More Curtis Yorke

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It is another book day here at Pictorama. I have continued to digest Curtis Yorke novels at a rapid pace, even as I figure out how much I like her and where I think she fits in my pantheon of women writers of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Back in March I posted my first salvo having read a clutch of her books, mostly in the sort of juvenile, young adult genre. (You can read that post here.) Curtis Yorke is of course her nom de plum and her aka is Susan Rowley Richmond Lee – a whole lot of name by any standard. Fair warning that toward the end of this post I write a lot of detail about plots and if you have wandered over from Goodreads, fair warning that there are many spoilers down there!

I will say upfront that one thing I was wrong about was the availability of her physical books. They are available to some extent even in this country, unlike my beloved Rosa Mulholland whose physical books are largely sold only in the UK and cost a small fortune to ship across the ocean these days. However, perhaps more importantly, they are surprisingly available online for free via Google Play Books. It is this deep vein I have been mining and thus have read a lot of the more adult novels recently. An alert to future readers however, these books were put online by copying the actual pages from books and therefore the print (on my phone for example) is quite small and I have had to read them all on my iPad. (Although you can make the page bigger you have to do it for each page which is annoying – there is no function to just increase the size overall.)

By way of reminder, we have virtually no autobiography on her except that she was born in 1854 in Scotland and died in 1930. She was educated in Glasgow, married and lived in Kensington and published some fifty books. I can only imagine that she was quite popular in her day and would think at some point her identity was known, the prejudice against women writers waning by the 1920’s, and that someone must have written a magazine article or two about her. If true that work remains to be done.

However, I do feel compelled to say that in some ways she compares unfavorably for example Rosa Mulholland who is a contemporary and sort of an Irish kissing cousin to her Scottish roots. While RM wears her Irish identity on her sleeve, Yorke never refers in particular to Scotland and much of her work takes place in London or the surrounding areas. I say she compares unfavorably because Rosa Mulholland avidly conceived and concocted her intricate plots, executing them and sewing up her many planted points as she went on over hundreds of pages. (Some of my posts and odes to Rosa Mulholland can be found here and here.) I would have to say she is also a lesser light and even a harder comparison to make to someone like Frances Hodgeson Burnett and her adult novels. (Happy hours spent reading those which I was recently reminded of – some posts can be read here and here just for starters.)

Saw this late one available online. Might need to grab it up!

I feel though that Yorke may have been the sort of writer who, with perhaps a broad over-arching outline, just sat down each day and wrote with the narrative going wherever it did. (Kim says this is how Dickens wrote as well, some do I guess.) Fortunes found and lost and found again – romances found and torn asunder. I assume these were probably originally published in pieces although the chapters don’t necessarily fall into the sort of cliff hangers that come of that.

In one of her longer single volume novels Once! (published 1892) she has at the heart of the story (major spoiler here, just a warning here again) an overarching moral message about the male protagonist who has made a bad marriage with a women who (in addition to being a lousy mother), becomes drug addicted; is in love with another man and has, it turns out, only married him for his money – which of course in the way of things he will lose before regaining at the end. Meanwhile, he has taken in his young cousin who has lost her father and has no income. The cousin has a crush on him but when, over time he falls in love with her, she is nothing short of horrified – even once the wife is out of the picture and he reveals it to her. While I think we can all agree none of this is exactly model behavior, Yorke really crushes him for this. (And of course none of that is about being cousins – it is acknowledged that this is done all the time – although it might have been the issue for you or I.) It was a rare time when I just felt somehow out of sync with the sort of accepted behavior of the period. It lacked nuance for me somehow.

Many of these are published and available as reprints although as stated, there is a wealth of them available for free online.

More recently I finished a three-volume opus titled, A Romance of Modern London. (Also published 1892 or perhaps volume one was?) These books chase through a myriad of now you see it, now you don’t wealth and general fortune for the characters. It starts very compellingly with two orphaned children, a boy and a girl, who through starvation, illness and somewhat extraordinary misfortune somehow manage to stay together after the death of their mother – father was long gone. She is then snatched up by some long lost grandparents (ah! they weren’t really brother and sister) who have fallen into a fortune but are by all accounts a bit, shall we say, rough and ready. The boy continues to suffer terrible poverty and adversity until he finds fame and fortune as an author – just as the grandparents lose their money.

