'Nuther Design Observer Must-Read
We get the word “koan” from Zen Buddhism, where in Japanese it translates literally as “a matter for public thought,” sort of an open-source philosophy for ancient times. Koans often demonstrated the inability of logical reasoning to produce enlightened thought, and, as a trained lawyer and insurance clerk throughout his life, no one knew the deadening effects of logic better than Franz Kafka. Writing was his escape, his meditation, and, fittingly, Meditation was the title of his first published work, released in 1913. While all 18 koans inside are very much worth enjoying, it’s the shortest of them all — the penultimate “Die Baüme,” or “The Trees” — that I’d like to read as a meditation on typography.
Read the rest. Nice article, Rob Giampietro.
(Check out Coudal’s Field-tested books, too, courtesy of DO’s Observed column. What a great idea!)
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Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 21, 2006, at 11:49 AM.
Posted to Book people | Books | Type and typography | Writing
