Milk is calling for artists for our February mail art show! No packages will be opened, envelopes unsealed…art must go through the post and be ready for display. Any packaging must be the art itself. Postcards have already started to arrive and we have heard rumors of objects to be sent. Art will be for sale at a 50/50 ratio to artist and gallery. Include your address on the art in order for compensation for sales to be forwarded! Any unsold art will not be sent return post due to the volume of works being received. Artwork needs to be received in the gallery by February 1st. Please mail your awesome art to 212 13th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.

more about Milk Gallery…

Some of you may know that I already have a number of typewriters, largely due to the largesse of my father, who lives in a small midwestern town and enjoys going to yard sales. While I don’t consider myself a collector by any stretch of the imagination, I do have nearly a dozen typewriters, and though probably none are what most people would call collectible, I like having them around anyway.

But recently, I spotted an IBM Selectric I on eBay. Though the 1961 Selectric possesses none of the collector cachet or rarity of your Olivetti or your fancy-pants index typewriters of yore, it has two things going for it (at least in my mind): it’s fast, and it has typeballs. Yes, that’s right. I said TYPEBALLS.

I’m sorry. They’re rightly called elements, and with the simple flick and click of a lever, the typist can switch typefaces like that. From Courier to Letter Gothic to Adjutant to Sunshine Script in seconds. Keep your script manuals! One typewriter to RULE THEM ALL!

I bid on the Selectric, and I bid on a couple of element lots, and I won the elements. Then I won the typewriter. I kept a photo of the typewriter in my pocket and looked at it from time to time–I was that smitten. I showed it to people: “And it’s RED“, I bragged. I couldn’t wait until it arrived. One day, the doorbell rang, and I ran outside in my socks to find the UPS driver holding a huge box, wearing a pained expression. “Is it heavy?” I asked. “Forty-eight pounds,” he said, and handed it over.

I was excited for about ten minutes, until I pried open the (smashed-looking) package and untaped the (rather meager) bubble wrap. The paper bale was broken off on one side. That wasn’t good, but I could probably fix that. Oh. Some of the keys were loose. Broken, in fact. I didn’t think I could fix that part. I checked a Fran Fixes It! YouTube video and learned how to take the body apart so I could further evaluate the damage. Some portions of the mechanism were clearly not in the right place, jammed into the machinery. Little bits of important-looking things were scattered in the bottom of the body. This was bad.

I did some Yelp research and discovered that there are two popular typewriter repair shops not too far from me. I chose the one that listed as being recommended by Tom Hanks (what would you have done?) and called them up. “Do you repair IBM Selectrics?” “Of course we do,” said the deep-voiced man on the telephone. “I’ll be over soon,” I promised.

The box of elements (which had arrived before the broken typewriter had) mocked me from across the room.

On a sunny, sunny day, I drove my broken beauty and my heavy heart over the bridge to Berkeley and met the proprietors of California Typewriter. As I staggered in the door with my unwieldy box, a gentleman emerged from the back, took one look at my heavy load, and said “looks like you’ve got a Selectric there.”

This was Herb Permillion, who runs the shop with his daughter, Carmen. He (a man of few words) and she (a chattier type) allowed me to lurk around the shop and take photos. They told me about some of their customers–filmmakers, television propmasters, Danielle Steele (that lady gets around–E&M Office Machine also claims to have serviced the many hardworking Olympia manuals she uses to write her many novels), and yes, Tom Hanks. They also spent some time examining my Selectric. Despite the doleful utterances that came from Herb’s lips, as he tutted and hummed as he noted the troubles of my typewriter (“looks like this got dropped,” he said, sadly), the final one was the one I wanted to hear: “I think we can fix this.”

And fix it, they did…for almost exactly the amount I paid to purchase and ship the beast. Thankfully, the seller had refunded my money in full, after some emailing of super-annotated damage photographs and a few calls to the UPS claims department. All’s well that ends well, especially when it concerns a red typewriter.  Right?

I’ll leave you with some gems from the California Typewriter shop. Links to some cool articles, too.

–Carolee (psst: now you know why I’ve been posting so many typewriter photos on the GMD tumblr! They’re the happy by-product of research!)

Meet the Last Generation of Typewriter Repairmen

Typewriter Service around-the-world!

The Cambridge Typewriter Blog, Life in a Typewriter Shop

The new year is nearly upon us, and as I prune and tidy the comments on this blog (did you know that I am protecting you against spam and people who only want to sell you things? happy holidays…), I’ve been noticing that more than a few people are having trouble with the old Call for Correspondents post. Some people have moved. Other people find the visual jumble of greetings, thanks, and commentary make it difficult to find WHO wants to write, and what their interests are.

