ligatures

and et & :
A consideration of the commercial applications of this tiny piece of typography, which has recently experienced a revival in popularity. Since this is a project of long consideration but only recent realization, the image collection will grow as ampersands are captured and cataloged from travels near and far -- and therefore it is completely erratic and unpredictable, depending, as it does, on travels, travels with camera, and travels with camera and actually using camera. Once sufficient examples exist, a slideshow will be embedded in the margin of the page; in the interim, the curious would best view the images (& captions, if there is need of excess procrastination from vacuuming or lawn mowing) at the host site.

ligatures

onward & upward

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reading
directions for page layout software! Soon, the proofs!

weather
the tips of trees are changing color, buds are beginning to swell, in short, March arrives like a lion

visage

It happened inside a Tiki Hut.

Not really intentionally; there is so much of the intentional in the design and building of a Tiki Hut that no prospective patron can approach it with the slightest sense of purpose, since a special field that repels undesirables means that intentionally heading to a Tiki Hut with the stated purpose of absorbing the island vibe through frozen margaritas, coconut ice cream, barbecue chicken, roast suckling pig while dancing native dances inspired by vodka and carved wooden heads to songs actually composed and performed by under-employed Nashville almost has-beens -- if any person has the intention to actually learn about world culture through this experience, then it is a proven fact that their car will suddenly develop a flat tire, their best friend will go into labor, their next door neighbor will need a lift to the emergency room following an incident with a runaway lawn mower, their dog will eat the remote starter attached to the keys, the bridge will be out, and the Tiki Hut itself will be closed for a private party when the culturally intentional visitor arrives.

The vast majority of personalities at a Tiki Hut at any given time are, of course, present for the frozen margaritas, the coconut ice cream, the barbecue chicken, the roast suckling pig, and the dancing, but their intentions are honorable. They want to remember spring break on South Beach or Myrtle Beach or Galveston Island as it was back in the day, or as it would have been back in the day if they had been the type of person to actually go on a hot and wild spring break adventure, drink and dance until dawn, and awaken in the arms of a nameless stranger, rather than the type of person who only fantasized about spring break on South Beach or Myrtle Beach or Galveston Island, drinking and dancing until dawn, and awakening in the arms of a nameless stranger.

These are the loyal patrons of the Tiki Hut, searching suburbanites seeking warmth, and the nameless, faceless corporations that employ them, a vast network of middle managers drinking caustic coffee and diet Coke and eating peanut butter crackers while forwarding jokes to their mothers in law. Nameless faceless corporations adore holding functions at the Tiki Hut: it allows their employees to grasp the sense of work as a fun community, just as college had been a fun community, days of studying at the fraternity broken by week-long binges at the shore. And why shouldn't a corporation merge the work:play ethos of the university fraternity, when the walls of the university are the borders of experience of the world of the students? So, too, do they now just as easily commit to the sanctity and brotherhood of the corporation. Cheerio! and have another frozen margarita before the dancing starts and we play pin the post-it on the donkey!

This has nothing at all to do with what happened inside the Tiki Hut, since there was no intention to absorb culture, no personal fantasy spring break reenactment, no holiday business party that necessitated a command performance in grass skirt. There was not even the intention of frozen margaritas, coconut ice cream, barbecue chicken, or roast suckling pig, much less uninhibited dancing with strangers. There wasn't even the intention of being in a Tiki Hut, and definitely not during the afternoon.

Various places had been discussed, in a desultory we'd-rather-not manner, the way one schedules lunches with an in-law to discuss a spouse's addiction problem, and various venues nominated and declined, the way there is no good venue to disclose a layoff, cancer, or child support details, and a selection of times was made available, just as one searches for the perfect time to schedule a root canal or colonoscopy or amputation of the big toe due to gangrene.

Finally, Thursday at two p.m., the coffee shop just past exit 18 on the highway -- the classic coffee shop off the interstate in the no man's land between Rochester and Springfield. There would be no distraction from reality, no intrusion of other appointments or acquaintances, no emotional memory connected with the place, the time, the day, or the season. It was all as anonymous and out-of-the-way as possible, so that as a discrete memory it could not poison any of the other ones near it, was far enough from reality as to almost no longer exist.

