The "I recommend you" Thread

This is a very timely thread, Mega.
I've been contemplating over the last 12 hours or so whether to recommend a lecture on the Babalon Working that I watched yesterday to the forum. As this thread suits such a recommendation here it is.

This lecture from the Glastonbury Occult Conference 2015 covers a lot of spiritualist material related to Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard, Marjorie Cameron and a host of other characters. Jack Parsons was one of the founders of JPL, Hubbard is well known for scientology, Marjorie Cameron is known in various circles.... This lecture is the most well researched I've watched on this subject. It assumes the viewer is already familiar with the subject but there could still be some value to the adventurous. So, if you have any interest in this matter or characters I recommend you this:

I recommend you Persona 5:

I'm gonna check this out later.

Well... This video was something different not what I was expecting. I did hear about Persona, but never saw what it was about. 


Oohhh, this will be an interesting one.

This YouTube channel. Guaranteed laughs.

Will come back later if I wake up, but I recommend this fanmade prequel. For it's budget it's actually a good *free* movie.

Having just watched the movie A Monster Calls I have to recommend it.
I went into it knowing nothing about it beyond a glace at the poster. Opening credits and a few familiar names roll by. Ok. Then the story began to unfold and what a well told tale. This is a devastatingly beautiful film. It's close in it's storytelling style to Pan's Labyrinth but has it's own magic to weave. It best for me not to say too much about it and spoil anything. I didn't even watch a trailer and glad I hadn't. If you haven't seen this and know nothing about it but liked Pan's Labyrinth you'll enjoy this film.

Ok...for Game of Thrones Fans, this guy's reaction to the end of episode 9, season 1t still makes me laugh. I feel so bad for him.

A Fountain Pen primer, (of sort)


Pen and paper is a rather central part of my life. I like to say that “I think with pen & paper”. And there is a good deal of truth to that. It is also my detail memory. I have a job which includes a fair amount of both engineering and programming, and to me the pen is the primary tool and my own notes and sketches are my primary reference. Computers and calculators come second.
Same with private life. I build stacks of notebooks full of ideas, plans, sketches and facts.

And since I was about ten, a 'pen' to me have been exclusively a fountain pen. I was certainly not introduced to that by my environment. On the contrary, my entire family still lives by the silly delusion that ballpoint pens are the ultimate and 'modern' pens. My father for instance certainly never understood why I insisted on “obsolete” fountain pens. In their defence, they never really tried it, and somehow they manage to stand all the annoying and inconvenient problems with ballpoint pens. They probably think that is how it should be, - running around, “Oh why don't I have a pen that works” - and just get new pens over and over again.
I've had more success at work than with family. I've converted the entire office, save one person who haven't bothered to try, to fountain pens. And I didn't even try. They just grew curios, asked why and tried for themselves.

I don't think ballpoint pens is how it should be. A ballpoint pen drives me screaming up the walls within hours. (I have tried it a few times at emergencies when I happened to run out of ink – I never do that anymore). I also can't help but to think that as how little other people use pen & paper these days, may itself be a consequence of how impractical, annoying and unreliable ballpoint pens are?

Anyway, but the superiority of the fountain pen wasn't what motivated me when I was a kid. I just wanted to start to write with 'real ink', and somehow felt very cheated by the cheap ballpoint pens I was given by school and parents. So I nagged until my parents relented and gave me a cheap Pelikan FP. That's how it started.

Through most of my life, decades of it, I wasn't really interested in the pen itself. Just its writing properties. I used 'affordable' working FP-pens like Parker Vector (mainly, wore out a couple of those), Parker Urban, Shaeffer 100 & 300, and fed them an uninterrupted diet of ink cartridges. Never cleaned them, never 'maintained' them. It's not really necessary, if the pen stands up to the corrosive Parker Quink or Pelikan 4001 inks. If the pen dries out, no problem. Just put in a new Quink cartridge and the fresh ink will dissolve and clear out the old as it starts to write again. So a FP can certainly be utterly, 100% 'practical' and hazzlefree!

