And So It Goes

We don't have branches of Muji interspersed between our Starbucks (although I wish we did, because I'm running out of their excellent toothpaste). Muji is the perfect example of the sort of thing I'm thinking of, because it calls up a wonderful Japan that doesn't really exist. A Japan of the mind, where even toenail-clippers and plastic coat-hangers possess a Zen purity: functional, minimal, reasonably priced. I would very much like to visit the Japan that Muji evokes. I would vacation there and attain a new serenity, smooth and translucent, in perfect counterpoint to natural fabrics and unbleached cardboard. My toiletries would pretend to be nothing more than what they are, and neither would I. (If Mujiland exists anywhere, it's probably not in Japan. If anywhere, it may actually be here, in London.)
-Modern boys and mobile girls by William Gibson,
in The Observer, April 1, 2001.

I'm not a fountain pen obsessive, honest I'm not, but I do like writing with them. I like how the ink flows, the light touch that's all that's necessary to write. I even like how the ink looks on the page, with the uneven distribution on liquid ink that makes the lines thick in some places and translucent in others.

I tend to use Pilot disposable pens (a buck-sixty each and no great loss if misplaced), but years ago I owned a heavy steel, industrial-looking pen apparently made by a now defunct Japanese company, which I bought at an import store in San Francisco and have never seen since. More recently, I bought a plain black Lamy pen, which resembled my old industrial-looking pen, but I seem to have misplaced that.

Muji fountain pen The other day, though, I was in the big Muji store near Tokyo Station, stocking up on stationery. Muji is the no-brand brand, a line of household goods that are plain, simple, minimalist, well made, and cheap (You can see examples at http://www.muji.net/ or (in English) at http://www.mujionline.com/) .

Muji fountain pen A new product line there is a range of writing instruments sharing the same aesthetics--slender brushed-aluminum tubes with beveling for grips, looking almost exactly like X-acto knives. The different instruments looked so much alike that the packages came with little stickers to put on the pen caps so you can tell what you've got: B for Ballpoint, W for Water-based ballpoint, M for Mechanical pencil, C for Calligraphy, and (you can see this coming) F for Fountain pen.

Made in Japan according to the label (though the ink cartridges are made in Austria), though the nib has a fancy scrollwork design and the label IRIDIUM POINT. Only 1100 yen (about 9 bucks) and quite nice, and I am happily scribbling away on my Muji notebooks.