Dear CHICAGO-AREA Mark Twain enthusiasts: You may find interest in a talk that I will be delivering Sunday afternoon, November 17, 2002, at the Curt Teich Archives in Wauconda, Ill., and I trust that it is an appropriate use of the Forum to invite you to attend. (Does it count as shameless self-promotion if Mark Twain is your hobby, not your profession? Anyway, why should self-promotion be inappropriate for an admirer of Mark Twain?) "Mark Twain on Postcards" is a survey (lavishly illustrated of course) that I delivered at the Elmira symposium in 2001. Using examples from 1905, when postcards first became a huge fad in the U.S., on to the present, I show how Mark Twain's image, his words and scenes, his trail of dwelling places and travels, and his iconic status in general tended to feed and be fed by the postcard medium. The quotes, the statues, the staged scenes, the Tom and Huck Motel and so forth are a lot of fun to flip through, and I am as eager to tell the postcard people about Mark Twain as I was to tell the Mark Twain people about postcards. For the Elmira audience, the biographical details were hardly necessary; for the postcard audience, I will be a little more thorough. The museum will also be displaying a selection from my collection of Mark Twain postcards. The lecture is at 4 p.m. and will be followed by a reception. This is a fund-raising event celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Curt Teich Archives. The lecture is $11, lecture + reception $28. For reservations call 847-963-3400. The Curt Teich Postcard Archives are part of the Lake County Discovery Museum (a not-for-profit agency), located about 30 miles north of Chicago. Established to hold the complete production files of the Curt Teich Co., the premier manufacturer of postcards in the U.S. between 1898 and 1978, the archive has flourished for 20 years as a research facility and a source for cultural historians (e.g., to illustrate those books on roadside diners or Route 66) and lately has opened a large display building. For more information see www.teicharchives.org. Hope to see you there. Henry Feldman Newtonville, Mass.