M.C.Escher

In general, I am used to receiving Escher cards mainly from the Netherlands, but who said they couldn't arrive from the USA too :))

The first card shows Escher's litograph work called "Cycle" dating from 1938. I wonder if the little guy on the card is excitedly running down the stairs to check his mailbox (as Bryon pointed it out :D). I for sure look like this when I actually notice the postman through the window, and hear the sound of him dropping something in the mailbox :))) 

The first card arrived with this fabulous 1983 set of balloons, where on the left side the Intrepid (1861) is shown, a hydrogen gas balloon or aerostat built for use by the Union Army Balloon Corps for aerial reconnaissance purposes during the American Civil War. 

It was one of seven balloons constructed for the Balloon Corps and was one of the four larger balloons designed to make ascensions to higher elevations with a larger lift capacity for telegraph equipment and an operator. It was the balloon of choice for Chief Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe overlooking the Battle of Fair Oaks. 

On the right side you can see the Explorer II, a manned U.S. high-altitude balloon that was launched on November 11, 1935 and reached a record altitude of 22,066 m. The helium balloon carried a two-man crew consisting of U. S. Army Air Corps Captains Albert W. Stevens and Orvil A. Anderson inside a sealed, spherical cabin.

The two stamps in the middle show regular hot air balloons. Still haven't flown with one, but been wanting to do so if I ever go to Cappadocia, and of course, if my budget allows it at that moment, which I highly doubt, since it revolves around 160 euros... per person, not per balloon :D

There are two other small stamps on the card - the 1c Bobcat from 2012, while the other one is from 1991, showing Cole Porter.

As you could notice, none of these stamps have been cancelled, which is actually way better than what happened with the stamps on the card below...

This is another one of Escher's litographs, titled "Drawing Hands", and was first printed in 1948. It depicts a sheet of paper out of which, from wrists that remain flat on the page, two hands rise, facing each other and in the paradoxical act of drawing one another into existence.

and if you were wondering what was wrong with the stamps, here you go... a pen line all the way from left to right. These kind of people should seriously be banned from post offices or coming nearby ones. This is one of the worst crimes in the résumé of a postal worker, that should be marked in both red and bold. Who had the heart to destroy such a lovely issue of four Coral Reefs stamps issued in 1980. Featured are: the Chalice Coral from American Samoa, the Finger Coral from Hawaii, the Brain Coral from the US Virgin Islands, and the Elkhorn Coral from Florida.
Again we have two smaller stamps. First is the Flag over the Supreme Court issued in 1981, and next to it is a bird stamp from a set of 3 issued in 1991.

Alphonse Mucha

Well many of you know that Mucha is one of my all-time favourite artists, and that postcards related to his works have been one of my favourite themes and that I have acquired quite a number over the years...and here comes another episode of my poor choices as I mentioned above since with this post I realized that after all these years, I have actually never EVER posted any cards by Mucha here...like EVER! (you can see some Mucha stamps, but that's NOT it...)

If it wasn't for Mucha's birthday today, probably it would have taken I don't know how long before I actually realized I have totally neglected the subtle beauty of Mucha's works here....so yeah, better late than never they say, but sometimes I really wish I wasn't so lost and absent-minded...

CZ - 830124

So who was Alphonse Mucha (or Alfons Maria Mucha)?
He was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, most well known for his distinct style and the images of women. He produced many paintings, posters, illustrations, advertisements and designs.
Born on 24 July 1860 and died on 14 July 1939 at the age of 79... he didn't manage to get to celebrate his 80th birthday by 10 days only...

The name of his work featured on this first card is "Flower" and dates back from 1897.

a very cool Postcrossing stamp issued in 2015! :)

Thanks a lot to Helena for choosing this one as an official car to send it to me!

This card shows the poster Mucha did for the 10th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia (1918 - 1928).

This card arrived from Martin as part of our swap in 2014.

a number of stamps here...first comes a definitive issued in 1997. Next is a flower stamp from a set of two issued in 2003. At the top right corner is a greeting stamp from a set of two, also issued in 2003, while the last stamp was issued in 2002 and shows the Tradition of Czech Stamp Printing.

BE-226954

Another cool card that arrived as an official from Monique and it shows a version of Mucha's poster for 'Moët & Chandon: Champagne White Star'.
Mucha worked with Moët Chandon (a French fine winery and one of the world's largest expansive champagne producers and a prominent champagne house) on a number of posters, catalogues, postcards and other promotional material. Mucha chose a sensual blond girl in a pink dress to illustrate Moët's lighter White Star champagne. She has bare shoulders and holds a bowl of grapes in her left arm.

