An Iconic Letterpress Moment

Also a mysterious one. My husband came across this image on Tumblr:

She's working on a floor model platen press (so, like mine, but bigger) and all I have to say is, Look at those shoes!

Ocean Beach & Cliff House in 1930

There's this great blog I follow that's all about my neighborhood, and they recently posted this fun video of scenes from Ocean Beach and the Cliff House, back in 1930. Since I'm a fan of local ephemera, I thought I'd repost it here.


This might resonate a little extra for me because I used to live a stone's throw from Ocean Beach and the Cliff House, and also because my grandpa grew up in the Sunset and he or other relatives sometimes talked about the Playland at the Beach. I feel grateful to have experienced a little bit of history crossing generations, as when I lived in the Outer Richmond, the Musee Mechanique was still housed below the Cliff House. I often took long walks along the Great Highway that ended at the arcade, where I'd spend my spare change on Laughing Sal and the nickel and dime machines.

Happy Easter

May your Easter, or weekend, be a lovely one.

Pulp fiction: ten-story love magazine

My daughter and I recently accompanied my parents up to the Gold Country for some heat, relaxation, good eats, antiquing and wine tasting. I picked up this pulp magazine for five bucks at The Emporium in Jamestown.

Evidence of inflation: the magazine was originally sold for ten cents, back in July of 1946. My grandparents would have been entering their twenties at the time, perhaps at university, acclimating to life after war. As far as I know, this magazine was published monthly from at least 1941 to 1950 and possibly beyond. I don't know about my grandparents, but there's no question that I would have been down to read 10 love stories per month.

This issue is full of scandalous lines and terrific pulp art. To be sure, the stories are not for the modern feminist, but any good love story is bound to leave at least one person unhappy.

Vintage Heath Ceramics

I've been vacationing in South Lake Tahoe my entire life - at a cabin my grandpa built with his two brothers back in the late 50's/early 60's. This year, unfortunately, the cabin was put on the market and promptly sold. We recently drove up to spend a last, long weekend. Somehow it had escaped me all this time (or, at least in recent years), that the cabin dishes are actually vintage Heath Ceramics.

For those who aren't familiar, Heath Ceramics is located in Sausalito, and they also have an outpost in the SF Ferry Building. They've made several things I rather covet (for example: these or this). Perhaps the dishes will remain with the cabin. It sort of feels like they belong together.

Postcards from the Paris Flea Market

My brother's girlfriend recently spent three weeks in Paris taking in the sites, visiting working ateliers with her fashion school colleagues, and, as it were, buying me the perfect souvenir. She had a chance to visit the flea markets and came home with a stack of vintage postcards in perfect condition. All of the great big eyeballs are perforated and can be punched out for extra effect. I think Little Red Riding Hood might be my favorite.

lest you forget kiss card

This amazing card showed up on Pinterest:

It would be fun to recreate this for the letterpress and keep some of the phrases ("I'd like to see you in a little love nest") but maybe also update some of the phrases a little bit (holla!). Hmm.... new project, I think.

Vintage Valentines

From January's Vintage Paper Faire: 

Portraits from the Past

It's that time of year again, and the Vintage Paper Fair came and left Golden Gate Park's Hall of Flowers the first weekend in January. I was able to swing by for an hour Saturday morning and found many, many postcard vendors, but not much in the way of other ephemera. This year I was mostly looking forward to sorting through boxes of unlabeled, lost-in-time images. My interest was piqued by these two. What, do you imagine, are their stories?

It would be wonderful to sleep in a bed, in a tent, filled with light, no? 

Don't Break the Chain!

I was recently browsing the House of Vintage in Portland, Oregon and came across this postcard:



It was sent from one man to another and reads:

Hi Boy!


You should have come along like I said. - Nice scenery - especially thru the mts. - Utah, Nevada & Wyoming - Plenty of time to see it as this truck isn't very fast.


P.S. A man should consider if he follows thru on this chain he might be worse off.

Suffice to say, I've never seen a chain letter quite like this before. It's dated Sept. 27, 1954 and the was 3 cents.

Joyeux Anniversaire

One last post from the vintage paper fair:

This poem appeared to be penned from husband to wife on their wedding anniversary, and I found it, months ago, in one of the .25 bins. It seemed like it was worth more than that.

Today is my 3rd wedding anniversary, somehow. I visited my grandparents last night, and they said that they'll have been married 58 years this fall, and together for 68 years. She's put up with me that long, my grandfather said, smiling.

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.

Lovely Ladies

It was a beautiful, clear - if not bitterly cold - Sunday in Golden Gate Park and it was hard not to be struck by the beauty, the activity, and the vibrance of life in the city... farmer's markets and street musicians, coffee shops and bakeries with lines out the door, steam or fog rising from a botanical garden, children running through it... and then inside the Hall of Flowers it smelled just like an old library book and there was this tangible evidence of other vibrant lives, in other places, in other times. I bought mostly postcards because they are small and inexpensive and because they are interesting. I found myself feeling glad that they hadn't been thrown out with the trash.

At $0.25 or a dollar per card, I bought anything (but not everything) I found inspiring in some way. Sometimes I bought something for what was written on the backside. Sometimes for the different phrasings of greetings from olden times. Sometimes for the humor, or beauty, or general weirdness. I was drawn mostly to the Victorian and the art deco.

One of my finds at the vintage paper fair, which seemed somewhat unusual, was this postcard of a typesetting room in another part of the world, a long time ago. This is very tedious work!

I'm not going to post everything I bought, and not all at once, but here are some lovely ladies I seem to have collected:

Why the Devil Don't You Write?

I picked this up at last year's Vintage Paper Fair:

My intention at the time had been to send it to a particular someone - someone who, for some reason, has always tolerated this kind of behavior from me. But I never did send it, and now I don't think I'm likely to. I'm somewhat resolved to be less obnoxious and more of a grown up this year.

This postcard is undated, though it was sent from Harry to Ella (Miss Ella, I should say) and it seems that Harry was directing the question to himself. Postage at the time was 1 cent domestic and 2 cents foreign, and the backside was intended for the address only. This year I saw quite a few postcards aimed at goading a friend or relative into writing, though this was the only one to invoke el diablo.

vintage bookplate

A little more from the vintage paper fair:

This bookplate is from 1925. It's a lovely block print mounted on a thick matte paper. It struck me as being both dark and beautiful.

hal lutsky's vintage paper fair

I've started out the new year with some very old paper. Hal Lutsky's Vintage Paper Fair was held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park this past weekend. The fair returns three times a year to Golden Gate Park, and also travels to Concord and the Los Angeles-area.

Not knowing what to expect, a friend and I went down to the Hall of Flowers to check out the fair. Primarily, it seems, it's a place to buy or sell vintage postcards and photos, booklets, posters, and other paper ephemera. You could easily spend all day looking through bins of sorted and categorized images, which really appealed to the writer in me. It's a great way to do period or location research, and also, in general, to find inspiration.

Here's some of what I took home, including my very favorite at the top: