Packages for an Imagined Event: Item 14

One fanciful idea from the 2011 Wizarding Event was the Owl Post.  Borrowing from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe, we knew that 'getting mail' would be a very big deal indeed for our First Year Wizarding Students.  Having no trained owls to hand, we named our post office after the species in general and hand-delivered their letters and packages the old fashioned way, by Pony Express!

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In my persona as a (wizardly) Pony Express Rider for the Owl Post, Western Regions Division, I told the students that Athena, my winged horse, was "out back" being treated to a "nice bag of oats" while I came inside to give them their mail.

 

Each student received a packet of 3 letters and two postcards, all from different letter-writers.  And each student received a Perfect Postal Package containing some magical item and a letter.

In creating each student's package, I created some specific criteria.

• The items contained had to be things that could be regarded (or imagined) as magical in some way.
• The gift package had to suit the child's age (our group went from 8-14 years of age).
• The package had to have comparable coolness as far as all the other (19 total) packages were concerned (so that no child felt somehow slighted).
• Each package had to be slightly unique compared to the others (similar was okay, but the overall package had to be a one-and-only experience for the child).
• Each package contained a personally written letter to the child that talked about the items enclosed.
• The items had to be enclosed in some funky, exotic, or otherwise not quite everyday box of some kind.
• The package had to be wrapped for the mail in heavy brown packing paper; tied with some kind of cord or fiber; addressed personally but oddly to each child; and decorated with real postage stamps and cancellation marks.

Another conceit was that the mail came from all over the world.  A long-time School tradition, former students (visiting as well as the School's own) would write letters of welcome to the First Years.  Our goal here was sneakily pedagogical: we wanted to create a kind of subliminal ambiance with two notions: that education (even wizardly education) is a global thing and that each student was a valued person within that kind community.

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Package 14 hailed from Down Under.  It's recipient, a young lady, was one of the oldest of our First Year's. In so-called real life, she was from a home-schooled family who had traveled a lot. So it seemed fitting that her Perfect Package had traveled a ways to get to her that day.

The outer box was a lucky Goodwill find: sizable, colorful, and sturdy (and only 99 cents!).  It added a festive quality to the gift.

One of the two enclosed items was a Goodwill find as well.  Of the classes students could take on Orientation Day, one was the classic Potter-esque Potions Class.  Our professor in that area is, in this universe, a practicing herbalist with a specialty in mycology (the study of mushrooms).

 More on the Dear Professor W. can be read at this post.

One of the more amusing aspects of creating these Perfect Packages was seeding ideas that might, or might not, make their way into the narrative of the day's event.  For although there was a story for the day, which the actors and crew about in a kind of general way, and a schedule of activities, which were designed, in part, to serve the story, what actually got said and done was entirely improvisational. 

In the case of this package, a now-out-of-style potions mini-cauldron was the primary object.  It looked nothing like the cauldrons described in Rowling's books (or later depicted in the films). It was flat, small, and seemingly well-used. I hoped if that fact would prompt this particular student to ask Professor W about it!  

Actor Hoja is very quick on her toes with improvisation, which I knew when creating the post items. Working several months in advance of the event, I entertained myself with wondering how she'd respond to the various curve balls I was throwing her (and her actor colleagues) via the packages and letters.

Besides the cauldron, the package also contained an elaborate map which, unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten to photograph! My apologies - especially since it was a rather lovely and creative bit of paper folding, embossed stamping, and words.  I'd received it as a piece of mail art some 20 years ago. It was tied closed with a strip of raffia; the closure was a wee bottle filled with seeds and tiny leaves.

I broke out one of my portable typewriters to write the accompanying letter.  (For those of you scoring at home, I believe it was a Smith Corona Galaxie II.)  The paper was a heavy-ish-weight parchment.

TRANSCRIPTION

AUSTRALIA

Autumn 2011

Hello A--,

Greetings from Down Under from a long-ago N------ grad!  I attended school there from 1992 to 1999.  So I am part of the grand tradition of writing letters of welcome to the incoming class.

WELCOME!!!

I am continuing another tradition of passing on something I used in my studies. It's not required that we send something, but so many of us received little gifts when we were first years, that we like the idea.

My welcome gift to you is actually THE gift I received: a specialized cauldron. Apparently a long-ago potions master required all of his students to have one of these flat models.  They've gone out of style, but there are a few of them still floating around as mementoes [sic].  I have no idea where my welcome letter writer found it as I've never seen one besides this once since!

The map packet is something I made to entertain you.  The places are real, I am told. It was an experiment in magical mapmaking.  I hope you like it.

Best of luck in your studies. Please remember me to professor M-------.  She was my favorite teacher. 