First comes a semi-postal stamp issued in a set of 6 in 1962, for the struggle against Tuberculosis (it has a 40c value, + 10c for donation).  The other one is a self-adhesive butterfly stamp from a set of two issued in 2012.



Ok, one more card for this first and hopefully not last Mucha edition on the blog.

CZ-831143

A beautiful poster from 1897 with the title "Fruit".
Did you know that one of the largest collections of Mucha's works is in the possession of the former world no. 1 professional tennis player Ivan Lendl, who started collecting his works upon meeting Jiří Mucha in 1982. And I was so so sooo lucky to have had the chance to see it, since his collection was exhibited publicly for the first time in 2013 in Prague! For me it was such a perfect combination, Mucha + tennis! And I have to say that Lendl has like the most beautiful Mucha posters!
I also had the chance to visit Mucha's museum, but what is exhibited there, doesn't come close to what Lendl has :)

a lovely stamp showing the T3 tram from a set of two stamps issued in 2015 showing historical vehicles.
Thanks a lot to Kristyna for such a great addition to my Mucha collection!

Mexico

A card from the so much spoken Mexico on this blog....this lovely surprise was sent by dear Rosa, back in 2009.

the card is said to show a parade with women of different states of the country in their traditional outfits. Well, Mexican outfits are rather lovely...so vibrant.
Speaking of surprises and postcards....this past week I was out of town, travelled around Macedonia, but to my great disappointment, no postcards were found....mainly due to the lack of time to actually look for them...or due to the fact that when I had the time, everything was closed. In the city of Strumica (located in the south-eastern part of Macedonia) I came across a souvenir shop, and from what I could see through the windows, there was something that looked like postcards, but unfortunately, being 10 pm, it was, of course, closed. Maybe I wouldnt have been able to send cards directly from there, but I really wanted to get something different in my stocks of cards.....but well, maybe next time Ill be more lucky and will have more time for that...

the card bears a label instead of a stamp....and what makes me glad about it is that it bears the name of Macedonia, next to the ISO Country code..... I was quite saddened lately to see that at the postcrossing spotlight, some people had to jump in and complain that it is not Macedonia but FYROM and blah blah blah...I mean, c'mon people, it is just sooo tiring to argue about this...let me at least enjoy in my one and only PC interview, dont ruin it.....and just to point it out, no FYROM or anti-Macedonian posts will be tolerated here....

thanks a lot to dear Rosa for the lovely card here! 

Atomica Melancholica, Salvador Dali

A rather unusual kind of card to post....but some time ago, I got two cards representing Dali's paintings (picked them myself) and I love them!!

Well, I wont pretend im very art literate, coz im not, but I DO appreciate art a lot...at least some of it, coz nowadays EVERYTHING is art...everyone can just get an inspiration, scribble something over the canvas and you get a piece of abstract art, and no one can deny it..I dont say we should appreciate only the big names, but some sort of a line should be drawn.
As for Dali, I like the way he represents things, and the colours he uses and his odd style ( a reason why I LOVE Vladimir Kush as well, but it is impossible to find cards with his works)...
And i think that the title of this one so much describes the picture...Dali got this picture as a gift to the Spanish state. The painting dates from 1945 and is one of the few where Dali had used the elephant theme.

Japan

My last card for today is an official one from Japan.

JP-96114

It is a very nice and interesting card, but all I know is what the sender told me and that is that this is an old traditional style of Japanese art. But what did she mean exactly, I have no idea....I can just guess and say what I may think according to what ive come across...but in order not to say something totally silly, ill keep my lips sealed :)

There is something written in Japanese on the front of the  card, but with my level of knowledge of this language, no way I can decipher it :)

So, feel free to submit an opinion or fact in case you got some.

and here is how the Japanese postal stickers look like...so even there they can be in lack of stamps I guess...

Barcelona, Spain

Card I received as an official time ago....love it!

