lives in the balance

click to enlarge

Flag background: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The creation

of a thousand forests,

is in one acorn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

=======================

An internal struggle here in the usa is going on
about how to fund health care, and how it will
bankrupt the economy. Where has everyone
been the last almost 9 years, with trillions
of dollars going to wars, with no way to fund
them having been made? Except that
future generations will be paying in the end.

While life and wages we once
knew are swiftly retreating backwards.

faux postage - artistamp

To an old man,

a cup of coffee is like

a door post of an old house -

it sustains

and strengthens him.

Old Bourbon Proverb

I will be having some stamp sheets perforated
very soon. The first time in many years.

dust in my coffee

mail art = senders receive

Source Book For The Network Of International Postal Art Activity,
by Michael Crane & Mary Stofflet, 1984.
Very hard to find and worth seeking to learn
how it all started and about the early players.

Written and published in 1991, another good resource
for a lot of interesting information on the network.

Artistamp News always had samples of faux postage
made by people all around the world.
I need to look into it and see
if Anna Banana is still printing this.

Chuck Welch used to put this out and also
wrote a book called: Eternal Network A Mail Art Anthology.
Not long after I received my copy,
he wrote and mentioned it was out of print.
If you find a copy, grab it.

What Is MA?

For many years, this was put out by APO
until she handed it off in the late 90s.
I only saw one issue after that.
It was a must read for mail art calls,
among many others.

Sometimes in the mail, you'd receive items like this.

Tim Mancussi, wherever you are,
made some amazing faux postage stamps and mail art.
Ray Johnson inspired, the man given credit for starting this
and who started the New York Correspondance School.
More details on much of this at a later date.

Received from Beth Johnson who made fantastic faux postage.

Does anyone know the whereabouts of gorey laurie?

This zine came out of Florida and had some
amazing art work in it,
topical to the times it was printed.

Group 362 has done some amazing things
over time and dabbles in poetry,
found items, dada, fluxus and cigar box gee-tars.

An envelope received back in the day.

When I started out, this group: Underground Rail Art,
would have a list of people, send an idea around,
and everyone would do whatever they wanted
and the last person would send it off to the receiver.
It was fun, but after awhile, there were so
many projects circulating, it was hard to keep up.
Not sure if it's still going or when it stopped as a group.

The Church of Right Now put out some amazing material,
and sadly lost track of their whereabouts.

Joki, from Germany did some amazing projects.
This was one I sent something to,
and he then made booklets with everyones project, name and address.
Sadly, I believe he died a few years ago.

Clemente Padin, from Uruguay has been
involved for many years. In the 70s,
due to his protesting of the policies of the government.
He was arrested and his mail art confiscated.
He still sends mail which is topical
and reflects on issues around us today.

A small booklet received years ago.

Chris Kenny from the UK always sent some interesting work.

The lady who made these envelopes would put a home made zine
about her travels around the country.
She was a character.

FluxBux, don't leave home without it.

bird nest

Some places it's snowing, some sunny,
here rainy, hence the out of focus look.

A gazillion squirrels out collecting,
more than any other year we've
been out here, wonder what it means?

And the birds?
Everywhere, and noticed the nest
when I got home today.
It's in our next door neighbors yard.

Promise me you'll always remember:

You're braver than you believe,

and stronger than you seem,

and smarter than you think.

A. A. Milne - Winnie The Pooh

theme thursday = traffic

this and last picture from:
Artists Interpret The Wall (1985)
from Checkpoint Charlie Museum


Compassion alone stands apart

from the continuous traffic

between good and evil

proceeding within us.

Eric Hoffer

click to enlarge (me, lower right)
The Wall, Berlin May 1990

Berlin Wall : 1961- 1989
Stopping Human Traffic
East to West and West to East

I was lucky enough to visit Berlin twice,
for a month each time, in '89 and '90
after the Wall came down.

To experience the first year, walking
in a field and being watched by a
person holding a rifle, was something
I'll never forget. Going through Checkpoint
Charlie and having to show a passport and
being asked questions, also not forgotten.

To see East Berlin while the Wall was up,
and to see how poor the people were and
the food that was being sold in their stores,
left another impression. Even more though,
was that some on the west side of the Wall,
thought they were better and looked down
on those in the east. Yet, they were all german.

Human traffic can be disconcerting sometimes.

a cup of george

FUEL - Mount Vernon, Iowa


A Cup Of George

During World War 1, the US Army used

a brand of instant coffee called:

George Washington's

with the result that dough boys often

asked simply for a cup of George.

blog action day / theme thursday = climate change

click to enlarge -
photo: courtesy of CafeP11 - Guatemala

In a coffee bean:

Coffee has specific growing conditions.

Subtropical regions have distinct wet and dry seasons.

