Dustless

Pam’s Pictorama Post: I find it very hard to resist a good vintage tin box; I just cannot. They immediately stir my imagination and I am sure I have a million uses for them. Generally this is true as well, although occasionally one doesn’t take for some reason. I purchased this one at the antiques mall in NJ thinking it would go to my new office and it may still, although as I settle into that space I am still figuring out surface area and needs.

I have another, much larger, version of this tin which is kept in the bedroom in NJ, also pristine, long and narrow, housing night table odds and ends and keeping them away from prying pussycat paws – who would take great joy in gently knocking each thing onto the floor while I try to sleep. Maybe a future post on that tin, but it does make me reflect on the pristine condition of these crayon boxes in particular. Perhaps the dustless as advertised meant nice clean tins.

I wonder if this tin contained crayons such as the much beloved Crayolas of my childhood or if this was a tin for something more like pastels or chalk. An-du-septic makes me think more like pastels or chalks. This was a term coined by Binney & Smith, the forefathers of Crayola in about 1902. It seems to sort of mean sort of anti-dust and clean.

The tin boasts, Gold Medal Crayons for Every Use as part of its trademark on the top. They liked their patent and trade mark info at Crayola and the side is devoted to it further with a Patent notice and Where color is required use a gold medal product.

In addition to identifying Binney & Smith Co. New York and it says one gross which seems like a heck of a lot as this box only measures about 3″x5″and 4″ deep.

I am a child of the large yellow and green Crayola era, the one with the built in sharpener. Despite a world of color choices there were always the ones the wore down quickest and those which sat largely little used. Not all crayons applied to paper equally well and even as a kid you also figure those things out. The sort of neon colors intrigued but could best only be used for highlighting. Gold and silver fascinated as well, but were only somewhat useful. I am having trouble remembering all the colors I thought were troublesome, but things like red and hot pink wore down quickly. Always very fond of a sort of aqua blue and was pretty popular.

*This seems like the large flat box I received at one point.*

As I write this Kim is at his desk, hard at work on my Valentine’s Day picture. (Prior Kim Valentine’s Day works can be found featured in posts here, here and here. It is an annual tradition that goes back many years to when we first started dating. Watch for that reveal in February!) He is using colored pencil and somewhat coincidentally, was talking about how much he disliked crayons even as a child because they never went on with any consistency. Even as a tiny tot this irritated the nascent Kim Deitch as artist! I know what he means though – you could layer on to get some consistency. (In the photos above taken on his desk you can see the colored pencils in use ready and waiting.)

For all of that, my research pretty much confirms that this box housed chalk sticks and that this particular box probably dates from about 1935.

At some point in my childhood someone gave me a much larger flat box of crayons which I have not seen before or since, about the size of a gameboard. It had more crayons and a sharpener within. I don’t believe it caught on however. I was fascinated to find the box, above, online when I looked.

*The very traditional box of which I had many.*

Meanwhile, Cray-pas were another whole kettle of fish and were almost too juicy to control. And I didn’t have the kind of childhood where there were opportunities to use chalk on a sidewalk or other pavement. I have documented some of the chalk drawings I used to encounter in the park running and so we know that chalk use is alive and well today by kids.

Where this tin ends up and what it holds remains to be seen. If you just have to have one you easily can – they are very available, many quite clean like this one, on various sites including eBay. I think I am still feeling it for my desk at work. Enjoy it for what it is – a pristine reminder of a beloved childhood favorite.

Holiday Card and Decoration

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is the great Deitch Studio holiday card reveal! Apologies up front to those of you who are still waiting for your card in the mail (um, most of you) as we are way behind schedule this year. I am the keeper of the holiday card schedule and I take full responsibility! I know folks who like to have the surprise of theirs in hand before the online reveal. Alas, Blackie’s unscheduled Thanksgiving trip to the kitty ER (that cat tale can be found here) had a ripple effect and our cards were not in hand until earlier this week. Most of your cards are being launched from the Fair Have post office on Monday – think of them as New Year’s cards this year!

