Month: November 2023

Swimming

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This photo has been on my desk for a long time and it drifted to the top of the pile today. As I write on a chilly November morning, summer and swimming is already a distant memory while the long winter days of January, February and March lay, daunting, ahead. It reminds me that it has been many years since I have been swimming in the ocean, or even a smaller natural body of water.

I thought about taking up swimming during the pandemic. I think I would need a few lessons to get to the point where I am swimming laps successfully. I may still do it. Long term the low impact of swimming may make better peace with my arthritic body than the endless pounding of running.

This photograph has a remarkably dreamy quality. The way the definition of the water disappears, yet there are just a few people going way out to the horizon line. The four women are wearing old-fashioned bathing caps, but even the somewhat saggy bathing suits don’t mar the timeless quality of the image. We see their reflections, but not below the surface. It manages to reach across time which is what the best old photos do for me.

Years ago I wrote a post (found here) based on the quote, save something for the swim back, and that quote comes to my mind when I look at this photo. The post was about the struggle I was having in the fall of 2019 where I did feel I was drowning at times. Little did I know how much would change in the next six months when March of 2020 rolled around.

This image feels like the liminal space between things – those times where we are parked in one of the great waiting rooms of our lives. That’s not to say those periods are fallow. I wrote several times about the time I spent caring for my mom during her final illness. (One of those posts can be found here.) While it was a world away from everything else, it was a time I learned a lot. Time seems to slow and morph. It is a period that seems to be outside of the ongoing time-space continuum of my life otherwise.

I have been in a similar space again recently as I began to commit to leaving my current position at Jazz at Lincoln Center and moving to another, very different one. That weird period when you realize that you are probably leaving, but you haven’t committed yet and are not ready to tell anyone. You stop investing in the future of what you are doing beyond a point because you won’t be there to do it so you are mentally treading water. However, after six and a half years I gave notice right before the holiday and more about that adventure in coming weeks for readers who stick around.

Lastly, to note: this is a photo postcard, but it is mounted on another piece of cardstock. I did not purchase it so it has the rare distinction of not being of my choosing as is virtually everything posted about here. Pictorama is pretty much wholly curated by me. However, this card arrived in the mail last December and there is a note from the fellow cartoonist Robert Crumb to Kim on the back. And we decided however, that the photo merited its own place here in Pictorama.

Musical Mickey’s

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: A few weeks back I wrote a bit about our anniversary which we celebrated with a trip to Cold Spring, which is where Kim and I spent our one-day honeymoon. (That post can be read here.) We found Cold Spring largely unchanged in the intervening decades, although a tourist ferry landed at lunchtime while we were there, crowding the town with people who were leaf watching and enjoying the first nippy days of October. Some of the antique stores had folded or morphed together. One that had always featured vintage Halloween items either melted down into something else or is gone entirely, I could not tell.

However, one of my purchases that day was this trio, two Mickeys and a Minnie. Some quick research shows a similar, larger band composed only of Mickeys. However, Worthpoint sold these three pieces together, in lesser condition. Each piece is etched with Mickey or Minnie Mouse. And on the back of each, it is noted that they were Made in Japan. (These figures are very similar to a single Bimbo figure I came across and wrote about here. If not the same manufacturer, very much of a piece. It would appear he too had his own band.)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Bisque attracts dirt and is easily chipped and mine are in better shape than the ones auctioned previously on Worthpoint. However, ultimately I did find a set in the original box, below, sold on Heritage. (Note to self, Heritage sells something other than original art and comics? Huh.) There were originally four pieces and the missing piece appears to be an accordion playing Mickey. Part of my brain wonders at the Mickey to Minnie ratio – was it somehow okay to multiple Mickeys, but Minnie was singular? You have to look a bit to see the Minnie-ness; I missed it at first. This set was evidently produced in the 1930’s.

That day in the same store I purchased a nice Steiff duck which I wrote about in the post mentioned at the top, here. Perhaps the very best thing about that store was an internet radio station they were listening to, Radio Dismuke. This station, based on a singular collection which continues to be programmed by its founder, plays music from the early decades of the 20th century. I have been happily listening to it on a regular basis since discovering it. The station, which runs 24 hours a day, can be found here and do check it out if early jazz and dance band music is of interest to you. (For my remembrances of the great Rich Conaty, radio DJ who largely introduced me to this music, read the post here.)

