lettermo 2, 2016

As usual, I've not managed a piece of mail a day. I tend to work better in bursts. I like to focus, perhaps too intensively, on the person that I am writing to and frankly I just haven't the energy for that sustained attention the past few days.

Today I felt the urge to make some fantasy worlds and there is no better way to get into the zone than with collage. So I brewed up some tea, busted out the new glue sticks and got to flipping through all the sloppy magazines I've hoarded for just this purpose. From the colors it is clear that I am yearning for some sunshine.

important

prepared

today's batch

lettermo 1, 2016

I am starting #lettermo this year with two collaged cards for two great people. 

I think I probably owe you a letter. Feel free to remind me in the comments.

The best kiddo sent me some mail today. Being a weird aunt is cool. pic.twitter.com/DpNkLyRTtQ

— Carrie (@carrietryharder) January 8, 2016

As longtime readers know, I love mail. It is such a simple thing, available to most people, and yet so few of us take advantage of a reliable postal system that sending a letter can feel like magic.

One of the things I've tried to do with friends' kids is show them how cool it can be to send and receive stuff in the mail. I'm no longer the letter writer I once was, but as 2016 is here now, I'm adding getting back to letter writing to my short list of resolutions.

Won't you join me?

lettermo update

Unsurprisingly I did not make 28 letters in February. I couldn't focus each day on a person, I took a trip, the winter, the winter, the winter, etc. I managed to make 17 pieces of mail, mostly postcards, some of which haven't even arrived at their destination yet!

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Here is a comic about why a relationship with the post office can be very, very fulfilling if approached properly: Why I Live At The P.O. by Summer Pierre.

I must check my PO box. If you've sent me anything and it got sent back, I apologize. Now that there is the promise of a thaw I plan on going there more often.

a valentine for mother

I like exactly two things about Valentine's Day: hearts and mail.
Here is the mail art card I made my mom, my only valentine.

In the month of February I am attempting to make some mail every day. So far two every two days is working much better than trying to write something each day. And, despite the hashtag, a letter is not necessary to get in touch. Today I made the above card for a friend with whom I talk through all my big moves, my big emotions. With all the death and desire of the past several months, I think we might be talked out for awhile, so I thought I'd send a winter fantasy instead of more fraught thoughts.

Who are you missing these days?

Some people in comics [in the world] live under rocks and should stay there. However, it is important that their ways are brought to the harsh light. That way no one can say they didn't know, that that is the reason that they don't believe us.

Read MariNaomi's account of being harassed at a comics' convention by another panelist. Then read Rachel Edidin's examination of the pathetic apology by the perpetrator. 

Then never wonder why we are full of rage, but never surprise.

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I imagined my cool green cards appearing in the mailboxes of my friends and becoming a kind of signature. Whereas my old picture postcards were about the ephemeral land of dreams and potential, these new postcards were about the vulnerable space of now.

This love letter to postcards by Jamey Hatley is the perfect thing to read on a lonely day. She goes down so many trails in this short piece, that it left me wandering in the forest long after I finished it. The power of affordable art, the need for images of our idols, the desire for a connection: All these are combined in the simple postcard. I think about mail more than your average human, and wonder why I persist in the sometimes arduous task of making space for my friends in my mind, trying to tell a little story just for them, without the instant gratification of a response.

bittles

Once upon a time / two planets fell out of love: Yumi Sakugawa's The Rumpus comic is boss, as usual.

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E. Lily Yu's short story "Loss, With Chalk Diagrams," read by Eleiece Kraweic, over on Escape Pod was a good exploration of old friendship and grief. It also covers the final demise of the U.S. Post Office, highlighting what we can draw from that 6x per week delivery that we can't get anywhere else.

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Writing cards and letters today, tying up loose ends, signing papers and that sort of thing. Life's busywork, I guess. What are you doing?

I've been catching up with my Letters in the Mail subscription. The white, booklet-size envelopes fit perfectly into the back of my notebook along with the stamps, minicomics and other things. Sometimes they are about ghosts, sometimes they are about Los Angeles and sometimes they include a section on T shirts. Unsurprisingly, I like letters that are about letters; Maud Newton's was my favorite so far. Her writing is both comforting and subtly sly. Her letter was no different.

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Went to my PO box and it was empty as the piggy bank on the last day of summer. This fact was slightly ameliorated by the fact that they had the new lighthouse stamps in stock. Also, my visit wasn't the usual shit show that it normally is. Everyone there was working and being awesome. Is there a new breeze blowing through the stank heck that is Atlantic Times Plaza Station?

