cat collection

Valentine’s Day 2026

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: The sands of time have been running through that hourglass quickly again and we find ourselves at Valentine’s Day for our much beloved and long anticipated Kim Deitch Valentine reveal! For those of you who are newly initiated, Pam’s Pictorama has two major reveals annually – our holiday card which we collaborate on and the Valentine which is 100% Kim Deitch special for me!

As someone whose birthday falls right before Valentine’s Day (it was this past Wednesday and more about a very extraordinary birthday gift in another post), back in our first or second year together I asked Kim for a drawing for my very own. The earlier efforts were a bit more simple, but the project grew like topsy in subsequent years and now it is an elaborate full-on several week drawing extravaganza, and each year really does seem to top the year before. As the ultimate Kim Deitch fan (yes, it is me!) there really couldn’t be anything more exciting or a greater honor. A handful made their way to an exhibit in France years ago and it is my greatest pleasure to be depicted so lovingly in these – always surrounded by my passions of cats and vintage toys!

People always ask if it is a surprise and I have to remind them that Deitch Studio, while grand in many ways, is still one room so not much goes on here that we don’t both know about. Still, each year his vision for it and how he realizes it is always entirely different. I share some other years below.

A cat band version from my Jazz at Lincoln Center years! Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
This one from 2016 has me in a similar ermine outfit with Felix dioramas! Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

This year I am pleased as punch to be Amazing Pam and the Queen of My Heart! I wear my spiffy little ermine trimmed outfit – sort of a cross between a jacket and top you’d actually see me in and a regal regalia, even fur trimmed. (Obviously no ermines were hurt in the making of this card. Kim is threatening to retire this outfit in drawings.) The inspiration for the two cats on either side of me is the wonderful off-model Felix on a scooter toy which lives at the foot of our bed, shown below.

My faux Felix toy! Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

This fake Felix was made by Chien toys. The Chien toy empire was founded by Julius Chien in New York in 1903. He got his start making the Cracker Jack toys and found his way into inexpensive tin toys, mechanical and often character toys. The business peaked in the 1930’s and ’40s and in later decades (sadly) broke off into housewares. He probably also had the license on the actual Felix so I wonder how this impressive Not-Felix came to be and why. There market was flooded with them as shown in part below.

Gunterman Felix, not in Pictorama collection.

My version is a bit incomplete, dented on one side and I don’t believe I have ever written about him before. There is indeed an official Felix version like mine, and also the ones (a version above) that always goes incredibly high at auction with him chasing mice. I am very fond of an Italian version (below) which comes up rarely and I have tried to get but never snagged. However, I started using it as my avatar on Zoom during Covid and still do. We’ve always liked this knock-off version however, with his spiffy little jacket, polka dot vest (who doesn’t love a polka dot vest?), toothy grin, glasses and big old schnoz of a nose. While they must have used the same cut out mold as the Felix they have entirely reimagined him, arguably for the better on this occasion. He has sat at the foot of our bed for a very long time and is in my mind sort of an unofficial mascot here so I love that he is memorialized as such.

Italian version I use as an avatar at work. I love those wheels with the stars and moon.

While my faux Felix is actually quite flat, Kim has given him some frontal dimension imagined on one side of me. Meanwhile, with Cookie and Blackie in special places of black cat pride, I am in this card (and for the first time in a Valentine) acknowledged as the Guardian of 7 Cats. (I just typed 8 by accident – maybe a sign? Did I mention a close call with kittens on my birthday? Some at work, looking for homes – close call.) The Jersey Five are illustrated and named below starting with Beau (another black cat) followed by Stormy, Gus, Peaches (the meanest cat ever – read about her here) and Milty – our senior citizen cat. (You can read about him here.)

Vintage Valentine I gave Kim this year.

This drawing is largely just wild color and fun design that draws you in – like it can hardly contain itself! It is Kim at his best in that way I think and I am so pleased to have been the inspiration for it.

Whisper and I Shall Hear.

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is a very odd card and while I rarely purchase things on the basis of that, I somehow just needed to see this card and what it was in person. It appears to be a photograph of a painting, and I would guess that it is actually done by painting over a photograph which gives it the almost photo quality it has. Not just a photo but some sort of a mash up of photos I would think. It is on glossy cardstock which is unusual for a card in 1909 in my (let’s face it not insignificant) experience.

