Well-Read Life™

Stub nib news: and the winner of our contest is…

Wow! Knowing how passionate Levenger customers are about their fountain pens, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the many marvelous comments to my column on stub nibs. But it sure was great to hear from so many of you on why this archaic but elegant form of communication should not leave our hands.

As for giving the ugly-duckling name of “stub” a makeover, to better reflect the lovely swan-like handwriting this nib gives its writer, lots of nominations came in.

Pat McDermott suggested it be called the Author’s Nib, or Script Nib; Sallie proposed Nostalgia; and a faithful Levenger editor and friend of 20 years, Luise Erdmann, offered Old Faithful.

It’s a Block-Nib, said Robert Ferguson. It’s Magic, pronounced Sandy Carlson. Expressive, said Nate Hess.

Artisan was David Froment’s nomination; Legacy was Nikita Ferrell’s.

The sibilant S’s were well-represented: Snub from Chad Brokaw; Silk from Rick Dobrowolski; Swoosh and Surf from Jan S., and Stemwinder from Dave Moore. Dave explained that “stemwinder,” taken from the first watches that had their own winding stems versus the old key-winding ones, was, for a time, synonymous with leading-edge cool.

More suggestions from Jan: Flourish, Wave or Flow. Laurel Dabbs nominated 1920s, and Nick Silva coined BeautiForm.

Tim Aughenbaugh had several varieties of Signature and Autograph.

And the winner is…Signature

Thanks, Tim!

We liked how Signature suggested not only an ideal use for this nib, but also the signature style that becomes all yours when you use it. Then another pen friend, Ryan Roossinck, clued me in as to how venerable old Esterbrook, the inspiration for our True Writer pen, used to make a signature nib. The name seemed destined for the nib.

 Henceforth (or at least, pretty soon), our True Writer Stub Nib will be known as the True Writer Signature Stub Nib.

Edith Wharton’s signature style

While these creative suggestions were coming in, Lori and I happened to be visiting The Mount, Edith Wharton’s lovingly-restored home in the Berkshires (more on this in an upcoming column). One of the items on exhibit was a copy of America and the World War, inscribed to Wharton by its author, Theodore Roosevelt.

Notice the thin dash before the bold A in American. We’ll need a TR scholar to let us know what pen he was using, but it sure looks like a Signature Stub Nib to me (even though it wasn’t a True Writer).

All of us who try to keep this artful writing in circulation are in pretty good company from the past.

Thanks to all of you for your creative suggestions on nib names—and for believing still that the pen is mightier.

P.S. Tim, we’ll be sending you your prize of a True Writer Signature Stub Pen.

Comments? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments.)

Why you may love a stub-nib fountain pen (even if you hate your handwriting)

My grandfather, George W. Knock, was a high school penmanship instructor from the 1920s through the 1950s. When his students graduated, he wrote out their names, with his expert hand, on their diplomas. I inherited a number of his fountain pens when my grandmother was cleaning house in the 1980s. She gave me several Esterbrook pens, including a plain black one still new in its mailing box from the company. Of all the pens in my grandfather’s cache, my favorite is a Moore fountain pen with a squared-off nib—what’s known rather inelegantly as a stub nib.

The Moore pen startled me with its writing—or rather, with my writing when it was in my hand.

Fountain pens give strokes of different thicknesses—down strokes are wider, sideways strokes are thinner. Ball pens, by contrast, produce a more machine-like, uniform line. A stub-nib fountain pen like the Moore accentuates the feather-like style of fountain-pen writing, yielding a graceful look sometimes approaching calligraphy. Even bad handwriting looks good with a stub nib.

How True Writer got its stub nib (it may surprise you)

We decided we wanted to give this writing experience to our customers in our most popular line of pens, our True Writers. But to tool up for a new nib is expensive, and stub nibs are such a special item. We thought we would be unlikely to sell the 10,000 we’d have to order from our German manufacturer.

One of our Levenger pen mavens, Frank Weissman, suggested we hire a skilled artisan to make stub nibs by converting our medium nibs through a delicate grinding process. This, actually, is how some of the finest nibs were made during the golden age of fountain pens in the 1920s. Fortunately, there are still a few artisans practicing this rare art.

After finding the right one, we ordered a small quantity and without much fanfare, introduced the stub nib True Writer into our line.

The enthusiasm of our customers for the nib (with the ugly name but the beautiful writing) delighted us. We quickly sold out and had to ask our nib converter to work like Rapunzel and spin out more stub nibs fast.

While we install the stub nib only in a black True Writer, what many customers don’t know is that you can easily unscrew any True Writer nib and screw it into another True Writer fountain pen.

This interchangeability of nibs, incidentally, was a major selling feature of the popular Esterbrook pens. We made this a design requirement when we launched our True Writer series back in 1999. (To read the whole story, click on True Writer History in the How-To section.)

 So we now also sell the stub nib separately. In addition, it’s one of the four nibs in our True sampler set.

