Artblogging: ABC &c.

Mr Mule’s Typographic Showroom and Emporium: All manner of type ephemera. The above image comes from this post.

AmassBlog: Books, letterheads, and other lettering pleasures. The label above is from this post.

HandPaintedType: A project to preserve the typographic practice of street painters around India by digitising painted alphabets. Above, letters by Painter Kafeel, now available as digital type.

A few more:

Typophile

Voor verbetering vatbaar: A Dutch book of suggestions on how to improve the typography of found printed matter, by Piet Schreuders.

Koch Memorial: Rudolf Koch typefaces at typOasis.

Letterpress in the UK

Louise Fili

Jessica Hische

Daniel Pelavin

Paul Shaw

Mahanagar

Mahanagar by Satyajit Ray, as a YouTube playlist here.

Indigestions of a summer night: Fish

Fish of the Mediterranean, its guts silted with debris, filth and poison.

Seven years ago, a large portion of the extended family made an expedition to a large old house on a mountainside in northwest Majorca. The first night there, our sixteen month old son began to burn up with scarlet fever. Family members ran from room to room, across upstairs wooden floors, up and down the wide staircase, across the polished stone floor of the grand hall below, with wet flannels, medicines, and expert medical knowledge.

Outside, loud frogs retching around the rockery poolside.

And the fish from earlier that evening, eaten on the terrace surrounded by passion flowers, hummingbirds, and beautiful mountains, (all very much like one of Martin Johnson Heade’s South American paintings,) that same fish began to stir inside me. The poison from its gut taking a hold of my gut now. Amid the wails of the lad and the worrying of his mother, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncle, cousins, through the pitching and rolling household I staggered, over wood, stone, tiles. Into the bathroom, wretched. A hideous sound. Again. And even when I was quite empty, again. My entire body convulsing. Quite an echo. The frogs were shamed.

Our son’s fever carried on through our stay. For days and nights we took turns by his bedside. As he slept, radiating. I stood on the dark balcony outside his room, under a clear sky of stars. A glow came from the terrace below, from where the lazy after dinner conversation was sounding loud and clear. Up here, apart, with my son, growing smaller with the fever, sleeping away the holiday, counting away the days.

Away from that narrow table.

_

And another holiday memory, of overheard night time conversation on a Mediterranean paradise isle: English voices, familiar anti-American noises, one of them comparing the death toll of September 11th with the death toll of Bhopal.

The relevance of such a comparison

left uncontested.

Indigestible.

A talk by David Kilcullen

Part of the Authors@Google series, this is an hour long, so too much to summarise, but to encourage you to listen here’s some of what he covers:

He gives a clear explanation of the main theme of his book, The Accidental Guerilla, on how the wrong war-fighting strategies make insurgencies worse. He talks about recent American and British mistakes in counter-insurgency, at one point paying particular attention to the British experience in Basra. He praises the Danish military in Afghanistan, which is nice to hear. He also talks of how aid projects need to be informed by counter-insurgency thinking in order to be effective. And he talks about Pakistan, and the insurgency there that scares him much more than Iraq or Afghanistan.

Now your essay topic for this week: what would a proper counter-insurgency approach to Gaza look like? Hint: containing the population together with the enemy, thus allowing the enemy to consolidate its control of the population, that is not it.

Via Abu Muqawama. Also at Abu Muqawama, Sleepwalking into Helmand, on recent British experience in Afghanistan.

Homage to the Everyday

In this spring song cycle I find myself double-tagged from Martin and Roland, which makes it an offer I can’t refuse.

Their game is this:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

Bearing in mind that my right now is a long now, and I plan that my spring should continue for decades to come, here are seven songs:

New England by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers. I’ve never been to New England, nor any other part of the Americas, but this makes me homesick for there, plus it makes me think of Ted.

I Chase The Devil aka Ironshirt as performed by Madness on The Dangermen Sessions. Original by Max Romeo. I could have picked Shame & Scandal from the same album. The other day I heard Peggy singing an approximation of that one while she was playing.

I’m Happy by the Ivor Cutler Trio, from Ludo. I also love Mary’s Drawer on the same album. We recently came across a children’s book by Ivor Cutler, Meal One, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury many years ago. I highly recommend it if you can find a copy.