Unfortunately, the coffee shop no longer existed, either, and when it is two fifteen on a Thursday afternoon at an abandoned parking lot just past exit 18 on the highway between Rochester and Springfield, then there isn't much else to do about it. Especially when one has just been stood up for a meeting requested by someone else and attended with equal amounts of duty and dread. Anything could have presented itself: a strip club, the billiard room, the local dive, the truck stop, possibly even a revival tent or a road side stand selling bathtub gin and home distilled bourbon, but it was across the state highway behind a gas station next to a motel with HBO, whirpool baths, and weekly rates that the Tiki Hut stood.

At first it was hard to tell if it was still operational: some of the thatching was missing from the roof, and the neon sign in the parking lot wasn't illuminated, but it wasn't quite 2:30 on an overcast Thursday afternoon and there were cars parked out front, two or three, a minivan and a sedan and a pick-up truck, so at least an assortment, and if a person could get a drink anywhere in this god forsaken place, in the middle of the afternoon, well the Tiki Hut had to be the place.

Outside, a pig was in fact being roasted, on a spit over coals, and someone had rigged up a system using a bicycle chain, a vacuum cleaner engine, and a car battery so that the pig would turn without the need for further human involvement. The front door was attached to a perfume atomizer that made everyone smell involuntarily of piña colada, and an acoustic guitar with bongo back up was warming up on the stage, testing out the sound system. The musicians wore tired corduroys and beards, rather out of place for a Tiki Hut, but hanging over chairs at the bar were Hawaiian shirts, so it seemed probable that a costume change was likely before the evening's performance, just as it seemed probable that the lead singer would undoubtedly be channeling Ginger from Gilligan's Island when she eventually made her entrance.

The bartender, a kid not a day over fifteen, took a credit card in exchange for a Corona, and otherwise the Tiki Hut was completely deserted, an abandoned Club Med, a beach in November, a fraternity house on Christmas eve. Since the band was preparing for the evening, the option of the juke box was out, and the band's only contribution was a lackluster strum followed by a syncopated bom-bom upon the drums. The syncopation did not seem intentional; the boy behind the bar returned to his video game or math homework, and a lone Corona before 3 p.m. on a Thursday just off the interstate between Rochester and Springfield leads to all sorts of plans.

The Tiki Hut, the HBO enhanced weekly efficiency became the stage upon which to completely redesign the future, a future of morning cigarettes and afternoon beers, weekly lottery tickets and seasonal run-ins with the police. It was time to disappear, and time to reappear, somewhere else, as someone else, and it all happened inside a Tiki Hut.

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reading
Lupton: Thinking With Type. The best typography book I've read, and it is a genre that sees a lot of action in this house.

weather

This morning spent 45 minutes shoveling out the car in an attempt to get out of the driveway. Finally considered it a High Achievement to be able to get the car back to exactly the point where it was at the beginning of the process. Shoes and gloves remain soaked through.

channels of sensation

A channel is like a canal, a path going between points a and b, the past and the future, and the now is the sensation, the canal boat, the barge, waiting patiently as the locks fill and empty for the series of transfers.

The color is the grey-green of stagnant water tinted by leaking gas tanks, feral ducks, galley refuse, sliced against the sharp midsummer blue blue blue of a cloudless sky, the rays of the sun unbroken. Sounds of engines idling, water pouring into the next level, metal churning against metal as the ship heaves its way upstream or downstream, the whistles as capacity is reached, the calls from the shore as onlookers assist or idly watch. The feel of palm against metal, cranking the gears to open the locks, the feel of the worn concrete banks which can be reached from either side of the ship, the feel of the tiller as the ship pushes slowly slowly slowly forward. In the air the heavy smell of decaying fish, salt water, gasoline mixes with other scents of barbecue, of beer, of the shore, of birds, and of business.

