You couldn't diagnose it by any accepted medical standards, but I have a multiple-personality disorder. The extra tenants upstairs don't really have names, like Sylvia or Fred or Maureen, and they don't talk to me (at least not often), but I know they're there. Especially when I'm confronted with pens, paper, books, notebooks, inks and general office supplies… I know they're there.

One of them--let's call her "MariLu" for simplicity's sake--has tacky taste, like that I'd expect from my own (probably incorrect) stereotype of an unregenerate Cheapside shop girl who snaps her gum while talking to customers. She's responsible for my love of snooping through sleazy tourist stores and roadside junk shops on dusty Southwestern back roads.

Then there's Madeleine. She has delusions of grandeur, and tends to be the Baroque freak. She's the one who thinks more is better, design-wise, and goes ga-ga over intricate, overdone filigree overlays on vastly oversized ivory pens, with diamonds ringing the tiara on top. She also tells really bad jokes: "Baroque: When you are all out of Monet."

Next comes Martha. She's sort of… well, let's see… she was probably Crayola-deprived as a child. She loves color. Bright, vibrant, assertive color, the bolder the better--but subtle is good, too, you know? She's not a snob about it. She just loves color. Primary, secondary, tertiary, you name it. Particularly rich, vibrant, complex oranges and reds and ambers. She actually feels her eyeballs tingle when confronted with a particularly mouthwatering color.

Finally, we come to the personality of the day: Moira. Moira is the simple one, the elegant one, the one who knows instinctively that a single well-set pearl is all the decoration a black velvet gown needs, and shudders at the thought of a diamond-laden anything. Overkill, she skreeks (but in dulcet, cultured tones), it's overkill! Simplify, simplify, simplify!

Fortunately for all concerned, Moira was in charge of the store the day we ran into Chris Thompson at the Los Angeles pen show. Chris had a big display up showing off his beautiful Parker Duofold replicas, and a goodly number of pen blanks in a variety of unusual colors and patterns that were works in progress. We chatted about them for a while, and then my eyes lit on a small, beautiful box off to the left (designed and built, I later learned, by pen collector/woodworker Mark Blumer).

I moseyed over and peeked inside. It was full of pens. An unfamiliar silhouette.

"What's this?" I asked Chris.

"Those are my pens."

"They're not Duofolds or Balances. I don't think I've ever seen that outline before."

"That's 'cause they're my pens," Chris repeated.

Well, it wasn't really quite like that--Chris wasn't that undescriptive and I wasn't that dense--but however it was, the upshot was that this was Chris's debut pen, introduced first at the L.A. show, the first design he's created from his own aesthetic vision.

I picked one up and looked it over. I was intrigued.

"What's it called?" I asked.

"Simplicity," he replied.

It was perfect. That's what Chris's new pen is: simplicity. An attractive, sleek silhouette with minimal decoration, leaving the eye to admire its clean, spare lines and enjoy the sensation of purity it inspires.

One of the Simplicity crew that was on the table was the ever-popular clear demonstrator model, which I found intriguing. But I have difficulty with demonstrators, except as a novelty item that makes engineers and tool guys go ape, because of Martha and her love of color.

The Simplicity pens, however, were definitely Moira's cup of first-bud Darjeeling. The pens have a clean, bullet-shaped silhouette with the ends cut off, so it's a flat-topped and flat-bottomed model. This gives it a vintage sensibility combined with a very modern shape.

Size-wise, the Simplicity also bridges two worlds. It looks big; it takes up the visual space of a much larger pen and gives the impression of being almost oversized. But when you pick it up, it feels like a medium-sized or middling-large pen. Very comfortable in the hand.

In addition to the clear demonstrator, Chris had on display two versions of the Simplicity: an all-black model and a black model with strong accents consisting of large end caps made of rust-and-cream-marbled acrylic. Made of black hard rubber, the pens have the warmth, weight and substantial feel of that most vintage of vintage-pen materials, and the acrylic end caps provide a touch more often seen on modern pens.

Add in accents of a gold ring that separates the end cap from the barrel and a matching clip ring separating end cap from cap body. Garnish with two one-eighth-inch gold cap bands with about a quarter-inch of space between them, and you've got it. Simple. Clean. Elegant. In fact, I love its looks without any clip at all (though a clipless pen these days is a less-than-practical item).

A couple of bits and pieces that you'll likely hear only from me, and Chris may be unhappy with me for spilling the beans, but I don't look at it that way. It's exciting to see new pen designers starting in and developing pieces from the ground up. I find it instructive and interesting to see how they approach the design process and how the elements evolve into their final form.

When I saw the Simplicity in Los Angeles, it bore the first version of a customized clip Chris commissioned a jeweler to make. That contained the word "Thompson" in a style reminiscent of the early Parker logotypes, and a clip jewel at the end. In one case, the clip jewel was a sphere of citrine; in another, it held a rounded triangular bit of a rust-colored stone. Chris was asking people's opinions of the two kinds of clip jewels, and pointing out that he was going to have the jeweler re-do the clips because he wasn't happy with their appearance or quality.

My preference, especially with the rust/cream end caps, was the rust stone, which better echoed both the lines and sensibility of the pen, I felt. It just seemed to "fit" better with the overall design and apparent intent of the creation. I was intrigued to note, when shown the final version of the clip recently, that Chris chose neither spherical nor triangular shape for the final clip version. He chose a teardrop shape, almost a hybrid of the other two, to adorn the end of the Simplicity's clip.

The Simplicity's section is long under the barrel band, and composed of gentle compound curves that soothe the eyes just to look at them. The compound curves are interrupted by the cap threads, in a location that clanged warning bells in my mind: "Uh-oh, there's a guaranteed writing-finger blister if you use it for any length of time." However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the threads didn't bother me at all. They're positioned higher than my fingers rest when writing, so don't apply any pressure at all to sensitive (or tough) skin.

The nib on the Simplicity is a very attractive, two-tone, 14-karat nib with an engraved design on the silver-colored part of the nib. It also has a "T"--obviously for "Thompson"--engraved at its base. The nibs, Chris said, are made by the German company Bock, which also makes the very smooth, reliable Bexley nibs. This nib, too, was smooth and easy, with just a hint of spring. A very pleasant experience.

The pen fills via cartridge or convertor, as do most pens these days.

The Simplicity's barrel offers another touch: It says "Simplicity," Thompson Fountain Pens, 2002. The first 100 will have numbers on them (the one I played with--er, excuse me, tested--was 21); after that, they'll be unnumbered, general-production pens.

I was quite delighted by the Simplicity. It's elegant. It's classic. It's understated. It's sort of like Audrey Hepburn, in a way, in inert materials. If you like clean, uncluttered lines, strong "bones" and solid, basic materials, the Simplicity is for you. And I'd almost guarantee its unusual looks to improve your status at office meetings.

Copyright © 2002   Dyas Anna Lawson

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