Image via Catoctin Creek Distilling’s website.

I spent Sunday touring the Catoctin Creek Distilling Company based in Loudon County, VA. Not only was it fun, I learned a lot and sampled some great liquor.  Did you know, for example, that there is a federal law that says distillers can only use their barrels one time?  It’s true!  Scott Harris, who runs Catoctin Creek with his wife Becky, spent well over an hour with me and some friends.  He talked all about craft whiskey, a little politics, and shared some of Catoctin Creek’s wares.

Holy cow.  I’d tasted their Mosby’s Spirit before but never the gin.  I know it might be sacrilegious to say that an American gin is better than anything from England… but look, their gin is the kind of gin you can drink without mixing.

Needless to say, we stoped at a VA ABC store on our way home from Purcellville.  In fact, I’m sipping some Mosby’s Spirit as we type.

Oh, and that reminds me, I just read this awesome book called Chasing the White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw’s Adventures in Moonshine by Max Watman.  It completely prepared me to ask loads of questions on our tour of the distillery.  I did hold back all my questions about what makes a person go blind, etc.  I’m sure that a distiller is probably so over hearing those.  Anyway, I loved this book– I went into it expecting a meditation on Moonshine in America. Parts of the book could have used diagrams, especially the technical discussions about still construction. On the whole, though, I really enjoyed the way the author wove together folklore, ethnography, history, law, and a little DIY spirit (pun intended).

This book is a quick read, full of interesting trivia, and well worth the read for any amateur booze hound.

Should you find yourself on a road trip in VA– let me recommend Catoctin Creek’s tour and wares coupled with a fun reading of Chasing the White Dog.

I loved the book jacket description of Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: “A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.”  I picked up this book on the recommendation of a friend who, rightly, thought I would love the philatelic angle. The story of the “orange avenger” is fascinating and a great plot device. Plus, I loved that the tools of stamp collecting– typically seen as a dull hobby– were used in the crime.

Sadly, I just didn’t care for Flavia as a narrator. Although I’m generally fond of precocious girls, Flavia was just a bit too clever for her own good. Plus, I felt that her knowledge of Chemistry didn’t read as believable or even especially helpful. If it had been an interest, something that comes out of her in passing I might have been okay with it, but an 11 year old with a full-on laboratory who rattles off chemical compounds for no apparent reason? No. Not for me.

Still, without the stamp angle I’m afraid there would be nothing here for me. I don’t plan to read the next books in the Flavia de Luce series.

Mark Twain left a comment about Huckleberry Finn, in his copy of The Pen and the Book by Walter Besant.
Image via the New York Times.

I discovered this poem after reading an interesting piece in the New York Times, “Book Lovers Fear Dim Future for Marginalia.”  Although I do not agree with some of the author’s points (for example he forgets how “nested” comments can achieve the same back-and-forth, that “true” marginalia died out at the end of the 19th century, etc. etc.) it’s worth a read.  Plus, it pointed me toward this poem by a recent Poet Laureate, Billy Collins.

Marginalia
Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O’Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
“Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote “Don’t be a ninny”
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s.
Another notes the presence of “Irony”
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
“Absolutely,” they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
“Yes.” “Bull’s-eye.” “My man!”
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake’s furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents’ living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”

Available online via Poem Hunter

Jordan Crane’s graphic novella The Last Lonely Saturday arrived in my life wrapped up as a Christmas gift (thanks Jon).  By the end of the book I was just about sobbing– and any graphic novel that brings me to tears in 4 panes/spread is doing something great. In addition to the incredibly touching story line, Crane’s art is great and adorable and the story includes letters… Obviously, that’s basically made for me.  This very short graphic novel is touching, cute, and memorable.

I’m getting back into graphic novels in general lately.  Currently, I’m working on volume II of Jason Lutes’ Berlin trilogy and have big plans to catch up on Joe Sacco’s work (loved Palestine and want to read Footnotes in Gaza).  Any suggestions?  Any great ones that have slipped by while I’ve been busy reading boring old nonfiction books?

This weekend I attended a book talk and signing at the National Postal Museum here in DC.  Philip Rubio, a former USPS letter carrier, discussed his new book There’s Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality.  I attended the event because it’s a nice confluence of my professional life (social justice) and my personal hobby (the mail) and can genuinely say that I learned a whole heck of a lot about the USPS’ labor history.  For one thing, I had no idea how tied the GAR (a Civil War (Union) veterans association) and the early postal service unions were.  Is it possible I’ve found the perfect confluence of my hobbies and interests: social justice, the mail, and the Civil War?!  Oh my oh my…  And, as icing on the cake, I picked up a few facts about the postal service in Washington, DC, one of the cities Rubio focuses on in the book.

I purchased a copy of Mr. Rubio’s book and am already about 50 or so pages into it.  It is an academic text and, unlike the last book I told you about, requires some real attention.  There are a ton of postal unions and other organizations (all of which have their own acronyms) and if you’re not careful it’s easy to get lost in the alphabet soup!  Happily, it includes a nice chronology and a list of abbreviations in the front.  Most of the book focuses on the 20th century, which makes sense since he framed the book around the 1970 postal worker strike, but I’m especially interested in the late 19th century information.

If you’re interested, you can view the entire program online.  The NPM has a UStream account… it’s *almost* as good as being in the room.  For those of you not in the DC area, they live stream most of their events and take questions from online folks too.  Care to join me at the event for The King’s Best Highway?  Here’s hoping I finish this book in time to justify that one too!

