Postcard pressure

Thought I'd share my latest video for Stamp & Coin Mart magazine.

I hope you appreciate the nifty editing. Three hours wading through iMovie's "Help" section proved time well spent in the end.

Found at a postcard fair in Preston, I first featured this card in a blog post back in June 2010.

Now, there are a couple more videos already in the can, but if there's a card on Postcardese you think I should include in a video do let me know.

Rest assured, Matt said the card did make it to the magazine's offices.

Happy Birthday, no, Easter

It's been a while since I put a new, well, old card up on the blog. So with Easter this weekend I thought this one would be good to share.

It's an unusual one in my collection.

I tend to look for those with stamps and frank marks. As signs of authenticity, the King's head and a postmark seem to permit us to believe the correspondents existed, and that a conversation took place.

There's no stamp on this card to Violet. I bought it for Lucy's meticulous correction of her slip in wishing Violet happy birthday rather than Easter.

But looking again, where the stamp would have been, there are other signs that this is 'genuinely' (at least) a card produced in the Golden Age of postcards (1902-1918).

First, the stamp requested is a half penny stamp, or a ha'penny green. Between 1870 and 1918 the postage rate for cards was half that of the penny postage rate for letters. Then, in a tiny upper case font, we see it was printed in Saxony where most cards were printed before the First World War.

And of course, away from the top right hand corner, the format of the card fits with what we know of postcards after 1902. The 'Hartmann line' is in place down the middle, separating the address and message halves.

As to whether the conversation occurred, we can't be sure - although can we really ever be?

Certainly, without a stamp the card may not have been sent at all. It might have been delivered by Lucy or under the cover of an envelope, but we will never know.

My hunch is Lucy thought twice about spending 1/2d on a card she'd so carefully prepared, until the moment her mind wandered.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The post postcard

In the 10 years I've lived in London, I've spent a lot of time in the Tate Modern gift shop.

There's always a lot of good stuff on offer. Its shelves are packed with books and magazines, helping you make sense of art. And sometimes you even stumble across the odd artist or two.

I'm also drawn to the store because I think it plays host to a new chapter in the history of the postcard; the rise of the "post postcard".

In rack after rack, gallery exhibits are reduced to the familiar 6 x 4 inch form. Hundreds of Dali, Magritte and Rothko replicas standby ready to make their exit from the gallery. For 60p a throw.

However, this is not the postcard section, really.

They are cards, for sure.

But they are not "post" cards.

While some may be sent, we know most won't. They are more likely to end up on fridge doors, in picture frames or as bookmarks - kept by the person who purchases them as souvenirs of trips to the gallery.

This isn't just conjecture. It's there in the design.

Turn a Tate card over and it surrenders any claim on being a "post" card. Gone is Hartmann's line down the middle of the 'back'. There isn't a box for a stamp. And any text is printed in portrait, not landscape.  There is simply no expectation of a message, or of an address.

If I were feeling mean spirited, I might argue that the "post" in "postcard" has become something of an alibi. Would galleries sell as many "small cards of paintings"?

Or to look on the bright side, there continues to be a real warmth in the concept of the postcard, for all it represents as the Digital Revolution continues to gather momentum.

More on Muriel

I've started contributing to a collectors' magazine called Stamp & Coin Mart. 

As well as writing a column on postcards, I've filmed a few videos for the magazine's website. This is the first one which will accompany the March edition.

Speaking into the camera reminded me of George Orwell's essay Poetry and the Microphone.

Orwell reckoned:

"In broadcasting your audience is conjectural, but it is an audience of ONE. 

Millions may be listening, but each is listening alone, or as a member of a small group, and each has (or ought to have) the feeling that you are speaking to him individually. 

More than this, it is reasonable to assume that your audience is sympathetic, or at least interested, for anyone who is bored can promptly switch you off by turning a knob...."

While it would be a stretch to think "millions may be listening", I hope you're as sympathetic as I was imagining. And can ignore the umms and errs.

Longstanding readers of Postcardese will remember Muriel's card from "A fine set of girls" back in September 2010.

For those of you without a postcardaphic memory, here are the two sides of the card.

I think Muriel's second from the right on the front row. Not sure why - there just seems something furtive about her.

Furtive... what a great word.

Lost in translation - part 2

A month ago, I posted a 1913 card sent from the US to Japan.,, 

Well, thanks to an old school pal (Rupert) and a friend from university (Fuyu) we've now got a translation (or two) .... 

I always feel a bit conflicted in finding out more about the cards. 

Walter Benjamin talked about us living in an age where everything is explained, where "no event any longer comes to us without already being shot through with explanation." He speculated about the impact this has on our imagination, and our ability to connect through storytelling.

