Should I shower today or plan a fictional vacation?
Should I take down the Christmas tree or pet the cat?
Life is so challenging.
Decision du jour: Which card is funnier??
A)
B)
I have fictional vacations to plan and cats to pet — help me move on with my day.
Why hide your abnormality under a dingy flannel sack? Love suffers enough in this disposable culture and I will not be a lemming — I will stand up for the odd, the fractured, the misfit, the offbeat, the freaks. I will stand up and say, I embrace the grotesque!
As long as they don’t smell like urine.
I can handle just about any disfigurement — emotional or physical — that sits next to me on the bus, but my achilles heel in my mad-dash for sainthood, is my keen sense of smell.
Damn my olfactory perception.
I don’t think John Merrick
smelled like urine, so we would probably have been great friends.
I made two new cards that celebrate this subject. Feel free to give them to the person in your life that needs to know they’re special.
If you have someone in your life that smells like urine, they would probably appreciate this card very much.
Congratulations, future St. Blankblank.
**Spoiler Alert** Zeichen Press triumphed over Twenty-Twelve.
At times, the year was a nail-biter: will 2012 take it’s boot off of Zeichen Press’s face?… Will 2012 stop hitting Zeichen Press with a folding chair?… Yes and YES.
And as Zeichen Press says adieu to this Year Of Pestilence, Zeichen Press welcomes Twenty-Thirteen — welcomes it the way a mother welcomes the news of another pregnancy. The gift of amnesia is powerful and we are grateful for it. 
I’m wrapping up the year, as usual, in Brainerd, Minnesota. The temperature is hovering around a balmy 0° and as the supplies dwindle to beer and bacon, we are considering sending the children to town for chocolate and dvd’s. And medical marijuana.
Stay tuned…
I welcome the extra-ordinary. In fact, I am hyper-vigilant and ever-watchful for signs of miraculous happenings.
I ate two pounds of filet mignon on Christmas Eve and I’m pretty sure that was a miracle. It felt like a miracle — béarnaise sauce drizzled over huge hunks of very rare cow flesh doesn’t happen every day.
I love Christmas Miracles, they are the most powerful kind of miracle — A change of heart is better than filet mignon and antlers growing out of a dog’s head is, perhaps, the most miraculous of all.
Jen did say I couldn’t make any more Christmas cards but I squeezed this one past her because she is a sucker for dogs and because I threw her computer in a snowbank.
It’s almost January and you know what that means: It’s time to wash my Smart Wool socks. And celebrate Christmas.
Jen told me I can’t write anymore Christmas or Chanukah cards. After I egged her face, I wrote a Get Well card:
The Christmas Tree lot shack doubled as a meth-lab and while I admire ingenuity and entrepreneurship, I like my Holiday Traditions to be more “cozy-by-the-fire” and less “mix-up-a-batch-in-the-tub.”
BUT THAT’S JUST ME.
The “lot” contained exactly eight trees but due to a Christmas Miracle, we found the perfect tree!
We only had to retie the tree back onto the car once. To be fair, cooking meth doesn’t really prepare a person for handling Christmas Trees.
My Jewish friends don’t have these stories and this saddens me, so I made them a card:
Every few weeks Paper Source orders the same poopy cards from us.
This makes us happy because there is no faster way to evangelize than through a chain of shops that snakes its way through the country.
Our message?
Isn’t it obvious by now? Spread (our idea of) letterpress goodness and joy like spackle into every dark crevice on this planet.
No big deal.
This card:
has nothing to do with fecal matter and so we were surprised (and delighted) to see it on our latest Paper Source order.
Perhaps the following dream was a premonition?:
There were no toilets — but there was a shower scene. The light over the C&P
had become a shower head and I had become naked. I prayed that nobody would walk through (why didn’t I just lock it?) the shop door while I took my unnecessary (and might I add: gratuitous?) shower next to my printing press.
But someone did walk in.
I guess his name is Vincent Schiavelli. He was hiding behind the Heidelberg
with his cow. He wasn’t smiling. I woke up.
The End
Yankee Ingenuity -> 525 Main Chatham, MA 02633
ANOTHER profile in that special series dedicated to bringing our readers biased reviews of shops that carry our goods.
I love a Main Street.
Someday, I will criss-cross this great nation in my (fictional) pick-up with my (fictional) Pocket Pomeranian and my (fictional)) beat-up Polaroid — snapping photos, capturing the quirkiness, the uniqueness, of each Main Street. These will make a great coffee-table book. A companion to my (fictional) Public Bathrooms Across America Book.
The Queen of Main Streets is in Chatham, Massachusetts. Cape Cod. New England’s Main Streets look like movie sets and Chatham’s Main Street is so adorable it should be wrapped in a blanket and burped.
Yankee Ingenuity carries Zeichen Press cards, so it seemed polite to pay them a visit.
(Notice my friend, Andy. Notice his t-shirt.)
Once inside, my Attention Deficit Disorder became acute and I put on my horse blinders.
I made my way to the counter and had a nice chat with the owner — she told me that her husband (an amputee) LOVES:
I bet because of the tricorn hat.
There were so many delightful treasures — here are a few that jumped out at me:
I would like a set of eight.
A shark puppet would help me work through my fears.
These little banks would help me save for my criss-crossing America road-trip.
That was fun. I mean, that was hard work. Do I have to hate something to write it off as a business expense?
There were three things needed for airplane travel with a group of (Shea) children (in the 1970’s):
1) Hubba Bubba
2) Mad Magazine
3) Air Sickness Bags
I don’t think there was ever a flight that didn’t involve one (or more) of us vomiting. Because of this, we quickly located our air-sickness bags in the front seat pockets before seat belts were even fastened.