The Correspondence Artist by Barbara Browning

"Obviously, these kinds of questions interest me, because, as I mentioned, I occasionally dick around writing fiction. Look, I'm dicking around right now."

This book should not work. It is a series of repetitive meditations on a fading relationship that includes a one-sided email correspondence, Lacanian analysis, references to Simone Beauvoir's letters to Nelson Algren and a sestina. The narrator, Vivian, is in love with her story of almost-love and retells it with slightly different details, the rather unappealing "paramour" cloaked in four guises: an elderly writer from Israel, a pop star from Mali, a young conceptual artist from Vietnam and an aging Basque separatist. Vivian tells her stories slantwise to protect her famous-in-some-
way fuckbuddy, from what, we are not ever quite sure, but she tells it because she wants to write something.

That feeling of wanting to connect, both within the correspondence and with the reader, is what energizes Vivian's slight and circuitous story. There is also a satisfying sense of fun that carries everything along. Browning throws you out of the story at surprising moments, reminding you that it is all a story, whatever that means:

"When I met Tzipi I'd been around the block. Although she's twenty-three years older than me, I'm at the antique end of her spectrum. And I'm not dumb. Even Tzipi's acknowledged that. I went into this with my eyes wide open, and she's been honest with me every step of the way.

I told you, I have no idea why I got a little reckless with my emotions with her, when I managed to be so self-contained with the paramour."

While I read, it was irresistible to ponder which lover I could fall for. Browning knows this of course, and has Vivian think about the same thing. For me, the answer was none of them, which in turn subtly deepened my understanding of Vivian's desire.

I really enjoyed this celebration of epistolary writing. It was light, but hypnotic, and even led me to try my hand at the sestina form, along with inspiring me to write several letters and postcards. How can I help but recommend a book that made me DO something?

meta mail

The USPS charges shipping on stamp purchases. Laughter and tears, folks. Laughter and tears.

you send me comics

Any idea what book this image is from?

First of all, the blog over at the The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is an amazing resource for comics lovers, especially if your tastes skew vintage. My favorite feature is "Found in the Collection" because it indulges the fantasy that working in an archives is an exciting adventure of discovery--the same fantasy that led me to get my MLIS, but perhaps that is another story for another time.

I missed Found in the Collection: E. Simms Campbell Letters when it was first posted, so it is old in internet time. The E. Simms Campbell Letters are, of course, timeless, as all good letters are. The writer, Elmer Simms Campbell, was not only the creator of the Esquire magazine mascot, but a working, African American, NYC cartoonist from the 1930s to his death. The letters speak to the cartoonist lifestyle, one of all-nighters, deadlines, loneliness, but also some pretty epic partying, life in 1950s Switzerland and the habits of some prominent jazz musicians. Reading them in full would be pretty much the best thing. Researchers, take notice!

^^^^^

Loved the interview with Ellen Forney over at inkstuds. They cover working in memoir, coming out as mentally ill, deadlines, drugs and doctors. I want to read Marbles, which I didn't want before I listened.

I simply like listening to Forney. Her verve for life is infectious and that is something I desperately need to catch. Her previous interview with Robin made me feel the same way.

^^^^^

From LWA

A postcard interview is one of the best things I've heard about in a long while. I am doing a postal-related interview for work and if deadlines were not an issue, this would be an amazing treatment. If only, if only.

postcards: here and there

Help Vermont collagist and Post Office owner Jane Davies keep her little P.O. open by sending her a handmade postcard! I suppose that you could help by sending a letter to anyone in Rupert, VT, but on the off chance that you don't know any one of the 704 or so citizens, the Postcard Project works just fine. Check out the galleries of cards that she's already received here. If you don't at least click through to see the postage-stamp-size building, you have no heart.

If you have the misfortune of being in the Boston area, you could relieve some of that pain by visiting the MFA for The Postcard Age, and exhibit of selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection. The collector himself will be doing a talk on his collection on March 6th. While you're there, hit up the European Posters exhibit too.

Leonard Lauder also has a collection housed at the NYPL. The Detroit Publishing Company Postcards are available to view online and show mostly cityscapes, landmarks and natural beauty, but also things like this:

Image ID: 62237

To see them, click on the tiny "See all images" link on the upper part of the page.

