Thursday, November 13, 1997
As attentive readers will recall, I’ve just taken a holiday, and as I sat in the Broome St Bar in New York City one evening I was moved to ponder the future of postcards.
It’s become an obligation to devote some of your time while away to writing two paragraphs of banality on the back of a cheesy picture of the area’s most famous landmark, and then mail it home. You will, of course, arrive back before the card.
Writing the words (known clumsily in the web world as the ‘content’), can be a real problem. I have nothing but praise for the long, thoughtful letter home from abroad, but when facing the back of a card, I can’t really summon any enthusiasm. It’s hard to avoid sneakily writing the same thing on all the cards.
Majella, via the discussion group, wonders why people bother. ‘Their close friends know where they have been and take the ‘wish you were here’ factor for granted. Not so close friends really don’t need to have it shoved in their faces that they are at work while others are on the sunny beaches of the Costa del Sol.’
It’s as if you have to go through the hassle of writing the cards to apologise for enjoying yourself abroad.
Paul, also via the discussion group, makes a strong case for the existence of postcards, if not their sending to innocent bystanders: ‘Postcards save me the hassle of taking snapshots. Why bother with the pursuit of legalized gambling, also known as photography, when some expert has already done the work? Why worry about exposing film to airport scanners? Why worry about old camera batteries leaking acid into landfills? Why worry about having my Minolta nicked from my motorcycle’s tankbag? No, postcards are fine with me.’
This is fine, except that heavily doctored images (John Hinde Limited, take a bow ) look nothing like real places I’ve ever been.
Another Paul on the discussion group has a more optimistic view of the worth of cards: ‘It may not be a la mode but I like receiving snail mail, and an unexpected picture on my doormat first thing in the morning always lights up my child-eyes. I like the idea of sending postcards to friends I see around anyway. It’s a good disposable way of giving someone a picture that’s interesting or funny, or just hoping to influence the direction of their thoughts temporarily . . . ‘Postcards aren’t restricted to the ordinary four scene, greetings from Weymouth, a ‘cheeky’ girls on the beach in Marbella, or the endless XXX at night (ho ho). People should send more postcards, there should be random pictures floating about between people. Just get a good photo, stick a stamp on the back and you’ve made someone’s journey to work more interesting.’
This gets us into the right territory. Cards as a necessary part of a holiday may have had their day, but they have a much greater value as a well-chosen greeting when you’re at home and just want to say something. The idea of little bundles of goodwill ‘floating between people’ is very attractive.
This works because you’re actually given the freedom to choose to send the cards – that you’ve taken the trouble to surprise the recipient is great. With holiday cards you have no choice as the sender, and in most cases, the recipient is not at all surprised to get the card.
So my vote is to boycott the sending of postcards from holiday locations (except for children, who probably still deserve them). And if this goes well, maybe we should move on to Christmas cards as well – reserving them only for people that we don’t see very often. The struggle starts here.
(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 13th November 1997)