JOURNAL
documenting
&
discovering joyful things
This, but also that
Ugh. We have been sick all weekend. First it was Ralph, who went to bed just fine on Wednesday night and within four hours had produced enough mucus to fill a swimming pool. By Thursday night Scout had joined that club, and managed to sneeze INTO my mouth not once but twice while I was rubbing Vaporub onto her chest. And lo and behold, by Friday night I was sporting a tell-tale sore throat…
We are all feeling sniffly and foggy-headed and sorry for ourselves, bunkering down with copious quantities of berries and freshly-squeezed orange juice, and garlic-y foodstuffs. The house looks like a bomb hit it, the floors and all visible surfaces thick with toys, tissues and craft supplies: fallout from a weekend spent with two children sick enough to need to stay home but well enough to need constant entertaining. I could tidy up at night, but I’m too busy lying on the couch and moaning and sipping lemon-honey tea.
Also, I’ve been watching some of the movies on the Snail Mail Movie Club list. Here’s an update so far:
The Postman Why do people keep paying Kevin Costner to make movies?!?, BUT, I kind of like the premise that in times of war or oppression, communication becomes a powerful weapon
The Shop Around the Corner Sweet and I loved how closely You’ve Got Mail referenced it in both style and substance, BUT I could have wished for more of the actual pen-pal correspondence - I think they did that better in You’ve Got Mail
Letters to Juliet Super cheesy and WHAT were they thinking with the utterly cardboard romantic-interest guy (I can’t even remember his name - the blonde one), BUT a completely beautiful (and real-life) practice of writing letters about love to Juliet Capulet, AND Vanessa Redgrave - I want to be her, at any age!
84 Charing Cross Road Followed the book quite closely and just made me happy really, BUT occasionally a weird thing would happen where sometimes the actors, while reading their letters out loud, would look straight at the camera
Still to watch:
* Il Postino * We’ve Got Christmas Mail * The Night Mail * In the Good Old Summertime * PS I Love You * Message in a Bottle * Air Mail * Poste Restante
What am I missing? Any other movies about snail mail? And have you seen any of these? What did you think?
And how are you? How are your loved-ones? Hopefully sore-throat and mucus free!
Image credit: horses (totally unrelated to this post but I liked them) by Bethany Legg, licensed under Creative Commons
Love letters
Earlier this week when I posted about the Snail Mail Movie Club, a number of people gave me some wonderful recommendations for snail-mail-themed movies to watch. One of them was Letters to Juliet, which I duly watched on iTunes a couple of nights ago.
Have you seen it? The premise is that people write letters to Juliet Capulet (of Romeo and Juliet fame), mostly about their love-lives, and leave them on a wall opposite the balcony in Verona where once the original Juliet sighed and pondered “What’s in a name?” (It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Juliet is a purely fictional character.)
So far, it’s just a kind of sweet “passing through” tradition, like leaving a padlock on the Pont des Arts in Paris. But the best part of THIS story is that a group of women who call themselves the “Secretaries of Juliet” hand-write answers to each and every letter.
After I finished watching the movie I looked this tradition up and, with a lovely sense of “rightness” in the world, I found out it was true!
Apparently it all started more than 100 years ago, when visitors began to leave notes at Juliet’s supposed tomb. But the tradition really found its feet in 1937, when the then-custodian of Juliet’s tomb, Ettore Solimani, began replying to the notes, simply styling himself “Juliet’s Secretary.”
In the letters, which came from all over the world but were predominantly from adolescent American girls, people told Juliet their hopes and dreams. They shared their stories. They asked for her advice, they asked for her help.
“Help me! Save me!” one Italian woman wrote to Juliet, after her husband had left her. "I feel suspended on a precipice. I am afraid of going mad.”
Juliet, through Solimani replied, “Men have moments when they are unable to control themselves… Have faith… The day of humiliation will come for the intruder, and your husband will come back to you.” I hope everything worked out for her, whether he returned or not.
(That exchange came from a 2006 article in the New York Times, taken in turn from the book Letters to Juliet by Lise and Ceil Friedman, which I’ve ordered online but not yet read).
I love Solimani’s extravagant eccentricity in taking on the role of Juliet’s Secretary, a title he held for 20 years until he retired in the late 1950s. Stories tell that he created a series of rituals for visitors to the tomb, inviting them to make wishes that he promised would come true, and training turtle doves to alight on female visitors.
