I’m laying down the law. Don’t buy white ink pads.
This postcard was published in Germany before World War I. There are probably beach towns up and down the West Coast of the United States that claim the same scene but with their name on it.
Here’s another example:
This card was published in the 1920s in the USA. The style has changed; it’s more painterly than photographic. Also, the printing is not as crisp.
Unfortunately, a white stamp pad will pick up every other color you use, unless you steam-clean each stamp before you use it. Trying to safeguard the precious bodily fluids of a white stamp pad gets really boring really fast. I tried it twice and gave up. A white stamp pad is about as useful as a white No. 2 pencil. (I’ve tried that, too.) Now I’m back in black.
Stamping on modern cards with a plastic surface (referred to by deltiologists as “chromes”) is chancy. You might achieve a smart finish and you might achieve a smear. I did well with this one:
How did I stamp the space shuttle behind the red line? Analog fussing at its finest: First I used tracing paper and a pencil to get something the same width. I cut it out and placed it over the line. Sticking it down was simple: I used a Post-it at each end. I inked the stamp and hoped for the best. It worked!
I probably stamped this 20 years ago. The image eventually dried enough for me to scan it, but even today, if I touched it, the natural oil on my skin might ruin it.
This may be one of the few beach postcards ever published to feature a Dad in a bathing suit.
Here’s an example of how not to do things:
This is another Oregon beach. Note the light on the driftwood. The sun is setting. The card’s surface took the ink well. But I should’ve left the sails alone or painted them a pale blue or gray to blend with the sea and sky. And I definitely should’ve masked the bow’s shadow. The stern’s shadow is correct for this coast and this time of day, but not the bow’s. Using this image taught me to follow the light. We should all follow the light.
Some postcards are bizarre. There is no point in altering them. They are perfect:
This card preceded the Mary Poppins movie by approximately 60 years. I call him Marty Poppins. I considered stamping springs under his shoes or adding fireworks, but why? The publisher said it all.
At the time this card was mailed, it was illegal to write anything on the blank side except for the name and address of the recipient. People did it anyway, so the law was changed. Jack, the man who mailed Marty, was a law-abiding citizen.
Other cards cry out for alterations…except for this next one, because whoever mailed it, all those decades ago, added a message that will live forever:
I bought each card because I loved them as they are, not because I thought I could improve them. I can’t improve them.
In 1935, e.e. cummings self-published a book of poetry. Because 14 publishers had said no thanks, he called the book No Thanks and dedicated it to the 14 of them:
cummings, who was very concerned about how his poems were displayed on the page, produced this image on a typewriter. I know how to do that. You count the letters and spaces in a line, divide by two, and backspace backspace backspace from the center of the paper. It helps to only use lines that contain an odd number of letters.
There’s a lingering bitterness in what cummings did. Bitterness is useless. I get aggravated but I try not to be bitter. The 47 editors who rejected the story I wrote about in yesterday’s post might have done so because it wasn’t the sort of thing they publish. It was too long. It was too short. It was too Jewish. It was not enough Baptist. They had already read three similar stories. They were dealing that day with an audit, a toothache, or a bad love deal. Maybe they just didn’t like it. Whatever the reason, there’s nothing I can do about it…except copy e.e. cummings!
Here’s a useful rubber stamp. What’s up, Office Man?
It’s been a long time since I went to work in a suit and spent the day writing things on paper. But Office Man’s expression, that of a man who can’t believe his boss just threw another stack of invoices at him, is universal. We’ve all been that tired. We’ve all stood on the edge of the despair. Like Talking Heads, I’d rather stand on the edge of the stage.
Office Man is a team player:
Falling Woman, by the way, is welcome everywhere:
I am thinking of Office Man because I’m revising the first draft of my novel, and I feel a bit beleaguered with all the feedback I’m working with. Beleaguered as in this photo from the May 11/18 New Yorker:
This photo is by Eli Durst, from an article about high school debate clubs and debate club prep (“Resolved”). If you’ve ever tried to revise a book, this scene will make you feel right at home!
“There isn’t enough televised chess,” David Letterman said back in the 1990s the night he had a young Garry Kasparov on his show. Everybody laughed, but this is the NBA now. Times have changed.
You might think it’s difficult to integrate rubber-stamped chess pieces with the images on old postcards. Think again. It’s easy.
This card is from the early 1900s and shows hundreds of costumed Normans doing the Safety Dance at a wedding in Morbihan. This is a crazy way to dress for a wedding, but it works well with the antiquated design of the chessmen. Everyone is looking in every direction so naturally some of these folks appear to be looking at the pawn, rook, and king.
If Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” has popped unbidden into your head, it’s because she rhymed “apricot” with “gavotte.” Yes, I think that’s crazy, too.
Bauhaus (the German art movement, not the British band) influenced the chess set depicted on this modern postcard. I dressed it up with my friend the cowpoke.
Bauhaus the band has a 28,800-word Wikipedia entry with 282 footnotes, which I believe exceeds the entries for the Seven Years War, the Great Wall of China, and David Letterman.
Donald Trump is confused. First he thought he was Jesus. Then he thought that Jesus was a doctor. And then he thought that he and Jesus could heal the sick by taking their money so they couldn’t pay for a doctor.
Trump is not too clear on his job description. He doesn’t know much about other jobs, either. He said that Pope Leo is “weak on crime.” Trump doesn’t understand that the Pope can’t arrest people. His Holiness can’t even bust wayward altar boys.
In honor of Donald Trump’s love affair with the Son of God, here’s a postcard from my collection. This card was published before World War I, in the era when you dressed up and visited a photography studio and they turned your photo into postcards. There’s no note on the card to reveal the identity of the man in the hat. If there’s a heaven and he’s in it, I hope this gentleman will forgive me for the caption I gave him.
The atmosphere of Earth 1 is growing warmer. There may be fewer backyards full of snow in our future. We had almost no snow in our backyard this winter. So here’s a photo of the snows of yesteryear, otherwise known as 2023.
Tango the moment before she exploded into action. Our property was invaded by a lone Nazgûl, one of Sauron’s Black Riders. Bing Crosby sang a song about him back in 1936:
I’m an old Nazgûl, from the Rio Grande But my legs ain’t bowed and my cheeks ain’t tan I’m a cowboy who never saw a cow Never roped a steer cause I don’t know how Sure ain’t a fixin to start in now Yippie yi yo kay-ay
“Yippie yi yo kay-ay” is, of course, from one of the Elven languages. I’m not sure of its meaning. Some filler stuff about a Ring.
This goes-anywhere stamp was published by Art Impressions of Salem, Oregon, year unknown. If you go looking for it, the stock number is F-3270.
I try to post on Sundays. I wasn’t able to post yesterday, so today’s effort will be a bit longer.
Literary scammers continue to target me. The pace of incoming emails has increased, which I attribute to the war in Iran. The scammers’ language often sounds like something a Donald Trump fund-raiser would say:
“Your book will be displayed across our platform and listed as an invited title on our website, which receives up to 1.7 million visits every year.”
“Your book collection caught our attention and passed our review process with distinction.”
Today I received two messages from organizers of global book clubs with tens of thousands of members:
Elaine Louise, Literary Adviser and Book Selection Specialist for “The Elite Book Club,” invited me to be part of their “Spring 2026 Global Spotlight.” “Our readers specifically highlighted how your work captures the kind of emotional resonance we look for as we head into this season of renewal.” Tell them that in Tehran, Beirut, and Kiev.
And Sherry Organiser, Organiser of “THE Book Club (TBC),” also wants to hook up. “Our readers are deeply interested in stories that explore complex characters, moral dilemmas, and thought-provoking themes, exactly the kind of discussion your writing inspires.”
Sherry Organiser is a good name, but not as good as the scammer who signed one as Fanbase. And how many of you are members of book clubs that report up a ladder to people who control book clubs?
The only new wrinkle lately was an invitation to spend a base fee of $1,100 on audio book production (they don’t usually mention money right away) and a note from the “Literary Bureau” telling me how much they love my book. Which, as readers around here know, I haven’t finished. It seems that this book I haven’t finished, which they claim to have read, “closely matches the types of stories currently being explored for potential screen adaptation.” Wow!
They like my book so fucking much—you know, the one I haven’t finished and that they claim to have read—that they asked me to send them a copy so they can review it because they already fucking loved it. “If the project appears to be a good fit, we may then invite you to present your work and discuss the story further in a Zoom interview with a Netflix representative.”
As Margaret Atwood said recently, these scams are cruel. They take advantage of people’s hopes and their lack of understanding about publishing. It’s spam, my friends. Delete it. And pray for peace.
Some art now, please
Right. A book I thought was about steam railroads turned out to be black-and-white glam shots of steam locomotives, most of them captured in full throttle. I can only handle so many smoking wedgies. Soon I was ripping the book apart. Turns out that book paper from 1960 takes ink perfectly.
Sometimes you lift the stamp and you see the image is incorrectly placed. Sometimes you lift the stamp and it’s perfect.
Too bad the brakeman on the back porch isn’t more visible, but I love what I can see of his expression.
Steven Bryan Bieler 