Kim and I meet Rich at Sophia’s in 2010, Maureen Solomon on my left.

Kim has said that Radio Dismuke is a bit like you bought an old radio at a flea market and turned it on to find it playing the tunes of its day. He’s hit it spot on. There is no DJ, but the occasional period commercial is inserted, as is the periodic station identification. They are a non-profit and I assure you they are getting my support this season.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I do own another Mickey Mouse band, very small and made of china, purchased on a work trip in Lyon, France. Sadly one of the pieces has broken subsequently so I don’t feel I have been a good steward of it. (A post about it can be found here.) However, it is maybe notable that a proliferation of multiple Mickeys making music seems to have been so popular in his youth, and these radio tunes are the perfect partner.

Getting to the Root of Burdock Blood Bitters

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: These cat related bits wandered in together from Miss Molly (@missmollystlantiques) who said her mom found them. They are similar to a post I did a few months back with an interesting cat piece that Miss Molly sold me, but evidently not from the same point of origin. (That post, The Fish Eater can be found here.) My guess is that these did not relate to each other earlier in life either and the Burdock Blood Bitters and the cat head show evidence of having been hand trimmed. All show signs of having been pasted down so they came out of an album.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The Burdock piece was a trade card for a patent medicine. It still has some information about the product on the back, including that it hailed from the Foster, Milburn & Co., Buffalo, N.Y. Kittens seem like a benign if misleading representation of this particular stomach cure. These kittens also seem oddly placed in this basket – not really sitting on anything, floating. This piece is the heaviest, made of card stock. In a sort of sleepy state this morning (concert last night for work) I started down the rabbit hole of Burdock root and Burdock Blood Bitters online this morning.

Burdock, the real deal.

One entry tells me that an 1918 bottle of bitters that was tested contained zero burdock and excessive amounts of alcohol and lead. Although it was ostensibly most frequently used to settle stomach and digestive ailments (think constipation and liver and kidney problems), the company also claimed that it would work to purify your blood (whatever that means) and cure nervousness. The internet seems to be willing to grant that Burdock root is high in fiber and especially high antioxidant and something called pre-biotic qualities. Herbal remedies with it abound on the internet today.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The seated kitty is holding a rat under one paw and whatever his origin, he is on very light paper, slightly embossed. You probably can’t see it, but he has a couple of fangy teeth bared. It presumably hails from some sort of rodent killing product ad. Although is bow is untied he looks otherwise unruffled, almost surprised that he is holding that ratty fellow.

For the Hobo fans, I will pause and tell a recent tale. (For those who are just entering the story, Hobo is the tough old male stray who visits our backyard in New Jersey. I fed him and even tried to trap him at my mother’s behest, but he is wily and although he enjoys his handouts he will never get that close.)

A recent through the screen door pic of Hobo. King of outdoor cats.

Anyway, after mom died we continue to feed him and the other day the caretaker of cats and house, Winsome, because to her horror she stumbled across Hobo behind the bushes in the front yard munching (and crunching – she sent a video) on a rat. (Evidently he had left a mouse for her earlier in the day so she shouldn’t have felt so bad!) I told her he deserved a promotion.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Lastly there is a cat head, slightly embossed, which appears to be the only one that was constructed for pasting down. Hard to see but even the whiskers and the hairs are defined and it is professionally finished although it seems to fit all of a piece with these two more recycled bits.

I’m sorry the original page of this Victorian album arrangement no longer exists, but happy to welcome these small bits to the Pictorama collection.

In the Bag…

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This Felix bag was new old stock and offered with several other identical ones. The Felix is a jolly round slightly off-model version and, with oversized mitts for hands, he holds a sign bearing tidings from Felix’s Viroqua, Wis. He stands in what appears to be a puddle and the black mid-century token design is reminiscent of my 1960’s era childhood.

It is the sort of small flat bag that cards, a bit of stationary or bauble might have gone into when purchased. These ubiquitous paper bags eventually gave way to a plastic version. Now that we live in a bag eliminating society perhaps they will disappear altogether although, as a frequent buyer of cards I am still often offered one at the point of sale. It is perhaps too small to have converted to a lunch bag. (In a sea of precisely purchased lunch bags, my mother was an early adopter of the random bag for our lunches as children. I speculate that the waste of purchasing lunch bags once we grew out of lunch boxes must have annoyed her.)

