Episode 162: I'm Just a Person with a Website (with special guest Tiffany Babb)

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Today we talk about vintage notebooks, yet another new Blackwing, and mechanical keyboards. But also much to our delight, our friend and creative polymath Tiffany Babb joins the show to talk comics, literary criticism and creativity.

Transcript

(Many thanks to Sarah Yang, Erin Willard, Dianna Morganti, and Marissa Concepcion for their fantastic transcription editing work to make this transcript accurate and useful.)

Tim: When Andy gets drunk, he cusses even less, so he's...

Andy: That's true. I just turn into Ned Flanders - “Hey-diddly-erasably neighbor!” 

(Theme music)

Johnny: Hello and welcome to Episode 162 of The Erasable Podcast. Before we get into tonight's episode, I'd like to take just a second to dedicate this particular show to a really fantastic listener and educator who recently passed away. Mr. Croson taught in Baltimore City for his professional life and basically left a trail of awesomeness in his wake everywhere he went and we just wish him and his family wel. I feel like there should be like a natural transition there, but there's totally not, so sorry.

Andy: Just a moment of silence.

Johnny: I'm Johnny Gamber and of course I would never be here without my cohosts Andy and Tim, and also joining us tonight from the West Coast is Tiffany Babb. How are y'all doing?

Andy: Pretty good.

Tiffany: Yeah, can't complain.

Johnny: We'll talk more to Tiffany about herself and her work later, but for now, why don't we jump into tools of the trade. Get that out of the way. Do you want to go first, Tiffany?

Tiffany: Yeah! Tools of the trade - I've been consuming a lot of the movies of Sydney Lumet who I've always called Sydney “Lu-May” but apparently it's “Lu-Met.” I'm a big fan of his films, but I'm kind of going into the ones that, you know, people don't see. So I recently just watched “The Dybbuk”, which is a filmed-for-TV play - like an older Yiddish play that he did, which was really interesting and good. And I also watched “The Wiz” for the first time recently, which is a wild movie and, you know, babies hanging from the sky and little star outfits, which was...

Andy: Oh “The Wiz” is bananas.

Tiffany: It is...shockingly wild, and like the images, like some parts of it, they're just, it's just so imaginative and cool. And then some parts of it are just so strange that you wonder how they ever filmed anything like that and got it on the big screen. But yeah, so I've been watching those. I've been reading a collection of essays on E.B. White, which has been interesting cause I love his writing, but I've never read any criticism on him and the criticism is kind of harsh for someone who like - I think he's kind of one of the great American essayists and people are like, “eh, you know, he's too lighthearted” and I'm like “but, but that's the charm!” So that's been good too. 

And I've been listening to this new artist called Penelope Scott, and she is apparently some TikTok star. I'm not on TikTok so I listen to her music on Spotify, but she's a college student - like a political science student who does music in her spare time. And she has these great songs about like, you know, the things that young people are angry about, like Elon Musk and respectability politics and all of these things. And she's this really incredible lyricist and she kind of produces and mixes all of her own music. So, I highly recommend her music. 

Andy: Awesome!

Tiffany: Oh. And also I am - see, I'm clearly a newcomer cause I'm like, “Oh yeah, I have to keep talking here.” I am writing with a BauHaus Blackwing on an Appointed notebook that I got in one of those - like, for Christmas, CW pencils does those Christmas, like gift boxes, and one of my friends sent me the eco one and it came with this really cool green Appointed notebook that I've liked.

Andy:They make really good notebooks. Cool! Tim, how about you?

Tim: I have been listening to a guy named Parker Millsap. M I L L S A P Millsap, and he is a kind of Americana artist that I had missed for a long time. And then I just noticed that he had won, I think it was like best new artist or best emerging artist at the Americana Awards. And then he showed up on like every music podcast that I listen to all of a sudden so clearly he has a new album out - and he does and it's, and it's good. So, I like him, he's got an interesting story - it's like the first 200 gigs he played were playing guitar for his like Pentecostal church you went to or something, kind of like “playing on the fly” and then he like burst out of that with his own music and his own music is really cool. So I've been listened a lot to him and been reading a book of poetry called “Braided Creek,” which is by two authors who I've talked about on here before, but Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison and it's all these little poems that are like two to four or five lines. And they wrote the entire book in correspondence.

Johnny: Oh neat!

Tiffany: I love that book. It's really beautiful. And like very kind of makes you feel like you're living on a house - like in a house, like in the middle of nowhere.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I totally agree. And it's like, and I don't know how they actually did it, but the poems are so small. You just imagine every little one you read, you're just - I just find myself thinking about “what if this was one postcard?” you know? Like if they just send it off - if I got a postcard with this little four lines on it, some of them are hilarious and I think those are probably the ones like the ones I'm thinking of are Jim Harrison ones, but there's one - this is a little crass, but there was one that was like, basically when you're happy, and I'm not saying it in the poetic language, because i don't have it in front of me,  it was like “When you're having a hard time on the toilet, this is when you feel the most like a lightning bug.” Yeah. Like when you're bearing down, it's like that. So there's stuff like this, that stupid, like just kind of like silly, but then there's this just beautiful observations of everyday things that they're seeing yeah out in the country. So it's just, it's really really entertaining. It's really fun. It's a slim little book, but I highly recommend it cause there are two of my favorites. Ted Kooser may be my favorite poet alive these days. I like him a lot. And I just watched a movie that just won an Academy Award last night actually, but I watched it about a week ago. It's called “Another Round” and it’s starring Mads Mikkelsen.

Johnny: Yeah.

Tim: It's on Hulu - the premise is that - it's based on this real concept, but there's this Norwegian philosopher who has this theory that humans were born with a blood alcohol content that was 0.05 short of how much alcohol it should have in it - so like the body runs at its peak performance if you can stay at 0.05 alcohol. And so the movie is about these four teachers who decide to like bust out of their sort of like midlife crisis; they're all about 50. And they all decide to do like a scientific test of it and record the results. But then things kind of get out of hand, but it's not this like, it's interesting cause it's not really this like morality play about the alcohol. It's more just about like the alcohol teaches them that they need to like embrace life a little more and that there are multiple ways to do that. It's a great movie and it won the Oscar for Best International Feature or whatever they call that award now, I can't remember, I think they changed it. But it's a very good movie and it's weird, he's a great actor. Mikkelsen's a great, great actor. It's hard not to see him as a Bond villain or something...

