Jonah Matranga and two new postcards take us into the summer season

Well, this is a blast from the past...

On the back, Rachael only wrote: nostalgia! Indeed, Rachael, indeed!

Remember Jonah Matranga, also known as onlinedrawing, bandleader of New End Original (anagram of onlinedrawing), and member of earlier band Far? No? Here's the wikipedia link, then.* I found the postcard above in the mailbox earlier this week and thought: woah. Rachael must have been hoarding this postcard since, like, 1999. I remember that we got really into his music around that time, and saw him perform at the Troubadour in LA at least twice (oh what fond teenaged memories). The music was important to us then. I think I'll scrounge up those CD ep's of his that I have hiding in CD sleeves (OLD) and give them a listen. Apparently he just came out with a new album! And did you know that he has a twitter?**

A couple of days later I received the postcard below. What is going on in that image?

And on the back, a lovely message (though I do wish that I had the info for whatever's going on on the front of the postcard... perhaps you'll humor me in the comments, Rachael?) You can just barely make out a little text blurb under the sticker Rachael put down to write over, but I don't want to peel it back and ruin the text.

Thank you for being an enthusiastic postcard sender, Rachael! Keep them coming! I'll see you in August (if you don't take a weekend roadtrip to visit us up here first, HINT HINT)!

* Also check out this April 2013 Huffington Post piece with horrendous writing done by Salvatore Bono. 

** All of this information is purely for Rachael's amusement. Unless I start developing weird Jonah Matranga fan base blog traffic to rival my weird Enriqueta Martí serial killer fan base blog traffic. 

Greetings from postcard season

Look what I found in my mailbox when I got home earlier this week -- the second postcard of the season! If you've been keeping an eye on my Instagram activities over the past couple of weeks, you'll know that I've just gotten back from a family trip to Spain. It was the first time in about ten years that my parents and sister and I have been able to go together as a family to visit my grandparents and extended family, and it was great. More on that sometime soon. In the meantime, enjoy this garden gnomes and Jesus Christ, Chelsea Flea Market postcard from Sarah T!

The nuptial celebration she refers to is her own. I'm looking forward to a great, Latin American Entourage,* NYC reunion -- even if it is in July, my second-least favorite month in NYC (right after August). That's how much I love you, Sarah T: voluntarily -- happily, even -- coming to NYC in the middle of summer, my hell on earth.

* Oh, the Entourage: I miss you!

Springtime, also for postcards

Check it out -- it's the first postcard of the 2013 season!

Retro and futuristic and weird all at once. 

My former student Ali (adoptive son of Carlos and Claudia) is spending his final college quarter abroad in Berlin. He left close to a month ago promising postcards, which is a good thing especially considering that he is terrible about checking/reading/writing email. Here's the (first?) postcard. Keep them coming, Ali!

Turning the postcard over was especially exciting:

Woah. 

I love receiving lengthy epistles via postcard! It appears that Ali is having a fantastic time. Careful not to do too much public 9am drinking, sir. You're enrolled in classes, after all. Leave that Bacchanalia for the summer. 

More postcards for the winter

These four postcards arrived in the mail over the course of a week and a half recently, and, as far as I can tell, are the wonderful holiday postcard equivalent of a happy, drunken New Year's voicemail (I did receive both communications from the lovely group of people who went in on writing and sending these postcards). Online sleuthing (instagram) tells me that these four postcards were likely purchased and prepared over the Thanksgiving holiday last fall in Boston, and then mailed from New York City some time later. It took a long while for them to get to my mailbox, but they were a treat well-worth waiting for.

If you turn them all over, they fit together in order to reveal a drawn drunken X-mas tree formation. I would have taken a photo, but that would have entailed a bunch of blurring out of names and addresses. NO THANK YOU. 

More photos on Instagram. Besos and abrazos to the Padrón-Blanco-Thomas's for sending me a series of postcards that made me very happy. 

Wintertime is for Postcards, Too

Just the front of the postcard this time. 

I'm happy that we're receiving some much-needed rain after an incredibly dry year, but it's been non-stop mist, fog, rain, storm up here the past couple of weeks. Looking at this photo of the postcard I received from Sarah T last week -- and then comparing it to other photos of postcards received over the summer -- I note the paleness of my fingers, the (perpetual) sogginess of the lawn,* the morose grey sunlight. Winter is here in all of its central coast, Wuthering Heights, doom & gloom glory --and I love it!-- but boy do we have a long winter ahead of us.

Wintertime is wonderful for its storms and winds and cold and spookiness, the move to insularity, introspection, quiet, and aloneness. But, sometimes, it becomes lonely. In a Stephen King-protagonist-isolated-in-a-snowed-in-cabin/closed-mountain-resort** kind of way.

The academic quarter has come to an end. The past couple of weeks have been long, sleep-deprived, manic and exhausting. I found this postcard in the mailbox late Thursday evening of last week, and it's been brightening up the large pile of unattended mail ever since. Thanks, Sarah T.

* The lawn has become a perpetual mushroom pit of fungal despair. I'm pulling out handfuls of mushrooms on a daily basis.

** MADNESS.

Fourth Postcard of the Summer

So this completely terrifying mondo-postcard came in the mail today. 

Why doesn't the Virgin have eyebrows? WHY?? (Isn't it terrible that
the Virgin and Roscoe are looking at you at the same time? )

It was sent by my friend Shulie, you see. She drove up from LA with a friend for a super quick visit a couple of weeks ago, which was wonderful. We ate tacos and drank kosher Spanish wine, and then had brunch the next morning and napped and took a quick drive down Love Creek Road, the most famous road in Ben Lomond.*

Wasn't Jean Paul Gaultier the one who had the super embarrassing drunken, anti-Semitic meltdown at a Paris café?
And was fired from his fashion house and had to go to French court? And looks like a pirate? EXCELLENT. 
UPDATE 8/01/12: NO! It was John Galliano -- thanks for spoiling my fantasy, Shulie! 