*Sadly the celluloid Santa did not make the trip to NJ unscathed! Bought these in NYC and packed with extraordinary care, alas!*

Speaking of Blackie – he ran us a merry chase yesterday trying to get him packed in his carrier for the early morning trip to NJ. He wedged himself in a tiny space underneath our futon which defies grabbing him without removing the mattress from the bed entirely. Nonetheless, we eventually got him and arrived here mostly intact early yesterday and devoted most of the day to addressing those cards!

Onto the card! This is a sort of sequel to last year’s card. Some think it achieves more highly, others favor card number one. For my part I am pleased with my likenesses of the various cats. Peaches and Gus in particular, but all of them are pretty good. Beau and Blackie are in costume – reindeer and Santa respectively. Everyone else lightly accessorized at best.

It is the living room of the house here in New Jersey. There is a fireplace here, although I doubt it will return to being wood burning in my lifetime. (An absurd amount of work needs to be done to the inside of the chimney to make it safe – something about lining the inside with ceramic.) I have toyed with a gas or electric insert for it – maybe next year.

*Among the sale items at Lowe’s – these were about $3.50 a box!*

For those of you who are new to the card tradition, each year Kim and I collaborate on a Christmas card. It has evolved into my drawing it in pencil and then him inking it. I offer the original drawing for consideration. For those of you who missed it last year or want to compare and contrast, the ’23 card post can be found here and the card is below. The post can be found here.

Meanwhile, thus far the house is only decorated with this wreath on the front door. However, yesterday on a trip to Lowe’s to procure something to melt the ice on the front steps, I discovered boxes of old-fashioned, large colored lights on sale, 75% off – meaning each box was about $3.50. (Those inclined can probably still score these online.) Well, while I had not considered lights for the house or yard I immediately purchased several boxes and an extension cord. I also bought jolly large ornaments which I will hang from a light post out front.

*Good buy on over-sized break proof ornaments for outside.*

I am hoping we can wander over to the Red Bank Antiques Annex and look for a nice Santa for the mantel so with me luck! I will post an update here and on Instagram if I find one!

Gourd-gous

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: The season is suddenly tipping hard in the direction of the holidays and winter. Last night I ordered a new long down jacket online – at the end of last winter the zipper finally broke one I had been wearing happily for decades. (My mother gave it to me so many years ago – it might predate my meeting Kim!) While perhaps not the most stylish of long down coats it was thick and toasty warm. I have tried new zippers on down coats before and for some reason they are especially recalcitrant however.

My office these days, and the hospital, are along the East River, overlooking the FDR highway. The wind and water are always worse there than anywhere else, even our apartment building which is only one block west. While walking a half hour to and from work is lovely in some ways, come the middle of the winter it will be less charming. I was a bit ill prepared last year when I started in January and am tackling the impending winter pro-actively this year – boots and coats.

*An earlier leaf incarnation I snapped a pic of.*

Thanksgiving is late this year and in my mind I kept pushing it forward until now suddenly it is upon us. I am using the few days to go to New Jersey (and visit the Jersey kitties) and plant some spring bulbs. We are experiencing a well publicized drought right now so I am concerned that the ground will be as hard as a rock when I try however. Nonetheless, the thought of tulips and other flowers blooming in the spring will drive me forward. Time to take the dahlias in and wrap them up in the chilly garage for the duration of the winter. The hibiscus and a small olive tree (seen below still out on the deck here) are already living their winter life in the kitchen there although I understand that the cats are too interested in them and I think they need to relocate to the bedroom.

*Late summer and fall dahlias are more than worth the effort to store them over the winter.*

Work and other commitments have kept me from trips I had hoped to make there in November so this week will be the first time I am there in quite a while. I am looking forward to the very last of the tomatoes and a solitary cucumber that is being saved for me.

Back in October I decorated the front stoop with some warty pumpkins – I love them! They are appropriate through November and until it is time to add a wreath to the door and some swags of greens to the railings.

While I am missing access to the Jersey late autumn, Kim has supplied me with a mini-fall here in the apartment. These gourds came from the local grocery and are as charmingly wart filled and interesting as you could ask for. Like mini-pumpkins, they perch (and are occasionally buried by paper) on my desk, little happy harbingers of the season.

