Postcardese

More on Muriel

2012-02-02T08:12:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-12T01:59:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-12-18T04:40:00.000-08:00

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.

View My Saved Places in a larger map

Self-captioned portraits

2011-12-11T10:20:00.001-08:00

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 thatsay what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wantsyou 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 oneof the first photos in the series.

It shows a womanholding 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 photographedin a park, suggesting a chance encounter between photographerand 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 theindividual 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.

Lost in translation

2011-11-29T10:15:00.001-08:00

I picked this card up at a fair on Sunday. It's a treasure.

How a card sent from San Francisco to Yokohama, Japan, in 1916 ends up in London in 2011 goodness only knows. But here it is, at £8.

Would be really grateful for an English translation? I've sent the feelers out on Facebook to a couple of Japanese friends so fingers crossed.

Thank you Debs, Postcardy and PFF!

2011-11-15T12:29:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd share some good news with you this week - I managed to pass my masters degree at Goldsmiths.

As you might remember, after messing around with some post-it notes I wrote my dissertation on why old postcards are intriguing today. Here's an extract which gives a very big knuckle tap on the shoulder to the brilliant Postcard Friendship Friday, run each week by Beth in Oregon.

Thanks everyone for your support and, as you'll see below, special thanks to the PFF gang; your expertise was invaluable....

Tilted stamps

Two years ago I set up a website to explore the messages in my collection of postcards.

The site was adopted by a group called Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth Niquette in Oregon, Ohio. The group is typical of the 'super-niches' that the internet allows us to develop in some part of our lives.

Each week members post images of old cards they have found, explaining why the cards appeal and how they came across them. Tastes vary across the group, with each member specializing further within the category of postcards:

“Bob of Holland” specializes in vintage postcards of European film stars;

“Mr Cachet” a retired artist from Montana explores the history of the printed word; and

“Postcardy” a collector from Minnesota collects vintage comic postcards.

The collectors leave postcard-sized messages on the comment boards for others to read.

In June 2010 I wrote a post on a mesmerizing card sent to Miss L. Warden in London in 1904. Having taken scans of the ‘front’ and ‘back’, I presented a full anatomy of the card.

On the ‘front’ the sender had annotated the image of The Exchange buildings in Liverpool, at the time a centre for trade in the city. He (or she?) used various signs and a key to direct the way the reader would approach the card: with a double-feathered arrow he showed where he worked and with a dotted cross highlighted “a broken down cotton speculator”.

On the ‘back’ he drew a map of Britain, outlining the route of his rail trip from London, adding a reference to Hastings which presumably meant something to Miss Warden.

The next day I checked the site’s comment board only to find my analysis had been exposed as incomplete. “Postcardy” and "Debs" had spotted a further detail which needed to be acknowledged in any deciphering of the card:

I could not believe I had missed this aspect of postcards. I looked through my collection and found twenty or thirty examples of cards where the King’s head had been placed on an angle, or even stuck upside down. In one example, besides the address there was only a tilted stamp on the card.

At the next fair, I found cards presenting a whole “Language of Stamps”.

Yet again, for all its apparent familiarity the Golden Age postcard had reasserted its status as an endlessly foreign object.

Text, Image and Geoffrey Farmer

2011-11-09T05:27:00.000-08:00

In October I went to the Istanbul Biennial - a big art exhibition in Turkey's capital. Spread across two hangar-like buildings, you need stamina and plenty of chewy Turkish coffee to get through it all.

It is huge.

We spent five hours there. By the end, I felt kind of ill. Knackered. And somewhat empty of feeling.

I guess if art plays with your senses, it's not surprising you involuntarily shutdown after a while at these shows. You can only do justice to so many of the artists. You want to see them all. But can't give energy to every piece. I find I just want to be outside, away from everyone and everything, and even further away from artists' interpretations of the world.

But with time (thankfully!), the noise (and pain) disappear and you're left with the bits that moved you.

Geoffrey Farmer's collage sculpture Pale Fire Freedom Machine is the installation that has stayed clearest in my mind.

Consisting of two hundred or so magazine pictures of people, objects and buildings, Farmer had curated a flash of his mind. Or our minds.

Image credit: Raphael Goldchaim courtesy of Mousse Magazine

For me, the room suspended lingering, floating, media-ed images of a regular modern day. With photos fixed on small sticks and mounted on tiny blocks, the arrangement made visible unpredictable links we make when we let images settle. Naked figures next to a collection of chairs. Bomb clouds next to African masks. And despots alongside teapots, and the like.

What I loved, was the experience of walking around the 2D images... to inspect the text on the other side.

Did Farmer leave to chance what was on the reverse sides of the images? References to 9/11 on one photo suggested he didn't.

In fact the longer you stayed in the room, the more you felt obliged to tackle the text. Sometimes taken from an article related to the image, sometimes not. But always giving authenticity to the idea that the images had come from a magazine or newspaper you or I might have read. And always shifting your take of the image on the other side, and those around it.

As I work up ideas for publishing and installing something around postcard messages, Farmer's work is useful. As is, a piece written by Roland Barthes on the tensions between text and image; how one steers our reading of the other. If you're interested, I've tracked down an online copy here... The Rhetoric of the Image.