The scents of the water overwhelm the cup of coffee, the sandwich, the bag of peanuts, as the water's center of gravity shifts, and all hands on deck prepare to move another fraction forward, and on, and on, until in another hour or five or twelve or twenty four the immediate now of the canal will disappear, replaced by the future of the ocean, whose unpredictability has been tamed by satellite navigation, radio, plotted charts, and strict arrivals timetables: any hour lost off course is a lost profit, a lost company, a lost contract.

So the ceaseless tedium of the canal continues, an enforced queue while nature slowly bends to the will of man. This is not the have-a-beer tedium of a summer evening, watching fireflies and ignoring mosquitoes (here the mosquitoes cause malaria), or the tedium of a church service necessitated by the Season, a birth, or a death, or a wedding, or the tedium of a business conference of talking points that everyone already knows and don't matter anyway, or even the tedium of a parent-teacher conference about classroom behavior or a teenager's tantrum over some incomprehensible imagined slight.

This is not the tedium of a slow, overcrowded elevator on a summer day, or the tedium of airport security lines and supplemental screenings. Nor is this the tedium of raking the lawn, weeding the garden, or balancing the checkbook; although of all these tedious tasks, choreographing a ship through a canal is indeed most similar to balancing a checkbook, the need to pay attention to columns, the precision of cents, and the hope at the end of the day that there is in fact money in the account.

On the ship are consignments of rice, chickpeas, beans, tea, coffee, the traditional offerings of capitalism in addition to electronics, knock-off and authentic, cars being sent to consumers and to scrap metal heaps, paper prepared for newspapers, toilet paper, glossy magazines, and the printed book, lumber, legitimate and questionably sourced, three generations of one family that has attempted to stow away in an appropriated container, but is not overly hopeful about life in a new country, assuming they manage to complete the voyage, parts for a top secret military helicopter which was the centerfold spread of last month's Scientific American, a breeding pair of poisonous spiders, thus far undiscovered by the crew, two ten-speed bicycles, one rusted red and the other formerly blue, a golf cart, a college student riding as a paying guest as part of completing a thesis on international exchanges and markets and the transportation technologies that enable them, for a combined degree in studio art and creative writing, the captain, a Harvard drop out in Brooks Brother suits, and a twenty man crew.

They have an assortment of weapons and currencies for dealing with potential pirates and bureaucrats, but do not expect to use either, and at any given time a game of poker is being played for promissory notes. One of the crew anticipates returning home to a birth, another to a death, a third to a divorce, but their concept of their shore life shifts as the weather changes and progress is encouraged or impeded.

Little is left to chance, and so the only romance of the unknown is with the fate of the stowaways, and even their future will unfold along predictable lines. Should they disembark successfully, join the underground network of their community, labor in agricultural fields or a laundry or a factory for five or ten or twenty years, learn snippets of the host language, and exist in a world whose outline roughly parallels that which they left behind, a world not governed by the abstract philosophies of freedom and dignity but defined by regularity of meals, electricity, plumbing; the surreal existence of the new country visible in the cracks of the seams of the native community, but mostly not intruding.

Or should immigration discover their attempt, through a tip-off by a member of the crew, through the trained senses of a beagle or german shepherd, or through a necessity of illness or death: then the return to the homeland, or the potential for a waiver; but mostly exhaustion, uncertainty.

The college student will receive an extension on his thesis, to be rendered as an experimental film, will propose to his girlfriend as she leaves for law school, and will be converted at a big tent revival that he attended in a spirit of anthropological irony but ended up finding quite sincerely moving, and will abandon his film career for a life as a minister.

All of these things wait in the future, subject to the whims of the universe and the accumulation of chance encounters; in the present nowness of the canal, the afternoon sun deepens, another lock is navigated, and the destination inches closer. The water rises, lifting the boat, lapping at the sides and reflecting off fun-house scaled and oddly colored outlines of the stacked containers and the crew. In the background, a loudspeaker announces security warnings and precautions in five languages, and various officials radio instructions back and forth.

