It is raining outside and I slept for maybe four hours or so. Today will need to be devoted to those less creative things. Getting rid of at least a portion of my Postcard collection seems like a perfect use of time. I just send about 10 pounds of postcards to the recycling bin. No worries, no important historical Documents among them. The postcards I am throwing away today are those “free” ones, the ones from M@xRacks and GoCard. I have so many of these, that throwing away three boxes does not even feel noticeable. I just used to take ten at a time. Yes, I am one of those people whom I hate myself. I was responsible for some of the good ones missing when you wanted them, maybe. But after browsing through the hundreds and hundreds of them, I think I was only responsible for the bad ones disappearing. My collection are mainly bad postcards. Some really bad. And plenty of them.
There are many more postcards at my parents’ place in Germany. A friend once gave me the half of her parents’ collection. Her Parents used to travel extensively in the 60’s, but had decided not to take any photographs themselves, just buy the postcards available in those various villages and little towns all over Europe. I remember that the postcards were quite good, but this is what I thought of my free post card collection as well.
I am not alone. Martin Parr (what a man!) has his collections of Boring Postcards and as far as I know, (or as far as I learned from McSweeney's Issue 6), Walker Evans’s collection of several thousand postcards is now at the Metropolitan... Hidden somewhere, deep inside the museum.