Strangely in this case the boy and the girl (now grown and in love with each other but not suspecting that their newfound affection is returned) rarely actually lose touch with each other – he marries her good friend (makes her miserable as he doesn’t love her) while men keep asking her to marry them and she will not, even if it means she is cast out on the street as of course an underlying theme is always the dependance of women on men to house and support them – be they fathers or husbands. You are mostly out of luck if you don’t have one of those. I liked this book but some of the tributaries seemed a bit arbitrary, especially toward the end. On a final note about the end – weirdly, although happily married at the end and in the final pages she introduces their sadness that they have not had a child of their own. Was she thinking of a volume four that was never written?

Finally in His Heart to Win (I love that title – so fitting to the time and type of story! 1894) we have a pretty delightful story of a man who marries a young, sheltered girl, raised by her aunts, because he feels sorry for her. They are frank with each other in that it is sort of a marriage of convenience (he is older, widowed, has children) although Molly falls in love with him rather quickly, although keeps this to herself – as does he when he (albeit more slowly) falls in love with her – as if actually loving each other was somehow breaking their bargain. They chase around this – fortunes lost and found too I believe – until ultimately they figure that thing out and live happily thereafter.

I do wish I knew more about the reception for her writing and the life of the author in general. However, as above it remains utterly undocumented as far as I can tell, or at least via a surface sort of research online. For now I am working my way through the wealth of novels (and some short stories) available online before I start scooping up the physical books. For those of you who are following this, there is likely more to come here on Pictorama.

Beauty

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Yesterday’s postcard show did not disappoint, and Kim and I wiled away an hour or two perusing the wares. This is a single day show and therefore a bit smaller and folks say they don’t bring as much stock but we made out just fine. We will wait for Friday and Saturday, June 5 and 6 for that. Meanwhile I present one of my purchases which caught my eye, however it is more fun now that I have transcribed the message on the back. The message is for a new kitty, named Beauty, that has clearly joined the family.

It would appear that these cats are ice skating – and this Mom (?) cat is putting a skate on the young cat (boy? it has a blue bow) although there is only one, which she has just placed on his foot. (Where is the other skate?) The chair is somewhat mysteriously placed out on the ice, another cat skating with what appears to be a cane in the background. In the foreground there is a black kitty, who looks like my Blackie with just some white on his neck, also standing with a cane. (Do cats need canes to stand like humans? Is this something we should know if we want them to become bipeds?)

Youngster looks like the one I am calling Mom and has a matching tabby stripe to his fur. The skater in the background also appears to have stripes but is at a distance and somewhat indistinct. The weird sea green ice (which makes them appear to be actually standing and seated on water) goes to an only slightly lighter background. Dad pokes out of the frame and Mom perches right on it.

Back of card – very embossed indeed! Makes it a bit hard to read at first.

This card is embossed, creating a very three-dimensional effect, and around the edge is some snow decoration, also embossed. The postcard was made in Germany, however no artist is identified with it. Youngster is eager to get skating I’d say.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Bagel Pub.

I didn’t understand the message at first as it took some decoding. Despite the neat script the back of the card is pitted with the embossing making it hard to read. Anyway, it reads as follows, October 2d 1910. Well, my one eared Beauty how are you? Snoozing in your mother’s big chair I presume. Be good to little Georgie and never scratch him. Hope you will live many years. Auntie B. It was mailed to, Beauty Dunham, 782 Commercial S, East Weymouth, Mass. and just in case below that, To Georgie Dunham. It’s nice that she dated it because the postmark does not show the year, although October 3 and 6 AM show, as does New Jersey, but only Brio…? shows on the postmark for location which I cannot figure out. And gosh, what happened to one of Beauty’s ears?

Spotted this interesting building – the old bit in front seems to have actual gas lamps. The ancient building on the other side is interesting too. This is 13th Street, I think between 7th and 6th, southside of the street.

Meanwhile, Kim had his maiden voyage on the subway, his first long trip out since surgery. I think a change of scenery swept away any cabin fever he had, although admittedly he has been deep into his work so I am not sure how much he was suffering from his time at home as a result. However, all is onward and upward here at Deitch Studio.

Way Up!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today is Metropolitan Postcard Club Show Day! Yay for new postcards for Pictorama! We herald that event with a postcard from the last show, purchased for it’s kitten collage-ness.

