Record keeping

One reason for this blog is to keep track of stuff. I also have a notebook for record keeping, which is another way of saying keeping track of stuff.

This notebook is from Muji.

On the left are lists of birds. It is important for me to keep track of the birds I see everyday for obvious reasons. On the right is a drawing of what I hope will be translated into and actual backdoor for a cabin that I am closely associated with. Under the door is a sketch of a poet featured in the book the Dharma Bums and whose children I used to know. Japhy Rider was his name in the Karouac book and Gary Snyder is his actual name. This is becoming a tangent but I will continue to digress a moment longer. The closest I get to writing poetry is drawing a poet. I admit to being a philistine when it comes to poetry, but I like Snyder because he loves nature (who doesn't you might ask?) and specifically writes about the nature - the land - that I am most familiar with, the Sierra Nevada. Maybe it is the land that I am most in love with rather than most familiar with.

Back to the subject at hand. Record keeping. I find notebooks aesthetically pleasing - other people's notebooks. Even Kevin Spacey's notebooks in the movie 7 or Seven and those of brother of Robert Crumb, Charles Crumb's complete with its "graphomania" as R. Crumb called it.

But my own... not so pretty or visually compelling. So, I think it might be a good idea to hire a person with nice pen chops to remake my notebooks. I am not picturing calligraphy but I wont rule that out. I know quite a few women with lovely handwriting, Jenny Hunter, Jen Beeman, and this old lady who used to spend several minutes writing a check at the fish market in Berkeley (they were works of art in the high craftiest meaning of the word and worth every minute the customers behind her had to wait). But these women write in too feminine a style for my journals. That said, I will take all applicants for the job. I will pay up to $1 per word. Did I say word? That's not what I meant.  Price negociable. Celebrities will of course be given preference. Imagine the title: Jonathan Sadler's Journal as Handwritten by William Bradley "Brad" Pitt or "A Journal by Jonathan Sadler Handwritten by Destiny Hope Cyrus, the Only Celebrity Whose Real Name Sounds More Made up Than Her Stage Name." A group that will be given only slightly less consideration is well known scientists, poets, writers and talkshow hosts: E. O. Wilson, Billy Collins, Marilynne Robinson and Oprah Winfrey for example.