minutae

Basically things suck today and I'm not sure why. It's freezing cold, ice everywhere. I also think that the internet is ruining my life -- thanks, blog -- but it's still here and sort of the only way i can get into the world half of the time. i should probbly get off my as at some point and actually experience things but i never feel like it.

lots of work to do: sketches for The Tooth Fairy and trying to wde through the over-so-complicated mass of cast information that i now need to deal with. Thirty characters? No prob. I should probably be getting to it, but guess what! The internet is right in front of me and the car wreck is so good I can't look away.

In other news:
- jonathan came back to work today with bags under his eyes. Who knew that babies were so much work? it also means need to start actualy taking care of business there. my scrbulous days are -- mostly -- over.
- sad bored sleepy horny lonely frustrated
- leaving for troy on friday, presents and in, gifts are wrapped. ready for it.
- watched the hours with annalee last night and had a rousing discussion.

more soon. don't worry folks, i WILL talk about fonts tonight.

I love fonts. this came from Ilovetypography.com, which is quickly becoming my favorite new website. Aside from all of that, Julia -- my sister -- i coming into town, amidst all of the confusion of the holiday shopping frenzy that I haven't yet started and all of the confusion of boys. who knew we were such wierdos?



Also, Trajan is lovely -- it really is. I used to be mildy obsessed with Trajan (check out at least ten my of my Downstage posters from 2004. Seriously). But yes, it is time to break up with Trajan and "start seeing other fonts."
Below is genius:

best fonts issue 2

i know i just put out one of these, but this one is worth it.


90 Flinders Street by Melissa Lapadula
Melissa (creator of the interesting Tetris Quadrate and the less interesting Organic Space) brings us this update on Tetris... by highlighting and carving out the typographic figure by cleverly using a window motif. Where its predecessor used that same sense of irregularity, here the effect is cityscape rather than a less effective generally-pixelated look. Capitals are smartly wide while all characters have a single face that angles away from the block. The effect is the blending of a mod signage looks and the chic retrofuturism of perhaps the Jetsons? Brilliant.

im eating the spiciest soup i've ever had.

in other news: THEO BANK was born last night at 9pm, weighing in at 6pounds, 9ounces. The boss is out all day (perhaps week?) to look after his bouncing new baby boy. Adorable. Pictures soon.

lst night i had dinner with Randall G Whittinghill at Souen and at some more deliscious soup than this spicy pos. We chatted all about his wedding and his fiancee and hbo and puppets. a lot of puppets. nothing too much in particular -- growing up and trying things out. it is nice, after spending so much of the time with friends my exact age, to have a 27 year old friend who is in such a different place, like weddings and commitment real jobs. good to see that crazy dude. always looking out for me. We worked on Duncan Grant Part One together, and I keep having fantasies that I'll pick it up again.


then i went to another freelance job with design compendium, this one at Kate's Paperie. Another one tonight and tomorrow. It is nice to have window design as a side project.

I JUST SPILLED MY SOUP ALL OVER MY DESK
Great. Just great.

best fonts issue 1

Rosadelia by Andinistas
Very smart though rather illegible multiple-stroke lettering. Maybe fountain pen?


QwitcherBychen by TypeSETit
Nothing too special, but takes to color very well; a script that doesn't look too Zapf Chancery-y.

Utshani by Scholtz Font
I think this one just has a lovely weight and shape, soft and sort of coaxing.


Beantown Bounce by Nick's Fonts
Elegant -- maybe pre-raphaelite style print, especially in lower case has a mind of middle-earth look. Smashing Pumpkins?

the search for gainsborough

i've starting reading the search for gainsborough by adrienne corri that i found at the strand a few months back. corri is (was?) a fairly successful theater and film actress and has published this book basically directly from her diaries. it's the mid seventies and she travel through britain on a tour of a production she's playing in -- and she happens upon a painting, in terrible condition, horribly disfigured, but investigates.
Corri takes it upon herself to clean it, assuming that it's a portrait of the great David Garrick by the -- even greater and more elusive -- Thomas Gainsborough.

As she travels through Europe, performing, filming, visiting family and friends (all of which is chronicled in her dairies, she is also restoring the painting -- and visiting with her friends (!) at the National Protrait Gallery, the Tate, the V&A, to get it looked over.

Anyway, I'm barely that far into it, but this book has propelled me back into desperate love with Gainsborough -- always my favorite mid-eighteenth century painter. Here are some more of his better-known works.

Just adding to the fascination with Gainsborough, though, is the fact that so very little is written about him. The Search for Gainsborough is, after all, no simple feat. I think it was maybe Constable who attempted to write a biography of Gainsborough a century after his death but was unable to finish it (could not even find the details of his birth!).

He was known to have a close relationship with David Garrick, but it also seems to be rather a mystery as to how the two could even have met. The chronologies of their lives rarely if ever cross, aside from his portraiture. Garrick, a very well-to-do Englishman and Gainsborough, pretty much an uncultured countryman -- that the two became friends is equally fascinating.

It's a great read. More soon.

Yesterday was the closing performance of my latest show "Welcome to New Jersey" at Vital Theater.

Overall, people were happy with it. No press came. Now it's being shopped around to maybe make out it there into the world of school shows.

I officially have a week of a break before things get crazy again, before I begin rehearsals for "A (Tooth) Fairy Tale" also at Vital.

Also coming up: I am performing with Frederico Restrepo of Loco 7 on Sunday at Theater for the New City in their puppetry festival. More info on that to come.