What you’ll see in this photo (and others when you click through on the photo set) is my own stub-nib True Writer.

Rediscovering the joys of the handwritten note

Pictured here is some writing I’ve done with my stub-nib True Writer on the Oasis Pad that sits on my desk. Notice the variation in line thickness. As you’ll see, I only print, yet it manages to look pretty nice because of the pen.

People often compliment my handwriting, but the stub nib is my secret. It rewards slowing down and luxuriating as you form letters. Try one yourself. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, even if you think your handwriting—like John F. Kennedy’s—is terrible.

I reach for other pens for intensive note-taking, but every workday I try to take a few minutes in the afternoon—like a rewarding coffee break—to write personal notes to customers and friends. I slow down, take up my stub- nib True Writer, and try to make an art of delighting people—including myself—with that old-fashioned communication of one hand to another.

 How about you, dear reader? Is this an art form worth preserving? And can you think of a better name than “stub nib” for the magic this pen performs? (The gift of a True Writer stub-nib pen awaits the reader who has the best suggestion.)

Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Meeting Marvelous Levenger Customers

I just greeted two summer interns at our headquarters here in Delray, and after listening to them tell me about their backgrounds I said the usual thing I say to new staff members: “One perk not mentioned in our employment manual is our customers—they are amazing, and if you get a chance to interact with them, you’ll be the better for it.”

They probably think this gray-haired co-founder drank too much Levenger Kool-Aid, but I know I speak the truth. Over the last 22 years, I’ve had the pleasure of talking with thousands of our customers. They are the Who’s Who of America.

They are professionals of all types— biologists, engineers, teachers, attorneys, CEOs, doctors, analysts, actors, artists, CFOs, writers, psychologists, governors and publishers. Demographically, Levenger customers have much in common with other buyers of high-quality products: they tend to be older, 45 to 65, homeowners, married, and 60% female.

In one demographic factor they are (to borrow Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent term) outliers, and that is: formal education. Eighty percent of Levenger households contain a college graduate, and 50% of Levenger households have at least one master’s or doctoral-level degree. That’s off the charts demographically, according to our survey people.

Truly serious readers (and doers)

Having interacted with so many customers on almost a daily basis for all these years, I can report another common factor: Levenger customers read. This shouldn’t be surprising given the Levenger tagline, “Tools for Serious Readers.” But our customers read a lot.

They read for their livings, and they also read for pleasure. They exhibit a thirst for what these days is called lifelong learning, and what Cicero, in his golden book of advice for a life well-lived, called the “pursuit of useful knowledge.” This means Levenger customers are interested people, and hence, interesting.

I owe more than I can say to these interested, interesting people. Having received our very first checks back in our Boston townhouse in October 1987 from two customers who trusted us enough to pay in advance for our reading lights, I’ll never forget the deep sense of gratitude and obligation I felt then. I feel it still. Levenger customers have provided a livelihood for Lori and me and hundreds of Levenger staff members over the years. They’ve helped us all provide for loved ones and put children through school.

What customers expect from Levenger

I fully realize that our customers have choices. Both cheaper and more expensive alternatives to what we design are available. Our customers buy Levenger products because they judge them to be useful and well-made and worth the price. And they tell us right away when this isn’t the case.

They like Levenger gear because it helps them in some way do what is truly important to them. They are the people in America reading and thinking, writing and communicating, building and healing, instructing, learning, mentoring, and setting things right.

Can we meet?

All of this is a long way of saying that I look forward to meeting you at two of our stores this month.

On Saturday, June 6th, I’ll be at our Tysons Corner store outside of D.C.

On Thursday, June 25th, I’ll be at our Prudential Center store in Boston.

At both stores I’ll be there from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to shake your hand and listen. I like to hear your feedback on our designs, your new product suggestions, and your stories about helpful reading experiences that I can share with others on this Well-Read Life forum.

I hope you know from reading the paragraphs above that it’s the truth when I say it will be my pleasure to meet you in person.

For those of you who can’t make it to the stores, let me hear from you here. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Also, if you use Twitter, I find it increasingly useful for having a dialog, and invite you to follow me here: http://twitter.com/SteveLeveen

The Origins of Levenger Paper: A Trip to the ForestPart 2 of 2

If you’ve been following the Levenger paper trail in my previous blog, you know that the paper we use for our Circa notebooks, pads and custom cards is made of American reforested paper.

      

In Part 1 of this blog, I took you on my tour of recently harvested forest around Ticonderoga, New York, and then to the nearby International Paper mill. I witnessed the transformation as 8-foot logs became the acid-free, archival-quality paper known as Accent Opaque—the paper Levenger uses.

Long live paper (it does)

As far as we know, Levenger is the only company using this paper for notebooks and other handwriting stock. We know this paper will serve you well in this life, and, should it be important to you that your notes endure, there’s not much better stock you could use.

