Just reading in the San Francisco Chronicle Travel section about the demise of the postcard.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or simply enamored of a romanticism of the early twentieth century -- which includes the dawn of world travel within the reach of the masses -- but I love postcards, and the handwritten letter. As I sit in front of a computer and diligently blog about my life and what interests me, I am still of the belief that information and correspondence has in some ways become useless because of its easy proximity; thus, we often do not value or really ingest anything that is conveyed. Hand-letter-writing and receiving is so tangible and grounding, and I believe it tames that go-go-go, scan and discard mentality so prevalent with email and MySpace and such.
So, besides my egalitarian leanings and love of jeans and Vans (oi, and my wicked wicked iPhone), I think I sometimes do belong in my romantic version of 1940s Paris or London (a Blitz-free London, of course). Ha, but even then I'd probably be pining away for the times before the proliferation of the telephone yet declaring I am also anti-corset but pro-penicillin, as well as wanting to opt out from the Black Death or dying from cholera. Even though hardship is part of the romanticization, long live my hyper-romanticized Victorian era or Wild Wild West!
Things change, for better and for worse, and in the end you've just got to be mindful.
But I digress: I love collecting postcards from friends and their travels; in fact, that's the only thing I ask for when someone offers to pick up a souvenir up for me. It's true what the article states, though: they take time, people are lazy, and the new technology allows us instant gratification. I guess that's why I love them so much though -- it really demonstrates someone was thinking about you wherever they were.
Some of my favorites -- definitely for the locations, but most for the stories contained on the flipsides:
The studio portrait was mailed to me as a postcard from my best friend while she was traveling through India. She wrote a whole story on the back about finding it and haggling for it. Apparently once the shopkeeper got wind of the fact that she was actually into buying one of the myriad 70s discarded portraits he had in a dusty box, he began to regale her with stories about how popular they were with hotels as decorations, and thus were far far more valuable than she had previously thought. :)
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or simply enamored of a romanticism of the early twentieth century -- which includes the dawn of world travel within the reach of the masses -- but I love postcards, and the handwritten letter. As I sit in front of a computer and diligently blog about my life and what interests me, I am still of the belief that information and correspondence has in some ways become useless because of its easy proximity; thus, we often do not value or really ingest anything that is conveyed. Hand-letter-writing and receiving is so tangible and grounding, and I believe it tames that go-go-go, scan and discard mentality so prevalent with email and MySpace and such.
So, besides my egalitarian leanings and love of jeans and Vans (oi, and my wicked wicked iPhone), I think I sometimes do belong in my romantic version of 1940s Paris or London (a Blitz-free London, of course). Ha, but even then I'd probably be pining away for the times before the proliferation of the telephone yet declaring I am also anti-corset but pro-penicillin, as well as wanting to opt out from the Black Death or dying from cholera. Even though hardship is part of the romanticization, long live my hyper-romanticized Victorian era or Wild Wild West!
Things change, for better and for worse, and in the end you've just got to be mindful.
But I digress: I love collecting postcards from friends and their travels; in fact, that's the only thing I ask for when someone offers to pick up a souvenir up for me. It's true what the article states, though: they take time, people are lazy, and the new technology allows us instant gratification. I guess that's why I love them so much though -- it really demonstrates someone was thinking about you wherever they were.
Some of my favorites -- definitely for the locations, but most for the stories contained on the flipsides:
The studio portrait was mailed to me as a postcard from my best friend while she was traveling through India. She wrote a whole story on the back about finding it and haggling for it. Apparently once the shopkeeper got wind of the fact that she was actually into buying one of the myriad 70s discarded portraits he had in a dusty box, he began to regale her with stories about how popular they were with hotels as decorations, and thus were far far more valuable than she had previously thought. :)
Labels: being old-fashioned, mindfulness, postcards
posted by Ammie at 10:38 AM
2 Comments:
hey there, glad you liked it and always pleased to see a reference to me on your blog ... now send me an email, you booger!
Didn't you read my post? Get a stable address, booger, and I'll write you a paper and pen letter! ;)
I miss you!!!!
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