I assume given the title of the image that the cat is whispering in the ear of this strange doll. It looks as if it is illustrating a fairy tale none of us are familiar with. If you look at that cat’s expression I would say, cat lover though I am, he’s up to no good. The doll looks inert but there is a frightening bit of a lifelike glimmer in its eyes – he shall hear alright! Very strange and more than a little creepy. They are perched on a rooftop, some snow in evidence, with a night sky and cloud obscuring a full moon behind them. Cats seem to be depicted on rooftops a lot although my personal experience of them does not bear this out. I can’t think of the last time I saw a cat on a roof. You?

The card was printed by the Shamrock Co. Photographic Printers & Publishers London, E.C. According to internet intel, Shamrock was a card printer active in the 1890’s – 1910’s. It was particularly known for producing high-quality religious devotional cards, postcards, and sentimental photographic prints. I could not find any compelling further evidence of their product online to share.

The handwritten message at the top says, Writing Wednesday if at all possible. I was just writing to someone else (hey Wayne!) saying that it seems postcards were frequently used to say that a letter was coming, buying time. Funny that after all these years it is the postcard that has been saved and the letter likely lost. (People do still write letters folks – as I type this out, Kim is at his desk across from me handwriting a letter right now. That lucky recipient is getting a preview of the color sketch of my Valentine – hopefully that reveal next weekend. Kim often writes using xeroxed sketches and other bits for his letters. Lucky recipients! He is a frequent and thoughtful correspondent. I on the other hand, send cards – birthday, condolence and with this job, sadly, frequent condolences for the loss of a beloved pet.)

The postcard is dated by hand, 30.10.09 (a European style of writing the date) but the postmark is obscured so I don’t know where it was sent from. It is simply addressed to Mrs. Herbert, Millertown. Millertown, New York in Dutchess County is the likely destination – even today Wikipedia only puts it at 900 occupants so I can imagine that in 1909 you could address something this way and it might get there. Odds are much better than a fully addressed postcard today I dare say.

Back of the card which seemed legible at first but actually a bit challenging to decipher.

The (also unusual) note reads, Mr. E.S. away till afternoon. Case will go next week with (illegible) from attic. Mrs. M. unable to meet – (something) two weeks. Had a splendid trip around, but sat up at Junction on acct it coming from Typhoid region, but only got 5, a-on (?) Had nearly all five day (?) here. Enjoying everything very much. Love (name unclear). It was sent from P. Isld. Not clear where that is – Pennsylvania was suggested by the internet but I do wonder about the reference to Typhoid – yikes! Also, this is sent in October and most of the P. Island’s I can find are summer locales. It was mailed with a penny stamp so I assume this was mailed domestically.

These days I am having my own travails both with US Postal Service and with UPS the company – finding both of them falling down massively on the job. As I worked to (finally) try to close my mother’s estate there are papers that company swear to have sent that never arrive, a Christmas card from North Carolina I fear I will never see and more. Kim had two letters show to their destinations empty – one torn in transit and the other just…empty. Meanwhile, at the building that houses my office they have informed us that mail will no longer be picked up on a regular schedule. We’d long discovered that the mailboxes on the street are an iffy proposition so now it is either the one in our apartment building or all the way to the post office to mail things.

As for UPS I can only vouch for a long series of phone calls to outpost calling centers in India where no one seemed to be able to help me with my package (sitting in Newark) and who kept urging me to go online where an AI assistant could only answer the most routine questions. I will spare you the details, the package eventually returned to sender despite my ongoing efforts, but I do think these issues will start to impact my collecting, much of which has always come from abroad.

Dear Louise

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Here at Pictorama we’re in lucky black cat territory today. When I reflect on the difference between the British who honor their black cats with being lucky and our own culture’s tendency to assign them bad luck, I think I may have been born on the wrong side of that big pond. This is an English published postcard, never used postally so hard to get a date on it. The image is a fairly common one and I would say this postcard could be from any time from the ‘teens to the forties.