A pick-up truck, once brown, rumbles past, windows down, the radio filling the air with an American pop hit from the eighties rendered into a foreign language; five uniformed men sit in the back of the truck, faces impassive. They watch ships navigate these locks all day, every day, all year, every year, memories of the ships and the captains of the ships and the officials managing the canal dating back to their earliest childhood experiences, knowledge of cargo of guns, drugs, computers, seeds stored up and then forgotten in the accumulation of the minor melodramas of the years, the oil tanker fire, the suicidal captain, the avoided mutiny, the government changes and corruptions all a background to the more important tasks of playing checkers, drinking beer, making love, and roasting the feast for the upcoming holiday.

In slow, stately procession, the ships drift forward, and then depart.

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reading
Jasper Fforde / Shades of Grey


weather
spiked hot cocoa, crispy bacon, fresh scones, warm hats, hot water bottles, and the bliss of February not being a day longer than 28

Panthera tigris, family Felidae

Chinese New Year / Valentine's Day mash-up


the year of the tiger scampers on stage

reading
Shakespeare : Sonnet 05

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

weather
mushroom barley stew whilst southern climes throw snowballs

{photo credit MGG}

beatitudes

"a tender moment salvaged by duct tape"

So many things we assume at first glance to be one way, when reality depicts the other: misread road signs, off-heard eavesdropping, mix-ups of names, dates, serial numbers. The names have been omitted to protect the perpetrators. The dates have been changed to confuse the conspirators. The serial numbers have been scrambled to prevent identity theft and credit card fraud.

Start at the hardware store. April's early spring do it yourself project: build a cedar planting box. Supplies: cedar planks, saw, nails. Useful accessories: measuring tape, ruler, hammer. Over-achievers may consider acquiring sand paper in a variety of grits. Following completion of planter, purchase potting soil, mulch, fertilizer, seeds, and/or seedlings. Useful seed catalogs to consider are J. L. Hudson, La Honda, CA, and Fedco, Waterville, ME.

Estimated time to complete project: 2-4 hours. Estimated cost of project, including wood, dirt, and plants: $25, subject to variation in taste and desired plantings.

Actual time to complete project: 12 hours, in addition to seven hours sent at the emergency room following a sawing incident. Actual cost of planter, including wood, dirt, and plants: $75, in addition to $50 emergency room copay and $18 copays at each follow-up visit. Cost of purchasing a cedar planter and seedlings: $30.

Side benefit of project: cute emergency room doctor.

Another visit to the hardware store. May's will-the-frost-date-ever-arrive do it yourself project: a stenciled cement floor to the back porch. Supplies: cement sealant, masking tape, porch paint (high gloss), exterior oil based colored paint (high gloss), pencil, tracing paper. Useful accessories: butcher paper, paper towels, brushes with angled tips in a range of 1" to 3" widths, paint thinner, mineral spirits, rags, ventilation mask. Over-achievers may consider grinding artist's grade pigments into oil-based medium.

Estimated time to completion: 6-8 hours, in addition to time spent watching paint dry while drinking a gin and tonic. Estimated cost: $50, including paints and stencil pattern books.

Actual time to completion: 6 weeks, due to re-stripping, re-priming, and re-painting pattern three times, due to: cat walking across wet paint pursued by dog; passing out onto wet paint following inhalation of fumes; visit of fire department necessitated by neighbor smoking near open flame of barbecue grill unwisely placed near open container of mineral spirit soaked paper towels. Actual cost of stenciled back porch: $650, including insurance settlement, new barbecue grill, and replacement of charred yard furniture.

Side benefit of project: cute fireman.

Another visit to the hardware store. June's do it yourself project: a backyard koi carp pond, with waterfall and decorative rock feature. Supplies: plastic pond liner, pebbles, pond pump and filter, extension cord. Useful accessories: shovel, outdoor electrical outlet, water, koi carp. Over-achievers may consider: salt water ponds containing starfish, sting ray, jellyfish, and / or sea horses.

Estimated time to completion: 4-6 hours, in addition to stocking pond. Estimated cost of pond: $150, including electrical supplies and basic fish.

Actual time to complete project: 10 days, including subpoena to county courthouse on animal smuggling charges due to unwise purchase of a rare Amazonian piranha and charges of trafficking. Additional courthouse visit necessitated by untrue rumor of baby alligator living in pond. Actual cost of completion, including cost of mating pair of piranhas, baby crocodile, lawyer's fees, and civic penalties and fines, $1,200, subject to additional environmental damages as yet to be determined.