I like to think the mysteries in old cards offer some resistance to this. But there's still that itch to find out more. 

And sometimes I give in. Hence the appeal for ideas about what was going on with this card. 

You'll remember I found it at a fair in London. And that the card had been sent from San Francisco in the US to Yokohama in Japan. That much we knew.

Now we know a lot more...

And to that we can add Fuyu's thoughts ...

"In the past, Japanese used to make a horizontal writing from right to left, which we never do in contemporary Japanese.

So I read this line from right to left then it makes sense.

The other part is written in vertical writing so it's different.

Although I cannot understand all of it, I can see it is not saying something happy but something sad/bad because I can see some words like "A year with dreadful Japanophobia" "suffered from devastating blow" "lonely" etc.

Does "Japanophobia" make sense? I can't really find a good phrase for this..

But the thing is I cannot connect all of these, so it may be saying something positive in the end..."

Thanks Rupert, Ai and Fuyu. 

Extra information, for sure. Extra painful information, that is. 

But the card isn't shot through, or is it?

Merry Christmas everyone!

I promised you a Christmas card this week.

And so here it is.... complete with a Google tour of the house it was sent to in Bath. Before it got put into the postcard album, let's hope it got an airing on the piano. A house like that must have a piano? Mustn't it?

Anyway, wishing you.... and the current residents of Claremont Villa.... a very merry Christmas!

Have a great holiday everyone and see you in 2012!

Much love, Guy.



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Self-captioned portraits

This month the fashion company ESPRIT started an ad campaign in which models tell us what they are "wishing for" this Christmas.

How do we know what they want? 

They've written it on pieces of card. They've held these cards up. And then they've looked at us... down the lens of a camera. 

Self-captioned portraits. If you like.

The messages are messy and clear. Messy - to make us feel like they are spontaneous, and therefore genuine. Clear - to make sure we can read them when we're waiting for the bus.

Even putting aside the banality of the wish list - lottery wins, "real happiness" and "harmony with nature" - the campaign has really irked me. 

I know when you analyse advertising, it can make you cross. An advert is only successful if it makes you feel short of something. And admen/women will use all the tricks in their books to give you a desire itch.

But this campaign has crossed the line... it's mangled the work of an artist I really like. That of Gillian Wearing. 

Not that using elements of others' work is in itself always bad, of course. I admit Wearing's work was an influence on the images I took of the "postcard tour" I did at a bookshop in May. 

But if done badly or for a dubious motive, there's a risk the original artwork itself is undermined. Classical music has been an obvious victim of this. Listen to a Puccini opera and at some point you'll inevitably find yourself thinking about buying a new car or, worse still, renewing your home insurance.

In particular, ESPRIT's campaign brought to mind: Wearing's “Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say”; the Volkswagen advert that Wearing suggested was based on her work; and DHL's fanverts at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand this year  - where fans were encouraged to hold up handwritten messages on boards, framed with DHL logos.

For her piece, Wearing approached strangers in public spaces, and asked them to write a spontaneous message on an A3 piece of paper. She then took a photo of them holding the paper. 

Below is one of the first photos in the series. 

It shows a woman holding the message “I REALLY LOVE REGENTS PARK”. With it, Wearing skillfully counters the notion that when it comes to looking at photos ‘you can no longer trust your eyes'. The woman is photographed in a park, suggesting a chance encounter between photographer and subject. 

To create a credible narrative across the series of photos, Wearing uses the same white paper and black marker pen in each, making visible the process of her arranging the photoshoots - you can picture Wearing approaching the volunteers and asking them to join in her project. 

In each photo, the direct gaze into the camera gives the impression the individual is content to be photographed in this way; they are fully aware of what is going on.  And having written the message themselves, they have been given more than a bit of control over how the photo will be read by those that see it. 

With 'authenticity' established, the photos make us believe in the people in the photos. 

For ESPRIT, I guess they want us to think the same of their images. These people are real. Their views are real. Their love of ESPRIT is real. 

There is a problem though for ESPRIT. And it stems from not letting anything interesting or confusing be written on the boards. If applying Wearing's techniques has made us believe in the people photographed and all they've written are trite, empty 'wishes', then aren't we simply left convinced that the brand is for people who themselves are genuinely boring? 

Or is that wishful thinking on my part? 

PS Don't worry, I'll cheer up for Christmas! And on the next post I'll have an update on the Japanese postcard from last week. Am very excited about this. Thanks to Rupert and Fuyu for sending in their translations.

Plus, I have a great card with which to wish you a Merry Christmas.