cat

Corfu, NY, October 7, 1911, 6 PM

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Pam Photo Post: This photo postcard has the penny stamp on it, time stamped for an age when there was more than one delivery a day perhaps, and the back (which is water stained and difficult to read, although in a fairly clear, female hand): Dear old Chum – Well how are you? Did you think that I would never answer your card? Well you know how good I am at writing. I was in Rochester when your card came and didn’t know until I got home that you had gone back. Well what do you think of this for a comic postcard? Ans. (?) There is also something thoroughly blotted out.  It was addressed to Miss Katherine Keleher, Woodville, NY. Not surprisingly, both Corfu and Woodville, NY seem to be way upstate, near Rochester. Corfu evidently named for the island in Greece (thinking of the winters there I can’t imagine why) and had a population of a little of 700 people in the most recent census. Woodville seems to have remained equally small.

Looking closely I think it might be a family of girls and their mother – there is a general resemblance between them. Of course, I love the fact that the family cat got into the action and posed so smartly as well. He’s quite a card, that stripe-y fellow – a perfect foil to the women lined up, each with their hair up, most with a similar bow, every one of them staring off in a different way, thinking their own thoughts. Cat too, as he seems to be studying the hand of the woman on the end. We assume he was off and running a bare few minutes later.

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Sam 3 mts. old it says on the back. This cat is a hot number. This appears to be taken on the deck of a large ship. Sam is clearly a perky fellow, and he is mesmerized trying to catch that mouse toy. This is British, no date – a photo, not a postcard. I love the suited arm that is reaching into the photo. A man in a suit having his photo taken on board a ship, playing with Sam the cat!

Cats standing on their hind legs could be their own genre. This one below is a photo I have owned for quite a while – a cat preparing to stand for a cat treat. Not as young or as sporty as Sam – this fellow is a tad stout from those treats. This time a mysterious female arm. (The humans are always on the edges of these photos – an arm, a shadow.) Although this looks like a photo postcard and has those dimensions, it is a lighter paper. Nothing on the back. I do not remember where this came from, but I am fairly certain it is from the US. I bought it because at the time we had a beloved cat, Roscoe, who was a fiend for cat treats and would catch them in his mouth if pitched. It reminded me of him.

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This one below had its own post recently. (Peeved Puss Postcard, August 24, 2014.)

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We aren’t quite sure what they were doing to encourage him to stand up but clearly he isn’t happy about it.

Cookie and Blackie are the most standing up cats I have ever had. Kim and I have speculated that it is an evolutionary aspect of cats. I don’t believe I have captured this in a photo so I will have to work on that. Mouse toys at the ready!

A Rare Little Felix

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: By now you probably realize that I spend a lot of time looking at (and, yes, acquiring) Felix the Cat toys from the 20’s and 30’s.  The above Felix is one I purchase years ago on eBay, there was this one and an even smaller version for sale at the same time, and I have never seen the likes of them since. (I could only afford the one – they went high!) He’s about five inches, seated, but is fully jointed.

He has, as you can see, the Felix hunchback that the Brits almost always give their Felix toys. (This came from Felix in his leaning over walking and thinking position.) This Felix is fluffier than most, a real long-hair. I like the expression on his face – he’d wink if he could! He has all the charm of these off-model numbers I love yet is entirely different from my others. His joints are a bit loose and I try to keep him away from much activity, on the cat shelf at the foot of the bed, but low enough where I can admire him every single day.

 

Men in Hats with Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Hailing from McMinnville, Oregon, October 3, 1911!  Still yet another terrific turn-of-the-century postcard from the great Pacific northwest. Evidently McMinnville is in the heart of the wine country, between Portland and the coast – these fellows look as if they may have been imbibing a bit, or preparing to, but that is pure speculation on my part.

Here we are cats and all ha ha is inscribed on the back with the date and the location. It is a photo postcard and these gentlemen are all dressed up and raring to go I’d say. Of course I love the fact that they are holding these two tabby cats – wearing typical looks of cat concern. The cats are identical so I take them for siblings. The one on the right is clearly considering making a break for it, and the guy holding him seems well aware of the cat’s intention to become a projectile any moment. The other guy is holding the cat in what my family refers to as cat prison – the two-handed you ain’t goin’ nowhere hold. (My father gets credit for naming this cat hold.) As a result he is able to look squarely into the camera. (His suit is a bit ill-fitting; too big for him. Perhaps it was a loaner? Growing into it?)

