My Name is Kate

It's Hard Work Producing a Play ...

Roro, the cast and I have been working hard on The Meeting.  It has been a real learning experience -- I'm way more of a control freak than I ever thought, but since I'm not the director, I keep my mouth shut.  My therapist is very proud.

The promo materials look really good. I'm very pleased with the poster!  Make sure you mark it on your calendars and come on out!  It really is pretty funny.  The cast is great and the script is outstanding!  And for my former agency colleagues, you will likely see a little of yourself in the play!

Moving from MT to TypePad

I've been having some major problems with the old My Name is Kate site, so I'm moving over to a hosted service where I don't have to worry about some of the technical details.

I'd like to thank David for being so helpful and willing for the last 1.5 years to host mynameiskate.ca -- I hope to have domain redirection up and working soon, as well as being able to import my old blog posts and some of the other fun things about MNIK.  As soon as MT decides to let me into the database.  Grrr.  Well, at least the spammers can still post comment spam.  Wohoo!!

But all new posts will happen here, so update bookmarks if you've got 'em.

Sense Memory and Typography

After Roro's recent binge on literature about the late 1800's, I, too, have been re-reading the "Little House" books.  For some reason, I didn't retain the whole series from my childhood (I only had By The Shores of Silver Lake and Little Town on the Prairie in my library; Roro contributed Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods), so we ordered the rest from Indigo.  I had wanted to order used copies from Amazon, but none of the vendors who had them shipped from inside Canada -- so the shipping and duty would be $5 to $15 while the book itself cost $1.17.  Didn't make a lot of sense.

My re-reading of the books that I have in my library has been a wonderful experience.  I remember what it was like to read them as a young girl.  The emotions are as fresh as they were when I was 5 or 7 or 12.  I loved the same things and hated the same things -- some even more so now because I totally realise what a little priss Mary was.

Ahem.

Now I'm a bit of a cheapskate, so when I was ordering, I chose the least expensive copy of the four books we were missing.  Surprisingly, there were not pictures of these books but I figured, "Hey, they can't possible screen in every cover, can they?" and thought nothing more of it.

A few days later a package arrived from Indigo.  When I went downstairs to pick it up, it seemed very small.  Hmm ... the order confirmation said they sent them all at once.  But how did they fit 5 books in here (I also ordered a bio of Laura Ingalls Wilder written in 1977 by Donald Zochert.  It has this great back cover that shows Laura in her teen years looking like a romantic novel heroine with some pretty serious cleavage.  I believe it was this cover that precipitated my conversion to lovin' the ladies.).

Anyway ... trusting in the good people at Indigo, I opened up the package.  Out fell all 5 of my books, but they were pocket paperback versions, not the "kid size" paperbacks that we had of the others.  But more distressingly, they weren't illustrated! I love Garth Williams' illustrations of the Little House Series -- his sketches really made the books come alive for me.  But, I thought, "OK, no big deal.  You'll still enjoy the books.  In fact, look, the type is smaller and closer together -- it will probably be easier for you to read.  Besides, you're 36.  If you haven't figured out what Laura is trying to say by now, Williams' illustrations probably aren't going to help."

Comforting myself with these thoughts and some chocolate, I settled down to read On the Banks of Plum Creek.  What I realised that not only is the type smaller, but it is a totally different font. 

Now, this is no way impacts the readablilty of the books, but, the emotional recall and sense memory experience I have of reading these books as a child amd that I had been experiencing for the first few books has now been completely removed from my ongoing re-reading of them.

To the left are two images of the text from These Happy Golden Years (I have totally taken screen caps of Amazon's "Look Inside The Book" technology.  Thank you Amazon for allowing me to illustrate this point!)  The first is from the original "kid size" paperback (although this one is not the original cover that I have).  The ilustration is Williams'.  I don't know what font this is, but I find it very friendly and comforting.

The second is from the Pocket Paperback version (which is erroneously listed as being illustrated by Williams).  Aside from having a terribly cheesy romance novel cover, the font (to me anyway) is pointy and sharp.

Now I'm not a typographer (though I would love to play one on TV), so maybe there really isn't a difference in these (if you are a typographer and can tell me, that would be great; there isn't a colophon in the books, unfortunately).  But the visceral sense memory is completely non-existent when reading the second.

Which leads me to wonder about the future of books, of reading, of ebooks, etc.  Well, really, of the rendered word in general.  How many of you specify your font preferences in your browser?  I do.  And if so some reason My Yahoo appears in a different font, I get totally disoriented.  The information can be in the same locale, but the delivery mechanism -- the shape, size, curve of the letters -- when it's different, it's impact is felt.

Yay for the UCC!

On July 4, the United Church of Christ's General Synod passed a resolution in support of equal marriage for all persons regardless of gender.  I'm so thrilled and amazed and humbled.  I haven't been a "church-goer" in ages and with all the vitriol that seems to have been the Christian norm of late, I hadn't expected to ever be one again -- let alone consider myself a Christian.  But I read the UCC's resolution and, more importantly, their members' genuine struggle with this issue.  And the good will that they shared with each other, even when they disagreed.  And I am hopeful.

The marriage equality resolution (1) affirms equal marriage rights for couples regardless of gender and declares that the government should not interfere with couples regardless of gender who choose to marry and share fully in the rights, responsibilities and commitment of legally recognized marriage; (2)affirms equal access to the basic rights, institutional protections and quality of life conferred by the recognition of marriage, (3) calls for an end to rhetoric that fuels hostility, misunderstanding, fear and hatred expressed toward gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, (4) asks officers of the church to communicate the resolution to local, state and national legislators, urging them to support equal marriage rights, (5) calls upon all settings of the church to engage in serious, respectful and prayerful discussion of the covenantal relationship of marriage and equal marriage rights, (6) calls upon congregations, after prayerful, biblical, theological, and historical study, to consider adopting Wedding Policies that do not discriminate against couples based on gender, and (7) urges congregations and individuals of the UCC to prayerfully consider and support local, state and national legislation to grant equal marriage rights to couples regardless of gender, and to work again legislation, including constitutional amendments, which denies rights to couples based on gender.

I was also interested to read an op-ed piece in the NY Times this week by Stephanie Coontz, The Heterosexual Revolution (reg required).  Coontz asserts that it's not the gays and lesbians that have upended traditional marriage; it's the hets that did it to themselves.

Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. Heterosexuals were the ones who made procreation voluntary, so that some couples could choose childlessness, and who adopted assisted reproduction so that even couples who could not conceive could become parents. And heterosexuals subverted the long-standing rule that every marriage had to have a husband who played one role in the family and a wife who played a completely different one. Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too.

and

Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children- was an immense boon to many couples. But these changes in the definition and practice of marriage opened the door for gay and lesbian couples to argue that they were now equally qualified to participate in it.

Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process it has become more flexible, but also more optional. Many people may not like the direction these changes have taken in recent years. But it is simply magical thinking to believe that by banning gay and lesbian marriage, we will turn back the clock.

Coontz is the Director of Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families.  It is a great piece, summarizing the history of marriage and its pivotal moments of change and evolution.  Unfortunately, the CCF's site doesn't have a lot of current information about gay and lesbian marriage, but Coontz has a new book out, Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage that looks quite interesting.