CHAPTER TITLE Letraset
AUTHOR Selina Apostol
COPYRIGHT 2005 Selina Apostol
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to everyone who read the first draft, and a very
special thanks to Donna Cass who hated it - because it then had to be reworked
completely.
PERMISSIONS All text copyright as above. Photograph of Royal George exterior
with signboard copyright Selina Apostol. Permission to use images from Royal
George signboard - pending. Permission to use images by Herbert Bayer and Edward
Johnston - pending.
CHAPTER NOTES Chapter describes the first of several meetings. Patterns in
Vol 1: gifts, Coke seq.
ILLUSTRATION NOTES Bayer's "Undulating" as theme.
Some Bayer imagery in illustrating private thoughts. Aspen section to be
illustrated on the table.
Add a sequence on circa 1920's art, mood and costume. Sequence on London Underground
history.
(
Parentheses signify thought balloons )
.......................................................................................................................................
September 1996.
Interior of The Royal George pub in New Cross, London.
Laurence arrives. Nanette gets up and they embrace. They sit by a big
window, heads slightly bowed. Silence across table. Surface of table darkens
momentarily as outside, a cuboid figure hovers past. Suddenly:
LAURENCE
Gift!
- He has placed a small package before Nannette. She hesitates but
opens it.
NANETTE
Letraset ?
- Show masses of Letraset dry transfer sheeets labelled "Johnston
Underground".
LAURENCE, smiling
For my friend the typography nerd.
NANETTE
( He’s in a
good mood. )
LAURENCE
Okay, so what’s
the typeface?
NANETTE
It says so
across the top!
LAURENCE
Yes, but
what is it?
Remember?
At the Register
Office?
NANETTE
( The Register Office?
Why is he bringing this up? )
LAURENCE
Do you
remember?
NANETTE
Of course...
( The sign on the door
R E G I S T R A R
was
in Johnston Underground.
)
( I knew he would notice.)
LAURENCE
( Johnston Underground....)
Whenever I see it
anywhere other than the
tube
I get a shock.
I forget
that it’s still
in use.
Suddenly I’m homesick for a
childhood that never happened to me --
one that wasn’t even possible anymore
by the time I was born.
NANETTE
-Pausing
It's frivolous of me
to agree,
( Because I'm a 'foreigner' )
but that’s what
Johnston Underground
does to me, too.
LAURENCE
No, I saw that.
That’s why I got
you those.
NANETTE
( I haven’t heard
that particular voice
in ages. )
( Maybe things
really are alright
again. )
I've got something
for you, too.
LAURENCE
Really?
But hang on...
what do you want
to drink?
NANETTE
I’ll have
half a pint
of lager.
LAURENCE
Half a pint?
Are you sure?
NANETTE
Yes.
LAURENCE
I know you want
a vodka. I can see it
in your eyes.
NANETTE
A vodka? No.
( A vodka?
So maybe it’s
possible. Maybe
we can at least
be friends. )
LAURENCE
Come on.
Just one shot.
NANETTE
Alright. I’ll have a
vodka and tonic.
- Laurence is at the bar, talking to the bbarman. Nanette is watching from their
table.
LAURENCE
Has anyone ever
told you that you’re
the spitting image of
Ian McCulloch from
Echo and the
Bunnymen?
NANETTE
( He really is
in a good mood.
I haven’t seen him
like this in ages. )
- Laurence and Nanette clink glasses
NANETTE
( And I haven’t
seen that smile
in ages. )
What’s your drink?
LAURENCE
A Coke.
NANETTE
( What? )
LAURENCE
Is anything the matter?
NANETTE
( Have I said
something wrong?
Was the thing about
the Register Office
some kind of test? )
- Laurence picks up the gift. POV – Nanette’s.
LAURENCE
Shall I have
a guess?
Is it a photograph?
NANETTE
( Maybe he
really just didn’t
feel like a drink. )
- On opening it he gasps, raises hand to hhis mouth.
LAURENCE
Where did
you find this
image?
- He reaches over to give her a hug. ;
- View from behind Nanette: His eyes are sshut tight.
NANETTE
- Sitting back down.
I’ve never
understood your
prosthetics
fetish.
LAURENCE
It’s not
a fetish.
NANETTE
It most
definitely is!
LAURENCE
If that’s what you
think then I must warn
you that you’ve caught
a modern disease.
NANETTE
( Oh, his
teacher voice. )
LAURENCE
Whenever some...inclination...
of a human being isn’t that easy to
understand, when something seems to
possess a darker dimension than people are
wont to expect, they automatically assume –
and if you happen
to be an artist, you hope
that that dimension is sex.
You think that it enriches
the thing, when what it really does
is render it torpid and...infertile.
NANETTE
Whenever I’m with you,
I never know, I can never
predict at what moment exactly
I’ll find myself attending
a lecture—
LAURENCE
Lecture?! I’m just trying to
say that I’m drawn to prostheses.
I find them interesting as objects.
That’s it. You’re the one who
mentioned the word fetish!
NANETTE
I was teasing.
I thought that I could do that
because I was confident you
wouldn't lump me in with any
of your ‘theys’ and ‘thems’.
