(2025 edition) If there’s ever a year to really back off holiday shopping, this is it. The economy is terrible, on purpose, for obvious and correctable reasons. Capitalism is only making the mega-rich richer, and they’re pulling up the ladder, and it has become impossible to pretend that we have Read more
We’re excited to report that our shopwarming party turned out to be quite the event. No thanks to the Hamilton board of directors, the cancellation of the Hamilton Wayzgoose conference in Wisconsin left us (and many others) with nothing to do the second weekend of November. We opened our doors Read more
As mentioned back in May, our building has an interesting history. I’ve been hoarding records my whole life, and Midwest Ephemera started out as a result of my interest in jukeboxes, so imagine my delight after I signed my lease at 5610 West Bloomingdale and learned it was once a record player factory!
The Webster Company (at first known as the Webster Novelty Co.) was founded by Austrian immigrant and tool-and-die maker Rudolph F. Blash in 1914. Within several years, Webster had become a pioneer in sound for film, and was manufacturing amplifiers, intercoms, batteries, and other electronic components.
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At long last, we’re up and running in our new home, and we’d love for you to come check it out!
Join Midwest Ephemera and C’mon Home on Saturday, November 8 in our new shop at 5610 W. Bloomingdale, here in Chicago. We’ll host printing demonstrations and hands-on activities starting at 2pm, then turn down the lights and start the party at 6pm with DJ MK Ultra and friends.
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Wow, what a ride since our last post in May… What we expected to be a couple weekends of moving turned into three months of endless trips to the hardware store, multiple liftgate truck rentals, hours of rigging, jacking, and ratcheting, a pretty-much blown suspension for the Toyota, sore muscles, Read more
Big news, friends: we’re relocating! After a few years of working out of various basements and garages, we’ve secured a spot where we can welcome guests, host classes, and actually have all our equipment in one big well-lit space. We hinted at it a few months ago. We had a Read more
Dang, it’s been two years since a “State of Mind” post? We just celebrated our fifth (!) anniversary… man… the years go by quickly. It’s tempting to say things haven’t changed much — this remains a secondary endeavor to my day job, and I also put a lot of time Read more
Midwest Ephemera just started its third year as an official Illinois business entity, so it seems like a good time for an update. Things are good! For the time being, MWE remains a “side hustle” but that was the plan all along, to grow it slowly as we accumulate experience Read more
(Updated November 2024 for 2024 holiday season) The holidays are weird for me, both personally and professionally. I’m an atheist anti-capitalist, but I still love Christmas and many of its traditions. I like giving and getting gifts, but I get hung up on avoiding chain stores and shitty corporations and Read more
In the year since we printed the first Spinvite™ we put the whole project on the back burner to complete some other projects (listed here). But we’ve never stopped dreaming about paper records. We have big plans for the Spinvite, and as such, we applied for a trademark towards the Read more
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