The Hunt for (the) Red Moleskine

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Wednesday, October 05, 2005
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Brenda Coulter knows how to make the powers that be in the blogosphere sit up and take notice, and now she's sharing the secret with the rest of us: write something about Moleskine notebooks. No problem. I'm on the hunt for a special edition Moleskine, and I could use all the help I can get. Monday at Moleskinerie, photos cropped up of a couple of new editions -- a black Moleskine branded with the University of Siena logo and (more to my liking) a red Mokeskine diary designed especially for the Italian bookstore Feltrinelli. I'm going through a Red Phase at the moment -- maybe it's because I spend so much time in a red, book-lined room -- and the moment I saw this new diary I had to have one. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available online. As far as I can tell, you have to walk into the Feltrinelli shop to buy one.

So Laurie, my loving wife, sent out a call to her international network of artistic friends, asking them for help in locating the Feltrinelli Moleskine.

As a longtime Filofax enthusiast, I'm a sucker for diaries of every kind. What this means in practical terms is that my schedule is all over the place -- literally. It's scattered in a half-dozen places: on the computer in my iCal calendar, in the black Filofax on my desk, in one of several standard Moleskine diaries (they come in different sizes and layouts, so I have to have them all). Based on this, you might think that adding yet another diary to the mix would be a Bad Idea, and in a practical sense I suppose it is. But I don't keep a schedule for practical reasons. My diary is meant to be an aesthetic tool.

I've never had so much going on in my life that I couldn't remember my appointments and goals without having a calendar to remind me. Every so often, I move a stack of books and find an old Filofax. I flip through the pages and find that all the notations suddenly stop, say, in the middle of June four years ago. When this happens, I run to the store and get new inserts and start using the thing for awhile. I don't need to. I almost never open up my diary and exclaim, "Ah ha! I have an appointment today! Good thing I checked." Still, I enjoy the process. I like writing the appointments down, and I like doing it in a snazzy package. And what could be snazzier than a bright red, unattainable Moleskine?

Needless to say, if you're in Italy and you spot the Feltrinelli Moleskine, pick up a couple of extras for me. You will make this writer's heart glad indeed.