Thoughts, explorations, ramblings and whatnot from LEX editors Lonna and Gary.

November 2008

If you live in the U.S. and you're sending packages by Parcel Post to military addresses, the USPS thinks you have, or should have. Tomorrow is the deadline for APO/FPO delivery by December 25. If you choose a pricier method or are sending to non-military international addresses you have another 2 or 3 weeks before more dates start looming. See the USPS 2008 Holiday Shopping Calendar for more info.

Ever wonder what would happen if you addressed a postage stamp and put it in the mail? Well, no, we haven't either. But probably Lea Redmond has, because she offers a service almost as unique. Send her a letter (up to 6 sentences long) and she'll write it on a sheet of stationery roughly the size of a horizontal postage stamp and mail it to the recipient, or to you for mailing if you prefer. Comes complete with envelope, sealing wax stamp, and magnifying glass in case the recipient doesn't have telescopic eyes. See her site, The World's Smallest Postal Service, for details and examples. She does greeting cards, too!

Perennial comics favorite Peanuts is in apparently endless rerun rotation – see Snoopy.com. This week the strip returns to a topic that shows up on occasion (though not as often as baseball!) – Charlie Brown's attempts to write to his penpal. Needless to say, he's not much more successful at that than he is at pitching or flying a kite...

Issue 17 is in the mail! A new issue of LEX is usually achieved by late nights and looming deadlines. Before Issue 1 we read that it takes "way more time" than you expect to put together an issue of a magazine: imagine "way more time" and then imagine "way more time" than that. And it's true. It does take way more time than we ever imagined. But somehow this time we got LEX to the printer early and us to bed on time. After five years and 16 issues perhaps we've finally figured out the secret: we had ideas, articles, and pictures in mind well in advance, and we worked steadily on LEX throughout September even when it seemed like we had "plenty of time". We also stayed current with our record-keeping and as a result the label/label/label stuff/stuff/stuff went smoothly as well. We even had time, while LEX was at the printer, for a flying trip to the Black Hills where the weather was lovely and the fall color gorgeous. Back home in Minnesota the weather also smiled on us and we drove LEX to the post office amid sunshine and falling leaves: a perfect Autumn day!

Issue 17 is at the printer, and should be back in about a week or so. Then a little flurry of label/label/label, stuff/stuff/stuff, stamp/stamp/stamp, and it will be time for the October 15 mailing!

If you're interested in the paraphernalia of writing – pens, inkwells, etc. – and you're going to be in London next month, you might want to check out the Writing Equipment Show, sponsored by the Writing Equipment Society, an organization formed "to promote ownership, conservation, study and use of writing equipment", both new and vintage. Fountain pens are a central theme, but according to the group their approximately 500 members are interested in "everything connected with the world of writing from papers to inks; from writing slopes to slates; from stamp boxes to pencil boxes; from steel pen nibs to quill cutters". Their online site includes a discussion forum and links to other organizations focused on writing instruments and related materials. And their website gallery includes Victorian inkwells in the shape of snails!

A couple of years ago, Liz Mann decided to write a letter a day – to heads of state, entertainment celebrities, and ordinary people whose lives she read something interesting about in the news. She wrote to the Pope, to a woman trying to keep her phone number, to the CEO of Philip Morris, to the Chicago Police Superintendent, to a couple protesting taxes, to a soldier protesting sexual harassment, to the FDA... and in many cases posted replies she received. She was inspired by The Lazlo Letters, but although many of the "Liz Letters" are satirical or downright sarcastic, her intention was generally not the humor but to make a point about something she believes in. After writing a letter every day in 2006 her writing became more sporadic, and it's not clear if she's continuing, since the last entries are from February of this year. If you enjoy her writing style, which often combines a breeziness with a serious intent, you'll probably hope there are more to come!

Sometimes in the rush to improve efficiency, important small details can get lost, and such was the case recently in Hagerstown, Maryland, when the USPS removed some corner mailboxes to save on the costs of picking up the mail. People can mail at work, and buying goods and paying bills online means fewer physical items of mail, according to the USPS. But for some senior citizens living near the suddenly-missing mailboxes, limited mobility and limited income can mean the other choices are not so much options as obstacles to mailing. After complaints, the USPS decided to return some of the mailboxes. Fittingly, one such return may have been spurred by a letter, written to the Congresswoman for the district.

Looking for an easy, inexpensive way to send decorated envelopes? Try Letterfu. Or you could call them decorated letters, because the letters are the envelopes in these designs. You print them out on an ordinary computer printer, then write your letter on one side and fold them into a mailable shape. You don't need glue, because the stamp goes over two edges to keep the design from unfolding in the mail, or you can use a bit of glue for more security. There are several designs on the site, and there's a blank template with the folding marks and instructions so you can make your own designs as well. The designs are free as long as you aren't using them to make money, or modifying them without giving credit, so all you need to buy is paper and ink.