Photos of kittens floating in balloons is a sort of sub-genre of early 20th century photography and this is a late example – almost a tribute to those. This card was mailed from Kingston, New York on July 27, 1944. (As an aside, I had cousins who lived near Kingston, New York and was probably visiting them thirty years later.) So it is later than most of my collection but is reminiscent of those earlier cards. (You can check out some of those posts here and here.)

In the Kills refers to the upstate area full of small water bodies (kille is Dutch for waterway) and those areas such as Fishkill, Peekskill and Catakill (the last being where those cousins resided) named thusly.

Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

These cats are a further play on words with the broader Catskill area. The postcard play on words was popular and I have future posts devoted to more of these as of course cat cards are like nip to me. We have two fluffy kits in a basket with a “balloon” that looks like maybe it is a fishnet stocking or real fish netting around a ball, which is probably then held by a string of fishline we cannot see. An ever so slightly cross-eyed moon face looks on – the yellow is a nice contrast in this otherwise almost dark and stormy card. I gather these kits are making their journey at night.

Pams-Pictorama.com collection – very similar!

The back of this card is printed in an unusually legible hand. It says, Dear Very Dear Elinor Hello; Sweetness. How be you, and the partner – O.K. I hope – the same here – in this grand restful place – I am getting along famously – take a walk most every day – and am receiving excellent care – in the intervals – lots of love from your old man – brother. AL. It is addressed to, Mrs. R.H. Robinson, 155 Clymer Street, Brooklyn, 11, New York.

The ingenuity of cards like this interest me. I am always looking at them and thinking about which two of the seven I could convince to sit in a basket (none) and tie a little ball to it, etc. I am sure it was a day’s work that was harder than it may look. Meanwhile, this one has these collage elements of the moon and background layered in. It is though, remarkably similar to the earlier one I show here.

Back of card.

Meanwhile, Kim and I are off to the West Village soon to see what irresistible cat cards are in store for me today. Wish me happy collecting! It is bright and sunny here in New York and having a spring swing back toward warm today. Kim is braving downtown for the first time since his back surgery – getting a bit of cabin fever I think doing nothing these days really but working on hard his next book. We’ll get him some air and a change of scenery. More to come!

Easter Egg

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This year it is a foggy, rainy Easter morning here in New York City. Hardly the harbinger of spring that you want it to be, however I am celebrating with this somewhat whacky card. I bought many months ago at the postcard sale and I bought it for the sheer, delightful, oddness of it.

Just noting that I have an odd fondness for these chocolate Easter eggs from childhood and still grab one or two annually.

The card is heavily embossed with thick looking gold highlights. A careful look tells that it appears to take place in a dark forest, if you peer behind the large egg house the trees almost bend around it. Easter Greetings is engraved with gold highlights, nestled among the trees. Meanwhile, a pretty little decorative, curtained window on the second floor of this egg house reveals a rooster portrayed in dignified profile. Below him is a sweet little green door complete with a mail slot and a red portico (you want to get into the house in the rain comfortably, after all), and even a little pull chain for a doorbell. There are a few front steps to complete the image.

Below, running wildly are two little chicks – I say little although somehow they are much larger than the rooster – who I grant you is at a bit of a distance up in his window, but still! They are in a race with each other on a grassy turf; the light one has a worm the one with brown feathers wants to share. Is there a cryptic and symbolic meaning in this? The artist was very conscious of shadow, bottom of the egg, under the chicks, under even the tiny window ledge, giving the card a three dimensional appeal.

The border of the card is a colorful riot of flowers, leaves and (pink!) eggs on a gold background. The eggs are dispersed in odd groupings of single, three and two, again not sure if there is some symbolism I am missing.

Back of card.

Like many lately, I find that this card was addressed on the back but never stamped and postmarked so therefore not mailed and no date for us. I show the back above, the sloping child’s hand going off the card and barely crams in the address. It appears to read, Miss Eleanor Bigwood, 928 Helamont Avenue, Schenectady, NY. Upside down on the other half, in the same hand but very hard to read is, Myra and Victor – presumably the senders. I will assume that this precious missive was ultimately put directly in Miss Bigwood’s hands.

With today’s weather we can only cheer ourselves with the old adage, April showers bring May flowers. And it is true! The pansies, tulips, magnolias and cherry trees are in bloom after a long winter’s nap. New York City is shaking off its long-held mantle of winter at last this year and it is all we can do from burying our heads in the flower filled tree wells lining the blocks here.