Although the phrase on the card, I will meet you in the evening dear Louise, seems to bounce around (I found it on at least one other, albeit mundane, postcard) I cannot find the precise origin of it. However, one can imagine this sharp looking little fella being a popular image on a postcard. Red bow, tongue out, looking over to the side with huge eyes, he is perched atop a brick wall, rooftops and pipes in the distance with a huge yellow moon rising from the mist. I can see it being just the right cheeky card to send to your loved one for an assignation of sorts.

I have written about the roots of British black cat good fortune before. On the maritime side, they believed that a black cat on board a boat was good luck (perhaps not for the cat although maybe a mousie and rat filled paradise of sorts), and my favorite tradition of giving a bride a black cat on her wedding day – what a very nice wedding gift that would be!

Blackie on the bed in NYC in a recent photo.

As mom to two black cats, Blackie and Beau, I often profess to their particular good nature. I remember that my mother wanted to adopt Beau especially because he was an all black cat and I gather they are less likely to be adopted. There seems to be some truth in that but meanwhile certainly she found herself the most devoted little friend ever. Beauregard would sit on her lap happily for hours if allowed and there is not enough petting in all the world for that cat. He is a great companion.

Beau possessively on my lap one morning in NJ recently.

When his weight became too much for her as she grew more frail, he shifted first to next to her and eventually to the chair next to her where he kept persistent watch over her – really of his own accord and understanding. He did not need to be reminded after he first realized it. At times it would be my job to move him to another room – doctor coming etc. and at first it was difficult. As experienced as I am with cats he wasn’t used to being picked up and carried and he is, frankly, an enormous cat. He allowed it and over time he accepted me as one of his spare humans while mom was the unquestionable primary.

With mom gone more than two years now I am the closest thing to her and when I spend time in NJ he claims as much lap time as he can get. His preference is still sitting in my mom’s recliner chair, and I like to think my way of petting, learned at her knee, is somewhat reminiscent of hers.

Milty, who is actually a small cat, looking like an evil genius in a recent photo.

At times I have felt bad about not trying to bring Beau to New York with us, but he rules the house and the other cats in New Jersey, and I am not convinced that displacing him would make him happier. It was my mother’s wish that they would all continue to live in the house and I promised to at least try and it has worked for the past few years. Beau, Gus and the two girls (Stormy and Peaches) are quite young cats, only Milty is a senior citizen (of slightly indeterminate age – late teens, early 20’s) and he is quite tenacious. Therefore, the Jersey Five remain intact at the house there.

Yum! Un Repas Succulent

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s card is a favorite that has been in my pile clamoring for attention. This by the artist Maurice Boulanger who was one of the heirs apparent to the Louis Wain throne. (I wrote about another one in my collection recently and that post can be found here.) Here we have not the chef kitty, but instead a bibbed-up consumer cat served up this very large rodent, albeit unadorned by trimmings, on a platter. Mr. Rodent hardly looks deceased, but we will assume he is. Kitty is toothy and anxious to dive right in it seems.

Boulanger cats have a Wain-esque tendency toward an anthropomorphic wackiness, but they seem to not to be as sly and are less of a commentary on human nature, more feline in a way. This grinning fellow clearly has a ferocious appetite and can’t wait to dive into munching on this rat on display atop this dish, from whiskers to the tip of the tail. He stands on two feet and wears a bib (which probably covers a white bib of tabby design fur no less) but only his paws are in evidence – we imagine just teeth and claws in play. No human utensils for him. Below this dish at the bottom it declares, Un Repas Succulent – A Delicious Meal. Or in my mind the more descriptive, a succulent repast!

Obviously, this is a French postcard for all intents and purposes as I believe that the writing across the front and the back is in French – although the postcard actually appears to have Eastern European produced. (If anyone wants to take a stab at translating the message I would love to have a sense of what is written here.) And as is often the case, the neat scribble on the front adds to the decorative element. It was mailed to an address in Paris in March of 1906, but I can’t read much else from the cancellation. Again, the small, neat writing on the back escapes my rudimentary translation skills.

Reverse side of card – can anyone out there read and translate this?

For those of you in the same neck of the woods as us at Deitch Studio, you know that at the time of writing this it is the end of another frigid week of weather in New York City. Although I can think of several equally impressive snowstorms, I cannot remember one where it stayed so cold that that snow just didn’t go anywhere and here we reside a week later in piles that are still knee high, garbage piling up even higher where trucks cannot get it. (Speaking of rats!) The City makes attempts to dispose of the snow manually while Mother Nature continues to deliver a bit more here and there.