No one really knows how long this paper will last, but as Stewart Brand of the Long Now Foundation points out, no one knows how long the digital storage devices we now depend on will retain their information, either. So far paper not even as good as Accent Opaque has lasted for many centuries, whereas our present forms of digital storage haven’t had the chance to be tested by time.

Why the best is good for the earth

“Save a tree” is a common eco-refrain, but an equally meaningful one is “Use one tree, plant two.” In fact, that’s been going on for quite a while in the United States.

The paper leaving the Ticonderoga mill destined for Levenger products and book printers bears the seal of the independent forest certification organization: the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI. The Ticonderoga mill also manufactures product bearing the seal of the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC. Exploring these websites and International Paper’s own site can give you a good background into the efforts under way by a large number of organizations to ensure we’re operating in a sustainable manner along the whole chain of custody.

My discussions with various people involved in the process have persuaded me that making virgin paper from well-managed forests is at least neutral and perhaps even positive for our planet. 

Harvesting trees to make virgin paper provides an economic incentive to sustain and expand forests. Virgin paper is the first and best yield from the harvest. I can’t think of a better use of this paper than for human expression—words, ideas, drawings, symbols—the work of the people who will save this planet if it is to be saved. Add to this the making of books, those carriers of civilization, as the historian Barbara Tuchman said, that even in our digital age are still used to preserve what’s best about our species.

What you write on is the top of a recycling/replenishing pyramid that works its way down, and that’s a good thing.

The high-quality virgin paper we supply in Levenger products can be recycled seven or eight times—downcycled is the term used when making products of lower grade when recycling—becoming such useful items as paper towels, shipping boxes and other packaging. More than 50 percent of all paper in the United States is now recycled, and efforts are in place to increase this percentage.

From Maine to Memphis to your hand

From our printer in Maine, our finished paper products are secured onto pallets and trucked to the Levenger distribution center in Memphis, Tennessee—FedEx country. The famous FedEx sort takes place just a few minutes from the Levenger warehouse.

We used to have our distribution center attached to our headquarters here in Delray Beach, but South Florida is an inefficiently situated place to distribute from when shipping to homes and businesses across the country. By moving to Memphis, we were able to reduce transit times to our customers, reduce shipping costs and decrease our carbon footprint.

Take note(s) and prosper

There is a school of thought that maintains that the way we think when we write on paper, or read from paper-made books, is different from how we think when we write and read electronically. It is perhaps akin to the difference between pulling nourishment from a backyard garden and pulling it off a supermarket shelf.

At Levenger, even as we embrace iPhones and turn virtual pages on e-readers, we believe that real paper still matters. We’ve even given our high-quality note paper its own Levenger lexicography of “Notationery”: note paper with the feel and value of fine stationery.

How do you, dear reader, integrate the paper and electronic worlds into your way of thinking and reading? I’d love to hear. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

I have another request.

Please use our paper hard. Dream, create, record, communicate and inspire. And know that you’re making good use of the yield of healthy, sustainable forestland.

The Origins of Levenger Paper: A Trip to the ForestPart 1 of 2

 For years I’ve known that the paper we supply in our Circa notebooks, pads and 3 x 5 cards was made of American reforested paper and certified to be so. But I wanted to see the process for myself.

      

I wanted to walk the forests where the trees grow and see how they were cut. I was curious to see how the logs traveled to the mill and how, once there, they were converted into the sheaves of snowy white stock that provides such a pleasing canvas for our thoughts.

Last fall I made the trip, traveling backwards along our supply chain to the forest. What I found surprised and pleased me, as it may you.

Walking the paper trail

My trip started at our printer in Maine, a multi-generational family business that is one of the state’s large employers. I watched as the paper destined for our notebooks and pads reached the midpoint of its journey. Workers hoisted the blank paper on one-ton pallets into the feeding station of their printing presses.

Each pallet contains 20,000 sheets. On the presses, the blank sheets undergo their transformation of rules, margins and other designs that make the paper primed for handwriting. 

Next the paper is trimmed, punched, stitched and assembled into its various forms for Levenger pads, cards, journals and Circa notebooks. It’s not only the folks working at the printing plant, but others in the surrounding community working in converted textile mills as well, who do the handwork involved in assembling Circa notebooks. They then shrinkwrap them to ensure they arrive at your door in pristine condition. It was a good feeling to shake hands with New Englanders who took such pride in making quality products.

But where do those pallets of snowy-white stock come from? That was my next destination: International Paper’s paper mill in Ticonderoga, New York.

Into the woods

From Maine I traveled with the head of our printing operations the few hundred miles west into an overcast November afternoon, through Vermont and New Hampshire, and on to upstate New York. The trip took us through small towns and alongside miles of forests. It was dark when we crossed over Lake Champlain and arrived at Ticonderoga. After a long day, we turned in early.

