Version 1.7 All Dogs Go to Heaven

The first week of October was spent horizontally, in that I was bed bound and.. sick? I'm still not sure what happened there; American health care means I've conditioned myself to not visit the doctor under any circumstances. Luckily, I hardly fall ill, so it was an almost-amusing experience to observe. My head hurt too much to look at a screen and every time I stood up it was like peeling myself off the road after taking a semi-truck like that awful child in Pet Semetary.

I'm just hoping I'll be good by the 10 th because my brother, his wife and I had been looking forward to a semi-hinged stationery-centric weekend in LA. Not just any ole trip either- that weekend was slated for the first annual Bungu LA Expo aka BunguFest (not a sex thing). We had been wanting to go to the SF Pen Show to celebrate our mutual obsession, but life happened and circumstances wouldn't allow, so we were pretty stoked to see that there was going to be stationery expo geared towards Japanese brands in their backyard.

Mind you, online tickets for the first day had sold out, but we were hopeful we'd still be able to get in, since the site said they had still reserved a whole bunch of tickets for the door. Then, some fuck at the LA Times newspaper wrote a long ass piece about the event and the people planning it, bringing it way too much attention and now I understand why sometimes politicians execute target journalists. just kidding. We coulda gotten tickets for the second day but my con-going experience has taught me the coolest shit sells out day one- a real and present danger amplified by the fact that there would be many first-time vendors.

Board the Amtrak and catch a train to Glendale, Friday before BunguFest. Bungufest Eve, you might not say. We discuss our game plan. I'm thinking getting there a bit later in the day might be better, since by that time, the folks that showed up in the morning will be filtering out and damn if people in LA don't love lines (see: Pink's Hot Dogs). Jen volunteers to get up early and hold us a spot in line, but all of us are up bright and early the next morning anyway, so we decide to roll up when it opens. The expo is being held at beautiful Union Station (in that big side room at the entrance, for anyone who has ever been). The line felt infinite, wrapping around the station. We settled in and used the time to catch up, plot a menacing letter on adorable stationery to the aforementioned LA Times journo, and mentally drown in the ocean of keychain creatures clipped to all manner of totes, purses and bags.

We finally get in TWO AND A HALF HOURS later, and promptly treated to- more lines. The place was clearly at max capacity and certain sections, booths and features had built up their own queues. Didn't know when I walked in but I needed a lot of wooden stamps. An obscene amount of wooden stamps. Did you know that stamps can be combined to form entire scenes? I didn't, but after a stamping demonstration that felt like a magician's sleight of hand, I was sold. Without the supervision of people who wouldn't understand, I was allowed to purchase four notebooks I may never fill to join the other notebook I've never started**. One purchase I got on a whim, and turned out to be real pleased with, was a photo essay in the form of a book, exploring mom and pop stationery shops across Japan, compiled by one Mr. Allister Lee. It was lovely reading for the train ride home.

On the way out I spotted my friend Kevin (not the Hayes), which was cool. We were leaving at the same time, I asked him how long he had to wait to get in and he said ten minutes. Spotted him again when we pulled up to the second location, PaperPlant Co. The owners of the shop put the event on and here another line had formed. I couldn't, none of us could, so we strolled through LA's weird ass Chinatown and finally went home to flatten out. We ended up getting pizza and watching Lower Decks til we all got sleepy.

The next day was a tour of LA stationery stores. I felt like a delegate being shown the finest wares in the kingdom. Got some more things with a little more discretion. Caught a pen crush at Top Drawer. Wandered around a warehouse filled with decades of meticulous sculptures, tasteful hoarding and assemblages. Still not sure what that place was called but its next to a marionette theater and within walking distance to Shorthand.

The next week my neighbor's family, which has as many members as most people's extended families, came into town to reunite with their brother facing terminal illness. His place (my neighbor's) is a sty so when I heard he was going to be housing two grown adults in his already cramped one-bedroom, I offered my guest room immediately and without thought. I declined most of their offers to join them for outings, but the day before they left I finally did accept their offer to go to SDZINEFEST, where one can see what America's most mediocre city has to offer. I was still a bit high off the Bungu Expo and felt the need to spend big on small potatoes. Got a handful of things, which I haven't bothered to give a second look, but to be fair, the same can be said of most (if not all) of my most recent comiccon haul.

Lastly, and hopefully leastly, I had to bring my sweet Chola to the vet for a bump in her tummy tissue that kinda looks like a new boob- she was born with an asymmetrical amount of nipples, so she doesn't need another. Cost a pretty penny to run a gamut of tests and we have a surgery scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving. Luckily, she's as spry and sassy as ever, so it isn't bothering her in the meantime, and despite her getting on in years, I know her vim and vigor will pull her through. The last time she had surgery, for a minute there I didn't know just how we were going to afford it, but this time it feels good to be in a place where I can cover anything she needs.

She had a blast on Halloween, sitting outside on an outdoor blanket, handing out barks to trick-or-treaters and airplanes.

