Regrets, Only

A lot of adults know what the acronym RSVP means, even if they can’t exactly recreate the actual phrase the letters indicate (répondez s'il vous plaît). Sure, it’s a French phrase, and therefore unintelligible to the majority of Americans, but the acronym has been in use for an awfully long time, and certainly long enough for most folks to have encountered.

The nuances of etiquette have changed over the years with regard to the RSVP. It used to be that one was obligated to respond regardless of one’s ability to attend the event to which one was invited. More recently, people decided that it simply means “regrets only,” which obligates a person to inform the host / hostess only if one could NOT attend.

However, if one IS planning to show up, it still means respond, please. In fact, it means respond, via any of the multiple means of reaching me I have included, so that I will know how much food to prepare and how many places to set and how many gift bags to make, and how many bottles of wine I need to chill, please.

We still use the antiquated acronym in French to lend our social gatherings the idea, if not the actual application, of a kind of good behaviors and common decency, a sense of occasion and class. It suggests that one treat the invitation with the same kind of respect one would expect to be treated with at the event.

Today, it seems that RSVP means don’t respond at all. And that’s just plain rude. If you are a parent whose child receives a party invitation, it behooves you to let the hosts know if your child will be attending. Why? Because somewhere out there is a child who wants your child to share an important celebration with him or her. That child hopes your child can attend. It’s not too much trouble to call on the phone you carry with you 24/7, send a text, or email.

There is an assumption that because today the internet has made exposure to vast amounts of knowledge so easily accessible, people are more knowledgeable. This is not true. In fact, the reverse has been made possible: because you can look anything up, people don’t bother. It is this attitude that allows folks to ignore the RSVP.

Don’t make the hosts regret inviting you in the first place. Répondez s'il vous plaît, already. 

Jungle Jim’s: An Oasis In Ohio

If you were born in America and have never really been anywhere else that’s all that different (Canada doesn’t count), then it might be hard to see the place through someone else’s eyes. Of course, this is true anywhere. Back when America was the sworn enemy of the USSR, a popular trope for the difference between the two cultures could be found in any number of anecdotes featuring the exposure of an Eastern European babushka fresh off the plane, to an American supermarket. Overwhelmed at the vast well-lit displays of fresh produce and especially meat (steaks), the lady would fall into a kind of stupefied shock at the mere possibility of such bounty — available to anyone, ordinary citizens, and not just party operatives on the black market.

Russian ladies admiring some meat

True or not, there’s a point to this story, and it’s not just to show off. Using food as the medium of awe demonstrates what was perceived to be a fundamental division between communism and the free market — the provision of basic foodstuffs. The message is that a free market allows for competition and therefore choice (hence the supermarket’s metropolis of aisles) where the consumer is king, as opposed to the State deciding who gets to eat what, like some kind of cafeteria gulag. Americans were fed the idea that ordinary Russian women spent most of their days in long lines in the snow shuffling towards a decrepit “store” full of empty shelves, walking away with whatever desperate item happened to be in stock that day for which a few rubles or a ration book token was paid. Dinner in the one-room apartment an extended family shared might have consisted of a single potato boiled in watery broth, say, washed down with gallons of virtually free vodka.

Russian supermarket full of food

Both sides are guilty of propaganda, naturally, and always were. There exists a bifurcation in both cultures between rich and poor, the over-stuffed and the hungry. It’s as if Jim Bonaminio (he of the Jungle) founded the place in 1971 specifically to provide the perfect place to stun the entire Russian population in one fell swoop, though it didn’t start out that way — it grew into the monster it is a little bit here, a little there, which explains the labyrinthine layout.

But if you look closely at this stereotype you will see something else: the message that food is either too serious to be the stuff of fun or joy, or that because it is central to life, food IS fun and joyful. This is expressed in the very fabric of the store, and thus the consumer experience. The dank empty shelves of the Russian grocery advertise the folly of deprivation in the world’s breadbasket. The groaning shelves of the American supermarket advertise the folly of excess aimed at a very slim palate.

It's a giant singing soup can on a swing

The modern antithesis of this paradox can be found at Jungle Jim’s, the eponymous Cincinnati market which never fails to reduce me to a confusion of metaphors. It is the Versailles of supermarkets. It is also the Disneyland of supermarkets. If Elvis were a supermarket, he would be Jungle Jim’s (actually, Elvis can be found all over Jungle Jim’s, and you don’t even have to look very hard to see him). If Jungle Jim’s were a hairstyle, it would be the mullet in reverse: party on top; business below. I can’t help but want to see this place through the eyes of that anecdotal babushka every time I go there in order to soak up a sense of utter wonderment and awe.

