Via email from Kat Velour’s hubby (I was gonna call him Mr. Kat Velour but that seemed a little too out of context, even for me): the Oriental Selectric ball. On this beleaguered earth is there no typographical nook or cranny untouched by the racist scourge of the Evil Chinky Font?

A big THANK YOU to Linda Burnham for her excellent Obama & Clinton: the Tightrope & the Needle.

Must say, I’ve been a bit taken aback by how many white women assume I will agree with them that supporting Hillary is somehow obvious because she is a woman. Um… did you forget that I am a woman of color who thinks race is kinda important? Never mind that I have a degree in it. Never mind that an awful lot of my work is about it… but hmm, I guess in some folks’ brains, the Obsessed With Chinese Restaurants Department isn’t necessarily next door to the Excited About a Black President Department. Well, Burnham’s article explains it.

Thanks to Lani for forwarding!

Oh, & by the way? Most of the white women I know are all about Obama.

You thought I wasn’t gonna say anything about this election, huh? Don’t worry, back to salads next time.

Hey, look what I found! House numbers meet the Evil Chinky Font! Or, perhaps more accurately, house numbers sprang from an ECF. Truly I never would have figured this out on my own, because as the designers point out, the house numbers have “gradually softened” to the point that they don’t seem to resemble any ECF at all, but inhabit their own house number world. My pal the Triathlete has been obsessed with house numbers lately, so I’ve been looking at them more, & wondering where the hell they came from, because they are so typographically odd. Mystery solved, & who ever woulda guessed the answer would strike so close to home?

I can’t help but draw a parallel between the house numbers &—wait for it—“American Chinese” food (aw, you saw that one coming). They both started out as weird misinterpretations of something Chinese, then evolved into their whole own reality, becoming ubiquitous & integral staples of American culture. Arguably the house numbers travelled much farther than the food; the numbers started as racist caricatures (not designed by Chinese typographers, we can safely assume) & are now no longer recognizably Asian in any way at all, racist or otherwise, whereas the food started through gradual adaptations by Chinese cooks themselves trying to figure out what white people wanted to eat, & can still be described the same way.

I love smart type designers. I love them even more when they explain things so clearly.

In cold news, today my throat was still sore enough that an apple was too hard & lumpy to swallow comfortably, but I did have enough energy to make applesauce, which felt quite soothing, both to make & to eat.

Department of Missed Opportunities, also Novelty Hybrid Chinese Restaurant Department: Chino Bandido in Phoenix. Doh! I was just in Phoenix last month. Too late, found out about this restaurant via email from David Chan. Check out the weird panda sculpture. I think this may be the first time I’ve had a Chinese restaurant offend me with a Mexican stereotype instead of the more usual Chinese stereotypes (yes, the Evil Chinky Font is a typographical stereotype). Further randomness: I notice they have snickerdoodles on the menu. Snickerdoodles?! I don’t think they’re Chinese or Mexican, but snickerdoodle is one of the all-time great cookie names. Obviously a visit is in order next time I go to Phoenix. The things I do in the name of art. Sheesh.