Andy: I was just thinking that

Tim: Cause he's like perfect for that. But he does a really great job and he's an, this is, this doesn't really spoil things, but towards the end of the movie, you realize that he is a really awesome dancer. So, you know, wait for that.

 And I am writing with a Palomino HB with a PaperMate eraser cap sent to me by Mr. Johnny Gamber and…

Johnny: Do you like em?

Tim: Oh yeah, it's classic. It's classic. And I am writing still in my Field Notes Game Day, the brown Game Day notebook. 

Johnny: Nicee

Tim: How about you, Andy?

Andy: Whew. What have I been doing besides the usual HouseHunters- renovation escapism that we watch during dinner and things like that? I started watching this comedy that's been around for a while - there's been about four seasons of it - it's an Australian show it's called “Please Like Me.” And it's a mostly mostly lighthearted kind of fun comedy, but also approaches things like suicide and mental health and just interesting and you know, being gay. A lot of really good interesting themes in it and it's something about comedy that is just made even funnier by Australian accents. And I don't know why that is, but yeah, it's just a show we've been really enjoying - I think it's on Hulu if anybody wants to watch it - have either of you have any of you ever heard of that?

Tiffany: No, it's a good title though.

Andy: Yeah. “Please Like Me”. Yeah, it's very good. Yeah, it's just a fun bingeable show. Also just finished reading a book by one of my favorite authors Charlie Jane Anders. And this is a young adult book. But it was, I think really interesting, like really good and approachable for adults as well. It's called “Victory is Greater than Death” and the way that the author explains it, it's like a space opera in kind of like a big grand sort of way. And it's - what's really interesting I think about it is that it's a very friendly and inclusive approach to storytelling in a science fiction. So all like - this girl from Earth is taken by aliens and meets all of these different aliens and everyone uses like - introduces themselves with their pronouns, which is something that like, I like to think that in the universe, right, like kind of out there past Earth, is something that people are going to do.

And also being kind of a YA novel there's some like some romance and some people in a relationship and kissing and, and every time somebody hugs somebody or kisses somebody or holds somebody or grabs somebody's shoulder for, you know, for intensity or something, they always ask consent.

They're like, “Can I please touch you?” Or “Do you mind if I touch you?” or something like that, which is really cool. Something that, until I read it, I didn't realize how this is not something you ever see in stories. So a really good novel, very, very imaginative, lots of things like interesting descriptions of aliens.

If anybody here remembers there's a book series that I loved as a kid called My Teacher Is an Alien by Bruce Coville. This has strong vibes of that, just like, you know, some Earth young adults on a spaceship kind of out there in the scary universe, but like, you know, sticking together and saving aliens. Oh, and I have a bunch of other books that I bought on Saturday during Independent Bookstore Day. Which I probably won't talk about now because I'm still sort of like trying to wrap my head around them. But speaking of which, I am writing with one of those universally beloved Independent Bookstore Day Blackwings, universally loved by those of us on this podcast.

Tim: Just beautiful.

Johnny: It's grown on me. The more I see 'em, like Oh, okay, it's colorful and cool. It looks like a book.

Tim: Growing on me like a fungus.

Andy: I have a fresh point about it, but yeah, that's kind of my, what I'm thinking as well. And it's a firm graphite, which I appreciate, but I was at a bookstore and hadn't had the opportunity to pick up a dozen. So,I thought I'd grab one and try it out. So I'm writing with that in my Leuchtturm notebook that I've been working on for forever.

Johnny, how about you?

Johnny: Awesome. So, I am in the middle of the Night Train to Lisbon; it's a film that I've seen like, several times cause I really like it. And it's billed as sort of like a philosophical novel, so I'm waiting for them to start, you know, quoting Sartre and stuff like that. But I think it's philosophical in the, you know, reflective sense, like it's reflective, therefore philosophical, but you know, it's a really good story about hitting a point in your life where you're like, you know, what if I'd made different choices? Oh, wait, I'm not dead. I'll do it now. Which is cool. 

That's always what I admire about Thoreau. So, yeah, it's, it's good and long and there's a lot of stationery in it. So definitely check that out. 

And I just watched a mini series on Netflix called Requiem that was, I think it was supposed to be like horror, thriller suspense-type thing. So no one would watch it with me because everybody thought it was scary, but it wasn't scary or particularly violent. It was really good. It was set in Wales and filmed in Wales. So it had David Harrington who I love, who was in Hinterland and also Poldark. He played the captain. 

And finally, I've been listening to Julien Baker a lot, which is making me feel super old because she's like in her mid-twenties and her music is so good.

Tim: She's great.

Johnny: It's like her early stuff is so sad that it's like, oddly cathartic, it's like breathing tragedy, like, Okay, I'm going to sit here and be so sad for an hour, and then get up and do something and feel a lot better than before I sat down. So definitely check that out. And her recent one it's sort of like Mumford & Sons where suddenly there's a full band, but the whole band is her, which is super cool. Who did, what was the movie when Eddie Vedder did that soundtrack where he did all of the instruments himself? Into the Wild? Yeah, it, I mean, it doesn't sound like that at all, but I liked that idea. Everything sounds super tight when it's all one person.

And I was chatting with our friend Ed Kemp online a little today, and we were talking about the Mirado Woodtone. So I've got an old Mirado Woodtone out here in--what Field Notes is this? Winter, because we're still waiting for spring.

Andy: Last--two weeks ago when we did this, we were like, Come on, when are they going to introduce the new Field Notes? And we're still waiting.

Johnny: Yeah. I was thinking like, when they've been sort of late, every time they've done it, it's been so good. So I'm just like, it's going to be worth it. It's gonna be worth it. I think Day Game was like really late when that one came out, that was worth it. And Traveling Salesman came out super late. That's like legendary. 

So yeah. Why don't we jump into fresh points? You want to lead us off again, Tiffany?

