Postcard Gallery: Stone Elephant, Magical Moose, and Top-Hatted Snail Edition

I get mail. Awesome, awesome mail. A selection of my recent favorites:

Some additional notes: 

This one might be my favorite, if only because of the comedic imagery of picturing a snail put on that bowtie. Think of the logistics that entails. (Top hats are easy, don't try that argument with me.)

This retro foursome, though, is also marvelous. Three of 'em come from excellent travel-writer pals; the fourth's from an excellent reader. There's Elephant Rock in the upper left, courtesy of Jessica Spiegel. To the right, the oh-so-modern Tijuana border, via Pam Mandel. The photo of the moose postcard, from Jenna Schnuer, doesn't do it justice, because it's one of those postcards printed on textured plastic, where the photo looks 3D, moving slightly as you tilt your head. And the oranges. LOOK AT THOSE THINGS. I've been to California. It's a pretty lush sort of place. Stuff grows. And grows. That's enough OJ for, like, a year's worth of breakfasts. Many thanks, Reader Melissa.

Also, by the way, the much-discussed Pantone Conspiracy is still going. After something like three years and well over a hundred of these things. I'm starting to think it's all part of some elaborate prank by the NSA: We know where you live. But for now, all we want to do is send you postcards. Enjoy! (But really, watch your back.)

Finally, this. A sly callback from a reader with a long memory, a reference to my very first published story, "Confessions of a Chicken Man."

The Craziest, Coolest Real Mail Yet

Do not get into a creative mail competition with Jeff in Aurora, Colorado. 

He's been sending me postcards and aerograms for a while, as I mentioned a few weeks ago. And after that shout-out, he responded with this: 

Tube o' Mystery

Tear off the face to reveal the prize

A film canister impaled with a pen. And Scooby Doo has a message for you.

Wait. Really? There's a scroll in there? How long could it possibly be?

In the neighborhood of EIGHT FEET, ladies and gents. An eight-foot-long letter--or, as Jeff calls it, "Rollergram." (Trademark and patent pending, I'm sure.)

Take a bow, Jeff. 

And to everyone else, including me: The creative correspondence gauntlet has been thrown down. 

Real Mail Week, Part 4: Aerograms As Travel Guides

It takes you a while to discover the secret. The reason this letter is not just interesting but kind of brilliant.

David in Edinburgh, a guy you've never met or heard from before, sends you this homemade aerogram:

You unfold it. Inside, it looks like this: 

You keep unfolding and find an evocative story of wandering around Dublin.

Welcome to Dublin. You're going to love it. ... 

Big open field on the campus, tonnes of people lazin' about on a Friday evening. Sun turnin' orange and about twenty minutes left before it disappears behind the buildings on Dame Street. Smiling now, thinking back on it. You know that blue tint the sky gets on a hot evening in the early summer ...

You think: This is kinda trippy and definitely awesome. Writing with a serious sense of place and voice.

As you opened the aerogram, more sheets of paper, loose paper, fell out. You line up the sheets, take a picture.

Real Mail Week, Part 3: Aerogram Awesomeness

I know I'm far from the only person who loves aerograms, those wonderful sheets of paper that combine correspondence with (super easy) origami--"the height of epistolary convenience," as Don George put it on Gadling a while back. (See also Evan Rail's essay "An Aerogram From Berlin" for World Hum.) 

And judging from the fact that my aerogram template has been downloaded some 9,000 times, it's clear that there are more than a few people looking for ways to continue sending aerograms, even if they're no longer available at any given post office or stationery store. (I did recently discover a form of aerograms, called Mailblok, hidden under a table at my favorite stationery store. Don't let the packaging fool you, though--it may say "Blue Airmail Paper" but the paper itself is that shade of blue known as "actually just plain ol' white.")

Anyway. I get excited anytime anyone sends me anything, but I do a special little Mail Nerd Dance when an aerogram shows up in my mailbox. Sometimes they use my own template. Sometimes it's one of the ones from Mailblok. Sometimes it's just a standard piece of paper that's been folded in on itself carefully. And sometimes it's a work of art. The master of the artistic aerogram--and postcards, for that matter--is Jeff in Aurora, Colorado, who gets points not just for creativity but also for diligence--he persists in writing even when the other correspondent (me) doesn't hold up his end of the bargain.

Here are some of Jeff's masterpieces:

Real Mail Week, Part 2: Hemingway, Che, and a Bagpiper Go Into a Post Office ...

It's International Real Mail Week! I decreed it so, even if I'm the only one observing it (I sent letters to 104 heads of state, but they all must've gotten lost in the mail ... which is mighty ironic, if you think about it). Yesterday was all about the epic Pantone Postcard Conspiracy that has been filling my mailbox for over a year. 

Today: More postcards. Here are some of my favorites, as many as would fit onto my coffee table (about a third to half of the cards I've received since the last postcard gallery update). 

