Paris, Upside Down

To you, with the envelope upside down,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. A poet once looked at this city on an ordinary morning and could not describe it the right way up: "Shepherdess O Eiffel Tower, the flock of bridges is bleating this morning." — Guillaume Apollinaire, "Zone" (1913)

Turn the envelope over and Paris stands steady. Here, in 1935–36, the city hangs upside down: on warm ivory paper, indigo etchings of buildings point downward until they meet a sea-green horizon, under an inventive calligraphic modernist title that is nonetheless perfectly readable. There is a rose-colored paper train ticket, a thin gold salon frame, and a few painterly surreal shadows that fall only in certain places.

See: change the direction, and the tower becomes a shepherdess, the bridges her flock. Come read letters from another direction: the ending first, or backwards, whichever you like. It makes no difference which way the rain falls.

Right way up, or otherwise

Storm Post Office

1935–36 · Paris