The Train From Kansas City by The Shangri-Las. I first heard this song in a terrific noisy guitar version by The Shop Assistants.

Title Music from Merchant-Ivory’s film Bombay Talkie, included on the soundtrack to The Darjeeling Limited. I’ve long intended to write something about Wes Anderson’s film as a third installment in the stalled Narcissus at the Movies series of posts. One day, perhaps.

Rock ’n’ Roll Won’t Save You Now by my friend John Dog, to be found here, and in a different version on a rare CD he gave me.

Hyldest til Hverdagen by Dan Turèll, from Pas På Pengene. Spoken rather than sung, but I’ll hear no argument. My father has promised me a copy of the new documentary about Denmark’s late lamented Beat poet, crime novelist, and snappy dresser. Here’s my translation:

Homage to the Everyday (Hyldest til Hverdagen)

by Dan Turèll

I’m fond of the everyday

most of all I’m fond of the everyday

The slow awakening to the familiar view

that all the same is never quite so familiar

the family’s at once both intimate and after sleep’s distance unfamiliar faces

morning kisses

the smack of the post landing in the hall

the smell of coffee

the ritual wandering to the shop around the corner

after milk, cigarettes, newspapers -

I’m fond of the everyday even through all its irritations

the bus that clatters outside in the street

the telephone that incessantly disturbs the loveliest blankest standing-still nothing in my aquarium

the birds that chirp from their cage

the old neighbour who looks in

the kid who has to be fetched from nursery just as one is getting going

the constant shopping list in the jacket pocket

with its steady demand for meat, potatoes, coffee and crackers

the quick little one at the local

when we all meet with the shopping bags and wipe the sweat from our brows -

I’m fond of the everyday

the daily agenda

also the biological

the unavoidable procedures of bath and toilet

the obligatory shaver

the letters that must be written

the rent demand

balancing the chequebook

the washing up

the recognition of having run out of nappies or tape -

I’m fond of the everyday

not in contrast to festivity and colour, high times and hullaballoo

have that as well

with all of its leftover cinders

so much unsaid and approximated

floating and hanging in the air afterwards

like some species of psychic hangover

only everyday’s morning coffee can cure -

fine enough with parties! There’s all the room for euphoria! Let the thousand pearls bubble!

but what happiness it is afterwards to lay yourself down

in rest’s and everyday’s bed

with the familiar

all the same not quite so familiar

same view.

I’m fond of the everyday

I’m wild about it

stop the clock I’m so fond of the everyday

I’m so stinking fond of the everyday . . .

The above is based on the Danish CD booklet. Other published versions are less sparing with the punctuation.

Seven songs is not enough of course. Nothing there from The Temptations, nothing from Arthur Brown, or from The Jack Nitzsche Story, or from the London Is The Place For Me series, or from Raymond Scott, or Pop Duo Bauer, nor their friend Bud Benderbe, none of which stay quiet for long in this house.

Next time . . .

And then I’m supposed to tag seven other saps, I mean worthy and enthusiastic bloggers. How about Oscar Grillo, Unemployed Dad, Sietske in Beirut, Uncle Eddie, Paul Duane (is that blog dead and do you have another?), Steve Simpson, but only of course if the mood apprehends them, if they crave excitement, if they lack sense, if they actually want to.

(Update: Paul has posted a great list here.)

Wait, that was only six. Well if you’re not in the list consider yourself number seven. And if you have no blog feel free to use the comments facility here.

A last link, I particularly appreciated Poumista’s contribution to this game, which included interesting information and links on Leonard Cohen’s version of The Partisan amongst other songs.

At top, acrylic sketch, Hampstead Heath yesterday around noon.

Homage to the Everyday copyright © The Estate of Dan Turèll.

AFPAK

Via Terry Glavin, a 15 minute documentary on Swat Valley, Pakistan, from the New York Times, Class Dismissed in Swat Valley.

George Packer at The New Yorker, Wanted in Pakistan: Competent Counterinsurgency. Reacting to a report on American military advisers in Pakistan, he writes:

What’s worrying is the nature of the help American forces are giving: intelligence for Pakistani air strikes and commando operations aimed at killing or capturing Taliban and Qaeda leaders.