If the history of the picture postcard in Issue 16 caught your interest, you might want to check out the National Park Service's online exhibit "Lying Lightly on the Land". The physical exhibit closed ten years ago, but dozens of vintage postcards of national parks, mostly focused on the park road system, are featured in "postcard tours" of eight national parks, plus four additional tours of Yellowstone. If you're an old car buff, there are plenty of those shown on the postcards as well.

This Sunday, the Canadian Broadcasting Company's "Cross Country Checkup" show will be on the topic of letters and e-mail, specifically significant letters (written or electronic) people have sent or received. It's a 2-hour call-in show broadcast on CBC channels, on Sirius satellite radio, and podcast. If you can't tune in live, check the web site later and you can hear the audio stream, as well as read comments by listeners.

Recently a demolition company has been in the process of removing parts of a small house J.R.R. Tolkien lived in for several years before he died, which is being demolished (to the anguish of many fans who feel it should be preserved as a historic site), and found several postcards, including one addressed to Tolkien, probably from American sword-and-sorcery author Lin Carter. The finder says he has permission from the Tolkien estate to sell it at auction, along with the fireplace it was found behind, and expects it to go for a large sum. Here's a link to an article, and a shorter article with a picture of the postcard can be found here.

A while ago we found an interesting discussion of the similarities and differences between conversation, letters, and blogs on a blog named UFO Breakfast. The wide-ranging discussion touches on letters and orality, epistolary novels, and the different assumptions about the privacy of letters in the prolific correspondence of the eighteenth century. We had hoped to reprint it in the last issue, but the blog is no longer current and we were unable to find a contact address for the author in order to ask permission. It's still available here, though, through the auspices of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

A couple of recent entries mentioned numbers – 42, 22. Here's a bigger one – 170,000. No, that's not the speed of light in miles per second, though it's close. It's the price, in pounds sterling, that a letter by Albert Einstein recently sold for in a British auction. Interested in seeing such a valuable piece of paper? There's a picture of it (or at least part of it – the writing isn't clear enough for our schooldays German to easily read it) here.

...but sometimes there are situations, from flooding to strikes to political situations, that interfere with the mail delivery. The UK's Royal Mail keeps an ongoing list of world areas where these interferences are occurring. The same page lists postal holidays in various countries as well.

No, that's not the condensed meaning of life, not even according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), it's the number of days til the next issue of Lex comes out. Actually, it will be even less than that, because June 15 is on a Sunday, so we'll be mailing on Saturday, June 14. The layout of the issue is all set, except for the "From the Editors" page which we always leave til the last minute for some reason, and the fine-tuning of the columns so they line up and look nice, and the proofing, and the tweaking of the graphics to print well, and the final check of spelling, and probably a few other things we'll discover when we go through our checklist before sending the files to the printer...

No, that's not the meaning of life (well, it is, according to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), it's the new First Class postage for U.S. letters. Did you use up all your 41¢ stamps yesterday? Get a supply of the Forever Stamps while they were still 41¢? Yeah, we forgot too...

That's the theme of this Saturday's collection of non-perishable food by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Food shelves tend to be low this time of year, as the donations given during the winter holiday season run out, and as the NALC press release notes, summer can be a critical time for children especially. Food left next to the mailbox on Saturday before delivery will be collected and delivered to local food shelves (except in Chicago and New York, where food can be taken to post offices all week). Last year about 70 million pounds of food was collected, and this year, with gas prices squeezing family budgets and driving up prices of anything that's transported, including food, the need is even greater – an estimated 12 million children and 23 million adults don't have access to a consistently adequate food supply.

Occurrences such as the one below aren't (we hope!) intentional, but what if you actually wanted to delay a letter? Sent From The Past says it will do just that for you – and unlike the USPS, you can choose the date, up to 15 years in the future. You might want to record your thoughts on the birth of a child as a present for their confirmation day; write to your spouse on your wedding day and have the letter delivered for your tenth anniversary; or write to your future self at any time setting forth your hopes and fears for the coming years. According to their website, you buy a stationery kit from them, themed or generic, and after you (or someone you give the kit as a gift to) send it to them they store it in archival materials in a temperature controlled environment, and then mail it on the date you specify. Just remember that you wrote it, in case you change your mind (or your spouse!)

Today we received a returned postcard in the mail – one of our listing deadline reminder cards, with a USPS label attached indicating it couldn't be delivered because the addressee was no longer at that address and they didn't have a forwarding address on file. This is not unusual – except that this was the Issue 12 listing reminder, which we mailed November 20, 2006!