Side benefit of project: cute district attorney obviously amused by entire case.

Another visit to the hardware store. July's do it yourself project: reupholstering the car's interior in Scotch-guarded batik dyed 100% organic linen. Supplies: 20 yards of high quality linen, paraffin wax, fabric dye. Useful accessories: sewing machine, hammer, pliers, book of schematics for automotive interiors. Over-achievers may consider shibori dying before or after batik dying the linen, and / or also recovering the ceiling, dashboard, and door interiors.

Estimated time to complete project: 2 weeks, including re-installation of car seats. Estimated cost of project: $125, depending upon quality of linen purchased.

Actual time to complete project: one month, including time spent removing mold and mildew from upholstery after leaving seats to dry and experiencing seasonal thunderstorms for the following four days. Actual cost to complete project: $925, including air fare to Ireland to purchase linen and duties on purchases brought into the United States over the customs allowance and also over the airline's baggage allowance.

Side benefit of project: cute bartender at pub in Dublin.

Another visit to the hardware store. August's do it yourself project: totem pole chainsaw carving of dead tree by stream, incorporating shamanic ancestor symbolism. Supplies: dead tree. Useful accessories: chainsaw, book on shamanic animal representations of ancestors, and their meanings. Over-achievers may consider constructing a wood burning sauna (see Project #138, "Sweat Lodge," December 2003) near the carved totem pole.

Estimated time to complete project: 6-8 hours. Estimated cost of project: $40, including chainsaw rental.

Actual time to complete project: 6 weeks, including four trees inadvertently felled to the ground, two trees with branches removed so as to become totem poles, separating all unused tree parts into fuel for sauna, construction of optional sweat lodge, and protracted argument with patriarch of beaver family regarding property rights of dead trees and stream. Actual cost of project: $5,400, including humane trapping of beaver family and relocation to upstate Maine, hiring of contractor to complete sweat lodge after burning first sweat lodge to the ground following incorrect venting of wood stove, and loss of deposit from chainsaw rental after dropping it into the stream while under the influence of direct sunlight, beer, and a sweat lodge.

Side benefit of project: long weekend in upstate Maine with cute environmental officer in charge of trapping and relocating beaver family.

Another visit to the hardware store. Renew your membership to DIY : Monthly, now for the low price of $24, and receive a complimentary wall calendar featuring completed projects by fellow readers!

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reading
how quickly the calendar fills!

weather
ha! take that mid-Atlantic! and that!

rust is a slow fire

I step inside, letting the door thud shut: but it doesn't, it catches on a hastily discarded shoe and robs my entrance of the dramatic thunderclap of arrival. Also, the cat gets out, though at the time I don't realize the problems that will cause. I merely crave the sense of accomplishment and victory that accompanies a well closed door, the thud of shutting out the tinny whines of motorbikes, the yipping of overbred dogs, the bell of the ice cream man, the cacophony of ring tones and car horns and crosswalks and rumbling trucks and polite hellos to casual acquaintances that follows upon any excursion into the world, all suddenly muted by the proper thudding of a door into its frame.

Off come the running shoes, the jacket, the cap, left in a disorderly pile in the entryway, the door leaking in the noises of reality once again closed, obstacles removed, a victorious entry into the kitchen stalled by the sudden recognition that the kitchen is not how the kitchen was left three and a half hours ago: dishes have been washed and put away, the trash and recycling taken out, the countertops cleared, a kettle boiled and a tray set for tea, with what appears to be Lapsang Souchong and freshly made ginger biscuits.

I remind myself to start locking the door: not all unexpected intruders will be so accommodating -- before realizing that I have no idea who would have entered my house, cleaned my kitchen, made cookies, and prepared afternoon tea. It isn't a matter of reviewing and eliminating the usual suspects; there are no usual suspects. There aren't even any unusual suspects. The friends who drink tea, the friends who bake cookies, the friends who clean kitchens: yes, there are all of these, with a certain amount of overlap of activities and populations, so it would not require six separate people for this scene to materialize, but it's the logistics that don't work out.