Tiffany: This is a fresh point to me. I don't know if it's a fresh point to everyone but I recently discovered the website NotebookTherapy.com, and they have like Korean and Japanese stationery and these really cute notebooks. What happened was I bought a Panda Planner this year, thinking I'm going to use a structured planner. And like two months in, I was like, this is not working at all. So I figured out I needed to get like a blank notebook for a bullet journal again. Which, I don't know why I didn't know that, after using a bullet journal for five years. But I thought, maybe something new. It didn't work. But I went to the site. They have these really cute designs and they're kind of Baron Fig-shaped and kind of Baron Fig-like paper, like you can write with fountain pen and stuff.

But one caveat, which is, I dunno if it's just the notebook I got or if it's all of them, but sometimes the dots don't line up perfectly, and that's so annoying. But beyond that one little thing it's, it's a cool notebook, and they have really cool notebook accessories and stuff. So definitely check them out.

Johnny: Oh, they have some adorable stuff on here.

Andy: I love their name, Notebook Therapy, because you know, they're not even going to pretend. People shop for notebooks to like, self-soothe.

Tiffany: Right. It's like, Have some pretty ones. On your desk.

Andy: Yeah.

Tiffany: Be happy.

Johnny: Oh wow. The Sakura ones are gorgeous. There goes all my money. Do you want to go next, Mr. Tim?

Tim: Sure.

Johnny: If, I'm sorry, are those all of your fresh points?

Tiffany: Yes, that was it for me.

Tim: First off, just real quick. This is the final call if you're wanting to submit songs for Plumbago, the music issue that we're putting together. So we're looking for entries by May 1st. So when this episode comes out, we probably only have a few days, but if you are halfway through something and you just kind of forgot and you needed that little boost, there you go.

So send that in to us and we'll be in touch and talk about your submission. There's a lot of really cool stuff coming in and I can't wait to share it with everybody.

Andy: Tiffany, how's yours going?

Tiffany: Good. You know.

Andy: That wasn't, I didn't mean to check up on you or anything.

Tiffany: No no no . Music's fun. I feel so strange about music because I haven't been playing guitar very long, and whenever I think I should write a song, I'm like, Oh, but songwriting's, like, what other people do. Like, like real musicians. So you know, music, music is strange.

Tim: You should read Jeff Tweedy's book, if you haven't read it.

Tiffany: I will write that down.

Tim: How to Write One Song.

Tiffany: That's a great title for a book.

Tim: Very, very cool, very cool. It's like, if you write one song, you can write fifty, but just worry about writing one that is really good. I love that book a lot. 

Yeah, so if you've got that, send it in to PlumbagoMagazine@gmail.com. Reach out to us and we'll talk to you. 

And the only other thing I have is a little obsession that I've fallen into that has not been very fruitful. And I was even hesitant to talk about on here because somebody else might snap it up, if they find one, but I've been really into Hank Williams recently and listening to old Hank Williams stuff. And I watched the movie I Saw the Light with--what's his name? Hiddleston, was that the guy? Yeah, he plays Hank Williams, and the movie's pretty good. And then I've been reading a biography too that's called Hank. 

And in the movie, he's using what looks like a little Moleskine notebook. And I was like, yeah, there's no way, like that's just movie people being movie people. Like there's no way that that's what he was using. 

And so I google “Hank Williams notebook” and then I found this really awesome story about, there's this notebook that was found by a custodian in a dumpster outside of Sony or something, like outside of the record company, like they're cleaning out some archives or whatever.

And the notebook was a lost notebook of Hank Williams lyrics. And this happened a while ago. And there's an album you can look up called the Lost Notebook of Hank Williams. So this notebook was found, the custodian sold it and then like got sued because they thought the person stole it, but they didn't steal it. It was confirmed by the judge. 

And so, but the notebook ended back in the hands of Sony. Pretty sure it's Sony. It doesn't matter. And then Sony put it in the hands of Bob Dylan and Bob Dylan made an album out of the lyrics that were in there. I mean, he did one song, then he recruited Norah Jones, Jack White, Levon Helm, Jakob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Sheryl Crow, Holly Williams, Patty Loveless, Lucinda Williams, pretty amazing cast of characters, and they recorded an album of unreleased Hank Williams lyrics. 

The reason I'm bringing this up is that the notebook that he uses looks awesome. And I've been trying to find it desperately. It is a spiral notebook that has to be from the 1950s. I mean, it's just a basic spiral notebook, but it's by this company called Gregg Publishing and it's called the Spiral. It just has a really,

Andy: I love the spiral font on it.

Tim: Yeah, it's super cool. It's, I mean, if you just google “Hank Williams notebook” you should see it pretty quickly. But all the things I've been finding, like everywhere I look, is just all, like, music notation notebooks that were made by Gregg Publishing Company. So it's not really like exactly what I'm looking for, but it's very cool.

And I've got a Google alert set up and so I'm on the hunt. So if anybody has any ideas. It just is a very cool, it's a--here's a picture, I'll put it in the show notes, but it is just a, it's a very cool notebook. It's brown and just has a really neat print to it. And it's called the Spiral Combination Theme and Note Book, two words. So

Johnny: Is that the source of Gregg Rule stenobook? Interesting. Cool.

Tim: I'm pretty sure. So, yeah. So this is, this is the, the link I'm

Andy: Hank Jr., if you're listening and you have any extra notebooks of your father's,

Tim: Oh man. That guy can go...

Andy: Tim wants one.

Tim: ...like go screw himself. I don't want a notebook from him. You can keep them, Hank Jr. Yeah, so Hank Williams is this like amazing figure from the birth of country music and rock and roll. And then his son, you know, thought Obama was the antichrist and said a bunch of really ugly racist stuff, so he can keep them.

Johnny: That's a winner.

Tim: yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's all I got. So I'm just on the hunt for that notebook. And I've been obsessed with and been googling it multiple times a day for a couple of weeks, trying to find it as if somebody is just going to be like, “Oh, I should put up these ancient old yellowing spiral notebooks up on eBay that have just been sitting here forever.” It'll happen one day.

Tiffany: You never know

Tim: Never know. Yeah. How about you, Andy?

