Dear People Who Care about Typography:
I have just found that the PBS series Independent Lens is re-running the documentary Helvetica.
As they say, check your local listings.
I somehow missed this when it ran early this year; I have instructed Mr. Tivo to watch it for me this time around.
I have never seen a film about a typeface before, and am looking forward to the experience.
Serge indicates in #241 that Mythbusters has given the story of Lagâri Hasan Çelebi their treatment. Oh, well, it couldn't remain my personal discovery forever.
How about a list of the eight best rouge movies?
Serge, re #752:
According to ISFDB, Larry Clinton published "No Dipsy for Dix" in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1951, and "It's a Dog's Life" in Fantastic Story Magazine, Summer 1952.
So maybe "articles" was the biographer's way of saying "short stories."
156, 157, 158: Fire-engines are equipment for fighting fires. Mr. Lumley was preparing for a possible accident. I think Babbage may have been referring to something like this.
In #150 Hersiarch writes:
Oh wow. Babbage's Ballet sounds SO NEAT. Unforunately, it seems it didn't quite happen--the theatre owner backed out for fear of fire.
Thanks for digging that up-- I had always wanted to know more about that affair! It is disappointing to realize that, according to Ivor Guest, the performance never occurred before an audience. According to Babbage's autobiography, they seem at least to have gotten as far as a sort of dress rehearsal:
The night proposed for the experiment of the dance at length arrived. Two fire-engines duly prepared were placed on the stage under the care of a portion of the fire brigade.
About a dozen danseuses in their white dresses danced and attitudinized in the rays of powerful oxy-hydrogen blowpipes. The various brilliant hues of coloured light had an admirable effect on the lovely fire-flies, especially as they flitted across from one region of coloured light to another.
Since Alethes and Iris calls for sixty dancers, I suppose this wasn't a full-blown rehearsal. Still, Babbage's lighting system was demonstrated with real dancers on the stage of a real ballet, and how many mathematicians can claim that?
Irrelevant, but fun, fact to know: Congressman Bill Foster founded a major stage lighting company while a student, before embarking on a career as a particle physicist and accelerator designer.
In #116 Nancy Lebovitz writes:
Any theories about why the popular version of Frankenstein is so different from the book? Is it just that it's more fun to think about monsters than responsibility, or is there something deeper?
I have some thoughts, though not a full explanation.
First, the popular notion of Frankenstein is derived more from movies than from the novel. And James Whale's definitive 1931 movie, for one, is derived from stage versions.
The novel's narrative consists of letters from Robert Walton, Arctic explorer, which for the most part transcribe Victor Frankenstein's first-person narrative as dictated to Walton. Walton also has a brief conversation with the Creature. So there is a lot about Frankenstein's thoughts and feelings.
In transferring this (mostly) first-person account to the stage-- a generic problem-- the solution was to give Frankenstein an assistant, so that dialogue between them can reveal exposition, thoughts, and feelings. This may distort the story away from Mary Shelley's storyline. Dramatists also tend to add new characters.
A premium is placed on action as well. I have seen a playbill from the first stage version, Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein, which appeared in 1823, just five years after the novel. Guess what?
Among the many striking effects of this Piece, the following will be displayed:
Mysterious and terrific appearance of the Demon from the Laboratory of Frankenstein. DESTRUCTION of a COTTAGE by FIRE. And the FALL of an AVALANCHE.
That's right, even in 1823, producers were emphasizing the special effects!
My second point is that the whole story springs from the question: "What if someone could make an artificial person?"
(See also Pygmalion, the Golem of Prague, etc.)
There are a lot of thoughts that might follow that question. Mrs. Shelley explored some of them, but subsequent Frankensteinians trod different paths. In hundreds of plays and movies, only a few have followed her storyline closely, and those examples are fairly recent.
In #607 Tom Whitmore writes:
Allan Beatty @602 -- yes, I know they're cataloguing something they consider different. I would be very interested in how they categorize that difference, when one can look at the amount of poetry and fiction published in mimeographed zines from well before the period they call a revolution (look, for example, at the SF/fantasy poetry journals of the early 50s, or the fiction contained in many early fanzines). The difference is only visible if one wants to make SF into something other than literature, a clueless pastime. That's why I say it's clueless, rather than evil.
Lest anyone be tempted into science-fiction-chauvinism by these remarks, I wish to point out something I'm sure Tom well knows: The publication of small personal magazines goes back much further than the founding of SF fandom circa 1930.
Hand-set letterpress zines appeared in the early 19th century. The National Amateur Press Association's conventions began in 1876. Around that time the invention of the mimeograph made reproduction easier and cheaper. A subculture of "amateur journalism" flourished.
The most celebrated person I know of who participated in this hobby was H. P. Lovecraft.
When SF fandom came along, some of its adherents recognized the value of amateur journalism's customs and seized upon them. "Amateur press associations" (APAs) sprang up like weeds. (I am sure this happened with other hobbyists-- I have heard of railroad-buff APAs-- but I know little about it.)
This is why BBSs, online forums, Web sites, and blogs seemed, when they came along, like old wine in new bottles to a lot of SF fans. We already had a lively subculture exchanging our writings in the zineosphere. But we had borrowed it from an even older subculture.
Someone should point this out to the author of "An Author Index to Little Magazines of the Mimeograph Revolution." It's context.
In #575, Kevin Riggle writes:
Superman began in a zine? That's wicked cool.
And you can read it: "Reign of the Superman" by "Herbert S. Pine" (Jerry Siegel), illustrated by Joe Schuster, both aged 19.
I knew they had published fanzines. One day it occurred to me to wonder whether their work might have been placed online. I looked, and it was.
I was quite amused to learn that the reporter who confronts the evil Superman is named Forrest Ackerman.
Forry was already a legendary fan and letterhack (aged 17) who had contributed to Siegel and Schuster's fanzine. This was tuckerization before Tucker tuckerized anyone!
Since we are speaking of presents and futures, it may (or may not; I'll take the risk) be interesting to note that Frankenstein is set in the past. The framing story is given in Robert Walton's letters to his sister, written from the Arctic.
Though Mary Shelley picked up her pen in 1816, and the book was published in 1818, the dates on Walton's letters are given as "17--." So she imagined that the story, which stretches over several years, had taken place many years in her past.
Given the rapid pace of recent advance in chemistry and medicine, it might have been more plausible to set the story closer to the present, if not in the future. But that's not the choice Mary Godwin (she was not yet Mrs. Shelley when she started writing the tale, and not yet nineteen) made.
I worked at Jackson Memorial Hospital in the summer of '76. At an earlier time, my dad was a hospital administrator there. But nothing like this came up, that I can recall, in my time as a clerk on a trauma ward.
In #36, Serge writes:
If Teresa is the Invisible Girl, does that mean that Patrick is Mister Fantastic?
Logical, but kind of a stretch.
Speaking of the Nicene Creed, I was startled this week to hear Stephen Colbert recite it as part of his comedy show. Googling informs me that he does this frequently.
(Apparently both Stephen Colbert and the right-wing buffoon he plays on TV are Catholic.)
The number of people who've been to a con with Jon Singer, or been to a con with someone who've been to a con with Jon Singer, etc. is a very rapidly expanding number, somewhat like an Ackerman function...
I myself have been to a con with Ackerman!
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 114 |
| 2008 | 219 |
| 2007 | 177 |
| 2006 | 111 |
| 2005 | 85 |
| 2004 | 67 |
| 2003 | 29 |
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