Now, I think it’s great that people are chatting in the comments. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy whenever I log in and see people saying I got your mail! It was beautiful! and Look for something special from me! and I was having a hard time and your letter really made my day.

But I can also see the point of streamlining.

So, let’s clean the slate and start over again. I’ll leave comments to the old post open, and people can chatter there all they want. Maybe I’ll re-name the link “mail art chatter” or the like. THIS post is for those of you who are still taking new correspondents, or who have just found this blog for the first time.

Want a pen friend, mail artist buddy, or correspondent? Comment below!

You must include your address, your interests and a brief description either about you, or about the sort of mail you’d like to receive (for example, some people prefer long letters, while others are happier making and receiving mail art postcards). I know that a number of people prefer not to leave their mailing addresses here, and that’s fine (although I think it’s limiting). While I moderate the comments to remove things that look like spam, I can make no guarantee as to the quality of those who read or write here.

PLEASE NOTE: I’ll be moderating the comments to include ONLY your correspondence “ads”.  Chat away all you want–just over on the other thread!  (Don’t be cross if I delete your responses to others’ posts–we want to keep this comment thread as tidy and easy-to-read as possible!)

Happy 2012–Carolee

It seems as though, every other day, someone draws my attention to a new service aimed at reproducing an antiquated service via now-ubiquitous technology. First, I heard about Snail Mail My Email, which promised to generate–at no charge–hand-written letters from senders’ emails. (Full disclosure: I volunteered to write for this project, but backed out when the project head emailed to say that they would need me to provide not only my time and my own supplies, but also pay *all* the postage on my own. It just seemed like a poorly-planned endeavor.)

Then, at the ARCH Snail Mail Social, I was in the process of setting up typewriters and arranging stationery when a gentleman approached me, gazing amusedly at the typewriters. His comments consisted of ideas I’ve been hearing a lot, recently: what was the point of events like these; why did people want to write and typewrite instead of email; and, finally, what did I think of this project he was working on? (I thought, but didn’t say, that ideas like his are ones that wouldn’t appeal to anyone like me. But most people are not like me, after all.)

Then, this morning, Dr. X pointed out a blurb from yesterday’s newspaper. A UK service calling itself Type-O-Matic offers to type, confidentially (and anonymously, if you should so choose), any letter of your choice, on a “vintage mechanical typewriter,” and mail it for you. For a “small fee.” (If you should like to take advantage of this service from the United States, the “small fee” translates to roughly $24, which I do not consider small.)

My first reaction to services and companies like this is “big deal.” The second is “why can’t people just do those things themselves?” And, if I’m being honest, my third reaction is “damn, I wish I’d thought of that.” But I want to understand why these efforts are growing, if not in popularity, in scope. I realize that, just by reading this blog, you are all more like me than not, but maybe you can help me understand.

Are these services useful? Do you, or would you, use them? And do you think they are good in general?

Please, weigh in.

Thanks, Cal!

“I had posted this about a month ago, but I wanted to let everyone know that I set up a display of mail art I’ve received (along with postcards thru postcrossing.com) at my local library! They let me use a flat, glass display case. I lined the case with a piece of postal-themed fabric – it’s tan with postmarks on it. Then I arranged the various envelopes and postcards in the case, and included my copy of the GOOD MAIL DAY book! I also included some rubber stamps, postage stamps and other related stuff. Came out looking good! I was at the library yesterday returning some books, and it was fun to watch people coming into the library and stopping to look at my display! (It’s right by the entrance door so everyone passes it!)

To Laurie in Exeter (and anyone else who is local to Rhode Island)…if you get a chance to visit Cranston this month, stop by the Central library on Sockanosset Cross Road and take a look!”

My dear friends,

A month or so ago, my amazing neighborhood art supply store, ARCH, tweeted, “If our recent sales are any indication, stationery, envelopes, etc. are becoming a thing of the past.”  What’s that you say? Hogwash. My response: ” ARCH should host some letter-writing events like the ones the @_LWA ladies do in Chicago. Write! Type! Socialize!”

Nothing makes me feel more contrary* than when I hear “people don’t write letters anymore,” because I always, always want to prove them wrong. What a silly thing to say, when IT’S JUST NOT TRUE.

Well, that was all it took. Annie got involved and we had an event. All we need now are some willing correspondents, because Annie had the genius idea of providing a list of seasoned, tried-and-true pen friends for the people who might arrive and say, “but who can I write to?” Are you willing to be on that list? Please comment below! And include a short list of things you like, so that we can attempt a happy match!

Find the event on Facebook!

ETA: if you’d rather not put your address here, e-mail it to carolee at superdilettante dot com… Thank you!