Andy: One thing I want to mention just to go back to Plumbago for a second. We are looking for contributors who can write some liner notes for the songs that we have. So if you wanna write a little thing for the zine itself about one of the songs that we're going to have on the album, please get in touch.

We can put you in contact with the artist if you want to do it like a music critique or something like that, please do that. We, yeah, we'd love to just have a little bit of writing about the music that you're going to hear on that album. So, please get in touch if that's something that sounds interesting to you. 

Also wanted to mention, got a message the other day from a really cool artist in Baltimore named Cory Myers who has a little shop called the Head Bone Company, and he teamed up with the Story Supply guys to make this really cool-looking notebook cover. That's a tribute to brood X, the big group of locusts that are coming to life.

I think the last time they sprang forth was in 2004. And I know that's really, really big in Maryland, right, Johnny?

Johnny: Yeah. If you look at a national map, it's basically Baltimore and the surrounding area. Not even like the state. It's freaking bonkers.

Andy: It pops up. They pop up a little bit in southern Indiana too. In 2004, I was down in Bloomington and at Indiana University down there, and there was, it was weird. It was so weird. It was like a movie. The Birds, only like The Bugs. They just drown out your speech. And I watched some of them just fly into trees. Really weird.

Johnny: Yeah. You'll be driving down the highway and one of them will hit your side mirror, which sounds like a gun going off. If you drive fast, which I never did,

Andy: Yeah. Well,

Johnny: My kids are gonna freak out.

Tiffany: Yep.

Andy: Yeah. So maybe, maybe they shouldn't pick up this notebook. It's a very cool drawing. And if the cicadas are something that's like, if you have an affection for them, I think you would really like this. But, just wanted to mention that, because the drawing is gorgeous. Cory did a really good job. 

Johnny: I need this in my life. Now.

Andy: Yeah. And it's a good, like, Baltimore tribute, too. 

Also wanted to mention, talk a little bit more about this Independent Bookstore Day Blackwings. Yeah, as Johnny mentioned, they do, I feel like, look better in person than I thought they were going to look like.

And they also are a lot more tactile than I thought too. The little gold stripe is foil-stamped on it. So you can kind of, you can feel it. And then also where it says Blackwing x Independent Bookstore Day, on the opposite side where it says I Heart Indie Bookstores, that's stamped too. And you can, like, you can feel that. 

So it just, it seems like they did a good job making these, even though the design is still kind of inscrutable. And it's a firm graphite, so it has the 602 core, which is really nice. Yes. And it looks like people are not just haven't, like, it sounds like most places sold out pretty quickly. On Saturday, the group was alight with people trying to track the stuff down.

Johnny: I wonder how many shops are getting frantic calls? Like, can I buy a gross of these? Like, no, we don't ship stuff. Get it?

Andy: So, yeah, it sounds like if you didn't get a chance at it on Saturday, you might get a chance again, because it sounds like a few of the bookstores at least are planning on ordering a restock. So I'd be willing to bet that there's a bunch more out here. So whoever's trying to sell a box for $200 on eBay, good luck with that. Yeah.

Tim: That was awesome. Did you see that link that I shared? I think I had seen it-- maybe it was in the group too, but like somebody tried to put it up for $200 and then took it down?

Andy: Oh no, I didn't see that.

Tim: Yeah.

Johnny: $10 for one pencil.

Tim: Yeah. I wonder if

Andy: Yeah.

Tim: have to have to think that that was somebody in the group, but

Andy: like, Oh boy.

Tim: And they're like, Oh no, no, it wasn't me.

Johnny: Oh no, there's still one for 200. There's one for 140.

Tiffany: That's wild.

Andy: Tiffany, did you go out and do any bookstore day stuff?

Tiffany: I did not. I did go to the library the day before Independent Bookstore Day. Which was nice. Cause now my local library is open. So you can go inside and browse, which is new.

Andy: Yeah. It's been so long since I've done that. Like just going and like, you know, looking at shelves and looking at like staff picks, you know, things like that. I was, it was really nice to do. We got a really cool tote bag. We had a really good day. 

And I guess the last thing I'm going to mention I, I regret--or not regret, I'm tentatively, tentatively asking this because I know that this is a whole rabbit hole that I don't necessarily want to go down, but I am considering buying a mechanical keyboard.

Tiffany: Very cool.

Andy: And I wanted to know if anybody here had any recommendations for something that had that really good, tactile feel, but wasn't like super, super clicky.

Johnny: Oh, man. I had a really great IBM one about 20 years ago. And I got rid of it because I didn't think anybody was into it. And then I immediately regretted it. It was something else; it almost had recoil.

Andy: Yeah. Tim or Tiffany, do you use a mechanical keyboard?

Tiffany: I don't. I just use the one on my laptop. But I look at them and they're like, they have some really cool designs now.

Andy: Yeah.

Tim: I, as well, am one of those people that I'm like scared to, because I'm so rarely at a desktop computer that I'm not really running the risk of it, but I, I know I would love it and I would get obsessed with it.

Andy: I've been using my--because I've been working from home for a year, I've been using my laptop kind of like docked with my big monitor. And I've been using a mouse, like a Bluetooth mouse, and a Bluetooth keyboard. Just the ones that, you know, just the Apple ones. 

And I've been sort of waiting to see if Apple was going to make an external keyboard with, like, the touch ID thing in it. You know, how you can unlock your computer with your fingerprint. And they just introduced a new series of Macs and they have an external keyboard that has touch ID, but it's apparently only going to work with the newest processor, which I do not have. So I'm thinking to myself that sort of like was like, well, I've been holding out for that, just to see.

And since that's not happening, I'm thinking about doing a mechanical keyboard. Cause I think that some of them look really cool and they feel nice. There's some that look like, I was telling my friend Will, cause he's really into mechanical keyboards, I want one of those ones that look like a, like, Delta airlines gate agent would use in the mid nineties.

Johnny: The ones that had like lights at the top.

Andy: Yes, just some lights and some of the orange keys and some brown keys and you know, all that.