It was still overcast and lightly raining early the next day as we drove the few miles to a forest tract that had recently been harvested. At the head of a logging road, Bob McCormack was waiting for us in his green pickup. Bob is responsible for acquiring the logs the Ticonderoga mill uses. He’s lived in upstate New York all his life and earned his degree in forestry from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. In his heavy boots and orange vest, Bob looked like a person accustomed to walking in forests.

As we walked into the woods, Bob gave me a bit of history.

“Actually the amount of forest in New York State is now three times the acreage it was one hundred years ago,” he said.  Back then, Bob explained, lots of small farms had been cut into the forest. Today, with the consolidation of farms elsewhere, the forest has reclaimed most of that farmland.

The forest tract we visited is managed by a major supplier of pulpwood for the Ticonderoga mill. The company maintains forest management certifications under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). 

Taking a tree census

Around us were plenty of tree stumps, but also enough standing trees that it still felt like a walk in the woods. A logging tractor, called a skidder, sat ready to go to its next harvesting.

Bob explained that before harvesting, foresters walk and map the area, compiling a census of the trees by species, size, age and health. Then they devise a plan based on a selection method where some trees are harvested and others are left to mature.

This is when I began to appreciate the meaning of the term “sustainable.” This selection method of harvesting maintains the health of the tract; in another 15 years it will be ready to be harvested again.

The trees grow in a near-perfect assortment for the high-quality paper the mill produces. Bob explained the formula:

“We need a blend of about 70 percent hardwoods to 30 percent softwoods, which add the long fibers for optimal strength. The hardwoods are mostly sugar and red maples, yellow birch, American beech, and red oak, while the softwoods are mostly Eastern white pine and Northeastern pine species.”

The partial clearing that occurs from harvesting allows sunlight to reach younger trees and seedlings. In the first three to five years, grasses grow, providing food for deer and other wildlife. So this 15-year cycle of growth, selection method  harvesting and regeneration is beneficial for the ecosystem—the trees thrive on it. Plus, the risk of fire declines as density and underbrush are reduced.

The foresters pay careful attention to water runoff. “You don’t want equipment running over a stream, which can lead to silt downstream in the lakes,” Bob explained. “The management plan either avoids sensitive streams entirely, or if a stream must be crossed with equipment, a temporary bridge will be built so as not to disturb the banks and stream bed.”

In the forestland immediately around the mill, Bob estimates the harvesting and re-growth are probably in a steady state, although statewide, trees are growing faster than they are being harvested.

On to the mill

The trees that Bob’s team selects are cut into 8-foot logs and trucked in specially-made open trailers to the mill, about 90 miles away—a relatively short distance that results in a smaller carbon footprint. (Most of the wood the Ticonderoga mill uses comes from forests within 100 miles.) We drove there behind such a rig and watched as cranes lifted the logs off the trucks and into piles once we reached our destination.

The current Ticonderoga mill is the descendant of a mill that began operation in 1882. It was built in 1969 on the shore of Lake Champlain, just a few miles north of the old mill site. The old industrial site has been transformed into a park and greenbelt in the heart of town and provides recreational space for residents and visitors. While the mill looked huge to me, it is actually a medium to small mill by international standards, and makes only high-quality paper suited to the hardwood forest surrounding it.

Here’s what the mill looks like from Google Earth.

 Panning out on the image gives you a sense of the forest to be found in all directions. (The mill is in the yellow dot.)

My tour guides at the mill were two International Paper customer service leaders, Mark Russell and Peter Veverka. Peter holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Paper Chemistry at Georgia Tech. After watching a safety video, I was introduced to the mill manager, Chris Mallon. He oversees the 101 salaried workers and 506 hourly workers, who are represented by the United Steel Workers. The mill’s spokesperson, Donna Wadsworth, told me that an additional 600 to 700 independent loggers and truckers earn their living providing wood for the mill.

I would guess that most visitors would be surprised, as I was, that the mill is actually inside the Adirondack State Park. The mill falls under the jurisdictions of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Adirondack Park Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers (since the mill is on a commercial waterway) and the Town of Ticonderoga. All environmental reports that the New York environmental authority requires are copied to their counterparts in Vermont, since Vermont is just across the lake and its residents have a vested interest in the environmental impact of the mill.

Not surprisingly, given where it is located, the Ticonderoga mill does not produce the noxious smells we might associate with a paper mill. Only once during my lengthy tour did I get a whiff of something I wouldn’t want to smell all day, and even that was fleeting. There’s no way the people living in this scenic region would tolerate a mill that didn’t meet stringent environmental and health regulations and standards, nor would the environmental authorities.

Re-energizing, debarking and digesting

The chemical process used to break down the wood fiber produces a black liquor byproduct, which the mill captures and burns, providing part of the energy the mill uses.

Bark and wood chips also provide fuel, so that about 50 percent of the mill’s energy needs come from biofuel. The other half comes from  No. 6 fuel oil.

The logs off-loaded from the trucks begin their processing by being dropped into a steel flume, where they float, single file, to a conveyor that carries them up into a giant debarking drum.

