Through Lines 185

A wonderful interview with Geddy Lee on Q with Tom Power discussing his fantastic and deeply moving memoir My Effin’ Life. It had me weepy on the beach last week.

• Related to the above, 30 minutes of Neil Peart warming up on the drums. Not for everyone but an apt introduction to why he was “The Professor.”
• After a year of individual releases, Peter Gabriel's new album i/o is out and receiving well-deserved praise. It’s 70 solid minutes of highly thoughtful. rambunctious, and experimental music. He may be 73, but he’s far from being out of new ideas.
• I’m intrigued by iA Writer 7's approach to integrating AI. I haven’t used ChatGPT or similar tools to help with writing (ha! probably shows), but if I do experiment with that eventually, I’ll definitely be making use of these features to keep myself honest.
• Over the last couple years I finally dug into trying my hand at some reverse glass gilding but it’s always humbling to see the experts like Pat Minervini show the depth of technique and skill that goes into immaculate (and tedious) gilding work.
• It’s been a long time since I’ve used anything from 37Signals and I won't be going back now. I don’t wish any real ill on them, but also F*** DHH.
• What Will Happen When the Moon Leaves Earth’s Orbit? It’s gonna be a while before it’s a real problem, but 3.8 centimeters per year still is wild to think about.
• The Real AI Fight. A worthy read from Cory Doctorow about what went down with OpenAI and what it’s really all about.
• Speaking of… “These are not the demigods we’re looking for” and other realities about the billionaire club of tech robber barrons who have all lost the plot, or maybe never had one to begin with.
• Dave Growl plays a very extended version of Play. Wild.
• Routine, as Mark wisely notes, truly can be an anchor in rough seas. Routine helps identify those places where creative things can happen for me. Sometimes they’re even the cause of them.
• The End of Elon Musk. Yup, this. Bravo.
• Fontstand's Foundry Subscriptions is an intriguing idea.
• RIP Shane MacGowan.

Notable Type Releases

• Signal Type’s Reckham is a “mutant” Scotch Roman. It’s a little bit of everything mashed up together and yet somehow still feels cohesive — and definitely interesting.
• Built on the idea of an identical distance between and within every stem, Snyt from Dinamo is a highly rhythmic affair and also includes loads of alternates, circled numerals, and other niceties, including a mono style!
• Labor and Wait’s Esperanza deserves a hearty chef’s kiss, especially the stencil styles which immediately caught my attention. This one is definitely on the wishlist.
• DJR takes steps to extend Pomfret in Pomfret Sizes, his Arts + Crafts typeface giving it supermodel thin hairlines, bracketed serifs, new ligatures and a contemporary vibe.
• Scopin' Sans is a sans like no other in every way. Weird, weird, weird.
• Speaking of weird, here’s Tuplet, a monospace with caps in not one but two widths for all kinds of typographic hyjinx.