                                                              Yours very truly,

                                                               Morgan LaPlante

                                                               House D----, 1999

The letter was placed in an envelope that matched the bright pink of the box.

And all was wrapped in the heavy brown wrapping paper for mailing.

And although the final land-miles of its journey were via (Flying) Pony Express, I made sure that the item would make it safely over the oceans between Australia and the Midwest by employing one of the many faux postage rubber stamps I have. (In this case, it is one I designed myself for the original Dante's Wardrobe, a mail order purveyor of rubber art stamps!)

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The posts describing all the imaginary postal packages can be found grouped here under the tag faux package.   

Packages for an Imagined Event: Item 13

Image source: NASA

On 19 August 2011, as noted on the mission site of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, "NASA's Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called 'Coronation.' The mission's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, hit the fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second. The energy from the laser excites atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light from that spark with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the target."

 Image source/credit

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law) 

Early in the schedule for the 2011 Summer Wizarding Event, I put out a call for unusual stuff -- oddments, baubles, and what-have-you items to serve as the contents for the Perfect Postal Packages I was making for our 1st Year Wizarding Students.  I had it in mind that I wanted things that were, essentially, old science & engineering tools - like those pictured below.

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My father-in-law, Professor Science, provided a number of really wonderful items. Why do I call him Professor Science, you ask?  Check this out -- his areas of research study:

Electronic Spectroscopy: Analysis of the vapor spectra of aromatic and heterocyclic compounds. The principal areas of interest are the shapes of vibronic bands and computation of the band contours of asymmetric rotors. The objective is to determine the change in molecular shape in the first excited electronic singlet state.

Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy: Determination of the fundamental vibrational frequencies of aromatic and heterocyclic molecules by measurement of the infrared and Raman Spectroscopy and calculation of the normal coordinates. The objective is to determine the force constants of these molecules and to examine the transferability of these force constants to related molecules.

Yeah, when the so-called Sarcastic Rover writer talks about "doing a Science" let''s just say my FIL is all over that like white on rice!

The recipient of this package was the oldest of our nineteen new wizarding students (who ranged in age from 8-14 years).  Like the other older boy, he was a little uncertain about participating in the event.  But there was still a tad of want-to-believe in his soul!  He wanted to be a wizard.

This wooden box was something I found at our neighborhood rummage sale.  It had belonged to an artist who used it to hold brushes and drawing pencils.

The wizardly tools found within were a metal, expanding spectrometer (Professor Science had used this in his grad school work!); a skinny steel tweezers (found at the ever-awesome American Science & Surplus); and a piece of obsidian that my brother Architect (who was one of the two prime movers of this event and who played our Headmaster) had given me the day he invited me to play along.  (It was in a box of marvelous junky stuff much of which was included in the "Perfect Packages" -- miniature glass tubes, small locks, a wee carved soapstone elephant, to mention but a very few!)

As with each package, the items were boxed or wrapped or bagged within.

And as with each, a personal letter was enclosed. 

TRANSCRIPTION

Hello S- - -,

You're probably wondering what this package is all about! Here's the story.  It's a N - - - - - tradition that former students write letters of welcome to the incoming First Years.  As former Head Boy, I am going to take the extra step and send you some stuff I know you will need if you take any of Prof. Trolly's classes. (By the way, that' "Professor T------------" to you anytime you are speaking to him or about him with other faculty! We just call him that behind his back!)

He is big into Muggle technology, as you will soon find out. He always requires his students to gather together examples of Muggle stuff. I never got around to showing him these items so I figure I'd save you some time up front by sending them on. I'm sure he'll be delighted.

Too bad Professor E - - - - - - -  (or E-cubed, as we upper levels refer to him) is on sabbatical this year.  He teaches a mean Magical Metals class.  Tough as all get out but he has a great sense of humor which makes it do-able.

Well, that's all I've got to say.  If you have a moment with the Headmaster, tell him the former T---- Head Boy says hello.  Better tell him my name, though, as there have been a lot of T----- Head Boys during his time there (and he's ancient!).

Good luck in your first year work!

T------- C-------- V----------, III

House T-----, 2002

p.s.  That's OBSIDIAN in the green bag.  Not Muggle, just volcanic!

I never did find out if this young man passed on the message from this letter writer to the Headmaster. I had a lot of fun "seeding" the improv aspect of the day with my many letters to the new students.  (I wrote 125 of them all told, each from a different imagined character!)  Each of the actors had a general idea of the day's story but as it was a live action role play event, improv was the name of the game.  

Almost a year later, this past Spring, when a few of us got together for a dress-up dinner, I learned that this gift of scientific tools thoroughly delighted this young man and that he thought the tools to be truly wizarding in nature!  I am sure Professor Science and Arthur C. Clarke would agree.

