Congrats to Drawn and Quarterly for turning 20 this year! They are definitely a paragon of publishing that we look up to. If you’re in Montreal on June 3rd, their anniversary show with TV on the Radio and The Dirty Projectors seems like it’s not to be missed. Plus snazzy poster by Adrian Tomine!

We finally have a new batch of cards in hand and they look great! Selena Wong and Gracia Lam from one of our favorite fellow North American countries join the LO team and perennial pal Jennie Smith pitches in too.

We also made a new Come Along postcard from a salvaged file of Lart’s artwork for a sadly never-to-be-realized poster. But mini is better than never!

No, not that Postal Service, the older one that makes stamps. USPS is running out of money and is looking to make big cuts that affect everyone, especially small businesses like us that ship packages every day (except Sunday of course). We are not looking forward to a 5-day mail week!

If you’re in Portland tonight go check out Smallpressapalooza 2009 at Powell’s Books downtown starting at 5 pm. Our friend Emiko will be reading from her zine Broken HIPster (which is about dealing with kidney disease) at 6:15 pm. For more info on times and who’s reading, check here: http://www.powells.com/events/

Join Jo Dery in celebrating the release of Quietly Sure- Like the Keeper of a Great Secret at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, March 8th at 7pm. Jo will be showing some of her animated films & videos (including the brand new movie “Woodpecker in Snowshoes”) and showing off Quietly Sure to all interested parties. Colin Langenus (usaisamonster) will be playing music and fun should be had by all (word is there will be popcorn).

As I’ve said before, my brother George is a busy busy guy and if you don’t meet him at the Handmade Nation screening at Mezzanine next Wednesday, you have lots of opportunities to see him play (or tell a story) coming up…

march 13th fri @ the smell, la
burning star core
damion romero
workbench
ezra buchla
chen santa maria
http://thesmell.org

march 14th sat @ women house, la
moment trigger
lemon bear
chen santa maria

march 16th mon @ verdi club, sf
porchlight storytelling series
w/ george chen, stephen elliott, tba
http://www.porchlightsf.com

march 19th thurs @ southern exposure, sf
what’s in the box?
w/ george chen, kit clayton, david horvitz, lukas geronimas, leif hedendal
http://www.boxgame.org/

.::chen santa maria/dan friel west coast tour::.
april 25th – portland – pocket sandwich w/ mark evan burden, yellow crystal star
april 26th – seattle – the josephine w/ redneck, arbitron
april 27th – portland – valentine’s w/ white rainbow
april 28th – oakland – totally intense fractal mindgaze hut w/ grouper, pete swanson
april 29th – irvine – acrobatics everyday @ uc irvine w/ erika m anderson
april 30th – los angeles – the smell w/ lucky dragons, finches, erika m anderson
may 1st – los angeles – pehrspace w/ erika m anderson
may 2nd – san francisco – oven51 w/ high castle, erika m anderson, stamina mantis

http://myspace. com/chensantamaria

We know it’s tough out there and so in the spirit of getting more for less we put a bunch of things on sale in our storefront and online store:

http://shop.littleotsu.com/collections/sale

We didn’t have time to partake in much of the 32nd Portland International Film Festival, but we wanted to see something and The Beaches of Agnes jumped out at us since we loved the two Agnes Varda films that we had seen, Cleo from 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I. Even though we ended up with craned necks and a bit of screen sickness from being relegated to the third row, the movie was totally worth it. It’s a filmic memoir composed like memories are–disjointed, fanciful, random, sentimental. Varda has lived an incredibly colorful life and coming from anyone less charming, this might have come across as self-aggrandizing, but instead it is beautiful and inspiring. I don’t want to go into details of the movie as each little bit builds up to making the wonderful whole, but I highly recommend seeing this if you get a chance.