For sure, any installation would be worthless if it didn't make use of both sides of the cards. And seeing what Farmer pulled off, the challenge of displaying two-sided objects like the cards has become more an inspiration than a problem. Which I had seen it as for a long time.

When a postcard becomes a placard

2011-10-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

For the best part of a year, I've been involved in a project called Save Our Placards. At the second biggest demonstration ever in the UK on 26 March 2011, a group of us asked people how they wanted the Museum of London to remember the march against government spending cuts.

Photo credit: Guardian

It was an epic project. In the end, more than 400 people donated their placards, flags and costumes. Enough for an exhibition at the Museum a week later.

I've been mulling over the parallels between placards and postcards since. As you might expect ;-). What has struck me most is the joyful nature of both. And that the more we digitise our lives the more exciting it is to make and write stuff. To make our mark, physically.

Watching the Occupy protests this week has brought back a lot of great memories of the March For The Alternative. Of the woman who gave me her "protest umbrella" on Piccadilly, even though it was starting to rain. Of seeing a man walk the length of Hyde Park to give us his TAX NOT AXE axe. And of nervously leaving a minibus packed full of cardboard treasure on a London street overnight.

As if on cue Liza, a formidable campaigner from Vermont (not Vancouver!), sent me this today ... a postcard-come-placard. I love what Liza has done - twisting the standard lines on old postcards. We expect nostalgia, yet we get a protestor's sting. Very clever. Thank you Liza.

And a big hello to my placard partners in crime (Mark Teh, Hafiz Nasir, Svein Moxvold and Lolo Galindo) who are now spread across the globe. Wish you were here....?

Post-It-ese

2011-10-07T03:15:00.000-07:00

A trend for 2011 has been the re-emergence of the post-it. This week, at Apple stores across the world, it was the low-tech post-it note that people used to pay tribute to the hi-tech visionary Steve Jobs.

Photo credit: Twitter user @lautenbach

In London over the summer, we had the Peckham Peace Wall after the riots. People expressed their frustration, shock and optimism on notes stuck to a boarded-up discount shop.

Photo credit: Flickr user Celie

In Paris, there was even La guerre des Post-Its. Office workers competed over who could make the best art from the sticky notes.

Photo credit: postitwar.com

What is it about the post-it note that makes it popular now?

Low-tech. Physical. Mobile. Playful. Free from rules of grammar and etiquette. Anonymous. I guess all of these. And more.

Post-Its were massively useful for me over the summer as I ordered my thoughts on old postcards for my dissertation. Not just because they were easy to move about but because they made me engage with the form - the short, written message.

There's more in this... any thoughts?

Lost in admiration

2011-09-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

At a fair, most collectors will come and go from a dealer in a matter of minutes. “Any new churches today, Brian?” “Don’t think so, but you’re welcome to have a look."

They know what they want. And a dealer's cards will be ordered by popular collecting categories to make searching easy. It might be a certain place or artist that a collector is after, or pictures of a famous Edwardian actor or politician.

I'll typically stay hunched over one or two stalls the entire time, until my eyes tire.

A good message could be in any box.

While staying in one position can be exhausting, the advantage is you get to eavesdrop on passing trade...

Dealer 1 (holding his friend’s card): I’ve never seen such a good gypsy card. I mean the expressions on their faces…

Dealer 2: I found another one as well which was pretty amazing. And that was £80. How many times have I ever had great photos of gypsies like that in the last 40 years?

Dealer 1: Who does get them?

Dealer 2: Jeremy, not very often.

Dealer 1: Who does get them? They’re just not there. No, no.

Dealer 2: I won’t see another card like that for 20 years. And I won’t be around in another 20 years. I only got them because I would pay whatever people ask for them which means you’re not making money. That’s the problem….

Dealer 1: A card like that will always appreciate in value…. I am lost in admiration for that one.

Before the 'back' was divided

2011-09-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

I hope people enjoyed the documentary last week.

A few people have asked since seeing the programme what postcards looked like before the back was 'divided'.

You'll remember the modern card only arrived in 1902 after a German publisher (one F. Hartman) persuaded the Post Office to let him put a picture on the 'front' and then split the other side between message and address.

Well, here's an official card sent in 1875. That's 5 years after the postcard was introduced in the UK. It's much smaller than later cards and is printed in mauve. Only the address could be written on the side shown above, with the message restricted to the other.

You'll also see the stamp comes with the card. No need to buy one.

These cards were all made by De La Rue, the money printers. And incredibly, they were the only cards that could take advantage of the half penny rate for postcards.

De La Rue's monopoly was finally relaxed in 1894 after a campaign by the MP Henniker Heaton. After this, privately-published cards could be sent at the postcard rate. Go Henniker!

When something becomes so familiar, like the form of the postcard, it's easy to forget the people behind it. Yet how the card looks today was not inevitable. It needed people to change things. And in a curious way, the anonymity of Hartman and Heaton today is testament to the totality of their triumphs.

The Picture Postcard World of Nigel Walmsley

2011-09-14T04:40:00.000-07:00

So Edwardian postcards make it onto the small screen on Thursday with The Picture Postcard World of Nigel Walmsley.

