cat

Cat in a Box

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  Introducing a nice little fellow, immortalized in his (or her) favorite spot.  Anyone who has a cat knows that they can rarely resist a box.  There is, of course, the most famous box loving cat of our day, Maru:

which proves that cats the world over are the same.

And this photo helps reminds us that it has also been ever thus. People are the same too and we have loved recording our adorable darlings in their irresistible poses first in daguerreotype, then wet plate, and endlessly on film. One imagines that the “cloud” is weighed down with digital cat images and, let’s face it, where would Youtube be without them? I worry though about the future of those digital images.  Where are tomorrow’s cat pictures of today?

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Cookie examines a recently arrived package in our apartment

Tom the Fire Boat Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I don’t have all that much to say except that I fell in LOVE with this postcard when I saw it a few weeks ago.  I will confess that I paid dearly for it (which just shows that other people saw his charm as well), but the pain of purchase is already fading in my memory  – my pleasure with the card rapidly eclipsing the cost.

September 1910, more than a hundred years ago this month, Tom, The pride of the Fire Boat, Portland, Oregon, posed for this photo. (Yep, another wonderful photo find from the great city of Portland, OR.)  What a nice fellow!  He has a great sense of readiness about him and it is easy to imagine him helping with all the necessary boat tasks.  A very solid little citizen, nicely well-fed, muscular, but not quite fat.  And he just about qualifies as a tuxedo – I have a soft spot for those, as many of you know.  I salute Tom and I hope you enjoy him too.

We Love Our Cat Photos

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I’ve acquired these photos over the past few months and in my mind they somehow are all of a kind.  The top two photos (which are postcards) are from the United States, the smaller one on the bottom is a small photo and although I purchased it from someone in the US it has im Garten (in garden?) written on the back.  So I guess this could be from Germany.

I love to look at photos of people with their cats in the newspaper or magazines – Sunday morning, reading the Times, me showing Kim a photo in the Real Estate section of a family, “Hey, nice looking cat, huh? Calico.”  Kim, “Uh huh.” (He nicely puts up with me.) Clearly, one immediate response to someone taking your photo is to pick up the family cat or dog. (I know I do.) These photos are nice examples of that. Hard for me to say when I think these are from, but I am leaning toward the teens and twenties. Of course the whole point is that we’ve always loved to photograph our beloved cats and to be photographed with them, and to photograph them as part of our family.  From blurry tintypes to the several hundred photos I have on my iPhone of Cookie and Blackie today, we love ’em – they are our family and we have always liked to take their picture.

For more early cat photo, you might want to check out my Happy Hooligan post. Enjoy!

Cats on Parade

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: While clearly not Felix these cats are pretty spectacular in their own right – not to mention the little Shriner-esque fellow driving. This float was honoring the 70th Anniversary, Swiss Settlers Swiss Colony, August 16, 1885-1915, New Glarus, Wis. (I have taken the liberty of checking up on New Glarus  and, sure enough, it is still known as America’s Little Switerzland today.) The stand-out supporters of this float appear to have been Hole-Proof Hosiery and Masurys Paints.  Sadly the other banners do not appear to be legible, even when I blow this up. The support of these fine businesses now lost to the sands of time.

Before taking note of the year, I thought this card was from a somewhat later period, but date notwithstanding, on closer inspection the car is a very early one and the storefront and house in the background are early too.  Seems very much Main Street, USA, circa 1915 except that the cats look like they could be from decades later – with a somewhat alien quality. No joking around on this float – all business I think, driver very serious. And why black cats? I guess we’ll never know.  Still, I send a tip of the hat to Glarus – I do mean to stop by if I’m ever in the neighborhood.

Photo-weight

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  The first time I remember seeing a photo paperweight was at my paternal grandparent’s house when I was a very small child – and I was fascinated by it! Those just had boring old people in them – it hadn’t occurred to my grandparents to put anything as cool as a cat or a dog photo in I guess. I just loved them – the heft, the frozen in time quality – I knew I needed to own some of these when I grew up. Then I forgot about them, for decades – until eBay!

