Easter Greetings

A dear friend recently told me she thought of this time of year as a brighter kind of Thanksgiving. We were talking about Easter and Passover and, as it happens, this book I've been reading, about what it means to be lost, opened with a discussion of Passover:

"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.... The important thing is not that Elijah might show up someday. The important thing is that the doors are left open to the dark every year."

I like this description too, very much. It's come up for me several times this week and last that sometimes questions are more significant than answers.

Photo by Jess Watson

This has little to do with letterpress, admittedly, but I am indeed feeling thankful this year, and open, I hope, to the dark.

Ladies of Letterpress

I had an atypical St. Patty's Day this year. Instead of challenging my husband to see who was most thirsty (because he's been traveling), I attended a talk and exhibition by the founding members of Ladies of Letterpress at the San Francisco Center for the Book. Port and specialty font-shaped chocolate, from La Forêt Chocolates of Napa, were a pretty good substitute for green beer.







The Ladies of Letterpress, of which I'm now a member (a little prematurely perhaps, but why not? Seize the day!), does accept lads, and is basically a social network of letterpress printers and suppliers (because I need another social network), and (in all seriousness) their site offers a wealth of information. It's always amazing to me how you can scratch the surface of some new fascination only to find a whole world exists there.

How the Light Gets In

This is lovely. But what I really love is the video.


Photo by danske

Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
that's how the light gets in.

~Leonard Cohen

Good to the Last Squeeze

Cutest ink packaging ever!

I was thrilled to learn I could buy ink by the quarter pound, in tubes. It's cheaper and space-saving, which is a consideration for the time being. Now, along with my larger supply of whites and black, I can begin mixing more nuanced pantone colors. These represent a lot of the standard pantone colors, and are a mixture of rubber, oil, and soy-based inks.

Baby, Are you Down?

Just because it's Valentine's day, some images I've slowly been collecting:

(1) From Dover Publications, free sample art (2) Found on a really lovely blog written in French that I can't read: gris-bleu (3) Admittedly, poached from my friend Nana's blog: sankofa (4) Image from NPR article: My Heart Will Go On

p.s. The post title is a reference to a song I really shouldn't admit listening to... like, thirty times last week.

Epistles of Love

Soon it will be Valentine's day, and I decided not to print valentines this year. In the meantime, here are some valentines or epistles of love from the long past:

In 1907 this was addressed to a Miss Ethel Loving.

In 1910, someone wrote on the back only: "Still am wondering."

On the back, this reads:

Dear Lizzie:
I wish you wealth.
I wish you health.
I wish you gold in store.
I wish you heaven after earth.
What could I wish you more
when the golden sun is setting
and your thoughts from care are free
when others you are thinking
will you sometimes think of me.

Be sure and bring your umbrella tonight.
Yours, write soon.
~unsigned

And, from the same hand to the same Lizzie:

Ah. Lizzie I caught you on last night by proper. Don't squeeze him so tight or you might take a button off. I received your P.C. (postcard?) alright which is very nice. Write soon.

....

Then there is a side note that says: Take off stamp.

....

Indeed, the stamp has been removed and underneath is written:

yes
yes





The scandal! The intrigue! The romance!


Also: Check out the top 10 words associated with Valentine's Day here. There are some surprising definitions and etymologies. For example, "romantic" derives from the conquering powers of the Roman empire and "amour" actually refers to illicit love affairs. And Adonis was basically a player.

CBS News: Handwritten Thank You Notes

Stationary is becoming a luxury instead of a staple. The advent of email, ecards and the like make it easier than ever to say thank you or happy birthday or "I've arrived safely" and so on, which is a good thing. Not to mention, greener.

So I'm not here to advocate or change anyone's mind about using paper stationary, but for what it's worth, here's a recent CBS News segment on sending handwritten thank you notes:


(As seen via @stationaryshow on Twitter; may not display properly on Firefox browsers)

Personally, I grew up writing and sending thank you notes for every holiday, gift, etc. and when I was a tween, I had something like 7 pen-pals, including one as far away as Russia, which was then still part of the Soviet Union. Besides my stock of Hello Kitty papers, I also had my great-grandmother's stationary, which was always tissue-thin, perfumed, scallop-edged, in pale pastels. There was some yellow stationary I remember well, printed with butterflies. It was lovely and I used it all.

Jane Austen once wrote to her sister:

I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth...

My own opinion is that a hand-written thank you note is a nice gesture, but only if it's not completely generic. You can always recycle the paper afterward. Otherwise, maybe a simple thank you in some other form would be best, though I've recently heard that saying thank you publicly and online - on Facebook or Twitter - is not good etiquette because it lets your inner circle know what they've missed or were excluded from. That, too, can be argued in more than one way. It's tricky business, being modern.