Click for larger version.

Now, the main reason I love postcards is that they're art plus narrative in one compact package that you can hold, feel, put on your refrigerator, or arrange on your coffee table. Beyond that, though--and I'm gonna get all writer-nerd on you here--I also love how they force you to tell a story succinctly and even give you a writing prompt on the other side. I particularly enjoy sending postcards from places OTHER than what's on the front, and then tying that image into my commentary on the real things I'm seeing around me. But then, I'm weird.

Real Mail Week, Part 1: What It Looks Like When You Get 116 Color-Coordinated Postcards

Be careful what you wish for. You may be an aficionado of old-school mail, for example, but if you publicly proclaim yourself as such, and ask people to write to you, well ... 

They will.

That's only a fraction of the correspondence. Specifically, the fraction representing the number that will fit on my coffee table for photo-documentation purposes. I'm gonna need a bigger coffee table.

You people. You impress me. Your letters. Postcards. Homemade aerograms with elaborate collages. Correspondence from every continent except for the one covered in ice, which is considerably trickier in every way, and I'm not even sure if it's possible for people to send postcards from there (and my book hasn't yet been translated into Penguin, so none of them have written to me yet).

As for my own impressiveness ... well, it doesn't measure up, I'm afraid. I'm way behind in my correspondence--and "way" in this case means, oh, "In some cases more than a year." I'll just repeat that for purposes of full public shaming: Over. A. Year. Behind. I'm sorry. Really. Truly. Sure, I've got excuses. Which one do you want? I've been beyond busy. Had a book published. Went on book tour. Was a guest speaker on a big ol' ship for four weeks. Got more assignments, which I had to juggle with my day job. Moved. Planned a wedding and then, last month, got married to an amazing, wonderful woman (our vows were adapted from our early love letters to each other; she's also a fan of old-school correspondence). (Wedding pic below, BTW.) 

But still. I've been remiss. So this week, I'm catching up, at long last. I'm putting pen to paper and writing back. And I'm also putting pixels to ... well, pixels, as I also finally catch up on posting photos of some of the highlights of your correspondence. 

*

Today: The Great Pantone Conspiracy

As noted previously, shortly after I put out the call for correspondence, a couple of years ago now, I started getting Pantone postcards--that is, postcards that looked like giant swatches from the color company Pantone. To date, I have received at least 116 such postcards, from strangers and family and long-lost friends, from Indonesia and Switzerland and Morocco and Chile and Cuba (!) and other places near and far.

The pace has slowed down since the early days of the Pantone Conspiracy, but they keep trickling in--as you'll see, I got two more yesterday.

So here is what 116 postcards look like: 

Except, wait, right after I took that photo, I looked on the floor and saw that I forgot a few:

And the Best Postcard Winner is ...

First, this contest needs a name. I mean, aside from the Pimp My Postcard Galley Giveaway Contest, which is more or less what I was calling it in my head, but which lacks the esteemed tone and roll-off-the-tongue catchiness of the Oscars or the Pulitzers or the Iggies.

Let's call them the Posties, shall we?

And now, herewith, some Postie winners, counting down to the Grand Postie, which will be honored not with a boring ol' gold statue (meh) but with a signed galley (hooray!). Scroll to the bottom if you're the impatient type and/or want to see if you won. 

The Postie for Okay, That's Seriously Impressive and Kind of Freaking Me Out goes to a collective, the previously noted vast Pantone postcard conspiracy. Incidentally, said conspiracy shows no signs of abating and which, actually, is only gaining strength. I've now received Pantone postcards from Bali, Hawaii, New Zealand, Switzerland, Scotland, and something like sixty-three states. I think I'm up to nearly a hundred Pantone postcards now, and I'm starting to see some duplicate postcards. You know what that means? It means there's more than one pack of postcards out there in the conspiracy-mix; there's the potential for at least two hundred of these things if and when the conspiracy reaches its conclusion. 

These are just the cards that I've received since I last posted about the Pantone conspiracy.

A few favorite individual cards:

Does anyone speak computer?

Front. See below for back.

Back.

Note the first two comments. Forcing your kids to write postcards: cruel child-labor or noble life lesson? Discuss.

Caption trend: writing comments about the weather on the backs of  gray swatch postcards.
Three different people did this, including Shirley in Indonesia.

Front of the above postcard.

Switzerland ... 

Iceland ...

Pantone conspiracy masterminds, I salute you.

Indeed.

The Postie in the Great Effort Foiled By the Postal Service category goes to MB, who sent four different cards from Hawaii, each one with a single word on them: "Aloha," "Hawaii," "On," "A." Three of the postcards are pictured here below.

