"Echoing President Trump’s call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio’s order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity."

"Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters. Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter. Serif typefaces are 'generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,' Mr. Rubio’s order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One...."

From "At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke/Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the sans serif typeface 'wasteful,' casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts'" (NYT).

It's bizarre that wanting things to look normal again is counted as part of a "War Against Woke." I think the NYT is putting it that way to try to make sense of what the former administration did.

Why would the State Department want its official correspondence in the font you see here?

We're told the idea was to make reading easier for persons with dyslexia. Well, maybe, but that Calibri font seems to convey a message of informality or even humility. Don't take us so seriously, world.

Instead of holding the former administration to account for its poor choice, the new administration is framed as hostile to a vulnerable group!

In case you were wondering what Antony Blinken is up to these days or just want to know which Bob Dylan song title is getting played with in high-level government.

Here's "A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman/‘The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,’ read the subject line of a cable from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to U.S. embassies as part of an accessibility push" (WaPo).

Must I rail about "The Times They Are A-Changin'" again? I'll just quote something I wrote back in 2018:

[T]he old song... anchors Bob Dylan in his political protest time, from which he changed. But Baby Boomer politicos have always harked back to it, and it serves them — I'm not including me — right to have that song sung in their face now that they are old and not ready to roll over for whatever advancement the young people think is due.

I don't include myself because I've never liked the forefronting of Protest Bob.

"It’s a funny song for a play-out song ― a drowsy ballad about drugs in Chelsea! It’s kind of weird. He couldn’t be persuaded to use something else."

Said Mick Jagger about Trump's use of the old Stones song "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

That's quoted in a HuffPo article that forefronts something Keith Richards said, telling a tale that dates back to 1989, when Trump as the promoter of the Stones' Atlantic City concerts had put his own name in larger letters than band's name:

“I got out my trusty blade, stuck it in the table and said: ‘You have to get rid of this man!’ Now America has to get rid of him. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

How did it ever happen that Keith Richards became the attention-getter over Mick Jagger? But here we see it again. Let's talk about Keith and put Mick as the afterthought. And of course it's not surprising to see the violent ideation with the flashy knife gesture getting preference over the musing about the song.

But I'm more interested in the song and Mick's puzzlement about Trump's persistent use of it to end his raucous rallies. It's such an odd mood switch — to talk the way Trump does about bigness and greatness and to bring out such cheering and enthusiasm and then to play "You Can't Always Get What You Want," like it was all for nothing. He was just winding you up.

I keep expecting that one day, when Trump's accomplishments are listed and he's asked where all those great things you promised the people, he's going to say I always put it out there in plain sight for you.

A religion-flaunting speaker might have said — after all those visions of future greatness — "God willing." The pop-culture man had Mick Jagger singing it: You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Weird ad for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Rebecca Dallet that just popped up in the sidebar on Meade's browser.

Does anyone know the source of that ad? It can't be the candidate's campaign, I don't think, because it has no identification. The font seems... off, and the image is just so amateurish and needlessly extreme that I'm questioning the 3d word of my post title ("for").

(It's so bad and chaos-y that I was thinking the Russians did it.)

UPDATE: Meade saw the ad again and clicked on it and went to this page at a website that identifies itself as the NDRC — the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. It says: "Paid for by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. Not authorized by any candidate, candidate’s agent or committee." Seems like those words should be on the ad, not something you have to click to see.

On Tuesday, April 3, Wisconsin voters have the chance to elect Rebecca Dallet to the State Supreme Court. Dallet has served her community for the past two decades – first as a prosecutor, then as a judge. She is committed to fighting for Wisconsin values. Putting the right state candidates in office is instrumental to the success of restoring fairness to the redistricting process. Now’s not the time to sit out....

That ties Dallet to a specific issue, redistricting. It still doesn't make sense of that image, which seems to represent Trump's judicial appointments. You can redistrict all you want and it won't change the Senate, which confirms the appointments.

What is the NDRC? From the website:

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, chaired by the 82nd Attorney General of the United States Eric H. Holder, Jr., is the first-ever strategic hub for a comprehensive redistricting strategy. With the support of former President Barack Obama, as well as key leaders around the country, the NDRC is attacking this problem from every angle to ensure the next round of redistricting is fair and that maps reflect the will of the voters.

Why drag your reputation down with such an abominably amateurish ad that I thought it was the Russians! At least kern!

"'Teenage girls like to be obsessed with something,' Alyssa offers authoritatively."

"She is tiny, dark-haired, entirely sweet, and very pretty, with a Tinker Bell tattoo on her hip and a giant head. It’s not clear if she remembers that she’s technically a member of that group."

From a Buzzfeed article with the horrible headline — in an 80s-style font that scares me —"Sexts, Hugs, and Rock n' Roll." Subhed: "On The Road With The Teen Social-Media Sensations Of DigiTour." Sub-subhed: "This cross-country cash cow starring seven of America’s biggest Vine and YouTube stars may have all the trappings of a traditional rock tour — long bus rides, concert hall stages in front of screaming fans, staying up late — but it’s the clearest sign yet that the entertainment industry’s star-making apparatus is being turned upside down."

Do you notice what's extraordinary...

... about this, from 1968?



I was just poking around in the Christmas Eve 1976 edition of The New York Times, looking for something else, and I ran across:



And this pair of ads on the facing page caught my eye:



Two competing images of sexiness from late 1976. Who knew then that the Rocky image would be the much more enduring one. The man, alone with his armpits. Not the man and the woman, with hands thoroughly entangled in curly hair. Rocky even has the more enduring font. And they tried so hard with all those futuristic serifs stabbing their way through the adjoining letters in "A Star Is Born."

Anyway, after finding what I'd actually been looking for — news of the concerts Lou Reed played in NYC in the 70s — I went in search of The Wind in the Willows. I hope you enjoyed that hippie, trippy sojourn into the land of the gentle people, that canyon of if-not-your-then-my mind that was the 1960s, before the mean old 70s came along and made everything so harsh and cruel.

Revolution Gothic.

Obama's new font.

"If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."

"And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later."

Link.

ADDED: Speaking of college drop-ins, do you remember the 60s sitcom "Hank"?



"Why Daddy's the toughest registrar this school's ever had!"

Conserve printer toner: Make Century Gothic your font.

Because the lines are thinner, and no ink is wasted on serifs.

On line, it doesn't matter. No one cares if your electrons are black or white.

In the office, how about just not printing stuff out at all? I've been using my iPad in class instead of printing out my class notes. In dollars, how many toner cartridges equals one iPad, hmmm?

Maybe companies/universities should be providing us printer-users with iPads. More likely they'll start dictating what font we should use. It will be like forcing compact fluorescent light bulbs on us. You might say: I'll turn off the lights whenever I leave a room, and I'll use a dimmer and keep my lights low. But the answer is: No, we don't care about other things you do to save electricity; we want you saving electricity the official way, the way that makes you feel bad, fluorescent bulbs.

The same with fonts. Maybe the university will dictate the use of Century Gothic on any document that is to be printed. I might say: But I will take the time to eliminate all verbosity in my documents, making them as short as possible, and I will print out only a small fraction of the things I write and read. But the answer will be: No, we don't care about the other things you do to save toner; we want you saving toner the official way, the way that makes you feel bad, Century Gothic font.

"Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, 'We don't serve your type.'"

Hating the font.