These essays at The Rumpus on mental illness are necessary:
Sick by Amy Butcher
That's Life by Seth Fischer
Through the Cracks by Sue Sanders

And these interviews with people who make things are very different and very interesting:
The Rumpus Interview with Natalie Dee by Jory John
The Rumpus Book Club Discussion with George Saunders

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Sometimes you order Breaking & Entering by Joy Williams from the internet and end up with a Lemony Snickett book but nothing else is wrong right at the moment.

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The only thing that makes the cancellation of Saturday delivery by the USPS not entirely heartbreaking is that it will make Mondays somewhat more exciting.

Let's all make someone's week's beginning better by writing them a letter. (New slogan possibility? Send check to P.O. Box 170293, Times Plaza Station, Brooklyn, NY, 1217-9997)

My young pen pal is on the list for this week; who is on yours?

Checked my P.O. this week and found stuff in there from October. Then I had to wait in line for 20 minutes to find out that that they had sent some of my mail back. I spent so much time in that post office that I forgot how much I love mail. That place has an evil power!

VVVVVV

If you've been checking the sidebar at all you can see that I've been pouring books down my gullet like a starving sea bird. Almost all have been good, all have have fantastic elements. Reading still has that dislocating power for me--a fact that I become more grateful for as the tragedies pile up. Short stories work well for the subway, novels for the train and while in my parents' house, and comics for all the times in between.

What have been your security blanket books?

VVVVVV

Felt a strong connection to the Norwegian people after hearing this from Julia Grønnevet's recent essay in n+1, "Letters from Oslo:"

"Almost everyone owns a washing machine, but no one owns a dryer! Instead everyone dries their clothes on flimsy drying racks, and this takes so long that these racks are out on display all the time, even though they are constructed so that you can fold them away. it mystifies me why Norwegians, who tend to arrange their lives for maximum convenience, treat laundry as though it were a passing issue. It looks terrible..."

The essay is actually about a mass-murderer, and it is very disturbing. A reminder that life and laundry persist even as monsters exist.

Mannish

Today has featured two Isle of Man delights:

First Isle of Man stamps of 2013 revealed! To celebrate a Manx heritage museum opening!

"That Ol' Dagon Dark" by Robert MacAnthony (Pseudopod #307) and read by Pseudopod host Alastair Stuart. Never, ever try the special blend, no matter how good it smells.

From the NYPL Digital Gallery: ID 1640578

I spent one Christmas in the  mid-2000s stomping through the snowy streets of Manhattan with a young Manx man. He didn't know what Hanukka is. He also may have thought I was going to murder him. He wanted fish and chips for dinner but I think we ended up with falafel. I think he wanted a Christmas kiss. He promised to write but never did.

taxes, why you pay

Need to get out of the house post-Sandy? Use the internet? Find edification or escapism?

Most Brooklyn Public Library locations are open today until 5, including Central Library at Grand Army Plaza. These are not: Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Flatlands, Gerritsen Beach, Gravesend, Jamaica Bay, Kensington, McKinley Park and Sheepshead Bay. All open branches are open normal hours tomorrow. 

NYPL (Manhattan, Bronx, Staten Island) are also open til 5 today, with some major exceptions. Click the link for a full list.

The Queens Library system is mostly open normal hours, with the exception of the beach branches (Arverne, Broad Channel, Peninsula and Seaside). Click the link for a full list.

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Because the mail must go through I am grateful. With the mail today was this. I cannot wait to read it. Vanessa Veselka and Lidia Yuknavitch wrote two of the best books I read this year, along with several get-down-to-it essays.

frankenmail

It should be no rug pulled out from under you that I subscribe to The Rumpus's Letters in the Mail. I always forget that I signed up, so each letter from an author is a surprise. I mostly read them on the subway, the perfect way to transport from Brooklyn to Manhattan with even knowing it. I've even written a few back. The stacks of white envelopes remind me to write to my letter friends--I always feel behind.

The most recent letter is from author T Cooper. I love it. It is long and wandering and includes pictures. On the first page he writes about a correspondence with a friend in France: "Every time I open up this drawer (approximately two times a day), the envelope is just sitting there staring up at me with its little foreign stamp and sailboats running atop it in reverse, reminding me that I'm an  asshole for not yet having written him back. I've seen him once and written him electronically countless times since he wrote that latter back in July, so that certainly thwarts my motivation to write him back. Or maybe that's just how we live now, even me, even though I think I'm somehow different."