Just to see if I can find one of those. So, I'm going to look for those, but I also want it to be Bluetooth cause I'm done with cords, and I don't want it to be too giant, because I have a limited space. So, would love any listeners who have recommendations of something that's like entry-level and not too fussy, not something that I have to like build myself or whatever.

Cause I know that that's totally a thing that mechanical-keyboard people do. You can build your own keyboard. Will customized his to the point where he has, like, he picked out the typeface that displays the letters on his keys. Like he really, really went,

Johnny: That's really awesome.

Andy: Yeah. But I don't even know how much he spent on it. I don't want to spend that much.

Johnny: So, there's a very good chance that the one I had might still be in my parents' garage because my father never throws anything away. I think it was a type M or a type F; I'll go hunt for it.

Andy: Well, if you find it and want to take some pictures of it, I definitely would have to see if I could actually plug it into my computer, because that might not be a thing.

Johnny: Oh yeah. It's got like a coil.

Andy: I assume it predates USB.

Johnny: Oh my God. It predates everything.

Andy: Yeah.

Johnny: I think it might've been allergic to the internet.

Andy: Yeah. I've seen some people try to get like an old Apple II keyboard--not Apple II, a Mac classic keyboard to work with their  modern-day Mac and they have like a series of like three or four different adapters plugged into it, so you can plug it in. Not to mention some like home-coded driver to make it work

Johnny: Does it involve a lot of lag at that

Tiffany: a lot of commitment.

Andy: Probably you can type a whole sentence and then, you know, it takes, takes that time to,

Tim: Turns it into like a Morse code, machine there's like a

Andy: Interestingly, we were.

Tim: three minute delay.

Andy: episode of about alpha smarts that we had a couple of years ago -  you can plug in alpha smart into your into your Mac, into like your computer and use that as like a pass through a keyboard. That's pretty interesting. Yeah.

Johnny: How do I not  have one of those yet?

Andy: I don't know. Johnny, get on, get on the ball. They're like 20 bucks.

Johnny:The clear one is the one I want, but apparently that's not the one you should buy. And I got frustrated and I was like the hell with it.

Andy: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Tim: Oh, yeah, I remember that

Johnny: These are

Andy: We should do an alpha smart follow-up. We really, really need to get somebody from that Hemingway FreeWrite company to come on here. Like I don't want to buy them because they're overpriced, but I really want to talk to them about it.

Johnny: Like you could send me pictures of it.

Andy: Yeah. Send me a sample. I'll try it.

Johnny: Totally.

Andy: All right. Johnny, how about you?

Tim: You mean the Free...Write

Andy: The Free....Write? That's it?  (laughter) Yeah.

Tim: The hemmingwrite or whatever. write

Andy: Quote, unquote, quote unquote free

Johnny: yeah. The $500 write. I just have the opposite of $500 write. My first fresh point is that I have a new zine that comes out every week and cost a dollar called Tuesday's zine. And it's full of spleen. I cheat it. The one for tomorrow is already ready to go.

Andy: super Johnny gambler on brain, by the way, like I'm going to make a new zine every week.

Tim: Yeah. Especially from like a couple of weeks ago where you're like, I've done a lot of these, a pencil revolution ones, and it's time to slow down for a little while. (laughter) So again, I'm going to do one to one a week

Johnny: Like, you know, Etsy takes fees and stuff and they cost to print them. So I'm like, I don't know a dollar. I think I might make a dime depending where I send it. But yeah, I just, you know, it's every, I hate Tuesdays. So every Tuesday I write about something I hate. The first one was that I hate Tuesdays.

And this one is about hating hypocritical environmentalists and their Teslas, but it's, it's so short and I don't want to just rant. So, that's tricky. That's been a good exercise.

Andy: I really want you to go more into detail about what you mean by how your mom used to call you Thursday's child.

Johnny: Yeah. I don't remember.

Andy: I think, I think that should be like your, your pen name or

Johnny: Yeah. I was born on Thursdays and I've really liked Thursdays. It's the thing.

Andy: Yeah,

Johnny: It's a good day. Also, when I was growing up, that

Andy: Friday would be Thursday child.

Johnny: Yeah, I we had pasta or spaghetti with my grandmother every Thursday growing up. So it's always like it's the weekend, you know, the formality of Friday is still there, but, you know, whatever.

And the only other one I have is sort of related. I made some comic notebooks for my kids because they really like making comic books. So, I sent Tim a PDF that he can print out or I can print some. So if you want some, it's a PDF, you can print on a regular paper and staple or sew them with dental floss or whatever.

And my kids were having a ball with them because one of the panes is like a star with different panes angled around it. And they think it's the coolest thing in the world. So, yeah. Drop me an email or whatever, if you want a PDF for your children or yourself. Yeah, that's it. So should we jump in to the main topic, which is not the one I have written in the, in the thingy.

Sorry, rough weekend.

Andy: Yeah,

Johnny: Okay. So for anyone who's not in our Facebook group, Tiffany does not. Oh my God. I'm sorry. I'll start over. for anyone who is in our Facebook group. Tonight's guest needs no introduction. Tiffany Bab has been in the group for years and she was even among the (cough cough)  select few who came to Baltimore last year for our live event. For everybody knew that if you didn't come to that, you weren't traveling anywhere for awhile. So hello, Tiffany. So,

Tiffany: Hi. Again,

Johnny: I'm going to steal Tim's question and ask you if you can tell the folks at home a little more about yourself and your work and how you came to your work.

Tiffany: Yeah. First of all, I don't think I've thanked anyone for being on this podcast yet, but I am very honored to be on the podcast. And this has been very fun so far. And I cannot believe it's been a year and change since Baltimore. And that definitely was the last place I went to before not going anywhere for a year and change.

But about me, I'm living in Southern California now and I am a writer and artist, and I like to write about comics and film and television and books. And I like to draw cartoons about little things that happened in my life. Oh, and how, how I came to it. I guess it's one of those things where like, I've, I've always been a person with a lot of opinions about things, and I'm also a person who consumes a lot of media.

And I think in college, you know, you write an essay and your professor's forced to read it. They are paid to read it. And that was always cool. But I didn't really know cultural critics existed in modern days beyond just writing reviews, which I think is fine, but I like to do, I like to extend beyond that.

