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Authors: Fausto Brizzi
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the Italian national soccer team, lifting the World Cup trophy above his head. A crude color drawingânot even a photograph. I got that notebook in 1982âI traded it for an album of soccer cards, almost complete with all the players. I think I made a not-very-smart bargain. I was nine years old. I never had the nerve to write in it. It always seemed to me like a collectible that, with the passing years, would become rare and invaluable.
I open the cover and number the pages by hand.
From a hundred to zero.
I canât remember the last time I wrote with a pen. I realize that the only thing I know how to write by now is my own signature. Nobody jots down numbers anymore, they punch them into their phones. Iâve regressed to the point of becoming an illiterate once again. I try to write phrases chosen at random, picked out of a newspaper lying on the desk. My handwriting is embarrassing, resembling the cuneiform-like chicken scratches of a doctor.
Maybe Iâll keep a diary.
Or maybe I wonât.
What good does it do to keep a diary?
Aside from Anne Frank and Bridget Jones, I canât think of a single memorable diary. Who knows how many literary masterpieces lie concealed in the notebooks and Lisa Frank desk diaries filled with ink by fifteen-year-old girls who, statistically speaking, are the most âdiaryishâ demographic category. Women are more interested in diaries than men. I have no idea why.
Iâve never kept a diary.
I put the tip of my pen down on the paper.
I stop and think.
All rightâthe things Iâd like to do in the hundred days remaining to me.
Suddenly, I canât write.
A classic case of writerâs block, or blank-page syndrome.
I look at the ballpoint pen in my hand. A dark blue Bic. One of the new model pens, with a grip.
I canât resist.
So I Google it.
âWho invented the ballpoint pen?â
The ballpoint pen, also known in many countries as a Biro, is named after its inventor, the Hungarian editor and journalist László BÃró, who came up with the idea in 1938. The story has it that he first saw how it might work while watching a crowd of kids playing boccie ball in a street dotted with puddles. The balls left wet trails as they rolled along the dry sections of road surface. In just a few years, given the reliability of the product, simplicity of use, and affordability, the Biro, or ballpoint pen, replaced fountain pens. Today itâs safe to say that itâs the most widespread invention of all time, after the wheel. Thereâs at least one in every home around the world. Too bad that poor BÃró, who was penurious at best, decided to sell the patent to the American Parker company, which as you know definitely spent that money wisely.
But who
really
invented the ballpoint pen?
Who was the first person to design one, nearly five hundred years before BÃróâs flash of invention?
The answer is obvious. Unsurprising. Taken for granted.
Leonardo da Vinci.
Do you think for a second that the Gyro Gearloose of Renaissance Tuscany would miss out on one of the most important inventions of all time? Please.
It was definitely the egghead born in Vinci who created the first design for a ballpoint pen. The plan, found in one of his codices, consisted of a simple tube that narrowed toward the tip with a series of grooves that allowed the ink to flow to the ball that closed off the end of the little pipe, making it possible to write.
Iâm sorry to tell you, BÃró, my good man, but you came in second.
 * * *Â
I figure out the first thing I want to do in the next hundred days.
I want to ignore my buddy Fritz.
I get dressed and head for the gym as if this were any ordinary day. I donât even wait for Paola to wake up. I wouldnât know what to say to her. I hate seeing that disoriented, slightly frightened look on her face. I pass by my father-in-lawâs pastry shop. Iâm a couple of
I open the cover and number the pages by hand.
From a hundred to zero.
I canât remember the last time I wrote with a pen. I realize that the only thing I know how to write by now is my own signature. Nobody jots down numbers anymore, they punch them into their phones. Iâve regressed to the point of becoming an illiterate once again. I try to write phrases chosen at random, picked out of a newspaper lying on the desk. My handwriting is embarrassing, resembling the cuneiform-like chicken scratches of a doctor.
Maybe Iâll keep a diary.
Or maybe I wonât.
What good does it do to keep a diary?
Aside from Anne Frank and Bridget Jones, I canât think of a single memorable diary. Who knows how many literary masterpieces lie concealed in the notebooks and Lisa Frank desk diaries filled with ink by fifteen-year-old girls who, statistically speaking, are the most âdiaryishâ demographic category. Women are more interested in diaries than men. I have no idea why.
Iâve never kept a diary.
I put the tip of my pen down on the paper.
I stop and think.
All rightâthe things Iâd like to do in the hundred days remaining to me.
Suddenly, I canât write.
A classic case of writerâs block, or blank-page syndrome.
I look at the ballpoint pen in my hand. A dark blue Bic. One of the new model pens, with a grip.
I canât resist.
So I Google it.
âWho invented the ballpoint pen?â
The ballpoint pen, also known in many countries as a Biro, is named after its inventor, the Hungarian editor and journalist László BÃró, who came up with the idea in 1938. The story has it that he first saw how it might work while watching a crowd of kids playing boccie ball in a street dotted with puddles. The balls left wet trails as they rolled along the dry sections of road surface. In just a few years, given the reliability of the product, simplicity of use, and affordability, the Biro, or ballpoint pen, replaced fountain pens. Today itâs safe to say that itâs the most widespread invention of all time, after the wheel. Thereâs at least one in every home around the world. Too bad that poor BÃró, who was penurious at best, decided to sell the patent to the American Parker company, which as you know definitely spent that money wisely.
But who
really
invented the ballpoint pen?
Who was the first person to design one, nearly five hundred years before BÃróâs flash of invention?
The answer is obvious. Unsurprising. Taken for granted.
Leonardo da Vinci.
Do you think for a second that the Gyro Gearloose of Renaissance Tuscany would miss out on one of the most important inventions of all time? Please.
It was definitely the egghead born in Vinci who created the first design for a ballpoint pen. The plan, found in one of his codices, consisted of a simple tube that narrowed toward the tip with a series of grooves that allowed the ink to flow to the ball that closed off the end of the little pipe, making it possible to write.
Iâm sorry to tell you, BÃró, my good man, but you came in second.
 * * *Â
I figure out the first thing I want to do in the next hundred days.
I want to ignore my buddy Fritz.
I get dressed and head for the gym as if this were any ordinary day. I donât even wait for Paola to wake up. I wouldnât know what to say to her. I hate seeing that disoriented, slightly frightened look on her face. I pass by my father-in-lawâs pastry shop. Iâm a couple of
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