We've passed the 10,000 mark – 10,000 letters forwarded since we began our stint of forwarding letters! Let there be hoopla! Let there be fanfare! Let there be dancing in the streets! (Well, maybe after the sleet stops...).

The National Postal Museum, in association with Andrew Carroll's Legacy Project, has an online exhibit of recovered war letters. These letters, which were on display at the Museum a couple years ago, were written during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War. All of them were lost or thrown away and then later found by strangers at garage sales, in attics, or simply in the garbage. The site includes text excerpts as well as photocopies of the original letters. (Carroll has published a number of books of war letters; his book Behind the Lines was featured in Issue 11).

LEX today announced plans to extend its market. "We've focused on the Earth for a long while, and we're ready for expansion," explained Chief of Surgery and Advertising Lonna Riedinger. "We're especially reaching out to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, but anyone in the Solar System is welcome to subscribe." Transterrestrial endeavors are always a risk, but even more so in the case of letters. "The postage needed for these letters will be slightly higher," said Vice President of Orchid Gardening and Finance Gary Marvin. "A First Class letter to Mars, for example, requires a $32,837.15 stamp. But we're confident that there's enough interest in alien correspondence to overcome this slight impediment." An added incentive is that letter writers on other planets are often especially enthusiastic. E-mail has barely started to become widely available on Jupiter, and the length of the day on Venus leaves many Venusians with ample time on their hands. "There's only so many episodes of Gilligan's Island you can watch in a 2-month evening," said G'norh'k, one of LEX's first new subscribers. "Eventually you want to do something more meaningful while waiting for bedtime, and letter writing is a great choice." Stay tuned for future expansion plans to Alpha Centauri and other nearby star systems.

Do you believe that Elvis Presley didn't die in 1977 and is still alive? A lot of people do, and they still write him fan letters, as this site shows. Another site is run by the director of the documentary film The Truth About Elvis, where you can read letters meant to eventually be published as a book, which the director says will be sent to various family and friends of Elvis in the hopes that it will eventually get to him. And if you'd like to read letters written to Elvis by newlyweds at The Elvis Wedding Chapel of Las Vegas, check them out here. We don't guarantee a response from The King, though...

The theme for this year's Graceful Envelope Contest, conducted by the Washington Calligraphers Guild and sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers, is "C's the Day". Envelope designs can involve anything that starts with the letter C, and need to be postmarked by April 30. "C" the contest website for suggestions and the exact requirements for submitting an entry, as well as displays of winners from previous years.

Or at least upward. Yes, U.S. postage is going up yet again, in May. First Class and postcards will rise by 1¢, letters to Canada by 3¢, and International letters by 4¢. At the same time, as happened last May, some classes of bulk mail (what many people refer to with a different name) will be going down...

You may have noticed some words faintly peering out from the postmarks of letters recently, sometimes more readably than others. It's a quote from John Adams: "Let us dare to read, think, speak and write." The postmark is being used in February and March to advertise an upcoming miniseries on HBO about John Adams, a prolific letter writer. The USPS refers to its promotion as "The Power of the Letter", and includes a link to the Massachusetts Historical Society's Adams Family site, which presents the text (with scans of the original pages) of well over 1000 letters between John and Abigail Adams, from 1762 through 1801.

Would you like to help spread positive feelings? There's a new site devoted to doing just that, using... handwritten letters! It's Elphos.org, "a not for profit community literacy project dedicated to spreading words of hope, appreciation, and happiness to those around us". It's quite new and the site navigation is still in progress (here's a link to the blog that explains more about the vision and history), but it looks like it has potential. Here's how it works – you download their letterhead and write a positive letter to someone. That someone can then go to the Elphos web site printed on the letterhead and respond or comment. You can also write a letter that you don't mail – to a deceased loved one, or a public figure, for example – and send a copy or scan to Elphos to be posted on the site.

Remember a few weeks ago when we were trying to decide between Martian Green™ and Lift-Off Lemon™ for the Issue 15 cover? Well, when you get your issue (and that should be soon, since we mailed it yesterday), you may notice that it's the same color as Issue 11. We were trying not to repeat colors until necessary, using all the possible cover stocks first, but there was a mixup with the printer and we were distressed to open the newly-delivered boxes of Lex to discover Vulcan Green™. We're quite upset about it – but not $1450 upset, which is what it would have taken to have it redone. The problem occurred because we gave the specifications over the phone, and apparently were misheard. We should have written them a letter...

