Ruination & Despair

I see it has been more than a month since anyone has updated this blog. Most distressing! I myself, of course, have been fully occupied with my supervisory functions, primarily enforcing discipline among the Customer Service Minions, as they process orders both large and small. Cadwalader claims to have been designing new cards (to be unveiled shortly, so he says). Dr. Hurlbutt has been too consumed with his esoteric researches to check in. In short, we’ve all had better things to do.

Today, however, I am gratified to report that we have shipped an order to an entirely new wholesale customer, Bell, Book, and Candle in Dover, Delaware, “your one-stop shop for metaphysical needs” (which now include checkbox cards, evidently). And a fine thing, too!

Today we shipped a second order received in response to our recent advertisement in Greetings etc. — this time from the Whale’s Tale gift shop in Cape May, New Jersey. A seaside resort at the extreme southern tip of the state, Cape May is known for its fine beaches, Victorian architecture, and migratory birds. These claims to fame are now expanding to include Egyptian mongooses and Peruvian llamas!

Today we shipped an initial order of fine cards to Paper Gourmet in Auburn, Indiana. Apparently, having seen our advertisement in this summer’s Greetings etc., key decision makers were unable to restrain themselves from obtaining Archelaus cards for sale as soon as possible! This demonstrates a certain weakness of character that is greatly to be encouraged.

During last week’s corporate retreat in Dayton, our crack sales team was dispatched to nearby Yellow Springs in the hope of selling cards there. With success! Sam & Eddie’s Open Books at 232 Xenia Avenue agreed to carry our cards, and we shipped a substantial order to them soon after our return. I have finally received confirmation that the post office has delivered the cards, which should now be available for sale to an astonished populace.

This summer’s issue of the trade magazine Greetings etc. includes a special supplement on the 22nd Annual International Greeting Card Awards, or LOUIEs, which were presented in May. Only award winners and finalists were allowed to advertise in it, which this year, unaccountably, meant us! Despite the appalling expense, we ultimately decided to seize the opportunity, mainly because Cadwalader designed an advertisement so emphatically peculiar that we could not in good conscience fail to confront the magazine’s 22,000 subscribers with it, preferably before breakfast.

Anyway, the summer issue has now hit the streets, and we will see if our modest effort generates orders, or just angry letters to the editor.

Normally, we are somewhat reluctant to take on custom projects here at Archelaus, for the simple reason that they involve working with clients, who are often tiresome, stupid, and just more trouble than they are worth. Fortunately, Anna and Michael fell in an altogether less odious category, and we were able to contrive a full wedding invitation package for them, in both English and Hungarian, without any attendant incidents of manslaughter or grievous bodily harm.

The project began with this “save the date” wedding announcement, which went out in April:

Now, the invitation package itself has been completed, consisting of the wedding invitation, reception invitation, RSVP card, travel tips for Budapest, and envelope:

Here is the Hungarian-language version:

And here are the maps on the back of the English and Hungarian invitations:

Anyway, since no blood was spilt and our clients have expressed no intention to sue, we are choosing to consider the project a great success.

Today we shipped an initial thirty-four half-dozen mongooses to the Chicago distribution hub of Paper Source, for immediate disbursement to their thirty-four fine stores in thirteen states and the District of Columbia. The members of our crack sales team are feeling very full of themselves for securing such an important new customer, and I must admit that for once they seem to have some justification.

Yesterday we shipped an order of fine cards to University Press Books in Berkeley, California, just across the street from the UC campus. It should arrive tomorrow. You have been warned.

This afternoon we shipped an order of fine cards to Pages, a card and gift shop in West Chester, Pennsylvania (some twenty miles west of Philadelphia). We are grateful to the anonymous customer at Eastern Market who suggested that this store might be a suitable venue!

We have released our handsome and exciting catalog for 2010. Wholesale buyers are welcome to request a copy!

This time it’s Orange Tree Imports, a specialty store in Madison, which decided it could not continue without our fine products. Upon hearing the good news this afternoon, the flunkies in our state-of-the-art fulfilment facility in the depths of the cellar paused only to allow themselves to be whipped into a frenzy before packaging and shipping the order within the hour!

Archelaus regrets to announce that at the 22nd annual International Greeting Card Awards (or “LOUIEs”) on Monday night our beloved Egyptian mongoose, a finalist in the category “Special Occasion – Everyday, $3.50 & Below,” failed to take the gold. Our anonymous spokesperson took the setback philosophically: “Are we disappointed? Well, more disappointed than surprised. Indeed, arguably this defeat restores the natural order of things, which had been badly overturned by the selection of an Archelaus card as a finalist in the first place.”

Archelaus would like to congratulate Nick Wroblewski of Artists to Watch, as designer of the winning card.

“While not our cup of tea perhaps,” our spokesperson conceded, “the winning card features very handsome artwork and a quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, so losing to it does not represent the perplexing humiliation that defeat by a less appealing card would have.”

In more cheerful news, Archelaus’s poster for the LOUIE awards dinner was one of five (out of seventeen) selected for display at the event itself, where reportedly it was the subject of favorable comment.