want to see.

Michael Reynolds, Garbage Warrior

renegade architecture and sustainable communities

created from trash

helvetica

...or the geekiest movie you'd never thought you wanted to see. [but you should - and won't be disappointed]

...of course, [geeky?] i thoroughly enjoyed it.

this documentary celebrates the 50th year of the face font of post WWII, post-modernism by interviewing nominal figures of design - Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter**, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler - and others.

this homage to graphic art and print draws the uninitiated into a world to which none of us are immune, but probably few of us are attuned...we wander the aisles of grocer's adverts...interstates...and public buildings daily without even considering - perhaps - the vehicle of information dissemination...or contemplating the impact of visual culture.

i liked especially the venture through thought considering the universal appeal - or hatred - of helvetica - a very uniform [read: comforting/predictable] spacing of characters - is championed by the luminary designers of the sixties. an incredible contrast between print prior to its advent and afterward is what is most remarkable...remember vintage kitchy clip art adverts of the fifties? it is argued that helvetica brought about the practice of 're-branding' organizations for broader commercial appeal.

later in the film it's posited that that association is what lead to a backlash and departure from its use ... having been adopted as the face of corporations and government institutions - a wholly unsavory connection in the era of the Vietnam War - made way for the advent of 'grunge' design throughout the seventies and eighties [an interesting parallel artistically...think...sonically, that era brought us punk and that whole anarchist aesthetic]. and, sure enough, the film considers that the departure from helvetica certainly seemed to the old school of design at the time that "the barbarians were storming the gate."

the film traces its reputation full circle to today's designers incorporating and championing the classic helvetica again. in all, the film is an interesting foray into something that has become utterly ubiquitous - a younger designer even traced his fondness for the font to a recognition that it literally was the face of culture from his youth - illustrating the wider truth that something so seemingly static as a printed word has broader associations considering marketing, psychology, anthropology and perhaps, to some extent, our understanding of global, urban identity. as another designer referred to it: "helvetica is the perfume of the city."

an awareness, i think, that will linger with me for some time.

**nerdy cool: Matthew Cooper developed the Verdana typeface [the official font for all of our library's documents] for Microsoft in the late nineties.

in your hand. the birth of a new day...or a childhood myth revisited.

sometimes we happen upon the fortune
of waking from
the deadened sleep of adulthood
and
tripping through some portal,we stumble without veiled vision
into the realm of childhood,able once again to
see things with the same magick
that came so easily before
we became numb from hungering only for
the songs of experience
[tempered without innocence - all they can do is leave us jaded]

But again,
now/here
we are
and given respite for awhile
[perhaps after having been driven there by some dark and tremulous storm]
we cast our eyes
into that silvery liquid pool
of memory
chancing to reflect upon our journey
and drawing strength from our own myths.

and so…here it was I recently found myself
considering the tomes of my youth
and offer up to you
like Lewis’ soundless wardrobe
a wondering path home




I considered Bastian’s journey.
Remember that quiet, bright boy?whose childhood crime was one of
wishing for wisdom:
he preferred to spend his days whiling his way
through ancient novels
rather than pursue the rowdy, barbaric bruises of youth
and suffered for it, by bearing the endless torment of bullies.



and then he fell into the Neverending Story…

whose leaves of pages called him to
the mountains and trees
of Fantasia
Causing him, in desperate act, to steal away
and read with shallow breaths the
Hero’s Journey of Atreyu

and with that boy warrior of the Plains people we
confronted
[perhaps for the first time, many of us]
the despondency of despair

oh shed even now a tear, for Artax,
whose spirit gave up
in that dark and murky swamp
only then, remember, was it
that he sunk
[all his hope was lost]
and he died

and still, the Hero journeyed on
though weary
he bore the mark of the Auryn
[it’s labyrinthine significant of the quest]
and understood the sacred call of duty
[he knew any personal sacrifice he must bear was for the good of us all]

again, Great Wisdom
for it is true
we know for certain now:
- we are all interconnected -
and whatever breaks my heart
like ripples

affect

and breaks the heart of Hope and Love



and this is why we journey on
[it is our sacred duty]
Toward wholeness in ourselves,
We heal the Heart of the world.



But still, Fantasia, was doomed
And being consumed by The Nothing,
Atreyu must journey on…

through many hardships and much suffering
unwittingly, he was pursued
all the way by the Servant of Darkness
that would snatch the life breath from him should he stop



he traveled all the way to face his fears
[and through the riddle of the Sphinx]
On his way to the Oracle
he made his way past the questions
we don’t even know need asked

and then, having reached the end
of whatever path he knew he must take,
he reached also
the end of himself
and the Nothing raged on
[vapid dark star of apathy and despair]
devouring Fantasia
[the dream world of all human beings]
eating away at all the goals
and hope for progress of humanity

and it is there at the edge of the precipice
that Atreyu faces the ultimate test:
even after slaying – with warrior skill— the Gmork that sought to destroy him
[overcoming all that would stop him]
he reaches the point where all that is left for him to do is
-to give up-

Surrender

-let go-
Again, the ultimate test



There is nothing more he can do
But acknowledge
His fate resides within the strength of Another



And Dear Reader,
do know
it’s not a place of weakness to admit:
to discover this selfsame truth in the realm of your own journey -
- it is always what seems contrary to rational thought
that reaps real wisdom
and
All Spiritual Truth

Enter Bastian:
the small boy who
has made a lifetime at his young age of
thinking he, insignificant,
reveling in the bold, brave acts of others.

[so too we/here can seem at times so incapable of any good
we could ever hope to achieve]

and the revelation dawns
even as he is reading…
…that he cannot separate himself from the story
even as the life of Atreyu [the warrior]
And the Princess [lifeblood of Fantasia]
Hang in the balance, so too
Does Bastian’s World
[because Fantasia is the dream world of humans, and because thoughts and dreams by their very nature have no boundaries]
so too,
and it is true,
neither does Fantasia,

but the reality is
– and soon we each learn in our own ways –
that the Nothing is real
and exists to snuff out the boundless worlds within us
should we, either for disbelief
or lack of desire for trying any longer
give up and give in to the darkness that would consume us

and in his awareness, so too
Bastian is pushed to the edge
beyond the limitations of skepticism
he is called to leave the rational boundaries of thought behind
to enter the Dream World
[that is indeed, undone]
and in that that moment, the supreme irony resounds
trading innocence for experience
yet wanting Goodness and Light to reign
the child confronts his own dark self
and learns to move toward maturity
in a world shaped by the power of his dreams and wishes
[which as we know is the ever unmarred, unfailing strength of childhood]

only he can give the Princess her new name all it requires is that he
- believe -
regardless of how it seems that
all is lost
[Fantasia was reduced after all to a single seed, that golden grain of sand]





[and please, Brave Heart, take note:]
It is never too late
to begin the world over again.




Again, all we have is now/here

Selah.
Or in other words:
Let it be.

- zenjen -