After we got over the sting of not making it to NOLA for the Super Bowl, the blizzard was something else.  We’re lucky, our apartment building didn’t loose power or heat.  However, there are 25 inches of snow on the ground.  TWENTY FIVE INCHES!  That’s more snow than I’ve ever seen in my life.  Ever.

So glad we don’t live on this side of the building any more…

Our Sneaux Man felt right at home, kept telling us it was just like Miami’s white sand beaches.  We still felt the Who Dat pride, even if we are 1000 miles away from NOLA.

Hope that wherever you are you’re safe, warm, and peaceful this week.

Jon and I are going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl this weekend Well, never mind.  Apparently the worst snow storm ever is coming to DC and ALL the flights to anywhere have been canceled for the entire weekend.  We’ll be watching the game in our apt.  Thankfully, we stocked up on snacks before Snowzilla arrived. (yes, we know it’s in Miami.  We figure the party with his family in NOLA will be way better than whatever is happening in Miami (or DC)).  So, a unique “poem” this Friday– the pep talk from Any Given Sunday.  And… GEAUX SAINTS!

Al Pacino’s Inch by Inch Speech
from Any Given Sunday

I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

[Read more →]

This was a semi-impulsive Ebay purchase… there was a “pop off” and I should’ve held back.  But did I?  No.

HOW COULD I LET THIS BEAUTY OUT OF MY GRASP?!

Ahem. I don’t know much about the Postal Service Station made by the American Adjustomatic Corp– clearly a precursor to today’s APC.  It seems to have been made in the 1950s, although the text on the map and rate list are from the 1970s.  It didn’t come with keys to the locks, so I’m going to see if I can pick them (easily) and find out if I can actually get it working.  How cool would it be to get stamps out?

Any suggestions for learning more about this thing?  Some Googling just gave me that basic info above…

Also, prepare for ALL my photos to now be staged on or around my Postal Service Station.  Jon says I’m slowly building a shrine to the mail.  That might be true.  I’m also going to take a break from Ebay for a bit… the postal collectible area was just too much temptation.

I’m about half way through of Catherine Golden’s book Posting It: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing.  I saw Professor Golden speak a few weeks ago at the National Postal Museum and really enjoyed her lecture. I have to admit, I didn’t know that the postage stamp didn’t come around until 1840!  I did know that the “Penny Black” was the first stamp– I just thought it was much earlier.  Though I don’t know why, given that it has an image of Queen Victorian on it.

The book is fun to read– it’s re-inspired me to make things, mail things, and really touch paper again.  Part of why I decided to make that stationary yesterday is because I’d just read several pages about custom printed paper and seals.  Lots of fun.  Plus, I’m now longing for a world with twice daily (or more) deliveries!  Oh just imagine.

Although I’m not quite sure how I feel about some of the parallels she draws between Victorian postal reform at today’s electronic media, the historical parts of the book are fascinating.  My hesitation is probably that the insights do feel a bit obvious– but I’m also a “digital native” and a snob.  I’ve not gotten to the section dedicated to this explicitly, so I’ll hold off judgment for now.

I’ve got a very dear friend leaving town this week– she’s been offered an excellent job out in California.  So, to send her on her way I put together a small package of stationary for her.  It is also a selfish way to say “send me mail” without saying “SEND ME MAIL.”  Yes, I do prefer guilt.  It is true that she’ll probably be very busy, but a girl can still hope right?  And with cute stationary it is so much easier to sit down and pen a missive.

I went for a patriotic/quasi vintage western theme.  The cards are A2 size, printed on Eames Furniture Weave “Natural White” card-stock, and I the envelopes are lined with blue or red foil.

Oh, and what’s that the cards are perched on?  Well… I’ll post about that beauty later this week.  The January doldrums got me, but I’m planning to be back in this space (and on 64 Shades of Wax too).