Meanwhile, we had a gorgeous spring day yesterday. Kim and I endeavored to undertake his first long walk since his surgery, about a mile round trip to Orwashers bakery and back. This weekly walk to get a nice loaf of bread for the week has become somewhat of a ritual and during the hospital stay and the MoCCA convention last weekend, it has been interrupted. However, the walk was much longer than anything he has done since the surgery, although still using a walker now and for the coming month. He did it like a champ though which makes us feel he is well on the way on the, albeit long, road of recovery from his back surgery.

Homemade matzoh making a holiday appearance at Orwashers this weekend.

Although Orwasher’s was all sold out of their as advertised, yummy-looking hot cross buns when we got there (oh my!) a small amount of homemade matzohs were still available. Although not our mission for the day (we stuck to our loaf of sourdough and a bonus olive stick), it was a reminder of the dual holidays, Passover and Easter, which signify this season of renewal and regeneration.

Pictorama readers may remember that with a Jewish father and a mother who was raised in a Catholic/Episcopalian household, I grew up recognizing both holidays, admittedly in a secular and food related way. I can remember Easter weekends with matzoh brie (my mom had mastered that) followed by an Easter Sunday family brunch at my maternal grandmother’s of ham and homemade Easter bread. We dyed Easter eggs but also, at least roughly, knew the rituals of a Passover seder. It all means the return of spring to me now – tied to the blooming of the magnolia in my front yard in New Jersey and streets filled with masses of blooming cherry trees.

A day or so in the ER and even a short stay in the hospital will always remind you of your blessings – other people’s problems are indeed frequently worse than your own, and we have seen that recently. For now, I remain grateful to say spring is arriving, Kim’s recovery and walking improving apace, and there are many signs for a significant growth and blooming in the next part of this year.

Postal Kit

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today is a return to feline real photo postcard territory with this recent acquisition off of eBay. This nice looking tabby in-charge is puss as stern postmistress. (This brings to mind a behind-the-scenes tour at work this week which for some reason revealed an unusual number of tabbies submitting to various treatments. Tough week for tabbies I say.)

This post office scene caught my attention, in part I think, because I thought it was a clever collage of images. The cat, seated sternly and evidently staring the small child, could be another photo that was neatly trimmed and inserted into the image. I have revised my thinking after close examination and now I believe it is really just a mirror behind the cat revealing a wall papered wall across from him or her on the other side of the room.

Back of the postcard.

Neat and numbered tidy cubbies await their mail and small packages. It reminds me a bit of the post office at my college years ago of similar vintage. Although it was less trusting and there were little doors with combination locks. I always loved those and have seen them for sale and been tempted although Pictorama readers know I don’t really live a life that can accommodate a wall of mailboxes, however endearing.

Smythe Park, Mansfield, PA. Photographed by W.A. Bates.

You can’t see it easily in the photo, but in pencil in the lower left corner someone has written the date, July 21, 1907 and initials, which may be L.E.T. It is nice that our sender did this because the postmark is obscured. The location may read as Kent – Connecticut I speculated at first, but a quick search shows more likely Nelson Lakes near Kent, New York. On the back in a fairly painstaking script is says, I had a nice time at Nelson. This is the P.O. at Nelson. Lyle E. Tubbs. It was mailed to, Miss Grace Corselius, Claremont, VA.

Smythe Park, Mansfield, PA, W.A. Bates.

The card maker is W.A. Bates, Postcard Manufacturer, Mansfield, PA. AI made me laugh when I search this as it informed me that W.A. Bates was known as Bert. And evidently, he was known foremost as a local photographer who got into producing his popular photos as real photo postcards. It also notes that a John Bates who owned a pharmacy, Bates Drugstore, also published these postcards – I can’t imagine exactly where AI may have dug those tidbits up, but it does paint a sort of cheerful picture of him and his life, a brother, father or other family member investing in his business.

Bates Studio, Mansfield, PA. More or less contemporaneous to our postcard.
Written by Bert?

Bert recorded largely local history in this fashion from 1905 until 1938. So mine is a rather early effort on his part. I will note that Kent, NY and Mansfield, PA are about three hours away from each other so if the locale is correct Bates was a bit far afield from his usual local bailiwick, although this was clearly a commercial gig.

