Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Folks in early cat costumes is a sub-genre of the holdings here at the Pam’s Pictorama photo library. (Wow – I just upgraded my shoe boxes to a library.) I have long felt that there is a vintage Felix costume out there that will really scratch that particular itch of mine and actually owning such an item notwithstanding, I am always pleased to own the image and search for those with some vigor. (A few other Felix/cat costume posts can be found here and here.)
While I have to date resisted purchasing garments such as costumes given the storage restrictions of my abode, I have however come woefully close on the purchase of a few truly wild and wonderfully early Felix masks on occasion, but have sadly come up empty handed. Of course I am still on the prowl and I am also sure for the right costume I would make room here somehow, not to mention a place of pride for some extraordinary probably somewhat decaying and terrifying mask. (Kim, bless him, is ever indulgent and didn’t even flinch with I was considering a large drum with Felix painted on it that would have had to more or less be hung from the ceiling.)
Kim in a Felix hat/mask which I, very sadly, do not own! This taken in SF in September, 2015.
On the back of the photo postcard, which was never sent but was pasted into an album, Bethel School Interior is written in penciled script. The seller had the card listed as, from The Black Cat Society Play in Bethel, PA Berks Co. Berks County is evidently in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which in addition to being the dreamland of chocolate production (the name evokes a childhood vision of a town constructed entirely of Hershey bars that I have never quite fully eliminated from my adult brain), is also said to be a great flea market area as well. Sadly I have never had the chance to explore this place of glory on either level so for now it continues to live in imagination on both counts.
While I might have hoped the photographer would have gotten closer to these kiddies in the kitty costumes, the wider shot gives us a look at those in the audience which gives us something of a sense of period. I have no idea what the Black Cat Society of Bethel was (or is?) as the popularity of black cats in Pennsylvania buries that search in an avalanche of cat adoption offerings. Were there black cat plays every year with cat costume clad kids?
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Our six kitties are lined up over a bit of paper facade “brick” indicated below them – like they are on a fence? The set is an interior – lamps, drapes on windows and a striped rug. There is a flowered curtain to one side, which might be more about obscuring a backstage area than a curtain that would draw across – I do not see an indication of a rope. The whole affair seems to be on a wooden stage raised off the floor by sturdy wooden legs below, raising them up and making it more official feeling.
Paw hands of our players are up in a gesture a bit more canine than cat. Each of our kids is in a suit of shiny black with a hood sporting ears and a tail – some tails are perkier than others and some wear their suits sportier and with more éclat. The line up graduates to the tallest participant in the middle and down again. The one second to the end on (our) left seems to embody the role best for me, clearly a future performer there.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
Our broad perspective of the room also gives an indication of the covered wall of what appears to be a basketball court behind and the slightest indication of what I think is the bottom portion of an American flag hovering over the peering over the proceedings. The audience is seated in some sort of pew-like connected chairs. The one kid looks back at the camera, jaunty angle to his hat. #4 is written at the bottom and it is too bad if 1-3 are lost now.
I was an enthusiastic participant in junior theatricals as a tot and I would have been in heaven to be on this stage for my turn, suited up in cat garb.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: As some of my friends from the broader online world know, I keep a photo journal of my runs which I post in Instagram stories. This wasn’t a conscious decision really, just something I started doing.
During the worst months of the pandemic we all seemed pretty desperate for images of the outside world (I was enjoying posts from folks in Britain and Australia in particular) even if it was just daily stuff and I loved my view along the East River so much I thought others might too. So somehow taking some pictures along the way and posting them afterward became part of my running habit. Today’s post is a bit of a tribute to some of the urban history I have plucked along the way.
My early jogging attempts here in Manhattan took me through Carl Schurz Park and down the Eastside Esplanade along the river. I run with the urban scene of the FDR Drive to one side of me and the East River to the other – there are days when you would never know that an endless line of commuter cars is honking and belching along next to me so silvan are the water views.
The pool at 72nd just prior to opening last spring.
