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Mickey and Men

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Kids and Dad w: toy

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The summer photo fun continues with this family snapshot. If I had to guess I would say the 30’s or 40’s although it has a timeless quality. There is no information on it and no evidence that it lived in an album. Since I collect such things, I do wonder about those photos which manage to find their way down the decades and end up with me (or another collector), as opposed to those which are lost or destroyed. It is easy to understand how the photo postcards got saved – especially those dandy ones posing with Felix. They were by their very nature special and probably had a place of honor in the family because they were fun and were kept by future generations – and eventually strangers. Snapshots like this one have a somewhat higher bar I think, but this is both a great photo and fun so it is easy to see how it was preserved. I think there is a part of me which collects them because the idea of all those homeless photos makes me sad.

I debated about the toy being a Felix or an off-model Mickey. Now that I have blown it up (it is a small, sort of 2.5″ x 3.5″) I can see that it is indeed a faux Mickey – maybe the kind given away as a prize at a carnival. He clearly has a place of pride squarely in the middle of this picture, Dad looking down at him. The two boys look so much alike they could almost be twins, but the one on the right is a bit older – and they look very much like the man holding them who we will assume is Dad. The small, comical hat on the older boy gives him a jaunty attitude, but the younger boy is the one holding Mickey. Meanwhile, Dad’s got them both, scooped up in his arms and they are enjoying a nice day in this pleasantly overgrown backyard.

The sun is just coming up on a beautiful, hot July Sunday morning here in New York City as I write this, and I suggest everyone grab a loved one and a toy and get a photo for the future today.

Felix Mugging

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Some of you ongoing readers know that Pam’s Pictorama was originally conceived as a way of organizing my collection of photo postcard of people posing with giant Felix dolls. While I almost immediately switched course to incorporate all of my various collecting interests – toys, other photos and cat items – my collecting of these rarified beauties continues apace. That said, I generally only get one or two opportunities to purchase such cards each year. This one, as is the case with most, was never sent, and there is nothing written on it.

As summer hits its humid stride this year it seems like a fine moment to look back on a beach day long past. In the background we are treated to wonderful low wooden beach chairs and those fascinating little tents that people used to dress in. I have always been a fan of those – you see them in films occasionally and I have always wanted one or at least to be offered the use of one. You can just about make out what is probably mom and and older brother on the right hand side, blurry and behind them.

This Felix is a very fine looking fellow. I love that he sports a big bow and a careful look reveals whiskers on his face. Felix looks relatively new – in some of my other photos it is clear that the Felix doll in question has been dragged to the beach daily for numerous seasons and as a result he doesn’t stand quite right any longer, or he looks a bit ratty. Not this fellow. He and this youngster, who is wearing the least attractive sort of early children’s bathing attire-diaper thingy, are both pretty new on the summer scene; likely one of many to come for both of them. Perhaps his brother was up next for a photo and his still lurks somewhere out there, waiting for me to find it.

The Lore of the White Kitties

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: In the process of packing and unpacking toys recently, I realized that somehow along the line I had acquired a small coterie of white cats in contrast to my substantial (and well documented) collection of black cats. Three of these fellows are Steiff and two have no identification. The Steiff with the bell and red ribbon was purchased by Kim at a store in Cold Spring, New York, for me. The all white kitty on all fours, without stripes, came from a small shop in Dresden and I bought him while traveling there for the Met. (He kept me company on the remainder of the trip and made my ship’s cabin feel more like home.) I almost wrote that the others came off of eBay, but yet when I think about it I know they did not. The strange rule of Pam purchasing white cats seems to be that I do it in person and it is an impulse buy. Sadly I have no specific memory of the origin of the remaining cats. I do wish I could remember where I got the largest of them – he really is a splendid cat and I can see why I bought him.

White cats don’t quite hold the mystery  and intrigue that black cats do for me – however seems like a friendly group and like they probably get along together better than the black cats. (I have seen some elbowing for space among the black cats – just ask Kim.) Most of these live peacefully sprinkled among their black cat brethren and this is the first time I am putting them together.

White cats are prone to deafness – it seems strange that it would be a congenital defect that natural selection wouldn’t have done away with – and I have never met one of these. Meanwhile, they also frequently  have two different colored eyes, a pretty great look. The Turkish government has even declared white Angora cats with blue and amber eyes national treasures. This alone could convince someone like me to visit Turkey, and how sad that during the long Presidential election year neither candidate has offered us such a part of their platform.

