Dear Alexander, I've read your novel Edinburgh and essay collection, and followed your work everywhere I could. as I read this post I thought about how there is such a tender, gentle and capacious quality to your thinking and writing, it seems to allow me to be a part of it. I just love to read it and you just seem so very nice. This is a beautiful post, thank you so much.
Thank you for this beautiful memoir through objects. I always appreciate how you seamlessly weave the personal and political. I too once thought George W was the worst. Here we are again, accusing people speciously of terrorism. It used to be if you said Allahu Akbar. Now it’s for saying Free Palestine. Allahu Akbar. Free Palestine.
Thank you, Alexander. This makes me want to get back to writing postcards again. More importantly, thank you for this comfort of zooming out to see the bigger picture—our shared humanity.
I'm saving these words: "After I laid the cards out on the floor, I was thinking of how I might see them on a wall. I saw how the cards were like the pieces of a self portrait, found over decades, across countries and cities and small nothing junk shops on the side of the road in some town I’d never get back to. A self portrait I had to find by wandering and not knowing where I was going. The fascinations of a moment or a lifetime, I wouldn’t know until more time passed."
I have a large postcard collection. I am always hunting postcards. I use them as journal bookmarks (a new postcard for each new volume), and I begin every letter with a postcard. My other major life's collection is my button collection. I have reflected on how both of these collections are small- physically modest, I mean: each collection fits into a small box. When I was in London I gathered postcards everywhere I went, but I have not yet looked back over them. I feel superstitious about it, as if disordering them would somehow dissipate the spell under which I gathered them.
One thing I love about you Alexander, is how big your heart is and how that incredible capacity for love and joy and pain comes through so beautifully in your writing. It's an honor to witness as a reader. Thank you for sharing with us. x
It really made me think about so many mementos I have such as old letters, postcards, tchotchkes, show posters, paintings, journals, etc. and now I want to lay them all out to view. I could really feel you traveling through your memories.
What Joan Frank said. I love looking at the postcards and try to feel hope that our future selves will find us to have been equal to this fraught and dark moment.
Oh, gosh, this sent me down a little memory lane - do you remember in the 90s when there were postcard racks in seemingly ever bar and cafe in Manhattan? Half of them were goofy ads, half of them maybe weird art, I never totally understood what they were for but I was incapable of leaving them alone if I happened across one of those racks. I have so many, somewhere.
I'm long overdue in thanking you for sharing these letters with us—each one seems to arrive at just the right moment, just when I need to read it. First your American writer series, which touched on so many perfect formal and existential questions; now these incredibly timely and wonderful meditations. Thank you for your generosity with this newsletter!!
This is gorgeous, and gorgeously timely and apt. I’m so thankful you’re with us in this world.
What a beautiful comment!
Thank you, Joan
Dear Alexander, I've read your novel Edinburgh and essay collection, and followed your work everywhere I could. as I read this post I thought about how there is such a tender, gentle and capacious quality to your thinking and writing, it seems to allow me to be a part of it. I just love to read it and you just seem so very nice. This is a beautiful post, thank you so much.
Thank you, K. Incredibly nice of you to say. Thanks for being a reader.
I look forward to reading more 🌸🌹
Thank you for this beautiful memoir through objects. I always appreciate how you seamlessly weave the personal and political. I too once thought George W was the worst. Here we are again, accusing people speciously of terrorism. It used to be if you said Allahu Akbar. Now it’s for saying Free Palestine. Allahu Akbar. Free Palestine.
Thank you, Alexander. This makes me want to get back to writing postcards again. More importantly, thank you for this comfort of zooming out to see the bigger picture—our shared humanity.
I'm saving these words: "After I laid the cards out on the floor, I was thinking of how I might see them on a wall. I saw how the cards were like the pieces of a self portrait, found over decades, across countries and cities and small nothing junk shops on the side of the road in some town I’d never get back to. A self portrait I had to find by wandering and not knowing where I was going. The fascinations of a moment or a lifetime, I wouldn’t know until more time passed."
Thanks Victoria.
I have a large postcard collection. I am always hunting postcards. I use them as journal bookmarks (a new postcard for each new volume), and I begin every letter with a postcard. My other major life's collection is my button collection. I have reflected on how both of these collections are small- physically modest, I mean: each collection fits into a small box. When I was in London I gathered postcards everywhere I went, but I have not yet looked back over them. I feel superstitious about it, as if disordering them would somehow dissipate the spell under which I gathered them.
Let me say then that looking at the cards was a tremendous pleasure. I hope you will.
Loved Christine Bollow’s Comment Just Above!!
One thing I love about you Alexander, is how big your heart is and how that incredible capacity for love and joy and pain comes through so beautifully in your writing. It's an honor to witness as a reader. Thank you for sharing with us. x
Thanks, Christine. A huge compliment.
This was so beautiful to read.
Thank you for reading.
It really made me think about so many mementos I have such as old letters, postcards, tchotchkes, show posters, paintings, journals, etc. and now I want to lay them all out to view. I could really feel you traveling through your memories.
This resonates so in this moment. Lovely. Thanks for writing, and for all of your writing.
postcards are my love language, i love sending and receiving them. Some remain unsent, some lost in the mail.
I need to send some!
What Joan Frank said. I love looking at the postcards and try to feel hope that our future selves will find us to have been equal to this fraught and dark moment.
Something to work for.
Fellow postcard and small card collector which are just for me
Postcard collector here who loves this piece! Thank you, Alexander.
Oh, gosh, this sent me down a little memory lane - do you remember in the 90s when there were postcard racks in seemingly ever bar and cafe in Manhattan? Half of them were goofy ads, half of them maybe weird art, I never totally understood what they were for but I was incapable of leaving them alone if I happened across one of those racks. I have so many, somewhere.
I do, that Warhol on this patchwork for example was one of those. I loved it.
I'm long overdue in thanking you for sharing these letters with us—each one seems to arrive at just the right moment, just when I need to read it. First your American writer series, which touched on so many perfect formal and existential questions; now these incredibly timely and wonderful meditations. Thank you for your generosity with this newsletter!!
Oh thank you, Larissa, this means a lot.
Well, this is amazing.
Thanks so much!