Greetings, FIELD NOTES friends. It’s been a while since we thanked our blogger friends, so without further ado, thanks to:

• AKA Doublejack (San Francisco, CA)
• Apt.101 (Mississippi)
• Carpe Aqua (Indiana)
• Copyblogger (U.S.A.)
• Despotes (Lexington, KY)
• Deeplinking (New York, NY)
• The Fancied (The Netherlands)
• Million Monkeys Typing (Vancouver)
• Missing Fillmore (?)
• MLIS Classroom Thoughts (Canada)
• MyMarkup (Sweden)
• Pen Addiction (U.S.A.)
• Roberta X (Indanapolis, IN)
• This is an Adventure (Texas/Virginia)

One of those is sort of a funny/snarky semi-negative review, but I’m not going to tell you which. And in the comments of another, I learned all about the Pencil Museum in Cumbria, England. Time for a FIELD NOTES field trip! Thanks again, everyone, “KEEP ON FIELD-NOTING.” (That slogan could use some work.)

The other day, someone called to ask if we sell FIELD NOTES at our Chicago HQ to save the cost of shipping. We said, “Sure, come on over.” Then we quietly added our address to the “Retail Locations” page and got another call five minutes later. It was what they call a “‘duh’ moment.”

Our FIELD NOTES distribution center ain’t as pretty as the other boutiques and small-engine-repair shops that sell our product, but if you don’t mind a couple flights of stairs, we’d be happy to sell you some. Our address is 400 N. May Street, Suite 301 (buzz up and let us know you’re here for FIELD NOTES). and our phone number is 312-243-1107. We’re here weekdays from 9am-4:30pm (closed Holidays) and we accept cash or credit cards.

If you’d like to speed things up even faster, order online with coupon code “WILLCALL” and your FIELD NOTES will be here, paid, packed, and waiting for you, with no shipping charges. The same offer stands for everything in the Coudal Partners Shop, including Jewelboxing.

It’s Friday and we’re feeling good, and we wanted to remind you to “Do it on Graph Paper!”

Organize your life. Make a plan. Sketch up an addition to your household. Draft a contract. Make a list of records you are looking for. Write some poetry. Draw a friend. Make a grocery list. Practice your penmanship. Pretend you are in prison, and hatch an escape plan, complete with cool underground maps, tunnels schematics and “what you’ll do with your new life on the outside” hopes. Make a list of ailments. Measure something, and jot down the dimensions. Make a crop prediction for the autumn harvest. Rip a page out, write out a little message for someone in a far away land, put it in a bottle, chuck it out into an ocean, Great Lake or dangerous river and hope it doesn’t end up down the way, underneath some rich guy’s dock or something.

There’s a lot you can do on graph paper. Get to work!

Hey, FIELD NOTES friends, it’s time to stock up on school supplies. Coudal Partners is offering a 15% discount across our entire range of products, including FIELD NOTES, through midnight, Saturday August 30. Use coupon code “BACK2SCHOUDAL.”

What honor could be more prestigious than seeing your work on display in a museum? To be honest, curators aren’t lighting up our switchboard, but museum gift shop managers sure are, and we’re happy to stand balanced on that fine line between art and commerce. FIELD NOTES are on the way to Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s X Stores, the London Design Museum’s Shop, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles’ shops, and they’re already in stock at many other fine retailers worldwide. How about YOUR shop?

Special offer: Order 4 or more 3-packs before midnight Saturday, and we’ll pay for one of ‘em. Use coupon code MUSEUMQUALITY.

We don’t make a big deal about it because we like pleasant surprises, but for some time, we’ve been including a FIELD NOTES pen and/or pencil (or other goodies) in our memo book orders. Customers dug our writing implements enough to ask for more, so thanks to popular demand they’re now available for purchase:

6 black Field Notes retractable ball-point pens: $5.00

6 Field Notes #2 woodgrain pencils: $2.50

We appreciate all your feedback regarding new products, we’re drafting up some GOOD IDEAS and hope to unveil some great new FIELD NOTES gear in the coming months!

