Intermezzo

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Announcer: At the chimes will be 12:01 AM.

Announcer: Hello and welcome to another evening of inspirational music and thought provoking programs here on WIVR, the voice of the Greater Scranton area. I'm Leonard La Fontaine and this is Beyond the Point, a show featuring homegrown Scranton talent and spotlighting Scranton newsmakers. So sit back, grab a nice warm cup of herbal tea and come on a journey with us, exploring the world of the arts in Scranton.

[cue show intro music "Also Spake Zarathustra"]

Announcer: Due to a scheduling conflict, tonight's special guest Lorna Einhorne and Harry the deconstructionist pig won't be with us. Our loss is the 4th Avenue Shriners' gain. Hopefully we'll be catching up with Lorna and Harry next week.

Mark it on your calendars folks.

Instead, I thought we might have a bit of fun with a classic episode of Beyond the Point. So tonight on Scranton Public Radio we present a re-broadcast of a show first aired December 20, 1964 - a show which I am sure you will all remember. The suggestion comes from our good friend, Norma Louise Tuppler, over at Jackson Feed & Grain.

Thank you Norma Louise for the suggestion and your generous donation, your tote bag is on its way.

So without further ado, a special rebroadcast of a classic episode of Beyond the Point….

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[APPLAUSE]

Moderator: Welcome, welcome. Thank you and welcome to the Horace Greeley Memorial Auditorium for another roundtable discussion in our continuing scholastic series here on Scranton Public Radio. I'm Leonard La Fontaine and this is Beyond the Point.

[APPLAUSE]

Moderator: Tonight. A Chat with the Fonts.

[APPLAUSE]

Moderator: Ladies and Gentlemen, I would also ask that you adhere to the conventions of the Latin alphabet whenever possible and in the interest of neutrality, the format of tonight's discussion will be Times New Roman 12point font. - that's 1 pica.

Moderator: Thank you all for being here.

Moderator: Let's throw our first topic out to the group. Some of our audience might not be familiar with all of you so I'd like to hear from each of you about your favorite projects?

Rockwell Condensed: Well, just last year I was involved in spelling out "pyjamas" in a lovely little missive. That was exciting.

Century: (muttered) PA-jamas you pompous ass.

Jokerman: I gotta tell you Lenny. With a name like Jokerman, everyone thinks you're always up. But if it weren't for greeting cards and retirement parties I'd be outta work.

Moderator: I can see how that might be difficult.

Jokerman: If I have to do one more freaking Bar Mitzvah banner I swear I'm gonna go postal.

Moderator: Um...

Jokerman: I just want to die Leonard.

Comic Sans Serif: I'd just like to interject something. I'm in the same boat as Jokerman here. I tend to get dragged into a lot of words like "asshat" and "knob-licker"…… I have a serious side too you know.

Moderator: So you are saying that you've been type cast.

Comic Sans Serif: Ha ha asshole. I could see myself working in product warning labels but no one will take a chance on me because of that kind of attitude.

Moderator: OK, I see. Well how about you, Fraktur, we haven't seen you in a few years… what have you been up to?

Fraktur: Ja. Vell tings got a bit difficult after der war*

Moderator: Indeed. I don't think we've seen any of your work since 1945.

Fraktur: Naturlich. Terrible times. Mongrel fonts creeping in from the east. I relocated to Argentina.

Moderator: Just for old time sake how about a sample?

[APPLAUSE]

Fraktur: Really, I couldn't.

[APPLAUSE]

Fraktur: I feel naked mit out mine umlauts.

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE]

Fraktur: Oh, Ja, very well…

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE]

Moderator: Wow... What was that?

Fraktur: Roughly translated it means "Victor chases twelve box fighters across the dike of Sylt."

Jokerman: And people think I'm the one with the drug problem.

Moderator: Uh, I see. A pangram. Sort of like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?"

Fraktur: Lazy dogs were not tolerated in the Fatherland. Lazy dogs were shot.