At about 72nd Street there is a park with one of the free city pools in it, the John Jay pool and playground there. I watched last spring as it was prepped for summer and then ultimately filled with the first of the throngs of folks that would come and line up during the hot summer days. At the foot of this park is an interesting old stone building and over time I realized that it had Eastside Settlement House etched in stone. As it happened I was reading about the charitable establishment which was located there in one of my books about the Red Cross Girls and I wrote about those books in a post that can be found here. (An excellent article on the history of the Settlement House can be found here and it notes an article from the Times which was called, Girls of Gentle Breeding Enjoy Unaccustomed Dances With Partners Not in Their Set.)
East Side Settlement House, as seen from the river side. Built in 1901.
In those early months of running the Esplanade was open all the way down the Eastside and I thought about someday getting enough miles under my belt to make it down to the Roosevelt Island tram at about 57th. Before my running got me down below 70th Street, the path was closed for repairs (sink holes are a very real problem) and my runs to the south were curtailed.
I continued my route along that part of the river as far as I could (the Esplanade dips down there and you are closer to the water which is nice, river smell for better or worse tends to waft there) which would take me past a ramshackle Con Ed building that appears to be entirely taken over by rats and pigeons. (I tremble to think of what must go on in its interior.)
Rat and pigeon infested Con Ed enclave in the east 70’s.
Over time I worked up to running up a long incline at about 82nd. When I began using an app (Strava) to as a GPS recording of my miles it informed me that this land bridge has a name, Jamie’s Bridge. I am told there is a plaque which I have yet to locate. I will update if I discover more about that.
A post could be devoted to the park itself which I have become very fond of – weekdays are largely given over to my fellow runners, ferry commuters, dog walkers (I give dogs some distance but New York City dogs are generally more interested in each other than me – while suburban dogs seem to be more interested in taking a bite out of me) make up the lion’s share of the denizens and, especially over the past two years, there are a number of people just walking or sitting outside. Some smoke (cigarettes and pot in almost equal measure) and others study their phones, still others just stare off. Weekends, as the weather warms, means the park plays host to a long line of birthday parties for gangs of small children. Shiny balloons staking the spot and declaring the age of the child in question – which seems to be 3 more often than not.
Hard to see here but here is a stationary bike and work out equipment stored here, as well as this tent which seems to serve as occasional home.
More miles and being curtailed to the south mean pushing north and at first I just ran up to the ferry. The New York ferries were one of my great pandemic discoveries and I am sad that in no way can I utilize them on my daily commute to 57th Street because I would enjoy it. Miles underfoot quickly took me a bit further to the waste station up near Asphalt Green recreational center. I was against this garbage facility when it was proposed to be built, but have to admit that they have kept the impact on the neighborhood low. Under this land bridge is a resident tent dweller who keeps a pile of workout equipment there. I have seen him tend it but never work out there.
Asphalt Green Recreational Center in Yorkville, NY.
Asphalt Green declares its history as the site of an asphalt plant from 1944-1968 in its prior life. In the late 70’s an effort was made to rehabilitate this derelict site and in 1984, several years before I became a Yorkville resident, this impressive gym and recreational center and playing fields opened. I ponder its service in the production of asphalt for all those years and what that may have been like and why they stopped as asphalt is still presumably needed.
The 96th Street entrance to the FDR always reminds me of trips to the airport and now the path to and from Jersey when I ride with Cash and Jeff – the human and doggie duo who have transported me during odd hours in recent months. Jeff usually takes us up to the George Washington Bridge so this leg of the run always makes me think about leaving town.
This quote was part of a temporary installation but it stayed with me. It is gone, but I still think about it when I run past this spot.
Eventually I found my way up to the Randall’s Island Bridge. Unlike most of the other bridges (all land bridges) on this route, this pretty blue-green bridge is very neat and tidy, its underbelly in excellent repair which I note each time. For a long time this was the outer reaches of my run as it then climaxed around the four mile mark. I consider eventually adding a run over this bridge to my route. It would be a not insubstantial addition as it has several levels of incline and the span of the bridge is considerable, over the river. I also think about taking Kim there on a walk when it gets a bit warmer. Playing fields, bike and running trails and who knows what else await us there when the time comes. I see kids heading over for early morning practice on weekday mornings.
