The Well Dressed Puss

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Ah, what is the well dressed cat wearing these days? At work I saw a few sporting Knick’s attire (dogs wear it better I am afraid), some need newborn baby style onesies to keep them from a surgical site (kinder than the cone of shame if it works), and there is this strange meme on the internet to put them in yoga pants, which turns out to be a stunningly bizarre look. I may have mentioned that we have a policy against dressing the cats here at Deitch Studio and they seem to be grateful for it. Once again, this seems to be a fundamental difference between cats and dogs. I have handed over many a branded bandana to a pup at work and most seem to embrace it.

The imaginary sartorial bliss of these well drawn felines from 1908 certainly provides a counterpart in the space of time and imagination. I’m hazarding a guess to say this artist (it is unsigned) is an early US pretender to the Louis Wain throne.

These four gentleman cats all duff hats, jackets – three have monocles, two have walking sticks – one sort of shillelagh-esque on the end. Each kitty has a different model hat, but each one is stylish in keeping with the period. I was actually in New York City’s oldest hat store yesterday, JJ Hats, founded in 1911. It was doing a fairly booming business, and I admit I made a not insubstantial contribution to their income for the day. (Maybe some hat related posts in the near future. I stocked up.) It was there, several decades ago, that I purchased the black Stetson cowboy hat Kim wears as one of his first birthday gifts from me.

*It’s actually currently under scaffolding but it looks like this!*

These kitties have a variety of top hats, a stove pipe and a sort of bowler/deer slayer model. They wear fancy pointed shoes and dressy sort of smoking jacket style coats – one with a boutonniere. Their trousers, some cuffed and others not, all have a decoration down the leg I associate with tuxedo pants. (I just looked this up, the stripe down the side of tuxedo trousers is to hide the seam and give them a more cohesive look. Who knew?)

*Tempted to buy Kim a new straw hat…these can survive a rain storm.*

Even their collars represent a variety of styles of the day, mostly the high, white stiff ones that would have been attached by a few buttons, although our fellow in blue with the top hat seems to be wearing a different, long flat one. We have a few different cat kinds here too – from stripe-y short hair to a fluffy Persian look. Hands (paws) are mostly conveniently tucked in jacket pockets, with the exception of one gloved one holding a walking stick on the end.

The top of the card poses the question, Are we top-notchers on dress? Well, look at our clothes. This seems to arise with a bit of smoking detail around it. Behind the gentleman cats a vague landscape of mountains and perhaps water and grassy fields is sketched in. I would have thought these natty kitties belonged in a more urban setting.

Someone has written, Love to Leslie From Margaret at the bottom. It is addressed to Master Leslie H. Stauffer, 5314 Addison Street, West Philadelphia, PA. It was mailed from Braddock PA on February 5 1908 at 9 AM. I always think about these lucky children getting these fun cards in the mail at the turn of the century.

*Cookie is, of course, always in formal dress, even when napping behind Kim on the couch.*

As it happens, Kim and I head off to Philadelphia shortly. He will be reading at Partners & Son bookstore tonight. I hope to report on that and a whole bunch of other Deitch Studio activity around Kim’s book, How I Make Comics tomorrow so stay tuned.

Dorm

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: At work we have graduation for our interns and residents at the end of the month, but I think folks have already mostly packed up their kids at school and have started the summer. I have vague memories of each of my dorm rooms although I never went in for decorating them much. (Yes, given my post-college attachment to stuff that seems surprising, yes?) As I remember the dorm rooms were designed to be impervious to hanging things on the wall. Early on I attempted a poster or two which promptly peeled from the wall and I gave up. I was an art major however so it isn’t like there was stuff around.

Two out of the three dorm rooms I had in college (one year I lived in London) were in the original or at least early buildings of the college. Connecticut College has these beautiful, old stone buildings and at least one of my rooms had original leaded glass windowpanes – I was on the ground floor and folks would occasionally take a short cut in via the window. I don’t pine for my college experience a lot, but this photograph does make me think about it. I always enjoyed the history of the college when I was there. It had been more than a decade co-ed at that point, but the ghosts of industrious, smart women past always seemed to lurk pleasantly around.