Clearly, we will have one of those spring thaws where things long buried will emerge on the streets. The temperature in the early morning and the nights hovers in the single digits and dips well below zero with the wind. The (blissful) heat in the apartment runs constantly and despite being 1.5 small rooms I expect the bill to be high. The cost of heating the house in New Jersey, even without us there, is a bit staggering this year. Meanwhile, the heat in my office is oddly mercurial and reduced substantially by an ill-conceived wall of windows so it has been a very chilly week indeed and I hunker down with a mug of hot coffee to write this.

All this to set the stage to talk about the wonders that hot food can manifest in this weather. Recent weeks has seen me doubling down on soups and stews. (I shared a miso based soup recipe recently – you can find the post here.) We don’t eat meat, so pots of bubbling beans and tofu make up the stews along with whatever greens or leftovers in the fridge need cooking up. Each one tends to come out different for that reason – black beans seem to be the winner recently, although the chickpea curries are gaining ground. There is a simply wonderful spicy chili crisp tofu recipe that I retrieved from the New York Times (it can be found here at the time of writing) which has become a bit of a staple.

Last week I had a yen for a brothier soup after lots of thick ones and threw together one I will make again. Roughly it was ginger, garlic, onion, and carrots to start with two containers of vegetable broth, some miso, a small can of diced tomatoes and flat leaf parsley and finished with a package of cheese tortellini added at the end. I let it simmer all afternoon on the stove and really, it was heavenly! This week I am experimenting with a simple potato leek soup a friend makes but boy – last week’s soup will go into a regular rotation.

Soup and stew, hot food in general, the ability to make it, afford it and eat it, is a blessing especially in the cold weather. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the very act of making it calms and reassures me. Hot meals for the cold week ahead. Lower perhaps in pure protein than this feline repast but will fill us up and keep us going nonetheless.

Carrots for the New Year?

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This odd little postcard was among the ones I picked up at the big sale earlier in the fall. I don’t know why but in my mind I identified these as turnips but they do indeed seem to be carrots.

In a house full of cats (quite literally at the moment) I am here to say I rarely find one playing with a carrot or two, but here are these two kittens, be-ribboned, showing real interest in two. A while ago there was an online meme of cats being afraid of bananas (incidentally, the New York cats do not seem to be performing to type on that) and the internet tells me it is both the smell and because they recognize the shape as a snake and instinct kicks in. I have always doubted that the New York duo have much in the way of survival instinct and perhaps this goes to prove it. I gather it applies to cucumbers too and I could test the Jersey Five – I suspect Peaches will attack it with vigor. Her instincts seem perfectly intact.

Meanwhile, the internet is a bit vague on the point of carrots as a symbol of the New Year (turnips actually fare a bit better) on that score. In other cultures (Jewish New Year, Chinese) carrots seem to be a symbol but not really for January 1. However, this was indeed mailed on December 31, 1906 so no question of the intention there. There are allusions to slices of carrots looking like coins and bringing good fortune. l assume these tabby kittens know something we do not. It’s a bit hard to understand what the creator of the card was thinking – let’s do kittens and carrots he said to himself.

The kits have a carrot each, large and small, as well as bows and bells. The one seems to be tackling the large one. The other one, more timid, just looks on. Below them A Happy New Year. The company that produced the card appears to be J.P. Belle, just identified as Belle in the lower right corner here. Founded in Paddington in 1881 it produced cards until 1939. The official name of the company was J.P. Beagles.

This postcard was addressed to: Madam Donshea, 22 East 21st St. New York City. It was mailed from Jersey City at 3:30 on December 31, just under the wire I would say.

It has me contemplating what I might cook up today and I have promised a friend this recipe so I thought I would share it with you as well. It is a good vegetarian base I use as a jumping off point for all kinds of soups to use up whatever is in the house at the moment. I do it by instinct now so I hope I have given complete instructions. Feel free to ask questions! Happy and healthy New Year to you all!

A photo of the soup taken a while back but you get the idea. this version may have had spinach in it.

