Truly Good Tools

In a few weeks we will lose Inbox by Gmail, a service providing an enhanced front end to Gmail. Google has decided that Gmail is good enough and is killing Inbox like a bull in the ring, spears sticking out of it and some fool in a ridiculous costume showing off like he's done something. I could complain about this all day, but that would be less interesting than comparing cat food.

Inbox has been a good tool. It looks and feels good, is efficient, and automates email some. I'm no fan of email — I'd rather write letters — but it's a necessity and so I sought out a good tool for it. That was Inbox.

Good tools are tough to come by and often require lots of experimentation. It took two semi-disposable fountain pens, and three really good ones to arrive at the pen I currently use which is just right for me in every way. Similarly, I've crafted a sheet of lined paper through trial and error over the course of years. (I don't make the paper but have designed a page I print on the back of used copy paper.) Online, I've found a fantastic minimalist writing tool. Six years ago my wife bought me the Chromebook Pixel on which I'm typing. It was the finest of tools when she gave it to me and remains fantastic no matter what Google says.

The best tools need to be owned outright. The fountain pen is mine and will be for another twenty years, maybe longer. The only way I'll lose it is if I, well, lose it, have it stolen, or break it somehow. It's the same with the paper. These things are mine.

The minimalist writing tool is great, but the guy who runs it can shut it down tomorrow. Google stopped updating the Chromebook. In those cases, I'm out of luck just as I am with Inbox. Much of why I prefer analog tools has to do with ownership which makes them much more dependable, as any good tool must be. Google can't end-of-life my fountain pen (though they might want to).

There is more than sentimental value to ownership. Ask any renter who has been told by the landlord it's time to move. It's possible to have a good tool that is rented or borrowed, but to truly good tools must be owned. I know everyone thinks Google Docs will be around forever, but I can't guarantee that, so it is only a good tool so long as Google allows me to use it. That's hardly dependable.

I thought Inbox was a good tool, but in a few weeks it will wink out of existence and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. I just borrow it.

It's said that if you are not paying for a service, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. I add that if you don't own the product even a little bit, you are owned a little bit by it. I got owned by Inbox just as I've been owned by Gmail for years. Sometimes that's okay, but the more I think about it, especially as I have to let go of Inbox, I'm certain that it isn't very good.

Compromise is part of life and my addiction to online word processing, email, and the rest come with a price. Every morning, and often through the day, I pick up the fountain pen, uncap it, and let it glide across the page. The words are all mine, the paper too, and the pen is completely my possession which kind of sets me free as a truly good tool should.

Analog FTW

Ignore that I typed this on a Chromebook. Just go with it for now.

This video about Saturday Night Live's cue cards is lovely in every way but especially because the show runs on about a thousand analog cards a week, filled with block letters in big old magic marker, and edited using white tape. How great is that? They don't use teleprompters because those break and the show is live. Analog cards are forever — until they use them as drop cloths for set painting. Go figure.

On my desk is a Smith Corona Sterling manual typewriter manufactured in 1938 here in my hometown of Syracuse, NY (from which many good things come). I've inserted a ribbon with blue ink and the print is as gorgeous as the machine itself. Later, I'll type toward a project I'm struggling with on the computer. Blue ink on yellow copy paper rolled through an analog machine. Think how long that machine has been in service. Come on, do the math. Alright, since you can't find the calculator app on your phone, it's about eighty one years. Eighty one freaking years. My laptop won't make it eight years.

I had the typewriter serviced shortly after I bought it to replace the rubber roller (platen), align the keys, and fix a couple things. I asked the repair guy when he thought I'd be back. He made a snorting noise in the back of his throat and shook his head. "My only repeat customers are ones who buy more than one typewriter. This thing will go on forever." I'll bring him my other typewriter just because I want it perfect and guys like that deserve medals or at least some more business.

Look, there's my paper planner, its cover papered with post-its. I just filled the page for this week with notes and ideas and they'll be there forever. At the dentist I flipped it open to schedule a cleaning in July. On my phone, I put in the wrong times (PM instead of AM) and once scheduled a seventy-two-hour therapy appointment. I'm not saying I wouldn't benefit from such a thing, but there's only so much my therapist can endure. The planner limits us to an hour every other week and has never crashed, cracked, or run out of battery. Crazy.

And there's my Lamy 2000 fountain pen which I refilled this morning from a three-ounce bottle of blue Noodler's ink and which writes like a dream. Designed in 1966, it is sumptuous enough to be on display in art and design museums. There's a rumor that it is part of MoMA's permanent collection — and it damn well should be — but though that rumor was on the internet (quoted, I think, on Abraham Lincoln's blog) it turns out not to be the true. Still, as Ferris Bueller said (about a Ferrari instead of something as important as a fountain pen), "if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

A couple other things:

• I'm reading Dani Shapiro's Devotion in hardback with real pages and ink. It feels right in my hands and before my eyes. People ask me about books I carry. They spark conversations.

• Sufjan Stevens' album Carrie & Lowell is on my U-Turn Audio Orbit turntable, its signal amplified by the Kenwood KA-5500 that has worked since the 1977 and will go on probably through 2077. That's all wired to Boston Acoustics A70 speakers I bought at Gordon Electronics on Erie Boulevard in 1982. Come on over. I'll pour whiskey and we'll put on your favorite record. It will be great.

• Today I carried and read the January issue of The Sun Magazine which includes Debbie Urbanski's story "You" which is so exquisite I've read it three times, the feel of the page between my fingers like a character in the story.

I have more to say about analog things — maybe a book's worth — but I'm okay with having written this on a computer. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)