__________________________________

 

The posts describing all the imaginary postal packages can be found grouped here under the tag faux package.  

Fictional Correspondences: Addressing Fictional Postcards for the NonFictional U.S. Mail

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A later post in this series will go into detail on the making of a "really real" looking faux envelope.  But since you want want that imaginary letter to reach its very real recipient, you'll need to take care in how you address the item that the USPS actually sees!

Happily, our friends at the Post Office have published a nicely detailed document about it.

You can find the whole caboodle at this link here.
Here are the basics (below).

What MUST be present is a correct street address, city, state, and zipcode.  The P.O. folks state to use the real name of the recipient. Some postal peeps won't deliver an item if the name of the person who actually lives  at the address is not present.  Then again, we keep getting mail here at our flat addressed to the last 4-5 people who lived here before us!

Fine and dandy - but what if what you are sending is a POSTCARD?  In the olden days, postcard addresses were pretty loose.  Somehow they arrived.

If you live in a small town this might still work, but nowadays it's more likely the postcard will never arrive. You can still play around a bit, though -- within limits. 

(1) Write the letter part to/from the fictional characters 
but address it to the real person. 

(2) Keep the surname of the "real person" in your address, 
but be playful.

 

(3) Use the fictional recipient's name along with c/o (i.e., "in the care of"] the name of the real person.

Then again, you could be bold and daring like my brother The Captain, who changed the name and misspelled the street of this postcard he sent me once.  Somehow it reached our mailbox.

And, of course, be sure you have the correct postage.  Here are the current rates (as of May 2012).

For First Class Letters

• 1 ounce: 45¢
  2 ounces: 65¢
  3 ounces: 85¢
  3.5 ounces: $1.05
• postcard: 32¢ (a non-standard sized postcard will require additional postage)

• square envelope.: add 20¢

 And a little more info, FYI.

 Image source/credit

Next in the Series: So Now You Are an Imaginary Correspondent . . . What's Next? ~ This will be posted on 25 May as I have some other fun stuff to post in the meantime!

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Follow the series.

1. Fictional Correspondences: What are they? Why do one? How to begin.
2. Fictional Correspondences: Creating A Writing Persona
3. Fictional Correspondences: Finding Someone to Write To

4. Fictional Correspondence: Making Your Own Letterhead - Part 1: Design 

5. Fictional Correspondences: Making Your Own Letterhead - Part 2: Implementation

5. Fictional Correspondences: Addressing Fictional Postcards for the NonFictional U.S. Mail (this post)

Packages for an Imagined Event: Item 12

  Image from Shopgoodwill.com

Of late I've been finding interesting boxes and small cases at our local Goodwill shops.  It seems to go in cycles.  Perhaps with Spring springing more folks are clearing out their closets and attics.

 

 Image from Shopgoodwill.com

 

In making the "perfect postal packages" for last summer's wizarding event often the boxes were what made the package perfect.  In the case of Package 12, three containers made it all work.

You can see right off from this odd folds of the paper wrapping that there was something unusual about the contents of this package!

The round, outer box was a lovely gold-painted paper mache thing I'd received as part of a gift from a friend in Europe some 20+ years ago.  Over the years it's held wrapped candies, paper clips and post pins, sewing tools, jewelry, mini-cassette tapes, and many other miscellaneous oddments that needed a temporary home.  It was the perfect start to a magical package. 

I don't recall where this little faux-silver boxlet came from.  But it was the perfect size for holding two small seashells from my 'nature collection' of items.  Both shells showed red and purples in their coloring, which went well with the dark velvet lining of the boxlet.

Several of the new wizarding students received small magnifying glasses in their packages.  I'd found an inexpensive set of them at the ever awesome American Science & Surplus shop. (We here in Milwaukee are one of the lucky 3 cities to have an actual brick store, but you can also find some fantastic stuff at their website here.)

The challenge was to make each glass somehow unique in its presentation. In this case, I used a folded box made of heavy cotton rag paper and printed in nice, dark red ink.

The two items fit rather nicely into the gold sunstar box.  Now it was only a matter of writing up the proper letter to accompany it all.  I was struck by the way the 3 containers, though unique, somehow went together.  It's a little hard to see in these pics, but the gold paint on the sunstar box was elaborately applied in a slightly swirled pattern.  The folded paper box had a flowing paisley design that seemed to move at times.  And the little silver box had a rush of embossed curly shapes on its top and sides.  All this motion suggested to me a kind of "changing magic" and thus the letter was inspired.

TRANSCRIPTION

New Student Orientation Day

in July 2011

Dear E---,

Congratulations on being accepted to Wizard School!  I bet you are so excited.  I know I was.  That was 3 years ago.

I am now a Fourth Year - my House is House G----. (I  love to make stories so I fit right in!)

