PS: Introducing “Postscripts”

I’ve been thinking of adding a new section to my travel blog for quite a while now. It’s not because the current ones were not enough; on the contrary, they seemed to fit almost everything I wanted to say. But lately, I found myself keeping extra notes or writing short texts that wouldn’t be fully compatible with a travel blog. And that’s actually how I thought of introducing a new section called Postscripts.

In almost every English language dictionary, the postscripts are described as additional short remarks at the end of a letter. In their most old-fashioned form, one will add them after the signature and introduce them by ‘PS.’ Their purpose is always to add an extra piece of information or a quick comment that might have been irrelevant to the main topic of the letter.

Postscripts, also known as post scriptum, can be quirky, playful, odd, or simply informative. No matter what, they offer something to look forward to after the finishing line of a letter.

So, why the “Postscripts”?

As I already said, I found myself lately keeping notes and writing entries that wouldn’t be 100% compatible with a travel blog. Therefore, I’ve been thinking about introducing a new section where I could talk about more things. The idea was born in the Berlin subway when I moved out of my old flat. I spent several hours in the underground, and I had lots of time to think. Plus, I kept writing notes while on the U-Bahn, and I thought about what life really is when we don’t travel.

It turned out that I enjoyed reading some of these texts. Even though the Letters to Barbara is a travel blog, the truth is that I also wanted you to know who is the guy behind this website. Travel writers are not traveling 365 days per year. On the contrary, most of them spend time in their hometowns and deal with daily stuff.

I’ve written it in the past: please do not mythologize life on the road. It’s not just about doing awesome things, wearing fancy clothes, drinking tequilas enjoying the sunset. Most of the time, a travel writer will deal with budget issues; they will wear sweatpants, and the sunset will find them in front of a laptop.

So, while I had some travel stories to tell, I also wanted to share other things as well. Yes, this is a travel blog and will always remain one. But on the other hand, this doesn’t mean that one cannot share a few other things. After all, a life of traveling makes more sense when there is something that you want to escape from.

But there was one question that I had to solve first: how could I possibly add a new section to the travel blog without losing focus? In other words, what should be the new section about, and how could it stay compatible with the Letters to Barbara?

What Postscripts really are

The Postscripts idea came to my mind while being in the Berlin subway. I have some clear sections on the blog: the Letters, the Travel Journal, and the Travel guides. Therefore, a new section should somehow keep intact the (let’s call it) hand-written touch that all my blog sections have. Postscripts seemed ideal: I could add snapshots, snippets, notes, thoughts, or anything in between.

Moreover, I could talk about my thoughts, I could slip into nostalgia, or I could also narrate stories. Exactly like in the old-fashioned letters, I thought, postscripts won’t have to be strictly attached to the main topic. That said, Postscripts won’t always have to be related to travel.

The whole concept started to expand. I tried to think of stuff that fascinated me in the past, and soon, I thought of David Foster Wallace, one of the writers I genuinely adore. Take, for example, Infinite Jest, a postmodern novel of incomparable virtuosity. Wallace was fond of footnotes and used them not just for adding references but also to develop his plots. Sometimes, the footnotes of David Foster Wallace occupy more lines than the main body of the page.

Although I don’t want to do anything similar here, I somehow thought that adding the Postscripts would also mean a richer experience for the reader.

This blog is all about the readers. By introducing Postscripts, I think that you will learn more about me and about the things that bother me. I intend to write travel stories but also stories from my daily life: you know, I also have to deal with horrible everyday things like repairs or tax declarations. So, apart from my daily life snapshots, I plan to share some flash fiction from time to time: short stories with a touch of travel.

Last but not least, you will also read thoughts and opinions and sporadically some texts about other things I love, like cinema or books. And, of course, travel-related stuff that didn’t fit in the travelogues or the journal.

How to identify Postscripts?

The inevitable faith of postscripts -and at the same time, their charm- is that they get buried beneath the main body of a page. Even though this website is a neverending digital letter, I want to respect the PS’s soul. Therefore, I will add a new section to the site. You will identify the postscripts by looking at the very top of each page. There, in the blue-box text, you will see the word Postscripts. Click on it, and you will see all the posts falling under this category. But if you don’t see it and you’d still like to read them, you’ll have to search on the website.

If you wonder if that’s playful or odd, I assure you that I can’t decide either. But somehow, that’s also the destiny of postscripts. Sometimes they are disregarded even if they are meaningful. Usually, the entries will be short, but I can’t always promise that: there’s still a chance that the books of David Foster Wallace will wake up inside me.

Things I wrote

If you read this post the day I uploaded it, you didn’t have to search for it online. But if you arrived here a couple of months later, consider yourself lucky: below, you will find a list of all the postscripts I wrote. These are:

1. The Chimney Sweep. Mary Poppins, William Blake, and the art of bargaining.
2. Miele dishwasher repairs, hello? A broken dishwasher and the future.
3. Can you do me a favor? Scams, life insurance, and dating.
4. The in-between places. A windmill in Belarus and the desert within us.
5. What happens when a hodophile meets an umarell or a kibitzer? Searching for one-liners while traveling.
6. 15 minutes from now. Polaroids and the pandemic.
7. On Barbro Östlihn. Discovering an artist in Sweden.
8. A train through your living room. An architectural paradox in Berlin, Germany.

Feel free to bookmark this page and return now and then for newer installments.

Get them in your inbox

You can, of course, get every new addition to the Postscripts in your inbox. This won’t be your typical letter -but then again, you won’t see it in your analog postbox either. Whenever I publish a postscript, I will notify you via e-mail. It will be just a line or two plus a link to the newest addition. The title will always be “PS,” followed by the post’s name.

Please keep in mind that this is a secret list; therefore, you won’t receive any other material from my mailing list. If you want to get more, check the other sections of my website and subscribe to any list you wish. This one is just for the Postscripts. You can subscribe in the form below.

So, that’s it with Postscripts. Bookmark this page, subscribe to the list, or simply return to the website and search for the newest installments.

Best regards,

George

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Last Updated on May 28, 2022 by George Pavlopoulos