Sure, we all hate Comic Sans. But this is a truly heart-warming story of typeface design where it really counts. Let us all give thanks for the typefaces and graphic designers in our lives.
No, really, I mean it.
Dammit, you don’t believe me when I say something sincere, do you?
OK, I think it’s funny. But it’s also really cool. It’s saving lives through graphic design. That’s really useful and good and beautiful.
I’m reading Nickel and Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich’s (and how hard is that name to spell, by the way?) book The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment. So far she’s covered the expectations of men in the 40s and 50s (become the sole supporter of a wife and children; women’s work was not valued and wives were regarded as economic parasites; neither men nor women were very happy with this arrangement as we all know by now) and how the Beats rejected the “responsibility and maturity” required of men; and how the sixties counterculture rejected not only the “responsibility and maturity” model of masculinity but also masculinity itself, especially for its destructive, violent impulses.
So where is she going with this? I can’t tell. Does Barbara Ehrenreich know what evil lurks in my heart? And will reading her book help me understand my dreams and flight from commitment? I mean, I’m not a sole provider, I don’t have to support a family, and I’m not the only income in my household, but… I still fear the same sort of sacrifices the grey-flannel conformists of the fifties feared (and made anyway). What’s in my heart? Aside from fear and resentment and selfishness, I mean. And red blood cells. That doesn’t count. I wish I knew.
Special thanks to the clever and insightful Ogged (not to be confused with the best audio format ogg) for pointing out the scathing words of Lucy Mangan in the Guardian. Wow is she smart and mean. My favorite.
I am only slightly jealous, and highly impressed, that Bookdwarf was mentioned in this Denver Post article about litbloggers.
My sophomore year in college, my girlfriend at the time wrote a paper to the effect of “what’s the deal with gay men and Judy Garland?” This entailed, for the most part, watching Meet me In St. Louis repeatedly. I mean repeatedly. But I learned something from it: the way that Judy Garland represented, for a certain time, a certain barely repressed spirit to certain segments of the population.
And the original lyrics to the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Places like Carols.org.uk describe it as the saddest Christmas song, but they totally miss the reason. They have the lyrics as
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.
That is how it’s been popularized and is the more common version. But the line “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” is totally out of place, because it’s been put in to make the song less sad. The original is “until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”
The song is about being separated for an indefinite amount of time from everyone and everything you love, and having to find what happiness you can now; it’s about everyone around you completely ignoring your emotional needs, about celebrating even though you’re desperately unhappy, and having to hide that unhappiness from everyone around you. That’s why it’s the saddest Christmas carol.
And the fact that Judy Garland got roles where she sang regretful torch songs covering that same sense of alienation was what made her so popular with legions of alienated people, gay and otherwise, through the forties and fifties. I have no idea what turned her into a gay icon.
But I do know that, ever since that fateful week, I’ve had the complete lyrics to all too many of those songs burned into my memory. Including the parodies, like Beat me In St. Louis.
Today’s word: cack-handed
Today’s bit of obviousness: The Financial Times lying outside my apartment for the past few days, apparently abandoned by a vacationing business student, has the headinline “Iraq Bombings Hurt Morale, Says Bush.”
Maybe today’s word is “quagmire.”
On the other hand, Ooh, look, shiny!.
Comments are now working on the blog. Chatter away. Today’s topic of discussion:
Telling children that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc. exist sets them up for an ultimately disappointing revelation that their parents have lied to them, and their universe is not as safe and comforting as they once believed. Some argue that children may come to the conclusion that their parents have lied to them about the existence of God as well.
If this is true, should parents:
Those of you prone to business-speak, those of you who need to talk about money and sales and markets, please pay attention.
If you are discussing, say, the size of the market for a particular category of software — PC games, for example — and it has increased, you know it is growth in the market. If it has not increased (as is the case with PC gaming, which appears to be losing out to consoles) you can describe that as “flat” or as “no growth” or as “not much growth at all.” If it goes down, like graphics software has, (apparently people are satisfied with what they have, and/or get it free with their cameras), for crying out loud, do not call it negative growth.
Now, I admit it’s not as easy as all that to figure out what to call it. You can’t call it a loss, because it isn’t: we’re talking about less money coming in, not money actually going out. Nor can you call it “shrinkage,” which is already reserved for theft of physical products somewhere between manufacture and consumer (that is, the sum of product lost to assembly-line workers taking a few home, boxes “falling off the truck,” and shoplifting). You can, however, call it a deterioration, decline, decrease, or a falling-off. Any of those is vastly preferable to the abomination that is “negative growth.”
Anybody know how comments work in MT3? I’ve gotten several and “approved” them but they don’t show up.
Including one from John Fleck who sends us to the hilarious God Hates Shrimp website.
Well, although I think it’s funny, I should note that, while Levitican law does prohibit consumption of all sorts of foods, most of the food taboos are repealed in Paul. It’s still a pointed critique of overliteral interpretation of the Bible, but not one likely to make much headway against its presumed audience– given that it’s really just preaching to the choir.
We’re all just preaching to the choir.
Or pissing into the wind. Or something.
Anyway, back to working on the Next Great Competitive Whitepaper.
Secretly Ironic 