Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005 - 11:48 a.m.

Douglas "Goedel, Escher, Bach" Hofstadter is offering a course in the spring on ambigrams (ambiguously designed calligraphy pieces). (His courses tend to be a bit self-indulgent, to put it mildly). His course description mentions, among the aesthetic values of ambigrams, the importance of the legibility of the letterform.

I know many of the best, most brilliant contemporary calligraphers would disagree wholeheartedly, and it makes me wonder if he has bothered to look into any contemporary views of calligraphy at all, or if it's just a matter of him preferring it that way and thus it must be so.

I am a bit tempted by this, irrelevant as it is to my academic interests. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) it's scheduled at the same time as the course I AI for, so. Not being able to attend will proably save me a world of frustration.

