Received: New-Old School mail-art, bunny stamps by Miss James (Brooklyn, New York, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

October 16, 2010 - Miss James did not make my day. She made my week, my month. I picked up my mail at the PO very early Saturday morning. Immediately I saw the NYNY stamp on the front and the Brooklyn address on the back and her beautiful artwork. Miss James sent me a special set of her bunny stamps, which I have seen at the IUOMA. This set is perfect for Halloween, although there is another explanation for the theme. First, the envelopes:

Not long ago, I sent Marie Wintzer in Japan some stories about my first experience with mail-art - I am sure many IUOMA members have very fascinating stories far better than mine. Everything I received in the beginning was from New York City. Miss James' work reminds of the kind of thing you'd receive in those days - just very inventive and somehow totally in the present.

Miss James has actually been a fairly faithful e-mail correspondent and has been witness to the sort of ritual bizarreness that accompanies - oh no here it comes again - the ubiquitous Grigster. Because that is what this installment of her mail-art to me is about. And you have to admire a friend who taps into another friend's personal mythology and joins in a dialog that can hopefully be ongoing and shift to other topics. Wasn't Ray Johnson's outfit really a correspondence school? I appreciate Miss James' kind note:

Yes, Miss James, Grigori is certainly alive and well, which of course is good news and what we wish for all beings, even the most audacious pranksters who play a disappearing act using cosmic smoke and mirrors gambling with the muse they'll make a grand entrance again somewhere short of the void. As you'll see if you look at my previous blog about Eduardo Cardoso's mail-art, the Grigster is again making his existence known through the shell game he invented. The game has no object except to perpetuate itself, which serves as the moral of the tale. I will always admire him for what he is able to achieve with such limited resources. I seem to be his message center at IUOMA: "Grigori, clean-up on Aisle 4."

10.22.2010 - Received new mail-art from Grigori Antonin (Minneapolis, Minnesota). The Grigster is back! Tanned, rested, and ready to continue his meteoric rise in mail-art. You heard it here first - coverage this week.

(below the decadent western poetry of the dan steeley and the tangierian comedian william seward burroughs - seward)

http://www.steelydan.com/wbonnyc.html

[De Villo Sloan]

You did great. Love the work - you are so talented! Thnx again

[James]

in all a bit of awkward corespondance
there is one who slips the slips of ease
i could be said to die of embarassment
aflame with the fervor of my intent
a smile within the heart
of the voice
that was heard