*FETA (further edited to add): Now that the social is over, I’ve closed the comments–but I’ll be sure to let you know if ARCH invites us back for another social!

*I lied. The ongoing fiscal sinkhole that is the USPS, and its endangered status, makes me much more contrary indeed.

Hello, my dears. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I warned you, didn’t I? I’m not a blogger. I’m more of a hole-up-for-months-thinking-about-stuff person than I am a look-at-this-neat-thing-I-did-yesterday person. I like reading blogs, but I’m bad at writing them. Lots of you are really good at it, and I’m glad for that.

I’m writing today because I have a little something to share with you. Remember that zine I made, about giving up the Internet? I’m making it available now, for free.

Last December, as soon as I finished the laborious process of making all fifty copies of “Practice Being Human,” I started thinking about ways I could conceivably make it available to more people. Although the zine is about my personal experience with shutting off the Internet and opening myself to wonder, the response I was getting made me feel like more people might enjoy reading it. They might even benefit from it. I won’t go into the reasons (again) why I think it’s necessary to examine our relationship with technologies; I’ll just say (again) that I think our ways of interacting with the Internet are worth examining. More people are writing about it all the time; I recently read a piece by Jonathan Franzen that had some particularly resonant moments. (Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts.)  (“And, since our technology is really just an extension of ourselves, we don’t have to have contempt for its manipulability in the way we might with actual people. It’s all one big endless loop. We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors.“)

It’s now six months since I finished the edition, and as those months passed, I found I was still wanting to release the work to a larger audience, even after the stage-two shy feeling had passed. (After I finish a project, I look at it constantly, as though reassuring myself it was worth my time; following that, I can’t look at it at all because all I can see is what I would change if I were to do it again.)

After the ecstasy, the laundry. Isn’t that how the zen saying goes? After I do something that takes a lot of energy, more often than not I follow up by folding inward a bit. I go through this fallow creative period where I don’t really feel particularly driven to do much of anything. This can be a boon–the house stays a little cleaner, I start cooking interesting things again, and I read more books–but it can also lead to feelings of loss and invisibility. Being creatively inactive can leave me feeling like nothing I’ve ever done has any importance at all, even though I know that the resting periods are just as important as the high-energy action periods.

Stasis chafes.

One day at work, I said to our department head, “If I’m not making anything, WHO AM I?”  She laughed, so I laughed–it is kind of funny–but in a way, I meant it. Making things, whether they’re books, zines, letters, origami boats, cookies, sculptures, or treasure hunts, has this way of drawing pleasant boundaries around my time and the things I experience.  I experience the passage of time and the particulars of my surroundings with my physical being–with my body and mind–and the act of making things that reflect my thoughts and feelings is a way of bouncing something back. I am here. I am not just absorbing. I am contributing. This is a dialogue.

But, you know, what can you do when you know you need to rest? You can fight it or you can just allow it to happen. I let myself go slack for a little bit.
Out of this resting period came the bit of extra energy I needed to tweak the zine just enough to make it feasible as a digital offering. Gone are the individualized lists in the little envelopes, and the one-of-a-kind photos and captions I printed with a pen. Gone, too, of course, is the tactile experience of handling the object. Feeling the weight of the different papers between your fingers, particularly the pebbly thickness of the transparency that begins and ends the centerfold. I hope that you can perhaps imagine those things instead. It’s my hope that the message itself is worth losing something in the presentation.

Practice Being Human (PDF, 3MB). Clicking on the link will begin your download.

And thank you, thank you to all the people who thought the original edition worth purchasing. You make it possible for me to keep buying paper, to purchase server space, and to feel like there might be a reason for me to keep scribbling in my notebooks. You are deeply appreciated.

Carolee, June 04 2011

p.s. the work is protected under a Creative Commons license. For more about Creative Commons, see here. Basically, redistribute all you want, but please credit me and please do not alter the content in any way. And then go outside and look at the sky. That’s not in the license agreement, but it’s a good idea all the same.

…and what you’re winning looks an awful lot like this page from my 2007 Tokyo travel journal!

I spent all day yesterday carefully packing boxes and I’m happy to announce that the winners of MY JUNK are:

• Annie Yu
• Kelly (egorey)
• Stephanie (smp467)
• Garci
• Jael

I’ll be sending all of you an email with my PayPal link.

I went a little mad when I was packing the boxes and, in the interest of forward momentum, didn’t document what I included in the boxes, so if any recipients would like to photograph, for the curiosity of the other GMD readers, their boxes, I’m happy to post those later on!

Have fun and happy writing, and THANK YOU for helping my (beloved) things go to good homes (so I can help mine be cleaner)!