Here are a few "Welcome" items.  The magnifying glass is a Muggle one, but I found it very useful.  The silver box is magical - you can hide things in it!  But it likes to play little jokes.  As I am wrapping it up for you, I am putting a silver button and a pretty dried flower inside.  You'll have to open it to see if the box changed them or not!

Good luck at school.

Your friend,

A----- W-------

This letter was written on rather plain white linen-y stationery.  I used my Art Deco era Esterbrook 407 "Dip-less" pen with Higgins Eternal Black Ink for the writing.  But the  letter looked a bit plain after that.  So I took one the inkpads I use for stamping, the gold one, and gently brushed it over the front and back of the page to give it a slightly aged appearance.  Still not enough "effect" I thought.  So I added some gilding to the edge of the paper as well.

The letter was folded and placed on top of the items.

Since the young lady who wrote the letter was, ostensibly, a Fourth Year student at our imaginary school of magic, the stamps were local, i.e., good old U. S. of A .  Though in this case, local also meant about 60 years old!  My father-in-law, Professor Science, very kindly gifted me with a package of old, still viable U.S. postage stamps.  (He'd had them appraised and, after finding they weren't of much value, was happy to pass them on to me and my Letter Games.)

The stamps were hand cancelled using the custom-made Owl Post stamp I'd designed for the event.  A larger version of the same design was stamped below.  As for the other delivery stampings, I like to think they were put there by an over-eager Postmaster who wanted to make sure this student received her package on time!

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The posts describing all the imaginary postal packages can be found grouped here under the tag faux package. 

Packages for an Imagined Event: Item 11

Many of the "perfect packages" from last summer's Wizarding Event included sea shells.  I'd collected a lot of interesting ones over the years and they tucked in to the packages nicely.  Bu I liked them, too, for their seeming magicalness. 

Image source

Image source

They remind me of mazes and labyrinths.

Wall Maze (circa 1060 AD) from Cathedral at Luca

Maze from the Hereford Cathedral Mappa Mundi ("map of the world")

Above 2 images source

And they remind me of nebulae.

Image source

Package 11 began with an amusingly mysterious, tarnished metal box. I could easily imagine its being stashed away on the shelves of some wizardly person.  Especially neat was its shaped carry-handle and octagon-itude. The clasp was in good repair but missing a lock.  I substituted an old metal pin I found in my miscellany box of such things.

Since the metal case was such a prize in itself,* its contents were simple:  two sea shells (presented in a small, black cloth pouch) and a weighty, solid metal cache box containing a tea candle.

I knew the age of the young lady who would receive this package and wrote the letter from a girl-wizard who I imagined was just a little older and recently graduated from our school of magic.  The letter itself was handwritten using a dip pen and mocha brown fountain pen ink.  The stationery was a half-sheet of pale pink calligraphy paper with a parchment finish.

Text of the letter

Summer - July -2011 - new student day

Hello A----,

My name is S------ C------.  I finished my studies at N------ three years ago. When I started, I thought I wanted to specialize in Metal Magic (my father is a Goldsmithy Mage, and I just love what he does!).  So I was very surprised when the magic sorting vessel said "House N------!"

But I am so glad it did as I am very happy in my work with plants and ground creatures.  I hope all goes well for you too!

Here are a few things to get you off to a good start!  The "gift candle" is actually very useful in doing homework assignments (both potions and Professor M-------'s). You never know when you need a little spellfiremaker!  I used the metal box to store my tools for Professor T----------'s 2nd year class in "Muggle Technology Repair."

But the two shells are just a little good luck gift.  I received something similar on my first day and so appreciated it (I was very nervous!). 

Yours truly,
S------

The case fit perfectly into a gift box I'd found at Goodwill.  It had a snug-fitting cover and was covered with a heavy, crushed-silver paper.

The package, like all the others, was wrapped in brown packing paper and tied up, in this instance with some of the leftover raffia fiber I'd used to crochet the Headmaster's Straw Hat.  The postage stamps were real ones, part of my box of world stamps that I also use for the fictional letter games I play.**  The bright delivery stickers were a lucky find at a local office supply shop.  (In the back of the store they have a wall of vintage office materials!)

Here is a freeze-frame capture shot of the moment the box was opened by its happy recipient.

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The posts describing all the imaginary postal packages can be found grouped here under the tag faux package.  

* One of the "rules" I created for the making of these packages stated that "The package had to have comparable coolness as far as all the other (19 total) packages were concerned (so that no child felt somehow slighted)." (See the post for Package 1 for the rest of the criteria.) In this case, the metal case was of rather high caliber, raising its coolness factor.

** In a few weeks I will be posting a short series on the creation of fictional correspondences.  Stay tuned!