Walt's coded love

Postman CCTV

I know most of you have already worked this out but I can officially confirm...  there are only so many hours in the day.

How have I come across this insight? Well, I've just started a masters degree and  - as my absence from blogland suggested - have been struggling to get everything done.

On the upside, neglecting Postcardese has allowed me to achieve all the essentials of student life; a handsome amount of stationery has been procured, my face is suitably unshaven and - while not yet perfect - my I-was-just-about-to-say-that nod is coming along well in classes.

The course is art and politics. And over the coming year, I'm going to try to think through how some of the concepts I'm picking up relate to postcard messages. The end goal? Well the main reason for doing the course is to enjoy having a think about stuff, but on top of that some postcard-related art is going to emerge.

It would be great if people could fire up their imaginations on what this might look like. Or if there's some event, artist, thinker that is relevant, send me a link to postcardese@gmail.com.

First up is an idea which has come up a couple of times in class  - Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon.

Bentham designed this theoretical prison as a way to demonstrate the power of surveillance. He wanted to explore how isolating and watching prisoners might change their behaviour.

In the Panopticon, inmates were to be kept in cells around the edge of a circular prison - they'd be visible at all times to a guard in the centre of the building. Cells were to be backlit and the guard's hut would have no light, meaning he could see prisoners at all times but the prisoners did not know when the guard was there. Prisoners would, Bentham thought, be conditioned by surveillance into changing their behaviour. Or as he put it, surveillance would "grind rogues honest."

The Panopticon never got built in England but you only have to think of today's CCTV cameras to appreciate how the power of surveillance has become a very real mechanism of power in modern society.

Panopticon postman?

The open nature of postcards means the sender accepts their message may be read by others besides the addressee. There is a parallel between the prison guard sometimes being in their hut and the postman sometimes passing the time by thumbing through cards as he/she delivers them.

The question we are left with is how this surveillance changed the behaviour of our Edwardian postcarders. Worth pondering.

If you have any ideas or comments please put them up on the boards.

Finally, rather than just giving you still images this week, I've uploaded a video which discusses a message affected by the prospect of snooping postmen. Ignore any camera wobble - it's deliberate ;).

A fine set of girls

There's an anxiety associated with communicating. 

Once a message is sent you don't know how it will be received. You hope you've hit the right tone but you know there's a chance it might be misinterpreted. What's more, as Muriel hints, you're aware your thoughts may be read by others besides the addressee.

And all that was when we were using the one-to-one format of the postcard. 

Today, our new one-to-many means of communication (Facebook, Twitter, etc) can intensify those feelings of self-doubt. Take leaving a message on a friend's profile for the world to see. If it's left hanging without a thread it's easy to imagine it's been ignored by not just your friend but also by an unknown number of people who've seen it. 

I suspect this has the effect of splitting messages into two broad categories. On the one hand, people aware of the risks in communicating play safe and reveal little. Neutral, innocuous remarks give the impression of not expecting replies. On the other, people in need of a bit of attention feel pushed into saying something quite extreme to guarantee a reaction. 

One thing's for sure, I doubt Muriel would be able to comprehend that her "fine set of girls" is now on show to the world. Sorry M. 

By the way, which one do you think is Muriel?

Grassroots history

A lot of grassroots history is like the trace of the ancient plough. It might seem gone for good with the men who ploughed the field many centuries ago. But every aerial photographer knows that, in a certain light, and seen at a certain angle, the shadows of long-forgotten ridge and furrow can still be seen.

Eric Hobsbawm, "History from below"

Hobsbawm's notion of grassroots history fits well with old postcard messages.

I hope by picking out cards for their messages, we're doing our bit to discover long-forgotten ridges and furrows of ordinary life.

I bought this card last week at the Bloomsbury postcard fair in London. It shows how even the simplest message can transport you into a strangely unfamiliar world.

While the basics of humour don't change, targets do. Would it be acceptable now to poke fun at teetotallers, however gently? And I'd never heard of teetotallers referred to as totes before? Had you?

Instant Postcard Messaging

About a year ago I bought a new mobile phone - one of those fancy ones with a built-in camera. 

It is great. 

I love being able to send images to people and get instant reactions. I'll take a photo of some new glasses I've bought, say, and then send it to my mum. Within a minute she's texted back her thoughts.

How modern you think - how advanced we are. Well not exactly. Those bloomin' Edwardians were there first I'm afraid.

Take the pair of messages above. Gaddesden Place catches fire on 1 February 1905. Already by 18 February, our postcarder has a choice of cards to send showing what happened.

And that he/she decided to send two allows us to enjoy something unique.

Different cards sent on the same day, to the same address, to two brothers (?) about the same fire. This is the collecting triumph I referred to last week. By having both messages, the fire and the sending of the cards seem to become 3D.

 

PS My mum thought I was trying to look like Woody Allen. So cruel! Yet probably fair.

Splitting a pair

When you’re next in a bookstore look out for Bruce Chatwin’s novel Utz. For collectors amongst us, it’s a compelling read as much of the story centres on what it is to be a collector.


I really like how the porcelain-obsessed Kaspar Utz sums up the experience of being a collector: 

“As a young child will reach out to handle the things it names, so the passionate collector, his eye in harmony with his hand, restores to the object the life-giving touch of its maker.”

Now, being the purveyor of ‘life-giving’ touches is quite a responsibility. And one that has its downsides. 


When I bought this card to Miss Gertrud, alongside it sat another also addressed to her. It used the same hieroglyphic-like code, and was clearly part of the same 100 year-old conversation. But, for reasons of me feeling a bit tight, I didn’t buy it. 


Ouch! I regret it.


Whenever I hold the card I always relive the moment I separated it from its sibling. Rather than giving it life, I know I took something from it.


But you learn from your mistakes. And I have made amends for this episode. Next week I will explain more. In fact, it is a collecting triumph that, to quote the lovely Beth, will fill your eyes with joy. Kaspar would be proud.

Excuse this scribble

Dorothy's message to Grandma is a great example of how a postcard can capture a single moment. Not content with just telling her grandmother she's in London, she uses the physical act of writing to bring her experience to life. The bumpy scrawl gives the reader the sensation of being on an underground train somewhere beneath Edwardian London.

There are risks for us here though. Just as we've learnt to understand photography's limits in telling us the truth, we must be a bit circumspect about how much one card can ever tell us about the past.

Although perhaps more honestly so than photographs, postcard messages are of course very subjective. While space restrictions encourage people to keep to the facts, the sender will always give us their version of events. We can't be sure but I suspect Dorothy may well have hammed up the jumpiness of the train for her Grandma's enjoyment. The neat address certainly suggests she regained her poise at some point :)

More generally, postcard messages may also encourage us to fall foul of what Susan Sontag called the 'atomizing' of life.

Sontag was wary of photos; seeing them as no more than thin slices of space and time. She felt there was a danger that by relying on photos, people create histories of freestanding moments (or 'particles') rather than remembering life as it is - continuous. I know when I think back to my favourite holidays or childhood, it's often photos which come to mind first rather than memories of the whole experience. The same reservations must apply to postcardese.

But, as Postcardy and Debs explained the other week, if we are wanting the truth it may be best to look to the top right hand corner. Our friend the tilted stamp is back. A clear, undeniable sign that Dorothy loved her grandma.