Recently while visiting the new Kinokuniya book store on 6th Avenue, I found myself lingering mainly in the stationery and pen/pencil section. Perhaps this is where I always hang out since I don’t read Japanese so well (ok, at all), but I found a very cool selection of mechanical pencils that got me thinking of where else I would find such instruments. It turns out there are a handful of very informative and current resources for information on what is in my opinion a very under appreciated class of writing instrument.

Dave’s Mechanical Pencils is a great place to start to get your graphite lead fix in for the day. If you are a Dpreview or Tom’s Hardware reader you will quickly get the point: This is not for the faint of heart. In fact, these sites are not even for the dedicated; they land squarely in the territory of obsessive.

All that being said, I can safely say that I am a loyal reader of all of these sites and yet I can only aspire to such heights of evaluation of the gadgety world. Mechnical pencils don’t necessarily include a lot of cutting edge technology, but I do believe they are a part of the soul of technology as we see it today. As I learned in 1st and 2nd grades: I enjoy a nice sharp pencil lead, always. I shouldn’t need to get up to go to the wall mounted pencil sharpener to get a fresh point (and change the shape and balance of my pencil) whenever the tip gets dull.
Physically writing words, particularly in pencil, has an appeal that goes beyond the end result of the writing. The friction of the pencil on the paper, the thickness of the lead, the effects that can be seen by variations in pressure and angle all make up the experience of giving a thought life. Mechanical pencils bring a consistency of approach to this execution. The lead is never dull, the edge can be quickly made to suit your angle, and when the lead runs out, a small cache of graphite is usually never far away in my desk. To the point, these tools solve a very fundamental problem which is really the entire point of technology in the first place.

I place these tools up there with pocket protectors and short-sleeved shirts: they achieve simple usefulness, adding definition to a particular course of study/work.

The topic of pocket protectors, short-sleeved shirts and the yet-to-be-mentioned slide rules is probably best saved for another time. However, while we are still rambling on the topic of mechanical pencils, I would also point out the somewhat related past-time/martial art of pen tricks.

Look no further than Pentrix for all your pencil spinning needs. Through reviewing the collected writings of these masters, I have learned my prowess is really just two fundamental pieces of the pen trick hierarchy. I can reliably execute the ThumbAround Normal and the Charge Normal, but the pen gymnastics routine on the Pentrix home page appears to be straight out of the Matrix trilogy.