I use fountain pens.  I often forget about my weekly budget when in bookstores and online in fountain pen stores.  I have several fountain pens that I’ve filled with different color inks.  I use two, old rags when filling a pen to clean up and prevent disasters.  I like the look of these two, old rags covered in bright splotches of color; accidental Jackson Pollacks; what a chimp might produce slinging paint at a white canvas.  So, I photographed the rags.  Abstract art!

The colors on my ink rags triggered my first idea for this post.  I decided to title the post “Ink Spots.”  With that title, I couldn’t avoid writing about the Ink Spots, a five-man, vocal group from the 1930s and 1940s.

As I watched the Ink Spots sing “Do I Worry” in this video from a posh nightclub, I realized that this happened in the depths of the Jim Crow era.  The musicians are African American as are the waiters.  The patrons are all upper-crust, urban whites.  One member of the Ink Spots (the one on the left), plays the coon caricature; “one of the most insulting of all anti-black caricatures.” *  

As for the music, it’s a style from the 1930s that sounds syrupy-sweet and smooth to my 21st-century ears.  A lot of high notes and a bit of falsetto.  I found it hard to ignore the coon caricature and hear the music.

Here are some other Ink Spot songs. I found that they quickly became a bit monotonous. The guitar intro seems to be the same in every song. Same tempo, same saccharine sentiments, same harmony; same lead vocals.

• I Don’t Want To Set the World On Fire

• If I Didn’t Care

• I’d Climb the Highest Mountain

*There is an article on the coon caricature on the website of the Jim Crow Museum.