Jake Hayes and the rest of the BBC4 team have done a cracking job unpacking their history. Messrs Tuck, Hartman, Gladstone and all the other postcard heroes would be very proud. And I really enjoyed getting the chance to tell the stories of Dorothy and Miss Emerson.

As well as helping out on the documentary, I've been busy finishing my dissertation on the mysteries of old postcards. Thanks for everyone's support. Now that it's handed in (phew!) I'll be writing up bits on Postcardese. Really looking forward to hearing what people think.

For example, as I wrote it I realised the importance of this card from Meg to M. That word on the second line, "tonight", has had an impact on how I see every card in my collection.

Franked in Putney at 10.45am, Meg was so sure of the Edwardian postal service she was able to plan a trip to the theatre that very evening:

"H and I are going to see the "Girl on the Stage" tonight, would you care to join us..."

With one word the card reveals how postcards were not like they are now. As the documentary explains, rather than being a sign of not caring about the timeliness of a message, they could be sent and received within hours.

And because of this, they become such curious objects. On the one hand foreign, signifying a way of life that has disappeared. But on the other, eerily prescient of our instant means of communication today.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the programme. It will be on BBC iPlayer for a few weeks if you miss it on Thursday.

And if you are new to Postcardese, sign up for the newsletter by entering your email in the box on the right hand side. Or follow @postcardese on Twitter. It's like a 21st century version of the postcard ;)

The price is part of the card

2011-06-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

When I first started collecting, I used to rub out the prices dealers wrote on cards. I don't any more.

I guess I had wanted to restore the cards to how they'd originally looked.

Now, the price mark is part of what I'm buying. It signifies the card's present - that it has a value today. And also that it has passed through many hands since it was first sent.

A week is a long time in postcards

2011-05-30T04:43:00.000-07:00

Phew. That was quite a week.

It is going to take some time digest it all I think. But I wanted to put some photos up quickly for those who couldn't make the talks... and also for those who did.

Talking at the British Postal Museum & Archive

First up, confirmation that the cards people wrote on Thursday have been sent.

At the end of the talk at the BPMA, three volunteers from the audience (Anna, Fran and Axel) wrote cards using some of the Edwardian techniques for writing postcards that we'd discussed earlier in the night.

The volunteers agreed to enter into a deal.While the BPMA paid for the card and the stamp and they could send the card to whoever they wanted - I would read out the cards at the end of the evening to the rest of the audience.The idea was to explore the open form of the postcard, in that the message can be read by all en route to its destination.

Anna wrote a gingerbread recipe to her friend in Dulwich, Fran a message to her future child (I got it in the end, Fran!) and Axel sent a very poignant note to her grandma. These cards are now in the possession of the Royal Mail.

Once again, thanks to Laura and Alison at the BPMA for inviting me along to speak!

Touring at Waterstone's

I must admit I'm still on something of a high from Saturday's 'postcard tour' at the Gower St branch of Waterstone's. The people that came along were fantastic. Loads of great observations about the cards. In fact the event became a long chat as much as a tour.

We walked around the store taking in the secondhand section, the philosophy and art departments, the fiction area and then back to the secondhand section for some biscuits and jam tarts. And all through the medium of different postcards. So for example, in the fiction department we discussed how postcards have been used as plot devices by authors like E. M. Forster.

Lots to think about. I'm sure the experience will be a source of inspiration for a long time.

But now for the very very exciting bit.

Above are the photos of the cards people got me to write using Edwardian postcardese. In exchange for a free card and free stamp, people gave up part of their privacy by dictating messages to me to write to whoever they wanted. (To stop the slideshow you can just click on the album to have a closer look at some of the cards. Names of addressees have been smudged for data protection...)

Some great messages emerged as you can see. Lots of codes, lots of tilted stamps. And somewhat surreally of course, they are all in the same scrawling handwriting learnt at Longton County Primary school circa 1984.

At the same time, though, there was a serious aspect to all this. Jamming Edwardian postcard writing with our very modern concern for what is public and what is private, made for interesting exchanges. One person described sitting down in the alcove of the store where we were based as "stepping into the confessional". That felt spot on. It was fascinating not just to see what emerged in the messages, but also how people engaged with the 'stranger scribe' scenario.

Thanks again to everyone who came along, and to Jo and Emma for letting me do the tour in the store. Yes, let's do another one in the Autumn!

Playing with the form

Finally, this week has made me realise how much I enjoy this card sent to an R. Wade in 1903, a year after the postcard's reverse side was split to allow people to write both a message and an address on that side. It's a great example of how playing with the form of something, whether it be 'the postcard' or 'the talk', can be a lot of fun.

How to make friends in London

2011-05-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Making friends in London can be difficult. Dogs are a good start, I'll give you that.... oh hello, what's his name? do you live round here? really. oh I've seen you around. he is such a lovely dog, how old is he....

Reading someone's else magazine on the Tube, less so... are you reading my magazine? why are you reading my magazine? buy your own....

But today I can reveal a new contender. The 4 foot tall, mock Victorian post box.

Whether you're in a taxi, on the street corner or in a bookstore, people want to talk to you if you're being pressed into the ground by one of these. I've lived in London for 8 years and after carting one around this morning, I am left amazed by its power.

Every door was opened for me, one woman wanted to know how I'd made it (for the record I admitted I hadn't), and several people even offered to carry it for me.

