We’re a the start of a Great Adventure, for I suddenly remembered a package Crag Hill sent me long ago–maybe around 1990!  It was for some project we hooked up on but I never followed through on.  (That, alas, happened a lot back then.  Still does, but not too often as I’ve finally learned how not to over-commit . . . well, half-learned.)

All I remembered about the package, besides that it was heavy-duty, brown, and had two cloth straps binding it shut, was that it had artworks in it.  I also remembered exactly where I had been keeping it all these years.  Gah.  It wasn’t there!  I searched everywhere for it in vain.  I absolutely could not understand what I could have done with it.  (Another thing that happens to me all the time!)  I gave up.  After finishing the Sunday paper, I gave one more glance to the corner of my living room where I was so sure it had always been stored, shoved between a bookcase and a filing cabinet.  It still wasn’t there.  But the television set slightly left of the corner caught my eye.  Maybe I’d stuck it under the carriage it was on!  I’m always sticking things under beds and other furniture to get them out of the way.  It was not under the carriage.  I found it, though: it was on the carriage holding up the television!

I soon found two folders of mail art various people from all over the world had sent Crag–but only after spending ten minutes looking for my reading glasses.    So, you’ll be seeing some Very Interesting oldies here off and on for a while, such as this from the well-known Vittore Baroni:

Amusingly, when I looked at this, actually almost twice as large as shown here, I didn’t see the face.  I saw it as an evacuation of some linguistic sort I could not pin down but found fascinating.  And Vittore makes full use of his envelope:

You know, I’m not sure if Vittore and I have ever exchanged a letter or e.mail, but I’ve been involved in so many things he’s also been involved in, I feel like he’s an old friend.  I know so many people in the arts this way.

I don’t know who made the following, but love it.  Something about the simplicity of its perforations and the white smear for its creator’s address.  The rule for this collection that reminds me to point out was self-addressed mailings.

 And the other side:

Later note: The person responsible for the blue SASE is a mail artist going by the name, “6-cent Postage,” with a cent-sign where I have “-cent,” which I don’t know how to type here.