This is about a writer's notebook (and most definitely *not* about a lab book).
"In my view, a good notebook should be at best partially legible - that’s what creates its mystique. It should actively repel the casual viewer, and exude a feral air that unsettles intruders. It should be a disorderly space, defiant of bourgeois convention; a rowdy heath instead of a tidy garden. Its dark magic lies in a series of collisions, the juxtaposition of thoughts that, in any ordinary space, would not go together. The result should be an unruly object, defying polite society."