Snow Person

Pam’s Pictorama.com Photo Post: Today we woke to several inches of snow and more falling so this card seemed like the logical item for today. Purchased a few weeks ago on eBay, I brought it to New Jersey figuring I might have a big opportunity to post it – and right I was.

*No judging my nascent shoveling as shown from upstairs.*

First thing this morning had me out for a rare morning of snow shoveling. Ouch! I am perhaps a bit long in the tooth to adopt this as an occupation – today’s snow, shoveled early, was pretty light but already forming and icy layer under it so it was best to get it done early, or at least the first go at it. I don’t have much skill at this shoveling thing although my mom always did it until she grew too old and then she hired someone. I have someone who comes when I am not here or it is too hard, although he is nursing a bad respiratory infection so another reason to give Fitzroy a break.

Clearly, we are here in New Jersey, having our holiday break. The New York cats adapted fairly quickly to their surroundings and even Cookie is wandering down the stairs with some curiosity about the house at large. Peaches, the meanest of the Jersey Five, is still hissing at us but allowing me to get every closer before she starts. (Not Kim, he still gets the big hiss early on!) Blackie has made his way upstairs to see his sister, eat her food and give her a hard time. (We separate them here for that reason – we’d never get any rest otherwise. The fighting will continue back in NYC for a bit before it subsides.)

Yesterday, we wandered into Red Bank despite the plummeting temperatures ahead of the snow. I made some interesting acquisitions but more about that to come in future posts.

*Kim in his temporary studio earlier today. Snow out the window.*

Anyway, this is an odd card. It was sent from Berlin to Monte Video on September 9, 1908. It is too hard to read the full foreign address but it was sent to Herr Christianson with no note on the back and one I am unable to translate on the front. (If someone else can, please share a translation!)

What got me was this strange snowman, slightly strange looking girl (with a bit of a wicked expression on her face) who looks like she is whispering in his ear. She sports a pointed, witch-like hat with a bow. The snowman is complete artifice, is he painted? Perhaps painted on wood and cut out so she can be solidly behind him in her fur trimmed attire. He wears a sort of smushed (top?) hat, has a sort of long pipe and this cheery little broom. I especially like the snow, which I am guessing was a post production addition.

The top of the card, the best I can read it, has Gluckuches and Neujahr printed at the top. The latter seems to bring up German New Year’s cards which is what I think this is. Below is another (very delightful) card that came up when I search Neujahr. Sorry I missed this one on eBay!

*Unfortunately not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection and produced by the same company. Champagne! Money falling! Not clear to me what the other woman is dropping – bills? cards?*

So on a snowy Saturday in New Jersey less than a week before the New Year, I consider the upcoming one, more than a hundred years since this card was sent. I wonder what secrets of the New Year she whispered into the ear of the snowman and what tales of the year she’d have for the year to come for us today.

Paul Pilz

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am taking a break from holiday influenced item posts (but evidently still devoted to dogs), to bring you an item I purchased at an odd venue last weekend. An ad on Instagram for an Oddities Flea Market (@odditiesfleamarket) caught my eye and on a whim I paid for tickets for Kim and I to go. I knew most of it would not be of interest to me, but I figured that maybe 25-30% of the vendors might be interesting. The line to enter (even with tickets) went down West 18th Street at the Metropolitan Pavilion and evidently it is an annual affair with a devoted following I have just never heard of previously.

The percentage of Pam’s Pictorama type vendors was perhaps a tad lower than 25%, but black cat items sort of did have a big moment there and I ended up making a not insignificant number of purchases in the end – and could easily have spent even more. One thing that got away at this table was an old orange ceramic cat that lit up. It had already been broken and repaired and I would say the ability to get it to light up seemed dubious, but in the end it just seemed too fragile to come live here at Deitch Studio. Still, I imagine that it must have a great orange glow if you could get it working. Anyway, you will be the beneficiaries of those interesting tidbits I did buy in coming weeks and this is the first of them I am sharing.

This photo postcard came from a vendor who had a nice little cache of black cat and other interesting items. After shelling out for some bigger items I pawed through some excellent (and reasonably priced) boxes of photo postcards. I plucked out two, and Kim one, and today I share the first of them now.

A quick search of Paul Pilz turns up a fairly thorough blog post on him which can be found here. I have nicked this other photo of Pilz from that site. It is a larger shot of him but very similar.

*Alternate version of the same publicity photo, seems like this one was used pre-War however – not in Pictorama.com collection.*

I won’t endeavor to repeat what that post has to say, but between that site and AI I learned that Pilz was evidently part of a traveling troupe on what is described as very small stages with a dog act, accompanied by him on the trumpet and doing comedy. This popular act ultimately morphed into one where he was a featured performer entertaining the German troops during WWI. (Wanderfheafer Armee Abf. A. on this card – they were already an army headliner. I shudder in horror some indeed at the idea of what traveling with a troop of dogs entertaining troops during WWI might have been like although for the dogs it might have been the best of gigs and options.)

Although I generally collect images of animal imitators (some posts on those can be found here and here for starters) I do have a sub-genre of photos that feature acts (here is one of several) and these seem to belong here too.

There was a recent article in the New York Times about a dog act at the Big Apple Circus (at this time it can be found here, entitled The Show Stealing Dogs of the Big Apple Circus) and so I had a moment recently to contemplate the treat filled world of dog tricks. I like the part where the trainer says if they mess up (balk at jumping through a hoop for example) he just makes it part of the act.

*From the NYT article, performing pups.*

Years ago Kim took me to a cat circus (Russian) performing downtown here in New York. I even had my photo taken with the ringmaster – for a price of course. I loved it! The photo hangs on an overflowing corkboard near our computer where a drawing of Kim (by Dave Collier’s son who visited about a year ago), something about Carter De Haven and an long ago article on a nascent Ugly Betty cover it. I wanted to pet the kitties which was, understandably, not encouraged. From the perspective of having seen that, I will say, cats or dogs, performing is a treat filled activity and I can only assume it is the rigorous work outs that keep the animals trim.

Under his name it says, roughly translated, with self-written repertoire – I guess a way of saying original gags? It declares Humor at the top, in case the photo didn’t alert you. The sort of masked characters on either side of that are a bit terrifying. Urns of flowers are on either side and a decorative bow tied image of him make up this card.

In the photo he presents a comical character with his trumpet, and his dog in his arms held like a baby. He looks at the dog and the pup looks out at the camera. I’m not sure but this photo may have been artificially put together from two – it doesn’t quite fit as a real image. I’m not sure I can entirely follow the concept of a dog act driven by trumpet playing. It sounds – loud!

This card is a bit tatty but was never mailed, no writing on the back and therefore no date certain, except that it clearly was during the war. I wonder if these were given out to troops when they were performing – and how strange that if so it has survived all these years just to land here in December of New York City of 2025 and find its way to the Pictorama library.

Dog Show

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card showed up while I was looking for holiday gifts for a few staffers – it was a gift fail so to speak. I never would have found it however, if I had not been searching around in dog photos on eBay, where I generally do not belong.

Some of you more longstanding readers might remember its sister card shown below which I wrote about all the way back in 2016. At the time it was a hotly contested card which I had lost and subsequently won as outlined in that post which you can read here. Obviously that one turned up in my feed because of the cat reference.

*Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection.* *From a previous post.*

While these two cards are definitely of a piece, the Dog Show sign is definitely the same, there are some differences. While I am fairly certain this is the same woman and dog (same Dog Show sign) she is wearing a different outfit in each. The Cat Show Next card is entitled Beastly Affairs.

However, most notably the Cat Show Next card has a different, patterned floor, the other one is a plain wood. A very careful look (lower right corner) shows that the copyright for these two cards is a year apart with the cat version being earlier by a year, 1907 although my copy of that card was mailed in 1909. So did it prove so popular they brought out this variation the next year? I wonder if there are more.

Today’s card is called Going to the Dogs. Unlike the earlier card, this one has writing on the back although no stamp or evidence of mailing so I don’t know when the writing, in pencil, was added. To the best of my ability to read it, it says, Bascom this is Ednice Jain. Look good & she has gone to the Dogs good – Ha Ha Ha. She is a Dog catcher & not 1/2 as good as one. An odd note, no name signing it.