Above, the solo cat is one of my prized possesions of an everyday kind and sits on my desk in my office. (For those of  you who are ongoing readers, are you starting to get the idea that my office has some pretty cool stuff? You’d be right. More to come.)  On a tough day he is always there to cheer me up. I recently rediscovered the dog and cats one on a shelf – love that! – and am thinking I should probably bring it to the office too. The street scene just evokes a slice of everyday life from the past – sometimes that’s all I’m looking for in a photo.

For a while I was buying these as gifts – a particularly nice Niagra Falls (I was obsessed with Niagra Falls photos in paperweights for a brief time) went to my friend Eileen, and my friend Betsy received an especially good one with a dog in it, I think. I just don’t have the space to collect them in large numbers, but would snap up a really good one if spotted. That probably doesn’t surprise you, right?

 

Franken-Felix, Part 1

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post:  I have in my collection a whole shelf of what I call Franken-Felixes. This one here is a sort of do-it-yourself Felix and he falls loosely into this greater category, which is made up more of mismatched Felix parts reassembled and we will devote some time to exploring those at greater lengths in the future.  I have a soft spot for them. Meanwhile, this Felix doesn’t really appear to be from a pattern (those exist – even one to be knitted! – sadly, I don’t knit) but he sports a fairly professional design – if terribly off-model in a rather unique way. Maybe it was Krazy Kat they were looking at? However, should there be any doubt about his identity, they’ve taken the trouble to write his name on his bow tie! 

Peeved Puss Postcard

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  I purchased this photo postcard in Seattle, where I remember feeling like I paid too much for it – although frankly I have no idea what that was now.  It has held a place of pride in my office for the many years since, and now I’m quite sure that it is worth whatever it was that I paid.

Clearly this trained kitty is none too thrilled performing for the camera, the big bow seems especially annoying to him or her. I love the presence of the photographer here – makes the photo.  I was just outbid on a somewhat similar one, French (this one from US) on eBay – that cat was sitting up for a cat treat though, and seemed happier about it for obvious reasons. It prompted me to share this one of a cat who is also working hard.  Hope you enjoy it!

Lucky Black Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  British swimmer, Ruthley Moris-Hancock, ’36 Olympics, holding her good luck stuffed kitty. This photo from the Olympia 1936 German, Cigaretten-Bilderdienst Altona-Bahrenfeld photo album. A quick google search reveals that this is an often reproduced image on posters and things. Who knew? However, reminded me very much of my post of a week or so ago – Cat Hat, see August 9. Dolly and Ruthley share a fashion and good luck talisman statement, although Ruthley’s came more than a decade later – showing the durability of the black cat. Frankly, couldn’t find out much about Ruthley online – this may be her most distinguished moment. Below I have included the back of the card, for the German readers in the group.

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Corbin Canadian Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Advertising Post: A giveaway from the Corbin Lock Company of Canada. Needless to say that if I lived in Canada and needed locks these folks would have been my square one – in fact, I’m sure I would have bought a lock just to get one of these!  Purchased as a pair on eBay recently, these were advertised as pin dishes, but as someone who has very few pins these days, these will probably hold paperclips on my desk in the office and rings on my dresser – although I don’t know if I can bear to hide those cat faces, maybe I should just put them up somewhere.  I would buy things like this all the time if I ran across them more often, but I can’t say that I do. I feel very fortunate to have found and purchased these!

Felix on Parade

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  As you can see it isn’t like the Brits and the Aussie’s had this Felix thing all sewn up! Here are two photos of Felix parade floats in the US.  One is a photo postcard (Oregon Laundry) and the other is a tiny snapshot. On top, the Rose Festival in Portland, OR,’29 – man, they could do my laundry any day! My hat’s off to the fine people of Portland, OR which seems, oddly, to be a hotbed of Felix photo activity. Go Portland!

The snapshot, identified as the Bamberger’s Parade, Thanksgiving, ’31. Presumably this is Newark, NJ – a fine little home movie color film snippet, Bamberger’s Thanksgiving Parade circa 1933,  is absolutely worth the four and a half minutes on NJ.com and suffering through the commercial at the beginning.  Felix doesn’t show up, but Mickey puts in a very brief appearance. An indication that perhaps by ’33 or so Felix’s star was starting to fade a bit in the USA, and Mickey was the big kid on the block now. Mickey parade photos to follow in the future!