Comic Sans Irony

The British would have laughed us back to England.

Comic Sans sucks.

Googling “Comic Sans sucks” returns 193,000 results, so there’s proof. There are loads of objections: it’s ugly, it’s poorly kerned, it’s overused, it’s ugly, it’s juvenile, it’s unprofessional, it doesn’t scale well. All legitimate complaints; all legitimate reasons to dismiss anything written in Comic Sans out of hand.

I hate Comic Sans too*. When, recently, I went to a fairly expensive restaurant and saw Comic Sans on their menu, I laughed loudly enough that I had to be shushed by the maitre’d. So this isn’t some sort of devil’s advocate, “Comic Sans is underrated” thing.

But I haven’t always thought Comic Sans was bad, so maybe there’s a part of me that wants to defend it, just a little. When my parents bought their first Windows PC in the halcyon days of 1995, I had never heard of Comic Sans. To a 13-year-old kid coming from DOS, the idea that I could open up MS Paint, draw few circles and a couple word balloons and bust out the Comic Sans was intoxicating and I, like many from my generation, was intoxicated. There was even a program, Microsoft Comic Chat, where you could type your words and the conversation would take place in a series of panels. It was like we were a/s/l-ing** in a graphic novel! Point is, it was awesome. Comic Sans was designed for use by kids, so it makes sense that I, an unjaded kid, would like it.

Anyone older than me probably never saw the appeal of a font that looked like a poor man’s Artie Simek, and I suspect children now pop out of the womb cooing for Comic Sans’ demise. Maybe there are others out there with nostalgia for this crappy little font, although, in my experience, it’s now mostly used to make things like an internal memo on toilet paper usage look “fun”.

There’s now a movement to remove Comic Sans from Windows’ standard font library. If that happens, maybe it’ll develop a cult following, and this post will someday be seen as an early text in the salvation of Comic Sans. But, if not, we’ll always have Papyrus.

* You’ll note that this post isn’t written in it; I’m not a sadist.

** Age/Sex/Location, and if you didn’t already know that, I’m surprised you’ve made it this far.

Out of This World

First Among Equals

Two days ago, my little girl had her first birthday. I know she’s still a baby. She can’t walk very well, she only says a few words–one of which is “R”–and she hasn’t really done anything important yet.

She doesn’t have a real moral compass, so she hasn’t had the opportunity to stand up for what’s right. She can’t tell Liz and I how much she loves us because she doesn’t really understand love that way yet. She isn’t even big enough to walk the chihuahua.

So how can I be so proud of someone who hasn’t done anything yet?

Well, sometimes she throws her head back and laughs, and I can see her tooth that’s just peeking through. When I wiggle my finger in her armpit, she reacts as if I’d just given her a kitten. When she sees our actual cat she tries to smack it, because she doesn’t totally “get” petting. She cries when I walk out of the room because she isn’t sure if I’ll be back. She snuggles into my neck when I’m holding her and she’s sleepy. Sometimes, she’ll stop playing and scowl at her toys. And sometimes, like now, she lays in her bed sleeping, and I look at her on the baby monitor, and I melt, just a little bit.

So how could I not be proud?

I Always Cry at Scary Movies

Last night, I watched Ghost, the Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore movie, with my wife. If you haven’t seen it, it’s mostly about pottery and Patrick’s soulful eyes, with just a daub of romance and the supernatural mixed in for good measure.

It was my first viewing, to my wife’s surprise, and I think its familiarity has blinded people to what a strange movie it is. Here is a romance, a story of love from beyond the grave, that has at least 3 gruesome deaths and ends with the protagonist literally walking into the light. Swayze also spends a decent portion of the movie acting like Rocky, if Rocky’s hands were incorporeal and he was murdered before the big fight.

Ghost, in spite of its title, isn’t a scary movie, although it has a couple creepy bits, what with the evil characters being pulled into Hell, but it got me thinking about the relationship between horror films and what I’d like to tactfully call “tear-jerkers”.

I enjoyed Ghost, but it’s undeniably designed to make you cry. In fact, at its Mexican premier, boxes of tissue were passed out to women in the audience. It has a nice story, some funny bits, Patrick Swayze’s abs, but mostly–mostly–it’s supposed to make you bawl like there’s no tomorrow. And it’s pretty effective in spite of its undeniable 80-ness.