Anyway, why was I carrying a mock Victorian postbox?

On Saturday (28 May) at the Gower Street branch of Waterstone's I'm giving a 'postcard tour' of the shop. And at the end of the tour I'll be offering a free postcard writing service. I'll pay for the stamp (well, the British Postal Museum & Archive will actually) and the postcard, but there's a catch. I'll be writing people's messages for them.

Of course, to hand will be all the techniques of the Edwardians - tilted stamps, codes and other ways to play with the form. Hopefully I'll be able to put a few examples up of what people asked me to write next week.

For more details click here or see the mock Victorian postbox in store. There are a few spaces still left on the tour.

And then this Thursday (26 May) is the talk at the BPMA in Clerkenwell, London. Like the Waterstone's tour it's free but you do have to book. Click here for info on how to get a ticket.

Modest

Brazen

Good luck with the essay, love from Gilbert and George

2011-05-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

Paul Ricoeur noted that when we meet an author "we experience a profound disruption of the peculiar relation that we have with [them] through [their] work.” (Ricoeur 1991, p. 107)

Meeting an author (or an artist) removes the distance we normally have from them when we consider their books (art). A dialogue is possible where it wasn't before.

In the case of a book signing, however, it is likely to be an unbalanced dialogue which emerges. Loaded with the scripted thoughts of the reader/consumer and hurried by the queue behind, some of the distance remains.

I went to see the Gilbert and George postcard art exhibition at the White Cube a few months ago, and thought it would be interesting to see them in person at their book signing at the Tate last week - not least as they too collect old postcards. I went, after a day in the library.

Ricoeur, P., 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.

The Emely Post

2011-04-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was invited to an artists' residence called The Emely Post at Frances Bardsley School for Girls in Romford, on the outskirts of London.

Two artists, Rosalie Schweiker and Denise Hickey, have created the most extraordinary place for pupils to relax, explore and create.... and all through the theme of post.

It is like a postal den.
Students come in to tinker with old typewriters, put messages in bottles or simply leave notes for friends in pigeon holes.

Over lunch, a group of us (some students, Denise and me) discussed how the Edwardians used postcards. We each read out the message on an old postcard. Then, as a group, we chatted about the stories that lay behind the cards and how the way we communicate has changed over time.

Next, looking at the messages as a whole, we identified some of the techniques the Edwardians used when writing postcards.

So here are some of the Edwardian techniques we discovered;

tilt the stamp if you want to show your affection for the person you are sending the card to

use code if you want to hide what you're saying from prying eyes

make your message snappy if you want to have the most impact, and

think about how you can relate the message on the back to the picture on the front.

Finally, we put these techniques to work by replying to some of the cards we'd read out. Exhausting stuff.... but great fun.

All in all, a brilliant day. Thanks go to the girls, and to Denise and Rosalie... and good luck with future projects!

PS A date for your diary

I'm giving a talk on postcard messages at Clerkenwell Design Week for the British Postal Museum & Archive on Thursday 26 May.

If you'd like to come along, please do. It's going to take place at 7pm at the Phoenix Centre in Farringdon, London.

It's free (hurray!) but you will have to book. If you want to reserve a spot call 020 7239 2570 or email info@postalheritage.org.uk to book. For more details click here.

Rachel Whiteread

2010-12-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

I've been challenged by my tutor, John Reardon, to use my collection of messages in ways that don't simply rely on nostalgia.

I know what he's getting at. It's all too tempting to romanticise the messages; to separate them completely from the present; to abandon them to reverie.

To get me going, I've been thinking about the work of artist Rachel Whiteread.

A few weeks ago I went to see the Tate exhibition of her drawings. As well as her sketches, the show included some of her collections that inspire her - from Russian postcards to hotel keys, squashed cans to a cast of Peter Sellers' nose.

Whiteread (of the plinth on the plinth in Trafalgar Square, of concrete casts of a terraced house and of a winding village of old dolls' houses) gets us as a society. I think. She's pinpointed our ambiguous relationship with memory and won't let us off the hook - until we've explained ourselves.

In conversation with Bice Curiger for Tate Etc, Whiteread likens drawing to "writing a diary". This fits with the feeling you get as you walk round the rooms at the Tate. Peering into the cases and vitrines feels very much like looking into Whiteread's mind. Or even her memory.

But in the interview, I was puzzled by her attitude towards collecting. Here are two quotes, one about her collection of dolls' houses and the other on how she regards postcards:

"I started collecting dolls’ houses about 22 years ago, by chance. I bought maybe three or four, and then people started buying them for me. I didn’t really know what to do with them, but I kept buying them, and the more dishevelled and unloved they were, the more I wanted to look after them.... I had wanted to make something that wasn’t sentimental, but would make children gasp when they saw it."

"Explorers took photographers with them, and would make postcards [from their pictures]. Postcards were a way in which people first saw the world. However, I do not want to be nostalgic…"

For both the dolls' houses and postcards, Whiteread is keen to avoid nostalgic sentimentality. But her attitudes to the dolls' houses and to the cards differ substantially.

Of the dolls' houses she says she "look[s] after them". And you can see this in her art work. Her village (click here) brings the collection to life. She resuscitates the "unloved" houses.

