Editing The Pen Addict 184/transcript (section)

== Pencil Thing ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So I really, really wanted to go there. Well, I've got a bit of a pencil thing going on now these days. So I figured, why not go get some cool woodcase stuff? So I'll come back to that in a moment. But I really loved New York. Have you been to New York?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've only been once. And it's been probably 10 years. And it was just for some work stuff for just a few days. So I didn't get to tour around too much. Just, you know, very, very small little time in there. So I got to get back up there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It was fantastic. We went to a bookstore called Strand, which is huge. And I bought a new coloring book. Nice. I bought a Star Wars coloring book. Oh, really? Yeah. Yep. Cool. I saw it and I was like buying it. Because obviously they had a huge coloring section in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. They're everywhere.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I was like, there's no way. There is no way that I'm not getting a Star Wars coloring book.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's amazing. I want to see some pictures of that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. Sorry, Joanna Bashford, but I'm going to skip over you for a little bit now. I've got Yoda to color in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I've got that. But yeah, it was really nice to see it. I'm like, I'm teasing now. I'm teasing the CW pencil discussion. I really liked it there. New York is a really interesting place. It's kind of like London. Was this your first time there? Yeah. I'd never been there before. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Gotcha.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. But I did really, really enjoy it. I really, really enjoyed it. So should I talk to you about? Please, you're killing me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're killing all of us.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. So I can't remember what kind of part it's called, like where the store is, but you can find that by looking online. And it's a tiny store, like super, super small. There were four of us and there were like two other people in the store when we got there. And it was like everyone was like in each other's way. But it's a pencil store, right? So like, what do you expect? But it's beautiful.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So even just the picture you put on Instagram, I was like, that is such a good looking picture because the store, you know, forget you in the picture that just the store itself is so photogenic. It's Caroline does an awesome job. She really does.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I mean, I don't know if it was like planned this way, but everything in that store is Instagram worthy. Right. Every part of it. Like there's like artwork on the walls, which was, you know, there's this one piece which shows like in different. It has, it's like a frame, it's like a deep frame with a bunch of pencil stuff in it. And it shows the making of a pencil. So it starts with like a block of wood and then like stamped out and then cut into the pieces. And then with the lead put in the middle and then stamped out all together with the eraser part. Like it shows the, actually you can kind of see it over my right shoulder. Okay. So if you look at the picture that will be in the show notes, you can see there's like these blocks of wood on the wall. And that is the piece which shows the making of a pencil. There's a bunch of like artwork, like just pencil related artwork and posters and stuff like that. And every, every inch of the store is covered in these beautiful little displays with real colorful pencils arranged in these excellent little pots and stuff. And yeah, just the whole thing was fantastic that you could try everything out. And it was great. Everyone enjoyed it because it was just such an interesting little place. And I was so excited that Caroline was there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's awesome. I was glad she was.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. I would have, I would have been upset if I didn't get to meet her.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And I didn't want to like, so I was thinking like, do I just go in and like introduce myself? Cause I wanted to talk to her. Right. Right. But I didn't want to kind of just be like, Hey, it's Myke. Do you know who I am? Right. And also it's like, I don't know if she has any idea who I am. So we were in there and we were talking and then Marco mentioned something to me, Marco Arment, who I was staying with. And he was like, Oh, does this hurt you being in here? Like it's the pencil store, you know, and you're a pen guy. And I was kind of just like, no, no, I'm like coming around to it, you know? And I can't remember how it came up, but we like, we got chatting and I started talking to Caroline a little bit and I was like, Oh, you know, she was like laughing. I was like, Oh yeah, I'm on this podcast called the pen addict. And she goes, Oh, are you Myke? And I was like, yeah. I was like, yes, that's who I am. So yeah. And then we just started chatting and I was like saying how awesome it was to be in the store and saying like, you know, that we've been following her, her work and kind of her progress for so long and that it's great to see how it's going. And she was just saying that like the store's taken off. I heard her saying to somebody that like, I think that they got a call from the daily show or the today show or something like that because they needed pencils for. Gift guide thing that they were doing. Nice. I think it was like a gift guide for teachers. I don't know, like to get for teachers for the end of school or whatever. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's probably like the today show.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And so they had to like rush some pencils up to Manhattan or whatever. But she was just saying that like the store was really taken off and they were, and it had been so successful. And like she even had an office now, which was like detached from the store because the online stuff's so busy and just the business is so busy. And I love, I just love that this exists. Right. Because it shouldn't. Right. There is no world when you think about it where like in New York City, somebody can pay the like the rental fees to have a pencil shop.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. It doesn't make sense.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It doesn't make any sense, but they do. And it's successful and it's awesome. And you can see why, right? Because I spent like over a hundred dollars in there. Right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because if you're drawn in and there's no way you're leaving there about buying anything.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh yeah. Because that's what we've always talked about just from the pen perspective. You're like, you can get something like that will really change your writing experience for $3, you know?