*Katherine Blunt, first woman President of the college and the dorm named for her. We just called it KB.*

I had a hot pot but wasn’t one of those people driven to attempt to cook a lot in my dorm room. I had a dark pink comforter on the bed (it came to NYC with me and stayed with me until it was in shreds a number of years later) and not much else in the line of decor. I have two coffee mugs from those days and quite unconsciously I happen to be drinking from one right now, also a dark pink. The other is a heavy old fashioned white stoneware one that I nicked from the dining hall. (Kim was just drinking out of it the other day and complaining that it doesn’t hold enough coffee which is a fair criticism.)

I purchased this photocard from a woman who said she collected this very thing (early dorm room photos) and if she was letting this one go, I do wonder what her collection looks like! It is an interesting genre – clearly the urge to document an early experiment of living on your own as a young person was strong. There is nothing that dates this postcard – it was never used so no postmark. It could in fact easily be Connecticut College, which was founded as a women’s only college in 1911.

A careful look quickly reveals that this is a woman’s room, purse hanging from the chair was the first clue, although it is overall quite feminine really – the chafing dish (the early 20th century equivalent of a hot pot – kids probably are allowed microwaves now!) which sits nicely on a side table complete with a flower cloth is another significant indicator. The carpet is flowered as well, and the dresser has a lacey doily. It is covered with photographs, as are the shelves above and we can even see a few more in the mirror.

*Palmer Library, Connecticut College for Women New London. This was turned into classrooms I think when a new library was built* *well before my time there.*

Pennants hang all over – one in the mirror says Amsterdam, but the others are for schools or places I don’t recognize and since I can’t have both a mirror and magnifier I have trouble reading. A pincushion, a calendar (which I cannot read the year or the month on) and a few other baubles decorate the walls and an envelope is also pinned to the board next to the calendar on a sort of pinboard there.

There are two chairs and I wonder if this room was shared and we are only being shown one person’s half. At Connecticut College the majority of the original dorms has single rooms with only a few suites of shared rooms. (Newer dorms introduced in the 1960’s had more double rooms.) However, this could also be a guest chair.

The seller had several other versions of dorm photos for sale (presumably rejects from her collection) – all great although the others appeared to all be men’s dorms, often with them in the photo. I would have purchased more, but they were relatively expensive and I was already loaded up with cat cards. I assume, as there were fewer woman’s colleges, that there are fewer photos of their rooms so I like that aspect of this one. You get the feeling that it was a moment when after much hard work it was just right and she had to take a picture.

Write Soon

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Saturday is dawning very bright and hot again today, although it promises to be a bit better than the last few days which have felt much July than June. We shall see. There could be ice cream in my future.

We here at Deitch Studio are regrouping after a long week of work including some promotion for Kim’s, How I Make Comics. Kim taped a podcast yesterday with Harry Siegel (I even got to chime in), and that will be showing up on Lit NYC in about a week we are told. (Kim has done two others, one with Amusing Jews which can be found here and another with Robin McConnell on Inkstuds, which has not come out yet.) Next week we head to Philadelphia for Kim to do a talk at Partners and Sons bookshop and then things seem to calm down a bit as we drift to New Jersey for the summer in about a month. We will have the summer to recoup.

I try to take my part-time job as the in-house promoter for Deitch Studio seriously. Yesterday the interviewer asked if I was going to pursue doing a podcast with Kim. (I ventured some speculation on that in a post here.) I answered honestly that maybe after all the initial promotion for the book is over. Right now we are pretty deep in it without starting anything new – yikes!

*Artwork advertising for the gig next week. I love seeing a selection of my toys in this one!*

As I sit here, Kim is writing a letter to his friend Zach Sally about Zach’s book, Folrath, which he sent to Kim via a friend at MoCCA recently. Cookie is enjoying the approximately 30 minutes of sun she gets on a certain chair each morning this time of year. Blackie though is having an off morning not eating his food and I am eyeing some meds I might need to put in him to help.

