Ruination & Despair

The Spring 2009 issue of Stationery Trends magazine includes a ten-page article (alas, not yet available online) providing “a sneak peak at some of the best and brightest” new cards from next month’s National Stationery Show in New York. Included is our very own Peruvian llama, an alarming birthday card that appears to have caught the editor’s eye. As well it might.

Seen along the way:

Fingerboard Road
Dinner Bell Road
Pig’s Ear Road
Licking Creek
Big Savage Mountain
Negro Mountain

And of course:

God’s Ark of Safety (“Noah’s Ark Being Rebuilt Here!”)

We are pleased to announce that we shipped our first wholesale order abroad today. As a result, within mere days, Archelaus cards should be available at the Cat & Cauldron, 7 Market Place, Glastonbury, in the beautiful county of Somerset in southwest England. The entire Archelaus team is accordingly in a state of high excitement (with the possible exception of Caligula, who is grumbling about having to update our vendor page once the cards arrive).

According to Dr. Hurlbutt, who tends to know about these things, Glastonbury is a small town of great antiquity, with considerably more history, myth, and legend per square mile than the average British community can claim. We are confident that our highly peculiar cards will fit in well there.

Riotous celebration?

Run! Hide! Panic!

(Hey, why should I be responsible for writing the advertising copy for all our new cards? Isn’t it enough that I design the wretched things?)

Anyway, this is our first new birthday card in awhile. For the moment, I’m relatively well pleased with it, but that doesn’t mean it will sell.

Hint, hint.

Given the success of our handsome multilingual thank you note, we decided to do something similar for Mother’s Day. It was a choice between that or a card so grossly inappropriate it might have provoked Alethea to violence.

Weather permitting, Archelaus will send a flunkey to Riverdale Park, Maryland, on Thursday, April 16, from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m., for the always delightful Farmers Market there. This year’s market season began last week and will continue each Thursday afternoon until November 19. We plan to attend approximately once a month.

Oswald: What dost thou know me for?

Earl of Kent: A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stockinged knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny the least syllable of thy addition.

  —  William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act II, Scene 2.

At the kind suggestion of one of the fine merchants who purvey our wholesome and uplifting products, we have expanded our popular line of notorious checkbox cards with a design specifically for graduation.

It is that time of year, after all.

We trust this card will serve its purpose without causing fainting fits, gastro-intestinal distress, or regrettable outbreaks of violence. Of course, should we prove mistaken on any of these points, we disclaim all legal liability.
 

As I noted last time, Life’s editorial line began to turn against Roosevelt in 1935 and became more strident in 1936. Inevitably, the same was true of Life’s attitude toward Roosevelt’s New Deal. (Continue reading . . .)

Although 7th Street has been closed for repaving between C Street and North Carolina Avenue, Eastern Market remains open! Inevitably the street work has caused some dislocation, and the city government is distributing the postcard shown below to clarify the situation. The temporary East Hall continues to be open during the restoration of the historic North and South Halls. The Farmers’ Market is now divided between the North Hall Plaza and the Poolside Patio. And last, but not least, non-farm exhibitors such as Archelaus are now found in four locations: on the east side of 7th Street below C Street, under the green Farmers’ Line Shed on the west side of 7th Street above C Street, on the North Hall Plaza, and on the Poolside Patio. The separately managed Flea Market continues to function in the schoolyard between 7th and 8th Streets.

Archelaus continues to attend the market primarily on Sundays, weather permitting, although going forward we cannot exclude the possibility of attending some Saturdays, particularly if the weather forecast is more favorable than for the following day.

We dispatched a member of our crack sales team to nearby Bethesda, Maryland, today in the hope that he could persuade the potentially skeptical management of Creative Parties, Ltd., to carry our fine cards. I am pleased to report that he returned successful, though whether this victory was due to the inherent excellence of our products (my view), or the exertion of personal charm, animal magnetism, or some other occult influence (his claim), is currently under review.

Founded in 1968, Creative Parties, Ltd., is a professional event planner and stationery retailer of long standing and wide experience. We urge our readers to descend upon this establishment eagerly, with open wallets, once we have delivered the desired cards there on Monday, April 6.