Man, if ever there were a time I regretted not saving up the pun in the title of my “I Sought the Serif” post – this would be that time. The time I bought The Serif Fairy for the kids, that is. “The Serif Fairy has lost her wing, keeping her from performing magic. This book follows her through an airy, immaculately designed typographic landscape as she tries to recover her wing. Along the way, she makes friends and has adventures as she wanders through the Garamond Forest, visits Futura City and eventually ends her quest at Shelley Lake …”
It’s cute. Honestly, I was hoping it would be even cuter. But it’ll do. Plus it confirms Belle’s suspicions that I will indoctrinate the kids in my repetitive ways.
And I just finished Letter By Letter
The book is interesting, whether it will do all that for you or not.
I have one significant, non-typographic bargain to report. Amazon has a download of Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings
{ 19 comments }
Amazon has a download of Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings for only $19.95.
Had you never blogged another word, dayenu.
Someone named Pflughaupt becomes excessively interested in letters. Who could have guessed that?
“linguistics”?
I don’t think the new Rounder box set version is out of print. It has been reissued in a new, less flimsy box and costs $99. Has remastered sound and a book by John Szved, distinguished professor at Yale and Columbia and author of Jazz 101 and bios of Miles Davis and others. The 8 CD Rounder set also includes previously unreleased interviews by Alan Lomax of early jazz greats Johnny St. Cyr and the Bechet brothers, among others (I believe). Disc 8 is an audio/data CD with over 200 pages of written material, including a complete transcript of the Library of Congress interviews and other documents. Try ordering directly from Rounder (their service is not very speedy, but …). It’s a pretty full package for the price.
OK, the Rounder sounds like maybe a better deal.
Ben, why did you type the word ‘linguistics’? In quotes, no less.
Didn’t Jelly Roll learn his trade in the sans-serif whorehouses of Futura City?
“the sans-serif whorehouses of Futura City?”
Show us your descender!
Ben, why did you type the word ‘linguistics’? In quotes, no less.
He is questioning your tag.
Rounder has a pretty sweet-looking package (and a nice animation of it), though I suspect that that piano keyboard thingy would prevent it from being stored on LP shelves. It seems to be $128, though.
I have always understood the Serif Fairy’s role to be leaving quarters and dollars under the bedclothes of young letters when they lose their baby serifs.
A friend loaned me a disk of Jelly Roll Morton recently, with whom I was previously unfamiliar. It seems like great stuff.
Are there any contemporary artists who play ragtime or Dixieland-type jazz that sounds fresh and beautiful rather than boring and lazy? Or does jazz only go forward, never back?
“He is questioning your tag.”
Well, at least he didn’t ask to see my descender.
I think that the history of the alphabet counts as linguistics. Orthography recapitulates philology and all that.
Rounder has a pretty sweet-looking package
But he still can’t make as much money as his female co-stars!
Letter by Letter discusses chakras?
“Didn’t Jelly Roll learn his trade in the sans-serif whorehouses of Futura City?”
Actually it was in Tahoma.
Amazon claims they can get it to you by Wednesday for $99.00.
“Are there any contemporary artists who play ragtime or Dixieland-type jazz that sounds fresh and beautiful rather than boring and lazy?”
Modesto: Check out Dr. Michael White, a clarinetist in the traditional New Orleans style. “Dancing in the Sky” is a fine album, and I’ve heard good things about his new one, “Blue Crescent.”
Also Kermit Ruffins, a trumpeter in the Louis Armstrong mode, though he has yet to make an album that is consistently great. “Swing This!” is the one I’d recommend but even there he indulges himself with dumb novelties like a version of “This Little Light of Mine” sung by his six-year-old dsughter. Then again, Armstrong had a corny streak, too.
Thanks, xboy!
Yep, Michael White is fantastic. Here is a videotape of his band.
Jelly Roll’s words are transcribed here.
Matt, that is not as accurate a transcription as the Rounder one.
Comments on this entry are closed.