Thursday, December 11: Femme Fatale
FEELING PHILATELIC
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
Outside my window snow is being carried away by a swift wind — my meteorologist friend tells me they are flurries, which seems such an innocent word for such a wicked event. The temperature gauge outside my home reads twenty-eight degrees. I’m glad I’m inside where my sweater and tights worn under jeans and thick wool socks are keeping me almost cozy. I probably should be out in the soon-to-be slush and buying postage stamps for the holiday cards I’m about to send. Thank goodness for the Internet which saves us from having to step foot outside simply to purchase a bundle of stamps.
Yes, postage prices most certainly will rise again soon, but the United States Postal Service is still the cheapest way I know to get solid snail mail from one part of the world to another. In the Pony Express Days, postage prices were anywhere from $1.00 per ½ ounce near the end of the service to $5.00 per ½ ounce at its inception. True, there was never a guarantee and forget overnight mail, but today’s postal workers don’t usually have to worry about hostile Indians either.
Following my online purchase, instead of delving into my next project, I brewed a pot of strong coffee and decided to check out other philatelic items — and no, philatelic just sounds like something weird. In fact, philately is defined as the collection and study of postage stamps and related material.
I also discovered that over two dozen countries issued postage stamps featuring fictional detectives, their creators, or as characters portrayed in movies. Edgar Allan Poe, Georges Simenon, Ngaio Marsh and G.K. Chesterton as well as Dick Tracy, Sherlock Holmes and Detective Conan have all been images chosen for postage stamps around the world.
Personally, I was drawn to the Humphrey Bogart image. The actual 32 cent stamp shows a typical Hollywood still photograph posed expressly for women to swoon over. The accompanying photo to one of the Legends of Hollywood stamp series shows Bogie as most of us think of him: in a fedora and trench coat looking very Sam Spade. That is the photo I’m more likely to swoon over — the tough guy every woman thinks she wants and every man secretly wants to be.
How smart of the post office to designate fictional heroes as choice icons to commemorate on postage stamps — many of these will be saved not by the usual stamp collectors, but also those of us who want to reminisce about a time we spent with a favorite movie star portraying a favorite fictional character. The post office makes the sale without delivering the service.
Gazing at Bogie almost makes the cold weather not important. Almost.
Of course I, as one of the few the proud, the dedicated not to be deterred by rain, sleet, dark of night, or uzi toting co-workers had to chime in.
The varied stamps are coll but my favorite letters are the intricately drawn pictures on the envelops that originate at the prison. Along witht he required topless women, crucifixes, and blocked elttered GANGSTA style messages the prisoners sometimes draw entire scene that compliment the stamp.
Once I saw a collage of dead celebrities that went along with the Elvis stamp and the person that drew it was as talented of an artist as I’ve ever seen.
Other than prison mail we don’t have much excitement around the old Post Office, except on the day Vitoria Secret mails her latest catalog.
My son has an extensive stamp collection which is stored well and has been in every garage we’ve had since he left home to find his way in the world. Right now it is Istanbul. However, the collection awaits him should he want to re-pursue.
I have several pages of the Elvis stamp. Obnoxious? Yeah, but, I had to have them. Somehow over many moves they are buried with tons of other stuff I had to have.
Enjoyed your article. Stay warm. Today I am one week and four days into a brand new knee and wish I could go play in the snow. Maybe tomorrow?
My favorite stamp of all time was the Ogden Nash commemorative issued on his 100th birthday a few years ago. Behind the picture of the poet/humorist were not just lines from his poems, but about eight entire poems! He wrote a lot of short ones, incl. “The cow is of the bovine ilk / one end is Moo, the other, Milk.” I think the stamp qualified as the smallest anthology of poetry ever. And Nash was a Mystery fan! He coined the phrase “Had I But Known” for a style of mystery story. (I really wish he’d written one himself!!)
So do I, Jeff. What fun if he had. Just tonight I read some of my mother-in-law’s poetry at a Christmas party. She had never written any of them down, except on backs of envelopes and scraps of paper. I guess it was the writer in me, but I gathered all those and had a chapbook made for her and one for each of her sons. Shortly after that, she passed away. I always wondered what more she would have written. None of us should take our talents for granted.
Self-publishing has been looked down on a lot, including by me! But in recent years I’ve realized that this can be viable publishing, ESPECIALLY to preserve words of the ones we love who might not have been published elawhere. Oh, and most of Emily Dickenson’s poetry was published posthumously when she was an unknown.
Getting poetry published is definitely more difficult than other genres of writing. I’d have to agree that self-publishing poetry is probably the way to go. I know some really great poets — and I’m talking Pultizer nominees — and they are mostly self-publishing, too. Selling a poem is even harder than selling a short story — and that isn’t easy these days.
Self publishing definitely serves a purpose. I have written three books on local high school sports, labors of love that no publisher would ever consider. Thanks to Lulu they look great and sell surprisingly well locally. They will, in fact, pay for the countless hours of research in no more than 300 years. I originally figured about 500.
I also used Lulu for another labor of love, a book on the old musical group the Hoosier Hot Shots. Had I taken it to a publisher I would have been unceremoniuosly thrown out onto the sidewalk.
I know, I should get off the labor of love kick. I would, but it’s too much fun.