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I received mail from CITY MAIL today, responding to yesterday’s blog post about the mystery mailbox that has appeared in Halifax.
Here’s the letter:
I still have no idea who CITY MAIL is, but that’s obviously part of the plan.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2010.
15 Comments
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CITY MAIL: Crazy Individual Takes Your Mail And Investigates Letter
This reminds me of my carrier seagull idea. It never did get off the ground.
carrier seagulls eh? Guess that explains the wet and shitty-smelling letters that showed up on my balcony. Your workers were obviously stopping for lunch at one of the harbour sewage outflows.
that’s just creepy. almost like a ghost wrote it
It should be more appropriately named Hipster Mail, given this response.
I have a passion for the telegraph and Morse Code. Anyone want to send some telegraphs? No, it’s inconvenient and surpassed by other means.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate being so negative about such a service; I think the written word as a form of communication is sick with a disease… A disease that makes us write in shorthand, in snippets of U and OMG. But, the assumption that this service is safe, is false.
WOW! I love city mail. I got a really lovely letter from a buddy of mine that enjoyed a dinner party I threw! What a thoughtful response.
Thanks city mail! at least we can all agree that you are unique.
Humble Messanger, I really appreciated your letter. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Why are people being so negative about an interesting project that connects people in our city and helps to build and foster community? I think it’s really cool. Beautiful.
Its fine that it exists, its fine that people use it. It is fine that it is un-regulated, but I would like it very much if they would provide some way of contacting them if there should be a problem. Trust is a two way street if they want me to provide them with info in trust, yes the location of the people I care about is important and requires trust, then I want to know who they are. Lofty ideals and fun are great, but if they have nothing to hide why all the subterfuge?
I agree with Dr Fever, This is just a hipster project to feel cool and more ‘in touch’ with people.
Also, only a hipster would write a professional letter with a 1950’s typewriter when they obviously have a computer (obviously since they read this blog.) and not bother starting over after making multiple mistakes.
Also, the entire letter didn’t explain city mail at all, it just let us know this guy has a damn fetish with mail.
I think that this idea is fantastic. Hipster or not, doesn’t it entice and delight you conceptuallly? Don’t you want to know what happens if you put a wee letter in those oddball boxes?
The mystery seems to make some Coast readers question the sentiment behind City mail… But look at us all corresponding over a new/old variety of correspondence, especially because of its perpetually mysterious nature. Mmm, delicious communication. Seems like City Mail’s plan/project/experiment has gone as planned: Making us do the good ol’ “WTF?”
Readers: Kudos to you, and also to the City Mail “who” and/or crew: Thanks for doing what you do.
C’mon people lighten the fuck up !
There is no intent here for birthday cards full of cash, the combination number of your safe, whaen you are off on vacation or your homes security code !! !
There is simply an idea by someone(s) who want to do something different & for free. Their delivery schedual says ‘at least’ once a week, does that sound like some kind of place you put sensitive documents ?
You guy’s blowing this off, are looking for problems instead of looking at it as a ‘fun’ kind of thing.
Non sensitive info…no money… a note dropped at someone you know’s bar, or other establishment where they’re known….
Lighten the fuck up already !
Everyone here dismissing this out of their hatred of whatever they think a “hipster” really does need to lighten up. So the guy or girl who wrote it likes the typewriter DIY low-fi aesthetic. Not everything has to be done in Helvetica or Adobe Garamond. Don’t take your anger at your idea of this subculture out on city mail. It’s a new idea, a sort of attempt at a quaint return to a more personal form of communication (alongside what has displaced it), brought on by a person’s fondness of letters. Yes, it has some privacy concerns, but so does Facebook and what else we use today. It’s still got its uses, as does Facebook.
Northern Lights— Hipster smugness aside, you bring up the interesting detail of Facebook. See, at least with Facebook, you have somebody to contact. At this point in time, that’s not possible for this service. As somebody has already mentioned, trust is a two way street. Why the silence? Hm?
Also, how is a letter more personal as an email? If it’s written properly, an email can be just as personal as a letter. It’s all a matter of perspective. But hey, it’s alright. City Mail means well. All that’s required to earn trust with you people is a passion for a dying form of communication.
Dr. Fever, this service doesn’t seem to need a lot of contact information to get something to someone. It was mentioned that they can go by a name and a public place that the person frequents. I wouldn’t doubt that you could write one addressed to “city mail creator(s)” and contact them. It isn’t as easy as writing an email to the public relations people at Facebook, of course, but you’d probably get a more thought-out and personal response, even if it does focus on the creator(s) being fond of letters.
Letters are more conducive to a thought-out and personal message than email. You can include basically the same content in an email, of course (excepting some extra formating options of a letter), but it’s almost required with a letter that it be decently thought-out. It can be an excuse to get personal, because including the typical content of a letter in an email can seem out of place (particularly when email is often used for messages not much longer than text messages). They’re not instant and they take more effort than an email and text message, so more thought is put into them. Of course email and text messages being instant and easy can be great, but it’s not outrageous to like to go back to letters for their advantages while keeping the advantages of instant electronic communication.
So I applaud them for trying something new and interesting. It’s not going to replace what we have now, but it would be nice if it could bring back some of the personality that we have lost in our communication and have its own place among our instant communication. The privacy issues are not to be ignored, but someone has taken some initiative to try something new and I like that.
I don’t know if you’re calling me a hipster, but I couldn’t say whether I am or not. I had to look up the definition of it on Wikipedia after seeing it used mildly often on the Coast (but not really anywhere else), and it seems to be just a term used to show some sort of grudge against people embracing anything vaguely part of urban alternative culture.
I think people deserve more than that, NL. They’re handling people’s personal thoughts without any form of direct contact. It’s not fair to the person who has a serious issue with this “service”.
Again, I think any form of electronic communication is just as valid and thought out as any letter can be. Sure, emails are instant, but who cares? Only people who feel that a handwritten letter is somehow more superior than any other form of communication or because someone dictates that a handwritten letter has some sort of vague romanticism attached to it.