Catville

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I have a complicated relationship with posed cat photos. I find a lot of them (think cat weddings, cat hanging laundry, cats using a short-wave radio type Harry Whittier Frees photos) smarmy and the cats vaguely drugged and tormented looking. However, once in a while Frees and his wanna be’s hit it on the nose for me. (See a past post, Flying Dutch Kitties for a favorite example.) These cards by an unidentified photographer are another example.

Although neither card has been mailed, the second one has the following written in a neat script on the back, Mrs. Wm. Durrant, 810 West Fifth St, Plainfield, NJ.

I especially like the first shot – this cat looks nicely set up with the drinks and pipes, paws folded neatly in front of him. The cards seem a shade less than professional somehow and there is no studio marking or numbering system. The cat appears to be a gray tuxedo – a cat who is always in formal wear, by definition. Despite my disparaging of some of the Frees photos, I readily admit to a yen to pop a pair of specs on the kitties, bunny ears – or perhaps a well chosen chapeau. As I have mentioned previously, Kim has rescued the kits from this fate. I know it is undignified, but I can’t help but think it would be so much fun! I almost wonder if this was an early, similar attempt by someone with a well behaved cat.

This kind of dressing the cats up fiesta, always leads me to thinking about the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Dogville Comedy shorts. Made between 1929 and 1931, these shorts, enacted with an all dog cast, usually featured dog-centric remakes of popular recent films of the day. The selection of these on Youtube was a bit thinner than I expected. However, for those of you who have not experienced these before I will recommend you give this group of three a try, Dogville Comedies. The Dogway Melody is perhaps the best of the lot and is the last.

As with the cats posed in the Frees photos, sadly one has to assume not all was happy in Dogland when these were being made. Still, in my mind I imagine instead, a series of Catville shorts with all cat casts – all singing, all dancing cat productions!

Conga Line with Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This was one of those second chance images that I recently caught up with on eBay. The row of toothy, grinning black cats behind this series of come hither girls is an image that I love.

I do not remember seeing the KAO Stunt Show 1911 (75 encircled) that is printed on the negative at the bottom on the first card. This card was pasted into a black paper album according to the evidence remaining on the back. Also printed on the back is, Strauch’s Student Life Series University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. I cannot seem to find a full history on this, but it would seem that this series of photo postcards just illuminated the fun and games of being at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in the teens. This one below was recently sold on eBay and May Day in particular seemed to be a wild and wooly time there. (It is numbered 10 I see and mine is 75 so we will assume it was a substantial set.)

I must say, between May Day and dancing girls in front of a line of smiling black cats, it certainly would have attracted me to attend U of I. (Connecticut College was just never that interesting.) Another card recently sold on eBay, just called May Day 1913, shows a couple of hundred people seated in bleachers, presumably watching the festivities. Someone has circled part of the crowd to point out themselves and a group of people they knew. It too was in an album. So it seems it was a series of pro photos issued annually by the school, highlighting the year at the school. You have my assurance I will be keeping an eye out for more.

Girls and Kittens

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Scan

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The purchase of this photo was one of those rare examples of good things coming to those who wait. I spied it, but just could not pay the premium price on it. Lucky for me it didn’t sell and the seller marked it down – and I scooped it up. It is a British press photo, although it also has a brief German tag on the back. These read as follows:

FARMYARD PETS – FL/JN 17 10 32
Charming farm girls at a Hampshire farm, with their tiny pets, enjoying the morning sunshine. PHOTOPRESS
Copyright by PHOTOPRESS Phone: Central 5335 Johnson’s Court, Fleet St., London E.O.4

6×2 = KATZEN
Englische Farmgirls mit ihren Lieblingen.

Reprinted in a German paper perhaps? It was sold to me by someone in Britain however. These girls seem to be wearing uniforms for the equivalent of a Girl Scout or Girl Guides I guess they are there. I am sure someone could explain the jaunty beanie on the one – an indication of higher rank perhaps. I did a few not-so-memorable years in the Scouts myself, but I will save that for another time. Even then I preferred the earlier uniforms I saw in our outdated guide books. Not sure how I would have felt about these bloomer types however.