Much to my surprise, when I ran the name on Google this morning the story of Felix’s poured out of the computer. It turns out that Viroqua, Wisconsin is a small town of perhaps declining fortune which is home to about 4,500. (I checked and the small town in NJ we call second home clocks in at a population of about 2,000 more.)

And they had a great neon sign!

Felix’s closed its doors in 2007 after 101 years of being a local mainstay. The eponymous enterprise was founded by Max Felix who arrived in Wisconsin in 1905 and joined a wave of Jewish immigrants, like my own grandfather, who carved out a mercantile living with what was called dry goods or general store, in this case across the midwest. These stores sold everything from stationary to socks and catered broadly to the needs of their community.

Over the decades Felix’s was evidently handed from Max to his brothers, then to their children and to a final generation. The general store model morphed into a clothing store over time and that is what it is remembered for in the community.

The story of its closure seems to be inevitably wrapped in the broader tale of a town with a shrinking local economy, big box stores pushing out the long-standing, smaller and privately owned retail. There are articles and online posts about the demise of numerous other local retail establishments at the same time and concern for the future of the town.

Viroqua is described online as sparsely suburban which could certainly be viewed as damning with faint praise in several different ways. However, the schools are noted to be above average and the community heavily populated with retirees; it runs conservative politically. The town was founded with the name Bad Axe (certainly evocative) and did a stint as Farwell before the settled on Viroqua.

Beautiful indeed!

Viroqua appears to be known for something called the Driftless Region. For a description of what that seems to be, I share directly from the internet and close with this topological tidbit: The area is one of the only parts of America consistently missed by advancing glaciers over the millennia, hence the name “Driftless or Unglaciated Region”. This has preserved the unique topography of the region. The famous bluffs, coulees and small winding streams are mesmerizing. Fascinating!

And It’s Spark Plug

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Possibly one of the strangest sub-genres here at Pictorama are a clutch of photos of people posing on Spark Plug who in 1922 made his way into comics fame when he made his entrance into the Barney Google strip. The patched together equine captured the reader’s heart in that initial episode and he joined the ongoing cast of characters. His distinctive appearance made him a picture perfect photo foil and evidently photos posing with him proliferated in addition to sheet music, Halloween costumes, games, candy containers and toys ranging from wind-up’s to more cuddly soft versions.

Not in Pictorama Collection. This sheet music is widely available.

I stumbled on the first photo in a Hake’s catalogue years ago and bid on it. That photo went very high and much to my disappointment I didn’t acquire it. It stayed with me however as these things sometimes do and I started to look for them.

I manage to acquire my first one back in 2018 and it is similar to the one I lost at the Hake’s auction. (That post can be found here.) It is a pro photo, much along the same lines as the concept of people posing with Felix, although the Spark Plug photos are not postcards and are generally regular prints which are 5×7 or larger. If you read that post you will find an interesting exchange with the descendent of the fellow identified in the picture who found the post while doing genealogy research on his family.

Pricey Chien litho toy for sale at the time of writing.

The next photo didn’t show up until ’21 and it is a postcard where Spark Plug is an almost abstract design. Lodged as he was in the public consciousness however you merely had to make a nod to his appearance and label him and you were good to go. (That odd little gem can be found here.) This acquisition marks the third in the series.

Today’s entry into the archive is what appears to be a very competently homemade version of the pasted together pony. Junior, in comic splendor complete with glasses, nose and mustache all of a piece under his topper of a hat, must be concealing his legs under Spark Plug’s body and stubby faux limbs are astride the horse. Spark Plug’s identifying patch is evident on the side and, as is always helpful, he is clearly labeled on one side. His head, while a tad small for his body, is a credible reproduction.

Next to him is another kid, in blackface, with a faux banjo. Something about him reminds the viewer of the jockey statues that used to be in evidence as outdoor decor. Behind them are adults who do not appear to be in costume – the maid notwithstanding but after some consideration I have decided that she is just working in uniform, not in fancy dress. She is pushing a cart of something fluffy and like the other adults she is in somewhat soft focus. They form a distracting blur behind the costumed kids.

Another pricey item for sale as I write – interesting that a somewhat forgotten cartoon character still fetches thousands for toys today!

This photo is approximately 5×7 and printed on a super light paper which is curling with age. The back is entirely blank and there’s no evidence that it was in a photo album at any time, perhaps it was framed. While the pictorial quality is somewhat lacking this photo nevertheless is another interesting entry into the Pictorama archive.