The guy in the lower left looks like a bit of a bum for my money – not as natty as the others, pork pie hat shoved back on his head; couldn’t be bothered. No cat holding for him – he’s too cool. I love that these guys, all dressed up, bowler hats and all are posing with these two kitties. Tabby cats always strike me as especially scrappy, so they seem a good choice for these young gentlemen. Cool with cats, I’d say.

Dog, Cats and Kittens

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The sincerity of the dog in this photo made me love it.  He’s guarding the kittens while Mom cat herds them along – looks like a great place to be a pet, perhaps a small farm. A naughty looking spotty fellow getting licked by Mom and, of course, an excellent all black kitty. (Blackie’s forefather?) Dogs seem to cast themselves in this role of ensuring that there’s no monkey business going on – the cop on the beat of the domestic animal world. It is an interesting thing about collecting photos like I do though.  There are times when I am struck by the fact that this was just someone’s pets and they were just taking a picture of them. Somehow it was a really appealing photo, and transcended being no more than John Doe’s cats and dog. It has survived, presumably outlasting the photographer, and found its way to stand on its own, to me via eBay to live in my collection for the price of a few dollars before it passes onto the next person. I am pleased to have given it a home – at least for now.

A Photo Only I Could Love?

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  More Pre-Halloween seasonal fun! I fell hard for this card, but it was one if those rare occasions when Kim just couldn’t see it. Don’t get me wrong – he would never actively discourage me from purchasing a photo I was crazy about, but sometimes when he seems truly mystified it does take the wind out of my sails. There’s nothing about marriage which makes me think you should like all the same stuff – more interesting if you don’t really and Kim readily agrees. And I know that the kindest thing he can say about some of the most ratty of my toy purchases is that this one or that one look like a stuffed demon, or worse yet, a roll of the eyes and a (sad) shake of the head – but somehow I expect our esthetic sensibility for images such as photos to be more aligned. But on the other hand, how can my husband fail to see the bizarre greatness of a card of someone in a homemade Felix costume, with a mask made out of a bag and an advertising sign that says, Felix left off walking when he bought a bike from Curry’s? Or am I really just crazy? I mean, it was The Prize Winner at Boston. Really Kim!

Another time this happened was an attempt to purchase these photos of co-eds donning Felix-y costumes. I was seriously jazzed when I saw them and Kim…wasn’t. I was so befuddled I put it out to Facebook for a vote. The buys had it (by a good margin, but not unanimous) but so shaken was my confidence that I underbid and ultimately lost it. (Below is the scan pulled off of Facebook from eBay.)

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There are those occasions when Kim seems unimpressed until the photo enters the apartment. There are numerous examples of this, but the most recent is the photo featured in my post Cat Hat, sadly this was not one of those times.

For me, the costume, complete with broken cat tail and white socks for feet (those folks at Curry’s were nothing if not resourceful), posed on an early British version of Astroturf just tickles me silly. I hope it does as much for you, my reader.

Happy

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Pam’s Pictorama photo post:  On the back of this photo postcard, very faded and in barely visible script it says, This is “Happy” the pet of the family taking a piece of bread. Some of you may remember another photo postcard post with a cat named Happy Hooligan – Happy clearly a good name for a cat at the turn-of-the-century.  I am a real sucker for tuxedo cats and Happy is no exception – he is a dead ringer for at least two of mine from days gone by.  (RIP Roscoe and Zippy!) As handsome as Happy is, nothing takes center stage entirely away from that woman’s hat.  Wowzers! The hat, her sheer girth, her enjoyment of Happy, and Happy reaching up to grab the food (bread??) out of her hands – proving once again that cats haven’t changed a bit in the last 100 years – made me leap to buy this photo. (Ancient Egyptian cats were probably head butting their humans when happy and using their paws to grab a bit of food from people’s hands.) It is a satisfying scene – sunny day, the horizontal siding on the house, broken by the window – but I am vaguely mystified by the covered table outside. Was this scene and composition carefully thought out and arranged in advance? Or were we just lucky to catch them that day?