But with her postcards, things are different. Rather than preserving, she has irreversibly changed them. Punched holes into them. Created something utterly new - see the photo below. Whereas she's fallen in love with the dolls' houses as they are or how they've been, the postcards offer potential for what they might become.

I think my passion for old postcards is most similar to Whiteread's love of her houses. My urge is to preserve and breathe new life into them.

Or to put it another way, I won't be introducing them to any hole punchers.

A quote, a video and a postcard.

2010-11-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

From Walter Benjamin's The Storyteller;

no event any longer comes to us
without already being
shot
through
with explanation

by now
almost nothing
benefits storytelling

almost everything
benefits information

Walt's coded love

2010-10-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

Postman CCTV

2010-10-27T06:16:00.000-07:00

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. Previously, prisons had typically been just somewhere to keep society's troublemakers.

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

2010-09-24T08:02:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-22T03:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

Dorothy's message to Grandma is a great example of how a card can capture a single moment. Not content with just telling her grandmother she's in the capital, Dorothy 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.

Strangers over time

2010-07-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

As well as your weekly postcard daydream, below are two great web projects for you to have a think about.

The first is Postcrossing - the site that has inspired 4 million cards to be sent from stranger to stranger across the world. The second is Richard Renaldi's project Touching Strangers.

Both ponder momentary interactions between strangers - and the undeniable connections we have with everyone everywhere.

Renaldi's strangers meet for the first time when they have their photo taken together - often appearing to be from completely different walks of life. With Postcrossing, strangers are first and foremost separated by geography.

I guess for Postcardese the defining axis is time. We're here at the start of the twenty-first century while our strangers collate their thoughts at the beginning of the twentieth. But that doesn't stop feelings of real empathy being triggered by what we find on the cards.

Take Connie. I know she and her exam stresses are long gone, and I know I will never meet or speak to her, but I still can't help being moved by the depth of her anxiety.

PS Finding myself in New York through work this week, I've found Richard Renaldi's image of Cheikh, Ailoun, Gracy, Terry and Pape especially comforting. Thanks Richard.

Enjoying the confusion

2010-07-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

I went to see Life Game at the Lyric Theatre in London this week - a show where a group of actors recreate defining moments in a person's life. The twist being that the actors only meet the person for the first time at the beginning of the show. The whole night is improvised.

As the show went on, we got to see replays of the guest's first kiss, when his dad first came home wearing a wig and all manner of family arguments. It was great fun.

In fact, the night flew by. Partly I'm sure due to an almighty tension in the theatre from no-one (including the actors) knowing how the night would pan out.

That delight in knowing something unexpected is going to happen reminded me of the feeling of reading a new card. You can feel your eyes widen, your mind cogs stir and an enjoyable sense of confusion play with your head.

And so, this week I'm not going to introduce the new card at all. No tips or clues. None of my own thoughts to cloud what you think lies behind it.

You are free to enjoy the confusion in full ...

Take One

2010-07-02T01:30:00.000-07:00

I said I'd let you know how Sunday's message reading went at my poet friend Valerie Jack's.

Well, it was a lot of fun. The stage was the roof of Val's houseboat! (No really, it was.) The sun did its bit. And everyone got merry on Pimm's, good chat and some cracking verse.

For my contribution I used 12 cards, reading each message twice - once as the sender and once as the recipient. So for 'Come home at once', I tried to give the sender a sense of urgency, and the recipient an air of confusion.

I suspect this was a touch ambitious given my acting skills, but it seemed to get across the ambiguity inherent in communicating through postcards.

Lots of new ideas after the performance. A teacher wanted to use some of the messages to help give a creative writing class. Another woman, thought it would make a good show for the Edinburgh fringe ("with a bit of practice" - duly noted!)

Postcardese Live

2010-06-27T04:14:00.000-07:00

A poet friend of mine Valerie Jack asked me to read some postcard messages at a poetry shindig today. Brilliantly, Val lives in a house boat on a canal. Should be quite an afternoon.

I thought selecting the cards to read out would be a doddle. After all, I know my favourite cards.

But reading cards to an audience is quite different from presenting them on the web. Messages written in code don't work for a start. It's hard to convey the splendour of those with wonderful handwriting. And as for cards like last week's sketch of Britain, they're also out.

Instead, messages charged with emotion come to the fore.

Of the cards already on Postcardese, I'm going to read Come home at once, Bob's message from Brampton Park and the pursuit of Mrs Grover's fur tippet. I've also chosen this week's card from Percy (which is a real tear jerker isn't it?)

I'll let you know how it goes...

Postcard jigsaw

2010-06-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

Something of a jigsaw puzzle for you this week. I've found a few of the pieces. There must be more though...

Piece #1. Our sender is quite the artist. What a great map of his journey?!

Piece #2. Something appears to have happened in Hastings. After all, Hastings is not on the London to Liverpool line! A romantic daytrip perhaps?

Piece #3. It seems Miss Warden hadn't visited Liverpool before. Would she ever be tempted by une ville "plus charmante"?

Piece #4. With a bit of a squint we can make out our sender worked near the Exchange railway station.

Piece #5. And finally, the French scribbles on the front - is our sender trying to be sophisticated or is French his mother tongue? Je ne sais pas.