Kim has followed that up with an assortment of fall leaves which have started appearing. Not surprisingly, the man has a great eye for leaves. Their passing extraordinary colors attract him and he has collected and attempted to save them (largely unsuccessfully) for years. We tried pressing, the microwave and just letting them sit. He has put them under the plexi on top of his desk. This year he has delivered them to my desk and I have been enjoying the somewhat fragile random harvest of them and they are the season to me this year.

On the Wall

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: The other evening I was meeting a former colleague and we were discussing the shifting sands of the office place – he who now works entirely remotely for a national not-for-profit and I am who am still adjusting to life at an animal hospital where many things are different. The conversation somehow turned first to mail (I am struggling with the local post office) and then to handwriting. I told him that when I worked at the Met I handwrote many notes and that I hoped over time that when people saw the envelope they would recognize my handwriting immediately.

*The verso of a postcard from a prior post – sometimes the writing is half the fun, other times indecipherable.*

Even less than a decade ago mail was a much bigger part of my job. This area in fundraising has had a continued contraction and, while I am far from an expert, I am struggling to find its place at work as older supporters still like it but it is expensive and you can lose money. Direct mail aside, my days at the Met were packed with notes written – a constantly dwindling pile of cards atop my desk for notes to attach to things, my business card and stacks of cards from the museum’s shop which I worked my way through with birthday wishes and other occasions. For years all of our invitations were handwritten and stamped. We did them at home and were paid by the piece – I helped pay for my trip to Tibet by addressing envelopes when we opened the new Asian Art Wing there.

At the Met we had a mailroom which collected our piles of mail and delivered ours to our office. I have learned over time that this is a luxury in offices.

*Our Top Dog Gala invitation this year. We are celebrating the work of the police dogs and this handsome German Shephard is representing for it.* *Invitations have printed envelopes now.*

At Jazz I immediately noticed fewer written missives, as well as less time on the telephone – everything was pretty much online and email including invitations. If not a dedicated mailroom, an office manager did distribute mail and bring it to the post office daily. Covid interrupted even that and mail stilled to a full stop and barely ground back into use in the post-Covid work world.

My office today slots mail into boxes in the main hospital building which we try to pick up daily. Somehow I have never gotten the swing of mail pick up there (due to construction it moves around) and we tend to stamp and mail things from public boxes or a trip to the post office. It isn’t true but sometimes I feel like the only person who produces mail beyond the occasional mailing of things like Gala invitations.

*Very recognizable Louis Wain signature as per yesterday’s post!*

However, what we really touched on the other night and what has stayed in my mind since is the memory of handwriting I have known. I recently had to go through check registers of my mom’s for tax purposes and spending the day immersed in her (slowly deteriorating) handwriting made her and that final year together very real again.

I have only a few samples of my sister’s writing, although it was a neat distinctive cursive I would recognize anywhere – she had the habit of looping the bottom of her capital L’s backward as part of her signature. I never asked her about that.

I saw less of my father’s handwriting than other family members, but certainly would recognize his signature. Somewhere I have a few letters from him, written while he covered the Olympics in Sarajevo. Meanwhile my maternal grandmother had a round script that would come with birthday cards, some of which I still have.

*Autographed books, always with a picture, by Kim here and below.*

There are those folks whose handwriting I realize I do not know, or only have an inkling of, like my father’s parents who died when I was fairly young. (To my brother Edward, I am realizing that we never correspond with handwritten notes. I don’t really know yours although maybe I would recognize it if I saw it?) I have friends whose handwriting I can see in my mind – some former colleagues and others like my friend Suzanne who is an artist and whose very round writing is distinctive in my mind’s eye.

Kim’s handwriting and his signature are of course well known and very recognizable. Legibility in his line of work is essential. He eschews my cursive as hard to read. (There was a time when I was younger when I corresponding in a tiny neat print, but I found it labor intensive for my needs.) Recent trouble accurately reading numbers people have written on things has reminded us of the importance of neatness – not just for cartoonists, but for all of us. After all, first and foremost, it is a form of communication.

