A public service

I hope this is useful: a document listing the World Cup match times.

(They’re all set to the time zone in which I reside. If you’d like a list of match times set to a different time zone, let me know, and I’ll make one for you.)

The document can be printed on two sides of one sheet. I intend to fold up my printout, and to carry it in my pocket. I don’t want to always have to fire up the Internet to find out when the next game is.

The games will be played at different times every day.

(Why so?

This wasn’t always the case.)

“You are the main trouble with this university”: body-text fonts, pt. 39: ITC Galliard

More Thurber (“University Days,” in My Life and Hard Times):

The typeface is the ubiquitous ITC Galliard, implemented successfully or not depending on the paper, the ink cartridge, the positions of certain celestial bodies, etc. Just look at all those Library of America volumes with their uniform design. In some, the text is beautiful and legible; in others, it’s too dark or too light.

Compare with this sample from Hammett:

Of course the scan quality also affects these samples, but my point is that the print quality varies greatly – even from page to page. I admire Galliard’s letters but never have been tempted to make them the basis of a printable document. Printing body text set in Galliard would be like playing the lottery.

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P.S. regarding the passage in the first sample:

It’s a joke, of course. But as I age, I find myself agreeing rather often with General Littlefield, especially when I use social media. I catch myself thinking that this or that individual pip-squeak is the main trouble with this country (this church, this fanbase, this social class, etc. – and yes, this university, or universities in general).

As far as I can tell, this attitude is indefensible. But the feeling is so strong, it would be illuminating if some philosopher could put together a half-plausible rationalization for it. (Not for scapegoating, which I take to be primarily concerned with types or groups rather than individuals.)

A busy holiday in my chair

I had my Spring Break this week, and I made good use of the time, sitting at home in my armchair. I wrote and read and kept company with the kitties. I applied for one full-time job (the response, so far, has been perfunctory) and plotted to apply elsewhere. I wondered if I could get a scholarship to do research in Scotland. … Tonight I read Larissa MacFarquhar’s 2007 essay about Barack Obama. I typeset it into a handsome 13-page, 2-column PDF, using William Addison Dwiggins’s neglected font, ITC New Winchester. (The relevance is that this font is like Dwiggins’s Eldorado, and Obama’s maternal grandfather hailed from a Kansas town named El Dorado.)

Karin went to work each day and played video games each night. On Tuesday, we ate supper with our old pastor’s family, and, last night, we washed our clothes.

Karin has been trying to interest the kitties in their mirror reflections. Ziva is downright alarmed by hers. Jasper at first feigned indifference to his reflection, but tonight I noticed him perching on the bathroom sink, looking at himself.

Parfit, R.I.P.

The big name Derek Parfit died on January 2.

His New York Times obituary – not particularly interesting – is here.

His 2011 New Yorker profile – by Larissa MacFarquhar, whose other journalism I have praised – is here.

This profile is well worth reading. It’s outstanding. I used to have a PDF of it, which, now, I cannot find … which vexes me.

Quake, pt. 2

Recent figures from El Universo:

443 dead
4027 injured
231 disappeared

Photos on the Web show gray city blocks pulverized, the occasional storefront or utility pole propped up against the rubble, the occasional political poster contributing a spot of color.

People continue to be pulled out of the wreckage. In Pedernales, some are now being detected by how they smell.

There is much suffering in Manta and in Portoviejo. In Canoa, slightly north of Bahía, 80 percent of the buildings have been destroyed.

Relief efforts are intense. Volunteers and supplies pour into the northwest from the larger cities and from abroad. (It’s strange to read that global celebrities are talking about Ecuador.)

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In my own little life, lately, I’ve been doing my taxes; I’ve been typing up more of my Juan Bosch paper; and I’ve been reading and rereading Frank Stockton’s story, “The Lady, or the Tiger?,” and making shiny PDFs of it (it’s in the public domain).