Dust on the Bookshelf

One Nation, Under Coins

busy day.

You've Got Mail

I wasn't kidding about my affinity for post cards and thought I'd share my latest aquisition with my dear readers. 

Good friend Mateo Corby has moved to São Paulo after graduation. He's always been a traveling man, and while he's signed up for a yeas in Brazil, he won't have to stay completely put. So far his work with education has taken him all around the country to other cities including Paraty, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia.
Mateo is ever the lover of trivia, especially that which is geographical in nature. So he shares with you and me a few fun facts about São Paulo. Enjoy.

1 The third largest city in the world, and largest in the Americas, Sao Paulo has about 18 million people.
2 There are over 30 parks and 15 million square meters of green space in the SP.
3 The largest Japanese community outside of Japan can be found here.

The Lost Art of Postcard Writing by Charles Simic | The New York Review of Books

From NYRblog, "The Lost Art of Postcard Writing"

Here it is already August and I have received only one postcard this summer. It was sent to me by a European friend who was traveling in Mongolia (as far as I could deduce from the postage stamp) and who simply sent me his greetings and signed his name. The picture in color on the other side was of a desert broken up by some parched hills without any hint of vegetation or sign of life, the name of the place in characters I could not read. Even receiving such an enigmatic card pleased me immensely. This piece of snail mail, I thought, left at the reception desk of a hotel, dropped in a mailbox, or taken to the local post office, made its unknown and most likely arduous journey by truck, train, camel, donkey—or whatever it was— and finally by plane to where I live.

via www.nybooks.com

Some of you dear readers may be aware of my extensive postcard collection (hundreds). it began when I was in middle school and grows every few weeks. As a result, i am enthusiastic to share this blog post from the New York Book Review (thanks esther!) concerning the motivations and tribulations of postcard writers. The author posits a dichotomy of post-card sender types: those who pick the iconic image from their visit and send sentimental notes about traveling, and those who find the funky if not absurd image and write a quirky, ideally humorous, note to the intended recipient.

I was struck by one interesting historical observation made by the author. He questions the existence of a "post-card literature" (very hist and lit of him) and refers to the very brief pointed messages that accompanied post-cards in the early 20th century. I have picked up a couple of vintage cards over the years and indeed they often contain the most serious of news. Marriages, deaths, funerals, and births were all announced by carte-postale. And I wonder, was it the relative cheapness or telegram-like aspect of post-cards that caused people to trust them (no envelope to speak of) with their most intimate and private of messages?

I occasionally grapple with the lack of anonymity of the post-card. Any one at the post office can read my note! Of course, I always realize that no one at the post office cares what I wrote. Furthermore, with the impending slashing of USPS jobs fewer actual people will be reading them.
We should all send a few more of these colorful personal notes, it might seriously boost the Post's numbers while helping to perpetuate a dying print "literature."

 one of my more recent aquisitions. Text on back: "Hi Sarah! Greetings from hot-hot-hot (literally Phnom Penh." author will remain anonymous...