Plums at Jungle Jim's

The first six feet or so from the ground up is for serious foodie shopping and is filled with produce and people. A general rule of thumb is that if it’s edible and comes from Planet Earth, they have it. Somewhere. And we’re not talking rubbish (although the Candy Shop area does have copious amounts of novelty items of questionable provenance and toxicity); we’re talking produce of the highest bountiful order. We’re talking baskets of peaches covered in white peach fluff in peach season that look like something out of an Old Master painting. We’re talking perfectly formed shallots the size of my whole hand. Neither of us has the time for me to list, even by accident, all of the kinds of foods sold there, but suffice it to say they stock 1,400 different cheeses. And they probably rounded that figure down, not up.

In case you need to go. Or even if you don't. 

But hovering right above your head is a whimsical world of profound juvenilia whose kitchness beggars belief. If you can pry your eyeballs off the avocados for a second and look up (right above the case of bamboo stalks, mangosteens and dragon fruit), you’ll realize you’re being serenaded by a display of giant stuffed animals from popular cereals (the Lucky Charms bunny, for example) playing musical instruments and actually opening and closing their gaping furry maws in time to the lyrics. Then again, if Jungle Jim could possibly squeeze a cliché to death in aid of the ambiance, he would, and does. Look up in the English section and you will find yourself peering into the hollowed out tree of Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest, replete with much purloined treasure waiting to be trickled down to the poor. Don’t get me started about the bathrooms.

It's a really tall singing monkey Elvis.

I have come to think of the opposite faces of Jungle Jim’s as balancing each other; that in order to distract from the truly astonishing bounty at floor level, one has to occasionally look up and laugh, or else be reminded that heaven can’t possibly be found above our heads but at our feet. Well, if your idea of heaven is being able to buy a tub of pig’s brains, a ready-to-cook turducken, and a durian all in the same place, it is. If you’re the sort of foodie who salivates at the thought of an entire store dedicated to honey, say, or butter, or balsamic vinegars — then this is the place for you. An entire section is just gluten-free.

I have not mentioned the cigar store, the post-office, the wines and liquors (the largest collection in the entire United States), the cookwares, the cooking school, or any of the other things Jungle Jim’s has to offer, because like a souk, it’s best left with a little mystery, a few corners to turn down and get lost in. I have not mentioned the inexplicable fiberglass pool of exotic animals one walks through to exit the building. Or the award-winning bathrooms. Or the monorail. Don’t ask. All in all, the splendor runs to a whopping seven acres. Pushing a heavily-laden cart behind me on my most recent visit, I heard a guy tell his companion, “I see how people spend four hours in there.” My advice? Eat in advance. Don’t go hungry. Wear comfortable shoes. Grab a cart. Let at least half the things you fill it with be things you never heard of before.

Then come back. Bring some Ruskies with you.

Here’s Jim himself telling us all about it: JUNGLE JIM'S

Jungle Jim's Website

Gotham, Mon Amour

I don’t know about you, but everywhere I look nowadays I see Gotham. I mean everywhere. Then again, you might not be quite the front nerd I shamelessly am. People who can’t tell Gotham from Helvetica from Futura from (ick) Arial probably have no physical reaction to the name Hoefler & Frere-Jones, the foundry which produced and owns it. It gives people like me what J-Lo calls “goosies.”

You can, however, conjure Gotham up in your mind’s eye if you cast it back to 2008, where it made its cheeky mass-audience debut as the font of Obama’s presidential campaign, through which it suggested a no-nonsense straight-forward New-Yorkish kind of brash confidence. It won the race out of the gate as far as campaign graphics went — and probably had a hand in leveraging votes subconsciously too. Yeah — I’m one of those people who credit typefaces with delivering as much of the message as the words themselves.

Taking its inspiration from New York public building signage and its name from the city too, suggesting a place ruled by a cast of characters — cartoon ones, rather than letter ones. Batman lives in Gotham City, a nickname for New York that long preceded him.

