Tea for the Tillerman, party invitations, and Margot Tenenbaum.

Went to the Brewfest tonight with Andy. It was perhaps a bit of a lost cause for him to bring me along, because I'm really not into beer and I typically avoid drinking it in public, if at all... but the event was a fund-raiser for local public radio, which we listen to constantly and try to support whenever possible, so I went along. Like a good young pup. It turned out that stumbling through crowds of half-drunken hippies and hipsters (to the soundtrack of repetitive jam band music, no less) wasn't a total loss--there was a corner store of one-dollar vinyls in the brewfest auditorium, and Andy bought me a good copy of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman. Such a small price to pay for an album that makes me want to wrap up in a sweater, drink cocoa, and draw maps of imaginary places like I did when I was twelve.

I am developing a bizarre penchant for all things that can be sent by mail: cards, applications, care packages--anything that requires a stamp and a handwritten address label. I guess it stems from my liking for documentation--the idea that you can seal an idea or a correspondence in an envelope and send it to someone, handwritten, hand to hand (if indirectly). Tangible communication in a world where few things are concrete.
Lately I've begun creating my own college graduation party invitations. On the outside they'll have light, sparkly chartreuse vellum printed with quotations in funky fonts (you can download them for free: "Pharmacy," "Pagan Poetry").
After searching for a while in books and online, these are the quotes I'm considering for the covers...

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I'm with you, kid. Let's go." --Maya Angelou
"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." --Albert Einstein
"The task of a modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts." --C.S. Lewis (I am somewhat at odds with this quote; a bit colonialist, is it not? And I'm not sure I want C.S. Lewis on my invitations. In general I don't think much of either his writing or his patriarchal Christian connotations. But I like the idea that education should be about cultivating a fertile learning environment that encourages wildness and individuality in students, instead of imposing standards that confine them. Not farming, but fertilizing. And not with bullshit, either.)

The designs are about halfway done right now. I'll post some perfectly marvelous pictures of them when the whole batch is completed.
On the inside of the cards I'm encouraging guests to arrive dressed up (or down) as their favorite character from a book or film... I hope it'll work; I'm offering handmade music mixes as door prizes.
Think I'll be Margot Tenenbaum, if I can just find that elusive striped dress...

And now, back to reality.