Typeface tribute: The other day, a NY Times story by David Dunlap profiled the typeface, Gotham, chosen for the cornerstone at the World Trade Center site. Fascinating article on the appropriateness of the font.
Quote:
“…its 26 words were set in a typeface steeped in local origin, developed four years ago at the Hoefler Type Foundry in the Cable Building, at Broadway and Houston Street, by Tobias Frere-Jones, a native New Yorker. The typeface, Gotham, deliberately evokes the blocky, no-nonsense, unselfconscious architectural lettering that dominated the streetscape from the 1930’s through the 1960’s in building names, neon signs, hand-lettered advertisements and lithographed posters. Its chief inspiration, in fact, were the letters spelling out PORT AUTHORITY BUS TERMINAL over the terminal’s Eighth Avenue doors. So the circle comes to a close, since the trade center site is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Later: Linguist Mark Liberman of Language Log examines stones and typefaces in a follow-up essay. He also notes a NYT reader’s complaint regarding a missing comma on the cornerstone.
Edwards not a tax dodger, but…: This weblog’s opinion of plaintiff attorneys is well known so it may come as a surprise that I will jump in to defend against the notion that the veep-nominee is a tax dodger. That’s what is implied in the reports today about his nearly $27 million income during the four years prior to entering the Senate. This AP article, for example, indicates that by creating an S Coporation, he was able to “shelter” himself from Medicare taxes. I am sure the records will show that Edwards paid Medicare taxes once, but that he only “sheltered” himself from paying Medicare taxes twice on the same income. However, a little math exercise will display why plantiff lawyers are considered, well, a bit over-compensated: If Edwards worked the equivalent of 60 billable hours a week for 52 weeks per year, his income works out to roughly $2,160 per hour. (If he billed 40 hours per week and took two-weeks of vacation, the rate was $3,375 per hour.) But, again, I’m sure he paid Medicare taxes at least once on that $2,160 per hour.
Slobbering in the Hamptons: According to this piece in the Sunday NY Times, those who vacation in the upscale Hamptons spend most of their vacation reading free magazines.
Quote:
The print-and-ink love fest of Hamptonian self-celebration, once confined to a mere handful of party pages in one or two magazines, has exploded into a frenzied orgy. Thanks in part to the purveyors of ultraluxury goods and real-estate brokers eager to reach wealthy readers, and in part to the human capacity to stare goggle-eyed at page after page of tanned partygoers clutching mojitos and arm candy, an astonishing number of publications are now slavishly, even slobberingly, devoted to the resort towns of eastern Long Island. This summer alone, there are six new magazines competing for the local eyeballs: Hampton Sports, Hampton Jitney, Hampton Family Life, Social Life, fourninetyfive and East Hampton Life. These join a field of free magazines that include Dan’s Papers, Hamptons, Hampton Style, Hamptons Cottages and Gardens, The Improper Hamptonian, Inhale/Exhale and The Hampton Sheet, as well as established newspapers like The East Hampton Star, The East Hampton Independent, The Southampton Press and The Sag Harbor Express.
Sad news: Forbes Russia editor Paul Klebnikov, 41, was murdered last night in Moscow, according to a statement from Steve Forbes.
