Optical Illusion

This RPPC has been crudely hand-painted--the glossy color standing out now against the badly faded sepia. Whether a woman with gigantic feet and an unheimlich look about her, or a man in drag with a passing resemblance to Oscar Wilde--your call. 

Hardly in doubt, though: that Bridget Riley did the moiré pattern on the skirt.

Stereo View: Made Especially for Fine Trade

The Goddess Juno

What Postcard Almanac is complete without its weekly goddess?   She was a comfort to us all.

Furnace of the Future

Love the 1950s-60s basement 'family room' atmosphere here, especially wrought-iron soda fountain table with strawberry and vanilla milk shakes.  We'll play darts and have our shakes, then watch 'Ed Sullivan'!   The all-knowing furnace, meanwhile -- mouth agape with foreboding-- contemplates the future: divorce, custody battles, drug overdoses, abuse, family crackup.

Mädchen

Say a little prayer for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who died this week. He outlived Roland Barthes, who found his singing too 'bourgeois', by many, many years. When I first picked up this card of two young Teutonesses, I thought the one of them was about to stab the other one in the chest. Luckily, the tree intervened.

Funambular

One of the 'Flying' Wallendas will attempt to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope--very soon. (See NYTimes today.) I saw his grandfather fall from a wire between two buildings to his death (on television) in 1978.

Buckskin, 50 Cents

Zuyah-Chee. It's hard to make profile shots come out well, but this one's exquisite. Click image to enlarge.

Scumbled Duck

From a bit ago:  my photo of a worked-over wall in Christiania, the 'free town' and pot-haven in Copenhagen.  Christiana apparently 'seceded' from the rest of the Danish capital forty years ago, and the ultra-tolerant Danes have allowed it to continue as a somewhat irregular urban redoubt ever since.  At its center Christiania is one giant pot market, full of picnic tables and merchants selling spliffs, marijuana t-shirts, and hash brownies.  Pot illegal in Denmark but Danish cops mostly turn a blind eye.  The whole area is also a shrine to street art and art installations, plus home to any number of slackers, rebels, stoners.  And this bird.

Il Penseroso

To Match Your Typewriter

Most Beautiful of Small Writing Machines

Yes, one remains a dévotée....

Click to enlarge graphic