Redesigning

Searching for Paul Wall

Sat, 30 Jul 2005 16:02:49 GMT

I'm looking for information on a 1930s photographer Paul W. Wall, from Chicago. He is a pictorialist photographer whose work was selected for 17 photographic salons across the U.S. between 1936 and 1941. If anyone knows where I might find further information, let me know. We own 126 of his prints, which can be seen here.

Tips about old postcards

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:14:55 GMT

I've posted a couple of pages about identification points in old postcards. The first page gives a dating guide and a description of processes for producing color postcards in different eras. The second page examines the printing processes used in B&W postcards.

File under: ebay

Moments of Being

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:54:57 GMT

Virginia Woolf had her own take on the Whoa! factor. She assumes that the grind of daily life cuts us off from reality. But on rare occasions the dull facade of our day cracks open and we are shocked by a glimpse of what lies beyond. She called these "moments of being." That's what writers should evoke for their readers.

When I first read this I tried to think about my own Moments of Being and captured one here...

[Writing]

Whoa! factor

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 11:03:29 GMT

How should a short story or essay affect you? What's the impact you should aim for, if you're not simply writing jokes with a punchline? I'm revising some short essays into radio scripts and trying to remind myself.

In a 12/1/03 New Yorker article, Louis Menand wrote that readers want an outcome that is both expected and startling. A general sense of Whoa! What James Joyce calls an epiphany.

What James Joyce meant..., he said, was just "a revelation of the whatness of a thing" -- a sudden apprehension of the way the world unmediatedly is.

[Writing]