Imagine a front-loading washer big enough to tumble together 30 or 40 8-foot logs. Instead of a glass door in front, nozzles spray high-pressure water on the logs as they tumble like so many tan-colored socks. I stood above on a steel walkway, leaning over a railing, mesmerized by this roaring spectacle that made earplugs mandatory.

Clean, debarked logs tumble out from the drum onto another steel conveyor on their way to the chipper, where knives cut each log into the small uniform chips needed to start making paper. These chips are then processed in a large vessel called a digester. There heat, pressure and chemicals break down the chips, separating the lignin and releasing the fiber that will be washed and bleached, creating bright white pulp to furnish the paper machines.

The paper machines are also Paul Bunyan-sized affairs. This mill has two—one is 280 inches across and the other 212 inches wide. Long as city blocks, these two machines run 24 hours a day, slowing churning out giant rolls of virgin paper. These are cut into manageable rolls and sheets of various dimensions, then packed up for printers like ours.

Paper for the ages (and coffee tables)

International Paper brands our paper Accent Opaque. It is acid-free, archival quality, and one of its main uses is for books. Publishing houses in the United States prize this paper for its bright surface that prints like a dream with little show-through. (We use such high-quality paper for our Levenger Press books, often in a heavier weight than you find in most bookstore-edition books.) When you’re taking notes in your Levenger notebooks, know that you’re writing on what could have as easily become the pages of a  coffee-table book.

There’s more to come in Part 2 of this blog, which will be my next posting. In the meantime, I welcome your comments as always. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

Laugh with Lincoln on his 200th Birthday

On 12 February 2009, 200 years after his birth, Lincoln is a figure cast in bronze and chiseled in white marble. The cover of the recent USA Weekend magazine featured a photo of his monumental memorial and proclaimed that “this great president’s legacy remains immortal.”

The problem with immortality is that by placing someone there, we risk losing sight of the real human. And thus we look to our trusted historians to bring us the depth behind the frozen images, to—in the words of David McCullough—make the past as interesting as it actually was.

One facet of Abraham Lincoln often left out of sober remembrances was the man’s dry humor.

Immortal laughter

The famous historian of images, Otto Bettmann, would often begin his speeches the following way: “Abraham Lincoln said, ‘No short speech can be all bad.’”

Years ago Levenger sold a set of refrigerator magnets sporting food quotations. One was by Lincoln: “If this is coffee, please bring me tea. If this is tea, please bring me coffee.”

Amidst all the great histories of Lincoln, including Ron White’s new bestselling biography and Jay Winik’s captivating April 1865, I’m proud that Levenger is playing a small role through our loving revival of an elegant biography from 1893. It was written when Lincoln was still remembered by living people as a flesh-and-blood person. It serves as a fascinating, feet-on-the-ground account that those who admire the tall man will savor. And we were fortunate to have Ron White write the foreword to our new edition.

Like many Americans, I can’t read, or hear, the Gettysburg Address without choking up. But let’s laugh, too, along with our beloved president. (And in February 2009, most of us could use a laugh.)

In one of Lincoln’s debates, his opponent accused Lincoln of being two-faced. Lincoln paused and then replied, “If I had another face, do you think I’d wear this one?”

Happy Birthday, Abe!

How about you, dear reader? Is there a favorite quote that brings you both solace and smiles? Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you’ll connect to Comments).

Inside Levenger: Stage Fright on Christmas Eve

Our first Christmas at Levenger was twenty-one years ago. Lori and I were still working out of our townhouse in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. We had a total of 46 customers, having just started in October with a Tiny Tim of an ad in The New Yorker.

Christmas past
When your customer base is a mere double digit, it’s easy to recall their names, even years later. Henry A. Scheel, N.A., for instance. I remember his name because I hadn’t known what N.A. meant when his catalog request arrived, and curious, I called the library reference desk (this was before Google). It means Naval Architect. Mr. Scheel and I had had an engaging conversation when he called with some technical questions about his reading light, and I learned he was a stickler for good design. I’m sad to say he passed away a few years later. His obituary mentioned his highly respected Scheel Keel design for boats, and that he had designed all the boats for Disney World.

That first Levenger Christmas, Lori and I wanted to thank Mr. Scheel and those 45 other customers. We remembered an exhibitor we had liked at one of the local gift shows who made pretty little nightlights from seashells. We called and ordered 46. A few days later, working at our dining-room table, we carefully packed the nightlights into boxes with our handwritten notes of thanks. I loaded them into our creaky VW station wagon and delivered them down the hill to the post office.

Christmas presents
In the intervening years many things have changed at Levenger—our merchandise for one, and our big distribution center in Memphis. And fortunately, we have more than 46 customers.

What hasn’t changed is the gratitude I feel for each customer, and the delight I take in getting to know as many of you as I can. When describing Levenger customers to people, I say they are the Who’s Who of America—the people who, if our world can be saved, will do the saving.

Am I obsessed with our customers? Yes, guilty. I’ve met so many of you, and corresponded with thousands more, to know I’m right to feel in awe of the august Americans in the Levenger customer file.

My obsession, I’m happy to say, is shared. There’s an expression in our business, “retail is detail,” which roughly translates to sweating all the little things that make the big thing work out right. At Levenger, we’re blessed by a staff of professionals who sweat the details. They are a driven bunch of believers, and I am grateful to them.

Together we obsess and, at holiday time in particular, hope that the gifts your loved ones and colleagues receive from Levenger meet your, and their, full expectations.

What would Dickens do?
My good friend Les Standiford, a bestselling author, has just published his newest work, The Man Who Invented Christmas. He tells the true tale of how Charles Dickens’s newly penned Christmas Carol breathed new life into the holiday.

As a retailer, I tip my hat to him. But I wonder if he’s also why I’m visited by my own Ghost of Christmas, one I suspect other customer-centric retailers see as well.

This ghost comes every year in the form of Christmas Eve Stage Fright.

It happens just about the time I take a last look at our tree before heading to bed on Christmas Eve and remember the tens of thousands of Levenger gifts under Christmas trees across America at that very moment. In a matter of hours, our curtain will rise as people wake on Christmas morning and begin unwrapping Majorca Briefbags and Shirt Pocket Briefcases, Bomber Jacket Desk Sets and True Writer pens, lap desks and Levenger Press books.

I want your loved ones to rush up to you on Christmas morning—or on Hanukkah, or on whatever day you celebrate this special season—throw their arms around your neck and say, “It’s perfect! How did you know that’s just what I wanted?”

Lori and I won’t be packing up seashell nightlights this year, but we’ve been sending other little gifts to you, which you’ll find in your Levenger emails (click here if you don’t yet subscribe) and inside our shipping boxes if you’ve ordered recently—all ways to say that we care deeply about your business.

Thank you for giving us your custom for twenty-one holidays. And do let me know if there is something else I can obsess over to serve you better. Just click on the Comments link below. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments.)

Happiest Holiday ever—

Steve

Behind the Lens at Levenger: Howard & Judy Gale

There is a married couple at Levenger whose photo does not appear in the catalog but whose creativity is all over it. This couple leads the Levenger photo studio that produces all the photos in our catalogs, on our website and throughout our stores. They are Howard and Judy Gale, and they have been behind the lens at Levenger since 1995.

How Levenger came to be the beneficiary of their talents goes back more than 50 years.

John C. Gale & Son, Photographers

Howard’s father, John Gale, opened his photo studio at 902 Walnut Street in Philadelphia in the early 1950s. He specialized in product photography used for advertising. Shots were mainly black and white, and much of the work was in big 8-by-10-inch format. His clients included RCA, Sun Oil and Lenox China.

When Howard got out of the Army in 1965, he began to learn his father’s trade. He supplemented his father’s teaching with lots of reading and with the help of another commercial photographer, Charles Gardner. He worked with the new strobe lights, rather than the older, hot tungsten lighting his father favored.

In 1978, the business was transferred to Howard and his bride of a dozen years, the former Judith Ruth Peters. Judy began helping with the bookkeeping the way Howard’s mother had.  But Howard asked Judy if she could also help acquire props and with styling some shots. When she did, Howard liked what he saw through the lens.

“I guess I had a natural flair without knowing it,” explains Judy. “I was always sort of crafty, keeping a detailed baby book, painting the walls, and always felt the need to set up something differently—displaying my antiques in a new way, refinishing furniture. My hobbies kind of went into the business.”

Judy says she learned a lot from the art directors who worked for their various clients. “In the mid-1970s, everyone started doing more color, and things evolved into more exotic shots with lots of flowers, locations, old mansions—it went crazy.” 

Their clients grew to include DuPont, TV Guide, Black & Decker and Procter Silex. In the 1980s, the pair also took on fashion photography. But they continued to do mainly product work, including for long-time client Lenox.

‘Just come for two weeks’

The creative director of Lenox during those years was Lee Passarella, who had developed an appreciation for Howard and Judy’s work, as well as for them personally. When Lee resigned her position at Lenox to join Levenger in 1995, she longed for her old photo team in Philly. In a matter of months she asked Howard and Judy if they would take a field trip to Delray Beach to work a week or two in the Levenger studios.

Lee had an ulterior motive: to have them fall in love with Levenger and the kind of photography they could do full time, as well as to fall for Delray Beach, as Lee had done.

They came down in March, supposedly for two weeks, to shoot one catalog. “But then,” remembers Judy, “Lee said, ‘one more thing,’ and ‘just another shot, please…’”

Two weeks stretched to seven. When they finally went north again, Lee shipped more Levenger products up to their studio to continue the process of re-shooting Levenger products in a Gale style, which fit the brand so well. Howard and Judy found the work a good match for their professional style, particularly since so many Levenger products are shown alongside antiques.

