What Roy Arenella Was Doing on August Sixteenth

Two days ago, on Monday, August 16th, Roy Arenella decided to send me two pieces of mail.

The first was a photograph of this blog on June 27th. As Roy asks, on the writing side of this card,

In the relationship between snailmail & blog, is this card ANOTHER GENERATION or ANOTHER DIMENSION?

Of course, it must be both. This card is number 348 C P/C (the 348th numbered mailing of the year, this one being a “copy of a photocard”). That much I understand, but there is something stamped within Roy’s traditional pseudo-cancellation mark that I just can’t make out: a something and an eight?


Roy Arenella, "Foto" on the Screen (28 Jun 2004)
The second mailing is a series of Chinese-boxed envelopes ending in a card, and it also refers back to an entry on this blog. [[[[[[It begins with an envelope upon which my address is typed upside-down, and upon the face of that card Roy has rubberstamped a square inside of which he’s added a squat minim and a fat tittle, which together make an i.


Roy Arenella, "i" (16 Aug 2004)
[The next envelope is stamped “CAREFUL,” the E of which is escaping from the word. [The third envelope, rubberstamped in a different rubbertypeface, bears the word “GENTLE,” with the first E trying to slip up and out of the way. [The fourth envelope is rubberstamped in smaller letters, and the word “TENDER” is almost losing its fourth E. [The fifth envelope is a plastic sleeve. [Inside this sleeve is a blue card upon which are placed a baby’s bandaid and a tiny circular bandaid, arranged to form an i. [All of this reminds us of endwar’s “decapitation of the i.”]]]]]]


Roy Arenella, “wounded i" (22 Apr 2002)
{{{On the back of this blue card, Roy writes,

I couldn’t resist—after seeing the “de-capitated i” on this morning’s blog—sending you my own “wounded i.” Sorry you had to work so hard to get to him but naturally I had to protect as best I could this vulnerable fellow!

}}}

un violon d’ingres