The Art of Handwriting

From the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art: The Art of Handwriting. The online version of the exhibit has handwritten letters and postcards from thirty-nine artists. My favorites: Carl Andre’s block capitals, Winslow Homer’s shorthand-like cursive, Ad Reinhardt’s lower- and uppercase italics, and Saul Steinberg’s parodic calligraphy. Clicking on each image takes you to a page with a larger version and more to read.

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[Orange Crate Art is a handwriting-friendly zone.]

Misread

From a shopping list:

feet

Janis

No. That would be felt and tonic (as in gin and). I wish I could say that I can always trust my handwriting.

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Illegibility and shopping
Signage, misread

Domestic comedy

“It’s not like that apple I ate in the Garden of Eden — I mean, Los Angeles.”

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[To be specific, a farmers market in Silver Lake.]

Bob and Ray and Komodo dragons

News of a new Komodo dragon exhibit at the Bronx Zoo made me think of Bob and Ray.

[From 1973 to 1976, Bob and Ray were on New York’s WOR for four hours every weekday. I was a regular listener.]

Foxtrot and representation

[Foxtrot, November 3, 2002. Click for a larger view.]

I just found a print copy of this Foxtrot strip in a box of odds and ends. The joke reminds me of Alain’s 1955 New Yorker cartoon of an Egyptian life class: there too the idea of codes or conventions of representation gets turned on its head, with artists depicting reality as it really is. I must have clipped this Foxtrot to use in teaching.

The little window on the fourth apple is a near-lucaflect. If it were a four-pane window, Paige’s drawing would really, really look like a photograph.

[Bill Amend’s fair-use policy is a model of generosity and sanity: “For non-commercial websites, I’m generally okay with people reposting a strip now and then, so long as you include a link back to foxtrot.com.” This strip is available online. Alain’s cartoon is the opening exhibit in Ernst Gombrich’s Art and Illusion (1960).]

Queen Elizabeth exclaims

From The Sea Hawk (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1940):

“Fleet! Fleet! Must I listen to that from you too?”

Yes, Queen Elizabeth, you must. The Spanish are coming! The Spanish are coming!

The Sea Hawk is a swashbuckling story starring Errol Flynn. I mistook The Sea Hawk for The Sea Wolf, a 1941 Curtiz film starring Edward G. Robinson. Let the record show, however, that I was not mistaking Errol Flynn for Edward G. Robinson.

[Swash: “ flamboyantly swagger about or wield a sword.” Buckle: “a small, round shield held by a handle or worn on the forearm.” Thanks, New Oxford American Dictionary.]

Route 66 conference call

They’re planning a comeback. From the Route 66 episode “Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing,” (October 26, 1962), with Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr., and Boris Karloff as themselves. This episode is one of several splendid examples of Route 66 making room for surreal, zany comedy.

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[Yes, Chaney’s wearing makeup. The split-screen is in the show, not the result of my cutting and pasting.]

The old Gmail inbox

Ta-da.

I’m not sure how quickly Google is “rolling out” (like a barrel?) the new Gmail inbox. I prefer to have the postal service deliver my Gmail the old-fashioned way. For now at least, that’s still possible.

Bear in/on tree

[Yipes. Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

It’s a plastic yard ornament, perhaps seven feet from the ground. I pass this bear almost every day when I’m out walking. It spooked me the first time. It spooks me still. Here is a cute version, which also spooks me. I am easily spooked.

In the past week or so, I’ve also seen two deer running through the yard twenty yards from where I mowed, another deer standing ten feet from our front door, a fox sunning itself in our driveway, a raccoon glaring at me from the end of our breezeway, and a turkey vulture taking flight with a dead squirrel in its mouth. That’s enough nature.

[I’ve seen real bears in the wild once: a mother and children crossing a road early one morning in the Berkshires. I brake for bears.]

Toshi Seeger (1922–2013)

“Mrs. Seeger helped produce thousands of her husband’s concerts. When he hosted Rainbow Quest, a television show devoted to folk music, in 1965 and 1966, she directed it — although her official credit was ‘Chief Cook and Bottle Washer’”: Toshi Seeger, Wife of Folk-Singing Legend, Dies (The New York Times).