Leertasten, or the keys to emptiness

When I touch the keys on my keyboard I feel each one is a kind of launch pad. I launch a word letter-by-letter, or I launch onto a new line with 'return,' or launch some emptiness onto the page with the space bar.

With the many busy-nesses I’ve had going lately I’m all the more appreciative of my spacebar art, an arrangement of old space bars at different stages of discoloration. In German they're called 'Leertasten," or "empty keys." I look at them in their clean white frame, left-aligned, like the lines of a potential poem. Like blank verse. Or a silent, ragged piano. 

I’ve mentioned Harald Geisler on my blog before. I supported his Sigmund Freud typeface and typography calendar campaigns, and I eat the air off one of his witty plates. His space bars make my little study seem larger, less crowded, and open to emptiness.