Despite evidence of a long career, I have shared two from a small sampling of photo images I could find online, remains of his likely prodigious output. It is interesting that one is of what I assume is his studio. I note that on the back of that card, which is for sale on eBay right now on a card that was not used postally, it looks as if it may have been written by the man himself. I wonder. It is a really sort of lovely building and one can imagine all those interesting porticoes and fun nooks from the inside. The other photo is of a local park I guess he was known to photograph. I hope Bert and John and their families had a lovely life in Mansfield, PA at the dawn of the 20th century. From here it looks like they did.

MoCCA Fest

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is an interesting year for me to focus on MoCCA, the annual comic con manisfestation of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) now it its 24th year. I think Kim and I have been going to this comics fest since its early days at the Puck Building downtown. From there it bounced a bit and had homes at various locations including the Armory, Chelsea and now the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street. Sponsored by The Society of Illustrators (which probably deserves its own post covering its august history), MoCCA is an annual March event by which we tell the comics calendar here in New York City. Over time it has grown like topsy and there was a moment yesterday afternoon when I literally couldn’t move in the gathered crowd!

This year was a bit special for Deitch Studio because Kim’s new book, How I Make Comics, is being previewed there with advanced copies, a talk and signings. We are so excited to see the book at long last! So we had a bit more of a purpose there than our more usual ramblings.

Kim and Bill kicking off the talk and Bill’s copy of Kim’s new book here.

However, the road to it was complicated this year and in part I write because I think you’ve had some hurried Pictorama posts on recent weekends. To start at the beginning, as snow buried New York repeatedly in March Kim and I weren’t doing our morning walk to work – not surprisingly, it was lousy walking. (I wrote about those walks not long ago here.) He’d had some pain and walking seemed to aliviate it, however without it, about a month ago we realized that he was having increased pain – and, alarmingly, trouble walking at all. A trip to the ER followed three Saturdays ago, and it turns out he had a severely herniated disc.

It was clear that surgery was in the offing – eschewing actual emergency surgery, we started on the bumpy road which led us to an operation last Thursday (micro surgery – I’d only considered this on animals via work oddly enough), although some issues kept him in the jug until a week ago today. (I liked the hospital okay enough although I think our animal hospital is much nicer – I’d much rather go there!)

This was one of those rarified items that turned up – never saw this before!

In general surgery seems to have been a great success. He’s walking much better, improving daily, although he needs to develop some muscle for any distance again. No bending, lifting or twisting – we seem to be good about the lifting but the bending and twisting, well…he tries. Most importantly for all involved, he was back in his work chair for pretty much full days starting on Monday – he’s made his halfway through the next book already and has a full head of steam.

Kim’s messier (even) than usual work table and area shown here – as shown at the slide show yesterday.

All this to say, it’s been a busy time on the ground here at Deitch Studio and we were on a deadline with MoCCA kicking off the book yesterday. I’m pleased to say it was a great day and really much fun. John Kelly of Dummyzine fame (@dummyzine) invited Kim to sit at his table for part of the day, joining Bob Camp of Ren and Stimpy fame. John is working on a long interview with Kim for Dummy which we look forward to coming out later this year.

Mark Newgarden, John and Kim looking over some of John’s rare Deitch items.

At lunchtime our friend and comics historian Bill Kartalopoulos (@kartalopoulos) did a great interview with Kim which covered process (what fun to see one of Kim’s pages go from rough pencils to a tight lay out and then to an inked page through the miracle of Powerpoint), but also delved into some family history which plays out in How I Make Comics. He spent some time on my favorite story in the collection, The Two Maries, about Kim’s mom and grandmother hitchhiking from Denver to LA in 1939.

A young and very pretty Marie Deitch (nee Billingsley) shown here. I knew her in later years and was very fond of her.

Yours truly and Pam’s Pictorama got a shout out as well – thank you Bill! And we were so pleased to see how many folks showed up for the talk – a thank you to those of you who made it.

Then it was over to the Fantagraphics table (Kim’s longstanding publisher and a big presence at the con) to sign advanced copies of the book and meeting folks which is always fun. I get to see some early, rare appearances of Kim’s work in volumes people have collected and want him to sign. Amazing! This fan girl is thrilled!

We’re back today for more – if you are around say hello! Kim is signing from 1-2:00 today and otherwise we will spend some time back with John and his other guests. I will man the box of original art for sale so come on by – and back to more traditional Pictorama next week!