I prefer the earlier card somewhat and it is more than the cat show reference. The composition with the additional sign is a bit better and somehow holding the dog, and even the patterned floor, make it more dynamic. She has a bit of a smile in the first shot and a hat full of flowers – the hat in today’s card notably appears to have a whole bird on it. She wears a different fur trimmed jacket in both.

*Unidentified card online with a Pitbull and similar woman but not the same series.*

The card was made here in New York City by the Rotograph Company but printed in England, oddly enough. A quick search online does not turn up more cards in the series, but neither does it tie these two cards out to each other. I don’t even find more copies of either of them online, however above I have shared one that turns up that could almost be in the series.

My colleague will now get a card from 1908 with a big footed puppy, vaguely reminiscent of his own recently acquired little fellow. I will dig out my copy of the other card and a find a place to install them side by side, either here or in New Jersey. They make too a good story together to break apart.

What’s Up

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A flurry of purchases for holiday gifts is commencing and, although there may be one or two readers from the animal hospital who check in over here, I’m pretty sure I am safe posting this particular one in advance of giving it. My work gifts are largely of the canine kind – I must admit that my office is far heavier in pup than kit and therefore dogs are having their day once again here at Pictorama.

Those who have followed me in the years since I left Jazz for the animal hospital know that, especially for a devoted cat person, I now spend a lot of time with dogs. (In fact our annual Top Dog Gala where we celebrate a dog, class of dogs and/or supporter of the hospital’s non-profit mission, is Tuesday. A post about my first Top Dog can be found here. As these events go, dogs do make it a lot more fun!)

An early fall update was doggie indeed and I shared photos of our Paws & Pints event and perhaps our canine concert. (That can be found here.) Puppies and working Guide Dogs populated a Woof & Wine for the younger set interested in our work. So this cat woman is doing a lot of belly rubs and good boys with a whole new crowd. Seven cats means it is unlikely that there is a dog in our immediate future at Deitch Studio, but then again, you never know.

*My first Top Dog back in December of ’23.*

Meanwhile, as the holidays approach I have applied my same searching rules and know how to finding something to fit and personal to each of those recipients. (Last year I luckily stumbled on a number of small vintage prints of various kinds which made up about half the group.) In my shopping and searching I set a fairly low ceiling on the cost so it took a while for price and aesthetics to come together.

Really, I got lucky pretty fast and this card, mailed back in March of 1908, was one I could just purchase. (Another is on its way to me for a colleague who just got a puppy – his first pet in a number of years. He is a musician and almost got early canine related sheet music but the card I found for him looks like an early 20th century version of his pup!)

In this process I should admit that one photo has come to stay (an occupational hazard – more on that one in a future post) and I thought this one rated the Pictorama treatment. In this card a big footed fellow appears here in straw boater and spiffy collar better suited for a summer outing for the 4th of July than Christmas. A quick search tells me that this image was first distributed in 1906. The ultimate recipient of this card has smaller dogs but I think will like this early guy’s style.

Although it is postmarked March 5, 1906 I cannot read the location of the cancellation. It was sent to Miss Marion Deverance in Durant Okla Box 598 without a message; I guess they felt the card spoke for itself? It’s a simple image in black and white, really just depending on the props for the pup and also the sweet and somewhat urgent look in his eyes. This little fellow wants to please the person behind the camera – perhaps one holding a treat?

I amaze a bit at the difference between dogs and cats as I spend time with them these days. It’s pretty universal that cats hate going to the vet and the best you can hope for is one that doesn’t howl, or in the extreme, bite. Dogs are a mixed bag. Some seem (not all to be sure) to honestly be happy to enter our doors and see their doctor friends. Others are at least resigned as long as they are with mom or dad. There are some who, like the felines, just aren’t having it.

In general though, dogs are so much more social and enjoy participation in the world with their people in a way cats just cannot. I have had some success planning dog friendly events over these past two years. Finding establishments that can and will welcome dogs has been one of the interesting challenges. Our annual Living Legends luncheon typically honors a dog, cat and exotic animal setting the bar for that location even higher. (Bearded dragon welcome?) Meanwhile, we have a parrot joining its mom at our Gala next week, a moveable perch needed to be found for it so that it could join in some photo sessions. Again, this is a very different job! (For your information and in case you need one, Amazon had the perch.)

There are a smattering of dog friendly bars and restaurants uptown near me. Interesting to note that NYC parks are not especially friendly to dog gatherings, although the individual conservancies are willing the Parks Department gives us a thumbs down. I worked for Central Park for several years and am well aware of their leash laws but these have not been requests to have dogs off leash, just gatherings where people could bring them.

*My hardbound copy of this book. I bought a bunch of paperbacks to give as thank you gifts this year at work.*

Obviously fund raising for an animal hospital raises specific and different challenges from my years at Jazz and before that decades at the Metropolitan Museum. In some ways I am uniquely prepared with my deeply devoted pet past and present. And it’s not all about dogs – donors to a new cat fund for needed emergency surgeries has received May Sarton’s book, The Fur Person which I wrote about in a post that can be found here.

I hope my colleagues will like their canine cards and other holiday treats and that next year, my third, further indicates that I am getting the hang of this fundraising for animals thing right.

Kiss Me Good-Night

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: I love a good moon postcard and this one above was one of several I have to share from my recent big buy. I ended up purchasing the other two for Kim, similar but not the same series and from an entirely different source (spotted them online and picked them up for our anniversary – they arrived in the house day of!), and since these will go up on the wall soon, I wanted to give them a moment in the Pictorama spotlight.

Postcards that belong to a series like these seem to have been popular in the early 20th century. It’s curious to think about – so was the thought you’d buy the whole series and send them, one by one, to the same person? With them waiting to see how the “story” comes out? It’s hard to believe that, even at a time which saw daily postcard mailing, that such continuity existed in the real world.

These are remarkably alike in some ways – it is hard to believe that they are not at least by the same company, however no, they are not. The hand coloring of Kiss Me Good-Night is more lurid, although perhaps the others have faded. Kiss Me has a great moon face with a sort of open-mouthed expression. The couple, surrounded by cushions and drapes prepare to embrace in a good-night embrace. That moon looks a little judge-y maybe he suspects something about this couple canoodling the night away that we don’t.

Unromantically, this card was sent by Ruthie to her sister, Miss Lana Russell, 2025 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia Pa. It was mailed on January 17, 1917 from McConnellstown, PA and says, Dear Sis – Just a card to see how you are. I am at Mc at the Present. Just here for a few days. Will write later. Ruthie. Very little romance in that!

However, the two other cards have a bit of a story as both were mailed to Miss Addie Clask, 1715 Pitt Street, Dallas, TX. These share the idiosyncrasy of a big flourish around the M in Miss and are from the same series of romantic cards. I like the card where Teddie signed with the little stars or flowers! Both appear to have been mailed in May (May 4 and 21 respectively – although weirdly 22 has been penciled in on the latter and he has in fact hand dated it May 23) 1915 as far as I can read the year.

*The more practical, thank you card from a brother or friend.*

*Somewhat illegible back of the May 4 card.*

The earlier of the two is the more prosaic, What’s on your mind which seems appropriate as the message is distinctly more fraternal. It appears (roughly) to read, Helluw Just (?) of cards and my letters so this least. We all ok and many many thanks for sending any mail for me so answer soon as E (?) of friend. The signature is also illegible and might be Joe something. Something about his abbreviated speak reminds me of my lazy texting. He appears to have writing #7 twice at the top, quite definitely.

*Not surprisingly, the more romantic missive of the two.*

However, perhaps not surprisingly Would you refuse me a kiss appropriately has the more personal message. Although the handwriting is better is it still a chore to decipher. He provides a return address as Mc Gregar, Texas with the (wrong) date and with a bit of additional flourish it says, Miss addie, My Dearest – I am safely landed and am fine and dandy. Will et Piel (??) a letter soon I miss so…[can’t read] Teddie. B.

I found these two additions to the series online. I wonder if the one on the left originally had something written under it – this from a poster image taken from the card.

I like these cards with their moon seat poses and the starry backgrounds which I can’t quite decide if they were applied later or were a real background. These are from a larger series and several, shown below, were easily found – some have been transformed into different forms – a poster in one case – but you get the idea. These cards appear to be American produced and are identified as Moon Series with corresponding identifying numbers.

*Addie must have appreciated a nice M flourish!*

While I believe the first card (Kiss Me Good-Night) is also from a series it was not easily findable online like the others. That card, while mailed in the US was German produced. I found only the image below which might be from the same series.

*A beaut but not in the Pictorama collection. Seems to be for sale on a site that might be Czech.* *Look at that leering moon face!*

I have a few more moon cards up my sleeve for future posts. Aside from posing with a giant Felix doll, I can’t think of a better way to have been captured in time and place.

Family

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I feel like I used to find more photos like this one for the Pictorama archive. I discovered this on eBay. Unfortunately it is quite faded, I have even assisted it a bit here. Still, this family with their mostly matching haircuts and each girl sporting a member of a kitten family was too good resist.

This photo postcard was never mailed and the clothes on the kids are sort of timeless, but I would guess maybe the 1920’s or 30’s. They are posed by the “side of the house” from what I can figure. I would say spring considering the shortness of the grass, the clothes and of course the kittens they hold.

*My sister Loren in an undated photo I keep next to my desk at home. Judging from the car I would say from the early 1980’s.* *If I was in NJ I might find a photo of all of us. Will have to wait!*

You can’t really see it easily but there is a great variety in kittens here. From left to right we have a tortie, a tabby, a sort of gray soft stripe and a gray tuxie. Not at all impossible that they are all from the same litter however.

These kids are clearly also of the same litter! Far from identical, however there is a strong family resemblance brought out further by their matching bowl style hair cuts. Each one wears it a bit differently though – bangs aside or straight, one where they are cropped short. The girl in the plaid dress is clearly the eldest but the exact order of the others is left to our musing.

A close look at their faces and the girls look more alike to each other than they do with the man who I have been assuming is dad. Family resemblance is a strange thing I always think. Sometimes I am sitting on the subway or walking down the street and a family passes and all I can think is that they could never deny all being related. This always comes to mind in my reading of early novels (someone denying a child is theirs) and this was satisfied as a plot point in a Rose Mulholland novel recently – the striking resemblance to her father could not be denied! More on that possibly as a tomorrow post.

*A still young Cookie and Blackie bearing some resemblance here.*

My family sort of mixed and matched with familial likeness – not looking alike, stronger resemblance to one parent when young and then another. My sister and I, she of the curly hair and I of the straight, never looked much alike however once someone who knew me from work walked up to my brother and announced we must be siblings. (We were at a rare moment, like these girls, when we were sporting approximately the same haircut.)

My brother may be surprised to hear me say it but, although he and I have always looked more strongly like my mother’s side of the family, I saw a recent photo where he looks very much like our father. (I think it is the beard Edward.) Kim has a rather extraordinary family likeness with his brothers and I gather his fraternal grandmother from whom he inherited his distinctive eyes. There is an additional family resemblance though also to both his mother and his father.

This is of course also true for cats and cat families. My mom used to quote from an old genetics text that this kind of cat and that kind of cat likely to produce this or this cat. I could never keep it straight.

There are days when you can tell that Cookie and Blackie hatched from the same mom and dad combo. Other times, Cookie being smaller, mightier and a tuxie to Blackie’s bigger all black handsomeness makes it appear as if there is no resemblance.

*Beau (left) and Blackie meet for the first time.*

The one litter of kittens I grew up with bore a remarkable resemblance to each other (variations on gray and tabby striped), but not to their mother (Winkie, a tortie) at all. And for that reason perhaps, she utterly disowned any knowledge of them after a point. I have commented on how Blackie and Beauregard (the all black male kitty of the Jersey Five) stared at each other, clearly in recognition of the fact that they looked alike. (A post about the New York cats meeting the New Jersey cats can be found here.)

It is too bad no one thought to include the mom cat in this photo – assuming she was a denizen of the same household. It would have rounded things out nicely. It is fun to speculate that the cats and the kids grew up over time side by side.

Snapshot

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am giving Pictorama readers a brief break from postcards today. I feel like it has been a long time since I have posted a snapshot. It isn’t because I don’t look for them, but photos that wander into the Pictorama realm are a bit more rarified it seems. This one was found and quickly purchased on eBay recently as someone was smart and noted that a nice Felix lurks on the window shade.

The picture is undated however her clothing and this nice deckled edge on the print puts me in mind of the early fifties. (I recently saw an early deckle edge photo trimmer online. It appeared to be one for home use. I gather Kodak sold printing paper with the deckle edge for a couple of decades – both things interested me because I always thought it was only evident in commercially processed photos.)

It is a small photo, only two and a half by three and a half inches. This woman sits center stage is all dressed to the nines with a corsage on her shoulder, earrings, stockings and heels. However the setting is more seemingly casual with wooden folding chairs. There are plants on the window and a fence with trees beyond it. A bit more of the outside might be a clue to where she is (at best I just see some leafy treetops) although it is an event or a visit somewhere special clearly.

Of course I purchased it because of the somewhat off-model and presumably homemade Felix on the shade behind her. Felix stands hands (paws?) on hips, elbows out. He’s a very angular Felix, with an oversized head and a smile. His tail appears sort of mid-leg at an odd angle, although for cat-a-tude they seem to have gotten him right.

Felix’s image is surprisingly enduring. Consider that the height of his popularity was in the 1920’s to find folks still painting his image on some blinds somewhere in the world of the 1950’s is sort of an odd and interesting thought. Like his competition Mickey Mouse the grip of his image has held fast for many subsequent decades. Leaves me wondering what has been produced subsequently that will have legs as long, hard to beat the famous cat and mouse.

***

As you read this I will be off to New Jersey for a few days of winterizing chores for the house there. My dahlias are still blooming so I won’t be taking them in yet, but the heat filters will be changed and the irrigation system turned off. Pumpkins and mums are already out on the steps but I intend to enjoy my fall garden for a few days. (Tune into Instagram for dahlia update!) See you next week!

A Variety Performance

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As some readers know, last week was a satisfying visit to the Metropolitan Postcard Club show where I loaded up on a wide variety of postcards which I plan to revel in for a long time to come. However, having said that, the show seemed to be notably low on photo postcards in the categories I perused. Today’s card however was one of those photo postcards I did purchase. (And you can see I eventually wander into silent film territory today!)

This card makes me laugh. It is hard to imagine what on earth a performance of these two, given the visible implements, might have put together – clearly you had to be there. Meanwhile, I had a moment of thinking that the bubble pipe had been applied after the fact but a close look under magnification shows that she was indeed holding it in her teeth. It is my assumption however that the bubble itself was a bit of photo magic, a bit too perfect and visible.

This little girl is well appointed in her dress, with her hair curled nicely and she holds what appears to me to be a handkerchief in her hand. (Her other hand, unseen, is probably resting on the dog.) It requires some imagination to envision any configuration of an act. There is, additionally, a box on the ground near her where there is also an additional pipe like the one in her mouth. Huh.

Kim especially recommends this Louis Feuillade film outside of Judex.

The much gussied up poodle holds a basket and it is my guess she knows a few tricks too. While I am not entirely a fan of the extreme, if classic, haircut she sports it fits the circus dog implications. They are both seated on some sort of print tile floor and best I can tell the dark background was smudged in manually in the making of the image. In the upper right corner in small type it says, A Variety Performance.

This card was never used or mailed and the only information on the back is for the company which appears to be called Aristophot Co. London. This company seems to have been active in the very early years of the 20th century, was sold and appears to have ceased to exist by 1909. However, it left many and a wide variety of postcards in its wake.

All 12 chapters and a prologue are available here at the the time of publication.

This card especially appealed to me this morning because last night I was catching up to where Kim is in a serial called Judex from 1916. A beautifully restored version done in 2020 is available on Youtube. Kim was turned onto it last week while we were watching the Pordenone silent film festival and in particular a series of shorts by Louis Feuillade which made Kim have a look around and another look at the director.