Plants can live and produce fruit for decades,
although drought and or heat in summer can
diminish production and quality.

Coffee requires a dry period in the spring,
and heavy rains in this season can disrupt flowering.

Global climate change will impact coffee growing and production.

Instability brought on by droughts and floods,
and unusual cold spells, pests whose range will
also change as temperatures rise.

Farmers are left with few choices.

Most small owners do not have the money or credit to buy property,
even if it is available to purchase; most land is already under
ownership that is passed down within families.

If converting and clearing the land of existing forests occur,
the old coffee farms will have to be converted to other crops,
none likely to be as environmentally friendly as shade coffee.

What does this mean?
Deforestation of new and old coffee farms,
changing coffee to other crops will add to
and accelerate warming trends, since trees
help hold in carbon and buffer temperature changes.

This is just one of many environmental stories
in the naked World.

Thanks for saving the Coffee Bean!

and check others around the World
Here

Cheers!

freeze dried and instant coffee

A cup of coffee, real coffee, home-browned, home ground,

home made, that comes to you dark as a hazel-eye,

but changes to a golden bronze as you temper it

with cream that never cheated, but was real cream from its birth,

thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly sweet, neither lumpy

nor frothing on the Java: such a cup of coffee is a

match for twenty blue devils and will exorcise them all.

Henry Ward Beecher

=============================================

We've had this sample of SB instant coffee hanging around
since the middle of this year, and never had the
nerve to try it, until now.

I recently found, in a store that sells all things inexpensively,
some containers of Mount Hagen Organic freeze dried
coffee from Germany, and the comparison began.

SB: This new product comes in either Italian,
Colombia and Decaf. I like Italian
roast,and I know it's hard to compare
fresh with anything else, but the flavor,
although smoother than their fresh beans,
still had a minor SB aftertaste.
But, it did taste better than their fresh beans
do and must say, if the price were less expensive
in a pinch or traveling, I might go with this.
12 servings will run you $9.95, and 48 - $34.95.

Mount Hagen: 100% arabica beans, with no
information on the jar about any kind of roast.
Before I tried the SB, I tried this one mixed
in cold almond milk and liked the flavor.
I then tried it hot, the same day I tried the
SB, and have to say I really enjoyed the flavor
of this one, smooth and no aftertaste, which for
some reason you always get with SB.
The price for this averages $8.00
for 3.53 oz a bottle.

Sad to think SB makes a better instant
coffee, but I think the cost will be
prohibitive for it to catch on.

theme thursday = collection

Our friend Jack, Wendell and his son a few years ago.

If you ever have some spare time,
check this LINK out.
Wendell also has put together collections.
The link I listed is about the local
circus back in the day.
Well worth a read!
==========================================

When Sir Humphrey Davy

returned from a visit to Paris,

he was asked how the picture galleries

had impressed him.

"The finest collection

of frames I ever saw," he said.”

Humphrey Davy ( 1778-1829)

===============================

Jack, is now in his mid 90s.
He grew up in this area and from the 30s on,
he has photographed almost everything
both being built to being torn down.
He was the curator at the local museum for many years.
One of our first sessions with him,
was looking at the photos he had taken
of a town named: Somerset, which
eventually was flooded and a dam built.
Since then, flooding in the way we see a lot of
these days around the country,
has not occurred here
anymore or at least to that extent.

Recently, while at my favorite bookstore,
I was asked about a plethora of
books and pamphlets from the late 1700 - 1800s.
Seems someone from the local historical society
figured it was a good time to unload material
taken from the museum years ago.
Sadly, all this was pinned on Jack and I
was happy to hear that the person we knew did it,
tried to dump it all, figuring no one would know.
Luckily, the person they entrusted to "dump" it all
knew the value and kept it all.
Although, it's rightful place is the museum.
No one we know there now seems
knowledgeable enough to acknowledge
it's worth or importance.

To make a long story short,
we all know of many types of collections.
These are just two examples of collections
we've been close to since moving here.

Cheers ya'll!

a bonus, if you dare ; )

coffee and repartee............

JKB link

I had an idea someone would know and am
surprised mum that you knew. Not sure
why, but am grateful a few are familiar with
Bangs anyway. Houseboat was written in 1886
and the Pursuit of The Houseboat was published
in 1887. Any of his books are worth reading and
can be found very cheap these days.
The Coffee book was published in 1900.

Charles Erskine Scott Wood published this book in
1927. Taken from stories he published in an old
magazine called The Masses, he mocked, er,
satirized the goings on in his day.
He's one of my favorite authors and is worth
seeking out, although his books are hard to find.

I've been getting ready to re-read these two books,
and wondered if anyone knows the titles and
has read them also?

1st is from the late 1800s,

the other from 1927.