One of the nice things about living with Kim is he continues to receive (and send of course) letters and packages in the mail. We get more real mail than most folks.

*I especially like this one for Shroud for Waldo!*

When I was in college I remember a professor at the beginning of a course talking about how handwriting was a mark system like any other, one we use constantly and defines us. (She also pointed out that how we dress is another visual vocabulary all our own and I think of that sometimes when I put on make-up which in some ways is the closest I get to painting these days.) However, handwriting is the one that is intimately tied to who we are and is our very own – obviously like finger prints our signature can be used to identify us in a court of law; it is that singular.

Of those folks like my mother, father and sister who are now lost to me the thought of their writing, coming across it or remembering it, makes me miss them all the more. However, it is a comforting odd bit of us that we keep, thoughtfully or unconsciously, and remains in the world long after we are gone.

Small Stuff

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: A bit frazzled from a long and crazy week at work I sit down to chat with you today, still in a bit of disarray, with only some disparate bits to share. My new job wraps up its fiscal year along with the calendar year (a merging of very busy times for a fundraiser and a timing first for me) and in addition, we have a gala in early December. Somehow we threw in an annual dinner for members to be held on Monday into the mix and suddenly our tiny office is positively swamped.

In acknowledgment of the season, I have hung a few black cat streamers over my desk. I’m sorry not to have a shot of mine, but here they are for sale. I bought them at Big Lots in New Jersey for just a few dollars on markdown. They may find a permanent place here at Deitch Studio later. (I also purchased candy corn lights but sadly haven’t found a spot near an outlet for them.)

*Soft, stuffed black cat garland – came with another garland of pom poms.*

However, Kim and I took yesterday off and spent part of the day at the Metropolitan Museum, my old stomping ground. I wanted to catch the exhibit on Siena (Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350) before the holiday crowds (and growing tsunami of work) scared me off. (Kim is hard at work having essentially finished a book and due to a rethinking of that lengthy appendix has found himself already deep in another book. We expect the finished book out in the second quarter of next year or so.)

Before heading into the museum we made a quick stop at E.A.T. (a pretty if over-priced emporium) on Madison. They often stock up for Halloween and, although I might have purchased more (there was a great black cat woven basket for your treat holding), I contained myself. I only purchased a new pair of cat ears on a headband and a nice little wooden black (tuxedo-ish) cat which moves when you press the bottom. I have had a series of these since childhood and used to play with them by the hour. (I also own a rather nice Felix one which predates my adult Felix buying mania.)

*Lost the little tips of his ears at some point.*

I understand that our animal hospital embraces Halloween fondly and there is a contest for costumes among the medical services. (I gather clients dress up as well and I am already becoming familiar with canines in costumes and clothes in other festive settings.) I have a date to take our new videographers through the hospital on Halloween so my new cat ears on a headband are my feline Cat Mom of many nod to the day.

*Cover of the 1989 exhibition catalogue.*

I was introduced to the paintings of Siena when I first started working at the Met. It was back in 1989 that they held the great exhibition, Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420-1500. It’s hard to compare after all these years and knowing that the earlier one had such an impact on me. I own a very beat up copy of the catalogue (I probably bought it at a damage sale to begin with because that’s how I got most of my art books then) and I might prefer the slightly later period presented in that exhibit but this one is glorious too.

There is just something about the space and sensibility of these paintings that simply rewires my brain. If I was a cartoonist they would make me rethink panels and pages and space entirely. When I saw the first exhibition I was still drawing and painting and they did heavily influence my thinking. I find even without that scratching at my brain I will be thinking about them for a long time. (I have not purchased the catalogue but most likely will. It’s been years since I have added an art catalogue to this crowded library of ours!)

I don’t want to bore you with all my thoughts about it except to say that the sense of space and architecture is fascinating and a great reminder that people were designing things in all sorts of creative and wild ways at that time. What they didn’t know they just made work with a convincing conviction – cut away the side of a mountain, show what’s underground, put a tiny city over here. Amazing. There is also something about the colors and they tend to almost glow. The exhibit plays this and the vast amount of gold up by hitting them with light in an otherwise dark setting. They are little gems.

