Yup, i ramble on about items arrived by post and think you should hang out (i’ll make tea)
Opening a big santa sack of recent items by post including aerogrammes/ aerograms, passports, international driver’s licenses, documents, hotel letterhead, records (namechecking recent interview on Rice Field Records), postcards, etc from Nepal, Monaco, East German DDR, probably i dunno… Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, United Nations, others i don’t quite understand.
Also mail from Ukraine which allows mention of intrepid postal workers delivering despite war and displacement, + blabbity blah about guest coming to visit, feeling discombobulated after #MECFS “crash mode” – that’s it except the parts i forgot. Argh prob a ramble about the “passport forgery project” {recalling i riffed about taking “intimate documents” and adding life to them}
Bonus: Rice Field Records Interview
{this should and will be a separate bonus post but in the meanwhile…}
Just remixing some passports from Romania and Albania.
Ambient views and vibes of making a series of 4 very different postcards ~ fiddling with stamps (postal and inky), various pens, scissors, glue and other crafts odds and ends in kura barn in provincial Japan
Stamps and items from: Gibraltar, Malaysia, Diego Garcia, Nepal, Palau, Tuvalu, Japan, Tahiti, Antigua, Sri Lanka, India, BOIT, Newfoundland, CCCP, Canada, UK, & featuring Fredrick Varley, Ichiro Olson, Baden-Powell, Capilano suspension bridge, rabbits and many other notable details and destinations.
No chit-chat or narration, just hanging out.while listening to Bill Janovitz’s great album Walt Whitman Mall (used w/o clearence) on vinyl with admiration.
Just remixing some passports from Romania and Albania.
Remixing expired passports from Romania and Albania into “dossiers of mystery and tactical intrigue” complete with endorsements, visas, assignments, sightings, safe houses, maps, aliases, poetry, ephemera, snippets, stamps – both ink and postal – musings, memos, codes, secrets.
Completely usual behavior – carry on with your diligent efforts.
Checkpoints include: Sri Lanka, Nepal, Diego Garcia, Vatican, Athens, Kyoto… etc + green beavers and diligent dogs
this shoe is made for walking – really, it’s not the best for walking but representing that this site is taking a bit of a stroll
A brief logistical note to say: due to the unique conundrum of having “lots of data” coupled with “rather modest traffic” has compelled me to change this archive’s hosting situation. As such, current run of several months straight of “tidying up the archive with loads of posts” will probably be paused for a little while
You probably won’t notice but consider this a notice that you might have noticed. I would ask you to wish me luck but really, that shouldn’t be required.
‘with a weird expression on my face as I try to hold up my glasses with my nose’
Writing postcards, putting on stamps, typing letters (with a weird expression on my face as I try to hold up my glasses with my nose), scribbling addresses, stamping inky stamps… and whatnot in historic kura barn studio in provincial Japan with a shaky camera while listening to John K Sampson (of The Weakerthans from Winnipeg) on vinyl.
That’s it, nothing else happens, come hang out if you want.
Really, That’s it… just me in the kura studio, fiddling around making a mix cassette tape from a USB drive (weird right) with a story about the “Taos hijacking incident” – while also organizing some postcards, addressing some envelopes and that’s it… Really nothing happens but thought you might want to just come hang out.
At first blush, it seems to be extraneous to embed Twitter messages into this creative life archive (i’d best not make a habit of it) but my goodness!, this lovely documentation of correspondence with a real life friend in far away Vancouver stuck with me since our exchange of dossiers over the last couple of years.
I’m doing that “I GOT A LETTER FROM JAPAN” dance! Thanks @uncleweed for today’s happymaker! Love the stamps and the Shiba Inu friend on the back! We were IRL pals before #penpalooza, but this guy is a legend with his letters & I’m super excited to see what’s inside! 楽しみ!???????????????? pic.twitter.com/Agbl0WuYHj
I just didn’t want the artifacts to be lost into the endless vortex of ephemeral short form messaging so, at the risk of being redundant and forever incomplete, here is evidence – both written and photographic – of an exchange between a.k.a. @Hez and me (and my family).