But I love reading, like literary criticism, like Umberto echo and Barts. So, after college I was just like, I guess I should start writing some things about things and slowly people started reading it, which was kind of cool. Okay.

Andy: I love that. And especially when you apply it to something that I think probably a lot of traditional art media critics sometimes dismiss, which is comics, something that's yeah. Something that has always sort of been like not serious and not for, not for adults, but I think there's probably their idea of comics are just like super, super outdated.

Can you talk a little bit about what it means to be in 2021, a comics critic?

Tiffany: Yeah. Well, I guess like to start off, like, I think comics are great and that there's a lot of amazing work out there. It's mixed because it's actually, when we say comics, we're talking about multiple industries, right? We're talking about superhero, monthly comics and like kids graphic novels and like those artsy Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novels.

And in general, like I feel like the people I meet tend to be nice. It is also like a lot of men, and that has created a lot of problems over time. But the work itself, I think like there's no, there's no, for me, there's no better work than reading something or watching something and then writing about it in what I think is a complex way. And then talking to people about the work in a complex way. So for me, it's just kind of, it's really fun and it's a way of kind of delving deeper into the stories that people find important.

Tim: Now you kind of just referred to this a second ago, but I'm going to ask maybe a triggering or provocative question to ask somebody who's into comics. As a teacher, I'm always like wrestling with whether graphic novels engage the same kind of parts of the brain and learning capabilities as prose does in class.

I have students who love to read graphic novels, my kid, I mean, he's only, he's turning eight next week. He likes reading these little, like, you know, dog man and dire, wouldn't be things that have illustrations in them and stuff. And like, how would you respond to that? Like, as far as how you see graphic novels and, you know, traditional novels kind of stack up next to each other.

Tiffany: Yeah. I mean, I think it doesn't engage the same parts of the brain as prose in the same way that like reading Wodehouse, isn't the same thing as reading Voorhees (?), right? Like we engage with different works on different levels and like, there's the same thing with, like, let's say looking at a painting versus listening to a song.

Right. I think this is kind of the part where I'm like, when I, when I get to not quote CS Lewis, but I get to invoke him in his, he has this great book called an experiment in criticism that I talk about all the time. But he talks about judging a reader's quality, not by what they read, but by how they read. There are always people who are going to be like skimming Shakespeare, and then there's going to be people writing dissertations on Calvin and Hobbes.

Right. And it's about kind of. It's what you put in. Right. And especially in education. And I I, I studied children's literature and I, I like to think I know a lot about the field, but you know, who knows. But for me it's about kind of directing, like, if you want a child to engage with a work, ask them questions about how, how does the color work in this comic, right.

Or what do you like about this? And then what is artists doing in this moment to kind of, to hide an emotion? Or why do we think that this character is moving facts faster on this page than in this page? Right. And it's, it's no different from any kind of analysis or interaction with art or with the world in general.

Right? It's about kind of breaking the elements apart and seeing how, how the clock ticks. Yes.

Tim: That's such a fantastic answer (awed laugher all around) that I am totally convinced. I mean, that makes, that makes perfect sense. I love how you described that. Very helpful. Thank you.

Andy: I'd love to move on if you're cool with it, Tiffany, to your comic, to your comic itself. I really enjoy it because it seems to be about everyday experiences in your life. Like. You wrote one about going to the zoo, you wrote one about how your sister was trying like non-alcoholic spirits recently, which was a really good one cause I've had that same thought about the branding of those, Seedlip, for example. Anyhow, how do you identify those moments as like, ah, I want to create a comic about that.

Tiffany: I think a small percentage of the time it's like something brilliant will happen in life and I'll be like, Oh yeah, that's going to be a comic. Right. And then most of the time though, it's like me Saturday morning, thinking, what kind of funny thing happened this week or what slightly interesting thing happened?

And it's interesting because, with the diary comic format, it's four panels so it's not a huge amount of space. And there's some really funny things that will not fit in that four panels. And there are certain things that aren't as funny in real life, but when you condense it into the four-page comic format, it becomes funnier. So it's kind of like putting together a puzzle and seeing what actually fits and then kind of going ahead with that.

Johnny: Awesome. So, what's your process like, do you storyboard, do you start with writing, with drawing, or sort of like both at the same time?

Tiffany: That's interesting. I mean, I storyboard, but I am also the world's least patient artist. And you'll see, especially the earlier comics, they're super crooked and cause I don't like using a ruler because I was like, you know, I just want to get it done. And like the panels are all different shapes. Now I try to be a little more neat. But the one thing that I kind of do have to do is storyboard because the gags and stuff and like the layouts are so visual. So I tend to kind of have the idea. I lay out where the words and the images are going to be because they have like, they have a dynamic, right? Like you don't want to have like too many words on one side, cause it's going to kind of unbalance the entire thing. So it's kind of, you kind of all have to do it at once. And actually Nick Sousanis, who's this great comics scholar whose dissertation was published and called “Unflattening” and he talks a lot about thinking through images which I am not in general, I'm not that person in general. I think in words, but with this particular exercise of doing a diary comic, I do kind of think in images and it's been really fun to see how that turns out, like how I would create something that I would never create. If I was just sitting down and writing it.

Tim: And you don't just do comics, like we've referred to you. You also write your criticism and you write essays and you write poetry. Do you think there's like a common thread that strung through all the different modes of writing that you do and what would that thread be?

Tiffany: Yeah. I think with all of my work, it's about kind of drawing attention to something that other people might not be looking at. So like, with criticism, it's like, well, I saw this movie and I saw something that nobody else saw so here's my opinion and hopefully, you know, the next time someone watches a movie again and they're like, 'No, that kind of makes sense' or they're like, 'Oh, that makes no sense at all.' But you know, new thinking, right? And with like my diary comic, it's about oh little moments in life and same thing with poetry, right? It's about like poetry to me is something that is so... It's about focus and it's about looking at something very intently. And so to me, I think all of my work is about drawing my attention and, or other people's attention if I am so lucky to have readers of whatever I'm doing, to something that they may not see on their own.

