Ruination & Despair

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.

As a finalist in the 22nd annual International Greeting Card Awards competition, Archelaus was invited to submit a poster for the awards dinner, based on this year’s theme of “Go for the gold!” Here is what Cadwalader came up with, using an illustration by the great Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) to what I think is very good effect.

The day before yesterday we shipped a first order of fine cards to Sweet Sailing, a purveyor of fine candies in Bayfield, Wisconsin. For those of you who may not be intimately familiar with the extreme northern reaches of the Dairy State, Bayfield is a small town and tourist destination located on the shore of Lake Superior, across from the Apostle Islands.

N.B. Customer Service Minion #2 was supposed to blog about this exciting new development on Wednesday but failed to do so. Trust me when I tell you that I have disciplined him appropriately for his lapse.

Our latest peculiar birthday offering, “A little bird told me,” exploits the timeless, enigmatic appeal of the moa (albeit in a thoroughly bizarre, surreal manner), even as it mocks the sentimental approach of conventional greeting cards.

Go ahead, just click to find out what’s inside the card!

The fine photo is taken from Richard Owen’s classic, Memoirs on the extinct wingless birds of New Zealand (London, 1879).

Archelaus returns to Riverdale Park, Maryland, tomorrow (April 22, 2010) to kick off a new season of farmers markets there. Our flunkey will begin, however, at a special Earth Day market at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) facility, located at Rivertech Court and River Road, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then proceed to the usual farmers market location at Rhode Island Avenue and Queensbury Road from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. We hope you’ll stop by and say hello.

Archelaus is delighted to announce that its notorious Egyptian mongoose checkbox card has been declared among the finalists for a LOUIE award in the category “Special Occasion — Everyday,” subcategory “$3.50 and below.”

Named for Louis Prang (1824-1909), the German-American printer who is credited with introducing color lithography to the fledgling U.S. card market in 1861, the LOUIEs are the greeting card industry’s highest honor, or so they tell us.

An anonymous Archelaus spokesperson, reached for comment during dinner, issued the following statement: “Pleased? Of course we’re bloody pleased! What are you, stupid or something? Pass the mustard.”

The actual winners of the competition will be announced on Monday, May 17, 2010, during the National Stationery Show.

Update: read our belated press release.

On 1 April 2010, the Main Event, a party supply store in Mount Airy, is moving from its former digs on South Main Street to the exalted Twin Arch Shopping Center, where it is taking over premises formerly occupied by Carousel Cards and Gifts. In what we consider a shrewd move, the owners have decided to cater to the established habits of Carousel’s loyal customers by selling cards and gifts in the new location, while also, of course, continuing to provide party supplies to their own fanatical customer base. In what we consider an even shrewder move, the owners have declined to stock merchandise from the likes of Hallmark and American Greetings, in favor of cards from smaller, more interesting manufacturers. Finally, in what we consider the shrewdest move of all, they have opted to carry a solid supply of Archelaus cards!

We therefore encourage everyone within driving distance to descend upon Mount Airy on this auspicious occasion (and afterwards) to purchase Egyptian mongooses, Peruvian llamas, misbegotten sea creatures, and other popular favorites!

This morning we shipped an order to Paperwork, a fine stationery store on Milwaukee’s East Side. We hope they will do well there.

Check out this exciting offer from an advertisement found on a Slovak website.

The Community Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconsin, has taken the plunge and ordered Archelaus cards, which we obligingly shipped this morning. The pharmacy is a workers’ cooperative, established in 1972, when such things were in vogue. This fact no doubt explains their commitment to such subversive concepts as good health, a humane workplace, and a clean environment. Obviously a hotbed of dangerous radicalism!

This morning we shipped an assortment of fine cards to Accipiter, a gallery for “lighting, crafts, and fun,” at the Cameron Village Shopping Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. Any store named for a genus of birds of prey that includes various species of goshawks and sparrowhawks is likely to be a good outlet for our cards, so we are, obviously, very pleased and excited.

The ingredient list for Original Slim Jims includes “mechanically separated chicken.” Now, that sounds tasty!