My parents pretended they didn’t know us.
It was shameful (and a relief) to hand your vomit-filled bag to the stewardess. In those days, the airline logo was proudly emblazoned on each bag. But no more. Today, the bag is white! Who wants to throw-up in a white bag?
Not me.
I designed a bag that I can’t wait to get in front of the bigwigs at SunCountry. They’ll love it.
Our #1 Fan just joined us on The Cape
and I’m so glad he’s not a serial killer. He’ll be here for a few days and then we’ll have to say goodbye. I really, really hate saying goodbye. I hate it so much, I made a card:
Well, here I am, back on The Cape for some Rest & Relaxation. Sharks are the big news out here
(sorry, Andy) so I sent the kids right out into the ocean.
I told them that we need to make clam chowder and clams don’t clam themselves — so get to work.
I believe the following card captures the feeling of every citizen on our planet:
Why would I send that card/who would want to receive a card like that?
Um, I don’t know your friends and I’m guessing we all have at least one unabomber in our lives.
If Zeichen Press were a train, Jen would be the rails. She keeps the train going smoothly down the track, she keeps it from careening off — plowing into innocent townspeople. This analogy makes me the conductor — sweaty, with a cheek full of chewing tobacky and a headful of dreams.
Every Summer, Jen dumps her two boys off at Camp — she makes a thorough list.
But this year was going to be extra-special! SHE was going to dump the boys and hop on a plane for her very own vacation. I’m sure her list was thorough and her suitcase was packed perfectly. I’m sure she left nothing out and measured all liquids to meet TSA requirements.
She forgot one thing:
But this year was going to be extra-special! SHE was going to dump the boys and hop on a plane for her very own vacation. I’m sure her list was thorough and her suitcase was packed perfectly. I’m sure she left nothing out and measured all liquids to meet TSA requirements.
She forgot one thing:
Twice a year Zeichen Press releases a batch of new cards. Twice a year Jen and I hold a top-secret meeting in the Zeichen Press Headquarters and discuss which cards should be included in the release. Decisions are made, tears are shed, hair is pulled.
Printing took place this week and, luckily, the temperature hovered around 97°. Jen loves printing in a sauna. I stayed in the shop while she printed, it was an act of solidarity and I’m sure it did not go unnoticed. I sat on one of the metal stools because I wanted to experience what it was like to sit on a stove-top.
There are more top-secret meetings/fist-fights during the printing process. We need to decide which color paper to print the card on and (hold onto your hats) which color envelope to pair with the card.
Should it be a Green Apple envelope or a Berrylicious envelope?? These are tough decisions but we have to make them.
And don’t think that you could just do what we do, it takes nerves of steel and hearts of gold.
Here are the new cards: These are so amazing, they may melt your faces:
Nothing against seahorses — I’ll get around to writing about them one of these days. But for now, here is a card about a Victorian mermaid.
I think it could be used as a thank-you note? I don’t know… you will have to make that decision. These mermaids were less common than the typical topless mermaids.
While filling out the application for a small business grant from Chase and Living Social, something occurred to me:
Zeichen Press Headquarters is located exactly behind my house in a building some might call a “garage.” 
There. I’ve said it. I feel so much better.
It is 360 square feet of letterpress goodness. It is 10 tons of letterpress finery. BUT, IF we got that grant (would it be in the form of a giant, novelty cheque? I will accept nothing less.) we could expand … We could punch another hole in the leather belt of our business! We’d be that much closer to World Dominance.
We are in over 500 shops around the world. We have dozens of reps. We have distributors in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. BUT, what if we were able to operate from a larger venue? … What if we could hire a big, hairy man to operate our presses?
Step 1) Go to missionsmallbusiness.com and click ‘Log In & Support’ and log in using Facebook.
Step 2) Type “Zeichen Press” in the search field.
Step 3) Click on the blue Vote button next to our business name.
Step 4) Weep, openly.
We need 250 votes (what?! That’s all??) to be CONSIDERED for the grant. How much is the grant?
$250,000.
Or whatever.
NO BIG DEAL.
Please vote — I’ve been starving myself so I would take up less space in the shop. I’m so hungry.
There was a canopy bed in my bf’s bedroom with a Holly Hobby theme. There was a room covered in pink carpeting, but not entirely covered in pink carpeting — one wall featured a mural of a day-glo leopard — when the “black light” came on, it was party-time. There were, at least, four fireplaces — a bronze peacock guarded one of them. In that room, there was an off-limits record collection. Ziggy Stardust confused and intrigued me. An indoor pool in the basement? Yes. Sauna? Check.
This was the Mary Tyler Moore house, circa 1980. AKA: Heaven.
You know, Mary Tyler Moore?! Once Laura Petrie, reborn as herself and the star of her very own situation comedy set in my fair city?
I haven’t been back to the MTM House since my friend’s family moved out, BUT one of my spies was just there (it’s on the market for a cool $3,620,000) and saw our Room and Board prints hanging on two walls. Now, I know: Not as cool as a day-glo leopard mural, but as Miley Cyrus would say, “still pretty cool.”
The Zeichen Press shop has a concrete slab for a floor and this — magically — keeps the room from feeling like a sauna until mid-July. Surrounded by all things letterpress, the air thick with a healthy wi-fi signal, and the temperature hovering around a tolerable°, I streamed some Netflix.
And while watching reruns of Portlandia, I bumped into this:
Powell’s Books.
I paused.
Could it be? Yes, it is! That little bookstore carries Zeichen Press cards!
We’re famous-ish!