This painting haunts me. I find it beautiful and fascinating. And yet the subject matter – German Stuka dive bombers returning to Greece after a mission over Crete – is, to say the least, disturbing. I have always felt that the Nazis were the gold standard for evil, no matter how glamorously portrayed. The painting […]
You say “Buffalo” and I say “Millard Fillmore! Cookie Gilchrist! Goo Goo Dolls!” But recently I learned of another reason to shout: Gene LaVerne. A professional dancer, he turned to photography when a back injury took him off the stage. Gene LaVerne with Jean Harlow Gene LaVerne became the nation’s preeminent photographer of exotic dancers, […]
Given my love for all things postal, you’d think I’d have heard of “porte timbres” a long time ago. But no. Porte timbres (French for “stamp holders”) were frames with a space in the center for a postage stamp. Also known as “stamp collars” or “advertising collars,” the frames carried patriotic, social, commercial or charitable […]
Historically, postal authorities have looked upon the rebus with mixed feelings. A “rebus” uses an image to communicate a name, word or phrase. The word “rebus” came from the Latin phrase “Non verbis sed rebus,” which means “Without words, but with the help of things.” In times and places where large portions of the populace […]
This article was written for Syracuse New Times, July 23, 1986, and rewritten for the Song Mountain Brewfest program in 1997. * * * The Empire State’s recorded brewing history begins with the Dutch colonists on Manhattan Island, soon to be home to New Amsterdam and eventually New York City. The settlers’ homebrewed beer, which […]
Mail art by George Henry Edwards, 1900 Whenever I read that mail art began “in the 1960s,” I roll my eyes. Mail art has been around as long as creative people have been mailing, and wonderful examples from the 19th and 20th century abound, as single items and as books devoted to the genre. [1] […]
This past week, we noticed the presence of mice in our basement. In one way, I like mice. They’re cute, plump and furry. I understand why they want to join us. It’s cold outside and there’s not much food. Inside, it’s warm and we have lots of food. They’re just trying to get along. But […]
On July 14, 1840, Theodore Hook sent, and received, the first hand-drawn, hand-colored postcard. Mailed to Fulham, in southwest London, with a recently issued Penny Black stamp, the card features caricatures of post office clerks sitting around a giant ink well. It is the first known postcard, and therefore the earliest example of a postcard […]
“I took the expressway out to the track, driving very fast and jumping the monster car back and forth between lanes, driving with a beer in one hand and my mind so muddled that I almost crushed a Volkswagen full of nuns when I swerved to catch the right exit.” Hunter S. Thompson, “The Kentucky […]
Recently, as I researched mail art created in the 19th and early 20th century, I came across a woodblock print postcard. And I learned that in the early 1900s, paper companies – such as A.H. Abbott in Chicago and Reeves & Sons in London – sold blank postcards especially for watercolor and pen & ink. […]
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