Althouse: "Did these work for anyone?"

January 18, 2022

"Did these work for anyone?"

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A post shared by Roz Chast (@rozchast)

23 comments:

Jamie said...: I had decent success sharpening my crayons that way... But it was years before I was lucky enough to get the box of 64, so I was probably already 9 years old before I had my own to try.; 1/18/22, 6:02 AM
FunkyPhD said...: Ha! Thank you for this—it’s great to start the day with a laugh.; 1/18/22, 6:14 AM
gilbar said...: i don't remember EVER having ANY problems with them (other than that the sharpener was right handed (but, as a sinister leftie, i'm Used to That); 1/18/22, 6:21 AM
Scot said...: Flood of memories. Always wanted one of those boxes of crayons. Never got one. My mother knew better. I have no talent for art.; 1/18/22, 6:28 AM
mezzrow said...: Oh, YOU got the 64 crayon box. We were lucky to get 16. No sharpener on that.

No wonder I couldn't stay inside the lines...; 1/18/22, 6:41 AM
Humperdink said...: My sharpener worked.

BTW getting the 64 crayon box was like getting an xBox today. That and getting an erector set a few years later.; 1/18/22, 6:44 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: And it has continued into my dotage. I am an historical artist specializing in the Federal Sailing Navy though not exclusively. To color my work I use Pentel oil pencils. I've been know to singlehandedly wipe out Hobby Lobby of their cream coloured oil pencils when applying colour to the sails of the American ship of the Line Pennsylvania. These oil pencils behave exactly like crayons when placed in hand held sharpeners of any type - and I have tried them all. What was frustrating at age 10 years old has continued almost into my septuagenarian years. Breakage, fine point destruction, colour cracking up shaft, etc. It's a universal bane of illustrators.; 1/18/22, 6:44 AM
tim maguire said...: Same as gilbar--I don't recall ever having a problem with them.; 1/18/22, 7:24 AM
Mr. Forward said...: There was that one kid in second grade, 1958. I was Blue-Green, Green-Yellow and Yellow-Green with envy.; 1/18/22, 7:25 AM
Lance said...: The sharpener worked fine for me. My only gripe was that it left too narrow a point.; 1/18/22, 7:29 AM
rehajm said...: It worked.; 1/18/22, 7:38 AM
J L Oliver said...: As with many here, I never owned a 64 box. However, well-heeled friends would let me use theirs with a promise of no breakage. It was my observation that the difference was in peeling versus not peeling the paper on the crayon. Taking the paper off entirely was somehow considered gauche.; 1/18/22, 8:20 AM
Scot said...: Sorry for the repeat, but it fits here.
PBF is good.

https://pbfcomics.com/comics/carolyn-vert/; 1/18/22, 8:49 AM
Joe Smith said...: As long as you peeled the paper there was a chance.

Who burned Sienna?; 1/18/22, 9:08 AM
robother said...: I'm betting Roz Chast was a Spoiled Only Child. I could only dream of a 64 Crayon box. And try to use a pencil sharpener my dad had screwed to the top of an old school desk to sharpen my crayons.; 1/18/22, 9:25 AM
Mark said...: Worked for me.; 1/18/22, 9:35 AM
Mark said...: Spoiled Only Child

Because who wouldn't prefer a box of crayons to brothers and sisters?; 1/18/22, 9:38 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I had the 64 crayon box, and if my memory is correct, I was the first person in my class to have it. I greatly valued it, and to this day, I remember those color names fondly — all the combos like red orange and orange red, the truly exciting things like magenta and periwinkle, the mysteries of the burnt browns versus the raw browns.; 1/18/22, 10:30 AM
Joe Smith said...: 'I had the 64 crayon box...'

Rich, privileged kid...

The only one on my street to have such luxuries was my friend whose dad was a school principal.

He probably made $20k/yr.

That was wealthy in our 'hood back in the day.; 1/18/22, 11:19 AM
Yancey Ward said...: The crayon sharpener always worked for me- you just have to not put too much torque on the crayon and not grip it up at the top.; 1/18/22, 12:55 PM
Rollo said...: We didn't want the crayons to get worn down, so we'd vary the ones we used. 64 crayons means a lot of possibilities.

Have the Crayola execs been tried and locked up for the racism of the "flesh" colored crayon? And given all we know about the toxicity of pigments, did eating the crayons ever kill anybody?; 1/18/22, 1:36 PM
JustSomeOldDude said...: Yes, it worked!

We'd all flock to the rich kid that had this box because all the rest of us either had the 8 pack or hand-me-downs from our older brother.; 1/18/22, 2:35 PM
gpm said...: >>Who burned Sienna?

I actually remember that one, at least by the name, but didn't they get rid of it at some point?

I don't think we ever got past the box of 16. And I don't remember ever actually using them. I have a vague memory of a separate little sharpener, but it might have been for pencils rather than crayons.

--gpm

P.S. Had a lovely time in Sienna about twenty-five years ago. Staying at the Villa Scacciapensieri, a bit outside of the city. Scacciapensieri translates literally to something like "scatter your thoughts," but it's also the Italian name for what, in my youth, we used to call a (hush, hush) "jew's harp," which was also the pictorial symbol for the hotel/resort, which I think was owned by Americans and specialized in catering to English speakers. I remember seeing an episode or two of Family Affair(!) on the hotel tv. Also tons of signs/commercials for the then current movie, The Quick and the Dead, starring SHA-RON STON and a young Leo Dicaprio. The railroad station had one of those, ahem, primitive toilets.; 1/18/22, 6:19 PM