Case in point, from the original book:

Baskerville: Roman and italic, designed by John Baskerville in the 1750s and cut for him by John Handy. This is the epitome of neoclassicism and eighteenth-century rationalism in type, and the face was far more popular in Republican France and the American colonies than in eighteenth-century England, where it was made.

Many of the digital faces sold under Baskerville’s name are passably faithful to his designs, but small caps and text figures, often omitted, are essential to the spirit of the original, and to an even flow of text …

 
Regrettably, the digital face supplied with Mac OS X is one of those lacking in text figures—and is the one I use here. I have considered switching to Georgia, which renders quite beautifully on screens and contains a full set of small caps and text figures, but I simply like Baskerville more in the context of this site. Small caps I can avoid, but the lack of text figures may prove more difficult to work around. Perhaps it is time to eschew Arabic numerals altogether and simply write numbers in full.

More from Mr. Baskerville here.

Written on eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year of our Lord two-thousand and ten.

To a Shanghai taxi

O coach of völkisch birth, to you I plead:

Your pilot’s callused hands and leaden hooves

beget in me a dread of mortal speed;

The windshield glass, so stained with soot, removes

the sense of life and depth that sight improves.

With nought betwixt us and the soul ahead

he now with hellish tarantism moves

and hurtles us through countless signals red;

I pray, Santana: slow ere we are dead.

What you see here is an attempt to update my old design by editing WordPress’s Twenty Ten theme. It may change over the coming days and months, or it may not. I’ve also added a new category called “Verse,” since poetry appears—quite unexpectedly—to be an increasingly large part of this blog.

On coming third at a pub quiz
But Yea—
Is glory in the noble third,
or sorrow, or despair? Glowing
bronze gleams bright.

Less the Word
of the Triune God, all-knowing,
no genesis. The empty night.
—Hooray.

生日卡没来，
杂志没收到。
我向邮局问：
邮件在何地？
我问国安部：
它为何没到？
但邮局无知，
国安部无德，
邮递速如蜗。

去你的。
去你的。

It is an ode to Kim Il-sung written in the style of Robert Burns, with apologies in advance for any true speakers of Scots. I’ll admit I can’t remember the precise reason that I decided to compose such an ode, but here it is.

For those readers who may be unfamiliar with the hagiography of the DPRK, here is some background information:

The poem refers to the log cabin on Mt. Paektu, the place of the mythical origin of the Korean people, in which Kim Jong-il had his equally mythical birth. That birth, on February 16, 1942, is said to have been accompanied by a double rainbow and the appearance of a new star in the sky. The cabin stands today and is something of destination for pilgrims in the DPRK — it’s also filled with numerological significance, including being 216 meters (as in 02/16) from the base of a nearby cliff.

Juche is the principle of self-reliance that is the foundation of North Korean ideology. Arirang is the name of a famous Korean song, sometimes sung as an ode to reunification, and has also been used as the name of the Mass Games held in Pyongyang.

And now, the poem:

On seeing his cabin on Mt. Paektu
Abune a cauld and mirky brae,
o’ Paektu’s snaw, aneath the skies,
whar Kim Jong-il th’ bairn is frae,
a cozie, hamely haddin’ lies.

It hears at dawe the birdie’s sang,
tha’ echoes ben the gracefu’ morn.
Sae hinny as he flees amang,
Th’ pine, th’ larch, th’ spruce
- th’ thorn.

O haddin’! Bigg’t by daddie Kim!
Frae timmer made: Ye stand sae straught!
Me heart’s astir wi’ thoughts o’ him,
Wha me to grit Pyongyang hae brought.

But now, waesacks! His banes gae stiff!
An’ cauld as airn; He’s here nae more!
I’m wearie, fill’t with dool an’ grief!
Me fiere, me daddie’s, left the shore!

O! Kim Il-sung, I’m fidgin-fain
For ye! An’ though ye’ve now passed on,
I’ll see your haddin’ when ye’re gaen,
And ken tha’ Juche isna faun.

And sae, thegither, teuhgly stan’
a-fiel’! We, wi’ blithe spirits all!
For bonnie is the Arirang,
O! Kim Il-sung! We hear your call!

Wu Xiaohai, the manager of Devil Bikes on Jiangning Lu, had been the man behind that fixed conversion, and his condolences on the loss were sincere. Then he showed me this (click to enlarge):

The bike is made by TNT, a Taiwanese company with no apparent web presence. They specialize in what are known as “minivelos”: rigid road and mountain bike frames built for 20″ wheels (BMX size). TNT’s frames are all-aluminum, and include such nifty features as generous clearance for fat tires and fenders, and disc brake mounts. The frameset, including fork, sells at Devil Bikes for RMB780 (US$114).

The Brooks saddle, lifted from my ernai Jamis (now suffering from pangs of jealousy), was my own addition. The rest was built up as Wu saw fit.

I had not been aware of minivelos, which I understand are enjoying some popularity in Japan. They combine the quick steering and all-around fun of a small-wheeled bike with the solidity of a rigid frame. Plus, they’re small enough to fit in the back of a taxi with an easily removed wheel. Just don’t forget your receipt.

Worryingly, many — particularly over the Olympics — seem to have come to view my inaccurate and generally useless “analysis” of air pollution indices in Hong Kong and Beijing. I tracked down the origin of many of those visitors to Wikipedia’s Air Pollution Index page. Apparently, someone thought that a random entry on a blog, prefaced by an explicit warning not to rely on the subsequent information, was a good source of information on the topic.

I like Wikipedia (I particularly enjoyed reading that the Shanghai World Financial Center was built “on the dreams of a few ‘Nam vets” — a phrase that has since been removed), and the fact that the entry on APIs was changed (not by me) is a good sign that the Wikipedia model generally works. But I still don’t quite understand how someone would add my API discussion in the first place. And thanks to its brief spot on Wikipedia, that page is now the top search result on Google for air pollution index beijing. Yikes!