Author: Pam's Pictorama

Bahr’s Landing

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: One of my favorite new hobbies is purchasing bits of local memorabilia to decorate the New Jersey house. Having grown up in the area I have always found local history interesting and I am having fun finding ways to celebrate and embrace it as well as my own history there. Along those lines I picked up this postcard recently with the intention of framing it for the house there. This is a bit of a long summer and childhood post so settle in if it appeals. I guess I am kicking off summer officially today.

In a parallel universe I think I bought a tiny wooden house in Highlands on the water and live there. In that world I either live with and/or disregard the constant flooding of the area and I have no idea what I do for a living. There was a moment in this world where I gave serious consideration to such a purchase for a weekend house (affordably due to the aforementioned flooding), but my ever practical minded mother talked me out of it. I lived through enough flooding to hear her talking sense about it. Nonetheless, my heart does remain with the idea of a few rooms in a wooden house, just a few minutes walk from the river and ten or so minutes over the bridge to Sandy Hook beach.

Back in the early days when Bahr’s was still a rooming house and bait and tackle shop.

When I was very young, we had a house – one sold by Sears and Roebuck – on the nearby spit of land in Sea Bright we call the North Beach. I adored that house and did consider making it my home when my parents sold it in my early 20’s. My earliest summer memories are there, with beach access across the (incredibly busy) street and clubs with pools where I would ultimately learn to swim. In recent years, the bridge between the two, Sea Bright and Highlands, has been remade from a simple old fashioned one (up from the glorified foot bridge that would have existed at the time of this postcard) to a very high, super highway version which I guess you can walk over, but seems a bit threatening.

Anyway, Highlands and its kissin’ cousin tucked nearby, Atlantic Highlands, were always there as part of my childhood. It has an interesting mix of real estate, multimillion dollar homes on the steep hilly incline overlooking the water (mom and dad would speculate on how terrible winter driveways and roads they must have) and down to the small, wooden homes near the shoreline. For those of you who followed my nascent ferry adventures to and fro Manhattan, this is where the ferry leaves you, or conversely picks you up. As a child we mostly drove through it as a way of avoiding round trip beach traffic to Sea Bright or a to get out on the highway.

Nearby ferry landing.

One of the fixtures of Highlands is Bahr’s Landing restaurant. It is currently billed as the oldest restaurant in New Jersey, dating back to its earliest incarnation as a seasonal houseboat chowder and boarding house for those working the waterfront in 1917. Boats were rented and on the off season the family went back to their necktie business in Newark.

Eventually the business took off sufficiently in the 40’s to become year round and, according to the article I found, the original houseboat established the existing building today. Oddly, I only learned recently that the family is one I know – I went all through school (kindergarten through high school) with the current generation owner, Jay Cosgrove. Yay Jay!

Undated photo from their site but maybe not too far off from when this postcard was made.

In an unconscious way, Bahr’s played out through my childhood, young adulthood and has come back for me in middle age. As a small child I remember off-season celebratory birthdays there – as year round residents my parents preferred it in any season but summer when the local traffic would increase ten fold overnight. I could be wrong, but they may have introduced oyster crackers into my life which I adored as a child.

Postcard not in my collection shows rickety original bridge between Highlands and Sea Bright to Sandy Hook beach.

As teenagers and on summers home from college we didn’t care and braved the traffic cheerfully. The restaurant proper was too expensive however and we were instead content (very content indeed) to sit next door on benches near the water for services outside until late in the evening, eating lobster rolls and juicy fried clams. There was a movie theater a few blocks away which showed second run and old films for 99 cents and so a reasonably affordable date night was established.

I had not been inside the restaurant for many years when my sister Loren suggested it for a birthday lunch one year, shortly before she died and we celebrated our childhood there. Bittersweet, it was my first and last time there for a number of years as I thought going back would make me sad.

Bars from the water side in an undated photo.

However, in my mother’s final year or so we ordered in food a fair amount and I figured out Doordash from there on a few occasions which we enjoyed. I did it weekly or so until they could no longer find drivers. Mom was a vegan, but there were a few vegetable dishes she liked and everything we ordered from there was delicious and a wonderful change of pace.