Ringing

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I guess like most people, sometimes I see something and it sticks with me and nags at me until I do something. This ring was one of those things. I don’t know why but I kept imagining it on my hand and it just seemed to belong there and to me. However, it was way at the top end for what I spend on jewelry, and never from someone online and from whom I have never purchased before. Nonetheless, I kept checking and I was relieved it never showed up with a big sold on it when I looked. (A few other jewelry posts can be found here and here.) Pictorama readers know I do love jewelry!

Another utterly favorite ring. This is an antique cameo set in a contemporary gold setting. Saw this in LA on a business trip and had to contact the store a week later and have it sent! Clearly I have a thing for cameo rings.

Their description of the ring from their website is as follows: This exquisite cameo ring dates from the Victorian era, the latter half of the 19th century, circa 1880. Cupid (or Eros) is depicted as a chubby little cherub, reaching up to catch Psyche who, in butterfly form, flutters above him. The pair are carved from white hardstone agate over a vivid deep apple green background. The panel as bordered by glistening rose cut diamonds and raised up on a wonderfully intricate pseudo-claw openworked gallery. Ornate shoulders and a reeded band complete the elegant aesthetic. Crafted in 18 carat gold throughout. Era: Victorian, circa 1880. The photo I am using today is from their website.

In addition to already being expensive, it was also in Great Britain so there would be a fee for the conversion to pounds, and the tariffs had already gone into place so even more expensive. Not only that but it seemed complicated to figure out which discouraged me. However, I was having a hard time over the holidays this year and I decided to make this gift to myself.

Sadly though it became an almost three month saga of international UPS madness. Pictorama readers know that I purchase many things from Britain. Although they are generally not at this price point I have rarely had a significant issue (one Felix photo postcard was lost in the mail and not refunded as Royal Mail had proof it had made it “here”) with items being delivered. Even during this same time a cat painting showed up unscathed.

So it either caught their attention because it was more expensive or it was just the time for it to happen, but this ring got stuck in Customs and absolutely nothing I did could spring it. The fees had been paid and that didn’t even seem to be the issue. Online tracking just indicated that it was stuck in Customs. Every phone call to International UPS is an automatic wait of 50 minutes or more. It became like a part-time job trying to liberate it. The ring made it all the way to Newark, only to be returned to England, virtually while I argued with them on the phone. Utterly maddening!

Fortunately the couple I was purchasing this from in Britain were utterly lovely. The proprietors of Lost Owl jewelry, they give the impression of leading a somewhat idyllic life in with their small chldren in the British countryside – wandering from one end to the other buying up treasures to share with the likes of me. (Find them in Instagram @lostowl.jewelry or their website here. Engage at your own risk and peril to your bank account.)

While I am sure their life is hectic and fraught like all of ours, nevertheless the illusion is lovely and somewhat enchanting. They do live sales sometimes on Sunday night which are cozy and wonderful looks at jewelry I really cannot afford – a very pleasant hour or so of looking however. If I lived anywhere near them I would just simply spend all my money on jewelry from them and be ruined. The hand wrought gold chains alone are enough to break me! (Although I am determined to have one eventually.)

Meanwhile, they had an agent on their end working on it too as obviously they sell to the US frequently. They remained determined and endlessly encouraging as my heart sank. I began to wonder if I would be able to love the ring despite its arduous history finding its way to our shores.

After the return to England, we doubled down and as it returned I made daily calls to different agents in India who represented UPS. (Some maddeningly insisted that there was no record of any prior calls.) I submitted personal information via email on demand, like an idiot. What can I say – I was losing all reason dealing with a system which is evidently quite broken. Who knew?

At last it arrived safely at my building, handed to me rather nonchalantly by my doorman one evening upon my return home from work in early March. I will say that I really love it and wear it almost daily, fighting for my right hand attention with my hither till now favorite boulder opal. (See a post about that ring here and my love of opals in general here.)

I wonder what it is about the ring that so attracts me, about the symbolism of Cupid and Psyche, as represented by the butterfly. Although Cupid of course represents romance, the combination of the two also seems to represent transformation, also of love and pleasure. I will say it is like having a little story on my hand which I love.

Other than to tell the cautionary tale, I bear no grudges against it at all and the ring only brings me joy. It seems to generate its own light on my hand. In the end it is everything I would hope it would be. When asked about how many rings can I wear I remind folks that I have ten fingers and 365 days a year.