We wandered through the European Paintings galleries to find a few Bosch paintings I wanted to share with Kim. (He just read Guy Caldwell’s book, Delights: A Story of Hieronymus Bosch, which Guy was kind enough to send. Recently published by Fantagraphics it can be purchased here.) While we did find one or two, the more inspiring painting was van Eyck’s Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych. (The amazing Google image that you can drill down into can be found here)

Not too much else to report from our visit except that we could have voted early, but were too tired to get in the long line. (The Met is our early voting location.) We ate in the public cafeteria – sandwiches and, in a rather parsimonious way, each saved half for today’s lunch. (I have gone from being a rather voracious eater to having shrunk my appetites during a long period of dieting. There was a time when leaving half a sandwich would never have happened.)

Apologies for this being long and rambling. Wish me luck with my cat ears this week. Blackie looked confused and rather baleful when I tried them on yesterday. And a happy Halloween to all!

Pictorama Anniversary: Washington Square Park Edition

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Ongoing Pictorama readers probably know the rhythm of my posting year and October is time for an anniversary post. Kim and I were married on October 14, 2000, although we had our first date over Veteran’s Day weekend six years earlier which means I tend to think of the period between the end of October and early November as a sort of Kim-Pam fest.

We usually celebrate the weekend after (it falls in the middle of the week this week on a day when I start jury duty), however since our plan was for a day outside we decided to embrace a promising fall weather day yesterday and we put on our walking shoes and headed down to Washington Square Park. Kim is researching a story which concludes there and had already done a scouting trip while I was in Jersey a few weeks ago. I played cameraman and you see some of the results here.

Kim and I ran an errand and started our day walking to the Lexington Avenue subway at 77th Street. Over on 78th we were treated to a view of the dollhouse store (whose windows I like to admire) decked out for the holiday and then a few real townhouses extravagantly decorated for Halloween.

Meanwhile, a short history of Washington Square Park tells us that its popularity dates back to the Lenape Indian tribe using it as a hunting ground and references a now gone trout stream which was called Minetta. (I attempted to take us to lunch at the Minetta Tavern but decided it was too expensive.) From this spot has an emerging history which ranges from free land grants to recently freed slaves, to potter’s field, parade ground and onward to residential square.

The actual park was designed by Olmstead acolytes, Ignatz Pilate who was assisted by Montgomery Kellogg. Their work on Central Park with Olmstead was enough to have me wondering if I had missed that it was designed by Olmstead as we walked it yesterday. I am interested to find out that the current fountain replacing an earlier one, actually came from the south end of Central Park and is by Jacob Wrey Mould.

*Fountain is evidently a hand me down from Central Park.*

No less than Stanford White designed the Arch – first a temporary one and then it was so popular the permanent one we see today which was dedicated in 1895. The statues of Washington were added 1916 (Washington at War) and ’18 (Washington in Peace) respectively. The arch always surprises me with how large it is. In my mind it is always about half the size for some reason. A stairwell to the roof and to provide maintenance exists although it is rare to have the opportunity to go up it.

Volunteers were on the scene collecting garbage and tending to copious plants. The park was full to the brim for a beautiful fall day and there was even a tour bus which let off a stream of tourists more than once. A food truck proffering Southeast Asian food had a long line of customers at the south end near a large dog run I never noticed before and some bathrooms which I am sure are much appreciated although stylistically stand out a bit starkly in design. The homeless gather in the northwest corner and long gone are the people who used to approach you to buy pot there.

*Bountiful and well tended beds of flowers.*

There were vendors for t-shirts and furry hats, someone reading tarot cards and someone you could pay to “have a philosophical discussion” with, although the aforementioned food truck was the only food offering making me think that you can’t just wander into this prime turf and start selling. In addition, there were pianos at either side of the fountain. When we were there one was playing sort of jazz and early rock ‘n roll tunes (hear a snippet below) and the other more classical including a wonderful interlude with Philip Glass we sat for. West side guy seemed to have the better spot for tips – the tourists enter there. Later in the afternoon the piano player was replaced by a small ensemble playing sort of Cole Porter-ish tunes.