Miso Soup Recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 heaping tablespoon miso paste (dissolve in a small bowl of water
  • 2 carrots, sliced thin
  • 3 cloves of garlic minced
  • 1 tablespoon gingerroot, chopped
  • Salt, pepper, bay (2 leaves), dried basil and oregano to taste. (I like Maresh red pepper which is a mild red pepper, but you can use black pepper.)
  • half a large red onion
  • 2 containers of vegetable stock
  • 1 container extra firm tofu (shrimp could be substituted)
  • Small bowl dried mushrooms (soaked in water – reserve the water for the broth)
  • Green beans (frozen or fresh) trimmed to bite sized
  • Fresh mushrooms, chopped, optional.
  • Half a cup wine or sherry to deglaze
  • 3 chopped scallions
  • Italian flatleaf parsley
  • Frozen dumplings or pantry gnocchi as desired
  • Also optional: sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, mirin and balsamic vinegar. If you want this spicy jalapeno peppers can also be added.

Instructions:

Start the miso softening in water, mushrooms in a separate bowl.
Chop the onion, carrots, green beans, gingerroot and garlic and soften in olive oil. (If you are using shrimp add them after.) Add salt and pepper. Chop the parsley and set aside. Cut the tofu in bite size pieces and put aside.
Deglaze the pan with the wine or sherry. Add the dried mushrooms and liquid and then the broth and then the tofu. Bring to a boil and add the parsley, scallions and tofu.
Season to taste and add the optional seasoning now. Keep at a boil for a few minutes and then simmer and continue to adjust seasoning – I almost always need salt at this stage.
If using dumplings add them at the end, if frozen when the soup is at a boil, but just before serving or they will fall apart.
This essential base is a good vegetarian option for a number of soups – sometimes I add beans instead of tofu, or shrimp. Any number of vegetables can be added, corn is a favorite, diced tomato and sometimes I use creamed corn to thicken the soup as well – but potatoes can be used to thicken it too.

Wow – it’s Holiday Wain!

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s post is a fantastic item purchased a couple of months ago and framed up to take to New Jersey. As I write this it is a bit hard to know best to show it to you all. I took these photos before it was framed but not sure I can present it as a whole so let’s see how I do. I apologize for the reflections in the photos – I took some before framing it but the ones I am taking today are better I think.

This is an illustrated Christmas insert titled A Kitten’s Christmas Party in the Illustrated London News from 1886, so early days for Mr. Wain. (For some biographical info on Louis Wain and a few of my holdings have a read at posts here, here and here just for starters.) I believe he did a series of these that go into the aughts and maybe beyond – these were his big break I belied. These are noted as pages 24 and 25 in the newspaper and I assume where a centerspread. At the bottom it reads, Drawn by Louis Wain. (Wain also did extremely well with Christmas card designs throughout his career so the holidays were a bonanza for him.)

The fold was more evident before framing as seen here. This is a close up of “all who came to the party”.

It is about 18″ x 28″. Considering the age of this newsprint it is in good condition with just the original fold. I did spring for UV protected glass for this when framing. I am afraid that even in a spot that doesn’t get direct sun that it could fade and brown out quickly.

As you can see, you need to get close to it – obviously it was intended for inspection in a newspaper so that is the viewing range. The sort of montage effect has made it a bit harder to get close up’s of each snippet – which are all listed neatly at the bottom as follows:

  • We write out letters of invitation to the aristocracy and a lot more besides.
  • Who all come to the party.
  • Our preparations are extensive.
  • The after-dinner speeches were a great success.
  • And so was the ball.
  • Some of the party seek amusement under the mistletoe.
  • Others we invite to a mouse-hunt.
  • And the fun waxes fast and furious, when we form a ring and play at hunt-the-slipper.
  • Alas! In early morning we are compelled to sit in solemn council to devise a means to break up the party, as the kittens won’t go. A terrier ghost – the very thing!
  • Our plan is effectual.
  • And we retire, worn out, and sleep the sleep of peace and dream of mice and dicky-birds.
Messy kits! Don’t give cats ink. Look at the one with one eye closed as he writes!

I am a particular fan of the panel of them writing out their letters of invitation. One cat completely covered in ink at the far left, using the spilled bottle of ink, the thoughtful pose as the white cat contemplates his missive and another examines his. Someone needs a nap (such exhausting work) and one tabby is copying off the other – can’t think for himself.

