Season 4
Episode 37: “The Letraset Revival Society” | a conversation with Julia Tenney
Topic: Our 100th Episode
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 #103
Julia Tenney joins us for what we are pretty sure is the 100th episode of our obscure podcast. Depending on how you count, considering that Jim forgot to press record on episode 2 of Season 1 (so, not counted) and there were some encore episodes (so, not counted) this one should be the actual 100th.
We start by talking about Jim’s new apple watch and then veer perpendicularly headlong into Pokémon Go. Then we discuss the recent eclipse and all of our various vantage points. Julia says that she thinks the dawn of science must have coincided with experiences of eclipses, which is an opinion shared by PBS.
We discuss The Midnight Library (referenced in a previous episode), as recommended by Julia, and the Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (to be referenced in a future episode), which was also recommended by Julia, which links back to our eclipse discussion. Lionel mentions The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which we will discuss in the very next episode). We talk about the TV show Resident Alien, and the refreshing way the show deals with Native American communities and characters.
Julia talks about work she is doing for the Independent Film Festival, processing images for their website.
Of the movies that are coming to the festival, Julia is most excited about Janet Planet, which is playing at the same time as The Road to Ruane, about a person that Jim says he saw all around the Boston rock scene of the 90s. Janet Planet triggers Julia’s memory of ushering for the Boston production of Sleep No More, and we talk about that for a good long while before Jim and Julia bash out the details surrounding Jim’s band playing on Julia’s porch for PorchFest in Somerville, MA, May 11 at 2pm.
As if our conversation couldn’t get more self-involved, we shift deftly to discuss the merits of ice cream and beer. Then we hit again upon { feuilleton } and Johnathan Coulthart. In this way, we land on the topic of Optima, and other typefaces. We are reminded of the old press-type kits called Letraset, and long lost art of manual layout. At this point, over an hour in, we find our theme and play the intro music. Then we quibble and mumble on about waxers and typography until our 100th episode expends its final fuel and collapses in on itself.