Andy: Well, I mean, all of those things that Tim talked about, plus music, like your creative output is really, really amazing. And multidisciplinary as well. Do you have any advice for those of us who kind of need that extra push to create and to like, you know, share our creations?

Tiffany: That's very nice of you to say, because a lot of times I just think of a dilettante, like, ah, you know, master of none, right? But as for creating and sharing, I think the big one for me is not taking yourself or your work too seriously. Like I always joke that I'm a lowercase-w “writer” and a lowercase-a “artist.” Like nothing that I'm making, do I think is like a masterpiece. I'm like, this is not my masterpiece. This is not the essay that's going to change the world. This is just some of my thoughts or this is some of my drawings. And, having that, like weight, not on my shoulders, I think is just like, well, I think this thing is pretty good for me probably. And so maybe other people will read it and if they do, then they do. And if they don't,  then I work harder and try to improve, right? I think not having it and, I think, I think with a lot of artists and for me when I was younger, too, having this like pressure that like this has to be perfect and that like, I have to contribute something to like artistic society is like, that's really draining. And it's very scary as opposed to like, 'Hey, I'm just a person, you know, with a website and sometimes I post some drawings on Saturday or whatever,' and then I can, you know, do whatever I want and see if it resonates with people.

Johnny: Cool. Well you knew this was coming. So what role does stationery play in your creative work? Any stationery.

Tiffany: All the roles. I'm like, this is my diary comic. I draw it by hand and then I scan it in. And with writing, with poetry, for sure. I always start my drafts with pencil on paper. And then I do some revision on paper and then I move it to the computer. But with some essays, I think it depends on the shape of the essay. I'd say like 70% of my essays are typed up on the laptop. But if I'm doing a personal essay or if I'm trying to do something a little more concentrated, if that makes sense, I try to write what I'm doing longhand. And the same thing happens when I'm doing a complex revision. I'll print out my article or whatever, and I'll copy it out all by hand with like a pencil because it slows you down and it really makes it like, when you're typing sometimes because typing is so simple a lot of times, like you can just type junk and you're just like, yeah, you know, I'm writing, but when you're writing by hand, like it's effort, right? It's like, well, does it, do I really want the sentence? Because if I do, like, I'm gonna have to spend the next few, you know, half a minute or whatever, or a minute writing it out. And especially when you're like at the end of your thing, you're like, 'Oh, do I really need this last sentence here?' And you're much more aware of the language you use and how it sounds when you're forced to write it out. So yeah, I love, I love doing as much of my work as possible analog.

Tim: To zero in on pencils specifically, what do you look for in a pencil and what are some of your favorites that you sort of find yourself coming back to, or some of your favorites of all time?

Tiffany:  Hmmm, I like pencils with erasers, which like kind of sucks because a lot of great pencils don't have erasers because I usually can not be bothered to have an, like, I'm not like a very organized person if you can't tell by now. And so I'll just, you know, have a pencil at the bottom of my bag. So I like pencils with erasers. I like, you know, firm lead, as dark as possible. Like I love the Tennessee Reds. I know everyone does. I like a good vintage Ticonderoga. Those are nice. And recently I came across, I bought like this box of vintage pencils on Etsy and I found this Eagle black warrior, which I've never tried before. And it's like two and a half, which I think is really funny. Never heard of a two and a half pencil before. But I love it. And it really maintains a point, which means I don't have to sharpen as much, which is very convenient. So those are kind of the pencils on my mind right now.

Andy: Two and a half is an F, right? Is that right?

Johnny: Yep.

Tiffany: Interesting. It's very dark for an F.

Andy: Yeah, there's something out there. Ah crap, who is it? Is it Mongol who has a two and three-eighths pencil?

Johnny: Yeah. Like they used to,

Tim: The Steinbeck one

Johnny: They trademarked their fractions

Andy: Pretty sure. That's just like splitting hairs, right?

Johnny: I think, was it Generals, it was two-fourths, and Dixon, I forgot what they used to be, but now they just say 2.5.

Andy: Oh yeah, mine is 32/64.

Johnny:  They used to do five tenths. Okay.

Andy: Oh boy.

Johnny: And your head you're checking it. You're like, wait, do I remember fractions? Yeah, that's right.

Tim: You stare at them for a minute and then, “Wait a second... These all the same!”

Johnny: And with the Mongol with the three-eighths, you're like, it is a little harder than two and a half, just a little bit. Like, no, it's not.

Tim: Placebo effect.

Andy: Well, Tiffany, speaking of various kinds of pencils when it comes to, you know, tangential pencil things, sharpeners, notebooks, even like fountain pens or washi tape or whatever, what are some of your favorite go-to stationery items?

Tiffany: I really like postcards lately. I don't know why, I'm just having like a postcard vibe. Like, I mean, you're supposed to use them when you write your senators and stuff cause then they don't have to screen them for anthrax, but somehow it like feels chiller and easier to like, like jot off a quick postcard to a friend, as opposed to like, I'm going to sit down and write a letter with a capital L, right. So it's like, Oh, you know, have you read there? Oh we should talk more often or something. And also the fun thing about postcards is there are a lot of like independent artists who just like sell, like, you know, packs of postcards on their website. So you can like find all these cool things. And, you know, I mean, I feel like when we say postcards, a lot of times people are like, you know, picture of the Washington monument, like terribly framed photograph of the Washington monument with like really bad, like clip art. But like, there are some like really awesome artists to support and then like you get cool postcards and then you can put them on your wall, like a little print.

Andy: We need to have a postcard Renaissance. Hot Postcard Summer!

Tim: We have seen the Draplin postcards. There's like a 25-postcard set I saw the other day. I just pulled it back up. It's 25 bucks and it's 25 postcards. And a lot of them have his face on them in some form.

Johnny: That's freaking awesome.

Tim: Yeah. That's pretty, pretty amazing.

Johnny: I made some for Pencil Revolution in the fall, but I couldn't line up the front and the back, but now I have a new printer so maybe… Also I have like piles of card stock. Yeah, totally hijacked that.

Tiffany: it'd be cool though. I'd get your postcards.