The coffee is on, the smell wafting into the living room, (the end of a loaf of Orwashers excellent sourdough bread awaits us as toast) and I realize I truly digress, but it has been on one those weeks and Saturday morning finds us a bit exhausted. Fresh Direct will be dropping off some groceries soon, however other than maybe making a quick soup I would say this weekend is all about collapsing a bit and resting up.

*Orwashers last weekend. It is always so cheerful and jolly that I find myself taking pics while waiting in the line that generally goes out the door.*

Meanwhile, for the main event today (if a bit belatedly and far down in this post) I share an embossed, die-cut style cat card purchased last weekend. A scaredy cat threatens I’ll get my back up if you don’t write soon! The cat has a deep 3-D quality and highlights (you can see he even casts a small shadow), which make him stand out further on this paper which has a faux linen quality and tooth to it. He is a true miniature version of a German embossed Halloween decoration. There is no copyright or publisher’s information on the card.

On the back there is a postmark of Janesville, Wisconsin, with a June or July date I cannot read, 1908. Rather plaintively it says, Why don’t you ever write to – Lucy. And it is addressed to Mrs. M. C. Vosburg, Ft. Atkinson, Wis. R.F. D. No. 3. Poor Lucy. So I guess this card was chosen to the point here. I do hope Mrs. Vosburg wrote to Lucy eventually.

Schimdt’s White and Gold Band

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: With Memorial Day behind us, and despite the fall-like weather this Saturday as I write, I thought I would pull out this postcard purchase. It both celebrates the summer season ahead and the town where my mother grew up, Long Branch, New Jersey. I snatched it up at a sale recently and will take it to the house in New Jersey where, among the images of cats, are a number of early local Jersey shore photos and postcards, an homage to my family’s history in the area and my own.

I find that Max Schmidt (1850-1951) was a violinist who immigrated to the United States in 1886 from Germany. He lived and worked primarily in New York City, even reportedly with the Met Opera at times, so this summer gig for his 24-piece orchestra was a short hop away and his orchestra enjoying some limited fame of the time.

Here is the Band White and Gold in all their 1909 glory on today’s card. Although it is somewhat standard of all the musicians with their instruments in hand, there are a few interesting elements. I like that the trumpets all have flags (pennants?) advertising the band hanging from them – three tubas, two more tuba-like things and so many drums! Behind the musicians is a sign that says Band White and Gold and a sort of gong hanging below it. At the bottom (a bit hard to read) it declares, Max Schmidt Celebrated Band White & Gold Ocean Park, Long Branch, NJ.

They appear here to be on a stage set of some kind and a careful look to the back reveals a painted column and some foliage. As best I can tell the area around them on the outside of the stage looks like a cave entrance. Most intriguing however are the three men, just behind the fellow I assume is Max himself (small child seated on the floor next to him), and they appear to stand behind wood stumps with anvils, hammers in their hands. I assume this is part of the opera music they were known to play. Tucked away, all the way on the left side and hard to see, is a harp.

This card was mailed on August 23, 1909 from Long Branch. It only says, Love from, Minnie. It was mailed to, Miss Amelia Freuzel, Sayreville, N.J. The card, produce by The Rotograph Co. NY, City was printed in Germany.

Meanwhile, this was the heyday of the band concert and his sported striking white and gold uniforms. They were hired in the summer of 1909 to play outdoor concerts in Ocean Park. (If I understand it, Ocean Park was subsumed by what is now known as Seven President’s Park – if wrong Jersey folks let me know.) Their repertoire would have been popular band music, evidently combined with excerpts from operas. At the time Long Branch was the summer haven for the very wealthy and even Presidents. (The most outstanding remaining example is Wilson’s summer home which now forms the core of what became Monmouth University’s campus. I understand that there is a building which will house Bruce Springsteen’s papers quite nearby.)