Really looking forward to your comments!

PS For a better view of any of the images, click on them and hopefully you'll be able to see bigger versions. Only thinking of your eyes... we don't want you getting like Edith!

PPS If you're interested, receive the e-Postcardese newsletter by entering your email in the Subscribe box on the right.

George - turn them over!

2010-06-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.

George Orwell, taken from England Your England, 1941

Okay you've got one guess as to what Mr Orwell was writing about! Yup postcards. But specifically, the fronts of postcards.

A truly awesome quote don't you think?

But - and I tread carefully when crossing one of postcardings founding fathers - I reckon Orwell missed a trick. The cards themselves do reveal a lot about a society's psyche. But surely there is more to be found in the messages?

Take Jim's card to Maggie. Turning over the pastel image of a Winchester horizon, you find a real treat...

I love the addition of the "to all" in Jim's message. I'm thinking his interest in Maggie's nearest and dearest was a bit of an afterthought? And isn't there something beautiful in the way he's written Maggie's name. The 'M' is just a delight.

PS By the way, some good news Postcardesers. Postcardese was named this week's Best of Web by Culture Critic. Good work guys!

Postcard poetry

2010-06-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

W.H. Auden said that a poem is never finished, only abandoned. For our Edwardian postcarders, poems weren't abandoned... they were sent.

I've put a couple of cards up recently containing poetry. Remember the card to Miss Cameron in the lead up to the 1906 general election? And then there was last week's card which formed something of a haiku:

Noon. Please. Will meet you.

Love as ever, A. E. S..

Miss Case, New Parade.

While it may be no Auden, this week's message is a cracking ditty. A warning to all lotharios... Enjoy it.

Until next week!

P.S. Happy Postcard Friendship Friday!

Noon. Please. Will meet you.

2010-05-29T02:15:00.000-07:00

No time to waste this week. Written as spoken. Our sender is in a rush. Desperate. His (?) words spill out in a garbled order: Time, courtesy, direction. Signed off with initials. Stamped at an angle.

Or maybe not.

Is in fact the delivery deliberately slow and enigmatic? Are the pauses merely for effect, to give the impression of being in complete control. And standing back, the card does seem perfectly balanced - was it even the first attempt at the message?

Either way - it's classic postcardese!

Touching the swirls

2010-05-22T03:27:00.000-07:00

I went to the National Gallery in London on Friday night. Even if you've been before, I really recommend making a special trip for a late opening.

As the crowds thin out, you get a sensation of being somewhere you shouldn't be. And by 9 o'clock you can find yourself completely alone with best of Van Gogh, Vermeer & Co.

I'm often struck by how even the most familiar painting takes on a new life when you see the original. With Van Gogh's Sunflowers, say, those big yellows and oranges become so vibrant, the paint's texture is more pronounced and you find yourself wanting to reach out and touch the swirls.

Now ok there are no Sunflowers in my collection, I know. But there are some cards which are masterpieces in their own way, and I just wonder - is something lost when they are reproduced on the web? Hope not.

If postcards did make their way into a gallery, this week's card would be the star turn. Roped off and possibly with its own room, it is the biggie. Rest assured, I'll be returning to in future weeks.

So, ladies and gents, make sure your coats are safely in the cloakroom. Mobiles/Cellphones are switched off. And you're speaking in your best gallery whisper.

Miss Emerson's fate is at stake...

To plan or cram?

2010-05-15T02:29:00.000-07:00

After last week's post I had some correspondence with design guru Stephen Bayley. (Thanks for the card Stephen!) For him, postcards' magic rests in the writerly discipline needed to communicate in such a confined space.

Thinking about it, I reckon there are broadly two camps of postcard writers. Those who embrace Stephen's challenge, standing back to concoct messages with impact. And those who dive straight in and cram as much onto a card as possible.

Typically, it's the planners who conjure up the star messages. But sometimes, the crammers triumph too. Through the intricacy of their efforts, their postcards can assume a beauty which deserves celebrating.

Two cards this week. One from each camp.

PS To have a proper look at the crammed card, click on the image of it above.

PPS Although postcards had been around since 1870 in the UK, it was only in 1902 that the Post Office allowed the address side to include both address and correspondence. Only then was the current challenge set. Postcardese is very grateful.

Sex, drugs and stamps

2010-05-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Last week's Independent on Sunday ran an article declaring stamp collecting to be "officially cool". Hurray.

Now let's just ignore the fact the Independent's arbiters of 21st century cool included Freddie Mercury (dead for 20 years), John Lennon (dead for 30 years) and Ronnie Wood (who took up collecting on leaving rehab). Details, details, I know...

Anyway, there was something spot on in the comments of design expert Stephen Bayley.

He reckoned stamps are "minor art forms... soon to be lost. That realisation generates a wish to collect them, to preserve them as part of a disappearing culture."

Does anyone else recognise that psychology of needing to preserve a fading culture?

Enjoy this week's card - the hunt for Miss Glover's fur tippet.

Who were you with...?

2010-05-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

Why someone chooses a specific card is always worth a ponder.

Sometimes the card sent must simply have been the nearest thing to hand, but often it is essential to the message.

