Body-text fonts, pt. 28: Iowan Old Style

Halftime in Philadelphia: Ecuador 2, Bolivia 0. Ecuador using subs. Some ought to be starters.

Ecuador wearing white. Bolivia wearing very pale green shirts with dark green shorts and stockings. These outfits do not exactly fan the flames of patriotism.

For a while, I listened to a livestream with amateur Bolivian commentary. It sounded like this: We’re una porquería. … Come back, Marcelo Moreno Martins! … Hee, hee, Brazil is going to tie the USA.

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This month’s typeface is Iowan Old Style. Some computers arrive with it installed. Supposedly, it’s one of the “ten most popular text serif fonts, as selected by Identifont users over the past seven days.”

I’ve seen no evidence of this out in the wild. Who, exactly, is using Iowan? Maybe I look in the wrong places.

People should use Iowan. It’s lovely.

I own just one book set in Iowan. Fortunately, it has 600+ pp. – plenty from which to sample.

Here’s the italic:

And the roman:

Karin’s injuries; drawing; rolling over; body-text fonts, pt. 5: Charter

That longish stroll I mentioned last time was bad for Karin’s feet. She blistered them; then, unshoed at home, she cut her foot on the sharp edge of a bedframe. She sprayed her wounds, making them worse. She asked me to bind them. While I was doing this, Samuel got into the Band-Aid box (as is his way) and used up many Band-Aids. He asked me to put one on his wrist. He peeled it off and asked me to put it on him again. This was repeated many times. I’m not sure if he thought the Band-Aid needed to be attached just right or if he simply enjoyed having it come on and off.

He’s not averse to repetition – to practicing. This will serve him well in life.

He draws the same things repeatedly on his whiteboard. Or he asks me to draw. He never tires of looking at 2- or 3-D shapes. I tire of drawing them, though. One day, for novelty’s sake, I drew some foods – a pizza, a stick of broccoli, a banana – and gave them happy faces and hats. It was a mistake: Soon, Samuel was asking me to draw a happy eggplant and a happy daikon. I had to look up what a daikon is.

As usual, there’s less to say about Daniel, although I’m sure his little brain is quietly making even greater strides than Samuel’s right now. He continues to delight in everything (except when he doesn’t). Lately, he’s been rolling onto his belly, but not back the other way. He gets his arms caught under himself, which makes him panic.

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Now, the body-text font.

A descendant of Fournier, Charter is one of the most versatile serifed fonts. Matthew Carter designed it in the 1980s, for low-res. printing.

It looks good at any size. (Any visible size.)

It looks good on paper, on computer and phone screens, and on signage for the St. Joseph County Public Library (although, in this example, more space should have been put in between the majuscules).

I often see Charter in e-books and on blogs. I don’t see it in many printed books. Not that it looks bad in them. I own five books set in Charter. The bible from which I read in high school was set in Charter.

I like Charter in newspapers and magazines, although I don’t often see it in those media. I prefer it on rough paper, not glossy paper.

Bitstream Charter – the original design – is free. Of the free variants, my favorite is XCharter. Charis SIL, with glyphs in many languages, is available as a Google font.

Charter, or Charis, would work as body text in a Google Doc or a slide show.

In a better world, Calibri, Cambria, and Times New Roman would be less ubiquitous in draft documents; Minion would be less ubiquitous in publishing (especially in scholarly works with tiny print); and Charter would be the apathetic typesetter’s default font.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 46: Maborosi

Some dialog from Michael Cera’s Youth in Revolt:

I think my favorite film was Tokyo Story. I just think Mizoguchi is a great director.

But wasn’t that by Ozu?

Who can say?

I’m reminded of this joke because I, too, must talk about Ozu without having seen his movies.

Does that matter? I know enough about Ozu to understand that, visually and rhythmically (and also, probably, thematically), Maborosi has the style of an Ozu movie.

I didn’t get so strong a feeling when, a couple of years ago, I watched The Third Murder. That movie introduced me to Maborosi’s director, Hirokazu Kore-eda. Maborosi, more than The Third Murder, must be Ozu-like.

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I doubt I’ll review a quieter movie than Maborosi – even if I decide to review Microcosmos (which, I dimly recall, is just footage of insects chewing leaves).

Stuff actually happens in Maborosi, but it barely seems to.

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There’s a wonderful passage in Haruki Murakami’s novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. A man describes a brief but sublime experience involving a single beam of light at the bottom of a well. His life, ever since, has been shadow-like.

Like this unfortunate man, Yumiko, the protagonist of Maborosi, has largely stopped living.

In early scenes, she is gloriously happy with her young husband. Then he dies. It is a baffling death. It seems to be a death full of life, if such a thing can be; at the very least, he dies on his own terms.

The life that is snuffed out is Yumiko’s, even though she’s just twenty years old and has a beautiful infant son.

Yumiko remarries. She moves from Osaka to a remote seaside village. Her son and stepdaughter grow up happily together. Her new husband and inlaws are good people. Yumiko has good moments.

But she is not fully present in her life. The memory of the dead husband draws her away from her surroundings. Usually, this is not explicitly commented upon; but everything suggests it. Action is observed from a distance. The scenery is gloomy to look at; meanwhile, this or that person performs this or that movement in some remote corner of the screen. Foreground becomes background.

Life goes on, but only at the edge of Yumiko’s consciousness.

Meanwhile, this or that supporting character is lured toward death. Some characters die; most don’t. Yumiko can’t understand the attraction of death. That’s why she constantly grieves.