ES-48206

I just regret not having seen this during my trip to Barcelona...i love this building! Well, we saw Sagrada Familia, and of course, only from the outside...but we didnt even pass by this one =[.
This is the Casa Batlló, built in 1877. The local name of the building is House of Bones (Casa dels ossos) and it does 
indeed have a visceral, skeletal, organic quality .
The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudí designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.
Much of the facade  is decorated with a mosaic  made of broken ceramic tiles  that starts in shades of golden orange moving into greenish blues. The roof is arched and was linked to the back of a dragon or dinosaur. 
 A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the sword of St. George - patron of Catalonia.  

the stamp is from a set of two issued in January this year, depicting flora and fauna

Postcard Friendship Friday

Hello everyone! I missed last week's PFF but here i am today, to share my thoughts...esp. since i have a reason...so yeah, this wont really be like most of the updates, this is one of the days when i take a step back and do something a bit different...
Im dedicating this Friendship post today to Helle, formerly Pedersen, now Andersen. As some of you may know...or may not know...Helle was one of my pen-pals back in time when i was devoted to this hobby, ive mentioned her at some of my previous posts when i had posted a card she had sent me.
Well, yesterday, i got a letter....from Helle...and that was more than enough to entirely brighten up my day to the fullest. So thats why today, im dedicating this dedicated to Friendship post, to her. Along with the 4 cards she included in the letter :)

 

Well, it all began not that long ago...several months...ever since i discovered postcrossing, ive been more than delighted that after many years catching dust and spider webs, my mailbox was being fed again with stuff which are not bills, leaflets, propaganda material, and such....my mailbox was getting lively again. For someone who had enjoyed receiving mail over the years, this was just a treat of a kind. Which you could have noticed thru my blog, each time i posted a card.

Cards are a delight....but....there always has to be a *but*...one day, after reading how some people say, hey, today i received 5 postcards and two letters...or, i received a letter from my pen-pal in Germany..or im writing a letter to a friend in Poland etc etc etc, a small hole of emptiness started creating inside me...and it grew bigger and bigger...all of a sudden i realized how much *I* miss writing/sending/receiving letters....email never grew on me...online chats for hours are annoying to me, unless i have to talk to someone with whom there is no other way to talk to, and yet, communication is required/wanted...plus talking to 5 people at the same time is just not a way to be able to dedicate your attention properly to all of them....so, as i said, inside me, i started longing for real letters...a LOT...i just dont know why i havent got that itch earlier...

 

So i decided to do something about it...and of course, there are (still) many people around who enjoy snail mail, and who love taking their time to write and post a real letter every now and then...so i looked around and saw that there were some really nice and interesting people....but...yeah, here comes the inevitable *but*..something inside me STILL felt missing. The desire to actually write letters with people i used to write to, and who were very dear to me....so thank God to the internet and its vast opportunities, i decided to look for them...and can you believe it that i found 4 very very dear ladies??!!! Can you even imagine my heart-beat when they said they remembered me and that they would LOVE to keep writing real letters to me??!

I know i give myself no credit, for a lot of things....this was no exception, and i just didnt really want to interfere with their lives and impose some demands after all these years, now that they have families and are busy...why should they write to me, just because all of a sudden i got this desire for it...i mean, where had i been TILL now? But i thought there is no harm if i just ask, and if they dont want to or cant, thats ok..but they all said they wanted to write to me again...real letters....Helle was one of them. And yesterday her letter arrived...her first letter after all this years....my mailbox felt so content....me, more than that...

Helle was one of my first pen-pals ever, when i started pen-palling back in 1993....she contacted me thru this programme...there was a programe on the Brtish Supper Channel back than, which aired every day from Mon-Fri, with Clive Pears (gee, i remembe his name :)) and each day was a thematic day...Monday was pen-pal day...and after watching many pen-pal day shows, i decided to enter...and there one day, another pen pal day comes, i sit to watch it...and then he says ' and here is pen-pal number 4 for today, and thats Ana from Macedonia..and i see my picture on TV! And he reads my intro letter while my picture keeps staying on the screen and i smile to the viewers...hahahaa, my 2 mintues of fame!
So after he read my letter and all, people were supposed to send a letter to Supper Channel, write on it who is the pen-pal they want to write to, and inside they actually write a letter to me...so after waiting as long as they consider is enough, Supper Channel gathers all the letters for the particular person and mails them...so one day after like two months i appeared on TV, a huge brown envelope arrived to me, with 12 or so letters for me inside...so thats how it began....and i was addicted to it immediately...as if its been in my blood...in my veins...it just needed to be unveiled...Helle was one of the girls whose letters was inside...