It's just one of those many choices one can make. It's when you start to get fancy with inks and fancy with pens, that maintenance starts to be an issue. But why shouldn't it be? Why shouldn't the pen be a personal and well cared for tool that you know well?
Frankly, this wasteful, disposable scrap society, that the ballpoint pen relies on, where you somehow goes through the nuisance to get, buy or snatch a new ballpoint pen, every time you need to write something, is just another of those things I can't stand about ballpoint pens.

Other things I can't stand with ballpoint pens are the fact that they don't work. Change paper and they don't write. Change surface and they don't write. And they don't write, period. Because the pillar of ink paste has become broken. Because you've dropped them, stored them the wrong way up, whatever. Whatever. And you need to press. And you need a surface. And they write this pathetic, fine, micro-interrupted line that maybe even smears sometimes. And they make grooves in the paper sheets underneath. And the archival properties you know nothing about, except that it will eventually wear off because the ink sits on top of the paper.
A garbage tool.
Pencils? Nah, faint lines, smudging, pressing and grooving... No! Just for art.

Otoh, fountain pens and inks are jungles, where you can get lost in variables and complications. So my first recommendation, if you want to start to experience the superiority of the fountain pen, is to just get a no-nonsense working pen and feed it with cartridge ink. It's simple and safe.

The Chinese pens I've linked to above are good. Baoer 801 and 388 for fine point and small pens. Jinhao X750 and 159 for bigger, heavier pens and medium point. Feed them all with Pelikan 4001 ink in short cartridges. Don't use Chinese cartridges (they're hard and difficult to insert and the risk of damaging the pen is quite high).

Western alternatives are IMO primarily the excellent Pilot pen models known as 'MR', 'MR2' or 'Metropolitan'. Lamy 'Safari'. Parker 'Vector' and 'Urban' (I don't like the 'IM' model, because mine have tended to be insufficiently sealed, same with Jinhao X450). Shaeffer 100 & 300. You will note that some of these pens are distinctly more expensive than others. That doesn't really mean that they're really that much better. Things don't work quite that way in the FP-world. My primary Western recommendations for value, would be the Pilot MR-families or Lamy Safari. Personally, I prefer the Safari, but a lot of people also prefer the Pilot.
P.S. Edit: Parker's plastic 'Vector' is back on the market, and IMO, except for looks it beats the rest of the cheap gang.

The Pilot “MR” pens have come in versions for both 'international standard' cartridges (== Pelikan) and converters (a converter replaces the cartridge when using bottle ink), and Pilot's own system. Pay attention to which you get. Parker uses their own proprietary system which is very good. I really like both Parker's cartridges and their deluxe converters. Lamy also uses their own system which is good. And Shaeffer uses their own system where the converters are fine, but where I don't quite like their cartridges, though it works I suppose.

A note on width of points: There are two different systems. The Western&Chinese and the Japanese. The Japanese system is roughly one step finer than the Western/Chinese. So a Japanese 'M' point (medium) is the same as a Western/Chinese 'F' (fine). This means that since the Pilot Metropolitan pens only come in 'M' and 'F', they really only come in fine and extra fine. If you want a true medium point you need to get a Lamy Safari. It also means that by getting a Japanese 'EF' you actually can get a superfine nib.
Standard designations are EF, F, M, B, B2, B3. The 'broads' are typically only available in more expensive pens, B2 and B3 being special order. Then there are various other special points as well, like the fairly common 'Italic/stub'.
Beginners tend to gravitate towards finer points (don't know why, ballpoint experience?), and seasoned users tend to eventually grow a taste for broad points. I prefer Western/Chinese 'M' for allround stuff, but fill in protocols, write dimensions, numbers, etc with 'F'. 'B' is, for me, strictly for diaries, letters and cards. 'EF' is good for writing comments inside papers, books, as it allows you to write neat and small.

Considering the Pilot and Safari pens: The Pilots tends to be more flawless out of the box. That's probably what you want if you're not tinkerer/technical person. The Safari does have a number of other advantages though. You can easily exchange the nib with replacement nibs. The nib itself is tunable (a black art that you learn over years, but Safaris and Jinhao X750s are good to practice on). And you can easily dismantle the pen entirely for thorough cleaning and maintenance. And you can get the Safari in 'M' and 'B'.

All the pens that I have considered in this segment are cartridge/converter -pens. Keep in mind that there are other types of fountain pens, with their own integral filling systems. You probably don't want to go there for a start.

