Hemingway Notebook

"For we have thought the longer thoughts, and gone the shorter way." - Ernest Hemingway

From his poem Chapter Heading.

In his earlier work, Hemingway experimented with the lean, muscular writing style he eventually distilled to what he referred to as "iceberg theory." That is, leave your meaning mostly beneath the surface. 

We love this elegant aphorism for what remains unsaid, but our guess is that he was speaking broadly of humanity. 

As human beings, we are capable of extraordinary creativity, wisdom and compassion. But we’re also capable of destruction, distrust and self-inflicted wounds. 

In our illustration, we reimagined this contradiction in our nature as a flourishing tree with a tenuous foundation. From the top, it branches out in a hundred directions, each leaf taking the shape of an eye observing the world.  But from the base, the trunk is displaced to form the blade of an axe - the source of its own potential destruction.

• Pocket sized: 3.5 x 5 inches
• Proudly made in Portland Oregon
• Offset printed with vegetable-based inks
• Cover: 18pt recycled chipboard made from recycled content & books
• Inside: 32 college ruled pages, uncoated 70# paper milled in America
• 85% post-consumer recycled content and 15% pre-consumer recycled content.
• Saddle stitched with matching staples
• All presses and production machinery powered with renewable energy