Horror films, on the other hand, may sometimes have romantic subplots–though they’re usually there to add a minimal amount of pathos when said love interest is pulled into 4 pieces or whatever–but, although their body count is usually a little higher than Ghost‘s, they aren’t trying to make you cry–they want to make you scream.

So maybe what I’m getting at is painfully obvious to everyone. Maybe I, like Demi Moore, am the last person to realize the truth. But regardless, I can’t help but conclude that horror films and tearjerkers are basically aiming for the exact same thing. They want to cause a deep, visceral reaction, and not one that’s normally considered desirable. They also tend to go at this in a similar manner–by exploiting the fears of their audience. If we weren’t afraid of death, or at least losing someone we cared about, neither genre would be effective. But we are, all of us, and so, when we leave the latest Nicholas Sparks sobfest, we sell it to our friends with “Man, I sobbed like a colicky infant”. And if our friend responds, “Paranormal Activity 17 kept me up all night last night”, well, maybe instead of recoiling, we should move in for the hug. We’re all in this together, after all.

Why You Should Read Jane Austen (and Everyone Else)

I have a confession to make: I am sexist.

Not that I’ve been paying my female employees less or expecting my wife to wash my feet every night, but… actually, let’s put it another way: I’m sexist when it comes to art.

I began having this realization two years ago, when I finally got around to reading Jane Austen. In my mind, her novels were about women chasing after men or vice versa, storylines whose protagonists could be replaced with Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl without compromising their integrity. Imagine my surprise, upon reading them, to find novels that were as sparkling, clever, and poignant as any other classic I’d read. I felt pretty good about myself.

Fast forward to now. I’ve read over 300 books since 2007, and, by my count, less than 25 were novels by women. Of those 25, approximately half were Young Adult books and 2 were Harry Potter. The fullness of my prejudice hadn’t even occurred to me until earlier this year, when I was asked to review a biography of Sylvia Plath. Not having read anything of hers, I sat down with The Bell Jar, expecting an emo-tastic slog, and was amazed–amazed–when I loved it. Where had my bias come from? The blurb on the back said it was like a female Catcher in the Rye, a widely misunderstood book that I love, and that turned out to be a fair description.

And why do I feel this way? I can think of one main reason: I always assume I won’t be able to relate as well, because, well, I’m a man. That’s silly, of course–I can’t relate with Hemingway’s protagonists either, but I can understand their feelings and motivations. Leopold Bloom and I don’t have much in common either, but I don’t mind journeying through Dublin with him.

The worst thing about this assumption, though, is that it drives a stake through the heart of one of literature’s primary benefits, the chance to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, to see life through their eyes, to understand the weight of the things that oppress them, things that would seem silly to us without that empathy. In this way–maybe primarily in this way–literature can help make us better people; but how can it change us if we never stretch outside our comfort zone?

So I’m trying to stretch.

To Every Thing There Is a Season

And now, for something completely different:

Seems like every star’s the brightest star the world has ever seen,
Till they drink too much or just lose touch and piss away the dream.
And every year is gonna be the best year I have ever had,
And then it’s December and I can’t remember how a good thing went so bad.

And there’s always someone in the bathroom stall
Spraying their dreams on the bathroom wall,
Remembering when they stood so tall,
Oh, the unmitigated gall,
Of a being who thinks that they’re so clever
Like a migraine or a toothache never
Caused a sister with scissors to sever
The thread that could have run forever.

It’s appointed to a man once to die,
And appointed to his lover once to cry,
And appointed to his mother to voice regrets,
And appointed to his enemies to finally forget,
And appointed to the preacher to say he led a good life,
And appointed to the brother to take care of his wife,
There’s a time to dance and a time to die,
And it’s appointed to ones left behind to sigh.
I am just a jester so I won’t ask why,
But I’ll die when I decide to die,
And my funeral pyre will burn so brightly,
The crowds will congregate there nightly,
To exchange cliches about how they miss me,
And the girls can say how they wish they’d kissed me,
Until they don’t remember the original kindling,
My favorite books and the songs I’d sing,
Mourning always turns to laughter eventually,
Love, oh love, remember me.

Some Days Are Like That

Not actual dog

Time: Yesterday, 11:00am to 10pm

Place: Home, outdoors, vetmobile

Events were as follows: All but baby woke up v. late, after staying up most of the night watching The Godfather[1]. Baby chose to wake up earlier than husband, wife, dog, cat, etc.