As you will note, however, "Aloha Hawaii On A" doesn't much sense, no matter how you shuffle around those words. It seems that there may be some other missing words--I'm going to guess I was supposed to get more postcards. I just hope the message isn't supposed to be "Aloha. I'm shipwrecked in Hawaii, on a shark-infested lagoon. Please send help forthwith."

Moving on, the finalists. 

This postcard, truthfully, is my overall favorite. It wins the Postie for Best Defacing of Photos of an Author:

Irn Bru is a vile but wildly popular soft drink native to Scotland, in case you were wondering.

Yes, that's me, along with Maren, my girlfriend fiancee (in other news, I just got engaged!). The postcard came from Ann Schaefer, my mother's friend and 1967 traveling companion, who was immediately disqualified because I was already going to give her a copy of the book. My favorite part about this postcard, though, is that it knowingly echoes a set of photos that Ann and my mother sent back home during their own European trip.

Mom's on the left, Ann's on the right.

In second place is a monster who wins two Posties, for both Best Use of Street Art in a Postcard and Most Surprising Pantone Postcard Conspirators. It comes from my friends at the Key West Literary Seminar, Michael and Kathy; Arlo and Ashley; and Miles and Alan. The endearingly goofy monster you see below is covering up a Pantone postcard (note to Michael and Kathy, et. al: Seriously, how did you get roped into the conspiracy? This thing runs way deeper than I thought ...). I forget the name of the street artist--you see these little creatures here and there around Key West--but I'm hoping someone will remind me in the comments.

And finally ... The Grand Postie. Winner of the galley and the bookmarks and a lifetime of bragging rights!

This card probably doesn't look particularly special on the computer screen. 

But those stamps weren't just Photoshopped on. Those are, no kidding, actual authentic vintage postage stamps affixed to the card. That. That is fantastic. And the card itself is from a 1935 ad in Fortune magazine, as explained on the back:

And on top of everything--on top of making a postcard from a vintage magazine and vintage postcards, on top of generally playing right into the retro-travel theme of my book--there's a fortune for me. Generous, no? And utterly fantastic. 

Congrats, Renee--you win the Grand Postie and the Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day galley! Kudos on a job very well done. Email me your address (doug@douglasmack.net) and I'll send you the book ASAP. 

Finally, many thanks to everyone who sent me a postcard or letter. If you included your address, I'll write back. (It might take me a few more weeks, given the book launch and tour, but I won't forget about you.)

The contest is over, but please do keep writing!

Advance copy giveaway: send me your coolest postcard

Pimp my postcard! Artify my aerogram! (I'm a writer, I can make words up.) Announcing the Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day Galley-Giveaway Contest. (E5WTDGGC.) 

UPDATE: I'll accept postcards I get through the weekend. Just 'cause I'm nice. If I get it by Monday, March 26th, you're in. 

Send me the coolest postcard or letter you can dream up. The most awesome one, as judged by yours truly, will win this priceless item:

Why's it valuable?

1. It's a highly entertaining and slyly informative travel memoir that will surely make you a better person just by holding it. Sweet! 
2. It's a special, limited-edition galley (advance copy), with a sprinkling of special, limited-edition typos that don't appear in the final edition of the book--errors that surely make this advance copy all the more valuable, like those stamps with the upside-down airplane. Added bonus:It gives you blackmail material against me, if you can find that one really embarrassing typo. Awesome!
3. I'll send it to you before the official copies go on sale. Bragging rights! 
4. I'll sign it just for you, and mail it with my very own hands. ¡Excelente!
5. It was in said hands when I high-fived Mary Tyler Moore. 

Holla!

But wait! Yeah. There's more. The winner will also get a handful of Commentary Track Bookmarks (there are some examples over on the book web site), so that you'll not only see my typos but get some behind-the-scenes comments and notes. You'll have greater insight into the book than anyone else. Even Mary Tyler Moore. 

So what's the contest?

Simple: send me the craziest, coolest, most intriguing postcard or aerogram I've ever seen. Maybe it's cool because it tells an amazing story. Maybe it's covered in drawings or it's folded into aero-origami. Be creative. The winner is the one that I deem the most awesome. 

Pimp my postcard, artify my aerogram, put something cool in my mailbox. Kind of like this, except I know you can do about a thousand times better:

Rules: 

1. Letters/postcards/aerograms only. No packages, please.
2. Send it to:
   Doug Mack
   PO Box 1922
   Minneapolis, MN (USA)
   55458-1922
3. I must receive it by March 22, 2012. That gives you three weeks. Go.
4. You can find an aerogram template here. Or, if that doesn't work for some reason, here's another one.
5. Include some kind of contact info so that I can reach you if you win. I'll blur it if I post the postcard/aerogram on the blog.
6. I'll send the book anywhere in the world, so if you're in another country and can get me a postcard/aerogram by the above date, go for it. 
7. I reserve the right to post images of any and all entries on my blog. By entering the contest, you agree that I may do so. (The copyright is still yours, and I won't license or sell the image for profit or anything like that; you're just granting me the right to post the letter/postcard/aerogram on my blog.)
8. Be awesome.