What’s wrong with this picture? Have a look at the Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual, written under the leadership of General Petraeus. What experts call the kill-capture model was exactly the wrong approach to take during the early years of the Iraq war. This kind of emphasis always ends up creating more new enemies than it can eliminate old ones. Only when the military changed its strategy to protecting the population did the war in Iraq take a turn for the better.

February 24th in the New York Times, Strikes Worsen Qaeda Threat, Pakistan Says. Related, February 9th at the SWJ, Crunch Time in Afghanistan-Pakistan by David Kilcullen, calling in part for a change in policy on air strikes in Pakistan. Also, Abu Muqawama Declares Jihad on Google Earth.

And another one from Abu Muqawama, A Question from the Readership. His questioning reader writes:

Why is it that for all the ‘we can’t win Afghanistan without Pakistan’ talk, it’s never vice versa? In the New York Times, you made an excellent case for considering what exactly victory means in Afghanistan. Right below you, Parag Khanna stressed that International Forces are only at best pushing the Taliban problem over the border, and that we must consider stabilizing Western Pakistan to stabilize Afghanistan. Put the two together, and the road to success, as it were, seems gloomy and difficult. But can the question be flipped? To stabilize Western Pakistan, do we need to stabilize Afghanistan? [...]

I remember in the dark days of 2006, leading up the announcement of the surge, the meme for Iraq became (and still is) that leaving could lead to regional war and ethnic conflict. That case never seems to be made with Afghanistan. Would leaving mean that the anti-Pakistan elements have more room to cooperate with drug traffickers, and more opportunity to take down what seems to be the most collapsible nuclear weapons state? I guess I’m wondering what your opinion would be on the effect on Pakistan if the mission does wind down in Afghanistan?

Still to read in the current issue of The New Yorker, The Back Channel, India and Pakistan’s Secret Kashmir Talks, by Steve Coll.

Earlier related post here.

Bags of money, up for grabs . . .

. . . and Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan. Also India, China, Russia, and, um, Iran? And hard, long, difficult, challenging, and hard.

Some words from two conversations about Afghanistan on the Charlie Rose Show. From last Monday February 16th, a discussion with Milt Bearden, Dexter Filkins, Craig Mullaney and Martha Raddatz (via this SWJ post on Craig Mullaney’s new book The Unforgiving Minute), and from last Friday February 20th, an interview with Richard Holbrooke.

Recently I posted on Afghanistan and tea drinking. Here’s a tea reference that’s more to the point, in words from General Petraeus earlier this month:

A nuanced appreciation of the local situation is essential. Leaders and troopers have to understand the tribal structures, the power brokers, the good guys and the bad guys, local cultures and history, and how systems are supposed to work and do work. This requires listening and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, and farmers and shopkeepers – and it also requires, of course, many cups of tea.

That quote was used to open a radio discussion on The Brian Lehrer Show with Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl, all about counter-insurgency and Afghanistan, broadcast on WNYC February 10th, again via the Small Wars Journal.

Also on that same SWJ post, a TV interview with Tom Ricks on The Daily Show. An excerpt from his new book The Gamble, about the surge strategy in Iraq, appeared in The Times on Saturday and attracted the notice of both Mick Hartley and Norman Geras. The headline was Emma Sky, British ‘tree-hugger’ in Iraq who learnt to love US military.

Out with the family on Wednesday, we chanced upon this exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society showing Victorian photographs and drawings of Afghanistan, with a few more recent images included as comparisons. The exhibition still has a few days to run. I would have liked to have spent longer, but Dan Dare beckoned us further down Exhibition Road.

One of the photos in the Royal Geographical Society exhibition turns up in a recent post at Ghosts of Alexander, ‘Afghanisation’, a rather unfortunate neologism.

Two links to close: returning to a favourite theme, from Roland, This is “Realism”? And good news on the Canadian home front via Terry, Jonathon Narvey: Cheer The Hell Up. Of course once you start linking to Terry and his friends it’s hard to stop, but enough is enough is too much.

Nothing to read here . . .

. . . try Harry’s Place instead, on one law for all (more on this from Flesh is Grass), on Mumbai through anti-imperialist eyes, (more on this from Martin in the Margins), and on Sean Penn.

Taxis are an interest of mine. Azarmehr is unimpressed by a recent BBC report on women cab drivers in Tehran, and Terry Glavin writes about some American women who see the Iranian police as a friendly taxi service for Westerners.

