prologue
Last year around this time I wrote to him and asked if he would do it. Ballsy, perhaps; but I thought gee he’s going to be in town anyway and gosh why keep him all to ourselves and boy it’s been several years since he did their font but they’re still using it every month in every calendar and well, wouldn’t it just be nice?
He wrote back within an hour: “Certainly.”
That was too good, too soon; for I hadn’t even called the venue yet to see if the auditorium was open that night. I dialed, and fortunately, it was. I got lucky – a second time.
Over the next several months, he and I exchanged sporadic emails. I asked:
- What will you be speaking about?
- Who will go first?
- Slide projector or an LCD?
- Is there anything special that you require?
This last one met with an immediate, one-word reply: No. I smiled, and called a university colleague to relate the irony. Several years previously, she and I had helped to arrange a visit by a prominent neurologist-writer who insisted on:
- a $15,000 honorarium
- an auditorium temperature of precisely 67.5° F
- an assortment of freshly-cut carrots and celery stalks
- communication only via his personal assistant
The prominent type designer required only a slide projector.
Months passed laconically; then, time superscripted exponents of increasing magnitude. Suddenly, we were at a week and counting. At a family gathering in Michigan, I found myself desperately in need of catharsis. I told my brother-in-law, “I’m introducing him. Just a couple of minutes, mind you, but 350 people and all. I’m pretty nervous about this.” He told me that, earlier in the year, he had given the keynote address to 10,000 people at a physics conference in Japan. That comforted me, sort of.
Yes, I faced the wonderful, horrible prospect of introducing him. I had asked him, after all; who better to do it, they said. You’ll do fine, they said. Not a big deal – up and say a few words, they said.
I was completely, utterly, terrified.
And yet, I was not at all surprised at the assignment. In fact, I had, for many months, thought it might just come down to this. Washing dishes, waiting at intersections, watering the lawn, I would try out short phrases like, “Type is everywhere: in our telephone books, in our newspapers...” and “He is an artist and a craftsman, and like his father before him, an historian...” So it’s not like I was unprepared or anything.
Though the event occurred just two months ago, my memories of the days beforehand are merely stroboscopic snapshots of pre-conference busy-ness and bliss, set against a subsonic score of general malaise. Could someone else do it? I really don’t deserve it. Who am I, anyway? Some Midwestern provocateur-wannabe with a penchant for FontFonts and alliteration, that’s all. But to no avail; destiny wanted my ass, and that’s all there was to it.
I remember peeing many times that day. Hand out a few badges and programs. Pee. Welcome to Minneapolis. Pee some more. Why do we pee so much when we’re nervous? Surely not just to mark some porcelain urinal on the third floor of a hotel men’s room. C’mon evolution – catch up already.
Anyway, sometime late in the afternoon, but well after having established firm rapport with my favorite trough (second from left, Kohler, pink soap cake slightly askew, loose handle), I exited the restroom for the nth (I’ll guess high teens) time to find him just on the other side of the door.
I had pre-assembled an internal pastiche from the various descriptions I had received. Tall, they said. A perfect English gentleman, replete with untarnished accent. Sixties, but youthful. And so he was just as I had imagined.
Pleasant pleasantries, and then, “But how do you plan to get to the venue tonight?” The reply: “Would you be kind enough to give me a ride?”
Surreal. See illusory, 976.9: dreamlike, unreal, phantasmagoric. 976.10: hallucinatory, mind-blowing.
Unbelievable. See complex, 799.4: convoluted, labyrinthine, fucked-up.
799.4 + 976.9 = some seriously fucked-up, mind-blowing shit. Not only was I introducing him, but I was driving him to the damn venue.
I thought briefly about returning to my favorite hideaway once more – this time, to vomit – but I feared that this might violate the sacrosanct, strictly urine-based bond, and so I held it all in. Besides, in a moment I would have to pull in front of the hotel lobby where he would be waiting.
The venue and the hotel are separated by 10 blocks, or 5 minutes. That’s a blinding rate of 120 blocks per hour; even so, as we blew past cafés and hotels, he’d say, “I remember that” and “I stayed there” and “Was that there before?” He had taken in much of the city, you see, when he was here eight years previous to work on the typeface, and he had not forgotten.
I dropped him off at the front door; it was six o’clock, and we had an hour to go. Better to be safe, right?
Inside, I caught up with him and said, in full-on, feigned nonchalance, “I’ll be doing your introduction tonight – is that okay?” Approval granted; last step before lift-off. But Houston, we have a problem: all my clocks are wrong; time is screwing with me once again. It seems the parabola has up and mutinied, inverting itself on me. Do you read? Over.
The engineers at command central all laughed at me. “Hey, you asked for it, sucker!” And then they went home.