Baby peed in several places, mostly outside of diaper. Dog peed on floor. Cat peed in box. Wife did not pee. Husband considered peeing in solidarity, but opted not to.

Day started well enough, with discussion of compost bin creation. Discussion ended when husband made light of serious topic, refused to acknowledge insensitivity, setting off situation that had been brewing for most of the morning. Strong words resulted. [2]

1.5 hours of silent frustration later, husband began to gather animals for routine vaccinations [3]. Dog, while running from husband, ripped paw off, resulting in massive hemorrhaging and minor panic on behalf of husband. Wife, in classic “competent TV wife” mode [4], called vet, suggested taking bleeding dog to routine vaccination. Husband agreed, acquiesced [5]. Wife drove while baby screamed in seat and husband clutched trembling dog [6]. Husband forgot it was December, stood in line for 30 minutes in v. cold weather in what was essentially a blood-covered undershirt. Vet saved day with nail clippers, compassion.

Husband returned home, put dog in crate after following vet’s orders [7]. Learned shortly that towel selected to make crate homier for dog, which in the course of events ended up covered in dog nail blood, was actually one of only two expensive towels owned by household.

Rest of day continued thusly. Today was better. [8]

[1] Worth it.

[2] Note to worried readers: hugs and kisses were exchanged, but not immediately.

[3] Croup, bowel cancer, tinnitus

[4] See: every fat husband/skinny wife sitcom

[5] In case it is unclear, the initial argument was yet unresolved.

[6] Chihuahua

[7] Put flour on damaged nail, contain dog.

[8] Thank God.

Blogroll Inductee – Brent Waggoner

Reblogged from A Clown On Fire:

The Great XMAS Blogroll Induction Extravaganza – Day 5.

This is a very special XMAX blogroll induction. Not that past inductees weren't special, but this one is extra, extra special... If I wasn't the eloquent Le Clown, I would say something like this is a special, special XMAS blogroll induction. Today, I'm introducing you to BRENT Waggoner, a friend of mine from the…

Read more… 502 more words

In which L'Eric kindly gives me props.

Blog in the Time of Cholera

The international bestseller

Entering the bedroom, I knew something was wrong: there was a naked baby peeing on the bed, a put-upon wife sobbing on the sheets.  I extended my hand; she took it willingly, looked at me with blazing eyes.

“She is blazing.” I touched our child’s head. It was true. The forehead was hotter than my wife’s eyes. I reflected on earlier times, better days when I could sleep. I also recalled the times during which my wife would slumber. I remembered the nights, those glorious nights, when it was peaceful, when our little offspring, snug in her bed, would pass the night without expelling a single slug-like loogie. The poor dear—I looked at her now, her brow fevered, her baby voice husky, and she spoke to me:

“I will never sleep again.”

And we believed. God help us, we believed.

That’s why I haven’t been blogging. Happy holidays, everyone. Higher quality content coming soonish.

Keeping It Real

I think today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.” – David Foster Wallace

When I was 16, I started my first blog. It no longer exists, thank God, but it was, as all things were at 16, about me. It was about the times I was sad, when I was jilted, when I was angry. Sometimes it was about things I loved, but not that often. When I was 17, I decided that being personal wasn’t the way to go. I started a new blog and resolved not to post anything too intimate. It was no one’s business how I felt, what I loved, whatever. Plus, I had an image to maintain. It wasn’t a particularly cool image, but it was carefully curated, glazed in protective irony and topped off with a healthy dollop of snobbery toward anyone who disagreed with me on anything–music, movies, snack cakes, etc.

Fast-forward 12 years, and a part of me is still that self-protecting 17-year-old. I’m not cool–never will be, really, and at least I realize that now–but my natural reaction is still, when someone gets too close, to deflect. To go on the offensive when something I care about is dismissed. At the same time, there’s still a tendency to distance myself from things I like if they contradict the image I want to present. I can’t just like Taylor Swift; I have to “like” Taylor Swift. I can’t just rock out to We’re Not Gonna Take it; I have to “rock out” to We’re Not Gonna Take It. And so it goes.

Juvenile? Yeah. Silly? Of course. But this is how it is: we’re told to love what it’s ok to love, and “love” everything else. Even with the things we really do care about, we must be wary of caring for them too much; we must keep them at arm’s length, at least in public. Keeping it real has been replaced with keeping it “real”.