Letters have appeared in many songs, often in light-hearted form ("Please, Mr. Postman", for example). Sometimes, though, the full power of letters comes through. According to most reviews, this is the case with the album "There's No Love In This War", by The Gunshy, the musical pseudonym of Matt Arbogast of Chicago. The 17 songs on the album are each based on a letter sent by Matt's grandfather Paul Arbogast to his wife Julia during the latter half of World War II. Reviewers use terms like "personal and profound", and "heartbreaking" to describe the result. You can hear an extensive interview with Matt on NPR here, and also see a page from one of the letters.

It's cover color decision time again. Issue 15 is nearing its journey to the printer – after a few more layout fixes it will be proofing week, after which we send off the files and wait eagerly for the boxes of LEX to arrive. That means we need to tell the printer what color the cover should be. Originally we thought of matching the colors to the seasons – various greens for the Summer issue, red and yellows for Autumn, and blues for Winter (though this year white might be more appropriate), but there are only a few shades of each readily available in cover stock, plus that wouldn't allow scope for colors like purple.

Recently we've been working through the colors in the Wausau Astrobrights® line, with such fun names as Venus Violet™, Celestial Blue™, and Fireball Fuchsia™. Combined with LEX's new "stamp" cover, some of the bright colors are actually not the best choice for readability, although we're experimenting with a lighter gray inset in the stamp design. We're trying to avoid repeating colors from the first few years too soon, as well as avoiding colors too similar for consecutive issues, so it looks like the choice this time comes down to Martian Green™ or Lift-Off Lemon™.

The Smithsonian traveling exhibition More Than Words, which includes numerous examples of the hand-illustrated letters of American artists (see "The Art of Letters," Issue #11), has added yet another venue, the J. Wayne Stark University Galleries at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. This show begins next month, after which it moves to Kansas and then has a 2-month as-yet-unscheduled period. We'll update here if that's filled in.

Sometimes letters are just fun, but they can also be an important part of resolving emotional distress, expressing unexpressed feelings, or simply enhancing a relationship. Bonnie Birnam and Sharon Alworth, in their book Letters to Fathers from Daughters: A Pathway to Healing and Hope, present several hundred pages of real letters written by daughters to their fathers. They're now collecting letters for a second volume, as well as letters from daughters to mothers and from sons to fathers and mothers. You can submit letters for the upcoming books at their web site, or use their guidelines to write your own letters, either to send or for your own benefit. They also have an upcoming book of tips, Putting Your Heart on Paper: A Guide to Writing Letters for Healing.

In some places this time of year, various forms of frozen water laying around on the ground can make the mail a harrowing adventure. Not so for the residents of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though. They rise above the situation by sending and receiving letters by Owl Post. Of course, various forms of frozen water falling down from the sky can be a problem for mail carriers with wings...

If you've ever found a box of decades-old Christmas cards in an attic, you know how different they used to be from the cards being sold today. Ever wonder what the very first ones looked like? Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University has a copy of what is generally thought to be the first mass-produced Christmas card, dating back to 1843; handwritten versions go back several more centuries. A history of Christmas cards with numerous early examples can be found at the web site of the Livaudais family. And to see some non-English examples, check out the Odessa Numismatics Museum's online collection.

There are lots of books collecting the letters of the famous – literary, political, and scientific figures – but sometimes the most interesting are the everyday letters of ordinary folks, those who had no hint that their writing might ever be of interest outside their family and circle of friends. Many of these collections are online at the web sites of historical societies, personal web pages, and academic institutions. One such is the Oblinger family letters from the Nebraska State Historical Society's collection. About 3,000 pages of letters written by Uriah and Mattie Oblinger and others from 1862 to 1911 are presented in both text and image format – some are cross-written, like the example presented in LEX Issue 8, a method of writing 90 degrees across the main body of the letter in order to add more without needing another sheet of paper, a valuable commodity on the frontier. The letters are searchable by subject, and the site includes interpretive material as well.

Mailing Christmas cards or letters from Canada? Canada Post has a 3-part chart showing the recommended dates for them to be in the mail in order to get where they're going in time. Still plenty of time (but it's always amazing how quickly the sands run through the hourglass) if you're mailing by Letter-post within Canada or to the U.S., but if the envelopes are going farther you might want to hurry, since tomorrow is the International send-by date.

If you're mailing holiday cards or letters from the U.S., the chart of mailing dates isn't as much fun to use as the U.K. version, but it's online too – go to the USPS Holiday Press Room and click on the November 9 press release to see when mail is recommended to be in the system for Christmas delivery.

Yes, soon it will be that time when many people send the most personal mail of the year (or the only personal mail of the year) – the Christmas card season. British Royal Mail has a cool way of making sure your cards get delivered on time – an online calculator. Just pick the destination and the type of delivery, and the calculator will tell you when you need to have the cards in the mail. Some of the deadlines are coming up already – if you want to mail from the UK to the USA by Surface Mail, for example, to be sure of delivery by Christmas you should have the cards in the mail by two weeks ago. Air Mail, and First Class within the UK, has a little more leeway.

