Thursday, September 5, 2013

Hæc Sola Virtvs

Setting type, February 2007

String some words together…

39 comments:

edutcher said...

Is moving movable type a moving experience?

deborah said...

I'm terribly moved by that post, Ed.

Mumpsimus said...

Nice photo, Palladian. (I'm a type geek and a dead languages geek.)

In eighth-grade shop class, we were taught to set type by hand, just like Ben Franklin and William Caxton. God knows why; even back then, the craft had been obsolete for a century. If you've ever done it, you won't need to be told where the expression "mind your p's and q's" comes from!

The Dude said...

Hey, ARM got deleted - nice work, whomever. Seeing his ugliness in print makes me think about how my writing must appear. I need to dial it back.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

There is a double standard here. I never normally comment on edutcher's posts, primarily because they are inane, yet every time I post he attacks what I say. I'm sick of the useless cunt, he sucks the life out of this blog. Yet, when I bring a brushback pitch the coward cries for help.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

By deleting my posts you are essentially infantilizing edutcher. He goes out of his way to piss off any left leaning poster, both on this site and previously at Althouse. Someone who does this so consistently and persistently knows what they are doing. Although this is more Titus's area, he almost certainly a very uptight masochist, as evidenced by his fawning acceptance of Althouse's disdain. You are essentially depriving him of the very thing he craves so desperately.

Every left leaning poster is sick of this asshole. He is the main reason why this site has declined in activity, everyone has better things to do in life than deal with this sociopath.

The reason he doesn't have a job is that he would be workplace poison.

chickelit said...

@Sixty: LOL at 1:45. The difference is that you're ornery and smart.

Unknown said...

I must miss a lot during the wee hours of the night, or maybe missed some ancient dustups, because I can never fathom the depths of hatred that a few commenters have for each other.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

C Stanley said...
I must miss a lot during the wee hours of the night, or maybe missed some ancient dustups, because I can never fathom the depths of hatred that a few commenters have for each other.


The issue here is not about personal dislike, it is about one sociopath who has gone out of his way to run off anyone he disagrees with through persistent asocial behavior.

His behavior is a major reason why no left leaning posters come to this site any more, essentially killing any chance of meaningful discussions. This site started of with much promise but edutcher, more than any other factor, has essentially killed it off. This pisses me off.

chickelit said...

I sense a fraktur in the movable type cast here today by some.

@Palladian: is that type cast from lead?
I found a factoid in my favorite chemistry text: Chemistry of the Elements, 1st Ed. Greenwood and Earnshaw; Pergamon Press: page 637: "The Gutenberg printing presses (1440 onwards) used type that had been cut from brass or cast from Pb, Sn, or Cu, but about 1450 a secret method of casting type from bismuth came into use and this particular use is still an important application of the element. The name derives from the German Wismut (possibly white metal or meadow mines) and this was latinized to bisemutum by the 16th-century German scientist G. Bauer about 1530.

Unknown said...

The issue here is not about personal dislike, it is about one sociopath who has gone out of his way to run off anyone he disagrees with through persistent asocial behavior.

is there a special lefty computer that doesn't permit scrolling?

Unknown said...

I hope that made you smile, not get pissed off.

I have felt "run off" from other sites so I can empathize with the feeling...I just honestly haven't seen the sociopathy you describe, from my perspective. I did see it from multiple commenters at TOP, both left on right and right on left.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

C Stanley said...
is there a special lefty computer that doesn't permit scrolling?


But special ed is begging for negative attention. The adult and the libertarian thing to do is to let him have it. I let him have it.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

C Stanley said...
I have felt "run off" from other sites so I can empathize with the feeling...I just honestly haven't seen the sociopathy you describe, from my perspective.


The thing with special ed is that he so obviously goes out of his way to piss people off. Althouse was right about him and I can see why she set out to run him off her site. He is poison. Nothing can really be salvaged now, so I am just venting. Let him have his own personal dystopia for a while.

Unknown said...

I haven't heard that anyone besides you feels there is a need of salvaging anything.

In light of this (assuming only for discussion's sake it is true):

begging for negative attention

This:

I let him have it.

and this:

she set out to run him off her site.

indicate either disingenuousness or foolishness.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

C Stanley said...
indicate either disingenuousness or foolishness.


You are going to have to expand on this Stanley. Maybe my foolishness is blocking comprehension but you didn't make an actual point.

Unknown said...

My point is that if you believe that someone is craving negative attention AND if you want that person to go away or desist in trolling, then it is illogical to give that person negative attention.

Thus, either you are disingenuous in your stated desire to get the person to stop, or you are a fool for choosing an approach that is destined by your own definition of the problem, to make the problem behavior persist.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

C Stanley said...
My point is that if you believe that someone is craving negative attention AND if you want that person to go away or desist in trolling, then it is illogical to give that person negative attention.


But, as Inga attested to in the other thread, I tried that approach for years. At some point you have to acknowledge reality, which in this case is that edutcher is an irredeemable sociopath.

Palladian said...

WTF is going on in here?

I start a nice "open thread" and suddenly it's a cavalcade of neurosis and discord.

Any further personal attacks on any other commenters in my threads will be deleted.

Unknown said...

Sorry for my part in that, Palladian.

I'll pivot to a personal question. Answer only if you care to,

I was wondering about your educational background. Are you formally trained in art, something else, or a number or thongs?

Unknown said...

LOL, things, not thongs.