The fortunes of the town, like many, have waxed and waned over the decades. Despite my grandmother living in a residential area on the outskirts in the house my mom grew up in (I wrote about that house in a previous post here), the downtown area and even the waterfront was largely down at the heels during my childhood. The shopping district was usurped by an enormous mall (which in turn was ultimately killed by online shopping and an outdoor shopping center) and only a few essential stores hung on. There was a Foodtown supermarket by the train station (which I shopped in a few times when my sister was in the hospital across the street), a paint store called Siperstein’s, which mom frequented. (A quick look online and it appears to still be there, selling wallpaper and blinds now as well. It may be a chain.)

*Another from the internet not in my collection.*

There was also a library which for some reason I found more interesting than both the tiny one in Rumson (the Oceanic Library – I must write about it one day), and the much larger and more modern one known as the Monmouth County Library. (It is out by Trader Joe’s so I have seen it and it has been expanded further since my childhood.) We didn’t go to the library in Long Branch often as it was a bit more out of the way, but we’d stop in occasionally and there was just something especially warm and inviting about the children’s section. I wish I could remember what books I found there, I was already reading chapter books, but it would likely be a false memory. I want to say the later Alcott children’s books like Jo’s Boys. Below is what the library would have looked like in my childhood (albeit more beat up) although it is a much more contemporary and entirely different building today.

*Undated photo of the Long Branch public library via the internet.*

In addition, there was another smaller commercial area closer to my grandmother, where my great-grandparents once had their bar and restaurant. (I wrote about the blue willow ware plates – the blue plate special plates – which I inherited and use. The post is here.) My vivid memories of that area from childhood were a Dunkin’ Donuts we frequented and the rarified early McDonalds. My parent’s accountant was also there – may still be for all I know but I doubt it. (Sadly, later in life, it is also where the funeral home the family used is and that is what I associate with it now.) There was a laundromat (strange word now that I look at it) nearby we sometimes used in the years before getting a washing machine although there was one closer to home, in Sea Bright, that I remember best. Mom may have been doing laundry for my grandmother.

And so the march to summer at the shore begins again today, even if I am drinking hot coffee and eyeing a sweater for my trip downtown in a bit. However, I’m sure there will be more shore and vacation posts coming soon.

Crying Kits

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today I have cat tales. Cats are of course the foundational interest of Pam’s Pictorama although we do stray – Kim’s comics, the occasional dog. We are All Pam, all the Time, but albeit not quite cats all the time but much of the time.

Today’s card came as a purchase from the most recent incarnation of the postcard show and we have the Boulanger card with crying kitties to consider. I’m not exactly sure what in particular Maurice was thinking about. We have a dark gray and white matched pair of kittens who are looking at each other with tears running down their faces. The white one is a bit pudgier and a smidge bigger than the gray one, one with yellow eyes and the other a very light green.

In my opinion Boulanger (b. 1910, d.o.d. unknown) was something of a pretending to the Louis Wain (b. 1860, d.o.d. 1939) throne so to speak, as there are a few decades of overlap between them. I reckon there was more than enough demand for the images produced by two cat artists. (Some prior posts for Boulanger can be found here and here. Louis Wain Pictorama posts abound but a few are here and here.)

This image is evidently called, Tendrement (Tenderly) and on some versions evidently in German it is also written, Apfelblüte. Daut un daut lüschen Hoffen – Apple Blossom. That sweet, soft glimmer of hope. I did wonder about the image of weeping pusses. It does raise the issue of who you might have sent this card to and what their reaction might have been. Mine was not sent and does not have any useful information on the back.

Yesterday was a major cat event here as Blackie has been doing sort of poorly with a lack of appetite. Ahead of the holiday weekend I managed to get him into his local vet in the late afternoon. Have I ever mentioned that Blackie seems to have an uncanny need to go to the ER on a holiday weekend or otherwise inconvenient (reads as more expensive too) times? He does. Long story short, no sooner had we gotten home than the vet called to tell me that after looking at his tests (a small amount of ketones in his urine) he needed to go to the ER.

*The little man, feeling more himself, today.*

Of course, these days the kitty emergency room is at the hospital where I work. So yes, on what should have been an afternoon off I was hopping in a cab and rushing Blackie down there. (Kim, still recovering from back surgery did the first vet trip but we decided he should stay home for the second.)