Tidying up!

You need to know that there are tiny numbers in the left corner of each image corresponding to the notes above. I mention this because it does not read like a traditional comic strip from left to right. One, two and three are down the left, you jump up to the top again for four and so on. Kim says that this really is early days of comics so it makes sense that the conventions had not yet evolved fully.

At the ball. Please note that I didn’t cut this off at the left – it is how it was reproduced.

We see a bit of tidying up for the party – the aristocrat (aristocats dare I say?) all march in subsequently looking a bit like the cat mafia. The scene of the after-dinner speeches is pure Louis Wain for me with the monocled fellow speechifying. The ball, in the center, is only clearly identifiable by the cat band playing in the background, but we see the kitty canoodling under the mistletoe too.

Kissing kitties with voyeurs on the left and speeches on the right.

I have learned that hunt-the-slipper is a game where you pass a slipper (shoe perhaps in today’s parlance?) or small object and try to fool the person hunting about who has it. (I have finally found a good use for AI – it explained this to me.) And we are a bit appropriately huffy puffy here. We are spared too much gore for the mouse hunt with one cat discretely looking in a trap and we see only a mouse tail – although the expressions on the cats faces peering over are also pure Wain-ness with a fillip and dash of pure insanity.

Cat Council top and the ghost dog chases the kittens home.

The tale goes a bit off the rails where the kittens won’t go home and a council dreams up the ghost of a terrier to chase them out – which appears to work. Cats run in horror from a ghostly dog form rising up above them.

A bit horrifying, hunt-the-mouse.
Hunt-the-slipper. Could get rough! Wonder who has it...Meanwhile cats on the sidelines watching and something going on around a stage in the back.

We end however with another great image which will become classic Wain, all the kitties asleep in bed (some hiding their eyes and noses) and dreaming of mice and dickey-birds!

Wain has a later print variation on this idea.

I was lucky and somehow grabbed this from a live auction in Great Britain for very little money – shipping it here and framing it cost far more although very worth it. It is heading to New Jersey with us in a couple of weeks where I intend to hang it in our bedroom or Kim’s studio – some place where we can get close to see it but where it won’t get too much light – even with the UV glass. I think it deserves to remain pristinely preserved. I hope you have enjoyed your trip through it today.

Kicking Off the Holidays: Fleureux Noel

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Evidently the literal (Google) translation of the flourish at the top is Christmas Flower but I am thinking it is perhaps more like Christmas Tree because that is what this kit is bringing home or delivering today.

This card is a nod in honor of those of you who get that tree and put it up right after Thanksgiving – which was at one time the holiday tradition in the Butler family home. After a few years it was a fake tree (mom developed a distaste for killing a tree for the holidays) and I always missed the smell of a real one. Luckily here in Manhattan I get to walk past them on the street and enjoy! I don’t do a tree in New Jersey – it would just be a giant, expensive, messy cat toy. However, I have employed a wreath and some swags on the railings of the front door in there and it has a lovely smell each time you walk in. (I also discovered that this do-it-yourself outdoor decor thing is harder than it looks!)

The front door, most of the way done for the holidays…it was a several day process.

On this cat card snow is falling on this already amply covered mountain scene. (I’m a sucker for snow in pictures, just ask Kim – I always ask to put it in the Christmas card! It is a lovely decorative element.) The tree isn’t especially well secured – snow covered, it is in fact a bit precarious in its (large) pot on the back of this wooden sled – and sports a few decorations, a gift box, some lights even if you look carefully.

Our kitty driver is a bit oblivious – he’s knocked this other unfortunate fellow aside. He does sport a nifty little tie around his neck, sled “reins” in his paws and snow shoes on his lower extremities – which I guess makes sense if you are an anthropomorphic puss. He has a fluffy tail but his fur otherwise suffices to keep him (and the others) warm in the snow. No hat, Mr. Cat?

The small cat which has been casually bowled over onto his bottom by this sled notwithstanding (I think of this as a bit of a ham-handed tip of the hat to Louis Wain myself), Mr. Driver Cat keeps his eyes on the path. There are two cats watching him go by – well, one is and the other is looking off elsewhere. The snow covered mountain peaks are in the distance and high above the scene. I am not exactly sure what the artist has sketched in behind the mountains and below the clouds – there are lines which might be water? Hard to say.