Highlights include: her fine Japanese writing, and all kinds of papery treats (a mobile which was used on our festive tree), there are other “parts” to his but for now, here we go (note: I did my best to reciprocate by including some cute dog stamps to amuse her).
Newest Postcard series for the “daveo postal club” members and other free radicals. Snaps come from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Australia maybe, other places as well but mostly tall slender red unit except the blue one, and the ones that are red but not post boxes.
such elegance and utility in the designs which somehow feel universal and unique at the same time
completely unrelated, half finished and lost painting (that was changed entirely) in Jamaica which appeared on a robot and posting here so i don’t forget it
The important part is to enjoy tea {and the tools} +
Series of 9
Bound for the post office forthwith (tomorrow is a holiday in Japan hence closed) with a new batch for (some of) the “postcard as a service” subscribers… Each handmade on washi paper with ink sketches of different elements used in tea ceremony with specific narrative on the back.
Yep, 9 indeed
Just think: If all these folks got together one day, each with their card in hand, together they would have a (in)complete guide book to tea ceremony ;)
The tea cards anointed with these most wonderful Japanese remixed woodblock print stamps
[Update] Arrived at my favorite little post office, Shinogoze, with 11 minutes before closing the day before a holiday – they were, as always, excited to see my new creations – rather surprised that I make these things mail all over – and indulge me picking out *just the right* stamps + managed to squeeze up a few quick snapshots before they went into the chute of adventure.
The bonus/sundry assortment where adorned with the cute little Postal bear off on an adventure in England it seems
Bonus round: A few from the standard and experimental stacks also went out for various purposes including:
* train station in Tripunnithura, Kerala India (going back to India) & * post boxes in Kathmandu (foreign, domestic, regional) – in memorium
* telegrams (concerning roast beef, smoking jacket and a barman named Sunday) from the Majestic Hotel in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia / protip: find the poem written from this very experience elsewhere in this archive (snap too #evidence)
On the left is from DT Suzuki Zen Museum in Kanazawa, on the right is from Yumeji museums in Okayama / Both adorned with far more expensive stamp than necessary for the postal rain but seem to really fit the aesthetics. What is a few yen between magicians anyway?
* Two very important health of various kinds of practitioners celebrate birthdays (constantly enough, the same age milestone) and though they’ve been in close navigation to each other, I’ve never met… Anyway, pulled from the high value/not by me file for special wishes & gratitude
* assortment of pocket knives (with metaphor included) and even more metaphor with the importance of Scaffolding in most any construction/project, so often forgotten, no matter how sturdy (on a enotepad from some government office)
There are many reasons I love to send postcards and letters: the first of course is to just let people know I am thinking about them, followed closely by the meditative enjoyment of assembling paper, image and decoration just exactly right, but also enjoy seeing my creations reflected back across in another medium, weeks – or sometimes months – after I drop it in the box.
In this case, the recipient is a photographer who primarily shoots humming and other birds (and who’s lovely cards are elsewhere in this archive) and also takes wonderful close-up snaps of the details of my artifacts, in this case noticing the stamps – both ornamental and philadelphic – and the fuchsia ink scrawled with a quill.
To continue the recursive cycle, I’ve smashed four of her photos together in a little collage to zoom back from Japan to Vancouver once again, with evidence.
Ergo: A collage of close up details from a postcard sent from provincial Japan to West End Vancouver showing a beautiful franked stamp featuring illustration of a lady in kimono, an ink stamp unofficially commemorating Vancouver international airport established 1970, another ink stamp imitating an Immigration stamp from Narita airport and excerpt of a scribble in fuchsia ink possibly saying “happy birthday“ with a bit of another ink stamp probably saying “Postcard“.
