A Sense of Doubt blog post #3796 - The Writing Box

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3796 - The Writing Box


This is a really cool thing.

I want one!


Thanks for tuning in.

Reconnecting

Orbital Operations for 18 May 2025

https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/p/reconnecting-2107

OPERATIONS

WRITER’S BOX

that stick in the back is the prop for the cover

I picked this up for pennies on some dodgy Chinese online shop. It’s called a writer’s box, and they’ve been around in various forms for centuries. I decided to spend the pennies - and I think it was literally a hundred and twenty pennies - just to get a feel for one.

Writing boxes date back to the beginning of writing. Monks used boxes, called scriptoriums, in the Middle Ages. Eventually, craftsmen mounted these on stands and later added legs, creating the first desks for doing illuminated manuscripts. The writing box, which came much later, survived through the 19th century.

From the end of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, the writing box featured prominently on military expeditions, travels, libraries and in drawing rooms. People wrote dispatches, contracts, letters and postcards on their sloping surfaces.

http://theantiquesalmanac.com/writingboxesstandthetestoftime.htm

guest appearance of cheap Muji gel pen

The idea was that writers should be able to set up anywhere, and have a little office in a box that can be slung over a shoulder. Having worked for years with Palms and foldaway keyboards, I can obviously see the appeal. These days, I tend to invent and develop on paper more, and am quite happy to fuck off somewhere, find an outdoor table and scribble away in my notebook. That said, when at home, I’d like a more solid option for working at the garden table. And, frankly, this cheap thing with its sharp edges and flimsy ribbon strap is not up for a journey to my favourite table on the shoreline.

Galen Leather seem to make a much better one, and many and various versions of the writer’s box populate Etsy.

I am very drawn to these. I am very much involved in the tactility of my tools these days - even the AI device I use, the Rabbit R1, has a physical push-to-talk button like a walkie talkie. With some tweaking and an accessory or two, a phone can do almost anything, but there’s something to say for an object that signals just one thing. The writer’s box is for writing.

There is a crazy version of the writer’s box: the “office in a trunk” that Louis Vuitton made for the conductor Leopold Stokowski.

And, as I write this, I’ve just been offered a local daytime berth where I will be set up with, in their words, “wine and an extension cord.” So I’m all set for the summer.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.10 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3661 days ago & DAD = 315 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.