Some vintage mid-century illustrations from an impressive online collection, here (warning: gender roles oh-so-clearly delineated).

Ashram at Wardha, India (July, 1939)

Just over a month before Germany invades Poland (on 1 September 1939, seventy years ago this month), therewith triggering World War II, the great Mahatma Gandhi writes the first of two letters to Adolf Hitler in an attempt to prevent the oncoming war. This particular letter never reaches Hitler, due to an intervention by the government… letter found here; more information here; a transcript of the typewritten letter above follows (Note: knowing a bit about Gandhi, I’d suggest that his sign-off “Your sincere friend” is rhetorical [and more than a wee bit passive aggressive]):

As at Wardha
C. P.
India
23.7.’39.

Dear friend,

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you.

I remain,

Your sincere friend

M. K. Gandhi

HERR HITLER
BERLIN
GERMANY.

If you like ephemera and old letters (as I very much do), you’ll find the website Letters of Note to be a treasure trove.

Thanks for the link, Gregor!

I hope you love birds too.
It is economical…
It saves going to heaven…

—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

1000 words’ worth of insight by Riber Hanssen of Stockholm

Winnipeg, Canada

My colleague Adrian Shum returned to the office this week (following a raucous visit to Toronto and Niagara Falls to fête an old friend’s wedding) with a wee token for each of us at Circle—friend Marian Bantjes’ Empathy Penny. While in Hogtown, Adrian trekked over to the downtown Gladstone Hotel, plugged $2.01 into the Pennysmash Machine a few times, and got these lovely value-added pennies back…

Empathy is a fine thing to have—it truly enriches lives.

Thanks Adrian. Thanks Marian. :-)

+

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!

The above is an admittedly ‘loose’ translation of the Leitmotif of Goethe’s Faust, which was first performed at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland back in 1938 [practically my home stomping grounds as a kid].

London, U.K.

The young ex-pat Israeli illustrator/designer Noma Bar is exceptional at “saying a lot with a little” when it comes to visual language. Learn more about his talent and his minimalist graphic approach here; see more of his works here.

Thanks to my friend Juan Manuel Sepúlveda del Toro (in Madrid) for putting Noma on my radar.

Sydney, Australia

This is a very tasty and flavourful promotional approach for next month’s Sydney International Food Festival. The images shown are by photographer Natalie Boog (details from a series of posters featuring national flags rendered on platters, here). Ah—what a fine way to savour the vexillology of Italy, Switzerland, Japan… among many others.

Bon appétit!