Piano on the westside of the square.

All this to say presumably the Conservancy which cares for the park seems to have a clear hand in the running of it and with the huge number and variety of park denizens on a weekend in October they have their hands somewhat full.

*Pianist playing Glass on the eastside of the square.*

Kim and I eventually wandered out and in search of lunch. Much in this landscape has changed drastically, like the rest of New York, post pandemic and I couldn’t really find anything I knew. While looking we wandered into the Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company where I purchased some Aleppo Pepper. (I discovered cooking with this during the pandemic and it has become a staple for me. A post where I talk about my Covid day cooking adventures can be found here. I usually buy the pepper at Fairway, but wanted to try a different one.)

This is a lovely little shop and I wouldn’t mind finding my way back to purchase some fresh cinnamon and nutmeg among other things. I took their card and it declares flat rate shipping for $8.75 and I will maybe consider that too. Could make some nice holiday gifts for my fellow home chefs.

Ultimately we settled down at a restaurant which advertised itself as vegetarian with double smash burgers on offer. It in fact turned out to be vegan and Ethiopian. It is called Ras (on Bleecker) and I don’t know how their other food is, but man, these were the best veggie burgers of recent memory. Stacked high with two thin pea protein burgers, vegan cheese and mayo; I cannot do them justice.

*Raz, great veggie burgers and open to the street yesterday.*

Kim and I had our wedding party at an all vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown. It was recently opened at the time and has subsequently shutdown. (We had at least one anniversary lunch there before it closed!) We took over the whole restaurant for the party, although take out and delivery seemed to continue on around us. Anyway, the vegan restaurant seemed like an apt and appropriate touch to end the afternoon before wandering back up to Yorkville and hopefully more years and adventures together!

Kit Kat Klub Revue

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s Pictorama tidbit comes via our good friend Bruce Simon. Bruce and his wife Jackie live on the other side of the country. My job used to bring me to their doorstep periodically and they have family this way and therefore not-quite-annual meet ups were possible. The Covid years resulted in several years where we were deprived of visits. This year we somehow managed a visit on each coast and we saw them earlier this summer and then a bonus round with Bruce a mere weeks later in San Diego when we flew in for Comic Con.

Kim and Bruce go way back to Kim’s west coast youth, but Bruce won my heart early on with splendid collections of early cartoons he sent. Krazy Kats, Aesop Fable cartoons – he has made a serious contribution to my cultural education. So it is a hats off to Bruce Simon for this post!

Much to my surprise Bruce brought me this splendid Felix tidbit found in his ramblings for the books he produces. (Some of those can be found on Amazon here and here.) This bit of a classified ad hails from The Muskogee Daily Phoenix and the Muskogee Times-Democrat. A quick look online reviews that this is an Oklahoma daily publication still in existence today. It was founded in 1888 so its had quite a run thus far.

This ad would appear to be an ad for the Classified Ad pages of the paper at the bottom while boasting this Kit Kat Klub Revue with the Krazy Kats of Rhythm. A nice swipe of Felix is chuckling in the lower left corner under On the Screen A Woman Rebels starring Katherine Hepburn. You could only see the Krazy Kats on Wednesdays and there is a balloon which informs us that this is A Wliburn Cushman Circuit Unit.

*A replay of this pic of Bruce and Kim in San Diego where we had a lunch of waffles one day.*

A snippet of another newspaper available online informs that this was a five piece band and Mr. Cholet was the singer and front man for the band. They played sweet hot and swing music. This was back in 1937 and 150 people had the opportunity to see it on a given Wednesday at the Ritz. If you read the fine print at the bottom it seems that putting an ad in the Classified Want Ad would get you one free ticket for the show.

Someone asked me recently how it felt to no longer work for an arts organization and I had to admit, I am missing the many hours of live music I have enjoyed in recent years. Radio Dismuke (I wrote about this rather wonderful online radio station as resource in a post here) helps fill the gap, but it is a big change, as was leaving the Met after many years of enjoying it – more or less like having all that art in your own living room.

