Wednesday, February 18, 2009

then there was a short break in the action.

tuesday, 6pm-ish. im going down in an elevator in my office building. three ladies get in on 26.

one says to the other, 'so when are you due?'

this one, who looks to be in her late thirties/early forties, and who does not look particularly pregnant, says, 'june.'

the first lady says, 'are you gearin up for the sleepless nights?'

'oh yeah.'

'is this your first?'

'no. i have a twenty-year old.'

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

raising capital.

this is for, influenced by, and a response to, stella.

i think i found my ideal letter calibration.

i have long thought caps were unnecessary, as we know, but have also yearned for a way to not have to use italics nor bold to emphasize words. that called for use of caps. but i also dislike capitalizing an entire word, in most cases. thats usually Too much. id rather just capitalize the first letter of a word i want to stress.

as i see it, the way to give a word full emphatic heft while only capitalizing the First letter of it is to not capitalize the first letter of the first words of sentences, as is tempting when using capital letters at all. capitalizing the first letters of first words inherently drains oomph from words you wish to Stress with only one cap.

incidentally, i also wont capitalize 'i.' that has always struck me as arrogant ('you' is never capitalized), and besides, i think a lowercase i looks like a little person, which is very fitting.

the potential problem here is that one might make the argument that using capital letters in the way i describe is slightly inelegant - the odd capital letter popping up only once in a while on a page, or sometimes not at all, making for a dearth of rhythm, and a choppy visual flow.

i dont entirely disagree, but all things considered, its Worth it.

at some pt i will roll out the truffle oil apostrophe doctrine, which ive been intrinsically espousing in my blogging for years.

ps - special shout-out to jdn, who convinced me to write in lowercase during our first email exchanges btwn michigan and dartmouth, back in 97.