In the subsequent year since mom died, a good friend and I have taken it up again as our occasional treat. We generally go at lunchtime during the week, occasionally dinner, when even the summer traffic is more bearable, taking an inland route which spares us some tussle.

Yup, the mug I purchased full of the chowder and some of those oyster crackers from my childhood shown here.

I wish I had copies of the old photos the interior of Bahr’s is decorated with – some go back to the days of it as a houseboat, renting rooms. Others show fishing in the immediate area – I always take time to study them. There was also a time when it had an early life as a ferry stop for cruise ships that would head down to the South from New York City. Ancient majolica oyster plates fill another vitrine. A small gift shop is at the front, near the bar and the oldest part of the building. I recently purchased chowder size mugs, one for the house in NJ and one for 86 Street.

This is the bar area where for some reason I have never eaten. I think we favor the water views. I always like to go and look at the photos and art in it though when I can.

The fare at Bahr’s is the absolute top shelf of what you expect and want from a local seafood restaurant, perched right over the water. Plates groan with ultra fresh local scallops, clams, oysters, lobster and various other kinds of fish. I remain partial to a warm lobster roll which has come to define this item to me, simply lobster chunks with butter on a traditional roll, served with homemade potato chips if I feel decadent. Homemade biscuits are served for starters – this is not diet dining. My friend Suzanne remains largely devoted to a plate of scallops and vegetables. We both occasionally go off script however and in this way I discovered their “original recipe” spicy clam chowder which is stupendous! I am a fan and have begun buying a container for the freezer in NJ each time I go and it makes for a very happy meal subsequently.

Recent image from the parking lot at Bahr’s.

The postcard I have acquired appears to most likely be from the 40’s given what I know and that it is a linen postcard – those were produced in the 30’s and 40’s. As you can see from my recent photo, not much as changed, down to the neon sign which must flash to boats like a beacon. That is Sandy Hook, now a state park, across from it on a tiny spit of land with the ocean beyond. Seen today the immediate surrounding area is a busy dock, as shown in my photos, and Moby’s, the affordably cousin they also own, next door. If you sit outside near the water and the docks, fat seagulls rule while ducks and geese placidly come and go. There is a parking lot where it is just sand here.

Verso of card.

On the back in very neat pencil print it says, The air is wonderful here on river. There are five children here & they have such a good time. Hope everything is well with you. Love Marg. It is addressed to: Mrs. M. Martin, PO Box #137, Gibbstown, New Jersey without a stamp so maybe it went in an envelope or just was never sent. On the back of the card, printed at the top it says, Bahr’s Seafood Restaurant Highlands NJ. Lobster and Fish Dinners. The “Half Moon” Bar and Cocktail Lounge, Charter and Deep Sea Boats for Hire. Est. 1917 – Highland 3-1245.

So Bahr’s has earned its place to be enshrined at our New Jersey residence. With any luck, some old photos will show up to join it and I look forward to treating you to a bit more of that local lore.

Spare Felix?

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Portland, Oregon! Although the seller of today’s find was in California, this photo obviously appears to hail from Portland originally. Rogue homemade Felix seems to have proliferated in Portland back in the day and I would love to know why that city seems to have had a special relationship with him.

It’s been quite a while since I have purchased a Pacific Northwest Felix, but I had a spate of them early in my collecting career which gave me the idea that they had a specific yen for him. Parade floats and costumes – there’s was homegrown Felix fun in that part of the country and I am sorry to have missed it. (These location specific Felixes form a sub-genre of my collection. Posts for these pics can be found here, here, here, here and here!)

One of a clutch of photos of the same batch from an early post. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

This natty fellow and his slightly off-model Felix-y wheel cover fits well in the group. While Felix looks slightly more like his identical cousin than himself, it is a pretty good likeness. the gentleman posing is so clearly pleased to show this off I’d say. Bow tie, vest and jacket, he’s dressed and posing for the photo.

An early Portland parade post. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

It’s a small photo. Only a little more than 3″ x 2″. Like the other photos I have mentioned above, there isn’t a lot of information in the image. There is a nice cottage in view behind him, trees and telephone poles. There’s no back license plate which might have supplied a year, and nothing is written on the back. However, Oregon (and our assumed place of origin) is supplied over Felix.

Another Portland parade post (although a not Felix), pic from 1909. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

I do not own a car and don’t really drive, although I assume with the house in Jersey this is something I will need to fix over time. Oh to be able to do it in style like this however.

Elliott

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I guess I have on occasion posted about father’s day. (Most notably in an unusual post before he died which can be found here.) Generally I tend to find it painful and assume others may as well. However, I just came across this photo of my dad the other day while looking for something else and I decided I would share it today.

November of 2017 seems like worlds ago for me, for all of us I guess in many ways since we managed to have two pandemic years we didn’t see coming in the midst of it. I had started my new job at Jazz at Lincoln Center earlier that year after almost 30 years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had already been to Shanghai with the orchestra and was trying to adjust to a very different pace of work. (Posts about leaving the Met and that wild trip to Shanghai can be found here and here.)

Shanghai toy cafe.

Meanwhile, my parents had recently moved into this house, the house I inherited and will visit later today. That alone has changed so much. First my mother directed much of the planting in the yard which went from somewhat neglected to a sanctuary, but even in the year since she passed I have transformed it further with more plantings, a vegetable and herb garden and made the deck an oasis.

The NJ garden in clean up mode a month of so back. Strawberries and cherry tomatoes are evidently already producing. More on that later today.

The years she and my father spent in this house were years of caregiving and the house was set up around that. The bedroom I have taken was my father’s. (I used to sleep in a sunny room on the second floor which in some ways I preferred, but mom wanted me to take the main bedroom at a later time and ultimately it made sense so I could be closer to her at night.)

Recent photo of the front of the house in NJ.

Pictorama readers have seen, most notably, the garden transform. However, I have made many changes inside, redoing the floors, adding furniture, rugs, lamps and, of course since it is me we’re talking about, interesting stuff I have collected – already.

An older Milty on a very recent visit.

Still, this view out the window remains largely unchanged. It is a sunny, favorite window. I still have that chair, but it was moved a bit during mom’s last illness and has remained there. (That chair is Beauregard the cat’s favorite spot and if you sit in the chair with him he will pat your head.) For several years it gave first dad and then mom the best view of the small but cheerful yard to enjoy daily.

I remember the day I took this photo very well. It is the only picture I took that day. Dad had returned from a stint in the hospital and Kim and I were visiting and I snatched it discreetly. He had a rare very good day that day, arguably the last really, and I pretty much knew it was a real moment of grace in an inevitable decline. I remember him being very lucid and remembering all sorts of things in conversation with some prompting by me and mom; his memory turned to Swiss cheese at the end – bits he would recall perfectly and then complete holes. He was very candid about it.

Dad is taking a rest and enjoying the sun here. His extremely devoted cat Red on his lap. (I have written about Red here – a real prince among cats that one!) Our other cat, Milty (still around today at about 20 years of age and one of the New Jersey five) is observing from a favorite spot on the window sill – much beloved. Mom filled it with plants over time and although I keep fewer there than she did, there are still a bunch. I’ve changed the blinds as the existing ones (like so many things – think roof, deck!) broke shortly after mom died.

Red on my bed, a photo taken about a year after the one of dad.

Also on that window sill are some reproduction Remington bronze sculptures which were among dad’s favorite possessions. He always loved bronze sculptures and liked to have these around him. (There was at least one other, enormous one, at one time.) I recently found myself in someone’s office who also had some of these, including a large reproduction made for a restaurant, and immediately felt at home. All the walkers, bottles and other paraphernalia of illness is there too.

I have written posts about my father and his interesting and fulfilling life as a cameraman for ABC news, and about his youth and riding a motorcycle across the country (those can be found here and here), but today, just a small tribute to that moment in 2017, coughed up by my phone and as a gentle nod to the Father’s Day holiday today.

Rascals

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Just when you least expect it, a collecting opportunity appears which you have not considered previously appears. Pictorama readers probably know that just last week I was opining on my buying jags for everything from antique jewelry boxes to bowls. Somehow during that same time, these two bisque nodders crossed my path and here I am, let loose on another trail of things to look for.

These Our Gang figures came to me via my Midwest supplier of goodies, Miss Molly (@missmollystlantiques) on Instagram. She wasn’t even having a sale when she shared these and I asked about them on a whim. These weren’t keepers for Molly and so a deal was struck and here we are. As it happens, coincidence or synchronicity, Kim has been working on reproducing the Little Rascals on a page he is working on and as a result the opening tune has been playing in the apartment (always taking me back to weekend television of my childhood), and I have been treated to the glimpses of what he is working from and on – and now you are as below. (For a prior Our Gang post, a publicity still I got for a steal years ago, go here.)

Detail from Kim’s unfinished page which includes the Our Gang kids.

I acknowledge that the very law of averages to fill in around this entirely without a lot of repeats are slim, but we’ll see how I do over time. Not surprisingly there are a lot of variations on these out there and one of the things I need to be careful about is that I match the same set as these. There is at least one other period one that is fairly similar, but not nodders, and not the same. (The whole concept of nodders and their ongoing appeal is one for further Pictorama consideration I think. Weird, right?)

A different, partial period set. Less finely done – not sure I would have been as tempted by these.

Also not a shock to see how much merchandising there has been, evolving over the decades, but quite a rabbit hole to go down. An entire, decidedly less finely executed, set of china figures was done as late as the 1980’s. To look for information is to be immediately swept into a windfall of collectibles over many decades. Among the participatory options, is this Jean Darling sewing kit with bisque doll you sew an outfit for, shown below – back in a time when the expectation was that a child would be able to execute that simple level of sewing.

Being sold on Etsy at the time of writing. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection, but oddly tempting.

Mine are made by a German company called Hertwig. They produced well known bisque figure from 1864 to 1958. They were best known for their snow babies which were based on holiday confections of the same, but meant for decoration rather than consumption.

I’m not sure how this would work as a comestible. Hertwig Snow Baby bisque.

Hertwig was immersed in reproducing the popular culture world of the US in the 1920’s as well however. In addition to the Our Gang figures, Gaseoline Alley ones turn up as routinely as well as Little Orphan Annie.

In reading descriptions these are described as cold painted and I think the other set, shown above, may have been ones you painted yourself as a kit. Mine are too precisely executed, especially the faces, to have been done by amateurs.

I’m amazed actually at how nice these are. They are a tad smaller than I imagined they would be. There is some chipping to the cold paint process on these – the downside to this method I would think. Still, with the many decades of wear they have held up well.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

As above, the name of each character is embossed on the back, Wheezer and Mary Ann Jackson in this case. It also says, Germany. The company name is not on them; I found that when I started to research them. They are hollow with holes in the bottom and their nodding heads are held on by bits of tied string. The figures appear for sale individually certainly, but seem to largely be sold in groupings. Pete is the most likely to be missing it seems and you have to wonder if those prized ones were just scooped up individually over time.

Mel Brirnkrant’s (perfect!) full collection from his website. Roughly what I am shooting for.

I’m eyeing a little cabinet I have in New Jersey for these as a finished group. (A post about that gift from Kim can be found here.) Meanwhile though, these will stay here in New York as we hopefully fill in the remaining four.

Lights

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s is perhaps a odd post. Although Pictorama readers know of my passion for all things vintage cat, there are numerous other well worn paths of buying and collecting here at Deitch Studio. Sometimes these wax and wain, but many have long legs. There are the clothing equivalents, black cotton t-shirts and undershirts to wear under jackets, sweaters and sometimes even dresses. Then there are running socks which despite my best efforts lose their mates over time so it always seems like a good idea to buy more or resign myself to being mismatched.

Tin box that holds my collection of cards (get well, sympathy and birthday) here at home.

Among my more interesting ongoing buying interests are boxes. It is as if by supplying myself with enough boxes some day I will actually be organized. (An extremely popular post about the antique tin box that helped organized my home office during the pandemic can be found here.) The boxes, in all sizes, continue to come, but the organization a bit less so.

Just yesterday I wrote about a sardine box I will use for odds and ends (I think I have decided it is heading for the bathroom in New Jersey for hair ties and whatnot which the cats steal otherwise) and today I sit surrounded by a group buy of early jewelry boxes that just came from Britain.

A ring that was a gift and is in its original box.

I think the largest of these will also go to New Jersey to store a few things there, away from prying cat paws which twitch to grab and play with them while I sleep. I may share one with a friend as well. Ring boxes are a great luxury but do require that I remember which one lives where so there isn’t a scramble in the morning – nor do I want to forget about anyone and have them go unworn. Most if not all are lined with old, worn velvet and many bear an inscription from a jeweler of another time and place. (Of course it is always very special to find an antique bit of jewelry in its original box, that which it has lived in from its very beginning.)

Popeye lamp acquisition which now resides in New Jersey.

Another purchase itch which is a bit more unusual is lamps. I seem to exist in a world with little or poor overhead lighting and as a result for both homes and office it seems an ongoing need. I have written about some of those acquisitions here and here. I will confess though that I have my eye on two more – a rather comical dog lamp which I have bid on in an auction and another attractive desk lamp.

Dog lamp under consideration.

At the office right now I have a lamp made of antique dice which has followed me since I purchased it for my return to the Met back in 2001. However, the light in my current office is dreadful even and I am considering another desk lamp. What I really need is a standing lamp, but those are especially hard to source and given the ceiling leaks I would have to be very judicious about where I located it.

This lamp below crossed my path on eBay and I am tempted although I would say this is more a NJ lamp than an office one. I think it would be a lovely light either on a desk or even on a bedside table. Thoughts?

A maybe purchase on eBay.

Part of me understands that there will be a point at which I have enough lamps, but I don’t quite seem to be there yet.

On an even more practical side of things there are bowls. If I was in New Jersey I could share a large number of bowls purchased for that house which seems oddly bereft of them. Soup bowls and serving bowls. For that kitchen they are all new. Here in New York I try to fill in with vintage ones that match my blue and white ware china (the Blue Plate Special dishes inherited from my grandmother and a post on those can be found here) such as these which were purchased on a day in Cold Spring, New York last fall.

One of two blue and white bowls from a buy in Cold Spring.

So for now, these “practical” collections seem to amass until one day I am tripping over too many of whichever. Stay tuned for updates on those pending above however as that time has not come yet.

Packed Like Sardines

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This unusual item crossed my path while strolling through the online shop for Ghost Era Antiques (@ghost_era or ghostera.com) recently. There was something compelling about it, but it wasn’t until it nagged at my brain for several days that I went back and purchased it. Before doing so, I did a quick bit of research and was surprised to find that sardine boxes were indeed a Victorian thing and that once you start to look there are many in a variety of sizes and with many levels of decoration, ranging from plainer than this one to ones of majolica greatness.

Majolica beauty, not in my collection.

As one site states, the Victorians couldn’t resist a specific dish for a special food and back in that day sardines fell into that category. There is something wholly satisfying and pleasing about this plump fellow acting as the handle on this be-flowered container. I would have thought it a tad small for sardines, but I guess not because all the sardine boxes I have viewed online seem to fall into this range. (Perhaps I am thinking of those rather extra large Italian ones?) I can’t help but wonder if there was a sardine fork or device for removing them for consumption.

I imagine that in its day the gold was a bit brighter and less worn which would have given it more sparkle. It has a few well hidden, fine cracks in it and I don’t know that it would be entirely leak proof if challenged.

Peering inside! Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

While I am generally a contented consumer of fish and sea beasts, sardines and anchovies have long left me cold – too salty and oily. (Having said that I do religiously keep anchovy paste in the pantry which does a nice job of enriching soups and stews without having to contend with consuming the entire fish. I highly recommend this particular cooking hack.)

Sardines consumed as a delicacy seem to come on the scene in the late 15th century, kept in brine. Canning came along in the 19th century and one site says that canned sardines were served as an elegant and exotic course for fine dining as late as the 1860’s. (This same site assures me that yes, special tongs and forks were a part of the show.) And those tins were still laboriously made by hand. However, by the early 1900’s their veneer of exoticism fades and they become fare for the working class blue plate special. How far in prestige they did fall!

The traditional can.

Turns out that there are a myriad of fish covered under the canned rubric of sardine including, but clearly not limited to pilchards, silds or sprats, and at one time even herring, although I guess someone put an end to that with some truth in advertising. At first we in the US seemed to get them largely from France (they had the good sense to fry them before canning), although those herring were being canned in Maine where these canned treats became a major boom, and of course ultimately bust business. The East coast sardine biz was referred to as Sardineland and the West coast had the more familiar sounding, Cannery Row. The fish themselves ultimately largely disappeared from these locales as I gather is also their pattern.

Another majolica one to lust after!

Evidently sardines tucked away in olive oil are also aged by some, like fine wine, in cool cellars, largely in Europe. 10, 15 and even 30 years marinating is mentioned. I am not sure this increases their potential appeal in my estimation.

My box will likely reside either in my office or in New Jersey to serve as a pin box of sorts for odds and ends. I must say, I wouldn’t hesitate to invest in one of these other beauties, should ones like them ever cross my path – perhaps a whole new avenue of collecting here at Pictorama.

Uncle Zack

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As I start writing this post I am in New Jersey on Saturday evening with Beauregard, the huge all black cat, who is the master of this NJ Butler house. It is the end of several sunny days of stay here and I will head home tomorrow – potentially completing this on the train if I cannot before.

This photo postcard came to me via eBay and is an odd choice for me. This little girl with her chicken on a leash charmed me. Small children with pet chickens seems to be popular on the internet these days so poultry pets remain popular. Working for a veterinary hospital with an active Exotics service, we see a fair number of chickens. (Presumably chickens that are for eating go to a different sort of vet than us although obviously we’d care for one in need if presented!)

The little girl is nicely dressed in trousers and boots with a somewhat sporty coat with a design of the buttons across her shoulder and chest. She looks quite happy as does the (large) chicken on a string leash. There’s one or two other chickens, behind a fence in the distance who look on and the soil looks dusty. The nearest vegetation we can see are trees way off in the distance and the sun is casting long shadows. Given her attire, it was chilly.

This card was never sent and looks like it was quite beloved, handled. It is undated, but on the back in a child’s neatest script it says uncle zack.

Many years ago I remember my mother had a video of a woman she knew slightly about her and her pet chicken. I don’t remember the chicken’s name, but it lived in the house, primarily in a sort of all season room at the front of the house. A cared for pet chicken might live to be ten or twelve years old according to the internet, I actually thought it was older. The chicken in the video went everywhere with this woman – today it might have been considered a comfort animal.

Recently in a talk given to staff to celebrate diversity, one of the vet’s pointed out that some clients feel that people belittle their choice of an usual animal and express surprise that they would pay so much for the care of a fish, tiny turtle or perhaps chicken or duck. (I also heard about surgery on a goldfish recently which fascinated me! The surgeon was evidently personally quite fond of goldfish and frustrated by a common cause of death in them he was able to improve but not resolve the fish-y issue.) However, as animal lovers our heart knows no such boundaries and be it pigeon or porcupine we are committed to them and find great happiness with critters in all species, shapes and sizes.

Growing

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Garden and running update today. I hit the long pause on running after a bad spell with my arthritis which in turn precipitated some emergency oral surgery. Pain and winter weather side tracked me for several months, complicated further by starting a new job which required a new morning routine.

From a run earlier this week in NYC.

I realized I was hitting month five and I sat down and had a talk with myself. Through dedicated dieting I had lost some of the extra weight which was also impacting my earlier attempts to running so it was worth trying again.

Finally I decided that the benefits of running outweighed the issues. It will be a long slog back to even as fast (slow but less slow) as I was before and three miles is my limit for now. My trainer was taking two weeks to do a race in Hawaii and between that and a holiday weekend which would let me onramp a little more easily I decided there was nothing to do but commit to it.

Running clothes and bits needed to be assembled. I took a familiar route in the city and committed to just do the most I felt good about. After trying several different choices on my playlist I settled on Beethoven for that first run. Routine was my friend and memory muscle kicked in for 2.8 miles.

Garden clogs were a gift! Loving them.

There’s something about running which unknots something deep in my brain while loosening the muscles in my lower back. Somehow getting back into that routine even makes me feel more settled at the new job, as if I have found the old Pam again.

Sunset over Bahr’s Landing restaurant. A beloved local establishment.

For all of that which is good, after five consecutive days running, however much slower and more abbreviated these runs are, my thighs are screaming. Whatever theory I have about the three mile walk to and from work daily and the multiple flights of stairs I climb there being the same as running is just wrong. I would not hurt this much otherwise!

Roses in the garden in NJ.

Meanwhile, warm weather also brings the call of New Jersey and I had to head down here to meet some workmen early Thursday morning. I got into some early planting on my last visit, discovering what had wintered over (most of the herbs, the strawberry plant, that post can be read here) and put out some early veggies – lettuce and cucumbers, and I also set some dahlias which were ready to go. I bought a tiny grapevine which is thriving and a raspberry plant which just is not. The cukes didn’t do well, but the lettuce has thrived. I made myself a salad with fresh lettuce from the yard shortly after arrival.

Three cat loaf this morning post-breakfast.

Sadly most of the peonies were past their prime, but enough were left to bring a small bouquet inside. The roses are riotous and at their height. Mom loved roses and always planted them with great success and I get to enjoy them now. The peonies were gifts from me – selfishly I guess because they are one of my favorite flowers. I added a few in the early spring but it will be another year before the transplants flower I am told. (Someone also told me that epsom salts make them flower more – I’ll let you know if I try it!) The luxury of being able to cut flowers in the garden for the house is not at all lost on me.

The enthused fig trees.

The dahlias had already outgrown their containers and a new strawberry plant needed transplanting. A trip to Lowe’s produced tomato plants, a pepper and some replacement cucumbers. This resulted in a frenzy of planting this evening. Tomorrow I will tackle the planters in the front yard and restore the geraniums to the outdoors after a winter in the kitchen window. The potato vine has wandered out of the pots and taken root in the ground – I will have to see about restoring it to its pots of origin.

Transplanted strawberries and dahlias.

Speaking of returning to the outdoors, a tiny fig tree I purchased a Whole Foods last summer shot up inside over the winter and is a gangly six footer now. Despite that it seemed pleased to head outside today. Sadly there was a hibiscus tree and a jasmine plant which did not enjoy the winter inside I am afraid.

So while my muscles are sore what I am doing feels good. Slow but satisfying growth.

Moon Woman

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A Pictorama part two post with this framed postcard. The frame was purchased first and much earlier than the postcard. I picked that up from @marsh.and.meadow.overflow in a sale of odds and ends. It’s a beaut! I knew I would find a use for it and even though I was on something of a money diet at the moment I jumped at putting it in my electronic cart. It has some age on it and sports a decorative faux wood design. The back is very old, probably more fitted to sitting up on a desk or table than hanging on the wall, although I guess we’ve figured that out too.

After it arrived and perhaps even in my mental machinations, I realized that the right postcard in it would make a dandy gift for Kim. Although I spend a lot of time with cat photos obviously, I was looking for something more Deitchian for him.

I felt truly inspired when I ran across a set of these Art Nouveau postcards, once again on Instagram, from a seller I have followed for a while but never purchased from, @ghost_era. Presented as a group in a series but sold individually I zeroed in on this one immediately – although I admit to being tempted to buy several! (A few remain available at their shop at Ghost Era Antiques.) Hard to explain but this photo postcard seemed to be perfection.

Another Reutlinger photo postcard, not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

I’m not sure exactly why I love this photo so much but I really do; the woman, the moon and the radiating light, and then the stars! It epitomizes a certain kind of picture. There is the subtle color, from yellow to blue. I like the way some of the stars have been left bright white though for emphasis. The moon has some mottling (a nod to the man there?) and a deep shadow behind her. The woman is in a sort of nightgown dress – she’s dreaming? We are?

It would appear that this card was produced by the photographer Léopold-Émile Reutlinger (March 17, 1863 – March16, 1937). His uncle founded a Parisian photography studio where his father worked as the photographer. (Léopold’s son Jean became a prominent photographer too although sadly died in WWI.) Both photographed the rich and most importantly famous of the day, but he took the family business to a new height and is the one remembered today. I wonder if this is due to the popularity of photo postcards and I would think in part this Art Nouveau style which he excelled at.

I gave this to Kim last year. And yes! I believe that is the trademark R for Reutlinger at the bottom right!

As I look over his work online I can’ help but wonder if a few of the other postcards in my collection can be attributed to him. I am thinking of a Valentine’s Day gift I gave Kim last year below. (Post can be read here.)

In 1930, Reutlinger suffered an accident with a champagne cork, (weird sort of irony, yes?) which cost him an eye and seriously affected his profession. But he continued to run the studio until his death in Paris in 1937.

Meanwhile, Kim has a good spot on the wall over his desk picked out for it, above a Frank Borzage still from Lucky Star. Some rearranging needs to go on first but I look forward to seeing it there along with a few other Borzage stills we are swapping in for other photos. (A post on those stills can be found here and here.) Maybe a future post on the walls here at Deitch Studio. For now, enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend if you are reading in real time.

Still Life with Nick Carter

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s post is the first of a few highlighting things I gave Kim for his birthday this year, celebrated last week at the time of writing this. Kim doesn’t like a lot of fuss over his birthday, but I try to find something he’s either wanted or failing that, like this year, some original bits. (A past post of a birthday gift can be found here.)

Today’s photo is tiny, only sort of 2.25″x 2.75″ or so. I ran across it on my Instagram feed via @baleighfaucz and it whispered Kim! at me a bit so here we are. In addition to being small (smaller in fact than I anticipated) it has these two deep creases in it. These are of course unfortunate, but they do not rob me of any pleasure in getting a glimpse into a little world of long ago offered up here.

I cannot say I can identify everything in the image. The Nick Carter, Secret Agent Weekly, is from April 20, 1912 and cost 5 cents – seems like a princely sum actually. I think it was this that put me in the mind of Kim as he has passed through a few dime novel stages, although not to say he’s a fan of Nick Carter in particular. According to Wikipedia Detective Nick Carter leapt onto the scene in 1886 (Kim is telling me he and Sherlock Holmes hit the scene at roughly the same time), and had an extraordinary meandering run through more than a century beyond, hitting incarnations in various forms of popular media from dime novels to radio and beyond, with a most recent stop as a series of novels that were produced from 1964-1990.

This tiny image is the only color version I could find on the internet.

A pipe, cigarettes, cigar and a pocket watch are in the foreground although in front of them is some sort of small paper package I can’t identify and in the lower right corner something utterly lost on me. A decorative beer stein is perched on a well used Central Union Cut Plug tobacco tin. One site selling such a tin says they were often used as lunch pails once depleted. This one appears to still host tobacco.

Saw some pricey perfect versions for sale but at the time of writing you could have this one for $20 on eBay.

An odd illustration which is entitled simply Life in script at the top and appears to be of two men at a dinner table with a menu, one in evening cloths and a plumed hat and the other dressed as a woman is at the back. Can’t imagine the importance of it to the photographer although it serves as sort of a title for the image overall.

Looking at a few of these objects in color makes me wonder if he was disappointed with it in black and white. It is a dynamic little photo, but my guess is that the colors were pretty punchy in person.

I love to think of the photographer, maybe a young man back in the spring of 1912, setting up this photo. They were likely a nascent enthusiast as home photography was still just becoming popular. It is sort of sweet to think of a serious young fellow studiously putting this together, (why these particular things? smoking, reading, drinking) showing us a slice of his life that we can consider so many decades later.