Tuesday afternoon, early spring; the season of long weekends to warmer climates, or heavy workloads, or lingering bouts of pneumonia, or births of nieces or grandchildren, or weddings; but any of the capable suspects are known to be otherwise engaged, lecturing to rapt audiences or performing in concert halls or toiling over spreadsheets. I pour out the tea and ponder the unlikely suspects, the new neighbor who has been stand-offish but might have decided to become friendly, the long lost third cousin who looked me up in the phone book and decided to drop in, the surprise visit from a sister or cousin or aunt suddenly desperate for quality family time, the high strung friend who suffers occasional emotional meltdowns or perhaps the settled domestic friend, facing a crisis of marriage or career or religion.

But there is no evidence of any of these: no shoes, no luggage, no car, no keys, no note, no jacket, perhaps even no fingerprints to claim the scene as anything other than an act of god, which, if it be that, ginger biscuits are a huge step up from communion wafers. The tea is smoky and strong, the biscuits crisp and sharp, and as the afternoon progresses and the teapot empties there is still no evidence of the mysterious visitor.

I wash the tea things, which seems the only way to thank a person who cleaned the clutter of the kitchen, and decide that if they don't want recognition for their labors, or company, or conversation, then I shouldn't worry about it: perhaps there was a sudden need to depart as urgently as the visit itself had seemed, a phone call summons to the emergency room, a child to claim from day care, a hair appointment, a meeting with a client, a decision to go for a walk or adopt a dog or visit the book store or tryst with a romantic interest, or maybe a favorite soap opera was due to start or space shuttle to launch. If the person had just finished preparing tea, bit into a ginger biscuit, and lost a crown from a tooth: that would be quite a good reason to suddenly depart. Perhaps a glance at the magazine rack spurred someone feeling obviously unsettled and spontaneous -- for why else visit unannounced, enter uninvited? -- to have a pedicure, buy a new dress, test drive a convertible.

This is all actually neither here nor there, as their identity, arrival, and departure are concerns which I will not be able to address, and I instead set off to look for the missing cat. There are the usual places, under the porch, up a tree, behind the hedges, settled in a heap in a sunbeam on the lawn; and the unusual places, the neighbor's windowsill, the roof of the shed, the vegetable garden two doors down; but the cat is in none of these places, nor on top of the roof or under the car.

The wind has picked up, a storm blowing in, and, glancing towards the clouds rolling in from the northwest, there is the cat, calmly sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, watching me look for him. I head that direction, but, rather than the customary meeting half way, he walks towards the storm, stopping every few feet to make sure I continue to follow. I have no umbrella, the jacket isn't waterproof, and the house is again unlocked and probably the door remains open behind me -- but when a previously unremarkable housecat decides to take a resident human on an excursion, it seems impolite not to go along, given how many trips to the vet and other involuntary journeys the cat has participated in.

So we walk on, I follow three or four paces behind, he checks every few feet to make sure of my participation, and we gradually approach the arriving storm, which seems more and more an unwise destination. Perhaps the domestic feline really was an alien for all these years, the clouds cover for a mother ship that has returned for the results of a research inquiry; or perhaps this is actually what the rapture and Armageddon are really about: forget the four horsemen of the apocalypse, it's all about the housecats; or perhaps the house was in the path of a tornado and this cat, with its extrasensory perceptions and masterful command of logic and sixth sense, is leading me to safety in return for years of cat food and water and ear scritches, or perhaps the Pied Piper was actually Puss in Boots and I am being led into fairy land, where I will seek my fortune and outwit trolls and find a prince in an enchanted castle, and we'll all carry on with the happily ever after bit, or perhaps the storm will carry us both to Oz and the Yellow Brick Road, or to the future or to the past.

Anything is possible on a day like today, the storm clouds darkening and gathering overhead, completely blocking out the sun, as the first rain drops fall, and we continue to walk into the center of the storm.

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reading
Why doesn't Colin Firth, with that lovely rumbling voice, do audio books?

weather
golden strengthening pureness of midwinter