An Ink primer (of sorts, fountain pen inks):


I might as well do this too, as ink is such a big deal of using a Fountain Pen. The ink you use, define most of the properties you get from a fountain pen. And this concerns risks and disasters just as much as advantages. There is no 'perfect' ink. Just a choice of what is important to you.

The first thing to understand is that just because something is called “ink” doesn't make it usable in a fountain pen. So what I'm really talking about here, is literal “Fountain Pen Inks”, inks made specifically for fountain pens, and nothing else! Dip pen inks and art inks don't work.

But even so, all “fountain pen inks” are not wise/safe to use in all fountain pens. Modern cheap pens don't have much of a problem though, so you don't need to worry much. Still, there are a few things worthwhile to know. And there is also how it affects maintenance, so let's do this:

There are three conflicting dimensions of ink properties, - how 'permanent' they are, - how well they write, - and what pens are suitable and what level of maintenance they require.
I'll do this by breaking down FP inks into 5 different categories, and discuss the other attributes under way.

1: The most benign and harmless inks, are the “modern”, neutral and pretty consistently water soluble inks, typically composed of some dyes, water and alcohols. You'll find this kind of ink represented by J.B. Herbin, Rohrer & Klingner, Pelikan Edelstein, Diamine, de Atramentis, and some – but far from all - of Noodler's inks. Some – but not all – Private Reserve. Moderately alkaline inks like Iroshizuku and Sailor can probably be counted in here as well.
The good things about these inks is that they won't destroy pens, and if the pen dry out, all you have to do is draw up a little bit of water in the pen, and after an hour or so you can even write again. It won't be the same though. The ink will dry slower and tend to bleed through the paper and “feather” more.
The bad part of these inks is that they're not water proof on the paper either. Spill on it, cry tears on it, get rain on it, rest a damp hand on it, and the ink will run and smear.
With a lot of time, the dye will eventually bite into the paper fibres so a ghost image of the writing remains, even if you wash the entire paper. This will vary depending upon the individual ink and time though. And with “time” I mean actual weeks, months and years, not hours.
A pen is easily cleaned with just water and maybe a drop of common washing up liquid.
Another thing that could be bad about these inks is that they're maybe the most vulnerable to mold? That's just something one have to look out for though. The ink should be clear and leave clear tracks on the side of the bottle.
But this is the only kind of ink I would put into an expensive, difficult to dismantle, complex pen with its own filling system.
Lightfastness vary in this group. Some inks are fugitive, others are pretty durable. I've never tested a Rohrer & Klingner that wasn't pretty lightfast, so both because of that and since they flow and write so fabulously well, that tends to be my favourite brand in that group. Private Reserve has also tended to be quite lightfast in my limited experience. I would trust Iroshizuku to be good, because those people seem very serious, but haven't much personal experience. Other brands can be pretty inconsistent in that regard. Edelstein, for instance, feature both fugitive and very durable inks.

2: The “classic” acid inks, like Parker Quink, Pelikan 4001, Montblanc, Caran d'Ache.
I really like these inks, because they are the best writers out there! And as long as you don't switch ink so much, they can be completely maintenance free. You just fill up with more ink. I've literally done precisely that for decades with Parker Quink in some pens, without ill effects or problems.
They also bite into the paper a bit better than the neutral inks, so tend to be slightly more water proof. They, over the range, also seem to tend towards a bit more lightfastness.
What makes these inks so maligned, is that they can kill a lot of pens, particularly expensive and complex pens, and vintage collector pens.
Celluloid, spring steel, aluminum, bronze, brass can be attacked and even ruined by these inks if it leaks out and comes into contact with such components. Some plastics and soft sacs are possibly not safe either.
So, stainless steel, gold, Lucerite/Lucite resins, polycarbonate plastics, ebonite are the safe materials, but most plastics seem also to hold up well.
But I wouldn't worry about a cheap pen, even if it has some aluminum parts. Pens don't leak so often.
When you actually do get around to clean out one such pen, you may have some problems disassembling it, because parts stick together, and you need to be careful there. But otherwise it's just time in water and a soft toothbrush.
Ink recipes are sometimes changed, so I can't comfortably say that all those inks are still acid. I know Waterman has changed some of theirs, and Caran d'Ache have 'revamped' their range. But I hope most of them are still acid, because as I've said, I like them. Note that these inks should not be diluted with water in the pen (causes solid residue), just fill up with more ink if it dries out.