The underside of the Randall’s Island Bridge.
Running in New Jersey near my mom (some posts have been devoted to that and can be found here and here) expanded my miles to more than five as curiosity encouraged me to further explore her area. That combined with a new closure to the south at 74th Street, has recently pushed me up even further to the area around 107th now. I am fascinated by this pier, Pier 107 CVII according to the sign on its side, which is just beautiful despite its derelict condition. I cannot help but imagine walking out on it and admiring the water views from there, or stopping to sit on one of the benches.
The once again derelict pier.
Built originally back in 1931 it serviced a now long forgotten industrial complex and Harlem Market which defined the area before it became more solidly residential. The Pier was originally converted to pedestrian use in the late 1980’s with an award winning restoration that was completed in 1991. I cannot imagine why it was allowed to deteriorate again. Just beyond it is this odd little dock which seems to have been part of it historically. A place for boats to unload or tie up briefly I assume.
The nearby dock or pier which seems to go along with it.
To the west I note this beautiful Art Deco building which appears to be home to the Department of Sanitation of all things. I wonder if the building is still employed for this purpose or if it has another use now and if all the original beauty has been removed from its interior.
Building is labeled Department of Sanitation in Art Deco writing across the front.
My run tops out here to achieve a total of about 5.5 miles and I head back to the park where I will loop myself past the Mayor’s residence at Gracie Mansion. I have toured that (surprisingly intimate) historical wood frame home which has impressive river views from its perch at a high point in the park. Then it is a final check of the Peter Pan statue and surrounding area – one that Kim has been contemplating using in a story – some stretching and home again.
Peter Pan statue in Carl Schurz Park, the terminus point of my runs here in NYC.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: These inquiring little fellows caught my eye and I liked how the writing was stenciled into the negative of this very old card. Clearly something entertaining was used to capture their attention just off camera. The tabby in the middle has moved a bit and is a tad blurry as a result. I suspect this handful of kits was used again and again as models at the studio. The feet of the two tuxies are huge and those must have grown up to be some big cats.
Kittens and mittens to back at least as far as the Mother Goose poem which has verses where the kits in turn loose their mittens, find their mittens, soil them and then wash them. The verse ends oddly however with Mama smelling a rat nearby. I suspect ratty was dinner, however the thought is never finished and an odd one to end the poem on. (In its entirely it can be found here.)
My copy of The Fur Person by May Sarton.
The term making mittens refers, as far as I know, to a cat kneading with claw paws. I didn’t grow up with that term however. That action was always starfish paws to us, or mushing when we were very little. I call them claw paws these days especially with my kitties whose claws have grown too long I’m afraid. The term starfish paws came to us via a volume by May Sarton, The Fur Person, a wonderful book chock-a-block with cat love and lore which I have written about previously and that post can be found here. Blackie has a bad habit of doing it while sitting on my lap and my knees are scarred with his ongoing and intense ministrations.
There are many photos of be-mittened cats on the internet, the indignities which I will ignore except to say that folks have hung onto the idea over time.
Although this card has a somewhat homemade look, it is the product of a large professional studio. Stenciled neatly at the bottom is Pesha Photo. This turns out to be Louis James Pesha who owned the eponymous Pesha Postcard Company of Michigan. His work is largely known best for his photos of the Great Lakes region and enjoys some ongoing popularity today. To my knowledge I have not purchased other cat cards made by him previously. A quick Google search reveals mostly the aforementioned landscape and water views.
Pesha Photo not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Mr. Pesha was born in Ontario, Canada in 1868 and moved to the United States in ’01 starting his photo studio then. Evidently at first he specialized in cards like this one, popular subjects and trick photos. He had long photographed the landscapes, railroads and scenes around him and began printing and selling those as postcards later on.
An automobile, seating what are believed to be his wife and son [?], is parked in front of one of Louis Pesha’s photo studios. Dave Burwell Collection, Sarnia Historical Society.