It is worth noting that Felix has a girlfriend with white fur and a ribbon who I think of as White Kitty, although her name is in fact just Kitty – and she always seemed to be luring him into one kind of trouble or other such as a mountain of kittens, or her father with a shot gun as popular themes. Kitty was often drawn entirely differently – a realistic and not so doggy-human as Felix, as in the internet swipe of a postcard below. Although in the comics she sometimes looks like an all-white Felix in a dress. It is bizarre that in the strip below Felix also seems to have a (equally scheming) cousin who is also all white.

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Felix and Kitty from a popular British postcard set by Pathe

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Felix and Kitty from a daily

 

Homemade Mickey

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: This is the first Mickey I ever purchased. I bought him at a antique toy fair in Atlantic City years ago. He was quite ratty even then and I didn’t pay much for him. At the time buying mice seemed odd to the cat purchaser in me, but he wasn’t expensive and he seemed to need a home, so he was the first mice among my cats. I continue to have a soft spot for him and the cats don’t seem to mind him.

I didn’t realize it at first, but he seems to be made from a pattern. As my regular readers know, I have recently opined on my lack of sewing acumen. Long story short, I’m lucky I can sew a button on, therefore I am rather awestruck by someone assembling toys from patterns, a skill I would love to acquire.

I gather the practice was very common and there were a number of ways you could get the patterns, through magazines or purchased from a sewing store. (You can see my lament of the long-lost fabric and notions store – Needled – a recent post.) I was deeply tempted by someone selling a pattern for a large Felix toy on eBay several years ago. The photo below is from her ad. I believe, strangely, that it is for knitting Felix – how is that possible? (While I can imagine a universe where I sew – in fact I even had fantasies about being good at sewing when I was younger – I cannot imagine a world where I knit. Those big plastic sticks produce nothing in my hands, let alone a giant Felix.)

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Felix from a pattern available online

The seamstress behind my Mickey did a pretty superb job. The seams are very professional and the hand stitching attaching his hands and feet is neat and even. He appears to have had his eye moved on one side at some point, leaving a sort of beauty mark, but I think she or he had it properly stitched in originally. He was constructed of a soft black velvet which has worn away, but his arms, head, ears and tail are properly and perfectly put together.

It is tempting to think about – assembling my own toys with vintage patterns. However, I think I am smart enough to know it would all turn to chaos and dross in my hands so I think I will stick with buying.

How to Put on a Circus

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: My memory of exactly where I scored this book has dimmed. It may have been in a used bookstore in Cananda, but I am just not sure. I do know that the moment I picked it up I knew it was splendid and I wanted it. If the penciled price on the inside is what I paid, it cost me $15. The book evidently originally belonged to Harry Dippold who wrote his name in beautiful script in pencil on the inner cover. The copyright, the single printing listed, is 1923. It was written, illustrated and photographed by Fred Hacker and Prescott W. Eames. How to Put on an Amateur Circus is exactly what the title promises – a 112 page step-by-step and blow-by-blow description of everything from how to build costumes, construct tents, make tickets, apply clown make-up, keep the books and even what the Ringmaster should say to the audience! They have left nothing up to chance, a veritable bible of starting your very own circus.

It did not surprise me to discover that the company responsible for this book is Dennison’s – the crepe paper and party decoration company, famed for their wonderful over-the-top Halloween Bogie books. (For a full discourse on Dennison’s you might try my post by the same name found here – Dennison’s.) While these folks had a vested financial interest in encouraging the use of crepe paper, the extraordinary imagination that went into their marketing books is stunning.

For me, the highlight of this book are the photos of and instructions for executing a wide-variety of imaginative animal costumes. (I sometimes wonder if all of Julie Taymor’s inspiration for her puppet costumes came from books like this.) As you can see from the photos below, photographs of the finished product were given, as were diagrams for making the costumes and even ones for how to operate them. The instructions are detailed, if arduous and requiring plenty of elbow grease – operating them couldn’t have been easy either. A google search turns up period references to this and other Dennison volumes like it – I found comments on the difficulty of executing the costumes, but it wasn’t uncommon for them to be used and identified as such in all sorts of amateur and semi-amateur productions.

Tantalizing, at the back of the book, are other Dennison books you could buy. These include the following titles: How to Chalk Talk, (must have been popular because there is also Chalk Talk Stunts), Impromptu Magic, with Patter, The High School Stunt Show and Carnival, Here’s for a Good Time (…a large and diversified collection of parties for the advanced teen ages and adults, chronologically arranged to cover every month of the year), and finally, Burlesque Debates – despite the title these were not racy, but comical. I have never been able to find another volume in the series for sale, but I treasure mine and occasionally dream of starting my own, amateur circus. Come on guys, it’s summer – let’s put on a show!