3: Cellulose reactive inks. Also known as document inks. Archival inks also belong here.
These inks, mostly popularized by Noodler's, but also made by de Atramentis, are truly waterproof. You can just write on a paper and hardly even bother to wait for it to dry, and then just flush it under a water tap, or leave it in a bowl over night, the writing still remains as clear and distinct as ever.
Most of them are also intentionally formulated to be very lightfast. So these are very durable inks. Having them in your pen, and how they flow and write is a different story though.
Before I go on, I think there are a couple of things I need to explain about the Noodler's brand: Noodler's inks do not have consistent, common properties over the range! Every Noodler's ink is unique and have its own set of properties. Some of them are neutral and water soluble. Some are fugitive in light. Some are lightfast. Some are extremely lightfast and permanent. Totally un-removable by any means that won't first destroy the paper, cloth or wood. Some flow and write very well, others are gunky and troublesome. Don't ever assume the properties of a Noodler ink. The technical data of every ink is available online in tables and reviews.
Critical: Noodler's bottles are always filled all the way to the top! And I do mean exactly that. When you open, hold firmly down onto a solid, firm, protected surface, and carefully screw off the cap. There is one other thing you can assume about a Noodler's ink. It's a bit toxic. Don't panic and don't sniff them. On the plus side they're invulnerable to mold .  ...On the negative side they don't sell them in EU, because they're not legal there.
A few of Noodler's inks have been known to dissolve or soften some plastics and rubbers. If Noodler deliver a polycarbonate pen together with the ink and a note says "only use the ink with the supplied pen", you should probably figure you're in dangerous country. 
These reactive inks' properties mean a few things for the user. Firstmost is that you will NEVER be able to remove ink stains from wood, cotton or linen. Never! So take care. And don't put them in expensive celluloid pens, or pens with cork parts, like older piston pens.
Otherwise, Noodler's versions can be slightly diluted with water, up to 50/50 (in the pen, never in the bottle) and the more gunky of them improve greatly by it, IMO. De Atramentis document inks have a special dilution liquid, for those who want to reduce them. No special difficulties with cleaning, but if you wait for years, you'll have a problem with disassembling because of parts sticking together.
Also, when using these inks, the ink bottle should always be well turned (or shaken, but then you'll have bubbles to contend with) to mix the ink, every time before filling the pen. That is, in contrast, not necessary with the two previous categories.

4: Iron Gall inks. The 1000-year ink. The ancient, Western permanent ink. It's based on tannic acids and iron, rather than carbon particles, like old Indian and Chinese permanent inks.
Rohrer & Klingner and Japanese Platinum make a few such Iron Gall inks for fountain pens, and there is also Diamine Registrars BlueBlack.
I don't have much experience with this type of inks. I only first tried Salix and Scabiosa (both made by Rohrer & Klingner) two/three years ago, and I just acquired Platinum Classic Khaki a week ago. But I like them sofar.
They're completely waterproof, just like the cellulose reactive inks, but they may also be more durable in the long run, because they deposit iron oxide, which can never be faded by light exposure, like the way dyes always are eventually.
According to the general recommendations though, they shouldn't be left in the pen for more than a couple of weeks. Then wash out and start over. I would guess that is because the ink may oxidise, and when that happens the iron falls out. And be careful about capping the bottles. Also, I understand it's normal that you can't finish the bottle. The last splash apparently typically needs to be discarded.
My own tip is to always use 'difficult' inks in very well sealed pens (pens which don't easily dry out), which are also easy to disassemble.

5: Nano-pigment inks. I have no experience whatsoever with this new kind of inks.
Only Japanese Platinum and Sailor make such inks. The idea is that by using solid particles, instead of dyes, you can both make it waterproof as well as very lightfast (because you can use color agents which are not affected by light, like carbon). A nano-carbon, black ink is of course utterly permanent. It will last not only 1000 years, but thousands of years, as long as the support/base survives. That idea is not new, has worked brilliantly for quill & dip pens, and historically been disastrous for fountain pens. The new idea is to make the pigment particles so small that they are kept in suspension by browns' movements. The question is what happens if the pen dries out? I mean it dries waterproof, doesn't it? I really don't know. Haven't explored these and have no plans to do it either. Apparently, all these nano-pigment inks are NOT completely lightfast, because the used pigments are not, so what's the point?