Frank’s

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: When I purchased this tray last summer in New Jersey I bought it assuming it was for beer without really looking – Pale Ale is what I was thinking. Although I really just liked the bold red and green of it and what great shape it is in. However, ginger ale is what it is actually advertising.

I think Kim may have spotted it first. I was looking for a serving tray for the deck, but I think we realized almost immediately that although I should buy it, it would be unfortunate to use and potentially scratch it when it is relatively pristine.

We had found our way to an enclave of antiques dealers in Red Bank, New Jersey during our summer hiatus there and whiled away an afternoon or two. We had visited them before but not been in many years and although at least one of the storefronts closed, we still managed to make a number of scores, most of which are residing and decorating the house there. (A few of those posts about acquisitions there can be found here and here.)

Brief research shows that Frank’s Beverages was founded in 1895 by Jacob Frank in South Philadelphia. He was a Russian immigrant who made lemon soda from freshly squeezed lemons and hawked it on the streets of the city. It was in its day and for much of the latter part of the 20th century, the largest privately owned beverage bottling company in the Philly area. It evidently prospered on the slogan, If it’s Frank’s, thanks!, one that perhaps seems a bit bland by today’s standards. Youtube houses some Frank’s sponsored puppet films from early television however which are a bit more memorable.

Thanks for Frank’s commercials!

While Frank bottled everything from Yoo-hoo to Nestle’s Ice Tea, Frank’s Beverages was best known for something called black cherry wishniak, described as a fruity, dark-red soda that accompanied cheesesteaks, soft pretzels and other famous Philadelphia fare. Evidently the Polish word for cherry is wisnia and wishniak refers to a cherry liqueur from Poland, hence the name. (I am not a cherry soda fan so this sounds wretched to me actually!)

The company was bought out in 1990 and the locally famous cherry soda disappeared from the Philadelphia shelves. It was briefly brought back by a company in Delaware which sold it as a pricey novelty item – try $80 a bottle. I guess not surprising that it was not a success – especially as I can’t figure out why people in Delaware would be nostalgic for a soda that was only popular in Philadelphia.

Further reading about the ginger ale leads me to the conclusion that it was a hard ginger ale – more akin to beer than soda and I guess like a hard lemonade or cider. The cherry soda may have been the favorite, but the green bottle on a red background was popular advertising and my tray is very available as a result today.

Getting out the (Woman’s) Vote

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: While I try never to get political here at Pictorama (we get enough of that in the world without my two cents), I have been known to occasional opine on the importance of voting in general. Therefore, the women’s suffrage movement and the right of women to vote both in this country and others, has long interested me. In particular the struggle of the women of Britain is an interesting parallel to the one in this country, bolder and bloodier with brutal hunger strikes and violence done to the protesting women.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

While reading the juvenile series, The Ranch Girls, I realized for the first time that here in the United States women gained the right to vote ad hoc one state at a time in the beginning. (Find that 2021 post about The Ranch Girls here.) The west, where the strictures of society in general were less in evidence, enabled it first. Eventually, in 1920, it became a federal mandate when the 19th amendment was passed.

Of course any good movement needs ways to get its point across and to identify its participants, declared through political buttons and pins. Those, which I find endlessly fascinating in general, seem to go back to the very beginning of politics and voting in this country. I was just looking at a Hake’s catalogue which boasted buttons having to do with George Washington! Today we are handed stickers that declare that we have voted as a way of reminding others that they should do the same.

Washington inaugural buttons
Later Washington items, these for curtains.

The Women’s Suffrage movement produced some distinctive items. Again, mostly in Britain, there were pieces of jewelry with telltale stones of green, purple and white. Wealthy women adopted brooches of emerald or peridot, amethyst, and pearl or diamond in a sly form of support, but in addition to those rarified items, paste stone versions also survive aplenty today.

On my last trip to the London markets, before Covid, there was an abundance of these items available at all levels – also some discussion around which were truly a part of this history. Of course inexpensive and vibrant ribbons and buttons were also boasted, but nothing demur about those. This country favored those buttons (yellow for pro) and also the wearing of a yellow rose in favor of the vote or a red against it. Another perhaps sly symbol was the wearing of all white by women to support the movement.