Gotham also draws attention to its most charmingly distinctive feature: the uppercase G. It is a thing of beauty and balance, resting on the baseline snugly yet comfortably on the apex of its bowl. The impression it gives is that it descends every so slightly beyond the baseline, as if it pulled down by its own weight, and appears ready to rock gently back and forth if pushed. The body — the bit that pokes up and around that the C does not have — juts out a little, and is cut square, making a collection of 90 degree angles; the G is all business and city grid in the east and all curves and Pacific Coast Highway in the west. It takes us from the top on in New York, around to Los Angeles via the rust belt, then swings back down through the deep south until it buts up against the Carolinas, rising north to once again point west, right on through the Mason-Dixon line. The Gotham G is as American as apple pie.

The J, too, is lovely to behold, the end of its tail lowered slightly so that meets the 45-degree angle squarely, as if one launch a snowboard off the tip without coming a-cropper. The S is a neat spool of spaghetti on a plate, waiting to be swirled around a fork, and shows off the typeface’s even weight. Subtlety is what font nerds live for, and Gotham has it in all the right places. The lower bowl of the S overshoots the plane of the top one just a fraction, something that is almost invisible to the eye yet allows it to sit on the baseline without tipping over. The same is true of the medial bars in the capital E and F, which at first glance look to be equal to their counterparts above, yet are just a tad shorter. 

I love that Gotham was a commissioned typeface — GQ wanted something new and masculine — but am not so happy with the special face they have designed especially for Obama’s 2012 campaign, which has serifs — chunky, slabby ones. The serif seems to go against everything Gotham is about, making it cluttered and old-fashioned. The headline, “Can We Add Serifs To Gotham? — For The President Of The United States? Yes We Can” begs the retort, you shouldn’t always do a thing just because you can. One thing the Obama paraphernalia highlights, however, is just how well Gotham can be kerned; the logogram “BARACKOBAMA.COM” looks stunning in any weight. Perhaps he lucked out with that particular arrangement of letters.

What are the tell-tale signs you’ve spotted the brash new kid on the block? I always look for the uppercase M, whose inner stems reach a sharp point somewhat above the baseline (whereas the uppercase W is squared off all the way at the top), and the uppercase G, with its squared tongue. And I ask myself, would it look out of place in GQ? And then I ask myself, do I love it? And if the answer’s yes, I know I <3 NY. 

H&F-J'S WEBSITE

Sweet Home Mr. Tesla

Without Nikola Tesla we would not have had radio (or at least, not when we did). In 1957, the Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent # 645576, which formed the basis for patented radio technology. Without radio we would not have been able to enjoy "Sweet Home Alabama."

It would have been even more awesome had the above been set to AC/DC, though, wouldn't it? (Given that Tesla was instrumental in developing AC, while Edison, his hated rival, went for DC.)

Here's a little something about Tesla's final, obsessive compulsive years.
1942 - Nikola Tesla takes a walk around the block

Animal Crackers?

Is It The Animals Who Are Crackers — Or Us? 

We care about animals, right? We have pets and pay to go to zoos so that we can see some of the non-pet species frolic and get fish or bananas or hunks of meat thrown at them by a zookeeper at feeding time. We look at the lions and tigers and just know that they’d eat us if ever they were given the chance. We would think it absurd for the seals to be fed pink, cooked shrimp; we expect the chimps to enjoy their bananas — after all, that’s what they eat in the wild.

But if we love the animals so much, why don’t we give them treats like we give ourselves? Wouldn’t that gorilla like some chocolate? Or a beer and a cigarette after a stressful day being stared at by strangers? Don’t we worry that the leopards will get fat eating all that red meat? And wouldn’t the koalas prefer a little something besides eucalyptus leaves to munch on every once in a while — they must be so bored eating it every single day.

Yes, I know: ha ha ha. We don’t feed animals junk food because we know it’s not good for them and they don’t need it. So why do we eat it ourselves? And how come we think that humans are different in terms of the damage it will do? Just because we can digest a Big Mac doesn’t mean we ought to, and just because the Big Mac (by way of example) looks and smells and tastes like traditional foods — meat, bread, pickle — doesn’t mean it IS real food.

Because we live a long time, humans tend to turn a blind eye towards the incremental. The damage to our bodies that a modern diet does is hidden in plain sight. Instead of listening to our grandparents (and great-grandparents, if we could) for advice on what to eat, we listen to the government. Instead of cooking what Grandma made, we buy a version of it from a supermarket shelf. In so doing, we inadvertently consume what the government wants us to — a surplus of corn and soy and petroleum-derived additives — because it’s in the federal economic interest for us to do so. So what, you say? Corn and soy are natural, right? Well, not so much. And certainly not in the sheer volume in which we consume them.