See the stockings on legs and feet!
Giraffe might be my favorite

 

Picture Perfect

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Buried deep in the pages of this blog, this photo decorates my brief auto-bio and it has long been one of the favorites in my collection for years. I thought I would pull it out over this July 4th weekend. (If I can’t be on a boardwalk we can at least look at one!) These two fellows are in spiffy, if slightly bizarre, attire – speaking at least for the guy with the striped tie and ill-fitting tweed jacket. The gent with the pipe seems to be giving the photographer a dubious look, What the hell are you doing? While his friend is giving us a bit of a smile.

This card came from England and I have always imagined this is Brighton or the Isle of Wright. Like almost all of these cards, it was never mailed. When I first saw it I thought that maybe the guys were sort of scamming by getting the photo with Felix, but not paying for it. However, clearly they appear to be taken by surprise. My guess is that, perhaps on slow days, the photographer would take candid photos and offer them to the people for purchase later – someone did this to me years ago when I got off a plane in Peru. (Sadly it was a positively wretched photo – probably due to the 10 or so hours of flying I had just completed – and I really did not want it. The process and method of finding me later fascinated me however and I admired their industriousness.)

My favorite part of this photo though is, not surprisingly, Felix. He has a sort of brother can you spare a dime? look about him, and he is sort of looking over his shoulder. (As some of you know, it is my life’s ambition to own one of these giant Felix-es, several would of course be even better…) PHOTOGRAPHS is written across the doorway to the building and must lead to the studio. I would love to see inside. And oh, on a beautiful summer day, to stroll the and pause to have your photo taken with a giant Felix the Cat doll!

Arctic Baking Powder

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Pam’s Pictorama: An unexpected bonus of the unpacking earlier today, this card fell out of something and was rediscovered. I remember buying it, but absolutely no idea what it fell out of and why it had been put there. Written in a kid’s hand on the back is Otto Lannaff or maybe Lamnaff? And he outlined the cat’s head which can be seen through the card.

The story of Arctic Baking Powder, if there is one, seems largely lost in the mists of time. While I thought I was onto something when I found information about a man named William Ziegler, who made his fortune in baking powder and then funded an Arctic expedition, he did not in turn name his company Arctic. I was able to piece together the fact that Arctic Baking Powder had a number of entertaining cat cards and this was one in a series. (I also found an advertising card done for them that was earlier than these and it was a snore.) Below is another I found online that was sold on eBay previously which I find equally notable and charming.

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The policeman cat, showing this nicely dressed rat clad in a short jacket and politely holding his hat an Arctic Baking Powder sign is very jolly indeed and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What is he telling the rat? “This is good stuff Mr. Rat!” Meanwhile, police kitty is so much more serious than my ribald fellow – mine dancing and winking, a naughty fellow. I like his fang-y grin, cane in hand. Very natty outfit with bow tie and that fat striped tail. It is very hard to see, but in the upper left corner of my card it reads, I had a darling racket last night. I can’t say I know for sure what it means, but clearly – oolala Mr. Cat! Must be a kissing cousin to the kind of racket you are asked by your neighbors to stop making late at night. These could be the same artist, but I am on the fence about that.

So, baking powder. I, for one, used to confuse it with baking soda all the time and had to puzzle through which to buy to keep the cat’s litter box or refrigerator from smelling. There’s something old fashioned seeming about baking powder – although I would imagine it is used in baking as much now as ever. (I was once very fond of baking powder biscuits – a bit heavier than regular ones, but yummy and quick to make.) Baking soda comes in a box and, probably for the reason of some potential chemical interaction, baking powder comes in tin cans. (To digress a moment – I loved when bandaids came in tin boxes. I saved one before they all disappeared – sensed that they were on their way out although they lasted a long time. Always kept spare money in them. Why is there so little tin now?) So, bottom line, I don’t know what this hotsy-totsy kitty was doing with baking powder, but I want some. He must have sold a whole lot of baking powder in his day.

 

Needled

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Pam’s Pictorama:  Picking back up to the strange land of notions – a word I love and one you don’t hear much any more. In fact, notions, the sewing kind are actually hard to find these days. Even in my adult life we have gone from a sprinkling of such stores, I remember at least one on 86th Street near here, to none. Needles and thread can at best be located in back corners of drugstores and supermarkets in large multipacks of thread and needles. Gone are the days when you might go to a store that sells fabric and thread – and buttons – and match colors and get exactly what you need. This being Manhattan we have the fabric district and I suppose can take ourselves to that part of town and trying to find a place that would sell us our paltry and pedestrian sewing wares. It’s a little like getting into a race car when all you needed was a scooter however. I can’t speak for smaller towns – do you still have your notion and fabric stores? It is one of the few things that seems utterly impossible to purchase online – you can’t match thread that way and who the heck knows what size needles you need? I always just look at them and know.