I took him fully expecting that he would need to stay overnight. A young resident saw him and ran some more tests. Blackie hates going to my place of employment, but this time I had reason to bless working there. He enjoys a low-key celebrity status as an employee kitty (people came and visited with us and even with him in the back, reporting out to me) and despite it being the Friday night before the long weekend, one of the senior docs who has seen him before came by to have a look at him.

She mentioned as had the other two vets, that he had a lot of bowel not moving in his intestines – kitty constipation. The difference was she gave me instructions for giving him a tiny kitty dose of Miralax. Since eating and resolving constipation were the main issues we decided I would bring him home – he has an appetite enhancer and an anti-nausea drug. Even when we came home last night, he was ready to eat! That combined with the Miralax appears to have set him absolutely right today. I woke to a hungry boy cat and a rather impressively full litterbox. Yesterday reminded me of why I love the hospital where I work. Yay for Blackie!

Noted

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It is threatening to be a hot summer’s day in May today – we are having now you see it, now you don’t warm weather here in Manhattan this spring. We whiplash between our light down filled jackets and sleeveless dresses, and I gather today will be the latter. I am heading to New Jersey to get the dahlias in for the year. They sit out the winter in the garage, tucked in paper bags, but for all the fickleness of the weather I think we are past frost here and I want them to have maximum time to bloom.

After yesterday’s excitement of reviewing Kim’s new book, I am afraid I have created a hard act to follow. I hope this Wain card from the recent postcard show does the trick – a palate cleanser of cat images to get back to the general business of Pictorama.

Upon reflection I realize I was slow to cede to Wain adoration – I resisted for quite a long time (overpriced postcards I remember thinking), but when I fell, I fell hard. I am a Wain addict. Few things dependably make me chuckle than a Wain image even if I have seen them many times before. A few of my past tributes can be found here and here but there are many!

His cat postcard parade is an almost endless variation playing on human foibles and attitudes – sardonic, malevolent, self-satisfied, mystified, distracted for starters. There are types too, fat, thin, businessman, solid citizen, and of course troublemakers galore. For types he is partial to tabbies – those nice decorative stripes I suppose. They can be a variety of shades. Today we have a gray tuxie which seems a bit exotic for him.

Today we have a Raphael Tuck & Sons card with four choral kitties – a cat quartet. Each holds a score which is inscribed, Nothing New Latest New Songs. Starting on the end with our pudgy, contented (self-satisfied?) fellow, gripping his book with both paws. He’s a fat cat in the best sense. (Somehow, we know these are all boy cats, yes?) Next to him is a small and skinny gray tuxedo, sporting a red bow looking a tad waifish, paw on tummy to help him emote. The two on the end are sort of a matched set of two colors of tabby, one has a blue bow for good measure and the music books they hold are a variety of green, red and blue. Each has a singing pose all his own showing his enthusiasm for his chorale endeavors.

When we look closely there is eye color variation and I assume Wain figured he could goose that a bit without anyone noticing – these cats have eyes of yellow, green and blue! They all are looking in different directions too which packs a smidge of action into this small image – and each singing with a different level of enthusiasm. Tails are curled in a variety of ways and directions, whiskers as well as eyebrows help complete the expressions. All these details are what Wain swaps out within his mental inventory of images he uses again and again. Finally, he supplies a sketched in shadow on the ground and nothing else aside from his signature which is sort of a visual element anchoring that side of the card, fat cat tail on the opposite side.

The title below is, The note duly reached in what I assume is Wain’s hand. Below that, in remarkably similar but lighter script someone has written, Hope I shall see you Thursday, Grannie. It was addressed to, Master C. T. Travers, Woolfanger, Warlingham, Surrey. The cancellation year is hard to read but appears to be August 13, 1905. Can I just say, how much fun must it have been to get a postcard like this when you were a kid? Yay for Grannie! Clearly enough that this card has survived more than 120 years.

