Blackwings, Movies, and Mystery – PPC
Pencil Pushers, rejoice: There were Blackwings all over the pop culture scene as 2012 came to an end!
Many cheers to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for FINALLY recognizing actor Dustin Hoffman for his sterling contributions to the stage and screen. If you remember last year’s Kennedy Center post, I bemoaned the fact that Hoffman had yet to be recognized and figured a tribute had to be coming in short order. For those keeping score at home, this brings the number of Kennedy Center Honorees who co-starred with a Blackwing pencil in “All The President’s Men” to three (co-stars Jason Robards and Robert Redford had been honored previously).
Blackwings in Literature… Sort of
But that’s not the only place that Blackwing pencils are making a scene. If you’ve spent five minutes on Pencils.com, you know that the Blackwing pencil has a long, storied history of literary fans and legendary users. John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, Archibald MacLeish, Vladimir Nabokov…just a couple of the writers that we know of who used Blackwings while crafting their masterpieces.
We constantly ask who will join the ranks of these Blackwing Legends. Now, it seems we have a new addition to the list with…Richard Castle?
If you’re familiar with the ABC comedy-drama “Castle,” you’ll know that mystery novelist Richard Castle follows Detective Kate Beckett through New York City as she fights crime and serves as the muse for his “Nikki Heat” novels. In a brilliant bit of merchandising, ABC has commissioned an unknown author to ghostwrite the Nikki Heat detective stories featured on the show. It turns out that our beloved Blackwings make an appearance in “Frozen Heat,” published earlier this year. Granted, their appearance is fleeting (a cup of Blackwings are knocked off a nightstand during an earthquake/moment of passion), but it’s good to know that we can add yet another author to the list of Blackwing fans (though the jury is out as to whether Castle uses them to create his works…)
So, how about it ABC? Any chance we could snag an interview with “Mr. Castle” and add him to our list of Blackwing Legends? It would be a crime to pass us up…(okay, if we get the interview, we promise – no puns).
This is how I first discovered Blackwing pencils. I’m the German translator for the Castle novels. When I was working on “Frozen Heat” and came across the fleeting mention of the Blackwings I googled them, because Jameson Rook has a thing for special writing utensils and I wanted to know more about those pencils. I quickly found out that the Blackwing pencil had a history and there were so many statements about this being the best pencil in the world that I became even more curious. So I ordered my first 12-pack of Blackwings and have been a fan ever since, because all the people who talked so highly of this pencil were absolutely right. Once you’ve used a Blackwing it’s difficult to use other pencils again because they simply don’t compare. By now I own all the limited editions that have been released thus far and several other items of Blackwing and pencil paraphernalia. I’m so glad the Blackwings were mentioned as a little side note in one of the novels so that I could find out about them. Now I use them every day and couldn’t be happier about it. 🙂