Lettering and Type Book Signing @ MICA Tonight

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If you want to find the Chop on the town tonight, then get thee down to Falvey Hall in MICA’s Brown center at 6:30 for the launch party of Lettering and Type, the new book on typographic design by Baltimore’s own Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals. the event kicks off with a reception (Free Booze) at six thirty, which will be followed by a presentation called Fan Letter, in which 26 artists and designers give presentations on their favorite typographic character.

Some of you out there in town may already know Bruce and Nolen not as book authors but in their other incarnations both as Post Typography and as two thirds of Baltimore powerhouse Double Dagger, which has received much, and much deserved acclaim in its own right. But whether you’re familiar with these two or not, you may be asking yourself “Why should I make a point of going to the art school for some boring-ass lecture on typewriters? I saw ten minutes of Helvetica once and that shit put me straight to sleep.”

Well, aside from the free booze, here’s why you need to be there: this is a historic event, both for the world of design and for the city of Baltimore. The book making its debut here is absolutely going to become the new standard text in this field. Years from now your kids are going to be made to buy this as a textbook when they get into college. And many, many years hence when Nolen and Bruce are a-moulderin’ in their graves, the New York Times is going to publish their obits, with this as one of their signal accomplishments.

(Incidentally, if you want to know what typeface is carved into headstones, you can probably find it in the book.)

Its long been a dilemma that all this city is known for is Hons and Murder and John Waters. Well, these guys are to their field what John Waters is to film, and something else they have in common with Uncle John is that Nolen and Bruce both realize what a good thing they’ve got going in Baltimore. They deserve the admiration of all of us, because here are two people not chasing some flight of fancy to NYC or LA, but making their dreams a reality right here in Baltimore. This book will help to put Balto on the map, not only as a place where fonts are designed, but as a place where passionate people can follow their ambitions and make their dreams a reality.

See you there.

Let Them Eat Cake

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The Baltimore Chop was very disappointed in his city last night when just about all of it failed to turn out to the Sidebar for what was probably the best show of 2009.

We (for once) arrived right on time at about 9:30, though thought we were quite early judging by the size of the crowd. It being a rainy Tuesday, the show went off in yeoman-like fashion, with J Robbins’ new outfit The Office of Future Plans taking the stage around 9:45. It was the band’s first show, and after a rusty first song they picked up right where Burning Airlines had left off.

ofp

Sleeper Agent is another relatively new band from the DC area fronted by another former member of Government Issue, vocalist John Stabb. Stabb still appears to be heavily influenced by people even older than himself, straddling a line between Johnny Rotten and Richard Hell (in a good way).

AS for the Bomb, Naked Raygun singer Jeff Pezzati has teamed up with the rhythm section of the Methadones on a project that is at least as consistent as the other bands on the bill. The Baltimore Chop has always had limited exposure to Naked Raygun, and for our money, we preferred last night’s show far above and beyond the recent Raygun reunion at the Ottobar.

All in all, the show had a strange vibe to it though. We had the impression that everyone there was there very much on purpose. which is to say, the 50 (reduced to 20 after the OFP played) people in the crowd were all there to listen very specifically because they were invited or some way connected to someone else there. Even the Baltimore Chop was in a subdued humor, more excited to have elbow room at the bar than anything, and in a way, it almost felt like a roomful of co-workers saying “Why can’t we do this on a conference call so we can get back to bed.”

Incidentally, there was a much larger and more excited crowd in Hampden earlier in the evening for the Ace of Cakes book signing at Atomic Books. The Chop had wanted to stop by and score some free cake before going downtown, but when we say the line of umbrellas curving down the block and around the pizza shop, we did a prompt about face.

We’re also just going to go ahead and say it… Its cool that Ace of Cakes is here and successful, but its just not that great. Certainly not worth waiting untold hours in the rain. We’ll stick with Hoehn’s, thanks.