Pesha dies tragically young in a car accident (he owned a luxury steam engined car purchased from the White Automobile company and I wonder if the one shown above is the car in question) in October of 1912 while visiting his parents. He was only 42 and he leaves a young daughter (no mention of a son in his online bio) and widow who continues the business until postcards pass out of fashion in the early ’20’s.
My card has an indicia pressed into the lower right corner which I assume also marks it as a Pesha card but is illegible and I depended on the writing on the bottom, Pesha Photo 1517, etched into the bottom.
This card was sent at 3 PM on January 21, 1911 from an unidentified location to Mr. Elmer Rosbury in Toledo, Ohio under General Delivery no less, and received by the post office at 9 AM the next day. (Much better delivery than we can hope for these days I might add.) The writing is in pencil and it is difficult to read. As far as I can tell it reads, Dear Elmer: – Will write tomorrow had a girl Friend down from Minders (?) and we went to this Farmers Blow Out last night. With love from Ethel.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Admittedly this seems like an unusual photo for me to have purchased. Like yesterday’s post, it might typically have been one that I would have a look at, but not purchased. Photos with old motorcycles in them tend to be in demand and they largely fall out of my realm of vintage photos of cats and toys. However, it caught my eye, mostly because accidentally or intentionally, it is a very good photo. And in the end, we here at Pictorama are ultimately suckers for a good photo and will follow our nose in any direction really.
There is no information on this photo and no evidence of having been in an album. Like the photos from yesterday’s post of traveling musicians (which can be found here) it came from the Midwest and I would hazard a guess that is where it was taken. (As yesterday a nod to my source, IG seller @MissMollysAntiques, for this purchase.)
I gather that WWII was a major boon to the motorcycle industry and disenchanted former soldiers continued to favor riding them after returning home postwar. Their leather flight jackets ultimately morphing into the biker look as it evolved through the 1940’s into the ’50’s when Marlon Brando takes it centerstage in film and makes it iconic. However, the guy in this photo looks like square one with his open necked shirt with sleeves rolled up, boots, jaunty hat and a whole lot of attitude posing with his bike. Although his face is in shadow, we otherwise get a good look at him.
It has to be said that the car to his right is the other star of this photo. I know nothing about old cars, but the shining grill on this one is great with a certain anthropomorphic charm, grinning genially at us with wide eyes. Someone better versed in cars and bikes could probably date the photo with some accuracy. I put it in the late forties.
I love moving back further into this photo and looking at the row of folks with their backs to us on a park bench in the middle ground. The guy with the suspenders and the straw hat just gets me. They all seem to be looking at or watching something, other benches are scattered around and there seems to be a playground or more likely a pool in front of them. That part of the image, in a puddle of bright sun, cannot be made out entirely. It is a picture of two worlds, the one of the biker and the other where everyone is enjoying the day and whatever it is this park offers.
On the other side, behind the car, we see folks gathered and walking and some concession type signs. The edges of the photo blur and only the center is entirely in focus. The tree behind him and in the center neatly divides the photo into light and dark, but the front wheel of the bike and his leg compose this composition perfectly. The person taking the picture had a great eye for putting it together or it was very lucky shot.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
This photo of my dad, Elliott (a photo I wrote about in an early post which can be found here), was probably taken at least several years later. My father is shown with a broken down old bike which, according to family lore, got him part of the way across the country, but which ended in him hitchhiking back. Dad, a city boy, is exuding somewhat less cool than his Midwest counterpart, shown here in Washington Heights as he starts off on his odyssey. However adventure and the open road awaited him nonetheless.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: These photos arrived in the mail last night with another which I will share in a later post. At first I hadn’t realized that there was more than one (it was on Instagram, they are similar and I wasn’t really focused), but the seller (@MissMollysAntiques) suggested I buy all three and I am glad I did as they do belong staying together.
I like to look at old photos of musicians and traveling bands from the early 20th century, but I don’t generally purchase them for the Pictorama library. There is interest in them and they often seem to go for a lot of money, but I like to look at them. After all, until March of 2020 I found myself on the road with our orchestra on a regular basis, although our buses and wardrobe folks and whatnot don’t much resemble this. (I wrote about my first trip with the orchestra in a post that can be found here, and a trip to Shanghai where they were playing a few months after I started and that post can be found here.)