In learning about this I was of course interested to find that cats, often black cats, were the face of the movement. I wrote about this at some length in another 2021 post when I acquired my first ceramic, I Want My Vote black cat statue. Purchased from a Hake’s auction, I stumbled upon it and its history. (That post can be found here.) There was a double edge sword to the symbolism – those against suffrage meaning if you let women vote men will be stuck home with the home with the family cat, that women would wear the pants in the family.

Not in my collection but I wouldn’t mind finding it!

However, women took back the symbol of the cat in 1916 and made it their own, often turning this symbol of the domestic to a meowing sometimes even snarling feline. The cat might be beat up and bedraggled to show the wear and tear of the fight over time, or it might, like mine today mew in obstinate favor.

Driving across country (employing the still nascent automobile) Nell Richardson and Alice Burke, campaigned for women’s rights. Along the way they adopted a black kitten, dubbed him Saxon after the maker of the car, and made him their mascot. He became a living incarnation of the movement.

My item came via a Hake’s auction. It was another occasion when I put in a lowball bid and discovered weeks later that I had won it. I knew about this statue from my prior post and was pleased to add it to my collection. I keep an eye on suffrage items, although often they are a bit rarified and go quite high.

Alas, poor men will be left home with the kids and kits.

She’s about three inches high and Votes for Women is across the bottom. Some entries seem to find the mewing expression as a negative although in general she seems to be accepted as a pro-vote item. I have seen her in two colors, this blue and a brown. (I will note that on Worthpoint there was a two color version, the brown, but with green eyes and the mouth and ribbon in red!)

Advertisement for The Suffragette newsletter.

It was made commercially by cast ceramic mold. There are vague numbers on the bottom, but I cannot transcribe them and no other maker’s information. I cannot find maker’s information online, although this is not an uncommon item both in Britain and the US and I assume was sold in both places.

All this to remind us of the sacrifice and struggle women (and others) made in gaining the vote. So regardless of the size or contention of the elections in your area on Tuesday exercise that right and cast your vote.

Quack

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: A few weeks ago I mentioned that Kim and I were off to Cold Spring for our anniversary and of course I did manage to find a few toy treats while we were there. That post was devoted to Kim’s anniversary gift to me which was a large Oswald Rabbit issued in a limited edition by Steiff. (That post can be found here.)

Interestingly, today’s post is also a Steiff fellow. I don’t buy too much Steiff. While they are certainly quality toys the prices often seem inflated to me and their selection of cats is limited. (Some other bits of Steiff in my collection can be found here and here.) Early Steiff teddies can be compelling and have almost human expression and look in their eye. Those are largely of course the ones that will set you back a mint however. (Upon some reflection though, quite a few have sneaked into Deitch Studio however!)

For all of that, on occasion, a vintage Steiff toy crosses my path. As I sit here writing about this new fellow, there is a rooster that can be wound up to hop around, right next to me as well. Clearly their birds have attitude that appeals.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I was a bit surprised that this fellow called to me, but I left the store and went back for him. (I purchased a few other bits including some random pieces of Bakelite silverware and some Mickey musicians for a future post.) I think he reminded me of my mom who rescued and rehabbed water fowl. She was especially devoted to swans, but some geese and ducks also did time in the Butler yard.

I remember that she had a pair of what she called puddle ducks, mallards. This little quacking couple stayed close to the house and did splash about in puddles and the small water garden mom had out there. The mom had ducklings she showed off. My mom was quite convinced, probably correctly, that they would have happily marched into the house to hang with us. They were quite fond of sitting in the driveway as I remember.

From our trip to Cold Spring in October – a perfect fall day there!

Of course what helps make this fellow jolly is his one wing raised as if in greeting. I find his oversized ducky paddle feet very endearing as well. For those who care he has both his tag and his button which is on the back of said wing. There is something especially endearing about the little indication of a feathered tail on his bottom and the detail on his beak, painted in.

Duck butt! Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I had a moment of wonder if he was a signet (baby swan) rather than a duck, looking at his longish neck. However a quick bit of research and I confirmed his duckling identity. It turns out that Steiff did make both geese and swans in addition to ducks – not surprisingly. The early felt swans are wonderful and the one on wheels would be irresistible – although I think it would live in New Jersey in tribute to mom. Meanwhile, given what they go for, it is perhaps an unlikely addition to Pictorama in the near future.