Family

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s is a recently acquired photo postcard – it showed up in the mail last night as a matter of fact. I bought it off eBay on a whim and am more charmed by it in person. This photo today would probably be photo shopped or fully AI generated which makes its skill – and its imperfect bits – that much more endearing.

Seven cats are lined up here – several are looking at a spot in front of them and we assume the person behind the camera has something to capture their gaze that way. Almost all of them are very fluffy indeed, and the dark haired one on the left could almost make another cat with that enormous tail. It says a family group and I wonder if it is mom and dad on either end and this variety of kits betweenn. There is one tabby, third from the right who doesn’t fit the family fur, short-haired or so it would appear.

If we assume that mom and dad are on either end, there is a dead ringer for each of them in the pile – the white kit all the way left and the one next to it. The others are a bit more of a wild mix and I really like the one who wouldn’t sit and has his or her back up a bit. Dad just has an insane amount of fluff and both are well brushed and maintained.

Everyone is seated on a garden bench with painted some sort of boxes acting as end tables. There is a nice cushion on the bench being enjoyed by the cats – no idea how they got the cats on the end to pose so perfectly. There are cushions on the ground in front of the bench, covered in a sort of oriental rug pattern. I wonder if those cushions are for the back of the bench but didn’t work for the photo. We can’t see much of a garden behind them, but we get glimpse of the flowering shrubs behind them.

This card is undated and was never sent. It appears to be American made but there is no maker credit on the back.

As the mom of seven cats myself (the Jersey Five and NY kitties) I have to admit that I do not have a single photo of all of them in one frame. I actually only seem to have four of the Jersey Five together, let alone along with Cookie and Blackie. So hats off to this ambitious photographer and cat parents somewhere and back in time.

Family Pics

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A short post today and an unusual one as I don’t think I very often feature photos of my own childhood. However these two have been hovering on my desk for a bit and I have decided to share them. Admittedly it is a bit indulgent; they are largely photos only a family member could love, and not necessarily aesthetically special.

The black and white photo is my mom and dad and sister Loren. I am the babe in arms and according to the date on this, November 1964, I am 9 months old. It was taken in front of my maternal grandmother’s home, with the camera facing away from the house. (I wrote a long early post about my grandmother’s house and it is here.) My apologies to my brother Edward but these were take several years before he was born.

It is a bit rare really to have all of us in a photo as my father, the camera man, usually took the photo. He is wearing a trench coat (I still have one of his Burberry trench coats – they were a constand over the years like his very long Eddie Bauer down coats in the winter.) Dad is not wearing a hat which is very unusual. It would have been a wool cap.

Mom seems to be wearing a long trench coat as well and this was unusual – Dad must have bought it for her. I can’t really see her hair in this but it would have been some kind of longish at that time. Loren is two here, her life long curly hair already in evidence – she’d fight that through her teen years but I, of the straight hair, always liked it. I like this little double breasted plaid coat she is sporting.

Mom holds a chubby me in a fluffy top and be-pom pommed hat. I like this long fall shadow outlining use to the left. No idea who took this picture but I would make a guess it may have been my mother’s brother and this is probably Thanksgiving. I do not believe that wildly finned, white car behind us is ours. I think we may have been sporting a woody station wagon in the day – my family never went in for sporty cars.

My sister Loren on the left and me in a profusion of posies on the right. I don’t think these dresses inhibited some wild running around as soon as a few minutes after this – Loren already looks like she is leaping off!

The other photo (they were sort of stuffed together in a bit of plastic when I found them) is early color and is Easter Sunday 1966, two years later. My sister, in the pink, and I are clad in unlikely dresses for the holiday. I suspect they were gifts from my grandmother – I almost wonder if she made them but probably not. Our normal attire ran to the indestructible but were were clearly meant to be memorialized on this occasion as properly dressed little girls.

We would have had an Easter egg hunt either out in the yard or, if the weather didn’t cooperate, in the house. The ones in the yard, which I believe were courtesy of my uncle, are glorious in my memory. My (Jewish) father always had Easter baskets for us (usually Russell Stover ones) which were also wonderful. (I can remember a fascination with a soft, lifelike, tiny toy chick someone gave me one year and I was very sad when it got lost in the hustle and bustle of things.)