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Touring, even now, is a pretty grueling process and for all the late night post-show drinking or pancake sessions, there’s a lot more trying to sleep on a bus and grinding the miles at 5AM. Even the small amount I have dipped into it has convinced me it isn’t what I am built for. I find myself eating more junk food in a matter of days than I usually do in months and keeping up good exercise habits is hard.
I have used my favorite of the three at the top of the post, with the two men holding their mandolins. A drum case and a large drum front and center, a banjo case is on the running board of the car. It would take a better forensic thinker to unpack with precision what year this might have been. The suits, the location behind them and the car could have belonged to a few decades. The printing of the photos and the film is fairly primitive, but those persisted for decades, especially for home use. We can’t quite see the car they are traveling in but it looks like an early roadster complete with running board.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
They seem to have a set order that they pose in, leading up to the tall fellow but a short guy on each end. The instruments are also posed in front of them in a neat pointing pile. This was obviously well thought out. Hats on and hats off being the other variation.
These photos hail from the midwest and I suspect that is their place of origin from looking at them. Nothing is written on them (except inventory numbers) and there is no evidence that they were ever in an album. The nature of the poses, hats on and hats off, suggests that maybe these were taken for a commercial use, but the reproduction of them is too low in quality to imagine them being useful that way.
I would like to hear these guys and I wish there was some identification of who they were. I have a feeling that they would have been right up my ally, small traveling band from the 20’s or 30’s playing roadhouses and restaurants and whatnot. It is the period of music I love most. I can imagine sitting in a roadside establishment in 1931, beer in hand after a long day, hanging with my honey and listening to these fellows and being on top of the world.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: As we emerge from our Covid cocoons this spring and tip toe into the next stage of what I think of as the new normal, sartorial issues start to take front and center. I have alluded to it in past posts, but it is starting to take on a greater sense of urgency.
I always dressed for work in an office, at the Metropolitan Museum that ran more to jackets, skirts and suits and at my current position over time it evolved more into dresses and a series of nice trousers and jackets. However, like everyone over the past two years my wardrobe has consisted largely of track pants or leggings with a rotation of a few tops, a sweater or two and a large selection of tanks and t-shirts to wear under them. (A heavy sweatshirt, as below, has been added to the roster for running, but I try my best not to sport it on camera. I wrote about it in a running post here.)
It’s me! Several years ago now, shortly after leaving the Met.
As I whittled away at my pandemic weight (first I gained, then I lost and then lost some more), I added one or two items to wear to in-person meetings as those occasionally started to dot my calendar, event, an in-person lunch or meeting. A dress, a pair of nice trousers and a pair of jeans that fit were acquired over time. A leather jacket and favorite one with a snakeskin print (shown above) found their way back into the rotation from the world before, but not most articles have not found their way back, leaving me to ponder if I need to clear my closet of all but this handful of items I currently wear. Or instead will more items start to emerge back into consciousness as such?
Don’t know why I took this recently. It was after losing my sunglasses so I had run in my regular ones.
Moths took care of a swath of clothing – the past two years turned out to be a moth breeding extravaganza in our apartment. However even after having eliminated what the moths munched and what was impossibly large there is a fair amount of clothing which is slowing aging, no longer worn in the closet and drawers. This week is our annual gala at Jazz at Lincoln Center and Kim will sport a new tux for the first time (sadly the moths consumed a vintage one he used to wear, however he too has lost weight and I think it would have been big on him anyway) and I will wear a dress I purchased several years ago and have only managed to wear twice before the long hiatus.
My office in a random photo from May of ’19.
The week after, my office will begin a three day in and two optionally from home hybrid model. I will need to get into a new routine for time in New Jersey with my mother which has occupied my mind more than the question of what I wear to the office now. However, that question is starting to creep up on me even this week as I plan for in-person seating sessions (hundreds need to be seated for the concert and then dinner, seating is a week long affair) at the office and some visits with out of town folks.
A major off-camera addition to my running wardrobe.