Antiques for a digital century…

We use antiques in our shots to remind our customers (and ourselves) of the historic legacy of reading and writing. We aspire to create cherished antiques of tomorrow. Judy and Howard’s longtime interest in antiques fits Levenger’s photo style like a glove.

“I began collecting at age four, starting with miniature animals and salesman samples,” says Judy. Today, she supplements Levenger’s antiques collection with her own. And having toured Howard and Judy’s home, I can vouch for the vast repository she has to draw upon.

Inside their 1948 cottage in the historic section of Delray Beach, antiques are artfully displayed in every room, from floor to ceiling. The laundry room has displays of old detergent boxes from the 1950s, while the kitchen has a Kellogg’s Cereal dispenser from a diner, complete with the little boxes of Frosted Flakes and Corn Pops. Hanging from the ceiling is a buggy whip display, holding not buggy whips but antique hooks for buttoning shoes and gloves.

“People are amazed when they come to our home,” says Judy. “They often say they don’t know where to look first.”

Falling in love with Delray Beach turned out to be just as natural a fit.

“We came to Florida on our honeymoon in 1966,” says Judy. “We vacationed in Florida many times and couldn’t wait to see the first palm trees as we drove south. When we had to leave, we’d gaze woefully out the window, and dream about finding a way to work here someday.”

In the fall of 1995, Howard and Judy closed their studio up north and drove down again to Delray Beach—this time, to stay.

…and electronics to keep pace

At that point the Levenger studio, like all photo studios across America, was still shooting film. Howard used 4x5 and 8x10 Calumets, as well as a 35mm Nikon and Bronica. But soon the digital age was upon us.

“I remember the first setup we evaluated in 1996 or so,” says Howard. “It was a Leaf digital camera with hoses and cooling systems to keep the chip cold. The price tag was $100,000.”

We waited a bit, but by 2000 had converted to digital.

“Now we use 17MB Phase One H20 cameras, three of them, and of course do a lot of color-matching work in pre-press,” explains Howard.

It’s hard for any of us to imagine how we could generate the photos we do today without the speed of digital photography, given the increasing demands from our website and stores, neither of which the company had in 1995.

Visit to the studio

Visitors often marvel when they come inside our studio and see how we create room settings and closeups simulating desktops. We use the usual photo studio tricks of sliding walls, fake windows, staircases to nowhere and resin ice cubes that don’t melt under the lights.

One unusual denizen of the studio is Art the Bear. Having no room in their Delray cottage to put him up, Howard brought his black bear hunting trophy from his days up north into the studio. HR raised an eyebrow and ruled that if the bear was staying, he needed a badge. That meant a name, and since the studio is part of the Art Department, “Art” seemed a natural. He now wears his photo ID.

“He was the last animal I shot,” says Howard. He gave up hunting in 1974 and switched to shooting clay pigeons instead.

While most shots are taken in the studio, the photo team occasionally goes on location, especially for our bags, to show what they look like when worn by models in the real world.

True originals

Besides being the prop master at Levenger, Judy also props herself in a distinctive way.
Adorning her hands are 47 silver rings, which never come off, and around her neck are graduated lengths of Indian buffalo necklaces.

“My full set is 18 buffalos, but the 13 largest stay home. Otherwise they swing out and get in the way of what I’m working on,” she explains.

Howard shares Judy’s love of Indian art, and has a single silver feather earring in his left ear that he has worn since 1967. 

Invariably good natured, smiling, funny and supportive, they often find themselves being addressed as “Mom and Pop” by some of the younger staff members.

“They’re two of the most caring and giving human beings that I have been gifted with in my life,” attests our senior art director Ilene Stern, who’s worked with them since she was 26. “They go above and beyond to help you both personally and professionally.”

Dena Mullen, another photographer in the Studio, says that working alongside Howard and Judy for the past eight years “has been a treat. As a team, they are intuitive, which shows their years of collaboration.”

Having sat through more than a few photo sessions for updating the “Steve and Lori” shot in our catalog, I can attest to how Howard and Judy make what for me is a painful process almost enjoyable. They both give you lots of “greats” and “perfects,” as Howard snaps away and Judy fixes my shirt and Lori’s hair. You can sense their years of experience in dealing with insecure fashion models.

While Howard and Judy have never appeared in a catalog, Levenger readers have seen their grandson, Sean, whose image in a frame was a stowaway on a couple of Levenger covers.

When shown the cover and told it had gone to millions of homes in America, six-year old Sean said: “It’s me. It’s so cute.”

The current Levenger Vice President of Creative, Tim Barbini, praises Howard’s sense of lighting and composition as well as Judy’s resourcefulness when seeking the ideal prop. Moreover, adds Tim, “They’re both wonderful people.”

To which all of us at Levenger say: “Perfect.”

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Bernie Margolis and the Ladies of the Library

Bernie Margolis is not merely the President of the Boston Public Library, he’s its champion and protector.

