In their excellent open access book on Gear Acquisition Syndrome, Jan-Peter Herbst and Jonas Menze offer the following definition: “Gear Acquisition Syndrome, also known as GAS, is commonly understood as the musicians’ unrelenting urge to buy and own instruments and equipment as an anticipated catalyst of creative energy and bringer of happiness.” [1]
This condition is not just restricted to musicians but is widespread amongst other creative artists and hobbyists and I willingly admit to belonging to the ranks of those who suffer from the syndrome. In order to write, one has to carefully acquire and arrange a whole array of material objects to optimise every shred of that creative flow.
First – there are the writing instruments. In my case, these must be attractive fountain pens with a good flow of ink, a broad line on the page and an enticingly bright saturated ink – preferably with a good dose of shimmer and sparkle, so that the words on the page literally sparkle in the sunlight. The pens take some work to get right. Thorough research in the lead up to their acquisition needs to be conducted. This involves social activity: participating in forums of fountain pen users both online and in real world meetups. Then there is the search: given the huge range of pens on offer, selection criteria need to be decided upon carefully. In my own case, pens should be in various combinations of brightly coloured, shiny, sparkly, interesting shapes, textures and patterning and preferably limited editions.
Two brands that offer these features in spades are BENU and Aurora. BENU is an Armenian (formerly Moscow) based company. The chief designer and co-founder, Alex Semanin, has a background in icon and art restoration and jewellery design. A number of retailers were wary of their designs when they first hit the market in 2016 as their design, bright colours and very liberal inclusion of glitter and holographic materials couldn’t be further removed from the minimalism of more traditional brands. They also offer limited edition hand painted designs. One of these, the one which features at the end of this post, boasts a pink flamingo standing under the sun in sparkling blue waters: cheery mid-century kitsch which definitely qualifies in my books as a ‘catalyst of creative energy and bringer of happiness’ – particularly when working through some of the more intricate complexities of philosophical argument.
Aurora pens are a more serious affair. This Italian company was founded in Turin in 1919. Their pens feature precious metals such as gold and silver and even diamonds like the fabulously expensive diamond encrusted Aurora Diamante. At the relatively more affordable end of the spectrum, the barrels of many of their pens are made of cellulose acetate: an acrylic the company describes as ‘Auroloide’. This material features beautiful and bright colours with translucent abstract patterns and depths. Incidentally, the German pen company Montblanc likewise use their own ‘precious resin’ (a rather faulty English translation of the original German ‘Edelharz’) a plastic resin or PMMA.
Another brand worthy of mention here is another Italian pen company, Montegrappa, famously a brand adopted, at least partially, by Ernest Hemmingway. Their mini Micra fountain pens are the pen of my choice. My collection also includes pens from Esterbrook (an American company), Opus (a Taiwanese company) and Visconti (Italian) – all lovely to write with. Fountain pens have a global reach.
Interestingly, celebrity culture appears not to be a big factor in determining fountain pen purchases in the community – at least according to my own anecdotal observations. There are a few fountain pens designed by celebrities – Sylvester Stallone’s outrageous effort for Montegrappa (see this hilarious review in The Guardian) and Wes Anderson for Montblanc, but it is not clear that this celebrity branding has significantly influenced people’s decisions to purchase.
Digressions aside, I have only touched on some of the gear required for fountain pen writing – obvious needs are ink, paper and storage solutions for one’s gear which opens up a whole new cornucopia of opportunity…
References
Herbst and Menze further note: “the phenomenon is not limited to music. GAS occurs in many areas of everyday life. In music, it can be observed in hi-fi audio culture (Schröter & Volmar 2016), record collecting (Shuker 2010), home recording (Strong 2012) and jingle composition (Fisher 1997). Outside music, GAS occurs amongst photographers (Arias 2013; Kim 2012; Sarinana 2013), aquarium hobbyists (Wolfenden 2016), amateur astronomists (Chen & Chen 2017), cyclists (Peters 2013) and eBayers (Zalot 2013). Despite its high prevalence in contemporary culture, the phenomenon has hardly been researched.” Jan-Peter Herbst and Jonas Menzep, Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Consumption of Instruments and Technology in Popular Music, Huddersfield 2021, p.18.
YouTube videos
Wes Anderson for the centenary of Montblanc and the writing instrument he designed – the Schreiberling.
Trailer for Sylvester Stallone’s Montegrappa Chaos fountain pen
This post was drafted with a limited edition Benu Euphoria Tropical Blush fountain pen numbered 95/100. I used the glorious Jacques Herbin 1670 Fuchsia de Magellan ink – a bright pink with gold shimmer. The paper used was a Spirax Note Book no. 592.