These days, the Secretaries of Juliet are a team of letter-writers, volunteers engaged by the City of Verona, called the Club di Giulietta. They answer all the letters, in every language, contracting translators if necessary. If you want to, you can even volunteer as a secretary yourself!
If a self-funded trip to Verona is a bit beyond the budget right now, you might still want to share your stories and dreams with Juliet, or seek her advice, at any time.
"Who knows if Juliet can really solve the problems in the matter of love, if she can make a dream come true or give hope to lovelorns… Sure is that this phenomenon has taken on global dimensions and has become part of the collective imagination,” her Secretaries say.
If you’d like to write to Juliet, simply addressing your letter to “Juliet in Verona” will be enough, but her formal address is:
Giulietta Capulet Club di Giulietta Via Galilei, 3 Verona Italy
Snail mail - seaside holiday
A little while ago a woman approached me and asked if I'd like to collaborate with her by illustrating a children's book she had written. It was an absolutely beautiful story, about "Grandad" and a family of dolphins, that was based on true events.
I gave her a resounding YES, with the caveat that I would probably be very slow, since I had so much on my plate (not the least of which was a backlog of about 40 mail-art letters I'd promised to send).
True to my word, I was (am) very slow. But towards the end of December, when the days started to warm up and my Facebook feed was full of photos of watermelon and children in swimming pools and families talking about summer holidays, I thought I'd get into the spirit of a seaside holiday myself.
I had 10 letters written and ready to send, so I painted each one with something friendly that might be found somewhere along the Western Australian coast (where the story was set). The theme fit the season, and it was good practice for the actual illustrations I needed to create.
Painting them en masse like that made me feel a little bit nostalgic for the lazy seaside holidays we used to take as kids (ahoy there, Tuggerah Lake). It felt like summer when summer was about nothing more than holidays and the slip 'n slide and icy poles and tan-lines and sleepovers in a tent on the front lawn.
I hope my lovely bloggy pen-pals enjoyed their own little slice of seaside holidays, too!
The snail-mail movie club
Let me explain.
I’m writing a book about snail mail. One that celebrates snail mail in the modern age, and has a lot of fun with all the ways you can write and create and send snail mail, to brighten others’ days, not to mention your own. Since I’ve been researching this book, I’ve also got to thinking about snail mail in popular culture, like books and TV and movies, and that’s where you come in.
I’ve made a list of all the movies I can think of that celebrate snail mail. Perhaps you know some others? What I’d love is for you to watch one or more of these movies, or one you know about that I haven’t shared here, and send me your impressions, either in the comments or privately via email (nabulger at gmail dot com) by the end of this month (February 2015).
If this was a proper club, we’d watch one movie a month together, or something along those lines. But at that rate, my book wouldn’t get written until about 2018! So instead, just pick one or as many movies as you’d like to watch this month, and go for it!
It doesn’t have to be a full review. You might just want to send a couple of words. Or one sentence. How the movie makes you feel about snail mail, something that surprised you, something that inspired you, something that made you go WHAAAAAT?! Pretty much anything!
Hopefully I’ll have enough movie responses to be able to share little comments and quotes when I talk about all the snail mail movies in my book. I’ll use your first and last name unless you’d rather be anonymous (just let me know and I’ll make a name up), and if you have a blog you’d like me to share I’m happy to do that too.
What do you think? Will you watch a movie (or two) with me? Maybe you could have a snail-mail movie night with friends, while writing and decorating letters (Valentine’s Day is coming up - does Grandma deserve a love letter?).
Meanwhile, I’d really appreciate it if you could share this post around your social media and other networks, so that as many people as possible might be able to be part of this.
Yours sincerely,
Naomi xo
The movies:
(Top row) 84 Charing Cross Road // Message in a Bottle // Night Mail // We’ve Got Christmas Mail (Bottom row) Air Mail // Poste Restante // The Postman // The Shop Around the Corner
ps. I actually haven’t seen any of these myself, so if you’re in the same boat we’ll be watching along together for the first time. Some of them look really bad, don’t you think? But that’s half the fun. The two I’m looking forward to the most are the The Shop Around the Corner and 84 Charing Cross Road (brilliant book!)
ps2. Here’s where you’ll find some of my old snail mail and mail-art posts
ps3. My last book, called “Airmail,” is a novella about two strangers who are connected by letters and stories. You can find out more about it here
Stationery crush
How beautiful are these letter sets, designed and published by Zetta Florence? The images were sourced from the State Library of Victoria. They’re beautiful to look at, and the stock is thick and heavy and wonderfully textured. I love that the artwork is all on the envelopes, leaving the cards clean and free to write (or draw) your own message however you like.
