To all interested:

1) Pendemonium sold out of the Web Notebooks they had at the Chicago Show.
2) Pendemonium expects next shipment in Fall 2008.
3) Karen Doherty, Vice President of Marketing for Exaclair in NYC sent me a response to my Web Notebook enquiry:

"At this moment, I don't expect them before October.. They will be made with Clairefontaine paper on a special machine at a company manufacturing facility in Brittany, and the machine is being tested now. ....We will post the news on the Rhodia blog-Rhodia Drive.com." Announcing their availability.

Sounds like , to me, that this next batch, may have different paper from the batch sold at the Chicago Pen Show. I for one am anxiously awaiting their arrival. Jim

This does sound like they will have new paper! How wonderful!!!

I love my little orange Webnotebook, but the paper was soo disappointing. Kudos to Exaclair for adressing this!

It's now available at Nota Bene in Montreal, the container finally made it across the Atlantic.


http://www.nota-bene.ca

I just reviewed one, and love it! ;-)

Review: Rhodia Large Webnotebook
"I was VERY glad to get the Rhodia Large Webnotebook in my hands last week, and I can't reveal my sources. I understand that as of now these are not yet formally available in the U.S. ;-) (Be sure to see some of the good pics at the official Rhodia Webnotebook site.) The catalyst for this review was the fine work and review of the Rhodia Webnotebook at Black Cover."
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/2008/0...ebnotebook.html

With the old or the new paper?

I will ask Russell, but he has a rack full of them in the small and larger size. I bought a black and an orange small, haven't had time to try them yet.

I talked with Russell today about the Webnotebooks, he photocopied the page from the official Rhodia catalogue: Ivory Paper 80g, lined, 96 sheets offered in 95x140 and 145x210

I had a good look and the webnote is a lot more "Ivory" than regular Rhodia paper, but it's a really nice writing experience.


He also received the E-Pure notebook cover, I love them! My Bloc Rhodia was naked before I got this cover, super classy!


If anybody is interested, he has a bunch of them!

I snagged one of the larger Rhodia webnotebooks - I love it. Far superior to Moleskin on paper and overall quality. I love the rubberized black binder, the pocket, and the paper is superb with Aurora black ink. I can write on both sides of the paper with no bleed through. The paper has virtually no tooth at all and allows for smooth as silk writing. I am going to have to stock up on these - not a cheap proposition at 20 bucks per notebook, but in my opinion, well worth the money.

Far superior? Even those who don't like Moleskine paper tend to agree that the overall quality of the design is among the best. Insofar as there is nothing wrong with Moleskine build quality, I find it hard to believe that the webnotebook could possibly be far superior in that sense. The quality of the paper is another issue and is a subjective matter, so perhaps "far superior" would apply here. Personally, I have written in many Moleskines over the past year and haven't had any problems with the paper, so I wonder whether it is reason or vogue that causes people to complain. Either way, it is pointless to argue over a subjective matter, so I will simply allow you the claim that the webnotebook is far superior in that respect.

My 4"x6" lined Moleskine's binding split in about 1 week of light but daily use.

All a matter of opinion....

Excellent, I wish you had elaborated more on that position. I will try to do so for you, and perhaps you can tell me where you think I am wrong.

Perhaps you didn't realize what you were saying, so I will try to tell you. If you take the position that the quality of something is "all a matter of opinion," you will be forced to admit that nothing can actually be higher quality than anything else in reality. That is, there is no sense in which an item that falls apart quickly is lower quality than a similar item that lasts forever. What you said is that the overall quality item is strictly a matter of taste, similar to the way beauty is a matter of taste. If we are reasonable, I think we will all agree that there is no sense in which something is more beautiful than something else in reality, for as long as one person says a thing is beautiful and another says it is ugly, the thing is neither beautiful nor ugly in fact but only in opinion. If we are reasonable, we do not call another person foolish because they call something beautiful that we call ugly. We simply say that it is a matter of aesthetic taste and that is all.

Now, we must apply this to what you have said about high and low quality. What you have said is that there is no sense in which something is actually high or low quality because it is entirely a matter of opinion. Is this what you meant, that nothing is actually high quality? If that is what you mean, you have said something very odd, and I will tell you why. If that is not what you mean, then you should have said something other than what you said in order to make your point clear.

Suppose that there is a company that produces pens that consistently break when one removes them from the package while another company produces similar pens that last for years. We would likely laugh at a person who claimed that the former company produces higher quality pens than the latter, and rightly so because it would be a foolish thing for them to claim. Why is it foolish? Because there is an objective sense in which we measure something's quality. We do not simply say that nothing is higher quality than anything else. Let us consider beauty again. If someone says that something is beautiful that we find ugly, we do not say that they don't understand what beauty is; instead, we say that they find different things beautiful. However, if someone says that a company that produces pens that break easily produces high quality pens, then we would say that they don't understand what quality means. If they say that they meant that the nibs are high quality, not the pens, then we might wonder why they didn't say so in the first place, for a nib is not the same thing as a pen, and we may agree with them on this point.

Now, on the matter of the journal. You did not say that the webnotebook seems higher quality in some ways than a Moleskine, or that you like the feel of it better, or that you find it more attractive. You said that it is far superior in quality, and if we are in agreement that there is a sense in which things are actually higher quality than other things, then you did not express an opinion but rather a fact. If quality is a factual matter, then you will have to prove your claim, and we are back to my original point that it would be very hard for you to prove that the webnotebook is "far superior in quality" to the Moleskine. Perhaps a weaker claim would serve your purpose better, but I would be glad to hear what proof you do have if any.

Or perhaps you still think that whether something is high or low quality is entirely a matter of taste. If so, then we would have to get to the bottom of this business of high and low quality, and eventually I think you will have to agree that we have loose but objective measures for these.