A Postcard Diaspora effort, The UNITED NATIONS / NATIONS UNIES, New York City
ECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER. The Chamber was designed by Arnstein Arneberg of Norway and the large mural was painted by the Norwegian artist Per Krohg. The Norwegian Government contributed toward the cost of the decoration of the Chamber.
SALLE DU CONSEIL DE SECURITE. La salle a été conçue par Arnstein Arneberg (Norvège) et la grande peinture murale, au fond, est due au pinceau de l'artiste norvégien Per Krohg. Le Gouvernement norvégien a pris à sa charge une partie du coût de la décoration de cette salle.
Postmarked Feb. 14, 1973, at Amidon, North Dakota; mailed to an address in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Dear Adeline and Thel[cut off],
Surely is cold again, been so nice and dry, got about 3 inches of snow. We are all fine, I have to have surgery on bottom of heel when I can, got a spur. Surely painful. In March, I suppose. Tax time is getting to an end, surely glad. Will get letter to you then. I'm in town now. Too cold to drive, had to dispose of our dog, really miss him. Love, [illegible]
* * *
I have a project to return, one by one, old postcards that I've purchased in bulk to the address they were originally mailed to. The project is called "Postcard Diaspora."
The ephemeral nature of postcards has always appealed to me. Postcards aren't quite letters — and their messages are more like the 20th-century analog of texts, or of selfies, but selfies made of words. So many were (and continue to be) tossed in the garbage or, these days, dumped in the recycling bin. Some small fraction of postcard accumulations get donated to thrift stores or sold off in estate sales, etc. Any used postcard is a survivor, the really old ones especially.
No matter how banal the scrawled (and very infrequently, typed) messages these postcards carry may be (and really, even the most prosaic jottings represent a snapshot of a time and a place and a person), I find them interesting, little portals that drop you (like in Quantam Leap, with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell?) into a moment with little to no context, around which you can spark up some ideas and go places in your head.
It’s also fun for me to imagine what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of the re-sent postcards. Maybe it's a connection to the house's past, to long-dead previous owners. Maybe it's a postcard your mother or father or grandmother or grandfather or even great-grandmother or great-grandfather sent. Maybe it'll make you sad, or nostalgic, or happy, or indifferent if you receive one of these old cards. Who knows?
I mail these postcards in an envelope along with a form note that sketches out the basic idea of Postcard Diaspora. The note encourages recipients to send me any comments they might have, which I'll share when I get them.
A Postcard Diaspora effort, The UNITED NATIONS / NATIONS UNIES, New York City
ECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER. The Chamber was designed by Arnstein Arneberg of Norway and the large mural was painted by the Norwegian artist Per Krohg. The Norwegian Government contributed toward the cost of the decoration of the Chamber.
SALLE DU CONSEIL DE SECURITE. La salle a été conçue par Arnstein Arneberg (Norvège) et la grande peinture murale, au fond, est due au pinceau de l'artiste norvégien Per Krohg. Le Gouvernement norvégien a pris à sa charge une partie du coût de la décoration de cette salle.
Postmarked Feb. 14, 1973, at Amidon, North Dakota; mailed to an address in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Dear Adeline and Thel[cut off],
Surely is cold again, been so nice and dry, got about 3 inches of snow. We are all fine, I have to have surgery on bottom of heel when I can, got a spur. Surely painful. In March, I suppose. Tax time is getting to an end, surely glad. Will get letter to you then. I'm in town now. Too cold to drive, had to dispose of our dog, really miss him. Love, [illegible]
* * *
I have a project to return, one by one, old postcards that I've purchased in bulk to the address they were originally mailed to. The project is called "Postcard Diaspora."
The ephemeral nature of postcards has always appealed to me. Postcards aren't quite letters — and their messages are more like the 20th-century analog of texts, or of selfies, but selfies made of words. So many were (and continue to be) tossed in the garbage or, these days, dumped in the recycling bin. Some small fraction of postcard accumulations get donated to thrift stores or sold off in estate sales, etc. Any used postcard is a survivor, the really old ones especially.
No matter how banal the scrawled (and very infrequently, typed) messages these postcards carry may be (and really, even the most prosaic jottings represent a snapshot of a time and a place and a person), I find them interesting, little portals that drop you (like in Quantam Leap, with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell?) into a moment with little to no context, around which you can spark up some ideas and go places in your head.
It’s also fun for me to imagine what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of the re-sent postcards. Maybe it's a connection to the house's past, to long-dead previous owners. Maybe it's a postcard your mother or father or grandmother or grandfather or even great-grandmother or great-grandfather sent. Maybe it'll make you sad, or nostalgic, or happy, or indifferent if you receive one of these old cards. Who knows?
I mail these postcards in an envelope along with a form note that sketches out the basic idea of Postcard Diaspora. The note encourages recipients to send me any comments they might have, which I'll share when I get them.