It has to be said that the sender had little respect for the card (or was it the postal service requirement?) and plunked a stamp on the front. As a result I can’t read the cancellation with place and date. It also almost covers the already difficult to read name of the card maker. I think it is Favorite, maybe a company name; it is pretty illegible. (There is also a sort of silver-izing or oxidizing of this card which makes it extra shiny in spots in the light and which make it harder to read.) I quick look at my own archive and I come up with Maurice Boulanger as the likely artist. (That was a New Year’s card back in 2019 which can be found here – ironically I opined that I would like to travel less for work in the coming year. Little did any of us know what March of 2020 would bring!) I have had other Boulanger cards in color recently – you can read one of those here.

Let me know if I have missed something in my rough translation!

This card was sent by someone named Louis and he has nicely dated the card as December 23, 1912. It is addressed to Monsieur et Madame Richard at what appears to be: S Rue Caron Malakof, Seine. (He has written over Malakof and I have checked the spelling online.) I don’t read French and the (very) rough translation appears to be something along the lines of: Dear Charles, I’m sorry, I had to go, I’ll woke up the [?}, he had been warned, but I’ll skip Christmas if that doesn’t bother you, I’ll be at your place around the 7th, say hello to everyone. Louis If I am missing something vital I ask you French readers to share!

Back in the early part of the 20th century the French did extremely well with holiday cards – New Year’s cards being their forte – which I continue to enjoy today. In fact, Pictorama may have one of those lurking in the pile for this year. I assure you all that some gems are hiding in this pile still!

Poor Fish!

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is among the last of my British purchases made on a whim before the Trump tax kicked in and made all my purchases from England (a favored source) more expensive. Postage had already started to get out of control and the extra bit is a combined big bite. That’s not to say I won’t buy from my beloved dealers there, but it is slowing me down, especially on the sorts of thing I buy sort of without thinking much.

Nonetheless, this wandered in a door a while back from the very lovely Stephen Phillips (http://@woodenhilltoys) via Instagram. His videos of the tables sporting his wares at shows all over Britain tend to make me salivate for an alternate life where I live there and drive around following him and others to these various wonderful shows – I guess I additionally live in a wonderful little cottage which is crammed full of all of the stuff I collect. (As opposed to this very small apartment and the less romantic but now much beloved Cape Cod alternate home base in New Jersey.)

The precise question of what exactly this is remains open. It is adhered to a sheet of linen type fabric and there were other bits also attached around it which I have kept but are of no particular interest. Under magnification it appears to be printed. I had some folds which the framer has done a pretty good job of pressing out.

Hard for me to imagine Mr. Blackie as a murderer of anything.
The girls get my vote – I think Cookie is most likely to enjoy a good waterbug now and again.

Here we have one of my beloved black kits (think Beauregard and Blackie), out in the wilds of somewhere having caught himself a fine meal. The fish is very large in relationship to the cat, it must be said. That fish would have given that cat a run for his money. I would say just this side of not possible.

Playing off the violence of the feline hunter is the pleasant greenery and flowers around him. Pansies and other flowers bloom and trees, green hills and a pleasant cloud filled sky are juxtaposed against this violence against this large carp-type fish.

Mugshot of Beau – unlikely but not impossible mouse killer.

However, whoever painted the cat caught the weird combination of feral and fluffy. This is a domestic round, cute and fluffy fellow (or girl as they are the big hunters) for what we can see, yet there is something in the eyes which reminds us cats are indeed instinctual killers and happy consumers of small game. There is also something in his or her look which is the cute kitten look, hoping for approval. Here in our apartment cat catching (fortunately) never seems to rise above large water bugs and the rare mouse in the house in New Jersey.

Hobo back in 2023. We know he could do the deed.

Having said that Hobo, our outdoor denizen in New Jersey for several years, was once found adding to his protein consumption by munching on a newly caught rat – a robust population of those in the yard there given our proximity to the water. The caretaker, Winsome, reported this as well as the more recent mouse body in the living room. Very icky! Without knowing for sure I attribute that catch to our feral female Peaches who stubbornly refuses to even be touched by human hands, but who survived as a lost kitten in a basement in a nearby town until she fell down a hole and someone heard her persistent meowing. There are five cats in that house but my money is on Peaches. I have done my best to stuff up any entry points with steel wool. I have to say that it is a pitifully dumb rodent that wanders in there.

