人生就像一支铅笔 我的“铅笔控”人生
时间：2019-04-16 03:31:09 来源：雅意学习网 本文已影响 人 
Many years ago, 1)before the dawn of the word processor, I worked at The New Yorker at a job called 2)collating, where I had to copy 3)legibly all the changes on a piece of writing(from the editor, the author, the fact checker, and the proofreaders) onto clean page proofs, which were then enclosed in a 4)Plexiglas 5)cannister and shot via 6)pneumatic tube to a higher floor, where they were transmitted by 7)state-of-theart fax to the printer, in Chicago. (That comma is necessary because we used only one printer, 8)R. R. Donnelley & Sons, and they were based in Chicago.)
It was a medieval sort of job—a copyist or 9)scrivener—and I did it for only one year, which was lucky for everyone, because my handwriting is the second-worst in the office. My boss at the time, who had grown 10)humpbacked in the service of the magazine, had exquisite 11)penmanship, but a light touch, and sometimes his marks did not transmit, and the 12)typesetter would complain. So an effort was made to solve the problem by supplying the collating department with No.1 pencils, which have a softer 13)lead than the standard test-taking No.2 pencils and therefore make a darker impression. I got used to the feel of the softer lead, and a pencil 14)snob was born.
When the small stationery stores in midtown began to go out of business, our office became a customer of one of the big office-suppliers, which eventually stopped carrying No.1 pencils. Writing with No.2 pencils makes me feel as if I had a 15)hangover, so I started buying my own pencils(somewhat 16)grudgingly). One Christmas, I asked for No.1 pencils, and received a 17)gross of Dixon Ticonderogas (“The World’s Best Pencil”). I thought twelve packs with twelve pencils each would last for years, if not the rest of my career. But the point of each pencil, after being sharpened down about an inch and a half, would break off when I bore down on it. The entire column of lead in every pencil was 18)shattered. I had gotten a bad batch.
Someone at the office suggested I try a mechanical pencil, but I found it soulless.省略, discovered that the Blackwing—black, with a distinctive flat eraser—had come back on the market. 21)Devotees of the Blackwing had been paying up to forty dollars 22)apiece for them after they were discontinued, in 1998. I received a box of twelve Blackwings, and I got hooked. The lead is ungraded, but it is definitely softer than a No.2, and very expressive. The Blackwing motto is “Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed.”
Therefore it was with great enthusiasm that I attended a party recently, at the 23)Art Directors Club, to celebrate the 24)revival of the 25)artisanal pencil: the Palomino Blackwing and the Palomino Blackwing 602. The host was Charles Berolzheimer, of Cal Cedar, a sixth-generation pencil-maker. He was dressed in shades of pencil lead. Hundreds of pencil enthusiasts were there: drawing, 26)graffiti style, on big white sheets of paper, adding to small communal notebooks, creating do-it-yourself 27)Thaumatropes, experimenting with the 28)camera obscura and the 29)camera lucida. One woman wore two Blackwings in her hair.
A time line of the pencil covered one long wall, and of all the 30)lore and storied names attached to the pencil in general, and all the 31)ancillary products that arose from the pencil (the sharpener, the eraser crimp), my favorite fact from the pencil party was this: Every pencil is a sandwich. All these years, I have been wondering how the lead got inside the pencil. It turns out that pencils are made from 32)slats of 33)corrugated wood about the size of a Hershey bar. The graphite is laid in the 34)grooves, another slat is 35)glued on top, and then the sandwich is sawn into individual strips, which are sanded, painted, fitted with 36)ferrules and erasers, and there you have it: delicious Blackwings.
Thank you, Mr. Berolzheimer. We’ll take a gross.
许多年以前，在文字处理器还未面世之前，我曾在《纽约客》杂志社做校勘的工作。我必须将一页文章中（被编辑、作者、事实调查员和校对员修改过的）所有改动清楚地复写到清样稿上，然后它们会被放入一个树脂玻璃小罐，再经由气动导管推到上一层去，它们将通过当时最先进的传真机传送到芝加哥的印刷厂。（这个逗号是必要的，因为我们只使用一家印刷厂，当纳利印刷集团，而他们的总部在芝加哥。）
这是一项挺原始的活儿——就是一个抄写员或是代笔人罢了——而我也只干了一年，这对于每个人来说都是件幸事，因为我的字迹在办公室里可谓第二烂。而那时我的老板，尽管因为埋头于杂志工作而变得驼背了，却写得一手好字，但字迹很浅，有时他写的字传送不出去，排字工就会抱怨不已。于是公司积极解决这个问题，给校勘部提供了一号铅笔，其笔芯比标准的应试二号铅笔要软，因此字迹要深一些。我逐渐习惯于这种软笔芯的触感，一个铅笔控由此诞生。
当市中心的小文具店开始相继结业时，我们办公室就开始从某家大型办公用品供应商购入文具，但最后这家供应商停止了供应一号铅笔。用二号铅笔写字让我觉得自己像是宿醉未醒，所以我开始自己掏钱买铅笔（这多少有点心不甘情不愿的）。有一年圣诞节，我想要一号铅笔作为礼物，结果收到了一罗迪克森·泰康德儒格公司生产的铅笔（号称“世界上最好的铅笔！”）。我以为12盒、每盒12支的铅笔即便撑不到我余下的职业生涯，也应该可以用上好多年了。但是当我把每支铅笔的尖端削尖到约1.5英寸（约3.省略时发现了一种黑翼牌铅笔——黑色，带有独特的扁平橡皮擦——重返市场。1998年黑翼牌铅笔停产后，其狂热粉丝们曾以每支四十美元的高价抢购。我曾收到过一盒12支的黑翼牌铅笔，被其深深迷住了。其石墨芯没有分等级，但绝对比二号铅笔要软，还非常流畅。黑翼牌铅笔的格言是：“压力减半，速度加倍。”
因此，最近，我满心热情地参加了一个在纽约艺术指导俱乐部举行的派对，庆祝手工铅笔帕洛米诺·黑翼和帕洛米诺·黑翼602的复苏。主持人是铅笔制造商卡尔·希达尔公司的第六代继承人查尔斯·伯罗茨海默。他身着笔芯色的服装。成百上千的铅笔爱好者聚集在那里：在大张白纸上、在小公共手册上涂鸦式地画画，自己动手制作西洋镜，用暗箱和明箱做试验。一位女士还在她的头发里插了两支黑翼牌铅笔。
一张关于铅笔发展的历史回顾表铺满了一面长长的墙壁，上面还有与铅笔相关的所有传说和与铅笔颇有渊源的人名，以及所有由铅笔引发的辅助产品（卷笔刀、橡皮擦），而我最喜欢这场铅笔派对的原因是：每支铅笔都是一个三明治。这些年来，我一直想知道，石墨芯是如何进到铅笔里去的。结果是，铅笔都是由约为好时巧克力条大小的波纹状木头制成的。石墨芯被平放到凹槽里，另一根板条被粘合在顶端，接着三明治被锯成一根根木条，而后被打磨、上漆、装上套圈和橡皮擦，最后你就可以享用美味的黑翼牌铅笔了。
谢谢你，伯罗茨海默先生。我们会捎上一罗的。
