Ruination & Despair

Archelaus’s strategic plan for North Carolina continues to unfold, with new amphibious landings upon the Outer Banks expected within days. The Island Bookstore, with outlets in Corolla, Duck, and Kitty Hawk has been the target of heavy preliminary shelling.

In Wisconsin, an Archelaus commando unit has infiltrated as far north as Stevens Point, where it has orders to seize the heavily fortified Paper Doll Stationery Boutique.

Today we sent a lackey out to Catonsville, Maryland (just outside the Baltimore Beltway), to deliver a first order of cards to Objects Found, an impressive emporium of antiques, collectibles, and attractive clutter. Arguing that it was an unreasonably hot day, he is demanding reimbursement for the milkshake he purchased on the way home. As I often have cause to lament, lackeys just aren’t what they used to be.

Hard-core Archelaus fans will recognize this design from a blank notecard we released in 2007. Alas, as a notecard, the design did not meet with the success we hoped, but I personally am much too fond of it to give up. So, here, retooled slightly, it is again, this time as a postcard.

Today we shipped an initial order of cards to the Alley Gallery in Evanston, Illinois. Discreetly located between Sherman and Benson Avenues, this store has been providing customers with custom framing and fine art prints for over twenty years under the benevolent gaze of its handsome parrot, Jessica.

Eastern Market’s historic North and South Halls will finally reopen on Friday, June 26, 2009, having been thoroughly renovated after the devastating fire of 2007. On Saturday, June 27, 2009, the market will throw what is being billed as an “all day street party” from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Weather permitting, Archelaus will be sending a lackey to sell cards during this exciting event (rather than on Sunday, as we usually do). He is expected to be fully set up by 8:00 a.m., so if you want to beat the rush, escape the worst heat of the day, and avoid exposure to festive live music, by all means drop by before 10:00.

Archelaus forces are advancing victoriously to the east along Highway 70 toward Beaufort, North Carolina, approximately four miles from their beachhead in Morehead City. The fine ceramics store Tierra Fina on Turner Street will undergo temporary military occupation and begin selling Archelaus cards as soon as they arrive, probably on Monday or Tuesday.

Simultaneously, in a dramatic airborne operation miles inland, Archelaus has taken up a strong position outside Durham, North Carolina, and is about to enter the city in force. Heavy casualties are expected, as Archelaus thrusts to within blocks of Duke University’s East Campus to establish a command post at Morgan Imports, a local retailer celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year.

On the Wisconsin front, Archelaus has launched a two-pronged assault in the Milwaukee area. The first prong is expected to storm Beans & Barley, a deli, market, and café on Milwaukee’s East Side, by Tuesday. The second is descending inexorably upon the quiet village of Wauwatosa, to the west of the city, where advance troops have just released several civilian hostages after securing a promise that Little Read Book, an independent bookseller, will begin carrying Archelaus cards.

It was a cough that carried him off.
It was a coffin they carried him off in.

    — Greenwich, Massachusetts

Stranger weep, for at the age of seven
Little Willie went to Heaven.

      To which has been added:

Cheer up, Stranger, who can tell?
Willie may have gone to Hell.

      — Ireland

Here lies the body
of Samuel Young
Who came here and died
For the benefit of his health.

      — Isle of Wight

        Erected to the memory of
                  John Phillips
                Accidentally shot
As a mark of affection by his brother

      — Ulster

Once I Wasn’t.
Then I Was.
Now I ain’t Again.

      — Lee County, Mississippi

Source: Philip Reder, comp., Epitaphs (London, 1969).

This morning we shipped a first order to Perch Home, a retail boutique in Maplewood, New Jersey. We met the store’s owner at the National Stationery Show last month. She decided to try our cards, she said, because they were the first ones she had seen there that made her laugh.

This morning, Archelaus launched a daring pincer movement on New Bern, North Carolina, home of Carolina Creations, a gallery carrying the work of over 300 artists and craftspeople. Dr. Hurlbutt informs me that New Bern is also where the pharmacist Caleb Bradham devised Pepsi-Cola in 1898 as a treatment for dyspepsia.

In related news, Archelaus has announced the imminent invasion of Wisconsin. Local authorities are bracing for an expected amphibious assault launched from Chicago across Lake Michigan, with the target rumored to be the northern Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, home of the Garden Room, an upscale gardening store and tea room.

Top strategists in Archelaus’s newly constructed Situation Room declined comment for reasons of operational security.

Alethea has been hinting at decidedly unpleasant consequences if I don’t produce some saleable new cards in pretty short order.

In the hope of mollifying her, I have decided to resurrect the fine cartoon on the left, first published in Life on May Day, 1931. Unfortunately the work is unsigned, and I cannot readily identify the cartoonist. It is clearly the same individual, however, who drew the no less diverting cartoon below, dating from July 4, 1930.

This morning we delivered a large order of cards to Franklin’s General Store, which is located in the same building as Franklin’s Brewery and Restaurant in Hyattsville, Maryland. Founded in 1992, Franklin’s has become something of a local landmark. Now you can stuff yourself with nourishing food, drink yourself into an alcoholic stupor, and buy Archelaus cards all more or less at the same time. What more could a reasonable person ask for?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of manipulating the content of a website to maximize the number of people who arrive there through searches for chosen keywords. Caligula, our webmaster, insists that he has expertly optimized the Archelaus site to summon people who yearn to buy our peculiar but delightful cards. Unfortunately I am not certain the results bear out his claims. According to Caligula’s reluctantly surrendered logs, only one person arrived at the website during the last week by searching for “twisted birthday cards.” This compares unfavorably, in my view, to the five individuals who arrived during that same time period by searching for:

• proud hussy;
• skydiving riddles;
• china wall copulation;
• jokes about someone who doesn’t eat fowl;

and of course:

• saint raymond nonnatus prayer card with coin over mouth.

It seems to me that Caligula has some explaining to do.