I like how written letters mix in with everything else. I think of them as a moment where I can stop and focus only on the person I am writing to, which is a different thing than taking to them, or holding hands or tweeting at them. I think of them and how I want to tell it, whatever it is, to them. It is a powerful way to stay in the present. Plus, everyone loves letters.

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How to throw a fancy mail art party. I'd probably drop the gift bags and nice paper, add piles of old magazine for collage and put out a tip jar for stamp costs (and offer to mail everyone's letters), but to each her own. What would you want at a mail art do?

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My dad has cancer and was given (too) short number of years to live. Unsurprisingly, he is very sad. One of the few things that cheers him up is mail. His friends have been sending a ton of postcards and other greetings, which surprised and cheered him. And, of course, me. I'm sending him and my mom a Nan Goldin postcard tomorrow. Three dimes and two pennies is all it takes, and I have that, if not a lot else at the moment.

trip book style

I took a most relaxing vacation. I missed SPX and the Brooklyn Book Fest and Theo Ellsworth and everything, but I promise that I did my part in between redwoods, oaks, MUNI, METRO and fish watching and fish breakfasts.

blurry enough?

Since we stayed in Silverlake for two nights, I had to check out Secret Headquarters. I barely made it ot of there with adding tens of pounds to my already book-laden luggage. Because I cannot drive I must walk and this sends me to Fairfax when I am in L.A. Not only does the lovely and talented Chez Mo live very near, but the Farmer's Market, Family Bookstore and Cinefamily are all on the row. Nothing grabbed me at FB, but I paced and dug until I pulled up HAV by Jan Morris. The intro by scifi legend Ursula K. LeGuin sold it.

When several people tell me that I'll just love something, I start to feel a little uneasy. This usually means that the something is something horrible. I guess I just give off that vibe.  So, when we hopped on the Expo line to Culver City I was a little apprehensive. The Museum of Jurrassic Technology did not disappoint, however.  I picked up No One May Ever Have The Same Knowledge Again: Letters to Mount Wilson Observatory 1915-1935, edited and transcribed by Sarah Simons. This book not only arouses the urge to write letters, but also contains some sweet telegram spam:

Most of the time between LA and SF involved nature and driving and basking. I read my airport-bought The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It was sufficiently distracting, but ultimately bloodless, despite pretending to be a romance. I spent most of my time breaking into a new journal with entries describing warm weather, drawing pictures of my luggage and listing the various plants I saw that day for our leather-clad, cyborg, future kids.

I finished The Night Circus by San Francisco. At Borderlands Books, I traded it in for a bit of credit and picked up the anthology Firebirds Rising edited by Sharyn November and the Tachyon Press chapbook A Flock of Lawn Flamingos by Pat Murphy. Firebirds Rising is YA, an unpleasant surprise that I could have avoided with a closer reading of the cover. The troubled teens helped pass the flight back and included two stories that I really liked by two weirdo masters: "Quill" by Carol Emshwiller and "The Wizards of Perfil" by Kelly Link. A Flock of Lawn Flamingos was a sweet and simple ode to troublemakers. I read it on the way to work my first day back to Midtown, letting the story take me back to California.

Now that I am back, life has taken a sad and shitty turn, so I especially relish the worry-free reading and writing time I had.

this would be better or different

Roxane Gay is the best essayist around. She is also one of the most interesting pop cultural critics working today. She recently wrote this list-a-say about female friendship that struck me as deeply important, as well as informative, for everyone: How to Be Friends With Another Woman

I've been thinking a lot about friendship recently, and as Gay is a writer that helps me think, I am glad she is thinking about it too. Thanks, the hairpin for sending me towards her tumblr.

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NEWS: Got my first subscription shipment from Oily Comics. It made me happy. 

ADVICE: You should listen to Robin's interview with artist and publisher Charles Forsman on inkstuds where he talks about what led to Oily, why it feels good to charge $1 for comics, and family. He also reveals that his new book will be about Wolf, a character I loved in a mini I loved.

BRAG: All of you who didn't subscribe really missed out.

This is exactly what I look like.

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I write to a six-year-old regularly. We are not related. When I started, she couldn't read the letters herself but now I choose words that I hope she finds delightful. I do hope that our little correspondence, even when likely forgotten, inspires her to be a lifelong letter writer. If I wanted to up those chances considerably, I'd pressure her parents to buy her the Rumpus Letters for Kids subscription. Writers writing letters to kids? Yes, please.  I get the adult version and overall it has been an amazing experience.