*A great shot of the pack of dogs from Judex.*

You may ask still, why might this postcard remind me of that? Well, without giving any of the plot away (because if you have any interest you really should watch it) one of the aspects of the film is that the protagonist, the mysterious Judex, travels with an enormous pack of trained dogs! Many hounds, one huge black dog with long flowing hair, and a well trained poodle trimmed up just like this one. Great shots of them all flying around the countryside abound.

Among the wilder looking pack of dogs this very perfectly clipped poodle emerging as one of several performing pups really helps lift this early series up into our Best Of Serial category even though we are only on the fourth installment. More to come there!

Bunny Snapshot

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This was purchased in a small haul from the antiques annex in Red Bank, New Jersey recently. (Other treasures from that trip were recently posted about here and here.) I snatched it up for a few dollars because I liked the toy the kid is holding. It sat on a cabinet in NJ while we were there and I grabbed it up to bring it back so I could spend a bit more time studying it. It’s a tiny 2″x 3″ picture is the least expensive self-standing gold trimmed frame and I admit this is the first I have spent time looking at it.

There is a photo somewhere in the world (or was) of me very much like this, minus the nice toy and I think I was shaking the crib bars more like I was in prison. There are stories about my being anti-crib although despite that I have always been an excellent sleeper, even in the days when I was first brought home as a newborn. (As I write I am still a bit dazed and sleepy on this Saturday morning after a hard night’s sleep.) However, if I had one holding such a nice toy I could probably lay my hands on it.

While my older sister Loren made it into adulthood rarely sleeping more than 3-4 hours a night (as a small child she’d roam the house and when she got older we all got used to sleeping to her practicing the violin at all hours), always raring to go with energy, I slept through my first night home. This scared the heck out of my mother who however quickly adjusted and learned to enjoy it.

Of course it is a pretty typical photograph and likely there is a variation of most of us in our parent’s homes. (In the world of digital photos is this still true? Are there printed out pics from phones of this sort everywhere? I wonder.) I do like this nice big rabbit toy (I have a future post about a rabbit toy – a rare stepping out into a different species which I do occasionally) and this one wears a suit complete with sporty cap. I would have been pleased with such a toy no doubt.

Kim was the first to point out that maybe there is something pro about this photo. It is a bit perfectly posed. This morning while looking at it I had a hard time deciding if the hand holding the rabbit could really belong to the small child or if it was someone below and behind. Could that arm belong to that child? Seems long and maybe large? What do you think? Toys are piled in the crib and we can’t really see. On the other hand the composition is not so impressive and the contrast a bit low so it is hard to imagine a pro did it.

It is hard to pin a year to it – the stuffed rabbit is the only clue at all and I would say it could be anytime from the 1950’s forward a decade – or back a few years? Meanwhile, somehow it has now made its way to the Pictorama archive where toys are always appreciated in all forms.

Picking

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: I recently bought this photo in one of my jaunts to the Red Bank Antiques recently. It is the kind of quiet photo that catches my eye sometimes and seems fitting for the house here in New Jersey.

This pair has been picking something although hard to say what, my first thought was apples. I don’t know if this a local photo – there’s nothing on the back for date or location. Those wooden buckets could have held peaches or even cherries just as easily. There is a nice rock fence behind them.

The woman’s dress puts this at the 1910’s or there abouts. She looks cool despite her layers of cotton. The man looks a bit warmer in his rolled up shirtsleeves and suspenders. I love the way the sun filters through the leaves. I think it will find its way to our guest room in anticipation of a friend coming at the end of the week.

I wrote a post about picking cherries at my grandmother’s house as a kid. (It can be found here.) Those cherries were cooked down into preserves that we would eat all winter.

A friend suggested peach picking this summer, but we have not attempted it. The peaches seem a bit off this year and as a result I have taken to cooking them down in an easy recipe shared by a friend.

I take all my overripe fruit and cut it up – today will be peaches, nectarines and blueberries. I sprinkle just a bit of sugar, spoonful (I am using regular but you might want to use brown), lemon juice and most importantly lemon zest. Pop it in a baking dish at 375 for about 45 minutes until bubbly. Yummy hot, but great in yogurt or over ice cream once you have refrigerated.