also Tsubame and Apica are very smooth. I must try writing on these wonderful papers later.

What's a light bulb?

The paper samples would be most appreciated.

Whoah! Clairefontaine really is total paper nirvana and definition of smooth paper! Tsubame and Apica are very smooth, too. It really is possible to check smoothness of paper with fingers, first: If paper feels smooth in fingers, it will feel smooth when written with founain pen.

None of these papers showed feathering or bleed-through.

Did you have a problem with Clairefontaine paper absorbing skin oil?

I do with the Rhodia pads, made by Clairefontaine. There are certain nibs that I have that seem to work OK on them.

I don’t know. I don’t think so.

BTW one of my letter pads has almost as smooth paper as that piece of Clairefontaine paper. Its name is “Elco Airmail”. As the name suggests, it is light paper and therefore suitable for airmail. Sheets are all blank. It has also blotting sheet and that lined sheet that is meant to help writing. Here is homepage of that company called Elco: http://www.seetalelco.ch/

Darn! I probably missed the sampler...oh well. Where could I find some Tsubame notebooks to try out? Are they available online somewhere?

Yup, you did. If you want Tsubame and you're in the US and live near NYC, SF, LA, San Jose, or Seattle you can pick them up at a Kinokuniya book store. Quite frankly, Tsubame is on par with Apica or Kokuyo. You can get Apica from Taylorsintherockies on eBay, the friendliest eBayer on earth (no affiliation). Kokuyo is available at thedailyplanner.com (again, no affiliation). I've ordered from both and they have great service.

Sincerely,

Yumbo

ps - the Kokuyo and Apica spiral notebooks are the twin-spiral kind (not the cheap single-wire "helix") so they are snarl-resistant.