Are non-Western cultures conversations peppered with trite, colloquial sayings?
Like, in Kapushi, Zambia (population: 26 people per mile) — does one friend say to another (in Kaonde) upon receiving news that their baby was trampled by antelope, “Everything happens for a reason”?
These condensed and optimistic phrases are woven into our chats and unless you are a hermit or deaf, we are all guaranteed to hear at least one per day.
Sometimes a man’s manliness must be recognized. Manly is a term often reserved for a lumberjack, firefighter, or bounty-hunter. A narrow and unfortunate caricature. Why not a goatherd? Or glass-blower? Or gemologist?
Anyman* that strides confidently into their chosen arena (office, field, arcade, classroom, rubber raft, bowling alley, butcher shop, grist mill) and owns it is, in my opinion, a beast.
Give them this small token: (They will grunt, nod, excuse themselves, and go into the bathroom to shed a single tear.)
*Did I make that up?
I’m talking about leap day. Don’t even bother trying to explain it to me, I don’t actually care. The important thing is that I milked one more day out of this prudish month.
Zeichen Press would be nothing without self-imposed deadlines (and cake) and our card-release was set for March 1.
It was a real pressure-cooker situation around here — and because I don’t have enough intensity in my life, I locked myself in the linen closet and reenacted Apollo 13’s return journey. Just me, my laptop, both cats, and toilet paper tubes. We got home safely, God Bless America.
Anyway, we can thank the ground crew (Kim & Fred) for jury-rigging up product photos:
There once was a Frenchman that could, and would, eat large objects. He ate them bit by bit and was able to digest bicycles, televisions, shopping carts, chandeliers, and even an airplane. This took patience and, reportedly, gallons of mineral oil.
Bit by bit.
This wasn’t some sort of performance art piece — he never meant for it to be a metaphor.
But he ate a plane.
Such deliberateness! I like to imagine that he carefully considered each piece as he pried it off and swallowed it.
Mister Eat All The Things (Monsieur Mangetout) could be an inspiring mascot for an economic philosophy.
I’ve been told that a printing press in the shop is just as good as three acres and a cow. We’ll see. WE’LL SEE.
Anyway, I made this card for the president of The Society of Distributism because he has a fancy book signing coming up — 150 lucky people will receive the card. Oh, and a signed book.
The Epilepsy Foundation needed a new look for their fleet of trucks and The Carney Group contacted me (via telepathy) to see if my brain was available to think of ideas. I’m not just a brain. Geez.
I rescheduled my ice-pick lobotomy and put on my thinking cap.
What if the trucks were bright red and had big white letters with a line like, THIS TRUCK CONTAINS TWO TONS OF HOPE??
Yes?
Okay.
Do I have to write the script myself? The script that tells the tale of an experiment gone horribly wrong — a pharmaceutical company hot on the heals of developing a drug that ends all pain and suffering forever??
The drug, nicknamed “Bozo” does so well in animal testing… So well, in fact, it is released to the general population of prison inmates.
Death row no longer feels like a death sentence, cold concrete cells feel like a day spa, “relationships” feel special.
Until… The unexpected “side effects” begin to develop… Oh, it’s too sick. Just imagine a zombie movie but replace the zombies with clowns.
Here’s a birthday card:
I was once one of them — an innocent amusement park customer. I looked down at them now, from the highest man-made point in Shakopee, Minnesota. I sighed and listened to the chug-chug-chugging from beneath our coaster — our lives depended on the integrity of a giant bicycle chain. Our open-casket hesitated for just a moment at the tippy-top of the steel summit — hesitated just enough for me to grasp the inevitable free-fall. And as we plummeted to our possible deaths, I screamed.
And wet my pants.
The End
How old was she?
Don’t judge me.
Obviously, I wasn’t born riding a roller coaster, I was born screaming. And wetting my pants.
*Hint: this photograph was taken close to the time of the event and **Double Hint: I’m not the baby.
Speaking of literary themes, there is a lot (not really) to dissect in this new (Holiday/Winter Season?) card:
The newspaper is delivered to our doorstep each morning (by horse and buggy) and I comb through it — if I find a particularly odd/sad/absurd story, I read it aloud to whomever (the dog) is nearby.
Here is an abbreviated digest of the only (two) articles I remember from the past (two) months: (In alphabetical order)
1) Stratosphere jump by daredevil, Felix Baumgartner: In an attempt to break the world record, Felix jumped from a capsule suspended 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico.
I plan on breaking that record when I get tired of this whole letterpress thing.
2) Talking elephant in South Korea loves Zeichen Press. Strange but true.
Crazy?! I know! Koshik’s trainer must $*#%-love Zeichen Press.
Enough time-wasting.
Here is a new Christmas card (available NEXT Christmas. Sorry).
The Winter Walk Home from school included two memorable rituals: Dipping our un-mittened hands in 25¢ Tom Thumb coffee (how old IS she?) and passing by a very high retaining wall.
The wall held up the yard of our enemies: Two freckle-faced, red-headed brothers. These boys went to a Public School and as if that isn’t bad enough, they took great pleasure in tormenting me.
I will remind you that this is what I looked like:
Why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?
Armed with boulders of snow, poised-and-ready atop the wall — they would wait. Down Vincent Avenue I trudged: snow-pants under my plaid skirt, grease-covered hand-me-down coat, knit cap with sheepskin earflaps.