I bought this needle package – that’s what it is – years ago at a flea market. It came complete with almost all of the needles still in place, in that lovely bright foil lining. It still has a needle threader – I did love figuring out how to use one of those! So simple, yet so useful – and not entirely self-evident I might add. These needles are indeed rust-proof, and what is the difference between hand sewing needles and sewing needles I wonder?

I do love that there was a time when putting space ships on packages of needles seemed appropriate – clearly a more entertaining time. Those two women sewing and smiling while that space ship shoots off of the earth and heavenward. We were all careening toward the future I guess. Who knew though, that it would be hard to buy a needle and thread when we got there?

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Mascots

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Photos of cat mascots on ships are becoming a sub-genre to my collection. Prior incarnations have included: Tom the Fire Boat Cat, Ahoy! Cats at Sea and Mascot – U.S.S. Custodian. I find them utterly irresistible, the beloved cats of the sea, and this ship clearly had a full menagerie on board! The U.S.S. New York seems to have a current incarnation of very recent vintage, so it is hard to know from what era this version hails – although the style of the photo postcard makes me think the 1920’s. The postcard is unused with no writing.

The simply named Puss, gray tuxedo, has his back to us – or perhaps is giving that adorable fluffy pup, Kaiser Stamps for Short, a look before starting something with him, like a bop on the nose. Lady, like her name is clearly elegant and above the fray, also turned away – and then there is the goat, Buck, who I really love. Whose idea was it to bring a goat on board? Buck and Kaiser are the only ones looking at the camera. Buck, like Lady, appears to wear a collar – a goat with a collar, does that happen often? He would seem to be a smallish goat from what we can see. I can’t help but wonder how hard it was to get them to all pose together.

In theory, I find goats charming. I say in theory because I have never attempted to get too close to one and I understand they can be temperamental. When I was in Tibet years ago I saw tiny, doglike goats, the size of Scotties, all over the place. Of course they were extremely sure footed and would run up and down the mountains, and we often saw small herds of them belonging to farmers. I believe that they make cheese from milking those tiny goats. The goats always seemed to be high spirited and romping around. Cute though they were I wasn’t risking injury by goat while hiking on the Tibetan plateau so I did keep my distance. (It should also be noted that in Tibet I found very few cats and many, happy dogs. The dogs hung out at the monasteries and the monks would feed them tsampa, made of barley flour and yak butter rolled together. Perhaps that diet is why there aren’t many cats.)

The notion of mascots is interesting – animals bringing luck and ships often sport them, hence my growing photo collection. I wonder where that tradition came from originally. I read that inanimate things were the first mascots, such as mastheads on ships. It then morphed into living animals. I happen to be of the general opinion that you need all the luck you can get on a ship. With four mascots the U.S.S. New York was taking no chances.

Buttoned Up

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: So strange that I had never done a button post before and here is a second one in as many weeks! However, I have been keeping an eye on the antique cat button market for quite a while. There are some marvelous ones in brass that go for big money – maybe I will break down and buy one of those eventually. However, in the meanwhile, I scored this splendid little fellow just days before Kim surprised me with the Billiken button. (If you missed my Billiken Button post, it can be found here.)

While certainly not as flashy as the Billiken button (which somewhat defies the imagination when it comes to wearing) an item of clothing that sported a line of these cat buttons was one to be reckoned with too. I love the pearly quality – plastic ruled back in the early days of its use. (I examine celluloid in an early post, Fear of Celluloid, which features a cat that looks like an ivory carving) I wonder if they came in different colors – I can easily imagine green, blue and a really great yellow. I would be the queen of everything sporting that!

While eBay is always fascinating for the broadest possible view, an almost religious experience of buttons can be found in Manhattan at a tiny and wonderful store called Tender Buttons. On 62nd Street east of Lexington, just a few blocks up from Bloomingdales, sits this store which is both button museum and emporium. Back in 1988 Susan Orlean wrote a brief essay on the store and then owner for the New Yorker – Diana Epstein, who died ten years later. Ms. Epstein, a button collector and seller, had been a patron and fan of the store when she heard the original owner died and purchased it. It is still going strong so another button lover must have appeared and stepped in. I visited it with a fairly pedestrian need to replace buttons on an antique top. They were able to supply some lovely mother of pearl period buttons and, while the price was steep, I feel it was worth the price of admission to be able to dig through their stock a bit. (And yes, for those of you who are faithful readers, the store was a mere couple of blocks away from the toy hospital post mentioned previously here!)