Stretching the net wider, Uncle Eddie considers what it takes to be a police sketch artist.

The most recent post from Golden Age Comic Book Stories is a selection of vintage magazine covers. Curiously no comics included, but it’s a diverse example of the riches to be found on this blog.

Typophile has a discussion on typefaces suitable for schoolbooks, which links to an earlier thread on type for kids. In both a number of contributors argue against a simplistic patronising approach. All of which reminds me of a post from Hairy Green Eyeball last month featuring a schoolbook worthy of René Magritte.

Taxis

The art above was created for the Raymond Scott CD Kodachrome, on the Basta label.

For the front of the CD box I did an acrylic painting, the back you can see below, but the taxi above was on the CD itself. I rendered the final version with a coarse dot screen, and what appears white above was left unprinted so that the silver of the CD showed through.

The taxi theme came of course from 'Confusion Among A Fleet of Taxicabs Upon Meeting With a Fare', the last track on the album.  Other taxi tunes I like are Tokyo Taxi Robot by Arling and Cameron, and Jeg Skulle Have Været Taxachauffør by Dan Turèll - lyrics below.

While I'm at it, can I name some favourite taxi films? Yes, I know the Scorsese/Schrader/DeNiro one is good, but for real taxi excitement see Satyajit Ray's Abhijan! But before the main feature, a cartoon.: Mickey Mouse in Traffic Troubles. Now, back to Dan Turell:

I should have been a taxi driver
by Dan Turèll
(my translation from Danish - kellie)

I should have been a taxi driver
- Ahh I should have been a taxi driver
suddenly I can see it -
that's what I should have been!

I would have been a great taxi driver
the taxi drivers' greatest hit
the cabdriver to end all cabdrivers -

I would have sat there at the steering wheel
been at home and at work at the same time
like a snail in its shell
or like the perfect publican -
I would sit beside the customer
divided by ashtray and creaking gearstick
and I would sit erect and calm like a well-practiced rat -

and I'd make the customers comfortable -
I would cheer them up with the latest from the weather forecast
(I'd have the radio going the whole day
and maybe even a thermos flask) -
I would give them advice and tips
about where they should go for what
and where they could find the same thing cheaper
and where they could find the same thing with music -
I would recommend a good restaurant a good dentist a good accountant a good cabaret
I would offer suggestions for their pools coupons
and reminisce about the runners up from 1948 or the Fiffer-Revues with the older customers
and the ones from the provinces I would indicate suitable hotels
I would help them all with their problems
I would have tried the same thing
from alcohol to divorce,
from stress to schizophrenia
and I would be sympathetic
and I would try not to know better -

buuut at the same time I would be a pure devil in the inner city traffic!
I would know exactly where and when
I could take the corner on two wheels
and where a more dignified facade was required
(because common sense changes the law from street corner to street corner) -
I would calculate the traffic underway
like in a game of chess
I would have my tactics in place
like a six day racer in the field
before every set of traffic lights
I would know all the short cuts and escape routes
I would treat the wheel like my own hand
I would mercilessly see through the other motorists bewildered manoeuvres
and at every moment know their position in the lane
and I wouldn't hesitate to criticise their driving
I would give it a loud and entertaining running commentary
while I myself chattily drove with nonchalant perfection
with one finger on the wheel
all through the city
in all kinds of weather
at all hours of the day and night
with all kinds of people of every age sex and type
rich people
poor people
happy people
crazy people
drunken people
drowning people
dying people
birthing people -

and I would smile to them all
and admit that it was too bad
that these were hard times
but that it would probably all work out
as long as we didn't lose our sense of humour -

And once in a while
maybe once a month
I would be gloomy and downcast
and black and forbidding and misanthropic and moonsick and suspicious
and look as though I expected everyone to want to mug me from behind
or at least do a runner from the fare -
that day I would shout and scream obscenities and swear at all the city's other cars
and that day I'd only laugh on the inside -

but the day after I'd once again
and for at least a month on
be the same good old ordinary popular driver
'Taxi-Turèll'
as they would call me -

I can hardly wait
when I'm big I want to be a taxi driver!
in my next life maybe I'll be a taxi driver - FINALLY!

'I should have been a taxi driver' copyright © estate of Dan Turèll