I’m not saying I cannot rise to the occasion. I seem to have regained the skill of applying make-up (that actually took some practice) and I have more or less tamed my Rapunzel length locks (shown above, I’ve had gray hair since I was thirty years old and wrote about it here) back into an acceptable version of me. However, the question of what I wear nags at me. After all, it is a primary statement about our identity we confront the world with and what I wear will, to come degree, set the tone for how folks will be attired in the office.
Starting at the bottom, I can safely say my feet don’t want to be in anything but sneakers now (Nike running shoes optimally, but am willing to make occasional concessions for nicer looking ones or for the waterproof pair shown at top) for more than truly nominal periods of time. I have arthritis in my feet (two surgeries so far) and I have always had to be careful, no heels, but a series of expensive (mostly Italian) oxfords and pushing the envelop occasionally to something a bit more daring for evening. My feet are just over it all though. I think the nice shoes will largely disappear with one or two exceptions. Several pairs have spent the past two years in a drawer at my office.
At the moment this is it – the shoe of choice.
Then there is jewelry. I actually bought a lot of it during the pandemic, developing a bit of a passion for British items from the teens purchased from a vendor or two residing in the British countryside. (Posts about those acquisitions can be found here and here.) So pins aplenty now, but rings pose a problem. Necklaces make occasional appearances on Zoom and have never disappeared entirely.
A very favorite horse cameo ring.
After breaking two fingers running last Memorial Day (yep, can read about that misadventure here) my left hand will no longer allow for my wedding band, nor any of a number of rings I wore on it. I may have to break down and have the band made larger (I was told that the swelling could take up to a year to settle so I have not yet), but thus far that finger still resists having a ring on it at all. I, who on any given day would have worn four or five rings (yes, several on each hand – I love rings and only regretted that there isn’t more hand real estate for them), have barely sported one for more than a few hours. I have not worn a bracelet in more than two years, the bangles which adorned my right hand have been languishing on my dresser.
So the question of who exactly emerges forth from the chrysalis and into the world on my behalf hangs in the air. Am I the make-up free, hair up, jeans sporting pandemic Pam, or will I slowly find a path back to a pre-pandemic world of routine hair trimming and manicures? Or is there a new middle ground? The question hangs in the air, along with a closet full of clothes, waiting for a decision about their future.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s postcard wandered in the house mostly because I needed to test something on eBay and I had looked at it recently. It was mailed from Boston with a penny stamp, but the date is illegible on the cancellation. It was mailed to Mr. Stephen Hines, Marlboro, NY. We don’t know who mailed it, but scribbled on the front it assures us in a messy hand, Boston is all o.k. Pat.
Fly paper seems to be an outmoded concept. I was just watching an old film with a routine where a dangling strip was stuck to a woman’s shoe and at the time and I remarked on it as an item from days gone by. Yet, it must still exist. After all, the nature of flies has not changed and they still annoy. (One landed on my phone on the subway the other day and it seemed so odd – you don’t generally see flies on the subway. This may be a fact that surprises non-New Yorkers.) I am not aware of another way of ridding oneself of them.
Still, even in my lifetime the prevalence of the curling amber strip of sticky plastic hanging from a ceiling has almost, but not quite ceased to exist entirely. I was genuinely horrified by the sight of them as a child. They seemed malevolent although I do not profess an affection for our friend the fly. Meanwhile, poor kitty! It would be truly terrible to be stuck this way, on an imaginary and outsized piece of the stuff.
The apartment packed up for the new window installation in fall of ’19.
Yet, the message on the card is meant to be one of affection for a place. When I sat down this morning and had a look at it in advance of writing this I paused to think about that a bit. I decided I would use it to celebrate one of life’s landmarks which occurred earlier this month – I paid off the mortgage on our apartment. It was a thirty year fixed mortgage and so my first reaction is that I feel old! For whatever reasons of financial calculus known only to me, I hadn’t paid it off in chunks and instead, just quietly chipped away at it monthly for all this time.
Early on the bank supplied me with a book of coupons to use to make payments each month. Sadly after the first year or so they discontinued that practice. I always like the coupon book which seemed like a good way of keeping track of things and felt very official, sort of like the savings account passbook I had as a small child. I regretted the passing of it, giving way to monthly billed notifications and later one could have (should have?) opted for an automatic withdrawal, but I never bothered.