Icepick said...

CStanley, don't correct a good typo!

chickelit said...

Hey, I'm wearing thongs right now -- on my feet.

Unknown said...

That's some kind of weird fetish, El Pollo.

Icepick said...

C Stanley, he's been exposed to too much thongium podiatreme.

chickelit said...

"toe floss"

JAL said...

Well, nice to see the thread back on topic. ;- )

Yeah Palladian -- give us a peak at your background. IIRC you have a nice handle on obscure chemistry re art mediums as well as cooking.

Palladian said...

@Palladian: is that type cast from lead?

Yes and no; the type in the photograph is old (c. 1920s) foundry type, which is type made specifically for hand composition. But all post-Gutenberg type is made from one or another variety of type metal, which is an alloy of lead, tin and antimony. Your book was correct that the really important development in the 1400s had more to do with the creation of an alloy that allowed moveable type to be practical. Pure lead type would not have worked, nor would any other single metal.

The proportions of Pb, Sn and Sb in type metal vary. Foundry type is harder than many other type metal compositions, and therefore holds up a lot better. But there is basically no new foundry type being made since ATF went down the drain. Most newly-cast type is made using Monotype machines which use a softer type metal, and therefore produce less desirable type for hand composition.

It used to be relatively easy to scoop up scads of new/old stock fonts of foundry type, but since hipsters got turned on to letterpress about 10 years ago, stocks have dwindled and prices have gone through the roof.

I own a few full fonts of one of my favorite typefaces, Bruce Rogers's "Centaur", which was originally developed for the use of the Metropolitan Museum, and I also own a few fonts of Caslon, complete with 18th century ligatures, as well as a few miscellaneous other things, but my days of being able to buy old foundry type are over.

Palladian said...

Here's an example of a page of type I set, in preparation for making components of an (unfinished) sculpture that includes a pile of fake printed books. The text is from the 1560 Geneva Bible, the typeface is an old double pica Garamond. The initial letter I crudely cut from a linoleum block to copy the initial letters in the Geneva Bible.

Palladian said...

I'll pivot to a personal question. Answer only if you care to,

I was wondering about your educational background. Are you formally trained in art, something else, or a number or thongs?


Well, I personally have an aversion to thongs, both the pedal interspace and the intergluteal cleft flossing kind.

My education was both informal and formal. I always knew I would be an artist. I could read when I was 4, and by age 15, when I left home, I had read almost every one of the hundreds of books and magazines moldering in my grandparent's basement, everything from 19th century physics texts, to poetry anthologies, to Roman histories, to the entire WWII run of Time Magazine, to 60s and 70s things left by uncles and aunts from their times in college, such as Alvin Toffler and Marshall McLuhan and Mad Magazine. I then started going to the library of the small women's college in my hometown and reading more selectively and systematically. I consider that reading my real education, or at least the foundation of it.

I studied, abortively, english and then medieval history, at several undergraduate institutions but I don't count that, as structured academics didn't interest me, and I never completed a degree. I took a few years off and then ended up going to the School Of Visual Arts in NYC and getting a BFA degree there. I then went to Yale University for graduate school and received an MFA degree from the School of Art in '01.

So, I suppose you could say I have formal training in the visual arts, but again I consider my own private reading, study and work to be the most important aspect of my education.

I know a small-to-medium amount about a large number of subjects. If I had to list the subjects I'm expert in, I'd say the visual arts, especially painting, drawing, sculpture, and filmmaking/photography. Also cooking, perfumery, "building" or making things.

I'm absolutely inexpert, and thoroughly uninterested, in any sort of sport and in "normal" social interactions.

The thing I am deeply interested in, but have no talent for, is music. That probably pains me the most of all my deficiencies, except perhaps for my inability to capitalize on my talents, and my general inability to successfully navigate adult life.

chickelit said...

I went googling for more info on the use of bismuth in print type and found a mention of how it improved the casting of lead.

Wiki had nothing. I did find this groovy photo of bismuth crystals which reminded me of type font: link

Mumpsimus said...

Caslon is a lovely font, Palladian. I have a print of that specimen sheet at your link, from the Colonial Williamsburg printshop.

Nice job on the ornamental capital.

The type fonts must be a real joy to deal with when you move.

Palladian said...

The type fonts must be a real joy to deal with when you move.

Ha, I was evicted from my place in February and I was forced to leave a bunch of stuff behind, but I did manage to rescue my type. It's not that bad to move, since I don't have a huge amount of it, and I didn't have it distributed in type cases.

The people whose moves I don't envy are people who own presses, especially Vandercooks.

Mumpsimus said...

I guess if you own a press, you surrender and hire professional movers.

(Don't ever volunteer to help a geologist move. They all have rock collections. At least, all the ones I know.)

Palladian said...

Wiki had nothing. I did find this groovy photo of bismuth crystals which reminded me of type font: link

Ooo, I love bismuth crystals!

JAL said...

but my days of being able to buy old foundry type are over

For now.

There is a future.

Palladian said...

For now.

There is a future.


You're right, I suppose, but it's very difficult to see through the fog.

JAL said...

EPR I did find this groovy photo of bismuth crystals which reminded me of type font: link

Now *that* is very cool. Not to mention beautiful.

There is so much to this universe of ours -- we have no idea.

(Shared it with a family member is a visual / tech / science guy.)

Thanks!.

chickelit said...

You're welcome, JAL!