So I leave you to revel in this smidge of Wain while I pack up my gardening togs and head out shortly. Look for some New Jersey pics on Instagram later.

Scratch That

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: At the heart of my collecting are odd bit postcards and photos that just appeal to me and today it is one. It has been a little while since I have featured a real one-of-a-kind photo postcard that was made of someone’s pet – my indulgences at the postcard show have turned up more illustrated cards and professional photo postcards. However, in some ways these one-offs epitomize something about why I collect cat photos.

Photos are usually tributes to the puss in question, many mice caught, had kittens and the like, today’s is a different sort of good kitty notice. It took me a bit to realize that this missive declares that this Miss Cat (I believe kitty to be a girl), sweet little thing we see in the sun here, has not scratched our sender.

*Beauregard is a very thoughtful cat and was always extra careful around mom.*

Now, I am the first to say when you live with a kitten, you generally walking around like the bleeding wounded on some horror film set, arms and hands particularly mangled, until you convince them that there are things for scratching (and biting for that matter) and slowly it ceases.

It must be said that an odd flaw in my beloved Blackie is he never learned to use a scratching post or box. His sister Cookie is happy to tear furiously into one, as are the Jersey Five. I have set scratching boxes up in strategic places and they are used not only for scratching but Peaches in particular likes to sleep on them, as if on a little cardboard throne, as well as tear them to bits.

*Mr. Blackie without a care in the world, showing his tummy recently.*

As a result, we occasionally get a negligent scratch from Blackie’s nails, although he hasn’t actively scratched either of us since kittenhood. I used to worry about those kinds of unconscious scratches with my mom and her cats. At the end of her life her skin was very thin and as a diabetic, scratches could be a problem. However, her cat favorite lap cat Beau always seemed to be extra careful and we rarely if ever had a problem. In an adult cat clearly scratching is a clearly a sign of unhappiness – Back off buddy! You’ve crossed a line.

*The cat in the photo reminds me of Peaches. She’s a terror and to my knowledge no one has actually ever touched her. She will get within two feet of me when I am putting out food and that’s it.*

Our kitty here has been captured in a benign mood, although something has caught her attention out the window. She appears to be white with some stripe-y patches on the bottom half of her and some of the same color up around her head and ears. She’s not a kitten but does appear to be a fairly young cat. We see just the tip of her curled tail, mirrored by her shadow on this small table – she is barely staying still enough for this photo to be taken. She’s a sprightly cute little thing – clearly a scratcher though!

There is a cannister, such as would hold something like flour, behind her. (Dollars to donuts that got knocked over eventually if this was her favorite viewing table.) Puss is a little sassy, you can tell that from this pic. All this is captured in this circle printed at the top of the card.

*Cookie likes to curl up under my desk. This was her during a zoom call last week.*

Under it, the fellow in question has written, “Hasn’t scratched yrs” Yours Samuel Jackson. It was mailed from Schenectady on June 11 at 11:30 (maybe 12:30, hard to see), 1906. It is addressed (to the best of my decoding ability) to Miss Emma Crisppen, Coxsackie, N.Y. It arrived in Coxsackie at 4:00 PM of the same day. A miracle by today’s standards we cannot imagine. (Not that they could imagine sending an email or this blog post in all fairness.)

So there we have it, our slice of time out of 1906, very close to exactly 120 years ago today.

Commuter Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: There are a few rather interesting things about today’s card – an image I have never seen before but cracked me up. It posits six cats in a flying machine that is both futuristic while still being of its early 20th century time – a nice commute indeed for these workaday kits, I must say. I want to say the flying machine is one part kite on the top and this wing advertises, Why trouble to drive? Aerobus Trips in the Sky. It has, oddly enough, skis as well as wheels. I assume that although no snow currently threatens the bucolic green town below, one has to be prepared for all eventualities and seasons. (Wain is a Pictorama favorite and if you are new to the fold you can find more past Wain posts here, here and here for starters.)