What you're looking at:
The building: "State Library of Victoria architecture, The Public Library, Museums and National Galleries of Victoria, New Reading Room and Stack Rooms (detail), Bates, Peebles & Smart, architects, 1909, collection of the Public Record Office Victoria"
The hummingbirds: "John Gould, A monograph of the Trochilidae, or, A Family of Humming-birds, London, 1849-61, Rare Books Collection, State Library of Victoria"
The street map: "Melbourne and its Suburbs (detail, enhanced), James Kearney, draughtsman, 1855, Rare Printed Collection, State Library of Victoria"
Snail mail - staying in touch
I’ve been thinking lately about relationships and friendships and how important it is to us to stay in touch, no matter how far the distance or time is that separates us.
After all that’s how Facebook became so popular, isn’t it?
Several years ago I spent some time in the outback filming an educational documentary about the Great Artesian Basin. We visited the ruins of a telegraph repeater station in the centre of Australia, and it was just extraordinary. You’d be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world made of such lonely beauty.
The locals told us the story of a settler who had sent for his English bride to join him. She survived the arduous voyage half way across the world by boat, alone, and the miserably long and hot journey to their farmstead, only to find him gone (I can’t remember why - he was hunting or trading in town or something). It was many months before he returned, and he found her almost starved and completely blind from the glare of the sun on the salt plains.
Desolation doesn't begin to describe that moonscape environment. Yet people CHOSE to live there and many of them didn’t just live, they thrived.
The repeater station I visited was one of 11 that stretched fully from the north to the south of Australia, over 2000 miles. Building the overland telegraph line, in those days and in those conditions, was one of the greatest engineering feats in Australia's history.
Once complete it finally put an end to the isolation, by putting Australia in touch with the rest of the world.
To put that sort of effort into a place that was so remote and unforgiving (it was almost 50 degrees one day we were there) shows a powerful desire to stay in touch, don’t you think? Nothing but the overwhelming need to remain connected to the outside world could get you digging and building and maintaining a place like that in an environment like that.
I was playing with all these kinds of ideas when I was decorating mail to send to lovely blog-readers recently. These folk hailed from all over the world, and I wanted to think about ways we once had of communicating across distance, before this age of Internet and technology.
So this little collection of mail art is dedicated to the pioneers of communication. It's a celebration of the pony express riders (and horses!) who raced through pouring rain and searing sun; of the pigeons of World War II who did the jobs the people couldn't; of the men who laid a 2000-mile long telegraph route across Australia in 50+ degree heat; of the train drivers and sailors and pilots and code makers and code breakers and Alexander Graham Bell, and the many more men and women who, across the centuries, have helped us stay in touch with the people we love.
Snail mail: adorable postbox toy
Warning: if you love snail mail and/or you have children in your life, this toy will rock your world.
It’s a painted, wooden, miniature replica of the Australia Post boxes you see all over the country, with the same little slot for posting letters, and the same pull-down panel for posting parcels, as the real boxes. A little door in the front means children (or the child-like at heart) can retrieve their letters after sending them, and start all over again.
The box comes with six cute little wooden letters and postcards (you can read the mail - there’s even a postcard from Wills & Kate to Harry, during their holiday in Australia), and six removable (via velcro) wooden stamps.
Scout and Ralph love to make their own mail-fun with this box. Scout “writes" letters (aka scribbles all over my note paper), folds them, then puts stickers on them as stamps. Then she posts her letters into the box. Now it is Ralph’s turn. He opens the red door, crushes Scout's letters in his chubby little fist, and throws them gleefully around the room.
These actions have earned Ralph the title of Postman, so Scout will finish another letter and announce “Postman I need you!” to alert him to the fact that her mail needs to be delivered to the far reaches of the playroom, post haste.
I watch them play as I sit with a note pad on my lap and write letters to my own pen pals (hopefully not to be crushed by the postman). It gives me so much pleasure to see them play together in this way, and to pass on the joy of snail mail. Next, Scout says she wants to try putting some mail-art on her letters.
