Message on postcard:
Hey Josh —
Mase on, bro.
Mike
Resplendent JPEG artifacts
Subscription postcards: Toponyms, thimbleberries, and canine trail stewardship
Message on postcard:
Hi Sacha — My girlfriend Mandy and I are visiting the coast this weekend. Today we’re in Pacific City, Oregon. There’s a big rock in the ocean called Haystack Rock. It’s confusing, because there’s a second, identically named offshore rock a little ways north from here. I’ve heard far-out hypotheses that all life is a gigantic computer simulation. If so, whoever programmed it failed to allocate enough namespace for geological features.
Message on postcard:
Evgeniya — Greetings from the aptly named Beachside State Park here on the Oregon coast. This morning I found a sealed glass jar that looks like it floated over from Japan. I took it with me; it’s weird and strange to think about how it got here.
Message on postcard:
Hey Andrew — Today I visited Cape Perpetua on the Oregon coast. My girlfriend Mandy was very excited to see that there is a trail named “Amanda’s Trail”. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that the sign is no longer accurate. My dog Skillet peed there, which makes it technically his now.
Subscription postcards: Chocolate outrage, confusion in Hebo, and Gangnam’s high-water mark
Message on postcard:
Hey Steve —Today I saw a glucose-based, nutritional energy gel for sale. The name of the product was “Chocolate Outrage”. I can’t say for sure, but I think it was named by a white guy.
Message on postcard:
Mollie — Greetings from Mount Hebo, near the Oregon coast! I’m camping here with my girlfriend Mandy. It’s a little cold out, and there are a few patchy remnants of snow on the ground. Skunk cabbage is blooming in a nearby stream and along the lake. It is very peaceful, especially compared to the bait and tackle shop a couple miles away in downtown Hebo. It is your one-stop shop for fishing gear and hateful, self-pitying screeds printed from the Internet and misattributed to Bill Cosby.
Message on postcard:
Bridget — I am at a coffee shop in Pacific City, Oregon. There is a chalkboard here, upon which a person has written “Gangnam Style! Whoop whoop! Don’t erase.” The entire declaration contains twenty additional exclamation points not included here. Years from now I think that historians will recognize this chalkboard as the official high-water mark for worldwide interest in “Gangnam Style”.
Subscription postcards: Exploding craters, an important message from Hubert Humphrey, and a bunch of chimps
Message on postcard:
Sacha — I’m here at the Tillamook Cheese factory in Tillamook, Oregon, where they have a kiosk that allows you to send “Cheese Mail”, a cheese-themed video postcard that will be warmly received by friends, family, and, if the amphetaminic Cheese Mail marketing is to believed, your coworkers. Three Cheese Mails cost just one dollar, so of course I was very excited to send out about fifteen hundred. Unfortunately, the kiosk ate my dollar and I left dejected.
Message on postcard:
Evgeniya — Gift shops are weird. I visited the Tillamook Cheese factory today and their gift shop only had one good postcard of the factory. But they did have copies of the books Life in the Goat Lane and How to Live with Teenagers. The cover of the latter book featured a crazed-looking teenager about to run over an old lady with his car. I’m not sure what it had to do with cheese or why the teen’s heart was filled with such malice.
Message on postcard:
Elizabeth — Here is a picture of chimps using tools to get food. They stick twigs into dirt that’s full of bugs. Then they eat the bugs that are on the twig. People used to think that only humans use tools. Today we know that other primates (like chimps), birds, elephants, and even some insects can use simple tools.