Again, why would anyone want to harm such a sweet creature?
I won’t tell you the ending.
We had a dusting of snow the other day but I knew better than to break out the snow-pants and knit cap. It was merely a teaser, a preview, an appetizer, an AMUSE-GUEULE.
Speaking of snow, here’s a new card: 
Zeichen Press has never had a Wintertime Intern.
Until now.
I expect the new “intern” to make me laugh. It’s an important job. She also claims she will sort type and organize cards but we’ll see. WE’LL SEE.
In other news: I made ANOTHER Thinking Of You card. I thought and thought about what sort of message I’d like to receive if I were down-in-the-dumps, and I came up with this:
My sister wanted me to show The-Softer-Side-Of-Fran, but all I could think of was Marshmallow Fluff® and then I just wanted to sit on the beach and pull hermit crabs out of their shells.
What is wrong with me?
There has been an ethical debate raging regarding snail shell art. Some feel that humans have the right to decorate the shells of living snails.
Where do I stand? The following new birthday card reveals my feelings on this sensitive subject:
Please respect my freedom of speech.
Speaking of freedom: Come down to Foiled Again on Saturday night for some free wine. While you’re there, you could buy some of our cards!
Two birds! One stone!
I can’t wait until scientists clone the Woolly Mammoth.
Some might call it reckless curiosity, I call it Vegas-style science. Implanting salvaged Woolly Mammoth nuclei into an unsuspecting Asian Elephant sounds safe to me — what could happen?
Meanwhile, I lay awake and imagine receiving (or not receiving) a baby Woolly Mammoth as a gift. 
But I did take French in high school so I know all about magnetephones, l’autobus, et la lunettes pour Luc.
For the foreseeable future, I will stay within a 30 mile radius of the Zeichen Press headquarters and dream of faraway lands.
Feeling the need for a Field Trip, I went to the Other Side Of Minneapolis and visited Rex Mills. I walked through the front door, broke the tenth commandment, (You shall not covet - geez, get your mind out of the gutter) pretended I had something in my eye, snapped some photos, threw a drink in the owner’s face, stole five pounds of ink, and left.
That man in the photograph is not the owner — Rex Mills has Press Operators.
I will kidnap him as soon as my taser gun arrives in the mail.
Bears have it best — fattening up and slipping into their Wintertime coma. I sit here, like a fool, planning my Wintertime Wardrobe — if I never had to shower, I would wear my neck to ankle long-underwear uninterrupted.
I have Faith that Winter will eventually turn to Spring.
In Spring, I will tear off my layers of long-underwear. I will bury my Smartwool in the backyard. I will shun my calf-length coat like an old boyfriend. (I can’t believe I was with YOU!!)
In Spring, kids graduate from educational institutions. And because I am a Giver, I give you these: New graduation cards. Don’t be like, “Why are you thinking about graduation in October?”
Just accept the greeting card calendar. ACCEPT IT.
How To Play:
Witch
• Using a neighborhood approved selection method (engine, engine #9 — bubblegum, bubblegum in a dish, etc.) select The Witch.
• Use the same method to select a Guinea Pig.
• The remaining players are Runners.
• The Witch leads The Guinea Pig away. (This should be terrifying.) The Witch hides The Guinea Pig — not on the garage roof. (This might be tempting. Don’t do it.)
• The Witch gives (verbally) a list of tasks to The Guinea Pig — things like: A) Run around the house three times singing The Happy Birthday Song. B) Dig a hole, bury one June Bug in it. C) Fill a hat with decorative rocks from the neighbor’s garden, etc.
• At this point, The Witch must call out “ready-or-not!” from wherever he/she is waiting/hiding.
• The “tasks” given to the The Guinea Pig are meant to lure the Runners off their safe-base and into the waiting/hiding clutches of The Witch while searching for the hidden Guinea Pig.
• When/if any Runners are caught by The Witch, he or she turns them into Another Guinea Pig. Meaning: They are hidden and given a new list of tasks for The Runners to complete.
• When tasks are completed for a particular Pig, a Runner must free them by tagging. The Guinea Pig must run to the safe-base without being caught by The Witch.
• If The Runners successfully free The Guinea Pig(s), they win the game.
• If The Witch catches all of The Runners, she/he wins the game.
* If someone wets their pants during course of play, a “time-out” should be called and fresh pants should replace wet pants.
————-
In a bold (not really) and unprecedented (true) move, Zeichen Press will be offereing box sets of greeting cards that are not letterpress printed.
Hold your applause until the end.
We call this our Makeready Collection.
Why?
Letterpress printers (like us) need to test placement, packing, and color when printing something new. The same old piece of paper is printed on over and over again, resulting in an odd (and might I add, paranormal?) mishmash of goodness.
Our Makeready Collection imitates this letterpress printing practice using a computer and some other kind of printing. (Offset)
Here are the three designs: (Available for The New Year)
I’m not a lawyer or a scientist but I understand the importance of writing marital vows that contain language relating to soulless corpses.
I know it’s not Zombie Season because the weather is cooler and I know the weather is cooler because the maggots in the garbage bin magically disappeared. The rash of zombie activity this Summer has inspired me to rewrite my vows — I simply cannot have my husband strip naked and eat my face on the turnpike.
Give this card to newlyweds or oldyweds: