Author: Pam's Pictorama

Strange Hijinxs

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Cag tree...tranquil scene

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The cat photo is a recent purchase and it made me dig out the other, which I have had for years and was sitting on a shelf.  I guess it is the peering between the trees thing that scratched at my brain.  I love the photo of the cat showing his (or her) tummy in the tree, although it does make you wonder what the heck they were thinking.  I mean, if the cat liked to hang out in the tree like that, that why do you need to hold him up for the photo?  Cat looks concerned – often do in photos I have noticed.  This isn’t a large photo, about 3″x5″ and you can see where it used to fit into an album. Hmmm, wonder what else was on that page.

The other one is a photo postcard and a terrific photo.  Clearly the folks are having some fun, although I suspect the specifics might be somewhat lost to us. I like the way the dog is looking one way and the man in the tree the other. Perfect reflection in the water which adds to it too. I do wonder how I even found this photo (no cat in it to turn up on a search) which brings to mind one of the things I do not like about living in the age of eBay.  Ebay is beyond wonderful for finding things you are looking for, but is somewhat limited to what you are looking for – it is not impossible, but a bit harder to stumble on things you didn’t know about, the way you might at a flea market digging through a dusty box.  I have managed, and this photo is evidence – and I am the first to say that the good outweighs the bad!

A Jolly Tintype

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I have owned this tintype for a number of years – pulled it out of a box at a big photography fair and plunked on the wall at work where it has remained since. I have an ongoing fascination with the happy fantasy of a really splendid photo set like this one. Who wouldn’t be having the time of their life posed here?

Mom and her two sons I guess – I especially like the American flag and the boating banners waving.  North Beach – San Francisco and the Wharf? This tintype is reproduced at about full size, maybe a smidge larger.  When you take into account the rushed and repetitive process of these little wet plate photos, at a fair or seaside resort, undoubtedly developed in a pail of filthy chemicals that saw dozens or more that day – it amazes me that this photo and so many like it have survived and have such lasting power. Aside from a chemical smudge and a fingerprint or two, nice composition, it’s a solid little photograph. I always think that I would have liked to have been there, and would have been proud to produce it.

Cat in a Box

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Introducing a nice little fellow, immortalized in his (or her) favorite spot.  Anyone who has a cat knows that they can rarely resist a box.  There is, of course, the most famous box loving cat of our day, Maru:

which proves that cats the world over are the same.

And this photo helps reminds us that it has also been ever thus. People are the same too and we have loved recording our adorable darlings in their irresistible poses first in daguerreotype, then wet plate, and endlessly on film. One imagines that the “cloud” is weighed down with digital cat images and, let’s face it, where would Youtube be without them? I worry though about the future of those digital images.  Where are tomorrow’s cat pictures of today?

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Cookie examines a recently arrived package in our apartment

Tom the Fire Boat Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I don’t have all that much to say except that I fell in LOVE with this postcard when I saw it a few weeks ago.  I will confess that I paid dearly for it (which just shows that other people saw his charm as well), but the pain of purchase is already fading in my memory  – my pleasure with the card rapidly eclipsing the cost.

September 1910, more than a hundred years ago this month, Tom, The pride of the Fire Boat, Portland, Oregon, posed for this photo. (Yep, another wonderful photo find from the great city of Portland, OR.)  What a nice fellow!  He has a great sense of readiness about him and it is easy to imagine him helping with all the necessary boat tasks.  A very solid little citizen, nicely well-fed, muscular, but not quite fat.  And he just about qualifies as a tuxedo – I have a soft spot for those, as many of you know.  I salute Tom and I hope you enjoy him too.

Where has Pam been?

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A small Pictorama Post for those of you not on Facebook!  For those of you wondering where I got to over the past week, please know I haven’t forgotten you, but that my beloved husband Kim had emergency surgery following a trip to the ER on Sunday.  Very relieved to report that all has returned more or less to normal in the Butler-Deitch house as of last night.  Kim shown in bed above, earlier this morning, with our cats, Cookie (next to him) and Blackie (at his feet) working away on his book.  I told everyone he pretty much sat up in the recovery room and started to tell me story ideas! For those of you who have already sent well wishes, thank you!

The Mysteries of Felix

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felix carCat ....umbrella

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Today’s post is of one of my favorite series of photos.  All three were purchased on Ebay, tiny photos – sort of 3 inches, smaller than reproduced here. The first two I purchased together, the third considerably later and from a different seller. They all came from Portland (which, as some of you know already, is emerging in my mind as the el dorado for whacky old photo finds) and are so similar – I have to wonder what the story might be.

They are on photo paper, but poorly printed. How can they be so similar and unrelated?  If they were some sort of multiple prints what on earth was the reason or the origin? That the first two show the Felix person holding a white cat – and that old car! – well, what more could I ask for? (Love those white Felix cat tummies too!) If memory serves I lost out on a second image of Felix on the car. These didn’t come cheap and I think I was just out of money. I have posted them on FB in the past and the image on the car either circled back to me on the internet, or there are other copies out there. I haven’t ever seen the other two any place else. These photos were the first in my acquisition of strange photos of people wearing Felix masks, and still among the ones I like very best!

Mickey Marches In

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Jumping off on our parade theme from earlier this week, Cats on Parade, I offer these two photos I purchased last year on eBay under the theory, where there are cats, mice will surely follow. There is no indication of date, but there is a Philadelphia studio stamp on the back, For Duplicates of this Photograph order by number which appears on face of this print or on Back, Hood-Weintraub, 501 Keith Theatre Bldg. Phila, PA. [sic] Also scrawled in pencil on the back of the top one, “We posed for this before the parade began. Can you find me. don’t we look Cute. see how wet the streets are. it had rained in the early morning” [sic – all and below.]  Same studio stamp on the back of the other and this in the same hand, “you surely ought to find me in this. looks how I am stepping out.  this was taken on Broad St just below Aunt Edith” Does make you wonder who “me” is – I have spent some time looking at these and contemplating which one me might be.

While this may be Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade – evidently the oldest in the country having started in 1920, I vote instead for the Mummer’s New Year’s Day parade.  Wikipedia tells us that it is 130 years old and believed to be “one of the oldest folks festivals in the country.” Just because it is really great, I offer here this spectacular snippet from New York’s Thanksgiving parade in 1935:

However, when you see this clip from the 1926 Mummer’s Parade, you’ll see where I got the clue that this is where these photos are from!

(The tail end of this shows an equally good Rose Parade clip from the period – as an aside, Kim tells me his dad, Gene, designed a winning float for one for an ice cream company around 1946 or so!)

While my heart will always belong to Felix and those donning Felix costumes, (see Felix on Parade and Felix Mask-o-Rama) who wouldn’t love these folks dressing up in Mickey clothes?  Braving foul weather and sallying cheerfully forward nonetheless. We should all take a page from their book. 

We Love Our Cat Photos

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I’ve acquired these photos over the past few months and in my mind they somehow are all of a kind.  The top two photos (which are postcards) are from the United States, the smaller one on the bottom is a small photo and although I purchased it from someone in the US it has im Garten (in garden?) written on the back.  So I guess this could be from Germany.

I love to look at photos of people with their cats in the newspaper or magazines – Sunday morning, reading the Times, me showing Kim a photo in the Real Estate section of a family, “Hey, nice looking cat, huh? Calico.”  Kim, “Uh huh.” (He nicely puts up with me.) Clearly, one immediate response to someone taking your photo is to pick up the family cat or dog. (I know I do.) These photos are nice examples of that. Hard for me to say when I think these are from, but I am leaning toward the teens and twenties. Of course the whole point is that we’ve always loved to photograph our beloved cats and to be photographed with them, and to photograph them as part of our family.  From blurry tintypes to the several hundred photos I have on my iPhone of Cookie and Blackie today, we love ’em – they are our family and we have always liked to take their picture.

For more early cat photo, you might want to check out my Happy Hooligan post. Enjoy!

Cats on Parade

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: While clearly not Felix these cats are pretty spectacular in their own right – not to mention the little Shriner-esque fellow driving. This float was honoring the 70th Anniversary, Swiss Settlers Swiss Colony, August 16, 1885-1915, New Glarus, Wis. (I have taken the liberty of checking up on New Glarus  and, sure enough, it is still known as America’s Little Switerzland today.) The stand-out supporters of this float appear to have been Hole-Proof Hosiery and Masurys Paints.  Sadly the other banners do not appear to be legible, even when I blow this up. The support of these fine businesses now lost to the sands of time.

Before taking note of the year, I thought this card was from a somewhat later period, but date notwithstanding, on closer inspection the car is a very early one and the storefront and house in the background are early too.  Seems very much Main Street, USA, circa 1915 except that the cats look like they could be from decades later – with a somewhat alien quality. No joking around on this float – all business I think, driver very serious. And why black cats? I guess we’ll never know.  Still, I send a tip of the hat to Glarus – I do mean to stop by if I’m ever in the neighborhood.

Felix Takes the Beach

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Pam’s Pictorama photo post:  A Labor Day beauty!  This new acquisition seems perfect for the last unofficial day of the summer season. While an in depth look at my Felix photo postcards is pending (they are the unofficial inspiration for this blog – my photos and the prolonged and boring recuperation from foot surgery earlier this summer) I can’t resist considering each of them on their own merits. As I said in Let the Cats Begin when I first saw one of these photos as published in the Felix the Cat bio book, it never occurred to me that I would get to own dozens of them – oh bliss! It was years before eBay was so much as a glimmer in anyone’s eye, and considering I have acquired almost everyone of these from Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain it is truly unlikely that I could have amassed the collection without it.  (Oddly however, this one was purchased from someone in Florida. It may be the first I’ve purchased from a US seller.)

All that aside – how wonderful! A waggish Felix is just peaking into this photo – makes me wonder if they had to pay full fare considering.  The grandmother (?) such a solid citizen, brooking no nonsense – Felix notwithstanding.  The back of the card, shown below, is more or less illegibly scrawled, presumably by the little girl.  I have gotten pretty good at reading these, but this one defies my abilities a bit.  The little girl is very much enjoying the whole thing however.

I don’t know what it is (a happy past life as a Felix photographer perhaps?), but these cards just make my pulse race. I won’t rest until I own them all!

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