This month’s Moonshine Ink is a visual feast… starting with its cover, my favorite yet. Besides reading my DiStill Life column on the amazing Susie Alexander, who bested a van Gogh legacy in February (see page 60), here are my picks for the month (click the links to read if you’re not in town to pick up a copy):

-Practical Wellness columnist Linda Lindsay’s exposé on radon: its startling Tahoe statistics, and how to test and protect your home, page 20

-the fun design and great reader-submitted images in the Winter Photo Annual, page 27

-the tater tot photo on page 44

-Robert “Fro” Frohlich’s Glacier Point adventure, page 46. He’s one of my favorite local writers — always good for a laugh!

-Olivia Dwyer’s profile on local Etsy artisans, page 58, well written and so nice to see folks doing what they love for a living

-and of course, Seth Lightcap’s tribute to C.R. Johnson, page 49, who died at Squaw Valley on February 24

This week’s postcard is not in my collection, but I’m admiring it (and the others in its set) from afar. A collaboration between Kansas City photographer Hannah Huffman and San Francisco artist Lisa Congdon, the limited-edition postcard set features four different diptychs (part photo, part illustration). Thanks to Poppy Talk for cluing me in on this!

I was utterly slammed after returning from Mexico a month ago, so I’m only now getting around to posting a few highlights of my Caribbean getaway for Scotty and Victoria’s wedding. Enjoy the views from Tulum:

beachfront of Rancho San Eric, where we all stayed

Coba ruins’ main pyramid, the largest in the Yucatan at 140 feet

This week’s postcard hails from the great red north, where the Winter Olympics Games are well under way… go USA!

DATE: June 2004

FROM: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

SENDER: Annemarie

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marin Petkov

I’m a big drop cap fan… not surprising since I work in the print world. I love their functionality, yet the seemingly endless creative ways designers work within the constraints of only 26 letters. Wired magazine, for one, does a good job of mixing it up… even taking a drop cap to more than a fourth the page size (see examples from the Jan 2010 issue below). But are drop caps another breed dying alongside print? It seems most online sources, even wired.com, drop the beloved drop cap for plain-old bolded text, or nothing at all. Perhaps I need to start a Save the Drop Cap campaign. Who’s with me?

DATE: April 2, 2007

FROM: Reno, NV

SENDER: This gem come from the lovely Chérie, who was a coworker turned great friend of mine. As she loved to gift me postcard sets, she is responsible for many of the blank postcards in my collection, like the one below from Lela Lee’s Angry Little Girls series. The set of 30 postcards came in a lemon yellow tin that I’ve since kept to store other postcards.

ARTIST: David & Goaliath

This one’s in the mail to Chérie right now:

It’s Moonshine time! I love it when my column gets inked every month… just seeing on the page is exciting, but especially when it’s chosen to be in color. My interview with photographer Ryan Salm got two full-color pages (pg 54–55), so be sure to check it out. You can see even more of his work on his new gallery website.

A few other highlights, in my opinion, are (links and page #s provided):

-the photo of “Taxi James” in Do Tell, pg 2 (he he!)

-Beth Ingalls’ call for patience, pg 9

-Olivia Dwyer’s Vancouver Olympic round-up… what locals to watch, and when to watch them, pg 31

-Flip Speckleman’s diary column… be sure to read his Feb. 1 entry, pg 39

-Jackie Varriano’s Knitting Factory (pg 53) and Courtesy Call (pg 56) profiles. Courtesy Call front-woman Elyssa Lee cuts my hair, and she rocks!

And don’t forget to submit to Moonshine’s winter photo annual (deadline is March 3) and/or the Moonshine Ink 500 writing contest (due April 19). Details on pg 6 of the current issue.

Well I’m back from Tulum with a few new postcards I found on my journey, and so I just have to share one with you this week. The weathered, handmade paper was hard to write on!

DATE: February 9, 2010

FROM: Mexico

SENDER: Me, sending this off to a Missouri Postcrossing member first thing tomorrow

ARTIST: José Guadalupe Posada, a Mexican engraver, illustrator and artist

I think I’m in love with quilts. Like big modern canvases, they are geometric, and not afraid of color. But better than a painting or sculpture, they have a function. Thus, I am thrilled to see some highly renowned examples of the craft at the Nevada Museum of Art this month.

Opening tomorrow (and showing through April 11), A Survey of Gee’s Bend Quilts takes a look at the quilts and traditions of the women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The New York Times called them “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced.” Now if only I could snuggle up in one.

Nettie Young, Sampler Quilt, early 1970s. Corduroy, 84 x 77 inches. Courtesy of Tinwood Alliance

This week’s postcard is promotional… it arrived advertising “Shoot First and Ask Questions Later,” an experimental video by Julie Perini that’s showing at Sierra Nevada College’s Prim Library through February 19. The opening reception is on February 11, 5–7 pm, with an artist lecture at 5:15 pm. I’m intrigued, and would find out more, but it says to ask questions later…

DATE: January 27, 2010

FROM: Incline Village, Nevada

SENDER: Sierra Nevada College Fine Arts