I must admit, I’ve been away from my letter writing supplies for far too long.  The give away over at the Letter Writer’s Alliance got me motivated to pull out my typewriter, canceled stamps, and vintage paper bits.  I mean, if you’re sending a letter to the LWA you’ve got to make it look good!  I couldn’t send in a naked note– just a plain envelope?!  Oh the horror.

Also, this weekend I made another trip to the Smithsonian’s Postal Museum– easily my favorite thing in DC.  While there, I went to a lecture (”Only a Penny: The Victorian Revolution in Letter Writing“).  It was an excellent program, full of interesting facts and an argument about how the penney post revolutionized communication a lot like the Internet has more recently.  I’m not quite sure that I’d go that far, perhaps because when you live something it always feels more revolutionary, but it is an interesting extension of the “everything old is new again” thing.  It looks like the lecture will be archived online at UStream, but I’m not entirely sure.

While at the museum I picked up a pamphlet of their future programs– I’ll be back.  A lot.

It’s a new year and I’m feeling a bit sentimental about DC.  So, this week for “poetry Friday” lets take a walking tour of DC’s poetry history.  The Poetry Foundation put together an audio tour you can download (complete with maps and photos).  If the weather turns nice I’m planning to make the walk.  But it’s also nice to watch the video– inside where it’s warm– and remember standing under the Capitol dome or quiet mornings at Busboys & Poets.

From the Poetry Foundation’s website:

The Washington, DC Poetry Tour reveals our nation’s capital through the eyes of its great poets, including Archibald MacLeish, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Elizabeth Bishop, among many others. From the hallowed halls of the federal buildings to neighborhood side streets, the tour features poems written in and about DC, as well as photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis.

Oh hello new-favorite-paper-and-correspondence-themed-blog. Letterheady, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!

Believe it or not, I’m actually in the market for more stationary.  Yes, I do own quite a lot (it fills more space in our apartment than I’d like to admit publicly).  But, at the moment, the things I have left are things I don’t actually want to send– I like it all too much and I want to know I can look at it whenever I want.  I suppose this is why we have Flickr and digital cameras: all the design pleasure without the “wasted” space.

I’m thinking about getting some personalized letterhead, but cool letterhead.  I’m toying around with adapting my Christmas card theme and having it letterpressed by my friend Emily.  Hence, you can imagine how my heart leapt when my friend Margarita sent a link to Letterheady.  Although, I’m concerned that I really like Hitler’s letterhead– so clean, so simple, so… fascist.  I take comfort in one commenter who noted that Hitler actually hated sans serif (how the man had time to hate even more I’ll never know) so maybe, just maybe, this isn’t *really* his.

Why are you still here?  Go look at all the good stuff they’ve collected and sign up for the feed for goodness sake!

Just three things today.  First, I love that the USPS’ stamp publication/blog is named “Beyond the Perf.”  Second, I am really excited about the stamps coming out this year!  The art really improved for 2010– in general I like the style a lot more and I’m so glad they got a new design for the secular holiday stamps.  Third, a new goal in my life is to get onto the Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Council (CSAC).

I think the “Scouting” design might be my favorite…

Many thanks to Beyond the Perf for putting up a slide show of all 28 new designs (and to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum’s Facebook feed for letting me know the art was out).

Finally!  Classy, secular holiday stamps!  Thank you USPS/CSAC!

We spent the weekend in NYC with friends and a lot of oysters.  I haven’t had that much fun in a long time– college friends always make me feel like less of a weirdo.  I suppose at college you’re just surrounded by folks who are weird in much the same way you are.  Anyway, no photos– too busy having fun to worry about it.  However, I did make a quick drawing of the oysters for the 64 Shades of Wax project.  I think I heard our hosts say they had over 100.  I believe it, I must have eaten 8 or 9 and there were at least 15 people at the party.

On a totally different note, I like how our scanner is starting to get a build up of crayon wax on it– it’s making the scans fun and a little unpredicatble.  I’m not sure though if Jon will find this as fascinating as I do.  Plus, it is entirely possible that I’m just trying to make not cleaning the scanner bed okay.  Hard to know…