Loren is looking a bit angelic here although I knew her well enough to say she was probably like she was shot out of a canon two minutes later – and hadn’t even started on a sugar high. These dresses are really wearing us! The fabric comes back as unforgiving even now as I look at it. Oh the bows and flowers! I feel like my hair is a bit of a babu mullet here.

We are seated on a couch that lives in memory as an itchy green sort of flocked fabric. That small bit of flowered wallpaper brings back memories of my grandmother’s living room – and the blinds on the windows behind us were often closed, probably so the furniture wouldn’t fade. It was therefore usually a somewhat dark but not unpleasant room which I spent many hours happily in. A television ultimately found its way into that room in a giant wooden console that included a very fancy radio and record player.

The family would have headed into the kitchen where we would sit around an expanded table (or if the guest list was really big it would have reached through the living room) and as it was Easter there would have been a wonderful cakey homemade bread, fried dough (these were Italians doing this cooking!), ham, sausage and depending maybe my grandmother’s rather incredible meatballs. (I didn’t become a vegetarian for many years yet to come. I have attempted to make a fakemeat version of her meatballs!)

At that time Loren and I were the very first grandchildren of our generation – it would proliferate with the addition of my brother and several cousins over time. Sadly now several of those, including my sister, died very young and are already no longer with us. However, here we are, at the beginning of it all – a twinkle in everyone’s eye for the spring holiday.

All Wet

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This March Sunday, a much yearned for spring thaw let alone summer, seems quite far away still. This Manhattan morning can’t quite make up its mind if it is going to be gray all day or not, but the temperatures will hover in the low forties – not unreasonable for March but we can’t help but yearn for the halcyon promise of summer. So for my part it seems that the least I can do is immerse us in a swimming cat card today.

It appears to me that in the early days of the 20th century, the Tuck company put all their eggs in the cat card basket it would seem – and emerged victorious. Churning out first Louis Wain cards, then these Boulanger ones and eventually making their way to Felix ones a few years later. (Examples from prior posts and a bit about Tuck can be found in posts here and one of the Felix Christmas cards here.) Clearly cats helped build the Tuck empire. By the time Felix rolled around they were card publishers to the King and Queen and I can’t help but wonder if that means that maybe George V was mailing Felix holiday cards?

This card is credited to Maurice Boulanger – the not-quite-Wain – whose cat antics are of a slightly less sardonic variety than those by Mr. Wain. (Albeit he is usually less pointedly ironic, this card as below which I posted about recently where Mr. Cat is preparing a rat feast!)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection. A post a few weeks ago.

Today’s card is from the earlier days of Raphael Tuck, before royal recognition it would seem. It was sent in 1908 with a sloppy postmark (marring the front a bit) on September 5 from Marblehead, Massachusetts – a lovely beachy place. (I have visited a childhood friend there and it is a wonderful seaside area not far from Boston.) This card was mailed to Winthrop Stacey and then simply Orne St. Town. On the message side it says simply, H.T.S. R.F.N. W.P.S. Don’t stay in too long. E.

This is sort of a pitch perfect message to go with this image of happily splashing cats, adult and two kits. (Splashing is printed at the top with lovely little flowering plants winding through it and a nice decorative frame top and bottom.)

The execution of the splashing cracks me up, a bit primitive but gets the idea across. The kittens are splashing dad (or is it mom?) and little white caps indicate some movement in the water. Two seagulls wheel in the sky above them unnoticed. Their catness does not extend to that at the moment – they pay them no mind. And of course traditionally cats eschew water so in that regard these are anthropomorphic kits too.

View coming into the Sandy Hook Bay recently on the ferry.

A lighthouse is perched on land in the distance – it reminds me of the Sandy Hook bay where I land when I take the ferry to New Jersey. (And really quite near where I myself learned to swim as a tiny tot.) As mentioned above, an errant postmark registration lightly mars the front of this image over the grown up cat on the left but doesn’t take away from the overall card. The yellow in the sky indicates either sunrise or sunset – I vote for the latter – and of course picks up at the top of the card.

Summer will arrive here as suddenly as winter did I suspect. The Farmer’s Almanac says that it will be a hot spring season and while I am not a fan of heat and humidity I look very much forward to evenings on our deck under twinkle lights and the hummingbirds and bees feasting on the dahlias and strawberry plants. Here’s for contemplating summer days!