Peaches is the most likely to kill a rodent in my opinion.

Although I did tell Winsome I thought we had to congratulate Peaches on a job well done – not like I want to encounter mice in my house dead or alive – it is not generally the favorite aspect for most of us domestic cat owners. Of course working cats live in bodegas and in barns with the expectation that both their very presence as well as their hunting prowess will be employed as a deterrent. This newly framed picture will travel to New Jersey where it will serve as a reminder of the other side of the nature of our sweet kits.

As I end this I feel compelled to add that in the time I was working on it I had a message from Steve and sure enough, he has a few cat prints for me. Guess I am not out of it at all yet!

Family

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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.

Wild Cats: Catskills Part One

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Among my postcard pile are several cat related cards that advertise the early 20th century pleasures of the Catskill Mountains. Today I kick off a several part post which promises a bit of meandering through both the card and my memories of the region which I frequented during my childhood and into young adulthood, the Catskills.

Somewhere in my mind there is a parallel universe where I either live there or have a house there rather than at the Jersey shore. However mountains seem to have a very different effect on me than the water which tends to energize me with the light and air. Mountain valleys seem to cast you in their shadow and for me are sleepier. I am not sure even I understand this entirely, but has been a nagging thought since childhood when we would visit cousins there.

Looking up the name or word Catskill it seems it comes from the Dutch meaning wild cat creek – more along the lines of the kind of feline (think mountain lion or catamount) that would cheerfully tear you to bits or perhaps a wild mountain stream water body that would? That has little to do with this very jolly crew I offer today. Mine are more like partying, wild, mad fellows.

Eleven pussycats of striped and white variations bear balloons spelling out their destination CATSKILL MTS. Each appears to be in possession of a balloon except the drivers of each of these early open cars. (The driver cats are responsibly paying attention to the road, safety first, and have no balloons – although somehow there are still eleven balloons!) I do pause to wonder, did the motor cars have tops you could pull over in inclement weather? Probably not so wow, were they ever chilly in the winter – but I guess a horse carriage or ride no less so. Since our card presents the land of summer I will guess there were no worries about that here.

All is portrayed with great realism and the famous mountains of the area climb upward behind them, dust flying from their wheels. I like the headlights on these cars, four apiece. It took me a bit before I realized that there are three cars, not two, the back one mostly obscured in the dust.

At the lower left corner, it declares, Drawing only Copyright by Albert Hahn NY. Not exactly sure what else Mr. Hahn could copyright here – the name Catskill? Then, to further confuse the issue it also is signed W. Reiss very lightly in the lower right. I can find nothing about him.

Only version of the Rip Van Winkle series I could find. Not in Pictorama collection.

There are some tracks for Albert Hahn as a cat card producer – at least to say there are other cards produced under his name. I cannot find much information about him or his career and he quickly seems to get confused with a better known Dutch political cartoonist (AI’s weakness seems to be this sort of meshing of people if you aren’t careful) who I believe is someone else entirely.

However, I could find enough evidence of him Hahn to know he produced a series of postcards about the Spirit of Rip Van Winkle between 1907 and 1909, a sole image from that found on an old eBay listing and shared above. This of course refers to the popular story by Washington Irving, and which as luck would have it, Kim just read recently. Meanwhile, I purchased another Hahn cat card which I will share subsequently.

I don’t see his copyright info but this also came up under his name. Not in Pictorama collection.

A simple message in script is written on the back, Tell father that the package was received last evening. I’m getting along nicely. Auntie Jean. It was mailed to, Master Wm. B. Rankin, Tenafly, NJ box 1540. It was mailed from East Wyndham, NY on August 6, 1907. East Wyndham appears to be an enclave in the Catskills, north of Kingston. The back of the card confirms that it was is No. 2000 Published by Albert Hahn, 229 B’way, N.Y., Germany.

Another comical card from this series. Apologies I couldn’t find a better version of the image!

So I leave you today, a chilly fall morning, with this jovial image of summer days. Apartment cleaning and some cooking beckons and is bringing me back to the reality of a fall day here in Manhattan.