Johnny: So, one of my favorite podcasts is called the “OCD Stories” and one thing that the host Stuart, Ralph asks people is “if you had a billboard, what would it say?” So I don't want to completely copy off him and you used to live in New York, so if you could take over a subway station, the way that like T-Mobile, or, you know, Geico takes one over and just rebrands the whole damn thing. What message would you cover the place with?

Tiffany: Gosh, that is, that's a big question now I'm like - like my instinct is to go with like, I mean, “Have empathy for people”, but that's not, that's not a useful thing to say because that doesn't help people have empathy. 

I think I would want to do some cool, like sort of project that like I don't know, like seeing people, my brain first goes into people's text messages - like text messages that talk about like love and relationships and like familial relationships and just, and like pictures of people just to remind people that like, you know, other people have lives.

And  I think this is the big subway thing  - is sometimes you're sitting on a subway and you look around and all of a sudden you're like, “Oh, everybody in here is living their own rich and complex life” and it gets really overwhelming.

Andy: That word is called Sonder right? Like that's a,

Tiffany: Is that what it's called?

Andy: ...it's a ...like somebody made up English words that seem like they would be German words or something like that. I have to look for that site, but I think, yeah, I think that's called Sonder.

Johnny: Sonder.com -  a better way to see... et cetera.

Tiffany: Like something that would echo that too. And like, we all need this in public spaces too, is to like, you know - remind people to not be rude to the person next to you

Andy: Other humans are humans too

Tiffany: Remind people to you know, be kind 

Exactly. That would be my instinctive answer. I don't know if I have a deeper one than that.

Andy: That's a great question

Johnny: Yeah. Oh, I, I stole it and he gets some really good answers on there.

Andy: Good job Stuart

Johnny:  Yeah. I would plaster the place with pictures of really cute kids that say “Don't F with me” because it would remind people that we all have feelings, but I don't know if it would work. I just want to like combine the effort with cute pictures of my children.

Tiffany: Why not?

Johnny: Motivational poster with Henry - 

Tim: That's on brand too.

Johnny: pouting at you. It's just like “Why are you effing around at work, man?” Okay.

Andy: Tiffany, do you have anything you want to talk about that we, we did not mention

Tiffany: Hmm, let me think.

Andy: put you on the spot

Tiffany: I don't know why that like caught me off guard. Well my own stuff, like I have, you know, a monthly newsletter called “Putting it together” which is a monthly essay about a piece of media that I've consumed lately and my most recent one was about the podcast name, “9% invisible” and then I have hard copies of my diary comic on sale in my Etsy shop with a couple of Zines as well.

Andy: Nice. Did you see the 99% Invisible news just today?

Tiffany: I did not what do you - 

Andy: They - Robin Maurice sold it to Stitcher.

Tiffany: What?

Andy: Yeah it’s huge

Tiffany:  That is shocking and surprising. Like I am it -  that's not the move that I would have assumed that they were gonna make

Andy: Right? Cause they've been so focused on like being kind of an independent news organization. 

Tiffany: Yeah. 

Andy: So yeah, he sold it, broke it away from Radiotopia, sold it to Stitcher/Sirius XM, because I think that they own Stitcher and  - but he took - but they split off “Articles of Interest” and Avery Truffleman still runs that.

Johnny: Didn't they do a really good episode about post offices?

Andy: They do a lot of really good episodes. Yeah they did one about the history of the mail. They did one about post offices. Yeah. 

Johnny: That’s so cool

Andy:  Really cool stuff, yeah, yeah.

Johnny: Oh, so, I'm going to button this one up. Cool. Tiffany, can you tell folks at home where to find you on the internet and social media and anywhere else you want to share?

Tiffany: Yeah. I am on Twitter and Instagram @ExplodingArrow. My website is. TiffanyBabb.com. And you can pretty much find everything through the - Oh, my Etsy shop is called “All About Me Comic.” So if you just put that into the little at the search bar, it'll come up.

Johnny: Awesome. How about you, Andy and Tim?

Andy: Do you wanna go?

Johnny: I shouldn't have been - I should have been more specific. Sorry. How about you, Tim?

Tim: Go at the same time or?

Johnny: Race 

Tim:  Andy? One, two, three. Let's do it. You can find me on Twitter @TimWasem and I'm on Instagram @TimothyWasem.

Andy: And I am on Instagram and Twitter @AWelfle. And my website is andy.wtf

Johnny: And I'm Johnny I'm at PencilRevolution.com and on social media @Pencilution. 

And we are Erasable. You can find us as erasable.us, which you probably already did. We're on Twitter and Instagram @ErasablePodcast. Our Facebook page is facebook.com/erasablepodcast. And you can find our Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/erasable.

And thank you to all of our Patreon patrons - oh my God, that's a big list - who support us at the producer level, which is $10 or more every month, which really adds up. 

I'm going to take a drink of water. And if I butcher your name, please send me the nastiest mail you feel comfortable sending me.

Andy: On a postcard.

Johnny: David Johnson, Laurie Smith, Phil Munson, Nate Ray Beck, Donny Pearce - who just had a baby - Congratulations! Bill Black, Miriam Bookout. Dave, Harry Marks, Allison Zapeda, Diana Oakley, Tom Keekley, Andre Torres, Kyle, Paul Morehead, Andrew Swish, Ellie Sarah, Jemelia, Stephen Fexali, Aaron Willard, O A Pryor  KP,  Millie Blackwell. Chris L, Hunter McCain, Bob Osworld, Michael Dealosa, Adam Perbola, Joceline R Meyers, Tanya Follies Ann Sipe, Joe Crace, Measure Twice, Michael Hagan, Chris Metsis, John Beynon, Bill Clough, Random Thinks, Jason Dill, Dave MacDonald, Mary Collins, Alex Jonathan Brown, Andre Prevost, Kathleen Rogers, Bobby Letsinger, Fourth Letter, Kelton Weans, Scott Hayes, Hans Nudleman, Terry Beth, Jay Newton, Stuart Lennon, Dave Tubman, Chris Jones and John Wood.

Andy: Do you say that all in one breath?

Johnny:  Noooo, not at all.

Tiffany: That was very impressive.

Johnny: Yeah. Thank you guys so much, you make everything possible? Sweet! And we'll see you in two weeks.