This 8 x 10 photo is crystal clear and it is hard to say who is cuter, the kittens or the young girls. The photographer had a great eye. The fence and the pattern it creates is a great composition somehow, although it literally cuts the image in half. Both girls and cats seem to be in fine form, although as cats will be, some of these kits are a bit more put out than others by their temporary imprisonment. Typically, I am drawn to the cute little all black fellow who looks right into the camera and wants action. The four striped ones (same litter those?) are all poised for an escape, or in the case of the one dead center, at least a whack at that black kitten. Only the white kitty seems relaxed and enjoying the moment.

Farm cats are a splendid, high spirited breed all their own and I have been fortunate to know several. Among my cats of days gone by Snoopy, Winkie, Otto and Roscoe were all farm born. Otto came from a corn farm in New Jersey and especially loved to roll around in a bit of corn silk in the kitchen in the summer – the smell clearly bringing back images of her early days. It might be my imagination, but I have always thought that barn cats were a bit smarter than other cats. But that could just be a form of cat prejudice rearing its head. Don’t tell my Brooklyn born Cookie and Blackie!

The ABC’s of Kitties

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School scene

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I was watching this postcard on eBay and forgot about the auction. Kim noticed it coming up for auction and scored it for me as a Christmas gift. It is of a certain genre, but I never saw one very much like it before.

All three cats look peevish, including the one sitting on the shelf behind the little girl – what project have they been gotten into now? The one on the lap of the boy thinking, “Okay – so it’s a cat. So what?” I generally refer to that as a piss cat expression in our house.

While I am sorry for these kitties, I cannot begin to catalogue all the games I made my cat play when I was a child. I remember putting a reluctant Snoopy (patient heavy-set male, white with black spots) in a baby carriage on myriad occasions. I also distinctly remember trying to balance the cat on the back of the German Shepard – circus animals! Without success of course. (And I used to try to ride the dog like a small pony – but I guess that is a dog story.) Still, that cat slept with me and remained game for whatever I stirred up as a kid. The dog followed me around faithfully (I’m sure I was good for dropping bits of food here and there) and would have ripped anyone who tried to hurt me in two.

Kim feels strongly that I should not dress the cats up and take their picture, despite an equally strong desire on my part. I guess you never really grow up. However, I’m sure Cookie and Blackie thank Kim for saving them from that indignity.

Army Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I don’t believe that I have ever before been compelled to copy out the eBay listing for an item wholesale, but this one was quite interesting and contains information that is nowhere to be found on this card:

Original RPPC photo of a trooper of I Troop, 4th Cavalry holding two cats at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, circa 1913-1915.

Photo from Corporal Edward W. Lewis, S/N 731612. Lewis was born in 1888 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and worked as a miner there before WWI. From 1913-1915 he was in I Troop, 4th Cavalry in Hawaii. Later he was in the 6th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division in France from 1918-1919. After WWI he settled in Massillon, Ohio.

From the archives of the World War History & Art Museum (WWHAM) in Alliance, Ohio. WWHAM designs and delivers WWI and WWII exhibits to other rmuseums. Our traveling exhibits include Brushes With War, a world class collection of 325 original paintings and drawings by soldiers of WWI, and Iron Fist, an HO scale model of the German 2nd Panzer Division in 1944 with 4,000 vehicles and 15,000 men.

So it seems to be part of a de-accessioning for the above museum and of course, I love it because it fits so nicely into a Men and Cats theme which runs loosely through my blog! (These include but are not limited to: A Man and His Cat, Men and Cats, and Men in Hats with Cats.)

Somehow one doesn’t really think about Hawaii in WWI (as opposed to the big role it got in WWII), but of course the war was there too. I wonder what this long-ago Pennsylvania boy thought of Hawaii? Surely the army in Hawaii must have offered some advantages over the mines of Pennsylvania, although home is home and he was very far away. France followed Hawaii for him. I am glad we know he made it through and settled in Ohio – maybe keeping cats there and thinking of his army kits. These are two great scrappy kitties, barely out of kittenhood, but ready to take on the world. A striper and a tuxedo – tops in my book! Give them the enemy, Germans or mice, and let them at ’em!