* 'bungu' means stationery in Japonaise
** hands up if you too have contemplated your own mortality through stationery

I must not have done much of much this month because flipping through my trusty Hibino, nothing seems to jump out besides celebrating my brother's birthday and bidding my folks farewell for their move to Seattle.
For my brother's birthday I made him a painting of celebrated director and all around handsome fella, David Lynch and a little SD card containing 500000000 years button full series (yt only has the first three episodes, which are still great, and the rest are on prime). Both subjects have been ongoing obsessions of mine for the past few months. And while I can't offer you a painting, I can offer you this ASCII portrait for you to print out at home (png version). A few months ago, I posted a link to the auction site for David Lynch's estate, a must-scroll for any fan of his. Even though it's long since closed, looking at some of his things brings me little hits of joy.
As for the other item on the docket, you heard that right, mama and papa tooth have moved on to the Pacific Northwest. My dad's been working for Amazon AWS and they recently suggested forced all their employees to return to office, then relocated a lot of them in what I believe was an effort to induce resignations rather than announce official lay-offs. But whatdoIknow? They seem to be enjoying it so far. They're super cute together still. For their last night in town, I took them out to their favorite cartel-coded restaurant, La Sinaloense.
My own work has been good and steady, made a lot of bucks this month which Im willing to convert to dumb shit delivered to my door. While much of said shit has, is, and always will be more stationery, I doubt any of it will be coming from ZARA's new line, which I bitched about thoroughly in my latest post to substack.

Next month there will be much more to report as there have already been travels and tribulations. Until then, EVERYONE, HAVE A GREAT DAY.

humanTooth-type-v.1.ttf

After long last, I am thrilled to report I have been able to cross an item off my perpetual to-do list:
Make my own font.

Granted, I kind of used a cheat code to get there, but that doesn't negate the fact that this font did not exist before, and now it does. Yes, it's a little rough around the edges and hard to read, but so am I. In case you can't tell- it's meant to be a Display font, rather than used for body text.

I submitted it to Fontesk.com, a site where I have wasted many an hour gathering fonts for the second coming of Christ, and was so fucking jazzed to see that they accepted it! As of this writing it is currently sitting on their front page, which left me cheering in my chair.
If you would like to download it and use it yourself, I have given it Public Domain license, meaning its free to use for commercial, personal, and spiritual projects.

Downloads:
☞ Just the .ttf file, thanks.
→ FULL PACKAGE ←
(Includes: .otf, .ttf, .woff, .woff2, license)

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvXxYyZz!?0123456789:;[]{}\/~+=-_

May was marked with new acquisitions, soft work and partial dedication. Meaning i bought a lot of shit online and did my job. You may have noticed that im in the habit of collecting colors this year. Idk if thats the right phrasing. it's what im wasting my money on. ink and paint. club. This month's standouts were shade-splitting handmade watercolors from Dusty Bee on Etsy and a range of draw-joppers from Kitty Ink Pot, the Orient's best kept secret. These inks are shifty and feel almost alive, changing color entirely depending on paper type [test]. Getting them to my room in [REDACTED] was a triumph of globalization as the only supplier i could find online was Soe & Soe in Australia. Shipping was twenty american bucks but I was riding one of those sad on myself for missing the family trip to Asia waves so I pressed the fuck-it button, aka 'PLACE ORDER'.

(Click to enlarge)

I have actually been using them too, you can see Rustic Copper, an almost impossible simultaneous navy and orange-red, in the ears of this Xolo I painted per Clark's request. Another treat I received as compensation for missing the trip was this glorious gift from my brother and his wife:

THE LIMITED EDITION HONGKONG MCDONALDS MAH JONG SET

Jen and I had discovered it on IG back in January when it was released, dismayed to find that it was going for hundreds of dollars. They had tasked one of our least favorite cousins with two baby mamas in Hong Kong to buy it on their version of mercari while he was out there and fly it back to Taiwan where they picked it up and brought back for me here in [REDACTED].

They also facetimed me from the PLOTTER store in Taipei which turned out to be better stocked than the flagship in Tokyo. We all geeked out together on their luxury paper goods. Brother's holy grail item is the whiteboard insert which had a brief and glorious existence at a pop-up event in possibly Chicago.

He would have to settle for a frankenstein solution, which would prompt me to lend my recently acquired whiteboard notebook and dry/wet erase marker & pen knowledge, distilled into the Whiteboard Report. My passion for paper and my penchant for sharing have inspired me to start a stationery specific substack, where I plan to sink many hours once i get past merely parking my preferred username.

Did you know you can order custom stamps? the ka-thunking self inking kind? for like, 10 bucks? Every night when I write down what I did, I like to make note of what pen/ink I'm using. I have a few mini stamps that look like pens and others that look like ink. I saw an Eric Small Things stamp that seemed perfectly catered to that purpose but come to find that it's sold out and $30 bucks when it wasn't. Also come to find that Eric Small Things is a demigod in the Japanese side of journal world.

Currently reading:

PS: Can you spot the possum? i pass it nearly every day I walk the dog, its been sitting in the sun mummifying for over a year. I took a pic with my little thermal camera.

Hover to reveal.