Fifteen Minutes: Pen vs. Pen: FM Contemplates the New 'It' Pen

While sterile disposability and space-age technology have their place, that place is not in your hand. Today, you are a fountain pen. Modern in its sense of history, the fountain pen has been the stylus of choice since 1884, when the first workable model was invented by L.E. Waterman, a New York City insurance salesman. Its undisputed flow dried up 60 years later, when, thinking "time is money," the man in the gray flannel suit ushered in the ball point pen introducing a new level of corporatization and homogenization to America. In the years following, America flourished as the most visionary of the throwaway societies. Disposable pens were the greatest giveaway since the advent of the key party.

The increasing complexity of today's global community demands a more sensitive, nuanced line. One without an everyman tip. With a fountain pen, the angles and curves of one's unique penmanship are made clear, the ambiguities and hesitations of the writing struggle as plain as day. The technocracy shall not survive.

What about modern, gel hybrids? Dolly? The 24-hour information superhighway? Stick to Tang and astronaut ice cream, even disposable cartridges, my friends. Nothing beats fin-de-siècle sex appeal.

Gel-ink pens deserve a bad reputation. They tend to resemble Hello-Kitty Japan-i-junk and the ink they issue--pink, yellow, light purple--is legible only in partnership with dark paper. But now, thanks to the Stanford company--inventors of the incredible, indelible Sharpie--gel pens have found their redeemer. The uni-ball Gel Impact 1.0mm ($2.49) gushes ink like a rollerball without bleeding through the page. A blue or black fountain-like line without all the pretension or nib sucking, imagine that! The Gel Impact has sent shockwaves through the pen design community with its ultra-modern silver thatched pattern. Lest you lose track of your ink usage, a clear window with incremental dots keeps tabs on your depletion. It's not a goopy gel or a fountain that floweth, it's just 'it.'