Tom Turkey and Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As another Thanksgiving slips into the past, sending us racing toward Christmas and the New Year, it seems to me like a moment to pause and consider the relationship between large fowl and cats – sort of an interesting one. As shown here, they can certainly co-exist, but there always seems to be something lurking deep in the instinctual cat brains which is saying, “It’s really large alright, but I think I can take him. Yum!” I don’t know off-hand if cats actually do kill turkeys, geese or other large birds. I may have told the story of the neighbor’s cat, Tiger Lily, who jumped on the back of a goose one day with evil intention, only to be taken out into the river by the irate bird – requiring her to abandon her plan and swim back to shore. This leads me to think that for a cat killing a goose is harder than it looks. Turkeys look even tougher.

As some of you may know, my mother aided and rescued injured water fowl for years. More often then ducks or geese, this most frequently took the form of swans with various injuries – many had swallowed fishing line which required surgical removal by a vet, but others had been pinioned and thoughtlessly left to starve in a pond with no food source. (Swans, geese and ducks cannot survive on scraps of bread and food does not just appear in small man-made ponds for them.) Anyway, at one time my mother had a (relatively) small swan she was caring for and she would bring it into the house at night. Water rats can and will kill an injured bird so it was necessary and I cannot remember why the garage was not a suitable place. Anyway, my mother’s cats would all watch with huge, shining eyes when this swan was brought past them, through the house, to spend the night in the guest bathroom. They would gather by the closed bathroom door…considering, thinking, dreaming.

This card was never sent, but on the back, in pencil is written Lottie’s Tom & cats. Lottie’s gray cats have clearly multiplied and to my count there are seven in this photo. The one with the white bib looks somewhat philosophical, but the two gray ones coming at the camera – and Tom the turkey for that matter – have something more in mind. They are coming right at the camera. Take care, turkey eaters!

Scratching Post

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Bad Kitty! No scratching! How very many times have I repeated that phrase? Like all cat people, ours is an uneasy treaty with our little wild animals in our one room apartment version of Eden. We are loath to allow the destruction of beloved antiques (oh those caned chairs – like this fellow is going at) or expensive couches and rugs. I love the little devils more than any piece of furniture, but it can get expensive and annoying. There are scratching posts, cardboard boxes with catnip and whatnot where scratching is sanctioned – encouraged in fact. Obviously, declawing is not a phrase we utter in this house.

Like bunnies and beavers which have to nibble and gnaw in order to keep their teeth filed, I guess cats need to scratch to keep their claws sharp and from getting too long. Still, scratching is more than that to a cat – there is joy to scratching. Scratching is a way of marking your turf – it’s a statement. As shown here – it is both a cross cultural phenomenon, Mr. French cat, and one that goes back quite aways.

Blackie is the first cat of my acquaintance who appears to not have so much as a clue as to what the various scratching devices scattered around our tiny apartment are to be used for. He watches Cookie happily scratching away – putting some real back into it. But he has never so much as taken a side swipe at one of them – I have tried every type: cardboard, carpet, rope, large, hanging and on the floor. We’ve showered them in catnip – tried running his feet across them. If anything he seems horrified by them. This does lead to some friction. I occasionally tell him he would be a PERFECT cat if only he could figure that out.

Meanwhile, although my cat Otto knew all about scratching posts and employed them, she had a fetish about Kim’s work chair. She is shown below, in a former apartment, in a series of polaroids Kim took over several days in April, 1995. Evidently she would take the chair on every day at the same time. Needless to say, she eventually denuded the entire chair. Kim continued to use it however, until the frame too fell apart one day, years later.

Otto 4/16/95

Otto 4/17/19

Otto 4/25/05

Kitten Women

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Who can resist taking a photo of new kittens? Clearly the instinct goes back pretty far, as shown here. This card is very beaten up, but I do love it. The alternating height of the women, black and white of the skirts – and in fact kittens! – is wonderful. It is a well composed and thoughtfully executed photo, in addition to the design of the women and cats, the foreground divides against the rising background nicely. It could almost be a set, but is not.

