New Hebrew Typography blog, plus KlezKanada, Aug 25-29
Back in the last quarter of the last century, I made my living largely by working with multilingual typography – with Hebrew, English, and Cyrillic in particular. In 1990 I led a panel at Type90 at Oxford on multilingual typography and felt confident that I would be doing similar work, but better, forever.
As it happens, the tools continued to suck and I was frustrated and there was all this cool stuff to do on the web, so I moved on. Fifteen years later, tools are finally beginning to get exciting again, and I’ve started a “Hebrew Typography” weblog to get some of the materials I’ve developed, along with new ones, onto the web.
Now consider something else: KlezKanada, one of my favorite Klezmer gatherings. This one takes place at a Jewish summer camp north of Montreal in late August. It always includes amazing teachers in everything ranging from dance to singing to theatre to making music. There are great kids activities, as well.
The one thing lacking at KlezKanada, KlezKamp, KlezCalifornia, and other such events has been someone to speak to Hebrew letterforms: what Hebrew typography looks like, or how to put together a songsheet or CD liner notes that work well for readers (or singers). Being the only Hebrew Typesetter, Extraordinaire of my acquaintance, and desiring to spend time with some of my best friends, I have convinced the organization to let me teach on these subjects this year. I hope someone is able to tear himeself or herself away from playing music to do so. My wife, Judith Pinnolis, of the Jewish Music WebCenter will also be there, speaking about Women in Jewish American music, as well as giving her popular workshops on finding music resources on the web. We’ll also be working on an as-yet-unspecified weblog project to put pictures, writing, and possibly sounds from the week up on the web as it happens.
In short, klezmer may be middle of the road Jewish activity now, but KlezKanada is still out there on the edge of what defines Jewish culture and Jewish memory, and this summer, Judy and I and fellow Kampers will do what we can to explore the edges of Jewish culture in cyberspace. You can follow the prep on the various related websites (the Klezmershack, the Jewish Music Webcenter, the Hebrew Typography weblog, or best, come on up to KlezKanada and party with us for the week, Aug 25-29, 2004.
For further information about KlezKanada — and do register soon to get a place — see the Aug 23 listing, or visit the KlezKanada website, www.klezkanada.com.
Now that i think of it i remember going to that camp many summers ago.. The skies are beautiful there. Never seen the milky way so bright.