Remember the Canadian "Supernatural" stamps that we mentioned in last year's Halloween blog? (See below.) Those aren't the only ones – Belgium and France issued some in 2004, with a more cartoony feel than the Canadian stamps, although those from Belgium do have a little eeriness about them.

Now that postage is available from private companies, you can also find quite a number of designs, ranging from Edward Gorey-inspired line drawings (Gothic Postage Stamps) to the painted (artist Gina Signore's black cat) to poster-style. If you're used to getting stamps at the post office the custom stamp prices are a little scary, but well within reason for a special effect for holiday letters, or just for fun.

If you've been meaning to check out one of the USPS mailboxes painted to resemble the Star Wars™ character, better be quick, because on (or perhaps beginning on, the press release isn't clear) October 25, they'll be moved to US military bases. A bit late, we've finally tracked down a map of all or most of the locations created by fans – we don't have the software plugin needed to view it (we're very cautious with security on the LEX computer), but it's followed by a list of the addresses/intersections where people have found the mailboxes.

Issue 14 is back from the printer! The color pages look great, and we think you'll like the photo spread too – we've been holding our breath, but one of the benefits of professional printing is that graphics come out much better than on the laser printers we use for checking as we work on the layout. Now come the S tasks – stuffing, sealing, stamping, and stickering (labeling, actually, but that's not as euphonious). Monday we'll be mailing – or perhaps we should say sending, to keep the alliteration...

Despite the vagaries of computers – lots of trouble uploading the files to the printer this time, perhaps because the color pages increased the size significantly, or maybe it's the lack of sunspots – Issue 14 is beginning the print process. We're eager to see how the color comes out, having never had anything printed in color before. Timing is good for this issue – they should be delivered approximately on October 12, a Friday, giving a couple days to sit and flatten a bit before being mailed on Monday, October 15.

Did you know that LEX helps to "find the parts of big persons"? That's one of the results of putting our front page through the Babel Fish translator at Alta Vista. Hours of hilarity await as the computerized program translates words and sentences without the benefit of a live interpretation. Here's one way to play: put a web site's URL into the "Translate a Web page" box and choose a language to translate it to. When the result pops up, copy some of the text, go back to the main Babel Fish page and put it into the "Translate a block of text" box, choosing the reverse language, i.e. Greek to English if you chose English to Greek in the first step.

If you were using human translators, the results should be pretty close to the original – some different wording due to the colloquialisms and shadings of meaning that make languages not exact duplicates, but the actual information should be accurate, and the grammar should be right. With the machine, though, the grammar can be wildly off ("They know palling never are, what represents above!"), and the actual facts way off the mark ("Helen Keller the contractor"), including the introduction or deletion of "not" changing the meaning entirely. Sometimes the result is even an improvement, such as this rather poetic description of Ghost Letters: "The letters of the phantom leave you in character".

We noted in a recent entry how seldom people seem to be selling stationery at garage sales – notecards, greeting cards, yes, but seldom actual stationery. So guess what we started finding, at more than one sale, the next week or two? Hmm. Let's see if we can extend that. "Ahem. You know what we seldom see people selling at garage sales? $50 bills at half price..."

Today's Minneapolis-St. Paul StarTribune features a nice story entitled "For the love of letters", about "a passionate group devoted to writing and receiving personal snail mail." Guess who the group is? Yes, it's LEX! The story came about when the reporter found Wendy Russ's wonderful site about letter writing; Wendy, who's also featured in the story, suggested the reporter interview us too. Thank you Wendy!

History buffs, healthcare workers, and hypochondriacs might be among those interested in Patients' Voices in Early 19th Century Virginia: Letters to Doct. Carmichael & Son, an online exhibit by the University of Virginia, consisting of approximately 700 letters written to Dr. James Carmichael and his son, Dr. Edward Carmichael, mostly by patients. They describe their symptoms, ask for house calls or delivery of medicines, offer free turkeys... The letters are organized chronologically, with a scan of the actual letter next to a transcript. One can search for names and places, by symptoms and treatments (a strong stomach helps here), or read an analysis by Laura Shepherd, M.D. of what the letters indicate about the way health and medicine were viewed almost two centuries ago.

Another venue has been added for the Smithsonian traveling exhibition More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art (see "The Art of Letters," Issue #11) – the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL in early summer 2009. The exhibition is currently at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia; it will be moving to Texas in November, with stops in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Louisiana before winding up at the newly-added Florida show; still open for possible booking are late winter/early spring and late summer/early fall of 2008. We're looking forward to seeing the exhibition in Wisconsin at the end of next year.