Three reports from the field:
Joe from Kent, OH, writes…

Since I got them, I take my Field Notes with me everywhere. This photo was taken by my fiance, whom I had just proposed to at the Parc du Mont-Royal overlooking Montreal. It was a beautiful setting, and an occasion worth marking in my notebook. Thanks for a great product!

Next, Jay Hathaway from Philly had to use the facilities…

The setting: the men’s room at Union Station, Portland, OR. One stall available. The lock doesn’t seem to be working, though! What to do? Good thing you guys sent a pencil along with that order of Field Notes. It solved the problem brilliantly.

Finally, Luz from Arizona posted a story and photo on flickr about being stuck in a hotel lobby during a false fire alarm…

…so Todd tells us about a game called Racetrack that is played on graph paper.

“I just happen to have some graph paper!” I said, excitedly, as I whipped out my Field Notes.

“No way!” Todd laughed. “I discovered this game while looking at the Field Notes website!”

“Perfect,” I replied, happy to see my Field Notes save the day again.

Glad to be of assistance to all of you. We’ve got more game posts in the works, but we’d love to hear from you if you have a favorite graph paper game or activity! (crewATfieldnotesbrandDOTcom) if we post your suggestion, we’ll send you some goodies.

So this guy is staying at a hotel and the maid threw away his Field Notes memo book while tidying up his room. Aw man, I’d be beside myself. He kept his cool, scanned the room and decided to fight back.

He took matters into his own hands and went and retrieved them. You can see the scene illustrated right here.

Field Notes are good for recording precious memories like this one, as well as harrowing accounts of bravery, daring escapes, good nights out, bad nights out, gambling earnings, lists, short stories, treasure maps, mathematic equations and the occasional dumpster rescue that you just won’t yourself forget. This is why we say, “I’m not writing it down to remember it later. I’m writing it down to remember it now.”

Good work, Casual Brooks.

A couple months back I was helping Willy Vlautin out on a little promo poster for his book tour promoting “Northline”. We shot the shit about everything under the sun and on the way out, he saw a pile of old memo books and on top of one of the stacks was this Cargill Farm Notebook from the 1970/71 season.

“I have a friend named Cargill. He’d get a kick out of that!” Willy exclaimed.

So this one is for Willy’s friend. And for Willy. Enjoy, fellas.

- - - -

We GIGANTICALLY recommend reading Willy’s new book, “Northline” and while you are at it, his first book, “The Motel Life” too. All of us out here at Field Notes West are no stranger to longing, sadness and peculiar beauty of the unapologetic “Real West.” Willy’s band Richmond Fontaine has been the soundtrack to countless trips back and forth to that Midwest.

Let’s forget about the mountains, happy hikers and rich people for a bit and dig on the folks who are doing their best to make it in the forgotten cities and towns, miles and miles away from all those bullshit ski resorts and all that. Willy gives ‘em a voice in his work and we thank him for using Field Notes.

We’ve a got a couple new Retail Locations to announce today.

Come with us, as we go international. Our destination for the day: Toronto, Canada!

After some time we get to the border. The line to get in is long and we wait patiently for our entry. We’ve got our papers and passports ready. Of course, we get heckled by overeager customs fuzz, and then after much scrutiny, barely cross over to the Great North and over to “Hogtown,” also known as, “Toronto, Canada.”

Our first stop is at a shop called Handwritings. Right next to the striking Exchange Tower, which is home to the Canadian stock exchange. We’d like to think all those movers and shakers on the trading floor are using Field Notes to keep Canada on the right track. And hey, Husky Energy is traded there, and, man, we love that logo.

For our second stop, we go directly inside the Exchange Tower! The good Canadians of Sleuth and Statesmen are carrying us too. Get a load of that joint. Just to think about Field Notes bumping elbows with ornate, smokey cigar boxes fires us way up.

Thank you, Toronto. Keep Canada strong!