So when he lobbied to change the name of the Copley subway stop to the Copley/Boston Public Library stop, it came as no surprise to his friends.

“I want the library’s name on every subway map in town,” Bernie told me. “I want recognition for the library.”

Too bad the Ladies of the Library can’t lobby for him.

“Art” and “Science” are their names, and they are the two magnificent bronzes that have graced the Copley Square entrance to the library since Bostonian Bela Pratt sculpted them in the early 1900s.

But Bernie had other plans for the Ladies. He wanted the best possible bookend models of these majestic creatures. And Levenger was going to make them.

I knew it would be a challenge—we would be making the first ever models of these Boston landmarks. I knew this from doing the Boston Public Library Delivery Bag a few years ago.

After Bernie and I visited the first candidate sculptor in his studio and inspected his work, we moved on to a second candidate, and finally to a team that worked from many photographs and careful dimensions.

At last I flew to Boston so Bernie could compare what were supposed to be the final prototype bronze bookends beside the originals. Bernie held the models aloft, closing one eye and sighting them in to the originals, unperturbed by the stares of Bostonians passing by. Art’s gown wasn’t quite flowing enough. Science’s neck wasn’t as graceful as the original. And let’s fix the toes a bit. And so on.

I dutifully took notes and photos to try to convey his observations to our team. Then I packed the sadly imperfect bookends back in my bag.

As we walked to Bernie’s car, I asked if he decorated the Ladies at the holidays as they do with wreaths on the lions at the New York Public Library.

“No, but they get decorated in a Boston kind of way. People put witches’ hats on them at Halloween and, if the Red Sox are playing a big game, they’ll wear Sox caps.”

“Do you take the hats off them later?” I asked.

“We leave them. They disappear on their own.”  Then we disappeared, too, into heavy downtown traffic, and headed to an Italian restaurant in the North End.

P.S. A few months later our models did finally meet Bernie’s approval, and we are proud to offer them to Bostonians and booklovers everywhere.

Here they are.

And here’s some more on their history.

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Bernie’s Bag and the Boston Public Library

Bernie Margolis would need only the red outfit to make a convincing Santa Claus. It’s not just his white hair and lively eyes. It’s the glee liable to break out at any moment—the joy that Bernie exudes about his workshop. Bernie’s workshop doesn’t make toys. Bernie’s workshop, which at the slightest prompting he will describe with a proprietor’s pride, is the Boston Public Library.

“Did you know the BPL is America’s only public library that is also a presidential library?” Bernie asked me on one of my first visits. “It’s John Adams’s Presidential Library. David McCullough researched his John Adams here, and later became a trustee. And let me show you the Abbey Room, which is truly amazing…”

It was on my first tour with Bernie that we came upon a pile of canvas bags down in the basement. I picked one up by its handles and saw that it was unusually deep, stenciled with “Boston Public Library,” and considerably worn.

“We’ve been using these bags for the past hundred years or so,” Bernie said. “The reason they’re so deep is so the delivery man can carry the most number of books relatively comfortably as he shuttles them between our branch libraries—from the truck, up and down stairs, that sort of thing.” Bernie picked up one bag in each hand. “It’s best if you carry two at a time to balance yourself,” he advised.

I knew we had to have them. Or rather, our customers did. They’d use this bag for any number of things, and they’d probably appreciate the history.

Little did I know what I was getting Levenger into  when I convinced Bernie to let us reproduce the delivery bag. The project taught me what a stickler the affable Bernie Margolis can be.

Considering ourselves to be experts in bags, we sent the design specs to our top canvas-bag manufacturer. We were quite pleased with the first samples, tested them out loaded to the max with books, and sent the bags with high expectations to Bernie. A week later we heard from Bernie’s office.

The bottom needed to be doubled.

“No it doesn’t,” countered our bag designer, who considered herself the expert in such matters. “It’s plenty strong enough with the gauge of canvas and heavy-duty thread.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I answered, trying to smooth her.  “But Bernie wants it doubled bottomed. It can’t hurt, can it?”

“Well, no,” she agreed, holding the bag aloft and patting its bottom like a mother might pat her baby’s bottom. “It will just add some cost.”

The next round of samples with double layers of canvas did meet Bernie’s approval. Today, I’m proud to say, the delivery staff of the BPL uses these same bags on its daily rounds.

Stenciled inside the bag is the quotation etched in stone above the
Boylston Street entrance of the BPL:

The Commonwealth Requires the Education of the People as the Safeguard of Order and Liberty.

I’m proud to report that Levenger has paid the Library more than $25,000 in royalties for the bags as of the fall of 2007, showing that commerce and charitable giving can travel together. Plus, it brings out that sparkle in Bernie’s eyes.

And so with the bag as our first project, we felt prepared for something bigger. To be more specific, two big bronze ladies who have presided in front of the library since 1914. More on this in a future report…