 

We wrote to each other A LOT during the years and we wrote regularly...she wasnt one of those pals to whom you write once in six months...and she wasnt one of those pals to whom you write one sheet of paper per letter...she was one of my pen-pals i considered close to me, and to whom i could rant about whatever comes on my mind and confess things, and confide things etc...i just enjoyed our pen-friendship...plus we shared one huge passion...New Kids On the Block :D :D :D Yeah yeah, laugh about it...but back then, in my teenage years, that was my taste of music (it shaped long after that)....how and why we exactly lost contact i dont know...i havent checked my letters to see when it happened...i know that once emails got terribly popular here back in 1999, i was all, hey, we can keep in touch by email, its faster and all...i guess it was just a fascination to something new...i never got into it, so maybe there lies one of the reasons why contacts ceased...apart from my overall apathy i felt stuck into for many years....i cant say i was depressed or so...but i just didnt really have the desire to dedicate myself to something...no wonder my Italian lessons failed...i now regret having wasted so many years, but at least i woke up....and im more than glad i did...coz otherwise i wouldnt have been enjoying again the beauty of written letters...the smiles of the people at the post office when they see me and after checking my pile of mail tell me that everything is stamped perfectly...the thrill of expecting the postman..the thrill of finding a full mailbox...checking the mailbox 50 times a day..
Helle said that she had collected these cards for me...and i love them ALL! Im not entirely sure what each of them represents but to me, they represent Friendship and thoughtfullness...and im so happy to have found Helle after all these years! She's been one of my first and dearest pals...it feels incredible to be in touch with someone youve known for over 15 years...
Well, in case someone had had the nerves to manage reading this until here...if you are interested in pen-palling and if you think youd be able to cope with a 28 year old lady, who doesnt have an exciting life...who rants a lot...who skips from subject to subject, who talks of both too serious and too boring and 'why the hell is she telling me this' stuff..who will definitely talk of either F1, tennis or Depeche Mode in each of her letters...who will complain about work in EACH of her letters...her cat probably as well...if you think you can endure that, then just feel free to write to me...age? doesnt matter...as long as you have something to tell me, and want to hear what i have to say, you are more than welcome...dont ask for permission...just write to me...me and my mailbox love surprises...if you wanna write to me, but feel reluctant about it, please, write to me :)
Helle, i know you probably wont read this...but thank you...for being a friend...for wanting to be my friend...thank you for all those letters, postcards, greeting cards you had sent me throughout the years...thank you for being here after all these years...i know lives are way too busier than when we were teenagers, but what im glad is that we are in touch again...i hope we wont lose contact this time....

Die Küste, Germany

The three cards of his post come from a series called "Die Küste, märchenhaft betrachtet von der Künstlerin Karin Blume"
There are actually a number of these cards and i would like to have them all if possible...so if anyone has other ones except the 3 featured here, id be glad to trade :)

Few days ago i promised you that with my next German card, ill tell you how things are going on with MY German and lessons and all...
Well, i am proud to announce that i finished my fist level...and passed my test with 109 points out of 120 possible...i think thats satisfactory, esp. if we have in mind that i didnt actually revise for it...i intended to, but evenually got carried out with work and stuff and neglected my German...at first when i looked at the test i had this blank look...but after i focused enough, it all came back to me, and i could figure it out...the parts i had most trouble with...articles...and the plural...that German plural seems so impossible!! As if it wasnt enough those 'die, der, das' are so troublesome, the plural itself has to try my patience...why would someone think of different kinds of plural for the nouns...i mean, English has an '-s' ending, we have the '-i' ending...why would German have several endings, plus other changes in the noun included!? Duh...that makes it more challenging though...if i was just a good enough student and sat down and went thoroughly through it...

the only problem right now is that my second level is put under a question mark....i may not be able to continue with it, at least not at the current place...two of the guys for some reason stopped coming and actually ignored all calls and messages that our Lehrerin sent them...two other guys said they cant manage anymore coz of working schedules and they have no time and are way too busy and blah blah...i wouldnt miond going to another place...problem is, i cant fit it into MY schedule :-( and I really wouldnt want to quit just now when it started so well, and when im so willing to dedicate myself to it and when i found out that im actually good at it....im even considering applying for a summer school course in Germany....or should i consider Spanish courses in Mexico...hmmm....i doubt the latter one would be appreciated by someone else...though i would love to go... 

Turkey (04)

I would really be grateful if ANYONE could help me define this postcard....the only thing thats written on the back says: "Hurşit Şah'i maiyyetiyle gösteren minyatür"

I suppose it represents some kind of an event or tradition in Turkey...but i would really really love to actually know what it is, so if anyone from Turkey or familiar with Turkish and the Turkish culture is reading this, can you PLEASE give me some more details about whats on the postcard?
Thank you a LOT in advance!!