Questions? 

A Vast Conspiracy In My Mailbox

Thirty-four, in case you're wondering. That's the number of postcards spread out on my coffee table above. My mailbox has suddenly been overwhelmed--instead of finding one or two finding one or two when I make me weekly-or-so excursion to the post office, no it's more like six or eight.

Curiously--so, so curiously--sixteen of those postcards have a Pantone color swatch on the front. Mind you, each one was sent from a different place, all over the USA. There is a conspiracy afoot--a conspiracy to stuff my mailbox to the point of bursting.

For my next job, I want to name colors for Pantone.
Upper left is Pirate Black. Also shown: Cactus Flower, Picante, Peony.
(That's three different colors, not just one.)

More on that in just a second. But the tricky thing about conspiracies is that when you know a group of people are out to get you (even in an amusing, intriguing, and non-menacing sort of way), all of a sudden everyone becomes a suspect. I don't know what the end-game is here, and I don't know who's involved. I start to wonder if everyone who's written me lately is part of some sort of collective effort. My imagination wanders. I start to wonder, Did this person send me a postcard just to send me a postcard? Or as part of the broader plot?


It's like how, when you watch The X-Files too much growing up, you become suspicious of all dapper men in black suits, and you suspect every single person holding a cigarette to be part of a sinister and wide-ranging government conspiracy to silence your quest for the truth. (This becomes complicated when you've also watched The Blues Brothers too many times, and therefore expect the same sorts of people to bust out a boogie-inducing blues number at any moment. Tricksy business, this paranoia thing.)

But I assume the vastness of this mailbox conspiracy is not, in the end, all that vast. It probably--maybe, possibly--doesn't involve every single person who's sent me mail of late. Let's start with the non-suspects.

For example, I don't think that Rachel Dickens is involved. She sent an aerogram from Thailand, featuring tales of puttering around Vietnam on a 100cc motorbike and taking a holiday in Kashmir (!!) and generally being the sort of nonchalant badass you (not-so-)secretly aspire to be.

And I'm fairly certain DEK, of the delightful blog Elsewhere & Elsewhen, isn't part of the conspiracy. Probably. But this is a lovely postcard, either way:

Hang on, though--if I'm not mistaken, that smudged postmark is from Minneapolis. Which is where I live. And this, in turn, substantially raises the possibility of conspiracy participation. Fascinating. 

Lee probably isn't part of the conspiracy, either. Most likely. (Although I'm guessing he would be a willing participant if he were recruited for the cause, not that I am encouraging anything.) He recently moved from Baltimore to Salt Lake City--or, if you prefer your locations to be differentiated by HBO shows/stereotypes, from The Wire's hood to Big Love territory--and, in his explorations of his new city, found a shop that sells (among other things) vintage postcards. So he sent me a selection. 

By the way, New Yorkers: this is what the Midwest actually looks like. For real. 

Ibid.

Eva Holland is involved in all kinds of conspiracies, no doubt (kidding!), but probably not this one, because I see nothing suspicious about her postcard: 

And the same goes for Amarildo in Brazil.

And pie. Pie is innocent. There is no such thing as pie conspiracy--at least, I hope not. (Group postcard from assorted people in Seattle.)

Which brings me to the other cards. The truly suspicious ones, Pantone or otherwise. Some are signed. Some aren't. Of the signed ones, I know a handful of the correspondents, but not most. Some of them feature quotes from random books. Like this one from, uh, Trout Fishing in America:

And apparently both a yeti and a pirate are involved:

This was on the other side of the "Pirate Black" swatch postcard. Natch.

Sadly, no Elvis--at least, not yet. However, there is a hipster fish.

How do I know it's a hipster? I mean, aside from the lip piercing? 'Cause the back tells me so:

Suspicious, no? You know how I can tell it's part of the conspiracy? 'Cause it's fishy. (Sorry, sorry, don't glare at me like that.)

Needless to say, this is just the beginning. I won't post all thirty-plus postcards cluttering my coffee table, particularly since I suspect that if I were to go to my mailbox right now, there would be another handful of cards.

As I said, my imagination wanders. Maybe the first letter of every line of every postcard spells a message. Maybe it's all, collectively, some kind of metaphor or something. Maybe if I arrange the postcards, picture side up, they'll form a mosaic of ... of ... of the Mona Lisa and the dark truth about a murder inside the Louvre and clues in Da Vinci paintings, which will lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years--which could shake the foundations of Christianity. Starring Tom Hanks and that woman from Amelie. Directed by Ron Howard. 


My own personal private detective, Mr. Google, informs me that Pantone postcards come in packs of 100. Methinks this conspiracy may continue for a while.

And I'm kind of loving it.