Yesterday we were pawing through some notecards at a garage sale looking for interesting ones (we're pretty picky), and we realized something – there are large amounts of notecards and greeting cards at garage sales, but very little stationery – we're still using some that we probably bought at least 5 years ago, and we've seen almost none since then. Not just none that we like, but close to none at all. So we started wondering – do people buy less stationery, or do they sell less because they've used it all? Our theory is that notecards are one of those things that people get lots of as presents, and since most people don't do all that much writing these days, a lot of them end up at garage sales. We'll bet that Lexers don't have large amounts of either type to try to get rid of – unless, of course, they came as presents from people with seriously different taste!

Read all of Jane Austen's many letters and wishing more would be found? Check out this new letter from Jane to her sister Cassandra (you might or might not have to register). Well, not exactly newly found, and not exactly from Jane, who probably never gave opinions on young ladies named Britney or the rise of "chick lit"...

Some people have e-mailed to make sure we're OK after the incredible bridge collapse in Minneapolis this week. Yes, we're fine – a little spooked like most people in the metro area, since like much of the local population we had driven over the bridge fairly recently. In fact, a common topic of conversation at work, after checking that no one knows anyone directly involved, has gone along the lines of "When was the last time...?" And many people have said they feel an uncharacteristic nervousness driving over bridges these last couple days.

We didn't use the bridge daily, like many people – the last time we drove on it was probably a month ago, although we did drive under it on the parkway it fell on, on the south side of the river, 6 days before the collapse at about that time of day. Even spookier, Lonna drove under the bridge on the north side of the river just before it collapsed. Literally a minute or so before – she had gone about a third of a mile past it when she heard the crash of it falling, though neither of us knew what had happened til we got home and looked at the news to see why there were emergency vehicles going in that direction from more than 20 miles away. I went over there after work tonight to see if it had fallen on the street she had been on – it hadn't, although one span with multiple crushed cars had landed no more than 50 feet from that street. This was the northern edge of the collapse, about half a block north of the railroad car that was crushed.

Some of you may remember the historic railroad bridge pictured in Issue 6. The 35W bridge was about 1500 feet east of that bridge. It's quite eerie to look at that area now, because even from a distance, where the remains of the bridge in the water and on the river banks aren't visible, the open area and unobstructed view of the 10th Avenue Bridge a block east of where 35W was are quite a shock. It will take a long time before the sense of unreality completely wears off even for those of us not really involved, and we can hardly imagine the trauma for those who were on the bridge at the time, or the people who saw it happen and went to help pull people out of the water, or worst of all those who knew someone who was traveling in that area and couldn't contact them.

The Smithsonian traveling exhibition More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art (see "The Art of Letters," Issue #11) has added another venue, the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, TX. The exhibition there will run from November through January. This leaves three more time periods open for possible booking – early spring and fall of next year and summer 2009. We'll let you know if these spots are filled in or if any currently listed are cancelled.

If one of the things you enjoy about letter writing is the tactile pleasure of paper, you might want to check out Envelope and Letter Folding, a web site with instructions on how to fold paper into letters and envelopes. There are more than 30 designs, including many origami-inspired ones such as crane, hawk, butterfly, or jumping frog. The graphic instructions are very detailed, although those of us not familiar with this activity might find them rather confusing – possibly a more 3-dimensional form of drawing, with verbal description, would be nice.

These designs are by John Cunliffe, who founded the Envelope and Letter Folding Association in 1988. ELFA published several booklets of designs, and as of 2003, he was apparently either sending or selling them; this site gives an address in England as well as the history of ELFA. There is also a more recent group in The Netherlands, ELFA-e, whose site includes diagrams, history, and links to their Yahoo group. If you become proficient at this skill, you may never have to lick an envelope (except the ones that come with bills) again!

The newest marketing slogan for USPS/Canada Post/Royal Mail/Australia Post/et al.? No, this is a statement famous in the field of epistolary studies, by Jacques Lacan. Frequently couched in terms of postmodernism, structuralism, and/or literary critique, the study of letters – past, present, and fictional – is an active field at a number of colleges and universities. The discourse is often distinctly academic; a review of Thomas O. Beebee's Epistolary Fiction in Europe, 1500-1850, for example, notes that Beebee proposes "a 'pan-European' metaphysics of the letter, its feedback loops, power-gradients, and white-noise effects." From time to time we'll include some interesting snippets from this field here in From The Mailstrom.

Several years ago there was a short web discussion on the pros and cons of writing letters now to be given to members of one's family in the future – a not-yet-met spouse, a not-yet-born child. The consensus was that there were some if-I-knew-then advantages (as the page sub-heading notes), but also some serious risks, particularly in the future spouse scenario. The full discussion can be seen here.

