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directorcommentary | jasonbentley.org

Jason Bentley, Santa Clara, California: writing, photography, graphic design, music, audio, video, technology, life

January 16, 2005

Lion / Christian peace talks break down


AP Photo.

With relations between the world's Christian and lion populations at a recent thaw, the news of the violent breakdown of recent peace talks comes as a particularly downbeat shock. During a heated discussion of the Roman Collisseum, the Rev. Victor Chan lunged at lion delegate Ted Lansky, screaming "A word like reparations doesn't even begin to encompass that which you owe the scions of the death ring!" At that point, Mr. Lansky rolled his eyes, roared, and proceeded to eat Mr. Chan.

After the meeting, a spokeslion for Mr. Lanksy was quoted as saying that the lion delegation "regrets that Mr. Chan was consumed by the senior delegate, but the punk ass bitch had it comin'."

It's unclear at this time whether peace talks will resume.

jb | | # |  

But what if I show up in Angora?

The furry convention is in town, and it made the front page of the San Jose Mercury News. [http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/10653117.htm] I think the article is pretty objective and nonjudgemental, but word around the campfire is that the furries don't like it much at all, nopenope. However, this tends to be true of any press about furries that isn't written in syntax of glowing, self-reinforcing floridity. In such cases, simple reporting, by simply presenting facts as observed without disclaimer, is cause enough to warrant the daggered, sour scuttlebutt of the true believers who feel maligned by "mundanes" that don't understand.

Jesus.

Hey, I'm weird. I know I'm weird. When someone intimates or openly points out that I'm odd (or, at best, droll) my general reaction is, "yeah, and?"

What amazes me is not that furries are weird, but that they reject their inherent weirdness and bristle when the social oddity of the average furry's behavior is merely pointed out. In my experience, most Comic Book fans and Star Trek geeks revel in the "shocked" and condescending tone of tepid press, and they watch documentaries like "Trekkies" with a self-knowing mix of affection, a little embarassment, and lots of "it's funny because it's true" chuckles. Furry identity, often so bruised to begin with, is wrapped up so tightly in mutual validation that they lose sight of the fact that a) it's a miniscule subculture that in logic and practice is weird as all get out - and most importantly b) there's not a goddam thing wrong with that.

Furry is like being at a 1950's gay bar where everyone's having a good time, but in the back of the mind, "Father" is still going "shaaaaaaaaaame, shaaaaaaaame," and anything other than silence or mutual aggrandaisment is translated into "shaaaaaaaaame, shaaaaaaaame." I'd hate to think what it woulda been like for the New York punk scene if they retreated into hand-on-shoulder weep circles every time the New York Times complained about the dirty kids with pins in their faces. They just did their thing, rocked the world, and changed culture from the inside out.

Stem the navelgazing, stop whining, be weird, and expect others to notice.

jb | | # |  

My first sale!!!

Yay! I got my first sale!! An Adoobie T-Shirt and a "You Did This To You" mug! Woohoo!

http://www.jasonbentley.org/mobfront :-D

jb | | # |  

The righteous hate



I appeal to millions with my "cute" child-like scrawl.

I am the favorite of administrative assistants, receiptionsts, spammers, teenagers, and that boiling cauldron of white-collar sewing circles, the corporate communications department.

I am neither like comic type nor am I entirely sans-serif.

I am a bad idea, ill-conceived and propagated by monopoly.

I squat in the fonts folder, but I am by no mesure a typeface. I am the unfont.

I was designed for Microsoft Bob. Don't ask.

I am the mark of lazy web design.

I am both precious and common...in the British sense.

Since my daddy gives me away, I am the standby of the commercial cheap who are unwilling to shill a meager $10 fee to license a quality typeface for their signage and their mailers and their precious little awnings.

I am chosen not by my nonexistant virtues than by the fact that I am neither a Times New Roman nor Arial and that the letter "C" is higher on the list than Verdana or Tahoma.

I mock Trebuchet MS, my elegant, urbane older brother. He'd be nothing if the bloggers hadn't come long.

I don't deserve the pixels that comprise me, let lone any paper I might be printed on - though killing trees, for me anyway, is rakish fun.

I am Comic Sans MS, I am a villain, and the world shall quake in the style-free stink of my virulent mediocrity.

And you will curse my ubiquity until the day I grace the cold contours of your tombstone.

***

The website Ban Comic Sans [http://bancomicsans.com/], has taken the abolition of the Evil Unfont to the appropriate level of crusade. And this guy [http://www.robinjohnson.f9.co.uk/comicsans.html] explains why he hates Comic Sans too.

Fontographer Vincent Connare defends the indefensible here [http://www.connare.com/comic.htm].

...

Postscriptum

Tonight, myself and my guests watched Death to Smoochy on Comedy Central. Yeah, it's about as mean spirited and bad as most critics said. But...get this...

The end credits were rendered in Comic Sans MS!

The evil of the unfont is wily and virulent. Beware! The fear is healthy!

jb | | # |