My copy of John Tingey’s The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects finally arrived!  While I’m happy that the New Yorker’s book blog picked up on this mail art gem, it also meant the title was back-ordered for ages a few weeks.  Completely and utterly worth the wait.  I simply loved, loved, loved this book. Not only is W. Reginald Bray a fascinating character– a true English Eccentric– but Princeton Architectural Press put together an incredibly beautiful book. The illustrations bring the text to life and gave me loads of creative ideas.

This is neither a detailed history of early mail art nor a traditional biography of Bray.  While there were time I could’ve used a bit more detail or general historical context, I expected just what I got– a lushly illustrated book with interesting bits of text.  It’s a short book– most of the pages are dedicated to illustration– but one that I’m sure I’ll come back to for inspiration. Maybe if Bray’s star rises a bit more in the popular consciousness we’ll get a longer, more historically-oriented book about him.  For now, I wouldn’t trade a single image for more text about his life, era, or the poor postmen who had to decipher his address games.

I suggest that you read this book post haste and/or when you’re feeling a bit puckish.

There were lots of things I was very excited about a week or so ago… I don’t want to leave you hanging, so let’s revisit shall we?

• I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of The Englishman Who Posted Himself yet!  Apparently it’s on back order!  I’m waiting with bated breath…
• The Cartolina iPhone app is delightful and, happily, has already gone through a few updates to fix some bugs (esp around the text messaging feature).  To be fair, it just sends a jpg to the recipient, but it’s a good idea and an easy way to jazz up a short e-mail.  Plus, how nice that the lucky participant doesn’t have to “pick up” your card at a third party site.
• Finally, I’m still waiting on the postman!  It’s been two months… I’m about to just give up– always a sad moment.

In other news, I’ve just cooked up an elaborate plan for my holiday/new year cards.  I’m pretty excited about it, except for two things: 1) it will require a lot of drawing (in perspective no less)… a skill I do not have and 2) will require a decent amount of careful, exacto-knife cutting.  That’s fine, but it means I need to start sooner rather than later so I don’t get tired and frustrated.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled posting…

I’ve been away these past few days, visiting family back in Texas.  So today, just a quick note to let you know that the Smithsonian NPM has made a selection of papers on postal history available online, for free!  The Winton M. Blount Postal History Symposia: Select Papers, 2006–2009 (PDF) can be downloaded from the Smithsonian’s website.  The collection is rather long, over 170 pages, but will keep you interested I’m sure– loads of illustrations and a variety of topics.  Now, should I read it in order or as the spirit moves me?  Oh, right… I have 5 million other things to read (for work and fun)?  No bother… this will just go onto the pile.

Oh, and if you’re not friends with the Smithsonian National Postal Museum on Facebook… well, let’s just say I strongly suggest that you get with it.  Would it be too much to say “post haste?” (Oh, how I do love a good pun).

Yesterday’s “Book Bench,” a blog at the New Yorker, includes a gem of a book review for philatelists.  The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects by John Tingey is available this month (Amazon says Sept. 22 but Powell’s doesn’t list a date).  Until I read this review I’d never even heard of W. Reginald Bray!  He’s already emerged as one of my heroes, and this is before even reading the book!  Apparently, he:

Was an avid collector who amassed stamps, postmarks, train tickets, and girlfriends, and who, after reading the entire British Post Office Guide, impishly determined to take the rules as challenges… Perhaps most remarkably, he posted himself, becoming the first man to send a human through the mail in 1900, and then, through registered mail, in 1903.

The “Book Bench” post includes a few images, my favorite of which is the card addressed “To a Resident nearest to this rock.”

Most happily, this is an illustrated book!  Despite my loud claims that 2010 was going to be the year I ceased to buy books, this one clearly needs a spot on my shelf post haste.

Many thanks to my dear friend nico! for sending this along.

The writing gets 3 stars, the illustrations 5.  I figure splitting the difference is fair.

I picked up Charles Bowden’s “Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez” after hearing him on a recent episode of On the Media.  This is *not* a book about Juarez or drug cartels. This is a long meditation on humanity (and the lack there of) in the idea of nation states, boundaries, and “wars” in all forms. If you’re looking for a fact-based account of the situation in Juarez look elsewhere.  The book is quite good but I found myself wondering if it would have actually worked a bit better as a full-on graphic novel.  The illustrations by Alice Leora Briggs add so much to the text and bring emotion to Bowden’s elegy for Juarez that the text alone lacks.

Parts are quite thought provoking; Bowden has a way with long sentences– something I really appreciate in an author.  However, at times his scope wandered too far and the insights felt shallow. The book is at its best when he reflects on interviewing sources or walking through the “death house.” It is at its weakest when he loses site of these concrete artifacts to ponder the abstract.

Briggs’ illustrations, though dark and occasionally graphic (no pun intended), add many layers of meaning for the reader to ponder.  One of my favorites is a variation on a pieta with a group of press photographers crowding around.  Briggs also masterfully mixes Mexican folk-motifs with styles reminiscent of the Northern Renaissance– especially the Flemish painters.  Besides, I’m a sucker for Mexican Folk Art (as we’ve discussed) and she uses a stamp motif throughout the book.   Obviously I was going to spend loads of time just getting lost in these intricate images.

By the way, I hope you’ll consider connecting with me on Goodreads…