T-minus five minutes. Standing-room only; I’ve just heard that there is a line 75 people deep out the door; they might not get in tonight.
Four. Three. Two. One.
Lights dim. Representative from the venue speaks briefly, and then I hear my name. It’s super slo-mo time, now, and I can feel John Madden tracing the path from my seat in the front row to the stage. He marks the podium with a large X and says to Al, “Do you hear that? Boom, boom, boom! Sounds like the kid’s got a giant subwoofer wired straight into his left ventricle!”
I took the two, rumpled sheets on which I had typed the introduction – every word of it – out of my pocket, and I laid them on the podium. I looked up and saw...nobody; I was suddenly alone, or so it seemed. The lights were all on me, leaving none for them. And so I didn’t need to imagine them naked, for it was as though they had all up and gone. A little less terrified, I began to speak.
It was an out-of-body experience, through and through. I was perched up somewhere in the rafters, looking down; sometimes at me, but mostly at those whom I worshipped and feared. Strangely, from up there, I could see everyone and everything so plainly, and I’m pretty sure I looked at them all.
I said his name, led the applause, and quickly got offstage. I exhaled slowly and deeply – a touch-your-toes, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon exhalation, if you know what I mean. The air left not just my lungs, but also my feet, legs, arms, shoulders and head.
When I looked up, I realized that he was already several slides into his presentation. I suddenly stopped selfishly obsessing about my two-minute predicament, and understood that now, and only just now, the thing had begun in earnest.
19-September 2003
dear you
It’s been too long – how are you? And how are things out west? I hope that all is well. Life is about the same for me. Nothing’s changed all that much – still staying up too late and waking up too early – still eating a bit too much and not exercising quite enough.
To say the truth, though, I have been a bit more upset than usual. Not quite myself – a little more tense and anxious. A little more insecure, maybe. Or uncertain. It’s just that – and please don’t be angry with me for what I’m about to say – it’s just that I don’t know where we stand anymore. We had a relationship once – a healthy, affirming, energizing relationship – one that may now be going nowhere. I feel that we’re at an impasse, and I don’t know if things will ever be – or can ever be – the same again.
I fear that you must take me for granted now. But it wasn’t always like this. I remember when you used to send me little surprises in the mail – your spring 1997 Type Guide, for example. And though your message was oddly redundant throughout – abcdEFGH&123 – I pored over it and never tired of reading it. To this day, I’ve kept it in a little red file that I’ve simply labeled, “Adobe.”
But a short time later – and inexplicably – you began to charge for your missives; and I paid, of course. I was in too deep at that point; I must have fallen under your spell, I guess. Besides, twenty-five dollars didn’t seem like all that much. But when I think about it now – that I had to give you money up front to afford myself the opportunity to spend even more on you – well, that’s when the tide began to turn. What’s worse is that, though your messages grew longer, and were printed on finer paper, they retained that eerie internal repetitiveness: “Letters have tone, timbre, character...,” you wrote. (I thought you were such a poet!) But it was only upon finding that these words weren’t even your own (you had apparently lifted them from some other guy named “Robert”) that I began to wonder if you had ever loved me – or if you were just using me.
Did you ever love me? Did you? I can think of times when you gave in remarkable ways and then took away (multiple masters). And I so clearly recall you “reinventing” yourself to serve me better – something about OpenType – and how you treated me afterwards. I remember your strange words: “No upgrades.” Why did you heap such cruelties on me? It was as though I had to get to know you all over again. And so I did; or at least I tried.
Don’t get me wrong – you really were – and are – the best. That sweet little a of yours (in your Garamond) is perfection. And your color, your body clearance – your many arms, legs, ears, and even tails – are all anatomical marvels. Do you remember how I’d set you down on the page and we’d just wonder at the multiple f ligatures we could achieve together? And how sometimes, we’d try it old-style, just to bring back fond memories? You gave really good product, but what I had to go through to get it!
I just wish that life could be as simple again... In the past, the only thing that stood between you and me was my Type on Call CD. But then you began to use some sort of Download Manager – an unwelcome, omnipresent chaperone – whose presence you required for each of our exchanges. And now you’ve gone and overhauled your Basics package in an attempt, I suppose, to hook me on what I’ve already paid for – but at a much lower price. I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been kicked in the ass a hundred times, only to hear you exclaim afterwards, “Oh, so sorry, love – I only meant to do that once.”
And so you continue to tease me, to laugh at me – as you perhaps always have. There are others out there, you realize, who don’t engage in these games, who freely send me their letters, who play it straight. Is it too late for you to change? Please try – for me – okay? We’ve had some really good times, and I don’t want to believe it’s all over – not just yet, anyway. Think about it.
Love,
Me
06-September 2003
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