2023 METAREVIEW and also 2024 preview
doing this on Feb 1, we're off to a great start
Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a wonderful start to the year. Let’s kick off this year in Very High Concept, Very Dumb pen reviews with a look-back on last year and a preview of what’s coming.
Last Year’s Pens: Where Are They Now?
I am still afraid to take the Montegrappa Skulls and Roses out of the house.
Is this weird? I don’t think so. I generally think of fancy pens as art objects and I don’t carry my other art out of the house.
Also I dropped this pen on the carpet once and was like WHOA CLOSE CALL and am now afraid to use it in our uncarpeted rooms.
I use the Monteverde Tool for tool purposes way more than I anticipated.
The screwdrivers are solid and the overall shape of the pen means it works in a lot of tight spaces but still has appropriate heft for leverage. It is legitimately easier to use than most of my screwdrivers with similarly fine heads. (The rulers are still not very useful/I have still not figured out how to use the rulers.)
Accordingly, I am now retconning that post to be entirely serious. It is the best workhorse pen: agree or AGREE TO FIGHT AT A PEN SHOW.
The Lepine Totem returned home to Leeds and successfully ran for Parliament as a write-in candidate.
It remains close friends with the Rotring Core and they take weekend road trips to visit other pens from last year’s review slate. Despite its new duties as a MP it continues to collect unusual postage stamps and still says that receiving a handshake from Paul Hollywood was the high point of last year.
I continue to think the Opus88 Fantasia is one of the best pens ever made.
I keep this thing inked A LOT and it’s the one I always take when I travel due to its massive ink capacity and shutoff valve. This pen looks just weird enough to pass muster for this blog, but man what a killer writing tool. I don’t even have any jokes about it, I’m just continually impressed with it after probably 3+ years of use.
And finally: I cannot help but notice that the Spoke Roady Lava was not renamed Hot Lava Check It And See despite my best efforts and thus must deem 2023 a total failure and loss.
This is a Very Good Pen, Rollerball Category, and the one I bring to all of my doctor appointments. It is just unusual enough that the person checking me in was like “what is that thing” when I had it sitting on the counter, which is exactly what I am looking for in a pen other than MAYBE GIVING IT A COOLER NAME (but specifically one I thought of so I can tell people I named it).
Looking ahead
We have many pens to review this year already! See:
I will also soon be undertaking my annual attempt to use the Lamy 2000 and like it, as I have refused to sell it in hopes one day I would figure it out. Maybe this time it’ll take! Who knows? What a wonderful mystery of life!
Additionally, we have a terrific slate of power metal and darkwave concerts coming to town for purposes of elaborate comparisons and further blurring the line between this being a niche pen blog and a niche music blog. Given that this is the year of the dragon I feel we’ll see a lot of wonderful synchronicity between dragon-themed pen design and dragon-themed metal.
In conclusion, a bright year ahead that will hopefully not get as sidetracked as last year. Stay tuned!
I once had a pen concept in mind, a shape of which one pen maker called “anal beads”. I was mortified, but not anymore. Thank you!
Side note, will fight you at a pen show with a Lamy 2000, as a convert myself. Respectfully, of course.
Highly excited for the new King of Pen, T'Challa!