For all of that, it is very poorly printed – negative unevenly placed and black edges showing on two sides, and printed upside down on the postcard stock. Sloppy. Makes me assume that the person who took it was not the person who printed it. Either that or they couldn’t help having a great eye, even if they didn’t much care about the end product of their work. Nothing is written on the back and it was never mailed.

The shorter women of the four, #2 and #4, have tiny, nipped-in waists and are the more fashionably dressed. The women in white seem to be a bit tattier – especially their shoes. No one really looks a lot alike among the four, although if you really study them a case could be made for them being sisters or otherwise related.

Among the kittens, of course I have a soft spot for that black one, #3, curled up contentedly in the hands of the one woman. Cat #1 has annoyed ears, #2 napping, and #4 is the action one – poised for adventure. Let him get at it!

Uninvited Guests

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: If you are a cat or a dog, is there anything better than an unattended table of food? Nope – it is the best. I particularly like the way the two dogs are seated in their chairs, very polite. Sadly, the bright sun seems to have lead to an over-exposure and the precise nature of the treats is a bit obscured.

It brings to mind a stolen food story – one of many, as I am sure all of us with pets can recount. One morning I had set a small bowl of cooked asparagus out on the counter to use in an omelet. I left the kitchen briefly and when I returned the asparagus was entirely gone. Turns out my cat Otto (who loved asparagus) had stolen each and every stalk – and piled it up, neatly, behind the bathroom door.

On the back of this card, written in an absolutely perfect, looping handwriting, it says, Dec. 9, 11- Very many thanks for the Bucks paper. I hope you had a fine day for your visitors yesterday. It was a wet afternoon here, but lovely today. With much love, Sophie. It is addressed: Mrs. Jarvis, 10 Waterloo Crescent Dover. It appears to have been mailed from St. John’s Wood. (I was surprised that it came from Great Britain originally.) The year is obscured on the postmark.

Notes like this, dropped in a mail that was picked up and delivered no less than two times a day, remind me of today’s email. Just a few lines – and you knew the recipient would receive it shortly. In Paris there was a system of pneumatic tubes which worked in conjunction with a staff of messengers well into the 1970’s. This fascinated me when I learned about it a few years ago. Faxes seemed to have skipped the more social aspect of communication, but email and IM have more than made up for it, except you don’t get the great postcard image with it.

Mona + Boots

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is the kind that makes up one strata of my cat photo collection. Happy people posing with their cats, and I have written about it at some length in previous posts. (Found here including A Girl and Her Cat, a title I seem to have used again – A Girl and Her Cat, and for the boys, Men and Cats.)

There is no date, but I am guessing that Mona and Boots are shown here in the 1940’s – based on her hair and clothes. Boots is exactly the kind of lovely fat (I will guess boy) cat that I like best – have a good look at that mug on this guy. People always seem at their best in a photo with a cat – it relaxes them and makes them less self-conscious. I am also a fan of photos with these snaggle-tooth edges that I remember from my early childhood.

It used to make me sad to see family photos scattered to the four winds, sitting in a box in a flea market. After all, I can’t rescue them all. (I’m sure I’ve mentioned that we live in a studio apartment which we have crammed all this – and more – into.) However, over time it is interesting to me that these photos have somehow transcended their original record of these folks (and cats) that had emotional meaning for someone.

Now these are images of interest in their own right, a representation of a specific time and place, seventy or more years ago now, Mona with her pleated skirt, ankle socks and carefully curled hair, standing in her lovely Anywhere USA neighborhood, and holding Boots who looks exactly like any number of friendly pudgy tuxedo cats today. While I will continue to bemoan what the loss of the family photo album means to our visual cultural history of record, at least my future self will not be sad to see boxes of unloved photos at the flea markets of the future. The images of today and tomorrow will largely float along some place in the electronic world of the internet, along with this post.