I purchased this one room 600 square foot piece of heaven not long after Kim and I started seeing each other. (He once did a short strip with a name along those lines, My Piece of Heaven I think it was called. It featured a moment in the life of Deitch Studio with us and then cat companions, Otto and Zippy, just going on about our daily business at the time.)
Kim moved in here part-time shortly after and then the rest of the way not long after. It has been painted once, patched innumerable times and for a variety of reasons which include, but are not limited to repiping the entire building and replacing the windows (see that post here) we have packed up on several occasions to make room for repairs. We have a history of leaks as well – a problem which seems endemic to residing on the top floor which we do here at Deitch Studio.
Kitchen immediately after fall of ’19 renovation. Yes, right after the windows!
Notably, we renovated the kitchen with rare good timing, just before the pandemic. (Yep, a post about that can be found here.) And, during the summer of ’20 we endured the installation of a wall of bookcases (I wrote about the construction here, but never really featured the finished product) which has allowed for a better use of space which was much needed as I worked just a few feet from Kim over the past two plus years.
Bookcases.Best decision I ever made.
While I have never entirely discounted the possibility that we would trade up for a larger or even just additional apartment, I have generally been too busy actually living to spend time contemplating where we live and so us and the kitties, Cookie and Blackie, shuffle around our 600 square feet in our daily rhythm, more intimately so in the past few years. I awoke to an article about post-pandemic (if we can call it that) rent increases in Manhattan, some rents doubling in this period. So it was with great affection that I reflected on this perch, small though it may be and which we now own in full, at least to the extent that one owns an apartment at all.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I found myself thinking about time during a particularly hard won five mile run yesterday at lunchtime here in Manhattan. It seems my body is more willing to do my bidding in the early mornings and by late morning and early afternoon it balks some at the request. Luckily this is where habit kicks in though and after working the kinks out I’m good until some point at about mile four where I have to apply some discipline to make it through. The fifth mile was added recently and time doesn’t always allow for it, so I am still negotiating it each time.
Being a fairly compulsive gatherer of data I have recently started using an app (Strava) to record distance. My phone was somewhat mercurial in its recording of distance, same exact run different reads, but now I get not only distance, but speed and performance such as tracking time on inclines. It’s a bit dangerous to start feeding me this sort of information because I immediately become competitive with myself and have an urge to go faster and further.
Recent Strava read from a run.
I have written before about the fact that I run slowly (some of those running posts can be found here and here), but even in the realm of slow jogging I find myself increasing my speed incrementally now that I see it. So I am thinking about time in various ways while I run, either in small literal ways or in a larger sense. Seasonal change happens in almost daily increments as demanded by the weather, always reminding me that regardless of what I think time marches forward inexorably.
Winter ’20 view from Carl Schurz Park during my first winter running.
I maintain a photo journal of my runs on Instagram (mostly posted as stories and can be found on the four or so days a week I run @deitchstudio) and those snapshots remain on my phone to remind me of the seasons of my runs over the last eighteen months since I started in November of ’20. Running in the cold gives way to spring and then the heat of summer and back again to fleece leggings. I am excited to see the progress of the magnolia and cherry trees in New Jersey as spring burgeons and when I am back this week.
East River view spring of ’21.
Time and the perception of it passing is somewhat subjective in my opinion. Certain activities elongate time, not stopping but slowing. Meditation, printing photos, lifting weights and now running are among the activities that produce this effect for me. My work days, always crazy busy, tend to speed time up in a reversal. I have always needed to find activities to balance that frenetic work energy lest I just burn out completely.
Time with my mother in New Jersey passes at a different pace too. I find myself examining that time which also slows it down. Morning coffee with her is a good time and I savor it. Running in her suburban neighborhood takes on a somewhat magical quality and the same five miles seems more epic there than my trot up and down my also beloved East River at home.
Magnolia tree near mom’s which inspired the purchase of one for her yard.
