Blooms

These stamp were issued on 22 March this year. They feature graphic illustrations of brilliantly coloured flowers rendered in ink and gouache paint. Derry Noyes, an art director for USPS, designed the stamp using an existing illustration by artist Kim Parker. The horizontal stamp is called Celebration Blooms, and the vertical one is Wedding Bloom. These are supposed to be used for oversized greeting cards or heavy invitations for birthdays, weddings, aniversaries and other celebrations. 

I got them on regular letters -I mean, no invitations to anything other that keep writing. In my opinion, they look very different according to the background.

(Tomorrow is Bloomsday)

The Difficult Novel

Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived. It is observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and around the world.

Last year I sent this postcard, and it arrived just in time.

By Tom Gauld

Have you read the difficult novel? (I haven't. Yet?)

Postcards for Bloomsday

Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived. It is observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and around the world.

I should say that I haven't read the novel (yet?), but I sort of love the idea of this literary celebration. I wanted to mark it with two postcards received from my friend Laura (the UK):

 

Patrick Kavanagh (1904 – 1967)

The first mention of "Bloom's Day" is to be found in a letter by Joyce of 27 June 1924.

On the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O'Nolan organised what was to be a day long pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh (on the postcard above), Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).

The Odyssey, 1946

The trip of Homer's Ulysses (the original one, isn't he?) that I have actually read, in a different version that the one featured on the postcard.

Smoking Writers?

This postcard featuring James Joyce was sent by Laura (the UK). It is an oil by Jacques-Emile Blanche (1935).

I like to receive postcards portraying writers. But I have just realised that, even in my little collection, some of them appear smoking. It seems to be a writer-portrait thing...

Annie M. G. Schmidt

Sigmund Freud

(This was my small contribution too the celebrating of Bloomsday!)