Admittedly this ad puts me in the mood. However, it is an itch which is unlikely to get scratched soon as tomorrow I pack Kim and cats up and we head to the New Jersey camp for the remainder of the summer. So more on that annual bivouac tomorrow, stay tuned.

San Diego Con is On

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: We announced that we would head out here a few months back when we were told that Kim would be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame.

It’s been more than a decade since our last trip to this con, although I made at least one return trip for work subsequently. 150,000 people are said to crowd into this tiny town which does appear to literally be bursting at the seams under the weight of it.

*As Kim said, there’s one in every crowd. Although, you actually don’t see many Supermans. A lot more Batmans.*

Without getting too into it, travel was difficult and verged on disaster at times – a worldwide meltdown of all international and domestic airports, followed by a fire near our terminal at JFK which meant the evacuation of thousands mere hours before our departure. Add in some sort of traffic mess (3 hours from York and 86th Street to JFK essentially not long enough, we almost missed our flight) and my personal favorite, our hotel reservations turned out to be canceled when we got here at 11:00 at night. Visions of bad films with no place to sleep being the punchline occurred to my sleep deprived state. (2 AM NYC time!)

San Diego is just clogged with folks. Young, old, those in costume (I Dream of Jeannie anyone?), those not. We are concerned with an ever-shrinking comics related part of the con which is like a snake eating its own tail as first the animation and then action film industry slowing takes over.

From where I sit in our highrise hotel, the Hilton across from us is wrapped in an ad for FX which says, What we do in the Shadows with creepy heads. Gigantic seagulls cartwheel in from of our 20th floor window. Isn’t it too high for them?

Kim was part of an interesting panel on Harvey Kurzman first thing out of the bag Thursday. Luckily a woman named Becky jumped into the fray and got us our badges in time for getting into the session. (The lines to get in are like Disney World long – this apt comparison from our friend Bruce. The lines are like miles long.)

*Kim with our friend Bruce Simon at lunch on Thursday.*

Kim offered to take an afternoon adventure with me and I found an antique mall out beyond the airport here. It was a large place, in the style of the ones we go to in New Jersey.

Being San Diego, it was somewhat open on two sides to the outdoors where furniture and plants were on a sort of porch. Kim found a Dumas novel he hadn’t read – something found and published posthumously. Sadly, I found nothing portable enough or that I was will to solve a shipping issue for. This Felix tea set below tempted me a bit.

*****

The morning (Friday) was taken up with the Eisner Lifetime Achievement awards. Many stories were told – some especially moving ones by the grandchildren of the people being honored. (The family of the guy who created Classic Comics – see my post about those here.) However, Kim and Gary Groth (editor of Fantagraphics, Kim’s publisher) were among the living folks honored.

*Kim accepting his lifetime achievement award.*

After fighting our way through another morning of crowds at the Con we decided to take a shot at a used bookstore I had read about, Verbatim Books. Unlike yesterday, when the car took us to the middle of industrial wasteland no man’s land, we were delivered to a sort of interesting up and coming part of town about a ten minute car ride away.

The trip through the Balboa Park neighborhood was filled with the most wonderful old cottages. Our driver told us that they, not surprisingly, sell for around $1m. Many were in a Spanish style, but some cute Craftsmen ones as well.

*Strange ancient pinball machine in Mexican place.*

You’ll likely be seeing the loot in future posts, but among other things I found a few interesting books of early 20th Century fiction – let’s see if there’s a new writer for me in it. (I saw but did not buy a vintage Judy Bolton novel. For those of you who are late to the Pictorama game, a post devoted to reading that entire series of mystery books can be found here.)

And I restrained myself from purchasing a very large book on collecting American toys. Restraint ultimately failed me however on one or two other purchases that will require some navigating.

We decided to roll the dice again and had an Uber take us to another bookstore, Bluestocking Books. Much to my surprise, I scored several books and a photograph there. We tried to parley it a bit further and find an antiques shop described to us by the folks at the bookstore, but after a six block walk to a somewhat dodgy neighborhood we gave up and circled back. Our afternoon of adventure at a close and soon our San Diego adventure as well.

Rascals

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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.

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.

Moon Woman

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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.