On the side of the aeobus there is a partially obscured inscription, Catlands Branch…and then what likely is Service. The plane appears to be made of something reminiscent of balsa wood, but we will hope for their sake that it is something a bit more substantial. A little put-put propeller seems to be the force behind flight, perhaps helped along with the kite-like design. Just behind the propeller and hard to read is the name of the vehicle, evidently christened Mouse No. 15.

It is a tabby filled load, heavy on the oranges (orange tabbies seem to be a favorite of Wain’s, perhaps their natural tendency toward trouble making), although there are a variety of shades within that, light and dark, and one black and whiter for good measure. A jolly fat fellow is steering, wheel and stick I notice. He sports a cap in case we doubt his official role. The other cats seem to be enjoying themselves, looking at the view. I’m surprised no one is reading the newspaper or coming home with bags and boxes from a shopping trip in town – it could use a middle-aged female cat.

The town below sports a church and a single, very large home, a bridge in the distance and tended fields awaiting crops. There seems to be a sea which drifts almost invisibly into the sky.

Notably, in case you did not know, this card is a contemporary reproduction which was advertised as such online. I was curious and not unsatisfied with the results. After all, the “real” postcards have wide variation from multiple printings as well and what is real when it comes to postcards. The image is sharp and not dupe-y which is what I was most curious and concerned about. There is a somewhat undefinable not oldness about it. There is no manufacturer’s info on the back. It would have originally likely been the product of Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd.

I have been unable to find versions of the original card online which lead to an interesting thought – what if this isn’t really a Louis Wain but instead a very crafty modern mix up and reassembly of existing and new parts? I don’t really think this card is, but it begs the question about our new world in the not too distant future will be we be parsing real versus actual reinvention?

To me it is also interesting that it is my inclination that I would mail this postcard and I never mail my old ones – too expensive and too fragile. If I give one it is generally framed. At $5 this was about the price of an average greeting card these days, although maybe a bit more with postage. I guess we will just have to wait and see if “new” Louis Wain’s start to appear and then we can judge them on their own merits. However, modern reproduction does bring the possibility of bringing them back into play so to speak and using them again for their original intention. (Does anyone actually even know what a postcard costs to send in the US today?)

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For those of you who are wondering, Paw Day was a huge success yesterday at the Second Avenue Street Fair here. While the block long Japanese food fiesta might have topped our block marginally, we were packed with interested parties and lots and lots of dogs (and a few adventurous cats) and curiosity. Many existing clients visited with us and our docs but also lots of people with puppies and new pets who were curious. It was fast paced and exhausting but great fun.

A brave cat visitor to our table yesterday and Blackie exacting a lap toll this morning (slowing me down some) for yesterday being mostly a day out of the apartment.

On the Fence

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I have seen this postcard before and I cannot say why but have never thought to purchased it until now. Suddenly it just struck me as good fun when I saw it the other day online, a perfect version of a sort of a card. Perhaps all my kitten photo posts lately had me in a different frame of mind and attuned me to seeing it better.

Meanwhile, it’s an overcast morning here in Manhattan and shortly after I finish this post I need to hurry down to 76th Street and Second Avenue for a street fair where the animal hospital I work for has taken a block for our annual Paw Day. I will layer up with branded t-shirt, sweatshirt, baseball cap and kerchief – we actually give those to dogs who visit but I like to wear one jauntily tied around my neck. I don’t know about sun, but I think maybe we can avoid rain.

Anyway, today’s card shows these two adolescent cats, just out of proper kittenhood in my opinion, sitting on a picket fence distracted perfectly in unison by something we cannot see. Their uniform, spotty fur makes me thing they might be littermates. Utterly illegible, in poorly planned white writing on the white fence it declares these two as, The Astronomers. These are stargazing felines it seems. The background is a solid black so if there are stars in theory, they reside out of view.

Perhaps ironically, or not, the copyright by Rotograph is a more visible white on black, under the leg of the left cat, right where his black tail is curled around his feet or her feet. The copyright is 1906 by the Rotograph Company of New York. (Almost exactly a year ago I did another post about a Rotograph card which can be found here. However, more about the Rotograph Company and Rags their cat, can be found in a post here. Oddly that one is from April of ’19. Spring is Rotograph time here at Pictorama!) It would appear to me, for the record, that the cat on the left is indeed Rags as he has a singular mark coming down from his right eye.)