I am going to stop now because the New Year is almost here, and I am about to fall asleep; and besides, there is little more about Maborosi that I could discuss. The richness is in the detail with which daily life, or its negation, is observed.

P.S. Another movie Maborosi reminds me of: Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar.

February fragments

Four weeks after having sprained my ankle, I walk much better; but my ankle still hurts all day long.

Karin drives me to work each morning, what with my being injured; and when my shift ends, I walk home the scenic way, upon a riverside path that’s much less icy than my usual route.

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I’ve been trudging through Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy. I just finished Ghosts, the second installment. Some fifteen years ago, I read the first book, City of Glass, and vowed not to again; well, now I have. The second time was better. I suppose it was effective training to have read, in the interim, novels like Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and 1Q84 in which the characters stay holed up for long periods with their thoughts. But in those novels, the long, inactive waits are punctuated with tasteful elevator music and wistful sippings of Cutty Sark. In Auster’s books, the waiting turns the protagonists into bums. Anyway, my objective is to get through the third book in Auster’s trilogy, The Locked Room, so that I can then read Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s Locked Room and write down the same title twice consecutively in my reading journal.

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The kitties have been chasing each other around the apartment all the last hour. Jasper trapped Ziva behind the couch for a while, but Karin coaxed him away.

The mall rats

Day Two of the winter holiday. Mary exercises at her gym; Martin cleans; Stephen cooks; I read.

Later, it might be interesting to watch some TV.

Stephen asks me to go with him to the mall. He’s itching to leave the house. Well, the mall does have a bookstore, and I do want to buy Dance Dance Dance — the sequel to the Murakami novel that I’ve just finished reading — and The Luminaries, the most recent Man Booker winner.

We’re all set to ride the bus when Mary comes downstairs: “All right, I’ll drive you to the mall.”

Then she sees Bianca sleeping on a chair.

“Hello, my little furry friend. You’re so cute. Who is it who loves you? Who is it who takes you to the vet?

“I love you, Bianca. Will you cuddle with me? Do you enjoy being cuddled with? Do you like it when I hold you? Will you miss me when I go away to the mall?”

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Mary drives us to the mall.

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At Barnes & Noble I run into an IUSB student who got an F in my course. Friendly as always, he shakes my hand. I glare. I’m not very gracious in these situations.

Mary buys me The Luminaries, which turns out to be an 830-page (zodiacal!) mystery set in 19th-century New Zealand. Its prose style reminds me of Kate Beckinsale’s in the movie Cold Comfort Farm (“The golden orb had almost disappeared behind the interlacing fingers of the hawthorn”) … which is a good thing, in my opinion.

The Luminaries is Eleanor Catton’s second novel. Aged twenty-eight, four years my junior, Catton is the youngest recipient of the Man Booker Prize. Jeez Louise, I feel unaccomplished.

The groomsman

And so Kenny & Lara were married. The previous night, the groom and his men slept in a fancy rented house; it made me happy because for the second time this year I was able to sleep in a bed. Around 2:00am I was awakened when the other groomsmen brought in Kenny and put him into bed with me. (But why did Kenny need to be helped into the bed?) … Anyway, for one last time, I was his roommate.

The thing about being a groomsman is, there’s a lot of waiting around. I read some Murakami (1Q84). The thing about being a single groomsman, I discovered, is that people subtly (or not subtly) put pressure on you to hit on the bridesmaids. So it must’ve been disappointing when I didn’t do that. Forgive me, bridesmaids.

Another who felt this pressure was one of the ushers, recently returned from Afghanistan. Near the end I found him outside, drinking beers. He poured out his heart to me: “I’m twenty-six years old and I can’t talk to a woman.” I felt sorry for him.

In a way, he was the hero of the wedding: earlier he’d been escorting guests, walking with them from the parking lot, holding an umbrella over them while he was getting soaked by the rain.

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The best dancers were Kenny’s little sisters & brothers, including the children. I mean that.

I posed for many silly photos. I expect to be embarrassed when they’re leaked out.

I caught Lara’s garter.

A literary gathering

Kenny had invited over some Koreans and Japanese. When I walked in, the party was winding down. The revelers were sitting on the floor with their dregs of Asian booze; Lost in Translation was on TV, but nobody was paying attention.

I was an instant hit. “You are very handsome,” said the Asians. (Males, all of them.)

I decided these guys were all right.

“All Americans are very handsome,” said the Asians.

This irked me, for I knew that by “Americans” they meant gringos, not South Americans. But I quietly forgave them.

Soon I had them debating which was better – Korea or Japan. Or rather, I had the Koreans debating against each other. The Japanese wouldn’t debate that issue; to them, the answer was clear enough.

Then I showed them which novel I’d been reading that day: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. There were grunts of approval all around. “He’s a good writer,” said one of the Koreans. “He describes everything.” “What do you mean, everything?” said his compatriot. “I mean, he describes all the clothes everyone wears,” explained the first Korean.

I hadn’t noticed that, but I’d noticed how Murakami would describe everyone’s food: spaghetti, stir-fry, cheese-and-tomato sandwiches. I really like it when a novelist will do that; it’s a trick I associate with Hemingway. That prosaic sensualist. That glutton.

The first Korean had earned a degree in English literature, but his favorite writer was Yeats. And so tonight I looked at some of Yeats’s poems.

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A Crazed Girl

That crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved hungry sea.’

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