Jokerman: Dude… that's fucked.

Moderator: OK, moving things along.... this question comes from the audience. Karison Geilor from Intercourse wants to know where you all stand on the Serif or Sans Serif issue?

Courier: I'll take this one Leonard. I like my letters with feet…. I mean what's the deal with this sans serif stuff.

ARIAL: I think feet are overrated. What's wrong with a nice narrow black font. It's very slimming

Courier: Oh come on! The "I"'s look like they could be L's or 1's. Shit. "I'll" ends up looking like a Roman numeral III. How confusing is that?

ARIAL: Courier, you're such a douche bag sometimes.

Courier: Really Arial? Well you're boring in bed.

ARIAL: I hate you.

Courier: Bitch.

Goudy Stout: Excuse me. I was told that there would be refreshments.

Matura MT Script Capitals: Goudy, you fat bastard.

Rockwell Condensed: I can remember when candy was a nickel and gay meant happy.

Broadway: No need to be a drama queen we have Haettenschweiler for that...

Haettenschweiler: HI -ten- SCHWEE ler you cow…. Someone wake up Verdana. She's passed out again.

Verdana: Yeah? Well at least I didn't show up high like California.

Californian FB: Dudes, you're totally harshing my mellow.

AvantGard: Pfft. Americans.

Moderator: Let's get back on track… Popularity... Antiqua, you've always been popular.

Antiqua: Well I do go back quite a ways. I've been the most common form of typeface for over five centuries.

Moderator: That's quite a run.

Californian FB: Whoop-dee-freaking-doo

Antiqua: Why don't you just take your baggy pants wearing, hacky-sack spelling ass outta here? You're not even truetype font.

Californian FB: Seriously old man. Eat me.

Antiqua: Go play in a Hot Topic sign.

[CRASH!]

Translation: I'm going to drink the bong water and take a crap in all your upper case U's… I'm going to bend French Script over an M and do her like an alter boy!

Helvetica: Who let WebDing in?

Fraktur: Vat ist he zaying?

Verdana: He's humping the leg on my K!

Translation: Oooo Mama! Where all da elegant script at??

Helvetica: Holy crap! He has a fucking gun!

Century: No… it's a camera.

Britannic Bold: It's clearly an airplane icon.

Verdana: Kinda looks like a palm tree to me.

Moderator: Someone hit backspace!

ARIAL: SOMEONE CALL 9-I-I !!

Courier: 9-L-L?

ARIAL: SHIT

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* In Germany, Fraktur was replaced by Antiqua in the now infamous Antiqua-Fraktur Dispute. At first, Fraktur was adopted as the official font of Nazi Germany, which branded Antiqua as non-Aryan. This was official policy until January 3, 1941, when Martin Bormann issued a directive which declared Fraktur to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited further use.

At one point, even Adolf Hitler weighed in on the debate He appeared to have a dislike for Fraktur typeface, as demonstrated in a speech made in the Reichstag in 1934:

"Your alleged gothic internalization does not fit well in this age of steel and iron, glass and concrete, of womanly beauty and manly strength... In a hundred years, our language will be the European language. The nations of the east, the north and the west will, to communicate with us, learn our language. The prerequisite for this: The script called Gothic is replaced by the script we have called Latin so far..."

It has been speculated that the Nazis dropped Fraktur because it would make communication difficult in occupied territories. But the real reason for the sudden switch may have been because printing equipment stolen in occupied countries could not reproduce Fraktur characters. To further complicate matters, many high ranking German military men still used the handwritten version of Fraktur, called Sütterlin script, when issuing orders. So Hitler may have made another miscalculation besides the whole starting a war on two fronts thing.

We can imagine those confused German military commanders on the front line trying to decipher whether that capital F was really an S and whether they should furrender or surrender.

Something to think about the next time you're formatting.

That you stand at the apex, astride the shoulders of giant typeface font.