What has been making you happy lately?
ps. This is in no way a sponsored post, so I haven’t mentioned the maker of this toy. But if you want to find it, the website is prominent in one of the pictures. You’re welcome.
Gone paintin', gone writin'
Oh my gosh, I have SO MUCH drawing and painting to do, and SO MANY letters to write. I owe mail-art letters to more than 30 (!) readers of this blog (this picture is of some parcels I've prepared to send to some of those lovely readers). Are you one of these patient people? I'm so, so sorry that I've been so appallingly slow.
And then there are the beautiful people who have written to me, and sent me lovely gifts, and have probably given up all hope by now that I would ever do the decent thing and write back to them and say THANK YOU, despite all the gratitude that swells in my heart.
I also need to write to thank all our dear friends and family who came along to Ralph's recent first birthday, and gave him so many thoughtful, wonderful gifts.
I really need to get a wriggle on and plan out some paintings for a very exciting children's book collaboration I'm doing (and by "doing" I mean "actually need to start doing and not just think/talk about it") with a wonderful writer.
I promised Scout I'd paint a picture each for her and Ralph to hang above their beds.
AND there is that little matter of the book I'm trying to complete, and the guides I promised to write approximately one year ago…
So, I'm going to take a short break from this blog while I catch up on all that writing and painting. It might take me a week or it might take me a month (depends a lot on how well the children sleep at night), but I'll be back soon folks.
In the meantime, here are some fun links to keep you amused. Why thank you, Internets.
*Play Pong at the traffic lights
* Tree Hotel. Just glorious
* Fashion leaders? Seinfeld's girlfriends
* 10 secrets about the Eiffel Tower
* Making art out of ordinary things
* It's a musical storm-cloud inside your house
* If I get enough writing and painting done, I'm going to try making these napkin rings
* What to do in Canberra - definitely bookmarked for our next visit
* Summer holidays fun: giant Scrabble, in a banana!
* I think it's time to skill up. My aesthetic ambition for this blog consistently falls short of my actual ability. Early next year, I want to take these e-courses on DSLR photography, and Photoshop
* Making me hungry today: Wild Sorrel Ravioli with Burnt Butter and Garlic (hold me)
* Would you ever try making a Christmas garland like this?
* Love this road-trip idea. Meet the Story Monster!
Aaaaand this:
* 'Rather than asking yourself: “Who do I want to be?” Ask: “How do I want to behave?”' I rather liked this post on pursuing creative habits
See you soon! xo
ps. A few people have said they were sad I didn't have any more copies of my book Airmail to send them, and were wondering where they could get hold of one. Cripes, thanks guys! That makes me feel VERY good. You can order Airmail online pretty much anywhere, and it should cost you less than 10 bucks in paperback (go elsewhere if it's more). Here's a list of stockists I made a while ago. Let me know what you think if you read it!
Incoming mail
I have been remiss in sharing my incoming mail of late, so I've gathered a some bits and pieces together to show you this SERIOUSLY amazing collection of drawings, craft, collage, hand-sewn gifts and beautiful stationery, sent from all over the world.
I can't tell you how blessed I feel every time I receive something in the mail, and you guys are SO thoughtful and SO generous and put so much time into writing to me. I am blown away. And humbled. That sounds insincere but I want you to know it is TRULY, SINCERELY how I feel.
Thank you. THANK YOU!
ps. If you like the look of that gorgeous, hand-made apron, you can find more like it at Libby's Lifestyle on Etsy
Spooky snail mail
Boo!
'Prophet!' said I, 'thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! - Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted - On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore - Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!' Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'
(A strange and spooky excerpt from The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, for your Halloween Week pleasure)
It's been a while since I've shared any of the mail art I've been painting and sending out to blog readers. I had a lot of fun creating this little Halloween-themed batch of "friendly spooks" for you guys. I hope everyone likes their letters. (Pop back in a couple of days and I'll give you a little sneak peek as to what's inside.)
Yours sincerely… xo
ps. have you heard about my new letter-writing and mail-art e-course?
Over four weeks, I will guide you through multiple methods of making beautiful mail-art and creative, handmade stationery; teach you the art of writing and storytelling; help you forge personal connections in your letters and find pen-pals if you want them; and share time-management tips so even the busiest people can enjoy sending and receiving letters. Register your place or find out more information right here.