Fear of Celluloid

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: The parade of toys continues as I detour into an area I have entered into with trepidation, celluloid! As you can tell from these fellows above, it is a fragile medium for toys and generally I amaze that any of these guys have lasted this long. Given the somewhat rough and tumble nature of our lives in our cramped, cat-filled apartment I have become the steward of these precious bits of ancient plastic with some reluctance.

With the exception of the cat playing the fiddle below, a gift from Kim, these were all purchased on eBay for very little money and I deeply suspected I was the only one who appreciated what they were. The cat with the parasol is the most recent purchase, last February I believe. I think it is very beautiful – almost as if it was made of ivory rather than plastic. The Felix next to him is missing his tail and the strings holding him together are looking for an excuse to break. He came with that small indentation in his chest. However, I have quite simply never, ever seen one like him. The smiling kitty that rounds out the group is clearly a kissing cousin to the one with the fiddle. These are both Japanese toys – there are other cats in the band along with the fiddle player but I have never been able to lay claim to another. The fiddle player was closer to black when I first got him and has faded to this red color over time.

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In some ways the transient nature of these toys does add to their appeal, however I think I had better get them put away before Cookie and Blackie wake up from their naps!

Oskar

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post:  This little fellow is one of my favorite and most inspired impulse buys. I bought him for a song when he was put up for auction with very little, if any, information. It was several years before I learned that his name is Oskar and that he was produced by Teddy Hermann, a German toy company. He is about 8″ high and he is a natty and roguish presence on the cat shelf. Kim and I have often speculated that you tend to find Oskar routinely in compromising positions with the other stuffed cats, no matter what shelf you put him on.

I suspect he might be somewhat incomplete when it comes to accessories, especially when I compare him to his younger cousin below. (Although they both look like they would always be up for a night of drinking and carousing – how often can you say that about a toy?) He is unlike any of my other cat toys. He has a head made of composition, mohair body and a hand-knit appearing sweater – the photo of his back is dark but you can see the little heart sewn onto his bottom. However, like my Felix toys, it is a bit hard to imagine buying Oskar for your child.  He is, in my opinion, an adult toy.

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This photo from an old eBay (May 2010) listing I found in the Google picture file serves to confirm my feeling.  According to the listing, he was made in the 1950’s as a promotional item for the Frankfurter Illustrierte Journal. He has a rubber face, as opposed to composition, a jauntier sweater and that cheerful neckerchief.  He’s also fluffier. I do wonder if my Oskar was also a promotional item – makes sense – although why a weekly German picture paper (as described on German Wikipedia) would be giving away Oskar as a promotion remains an interesting mystery.  My kind of paper I guess.

Postscript:  Some amazing and very interesting information about Oskar and the Frankfurter Illustrierte Journal via a German Facebook friend, Joachim Trinkwitz. I have copied it below. Mr. Google seems willing to translate…

  • Joachim Trinkwitz “why a weekly German picture paper (as described on German Wikipedia) would be giving away Oskar as a promotion remains an interesting mystery” – because that’s Oskar der Familienvater (the family man), a german newspaper comic strip character from the 1950s. His creator, the cartoonist Carl Fischer AKA Cefischer, actually lost both his arms in WW II, but learned to draw with his mouth and got very popular and successful in West Germany. But nowadays, he’s completely forgotten …

    Joachim Trinkwitz's photo.
    Joachim Trinkwitz Oskar has a Wikipedia page indeed:http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_(Comic), as well as his creator. Lambiek’s Comiclopedia has some information in English, and a few pictures:http://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/cefischer.htm

    Oskar (Comic) – Wikipedia
    Oskar ist die bekannteste Comicfigur des deutschen Zeichners Cefischer. Die Geschichten von Oskar und seiner Familie erschienen von 1952 bis 1962 in der Frankfurter Illustrierten und wurden während dieser Zeit und auch danach in Buchform nachgedruckt.
    DE.WIKIPEDIA.ORG