Meanwhile, I have just passed the five year anniversary of my current job. Like everyone else, I have conducted the past two years during the pandemic and am now in a liminal phase of partial re-entry as we commence year three. I have frequently said that I learned more about my job (fundraising for a performing arts organization) during the past two years than I learned in the previous three decades. That is an exaggeration of course and it is the first thirty years that made success (defined in large part as survival) possible. I have drawn on experience, but also the leadership that I worked with and learned from in my nascent decades working at the Metropolitan Museum. (I wrote about my time there and my departure here.)
Me at Dizzy’s post Gala in ’18! Wearing the same dress this year!
As I prepare to usher my somewhat tattered troop into a new work world with weekly time back in an office, I am reminded that despite an illusion otherwise, time has not stood still. The roadmap of our work remains intact, another annual Gala (the first in-person in two years) is on the immediate horizon. However, the issues we face for interaction together, such as mask and vaccination protocol, possible infection and negotiating our in-person time and space together are entirely new and I don’t begin to know how to answer all their questions. We are all older and we have spent the past two years intensively together and yet very much apart. So I stand on the threshold of my fifth year entirely unclear about what it will bring, but time will tell.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: After a long hectic week I take refuge in toy talk today. When I rolled out bed this morning and walked to a shelf of toys and took this fellow out Kim looked at me inquiringly and said, “Somehow you’ve never written about that particular Felix?” I have not. He arrived at a very busy time around my birthday and just the other day I thought about him, went looking for him and realized that I had unpacked him and tucked him on a shelf without serious consideration.
It probably won’t surprise Pictorama readers to discover that I have many rather compulsive collecting habits, formed and honed over years of searching for certain toys. I receive myriad notifications about auctions and notices about toy cats for sale on various sites such as Ruby Lane which is the origin of this guy. I’m sure there are people who have more refined processes and mine requires mulling through a lot of really dreadful items before occasionally there is something worth investigating. Maybe it is the only way to do it, maybe not.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
As I said, this fellow turned up on Ruby Lane whose daily listings are among the worst really, at least based on whatever search I saved there. Infuriatingly, on the rare occasion something great turns up it is generally already sold and don’t even ask me what that’s all about and why they need to tell me. Still, I give it a cursory morning glance each day. It’s like the lottery – you have to be in it to win it.
One morning in early February (while still in bed) I saw this and did a double take. He is 12 inches long (ears included) and made of a fluffy mohair which is unusual, however I have at least one other, very small and very old Felix made of a similar wool. He is, as you can see, oddly pristine making me wonder if he was somehow newly made. Yet a close look at his face pulls me in the direction of older.
This has happened to me once before, back in 2018, and I wrote about it in a post here and the toy is shown below. He is also rather pristine, but of an entirely different type. Although I thought there was also a chance he was somehow newer, he seems even less so than this fellow featured today.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
He was very (relatively anyway) inexpensive so, after I had a cup of coffee and could reason a bit, I figured it was worth taking a chance. If I ended up with a weird modern reproduction of an old Felix so be it. I purchased him and he arrived on my birthday, with some other nice items since it was my birthday, and I unpacked him and placed him on the shelf until my examination today.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
His head rotates, but his arms are not movable. Most notably his tail is just knitted wool whereas most Felix’s have a stiff tail for better tri-pod style standing. This Felix sports this brand new looking red bow, has shoe button type eyes and nose along with his stitched on Felix grin.
All Felix toys have an expression which helps define them and this one has a benignly slightly cross-eyed one, maybe not too bright but affable. He has long pointy ears, not unheard of in Felix design, but a tad less common. His most notable feature though is the fluffy mohair he is made of which hovers off him like a halo. As mentioned above and shown below, I have another very unusual one (featured in a 2014 post here) with fluffy mohair, but a very different design.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
My final analysis is that he is old, but of somewhat mysterious origin. Much like the off-model ones hand assembled on the East End of London (one of my favorite posts about that can be found here) there is a story here about the who and the how this was made which I have yet to figure out. Please send any information you may have. Meanwhile, Pictorama is on the case and will of course share any discoveries ultimately made.
Pam's Pictorama 