Issue 13 was mailed on Friday – some First Class subscribers (you're all first class to us, of course, but we refer to the postage...) could even have it now, although most should see it arrive this week. The USPS site no longer gives estimates for International delivery times, but toward the end of the coming week or slightly longer should be a good guess for most people, depending on location. Standard Mail is the most variable, with some coming this week and some possibly as late as the first week of July – ZIP codes starting with 0, 3, and 9 seem to be the slowest, but it all depends on the volume of mail going to any particular place. Whenever it arrives, we hope you enjoy our bright cover and find a lot of good reading inside!

Do you have letters or diaries from your ancestors? Or do you enjoy reading books or web sites of such, either for research or enjoyment? Then you might be interested in Making Sense of Letters & Diaries, an extensive online guide to using letters and diaries as historical information, by Steven Stowe, who teaches history at Indiana University. Topics include the differences between the two formats, the value for historians and those interested in the emotional life of people in the past, how to interpret them (including such details as the meaning of "D.V." in the middle of a sentence), the conventions of letters in particular eras (for example, why a 19th century girl named Mary might be addressed as Athena in a letter), and others. Many passages from letters and diaries are included, and there are links to more information, a list of web sites to visit, and sample exercises in text interpretation.

By now you've probably seen and been using the new "forever stamps", the ones that can be bought now and saved to be used any time in the future, no matter what the First Class postage is at that time. The convenience of not having to buy stamps in little "make-up" denominations is obvious, but overall are these a good deal? Perhaps, but it depends a lot on how long they're kept before being used and how much the postage increases. Here's an interesting calculation we just made:

If forever stamps had been available 10 years ago, when the postage was 32¢, a roll of 100 would have been $32, obviously. Today they could be used to mail 100 letters for a cost less than stamps sell for now. But if that $32 had been put in a money market account at 5% interest, it would have increased to $52.12, and would buy 127 of today's 41¢ stamps...

True to its number, Issue 13 is being a bit uncooperative in making its journey to the printer. Nothing insurmountable, just little inconveniences coming one after the other – for example, a book ordered from University storage is missing the one page we wanted it for, a scan of a handwritten letter we intended for The World of Letters. But the voting for the haiku contest is in and the prizes ordered, so all in all things are pretty much on track. Now we just need the weather to cooperate – we're working on the "Summer" issue with a space heater in LEX World Headquarters!

Today postage increases in the US. First class mail (i.e. most letters) goes up to 41¢ – postcards to 26¢. Most other charges are changing too, usually upward, although a few, such as the additional-ounce First Class rate, are actually going down. New Postal Pricing in 2007 highlights some common changes and includes a link to more detailed info.

Of course, we all know letters are priceless... but sometimes they have a price. Recently a note written by hand in 1557 by Mary, Queen of Scots, at the age of 15, was sold on eBay for about $3200.

Not everyone in Scotland was happy to see this letter won by an American bidder. This isn't the first time there has been controversy over Mary's letters, however. A royal inquiry into the possibility that her second husband was murdered by her third husband (presumably with her involvement) revolved around eight Casket Letters she allegedly wrote to him (the name comes from the silver box they were claimed to have been found in). The authenticity of these letters is in question, and some historians are convinced they're fraudulent, due to the handwriting and to mistakes in French grammar that she would have been too well-versed in French to have made, as well as the suspicious timing of their being found.

If you were planning to visit Arkansas next year to see the Smithsonian traveling exhibition More Than Words: Illustrated Letters from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, it looks like you'll need to find another reason to go to that fair state. The Arkansas venue has been dropped from the tour's itinerary recently; it's still scheduled for California, Georgia, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Louisiana, with 4 more dates available in 2008 and 2009.

That's the name of a very nice article which appeared in various publications last week. It's always heartening to read about those who enjoy writing letters, and in this case there's an extra attraction for us – LEX co-editor Lonna was interviewed for this article. Our e-mail brings us a wide variety of inquiries, from requests for LEX information to offers to share secret tips about hot stocks (for a price, of course). And a couple of weeks ago a freelance writer asked if we would electronically chat with her about our experience in the world of letters. We're always glad to do that, and we hope you enjoy the resulting article as much as we do. Here's a link to one of the sites printing it.

The Smithsonian traveling exhibition More Than Words, which includes numerous examples of the hand-illustrated letters of American artists (see "The Art of Letters," Issue #11), has added a seventh venue, the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda, CA, from May 15 through July 17 of this year.