First, you’re probably trying to remember the last time you ate an ear of corn (last summer?) or popped some edamame or tofu in your mouth (never?). This isn’t the kind of corn and soy I’m talking about. Chances are you eat a big whack of both every single day, though not in a form you’d recognize, and you won’t necessarily know it from reading ingredients labels either, because corn and soy-based items go by other names. Dextrose. Lecithin. High fructose corn syrup.

There’s nothing wrong with eating an ear or corn or some soy beans. It’s how they are changed by processing that is the problem. Even if your lunch doesn’t appear to contain one or the other — potato chips, say — they will have been fried in oils derived from corn or soy that are rich in the kind of fats that cause heart disease. A baked good will have been made with shortening consisting of soy fat to which hydrogen atoms have been added, transforming it into a solid — the same solids that clog your arteries. The estrogen in all that lecithin (an emulsifier, used to bind water and fat in most packaged goods, including almost all chocolate) encourages cancers which rely on a steady stream of estrogen to grow. Since estrogen is also produced in body fat, and all that junk food causes you to put on weight, it is a vicious cycle.

It doesn’t matter how much lo-cal or low-fat or high or low carb of protein stuff you eat, the damage will be done; foods bearing these labels are merely Trojan horses for the additives necessary to make them palatable after all the “dangerous” fat and carbs or protein is removed. The man-made fats we have been assured for many years are good for us are in fact the opposite; because they are not naturally occurring, our bodies don’t know how to handle them and treat them like any other invasion, resulting in inflammation. Inflamed tissues cannot process nutrients properly, resulting in the build-up of goo that ought to move on through and be excreted. High cholesterol occurs because the cholesterol is trapped in us rather than passing out — and the reason it sticks around in the first place is that inflamed arteries attract it like glue. Sadly, the very remedy pushed by the government and thus expressed bountifully in the foods we eat — modified oils — actively exaggerate the inflammation in the first place. In addition, our pancreases are forced to work overtime to try to combat the high blood sugar caused by consuming all that sugar, all those carbs — resulting in both obesity (the excess turning into and being stored as fat) and a burned-up pancreas: diabetes.

The pharmaceutical companies prefer it this way too; they make a lot of money selling the drugs designed to combat the problems caused by high cholesterol and high blood sugar. Heart disease, the complications from diabetes, and cancer are today’s biggest killers, but they are all slow-growers. By the time you realize they’ve got you in their grasp it is often too late to reverse the damage they’ve caused, especially if you are unaware how it happened in the first place, and what you can do to fix it.

Why is there so much corn and soy in our food? Because science has made them highly profitable cash crops by increasing the bushel-per-acre ratio, and large tracts of land are controlled by single entities. Ideally, crop rotation using soy returns nitrogen to the soil that corn has taken out; the boon in soy output in recent decades is not because we all want more soy sauce on our fried rice; it’s because it allows the growth of corn. Finding ways to utilize all this soy has led to its inclusion in packaged foods to offset the cost. In other words, it’s being passed on to the consumer, who ultimately foots the bill with every Twinkie he or she buys. While wheat has also been genetically modified to produce bumper harvests for all that flour, it does not become high fructose syrup, which, because it is cheap to produce (all that subsidized corn) has replaced sugar in almost everything we buy except actual sugar (sugar is an expensive crop to grow and is therefore not cost-effective for use as a sweetener in processed foods).

The answer is simple, but difficult: you must change the way you eat. This means giving up those things to which you have become accustomed and don’t think you can live without. This means eating like your great-grandparents did. You have to learn to eat like an animal again. If you were in a zoo or someone’s pet, what would they be feeding you?

“Discontinued”

Today I went to my local supermarket chain in order to purchase, among other things, a nice slice of Wensleydale cheese. As someone with a soft spot for cheese, (especially the northern English and Welsh cheeses — Caerphilly, Cheshire, all of which are uniquely crumbly, creamy and slightly bitter), I am delighted that Pittsburgh’s eponymous chain, Giant Eagle has in recent years expanded its cheese counter to appear far more cosmopolitan that it had previously been.

It used to be that if you wanted cheese, your only option was a plastic-wrapped rectangle of orange cheddar or Monterey Jack, or faux cheese from the deli, pre-sliced from great slabs. Now, the cheese counter is an island unto itself with employees dressed to look something like a fromage specialist in aprons and little hats.

