Moleskine: the iPod of the creative world

What is it with people and Moleskines? In case you don't know what one is, a Moleskine (by the way, that extra e on the end of Moleskine is so redundant) is a shitty little glorified notepad that's sold for thirty dollars at Borders. Why would anyone bother to buy a Moleskine? Well, I'm sure that it has something to do with what the official Moleskine website boasts (as well as the Moleskine packaging itself):

The legendary notebook of Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse and Céline.

Here's a tip for all you aspiring artists and writers, you are not, nor will you ever be, Van Gogh, Chatwin, Hemingway, Matisse or Céline. And the fact that you thought that by buying an overpriced hunk of sandpaper, you would come anywhere near the respective geniuses of these people shows how far off the mark you are. (I'm talking to the sad souls who drink cheap, watered down Absinthe and paint some shitty picture of a green fairy that they "hallucinated". The sort of people who drop acid and are consequently bewildered when they find that what they wrote is nothing like Hunter S. Thompson. You know who you are.) Besides, as if the notebooks used by Hemingway were anything like the Moleskines of today. The drunken bastard probably wrote on actual mole skin... that is, when he wasn't trying to write "Mary, get me some Eno" in his own pool of vomit.

Moleskines are too damned overpriced for a sketchbook. The only place I've found them in Melbourne (not that I was looking) is at Borders, and everything there is a rip-off. The only value I can see in owning one is the "chic" factor when showing off to other artists. Fuck that. Just give me a six dollar fat sketchbook from the local newsagent, thanks. Even comes with a free pencil and everything.

I've seen a lot of writers in coffee shops using Moleskines to jot down ideas. That's just plain wanky. What difference is the quality of Moleskine paper gonna make to what you're writing down? If you ask them, they'd probably say it's "for posterity". But I say, "fuck posterity". As if some poor bastard a hundred years from now is gonna want to read how your Fitzroy housemates "beleague" you so, with their constant "caterwauling". Piss off. He's probably too busy dodging nuclear warheads from South Korea to read your whinging anyway. Plus, I thought all aspiring writers and artists were s'posed to be shit-poor. How the hell is everyone affording these thirty dollar notepads?

Anyway, that's my little rant for the year (yes, year - I don't rant very often). In closing, I would never consider owning, touching or being seen within a twenty foot radius of a Moleskine notebook. Unless, of course, I could afford one.