LEX today announced a new location-based pricing structure. Beginning immediately, the cost of an annual subscription will be calculated by converting the ZIP Code of the subscriber's location to dollars – for example, if you live in Avalon, CA, with the ZIP Code 90704, your cost for one year of LEX would be $907.04. Conversely, a subscriber in Warren, VT, where the ZIP Code is 05674, would only pay $56.74. "We think this new procedure will more accurately correlate with the economic realities of the country, such as the higher gas prices in the West," said LEX co-editor Lonna Riedinger. Another way to look at it would be that your subscription rate will be the same as your ZIP Code in pennies. That person in Avalon would owe 90,704 pennies, in other words. "Of course, we won't be insisting on pennies only - we'll also accept nickels and dimes, as well as quarters if they have your specific state on the reverse," said LEX co-editor Gary Marvin. Subscriptions outside the U.S. would work the same way, with the addition of currency conversion – a Lexer in New Malden, England, would need to convert £KT33.RQ to US$ at prevailaing bank rates.

Also, in accordance with truth in marketing principles, from today on we will, to match the name of the magazine, be forwarding only letters – T, for example, or H. "This will be a great boon to my correspondence," said Lexer Coral Hargatter. "My life isn't very interesting, and under the old system I ran out of things to say quickly. Now a single incident can be talked about for months." This new procedure will be welcomed especially by those who use text-messaging as they already are familiar with words such as "u" and "yr". We do recommend, however, dispensing with the traditional salutation at the beginning of an epistle – if you write as often as once a week, it will take you a month to start out with "Dear."

If you went to the USPS home page today, you might have thought at first glance that you were at a Star Wars™ site, complete with character images, a place to vote for the Galactic Empire or the Rebel Alliance... it's part of a huge merchandising effort for the Star Wars™ stamps that will be available beginning May 25, the 30th anniversary of the premiere of the first film. For the last 2 weeks 400 mailboxes across the country have been painted to look like R2-D2; there will be Star Wars™ Express Mail envelopes; you can vote for your favorite of the 15 stamps, and the winner will be released later this year as a single issue. You can even enter a sweepstakes and become a Jedi Shipping & Mailing Master (we're not making this up...really...)

On May 14, First Class postage in the US will go up to 41¢, and postcard postage will go up to 26¢. So if you've been thinking about responding to listings in LEX, now's a great time. And before you use up all your 39¢ stamps, remember to send in new listings for the Summer Issue, because letter writers aren't about to let 2¢ stop them. Send in your Letters to LEX on the topic of memorable letter-writing experiences (the good, the bad, and the funny), and your haiku for the special contest, too – the deadline of April 15 is fast approaching (which reminds us of another little item that has to be in the mail by that date... sigh...)

Before literacy was widespread, people who needed something written – a contract, legal document, or important letter – often went to a professional scribe who would write for them. In today's global world, the need is more often for a translator between languages. Last week's edition of Der Spiegel has an article about 77-year-old Duong Van Ngo, the last professional writer working at the main post office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, writing business letters, love letters, and mailing addresses, using a fountain pen to connect people across continents.

The controversy over whether William Shakespeare actually wrote the plays and poems attributed to him goes back more than 200 years – among several writers often mentioned as possible authors, Francis Bacon is particularly popular at present because of claims that he inserted various codes into the works to reveal his identity to those who could solve them. Various reasons are given as grounds to question whether Shakespeare wrote the works, from mistakes in geography to questions of his family's literacy; it's also suspicious to some that there appear to be no surviving letters to or from the most famous writer in the English language.

British Royal Mail recently issued a set of postage stamps that in only a month has become the most popular non-royal stamp set ever sold. It's a series of 6 designed to look like stacks of Beatles albums, each stamp having a different album on the top and thus fully visible. Here's an article about the stamps. These are by no means the first Beatles stamps – here's a site that lists dozens of different designs, including a pun that may or may not be intentional – the Republic of Abkhazia's set featuring Marx and Lennon (Groucho and John)!

If you sent us a check a while ago, even as far back as December, and are wondering why it hasn't cleared the bank yet, not to worry. We're even farther behind than usual in mundane things like deposits; we've both been working extra hours at our day jobs, and spending most of the rest of the time on Issue 12. We'll be depositing everything tomorrow, and we apologize for the long span – but the silver lining is that you get a little more silver, i.e. an extra month's interest on the amount we haven't put in yet!

We sent the files for Issue 12 to the printer yesterday – there's one file for the cover, and one for what we call the "issue" and the printer calls the "guts". We hope everyone is looking forward to it – there'll be well over 200 listings, 4 extra pages, LEX history material, a (slightly) new cover design, and an announcement about the first of two special contests this year. No bathtubs, though...

Most postcards have landscape scenes, famous buildings, or other outdoor subjects – but here's a site devoted to the art of the bathtub, including hundreds of bathtub-oriented postcards, both historic, contemporary, and handmade. Bathtub cakes, articles on bathtub races and bathtub boats, and other surprising bathtub fun too!