"Marie's passed out in a chair with her once fussed-over hair all mussed into an I've just been fucked shape." - Okkervil River "You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man"
At the end of the song, Will Sheff, the lead singer, gets a laugh caught in his throat as he's singing the last line. It's inexplicably adorable.
I saw Helvetica last night, which is a documentary about the font. I went by myself because I felt bad subjecting anyone else to my nerdy love of typography. All told, the movie was more about the people (typographers, graphic designers, type designers) who have an acute and giddy knowledge about fonts, than the font itself. You do get a wonderful history of the creation of the font and, finally you understand what "sans-serif" means (without serifs, DUH), but the director must have gleaned some perverse glee from filming and editing the bizarre and enthusiastic metaphors from Helvetica's greatest fans and enemies. One man (German, mind you), and a self-proclaimed typophile, says "fonts are my friends. Some people love nice wine or girls' bottoms, for me it's font." I'm assuming this off-color comparison is supposed to imply how different people get their jollies, but I'd like to think my Monotype Corsiva was created with a sober and constrained hand--that being said, I appreciate the passion involved. I gues it's not an industry you just stumble into. I could go on and on about this movie because I thought it was one of the more interesting documentaries I've seen lately: almost without a distinct message--rather a window into a world of people who subtley, but ubiquitously affect the world in which we live. From every road sign to every paper you type to every brochure you design. Someone designed one of the million fonts you scroll through--Comic Sans? Chalkboard? Papyrus?--trying to find the one that's right.
I'm rolling into work right now, so laters. Oh, and it's my birthday. TwenTY-Two.
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