Take today's card from Doris to the wonderfully named Miss Kitty Carr (who surely went on to become a movie star?)

Holding the card, you can't help but turn it over and over - to find clues linking the gates with the message.

And as a result, questions come quickly to mind - who had Kitty been with? And what was so funny about what happened? Was it a date best forgotten? Or something to do with an embarrassing relative?

Who knows. But worth a daydream.

Authenticity

2010-04-25T03:19:00.000-07:00

Collecting postcard messages is no easy pursuit. For one thing, your eyes boggle after an hour or so of going through trays at postcard fairs.

To cope, there are a few rules you can follow to make the sifting easier.

For me, Rule #1 is any card worth buying must be stamped and have a postmark. This way at least you know that the card was sent. OK you can't be sure that it was read by the addressee. But it gives weight to the idea that the message was part of a real dialogue.

Not only does this week's card have a stamp and a postmark - it also has some smudged ink, bringing to life even more the physical act of putting pen to card. Love it!

Interpreters of fate to the rescue?

2010-04-18T03:34:00.000-07:00

What's been great about starting Postcardese has been coming across people with similar passions. Like Reminiscene's blog or the PostSecret project.

Before then, collecting postcard messages had felt somewhat lonely.

In fact, it had been pretty hard to find any allies. One source of solace though was the German philosopher Walter Benjamin - no really, he was. His essay 'Unpacking My Library' is superb - go with me on this.

The essay neatly draws out the emotions involved in collecting physical objects which have mysterious histories - in his case old books.

For Benjamin, unanswered questions surrounding an object's journey over time create a kind of 'magic encyclopedia', waiting to be explored. This makes the collector, first and foremost, an 'interpreter of fate' - not quite a superhero I know, but it's as close as we're going to get. Anyway here's a link to the essay in full.

Enjoy interpreting this week's card! Looking forward to reading your comments.

1906: The Postcard Election

2010-04-10T03:21:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of this year's election in the UK being driven by new media - YouTube, Twitter, Facebook...

But it's not the first to have been influenced by new forms of communication. In fact, parties at every election in modern times have grappled with new ways of getting their messages across - whether it was the first political broadcasts on TV in the 1950s or the rise of rolling news in the 90s.

In the year leading up to the February 1906 election in which Campbell Bannerman's Liberal Party won big, postcards were a key battleground.

An astounding 677 million postcards were sent in 1905. And politicians were keen to get in on this. Today's card shows an example of how.

Campbell-Bannerman had just taken over as PM from the "Balfourian gang" and was set to call an election, much to the delight of our anonymous author ("Hail, hail, Oh hail! Our glorious Banner-man.)

What hit me first about this card was that someone had taken the time to write a poem for a friend on the qualities of a political leader. I simply can't imagine anyone today writing a ditty about Glorious Gordon, Super Cam or the Mighty Clegg.

But there's also the quality of the communication.

New social media - for all their wonder - put a great emphasis on one-to-many communication. And with that, the impact of each message falls. Status updates, tweets and round robin emails are easy to ignore.

A one-to-one message like this though had to be taken seriously. Of course, it would be a while before Miss J H Cameron's opinion counted at the ballot box. But that's another story...

On the way home, Dad

2010-04-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

Postcard theatre

2010-04-01T03:15:00.000-07:00

Some great postcard theatre for you this week from E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread:

Irma collected picture post-cards, and Mrs. Herriton or
Harriet always glanced first at all that came, lest the
child should get hold of something vulgar. On this occasion
the subject seemed perfectly inoffensive--a lot of ruined
factory chimneys--and Harriet was about to hand it to her
niece when her eye was caught by the words on the margin. She gave a shriek and flung the card into the grate. Of course no fire was alight in July, and Irma only had to run and pick it out again.

"How dare you!" screamed her aunt. "You wicked girl!
Give it here!"

Unfortunately Mrs. Herriton was out of the room. Irma,
who was not in awe of Harriet, danced round the table,
reading as she did so, "View of the superb city of
Monteriano--from your lital brother."

Stupid Harriet caught her, boxed her ears, and tore the
post-card into fragments. Irma howled with pain, and began shouting indignantly, "Who is my little brother? Why have I never heard of him before? Grandmamma! Grandmamma! Who is my little brother? Who is my--"

Mrs. Herriton swept into the room, saying, "Come with
me, dear, and I will tell you. Now it is time for you to know."

If you know of any other uses of postcards in novels, plays or films, send them into postcardese@gmail.com.

Where I am being cured...

2010-03-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

Where I am being cured...

2010-03-28T00:23:00.000-07:00

Last week, I posted a couple of coded messages - the authors of which made you work hard to get anywhere near what was going on. This week, the drama is all too clear.

Consciously or otherwise, Bob simply can't hide his pain at being so far from home.

And for someone who apparently has difficulty communicating, he seems very adept at drawing you into his suffering...

By beginning his message on the front, he forces you to take in the full Gothic horror of Brampton Park - with its twisted chimneys and heavy shadows.

Then, he paces the first sentence to maximise the impact of him being "cured". As the first word on the back of the card, it kind of takes your breath away.

The final blow - that he won't be back till August - makes his jaunty signature appear utterly hollow.

