The Mechanical Pencil: The Mezzanine Pt. 2

    The way Howie sees the world in this book really had an effect on me. After reading a few chapters, I would usually look up and sigh with relief. Suddenly, I would start to really notice everything around me, for instance a lamp sitting next to me whose light I read by. That lamp probably came from a lamp factory halfway across the globe. One chapter that really influenced my post-reading alertness was chapter 9, in which Howie remarked on the wonder of the men's bathroom. "Is there any other spot in the modern office where a comparable level of mechanical ingenuity is so concentrated and on display?" Howie said, referencing the ingenious design of the toilets, the urinals, even the soap dispensers.

    This made me think about the pencil I was holding. It is a perfectly cylindrical shiny metal mechanical pencil with a knurled grip* at the end, and it is undoubtedly the best pencil I've ever owned. I discovered mechanical pencils when my back-to-school shopping list at the beginning of 6th grade recommended them. I bought a 12 pack of crappy plastic ones, and by the end of the first quarter, all of them had disappeared, either lost or lent with no hope of return. So I went back to Meijer and bought one shiny pencil that caught my eye. It had an optimal center of gravity near the tip, and a detachable eraser to insert 0.7mm lead. This pencil I never lent to anyone, and because I only had one, I kept track of it well.

    Because I have had this pencil for so long, I've gotten to know it like the back of my hand. My thumb and forefinger have worn away the shine at the tip of the pencil, so by observing the pencil's surface you can determine my hand posture while writing. I've taken it apart and put it back together numerous times to view its inner mechanism**, where a brass clamp pushes the lead into place and splits in two briefly to let it extend outward. If it weren't for this odd book, I wouldn't be pursuing the tangents of my consciousness to this point.

(I wanted to try footnotes here, but I can't figure out how to do subscript on this site.) 

* At a machining and welding camp I took a couple summers ago, I learned how to make a metal punch using a lathe. One of the last steps was to knurl the handle, which we did using a knurling roller. At the end, we used an engraving tool to tap our initials into the butt of the metal punch. I still have that thing in my room, although it never got any use and is now rusting away.

** Who do I have to thank for the creation of my mechanical pencil? Some factory in Indonesia? How many pencil factories are there, that each make a unique variant of mechanical pencil? Or is there one huge factory with customizable machines that can make many different kinds of pencils? How many factories must there be in the world to produce the variety of mass-produced objects all around us?

Comments

  1. Mikayla BlankeSeptember 10, 2022 at 1:25 PM

    No! Baker strikes again! I can definitely relate to your experience. While walking up stairs, I would literally be questioning "how do they decide how tall to make the stairs?" It's crazy to me how much Baker's writing and Howie's stream of consciousness is so contagious! Even here, your writing is definitely similar to his (which I'm assuming was on purpose). Also, I know exactly what type of pencil your talking about... and I'm very jealous that I don't have one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Daniel TSeptember 17, 2022 at 11:22 AM

    You managed to copy Bakers style here extremely well! The analysis into things like how your fingers have imprinted into the pencil, or the footnote tangents, are very Howie like. I also find how you managed to pull on and connect other random things such as your experience at welding camp into this very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TaehanOctober 2, 2022 at 3:13 PM

    I like the way you wrote this and emulated Nicholson Baker's writing style. I completely agree about everything you have said about your pencil, as I find it completely relatable to be as well. One thing I like about my pencil is that the shape is more similar to a hexagonal prism, in that multiple flat planes run down the length of pencil, rather than one smooth cylindrical surface. I like to spin my pencil in my hands, and feel each flat plane bump into my fingers.

    Kind of random but I think we share our love for our pencils its great.

    ReplyDelete

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