P.S. Update on Nano-pigment inks:  I have tried Platinum's Carbon now. It's a great art pigment. Ultra-permanent, very black and water proof. For the same reasons good for labels.
However, it does show some sedimentary behavior in the pen almost immediately.  And lying unused a couple of days, it can be hard to get going again. I will certainly NOT put this in any pen that is not easy to dissemble and clean with various tooth brushes (or any expensive pen). And I won't keep it inked for more than like 2 weeks, or even that.

And to be totally anal-retentive, there is actually 6 types of inks. The Alkaline. (Like Iroshizuku). I put them with benign inks above, but recently I looked at one of my old cheap pens that have an aluminum sac holder and spoon, and it was definitely corroded by the ink (not Iroshizuku, but Baystate Blue). Just lightly, spoiled surface, but one should perhaps be somewhat wary which pens one use this in, same as the with the acid inks.



Final words, my favorite inks (in no particular order and without concerns for color) (also keep in mind that I have actually NOT tested all existing inks):

Parker Quink, all of them, but maybe mostly Permanent Blue/Blue and Blue-Black. It's the ink I've used the most, through my life. But in later years, as I've tried more of other inks, I've come to appreciate and love them even more.
In these days, a lot of pen-nuts sneer contemptuously at Quink. Mostly, I suspect, because it has been so common for such a long time. And then they just dally about mostly irrelevant details as colors in their own silly, so called 'reviews'.
But Quink's position was IMO eminently well deserved. It handles and writes second to absolutely none. It's only weakness is that it's not completely waterproof (it is sort of waterproofish though), and that it's dangerous for some pens because of its acidity.
“Maintenance free”.

Rohrer & Klingner 'Verdigris', my pick among the neutral PH, water soluble, benign inks. Lightfast, flows and writes almost as good as Quink.

Iroshuzuku 'Asa-Gao', a traditional blue, “benign”, neutral ink that is almost just as good as R&K 'Verdigris'. A bit alkaline though.

'54'th Massachusetts' by Noodler's Ink. A fantastically well behaved, well writing, fully waterproof and very lightfast, cellulose reactive ink. One of the very best highly permanent inks. With easy maintenance to boot.

'Black' by Noodler's Ink. Commonly called Noodler's Black. Noodler's have quite a handful of different 'Black' inks, with somewhat different properties and subtle hues. But judging only writing behavior, pen handling, permanence and easy maintenance, the one simply called 'Black' is the pick. A great ink. Noodler's Black is the ink that put Noodler's on the map. I've not taken any census, but it seems to be just as famous as Parker Quink. Everything that can be said about the blueblack '54'th Massachusetts' can also be said about Noodler's Black. Which is of course also a cellulose reactive ink. I've not come across any permanent inks that write, flow and clean out as well as these two.

For art purposes I would prefer 'Heart of Darkness' though (also Noodler's). The reason is that it's blacker, and stand up to eraser better (smudges less), and seeps out less blackness when washed over with water.

Edit: Update: Platinum 'Blue Black'. This is my most recent favorite. It's an Iron Gall ink, so exceedingly durable. I've only used it in very well sealed pens, but I've had no trouble at all. I've even left it in pens for months. It writes very well and I like the dark, classic color.
I have to say that all my Iron Gall inks, from both Rohrer & Klingner and Platinum, have worked much better and more trouble free than I had been lead to believe by all warnings. I have used them in very well sealed pens though. That's always a factor with troublesome inks.
New Edit: Update 2: This summer I ran a lightfastness test on Platinum's 'Blue Black', and the blue dye faded rather more rapidly than expected. The deposited iron should make this ink readable in special light/special cameras for a very long time, but the fading of the clearly visible was a disappointment. Platinums 'Classic Khaki' holds up much better. Anyway, their 'Blue Black' is no longer any favorite ink of mine. Sorry about that.