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Contra
With the download of the Contra font (used
for Michael Corkett's The Reunion in Issue Five) came the following
notes from the creator. Gosh.
These are very great
fonts by an international genius.
I have worked so hard on these masterpieces for the past thirty
years. I have moaned and groaned and banged my head against
walls. I have paced back and forth through every hotel lobby in
Rio, Havana, New York City, Berlin, Paris, Athens and Muskoka,
thinking about these fonts and crying, flipping the bird to
Father Time and Mother Gravity, and kicking every bucket I saw.
I have thought about these letters through many wars, traffic
jams, drinking bouts, cigarettes, weddings, funerals, acid
trips, museum visits, parties, intercourse, television shows,
radio broadcasts, magazines, children, prison terms, insurance
claims, sports, and anything that can be construed as an escape
from time.
These fonts combine the tidal power of Garamond with the
blood-chilling immediacy of Impact, which is all old stuff now,
I know. But I have also intertwined the spotlit insistence of
Futura, the strong determination of Stencil, the nonchalant love
of DIN, the entirety of German fraktur, and the proportional
oddities of all pre-Koch experiments. They are a marvelous new
kind of letters.
These fonts are so wide and deep that they remind me of the
biggest screen kiss I have ever seen. That kiss was so big I
don't even remember who the actors were. The lips are what
remain in my head now. Four lips trying to close the gap and
keep the heat inside. We spent the rest of the night trying to
match the power of that kiss, but we only managed to get our
lips achy and our minds tired.
These fonts certainly carry that sort of power. A new genre
should be named in honour of such beautiful alphabets. Right
brain, left brain, no matter. These fonts are an all-brain,
all-eyes, all-senses miracle.
As for type contests: these fonts should score an all-around
grand-slam in every category there ever was. Text, display,
everything!
And now I leave you to appreciate the absolute power these fonts
and their genius alchemist have given to you for the measly
amount of $999.99. Ha! Genius priced so cheap! Let the angels
laugh themselves blue and the demons boil themselves grey at
this sacrilege!
Such an incredibly cheap price reminds me of a joke Mr. Rumsfeld
told me once. Yes, THAT Rumsfeld, with the rubber stamp. The
joke is:
Bette Davis goes in the stall of a opera house bathroom during
intermission. She whistles while she evacuates. Not until the
evacuation is over does she realize that there is no toilet
paper in the stall. She hears noise in the adjacent stall, and
realizes that someone is in there.
"Would you pass the toilet paper please, dearie? This horrid
stall seems to have run out."
The voice from the other stall says: "I am so sorry! I just used
up whatever was in this stall!"
"Well then," Ms. Davis says, "do you have two tens for a
twenty?"
Yes, THAT Bette Davis, with the beautiful ears.
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