This card was mailed in the year of its copyright, December 1, 1906. It was sent from and to Worcester, Massachusetts at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was mailed to, Master Topsy & Sweetheart Merrit, 6 High Street, Worcester, Mass. (Out of curiosity I checked and there is a split-level home of relatively recent vintage there now.) I’m sure it was great enjoyed by Topsy and Sweetheart and as a result has somehow lasted in splendid shape all these years.

I pledge for a longer post tomorrow when I am not under the gun to get to work. I will catch you all up on tales (and tails) from Paw Day perhaps.

Hanging the Moon

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: We are mooning around today here at Pictorama and of course Deitch Studio is a good place for it as no one does it better than Kim in my opinion. That old man on the moon – Kim makes him toothy and gives him carbuncles and craters for an extra moon-y surface to his bald head. There was a time when I might have said that the Man on the Moon best defined Kim’s work – along with the time clock with a face standing over him for starters. And I generally ask Kim for a moon face (and snow) in our holiday cards.

*A good ‘ole Kim Deitch moon in this eye popping pic of a cartoon mural!*

Postcards, photography, cartoons – all in love with the man on the moon and hanging with him. My collection has a few choice photo postcards of people sitting on the moon (I’d have more if they weren’t so expensive!) and of course even just a few posts back there were kittens in a balloon flying toward the moon. A few images from my collection are below. (The post about the photo of Kim and Simon shown below can be found here.)

(The card above was from a previous postcard sale and was in a January post which can be found here.)

As much as we crave sunlight there is something about being out under the rays of a bright full or roaring orange harvest moon that makes us kick up our heels in a totally different way – not to mention the romantic interludes it inspires. I remember reading a passage in a novel about roaming through backyards and streets in the suburbs late at night under a bright full moon. Having grown up in suburbia it brought such a specific image to my mind that stayed with me. And where I grew up it would have also been the moon on the water too, always reflected on the river in our backyard. Stephen Millhauser writes very compellingly about having a different life by night – I may be thinking of him. (His novella, Enchanted Night is a good place to start with his books.)

*Available in paperback in a number of places online.*

I fell hard for this postcard immediately. I found it last weekend at the postcard show and the dealer told me it is a part of a series. Although I found another copy of this card in a collection online, I was unable to find others from a series. I will be keeping a sharp eye out however.

*An early Deitch Studio holiday card production with moon, stars instead of snow. I like those too.*

It would appear that these youngsters are constructing this natty moon fellow, placing his hat, glasses (those are a nice touch!), giving him a pipe, and one doing something with his mustache – applying it? There is a tiny paint can next to him. Obviously a ladder is necessary to do this work. The boys are all wearing overalls in different colors and reach sports red shoes.

The thing about this image is this amazing flying contraption the boys are in. When you look carefully it is a flying boat – something akin to a rowboat with wings, a kite-tail and strange wheels – for use on land? Another look and you realize that there is something coming off the flying machine to the back of the moon – it appears it is actually propping it up in the softly star studded sky. The painting boy, tucked in the seat of this machine, has a tiny ship’s wheel in front of him to steer. How all three would fit is also a further question for our imagination.

*Kim and Simon posing for a moon seat photo as tiny tots!*

Lastly this machine hangs over the endless sea – like it is taking place somewhere at the ends of the world, which is likely is. Waves appear to gently lap but of course space and scale are left entirely to our imagination. I must say the artist had a wonderful vision and got to run with it on this one.

This card was never mailed although the back has indications that it was pasted into something. The maker’s mark is postcard druik u. Verlag von B. Dondort, G m.b.H. Frankfurt a/m which doesn’t seem to lead to much of anything.

It is seldom that an image makes me as dreamy as this one does. It gives a new visual to the idea of thinking that your loved one has indeed hung the moon for you. A cheerful thought on a rainy Sunday here in New York City and at Deitch Studio.