Now I don’t know where that
confidence comes from because it
looks as though you would grab
every opportunity to—
LAURENCE
OK, you can
stop right there!
- Both looking away.
NANETTE
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have lost my temper.
LAURENCE
Apology accepted.
NANETTE
( Fuck you. )
LAURENCE
So who’s it by?
NANETTE
What?
LAURENCE
The photograph.
Who’s it by?
NANETTE
It’s by someone called
Herbert Bayer. It’s
called “Self Portrait in
a Mirror”.
LAURENCE
Bayer....I know this name.
Was he a painter?
NANETTE
I don’t know.
I haven't come
across anything
else by him.
LAURENCE
Maybe I have, actually.
NANETTE
It’s dated 1932...
kind of...your thing...
LAURENCE
Yes.. He was a student
of Kandinsky’s. Wait...
Got it!
He was a typeface designer!
- Nanette: no reaction
LAURENCE
No, really.
I’m not joking.
- Nanette: still no reaction
LAURENCE
He designed a very
popular typeface.
I’m serious.
He was a student
of Kandinsky’s.
You must know
his work.
Go on, take
a guess. Which
typeface?
NANETTE
Why are you
doing this?
LAURENCE
The first thing
that comes to mind.
The first thing.
NANETTE
Why are you mocking me?
LAURENCE
I’m not mocking
you! Why would I
do that?
NANETTE
This doesn't make sense.
Even as a joke.
LAURENCE
Because
I’m not joking!
NANETTE
- Pausing
You're saying this man
was a typographer. Fine.
So he designed a
famous typeface.
LAURENCE
Very nearly the
most famous one.
Guess.
NANETTE
I don’t know.
Not Universal.
LAURENCE
See? I told you!
It is Universal.
NANETTE
( He isn’t joking. )
( The Bauhaus typeface
itself. It is amazing... )
LAURENCE
A typography
connection.
We do this
a lot, don’t we?
NANETTE
- Pausing.
( There was a
time when the most
tenuous of connections
made us think of fate. )
The connections?
That’s just
normal everyday
conversation,
Laurence.
LAURENCE
You see if I had
spoken to you in
that tone you’d have
blown your top!
- Nanette is just looking away.
LAURENCE
He went on to
help set up Aspen
as a skiing resort
but only as part of
an overall plan to—
NANETTE
What are you
talking about?
LAURENCE
Bayer. I have it
now: I know about him
from the story of the
Paepckes.
NANETTE
( Peepkas? What
are peepkas? )
How are things
at your new place?
LAURENCE
Listen, this is
interesting. Elizabeth
Paepcke. They say even
at the age of 80 her beauty
dazzled Andy Warhol.
One day...one day –
You see they were super-
wealthy industrialists.
They had the resources
to make any dream come true.
Elizabeth Paepcke’s
brother—no, let’s stay with
the sister.
One day, a few years
after the Second World War,
on reaching the top of Aspen
mountain
for the first time,
Elizabeth Paepcke
looked down on the trackless
ground and had a vision.
NANETTE
( We wouldn’t know
what to talk about without
these gifts, would we? )
She would turn Aspen
from an abandoned mining
town to a new cradle of culture.
NANETTE
So what’s your
new place like?
LAURENCE
Please. You’ll like this.
I promise you. It’s your
kind of thing.
Aspen was going to be the
“Athens of the West”.
They hired Walter Gropius, Walter Gropius, as
design consultant...Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was in the team...
and Herbert Bayer was to be architect of the
ENTIRE town.
The ski resort was
only a pretext.
But it made perfect sense
because skiing in those days
stood for true romance.
The town
was really intended to
be a kind of salon in the old
European style...
Hunter S. Thompson’s
arrival was considered a
low point in its cultural life.
I don’t necessarily agree,
but it shows --
Nanette, are you listening?
The Bauhaus dreamt up
Aspen. Can you believe that?
NANETTE
( Laurence,
are you in trouble? )
LAURENCE
You see that it shows they
had enough of an intellectual stance
to decide who was and who wasn’t...
NANETTE
( Are you in
trouble, or am I? )
LAURENCE
…now the place is nothing more than
a glitzy Hollywood playground, with the volume
of silicone exceeding the amount of intellectual
activity taking place at the Institute....
NANETTE
( Why won’t you tell me
where you live now? It’s not
that I plan to turn up at
your doorstep. )
( It’s just that I think you have
me confused with someone else.
Her name is Lamorna. She’s the
one you need to stay away from.
She’s the one you’re terrified of.
Why? Why are you
so terrified of her? )
LAURENCE
Elizabeth Paepcke was
horrified at the turn of events.
She actually stated in a speech
not long before her death that
her heart was broken.
Aspen mountain was later
sold to 20th Century Fox.
Is anything the matter?
- Nanette is just looking away
LAURENCE
( Good. )
Illustration note: His hand grasping glass of Coca-cola.
|
NOTES
Letraset
London Underground
The Tube
"Lonely Metropolitan"
Herbert Bayer, 1932
(Illustration reference)
"Undulating Landscape"
Herbert Bayer, 1944
(Illustration reference)
"Self Portrait in a Mirror"
Herbert Bayer, 1932
(the photograph Nanette gives to L)
"universal"
Herbert Bayer
|