But when I asked if they had any Wensleydale, the chap pointed to a grotesque wheel of tired looking cheese covered in spots which turned out to my horror to be Wensleydale with chocolate chips embedded in it. No wonder none of it had been sold. When I said no, just plain Wensleydale, he took me over to a cabinet with cheeses impregnated with all manner of unlikely things — mango bits, lemon bits, something green of indeterminate origin — and Wensleydale stuffed with cranberries. Again I made my plea for cheese accompanied by nothing but itself. A supervisor came over, in her apron and hat, and when asked, assured me in no uncertain terms that they haven’t carried Wensleydale for at least three years, that it is not possible to get anymore because it had been “discontinued.” Knowing this to be patently untrue, I challenged her. “Surely not?” I said, wondering if she was aware that two enormous hunks of the stuff, albeit adulterated with foreign objects, sat in her very aisles as we spoke. “Yes,” she said, confidently, “it wasn’t around long and they stopped making it.”

The good people of Hawes, Yorkshire, beg to differ

Seeing nothing could be gained from prolonging this astounding conversation, I went on my way, sans cheese. I did not, for example, point out that Wensleydale has been made since the 14^th century, nor that it is Wallace’s (of Wallace and Grommit fame) favorite cheese. I did not point out that other Giant Eagle supermarkets carry Wensleydale cheese. I did not cause a scene. I will simply discontinue my patronage of their store.

Type Nerd Strikes Again

I write this while awaiting for Pinterest to send me an invite to join their newly popular social sharing site. I am joining principally to be able to get a Pinterest badge to add to my blogs so that I can drive more traffic to them.

But that isn’t the only reason.

I am also joining because I can no longer resist their beautiful retro-looking logotype. To me it suggests class, tradition, and good design — all things I want my blog to be associated with.

Pinterest has thoughtfully shared the story of its logotype with the public.

Even though it has been designed especially to echo other classic American types and has a distinct 50’s feel, it is highly modern. This is because the designers worked the company’s logo (which is used by itself on share buttons) into the typeface itself, aware that today’s online readers (everyone) require visual shortcuts. The capital P looks like thread looping through a pin, with which to stab at items of interest (the other part of the word) and stitch them together coherently.

I could argue that Pinterest owes much of its success to its forethought in this regard, with people like me falling for it based on looks alone.

By “people like me,” I mean folks for whom Simon Garfield’s lovely book Just My Type, an anecdotal history of typography and typefaces is a compelling and necessary read. My Sweetheart delights in pointing out what a nerd I am, and in this he’s right; nerds are people for whom the invisible workings behind everyday things are of more interest than the things themselves. I pay attention to fonts. I know how they are built. I cause him to sigh when I suddenly exclaim, interrupting conversation, that someone-or-other is using Gotham in their menu bar. I am aware that normal people neither notice nor care.

 When I was a girl in the 1970s, I was given a Letraset catalogue and a huge sheaf of Letraset pages by a graphic designer clearing out his office. Henceforth, I was obsessed, tracing just the right typeface from the spiral-bound catalogue for my art projects, re-scaling them if needed. The pages of type themselves were thick and silky, slightly tacky on their business side, though protected by a slip of tissue. The letters themselves (mostly Cooper Black) were utterly opaque, and I loved to watch them pop off their backing when burnished (and “burnished it had to be”) with just the right tool. I always found the edge of an antique teaspoon to be perfect for the task.

Although my own handwriting left much to be desired, I spent hours spelling out the word “anyway” in a fluid script, enjoying the sensuous dips of the Ys and repetitive curves of the As. I produced page after page of loops and lines with pen and ink in copperplate, though they were nowhere as beautiful as my grandfather’s hand, even though he had very little formal education a century ago. The biro truly made decent handwriting hard to do, its ubiquity contributing greatly to the demise of script even before we all took to keyboards.

By the time I got to art school — one which had a typography department — I was deeply committed to the art of lettering. When I teach typography now, I have my students write a short paragraph anonymously, and we shuffle the results to take a look. I have found that it is possible to determine the gender of the hand who produced the text with astonishing accuracy — the class determining very quickly who wrote what based on nothing but hurriedly scribbled lines. It proves to be a productive exercise, giving rise to discussions about the expectations and assumptions we carry unconsciously regarding text.

Pinterest just sent me the invite, so if you look to the right, you can see their lovely badge.