Receiving such a card must have been pretty tough for Janie. Although by choosing to send a card rather than a sealed letter, did Bob have another audience in mind? Did he want others besides Janie to see it? Maybe his parents?

In a twist Daphne du Maurier would be proud of, Brampton Park burned down in 1907. A blaze lasting three days completely gutted the front of the house. I'm thinking Bob wouldn't have been too upset.

Coded love

2010-03-21T13:57:00.001-07:00

In her comment last week, About Postcards said she enjoyed cracking coded messages. I love doing this too. In fact, one way or another, all of my favourite cards are written in secret languages.

I'm not sure exactly why this is. But I reckon it's got something to do a concept JJ Abrams (creator of 'Lost') calls "the mystery box".

When you have a moment, have a look at a seminar Abrams gave on good storytelling - link is below. He talks about being drawn to things which have "infinite possibilities" and uses the example of a box of magic tricks he is fascinated by because it's never been opened.

For me, postcard messages offer a similar means for firing imaginations. They might be a bit pedestrian, especially compared to special-effect-driven adventures on desert islands, but mysteries are there to be enjoyed.

And with coded messages you get double your intrigue.

The code presents the obvious challenge, working out the words the author wanted to hide from the postman. But even when you've deciphered the message you are still only left with one moment, one piece of a dialogue. The before and the after remain hidden.

So, to this week's cards. I've put two up. The card in block capitals is at the Easy end of the code spectrum. If you're struggling there's a clue atwww.twitter.com/postcardese.

Brace yourself for the message to Miss Gertrud. It is Super Fiendish and I'm afraid I have no answers. The mystery box it seems remains firmly sealed. Any ideas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8

Coded love

2010-03-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

In her comment last week, About Postcards said she enjoyed cracking coded messages. I love doing this too. In fact, one way or another, all of my favourite cards are written in secret languages.

I'm not sure exactly why this is. But I reckon it's got something to do a concept JJ Abrams (creator of 'Lost') calls "the mystery box".

When you have a moment, have a look at a seminar Abrams gave on good storytelling - link is below. He talks about being drawn to things which have "infinite possibilities" and uses the example of a box of magic tricks he is fascinated by because it's never been opened.

For me, postcard messages offer a similar means for firing imaginations. They might be a bit pedestrian, especially compared to special-effect-driven adventures on desert islands, but mysteries are there to be enjoyed.

And with coded messages you get double your intrigue.

The code presents the obvious challenge, working out the words the author wanted to hide from the postman. But even when you've deciphered the message you are still only left with one moment, one piece of a dialogue. The before and the after remain hidden.

So, to this week's cards. I've put two up. The card in block capitals is at the Easy end of the code spectrum. If you're struggling there's a clue at www.twitter.com/postcardese.

Brace yourself for the message to Miss Gertrud. It is Super Fiendish and I'm afraid I have no answers. The mystery box it seems remains firmly sealed. Any ideas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8

Bravo!

2010-03-19T10:20:00.000-07:00

Sunday's card is still coming. But after last night's football, I couldn't resist a bonus post.

Dear Mother... we shall be quite alright

2010-03-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

Often you find messages only reveal themselves on the second or third reading. This card is a good example.

At first it all seems pretty banal - a son updates his mother on what he'd been up to that day in town.

Sent a year earlier, the card would be of little interest. But once you've clocked the card was sent in September 1914, the card fills with poignancy.

Let's hope George was alright and one day got back to Hardwick Farm 'safetly'.

I promise to make sure next week's card is cheerier! Keen to hear your thoughts on the posts so far...

Don't be frightened to tell me...

2010-03-08T02:18:00.000-08:00

Don't be frightened to tell me...

2010-03-08T01:54:00.000-08:00

Stresses of exam results could always spoil a holiday.

You can just imagine our heroine doing everything she could to distract herself. In the end though, the temptation to send a card was just too much. Poor thing.

Did she pass? Did she fail? I reckon she aced them.

I'm going to try to post a new card each week. Hope you enjoy them. Keen to hear your thoughts on the stories that lie behind them! There'll be postcard message stuff on Twitter through the week though at twitter.com/postcardese.

An addiction

2010-03-08T01:43:00.000-08:00

So how does someone become addicted to old postcard messages?

Well, eight years ago I was in a junk shop in the Lake District in North West England. Alongside the cracked pottery and broken VHS players, there was a tray of old postcards. And to my surprise in amongst them I found a couple of my university college. Faded and battered, I thought they were well worth the £1.50 investment.

But it wasn't until I was sipping a cuppa a few hours later I read the backs. The first was illegible. Something about a holiday in Bournemouth. But on the second a girl was arranging to meet a university pal in Clapham in London in 1904. The coincidence being that I now lived in Clapham and regularly made similar arrangements with my uni friends - albeit by text and email. 100 years on and strangely little seemed to have changed.

So, back to the shop I went the next day and trawled through every card. The smudged declarations of love, the coded instructions and the insights into forgotten routines were simply astonishing. And I've been gripped ever since.

I hope you find reading the messages enjoyable.

Please let me know what stories you think lie behind them. And if you have cards yourself send them in and see what everyone else thinks.

Best

Postcardese

PS Follow Postcardese on Twitter for thoughts on collecting postcard messages ... Postcardese to Twitterese in one click.