Shulie took some photos** at the toy box memorial I alluded to in a previous post, and a couple more further down the creek. She's promised to share them with me (HINT HINT SHULIE), and I'm just dying of curiosity and anticipation.

Thanks for the monstrous Virgin, Shulie! It's already up on the fridge, right next to Eva Perón and Ché!

***

* I'm seriously starting to think that Love Creek Road needs its own tag. Okay, done.
** Did you know that Shulie is a very talented photographer? And that she has a photo blog? Go and see!

Third Postcard of the Summer

My sister got back from her trip to Iceland late last week. We had a video chat date over the weekend, and when I thanked her again for sending her postcard she said, "Oh, you haven't gotten the second one yet?"

Just got it in the mail. 

I think her message says it all; there really aren't any other words. 

Second Postcard of the Summer

This postcard from my sister came in the mail for me and Jason earlier in the week. 

mmmm Icelandic fleece.

She's in Iceland right now, taking part in a graduate field institute program and scaling glaciers, crawling through lava tubes and ice tunnels, inspecting mineral hot springs, visiting the mid-Atlantic ridge, being interviewed on Iceland's national television news broadcast... you know, totally awesome stuff.

She's been updating us almost daily with photos and emails about her trip, her international cohort of earth science grad students, the group's geothermal research and excursions, etc. and and it sounds amazing. Elena's also been indulging me, personally, with wacky and wonderful anecdotes about "Troll Tours" and the night her group ate a "traditional Viking Dinner" at a place that I imagine to be the Icelandic version of Medieval Times. She said they ate rotten shark, that it's an Icelandic delicacy, and that it was awful. I just laughed and laughed... 

photo taken by my sister, Elena

Elena took this photo for me a couple of days into her trip, in the capital, Reykjavik. We're pretty sure that's a yarn store. I am so pleased by the succession of "wares and attractions" advertised: elves, excursions, trolls, wool, northern lights, ghosts. YOU KNOW, JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS. I really, really love that so much of Iceland's tourism is wrapped up in monsters, ghosts, and folklore. I want to travel to Iceland, just to visit this yarn store and go on a Troll Tour. 

Ever since she started planning for the trip, Elena and I would occasionally sing to each other "Welcome to Icelaaaaaand...", the opening line from the mock-Björk song from that one Kristen Wiig SNL sketch. The more I learn about that country, the more sense Björk makes. Both are equally delightful!

Summertime is for Postcards

The first postcard of the summer:

It makes me really happy that Sarah T would go to tour an old 19th century operating theater in London, think of me, remember how much I love receiving postcards, and send me one showcasing said operating theater as a surprise.

Is that a sneaky Roscoe photo bomb?

Gothic operating theater hidden in a church tower. Sarah T knows me all too well. Remember that, when I linked to her travel blog, I expressly mentioned how much I enjoyed her post on that operating theater tour! You've already received an email, but, again, thank you, Sarah T.

I love, love, love postcards. I think they're a terrific medium of communication, especially for summertime travels. They're short and sweet and wonderful. A couple of years ago, after moving back to California from NYC, I started carrying around a roll of postcard stamps in my purse. Since then, if I'm out and about, and find a postcard that reminds me of someone I know and love, I can jot down a couple of lines and send it off on any old moment's whim.

Must remember to feed the citrus trees.

I started collecting Santa Cruz/Central Coast postcards a couple of weeks ago for a little postcard/diary/writing project collaboration I'm doing with my super friend Emily C.* She left Santa Cruz for Europe about a month ago and won't be back until September. I'm missing her tons, not only because she's my closest friend in town but because she's also been my most immediate sounding board for books I'm reading, research I'm doing, DEEP THOUGHTS I'm having, etc. This is a nice way to keep a log of the things we're reading/thinking/writing that we want to bookmark for discussion when she gets back into town at the end of the summer. It's kind of like having a phantom dialogue. Spooky and I like it.

BOOM, is that a SodaStream next to my decorative bat house? Yes, I have a decorative bat house.

I got Sarah T's postcard in the mail before leaving the house to run errands with Jason in town. I must have had her subconsciously on the brain when we arrived at Costco and I spied a mondo stack of pleasantly marked-down SodaStream soda makers and lost my miiiind. I shrieked "Sarah T and DB have one! Sarah T and DB have one!"** and started pawing at a box. Jason asked me if I wanted one for my birthday (which is still two months away), and I said "no, no, no, no...", and then he took the box and put it in our cart, and I said something to the effect of "we can just keep it in the cart and wait until we're in line to pay to decide..."***, and next thing we know I've completely rationalized buying the soda maker. For my birthday. In two months.

We immediately set it up upon returning home and indulged in some home-made Dr. Pepper rip-off and it was diviiiiine. I'm going to use it all the time to make lemon juice soda water and it's going to be even betterrrrr.


Summer: postcards, soda water, and gazpacho. Expect a post on magical basil gazpacho soon. Tomorrow?

***


* Check out Emily's fantastic website, If She Draws a Door, here.
** They use their soda maker to carbonate water for dinner, and I'm so impressed every time I stay with them and we have home-made soda water with our meals. Or have soda water by itself. Who needs an excuse for drinking fizzy water?
*** I do this often in places like Costco or Target. It actually works surprisingly well to counteract impulse shopping (except for this time).