Pam’s Pictorama Post: The season is suddenly tipping hard in the direction of the holidays and winter. Last night I ordered a new long down jacket online – at the end of last winter the zipper finally broke one I had been wearing happily for decades. (My mother gave it to me so many years ago – it might predate my meeting Kim!) While perhaps not the most stylish of long down coats it was thick and toasty warm. I have tried new zippers on down coats before and for some reason they are especially recalcitrant however.
My office these days, and the hospital, are along the East River, overlooking the FDR highway. The wind and water are always worse there than anywhere else, even our apartment building which is only one block west. While walking a half hour to and from work is lovely in some ways, come the middle of the winter it will be less charming. I was a bit ill prepared last year when I started in January and am tackling the impending winter pro-actively this year – boots and coats.
An earlier leaf incarnation I snapped a pic of.
Thanksgiving is late this year and in my mind I kept pushing it forward until now suddenly it is upon us. I am using the few days to go to New Jersey (and visit the Jersey kitties) and plant some spring bulbs. We are experiencing a well publicized drought right now so I am concerned that the ground will be as hard as a rock when I try however. Nonetheless, the thought of tulips and other flowers blooming in the spring will drive me forward. Time to take the dahlias in and wrap them up in the chilly garage for the duration of the winter. The hibiscus and a small olive tree (seen below still out on the deck here) are already living their winter life in the kitchen there although I understand that the cats are too interested in them and I think they need to relocate to the bedroom.
Late summer and fall dahlias are more than worth the effort to store them over the winter.
Work and other commitments have kept me from trips I had hoped to make there in November so this week will be the first time I am there in quite a while. I am looking forward to the very last of the tomatoes and a solitary cucumber that is being saved for me.
Back in October I decorated the front stoop with some warty pumpkins – I love them! They are appropriate through November and until it is time to add a wreath to the door and some swags of greens to the railings.
While I am missing access to the Jersey late autumn, Kim has supplied me with a mini-fall here in the apartment. These gourds came from the local grocery and are as charmingly wart filled and interesting as you could ask for. Like mini-pumpkins, they perch (and are occasionally buried by paper) on my desk, little happy harbingers of the season.
Kim has followed that up with an assortment of fall leaves which have started appearing. Not surprisingly, the man has a great eye for leaves. Their passing extraordinary colors attract him and he has collected and attempted to save them (largely unsuccessfully) for years. We tried pressing, the microwave and just letting them sit. He has put them under the plexi on top of his desk. This year he has delivered them to my desk and I have been enjoying the somewhat fragile random harvest of them and they are the season to me this year.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: The other evening I was meeting a former colleague and we were discussing the shifting sands of the office place – he who now works entirely remotely for a national not-for-profit and I am who am still adjusting to life at an animal hospital where many things are different. The conversation somehow turned first to mail (I am struggling with the local post office) and then to handwriting. I told him that when I worked at the Met I handwrote many notes and that I hoped over time that when people saw the envelope they would recognize my handwriting immediately.
The verso of a postcard from a prior post – sometimes the writing is half the fun, other times indecipherable.
Even less than a decade ago mail was a much bigger part of my job. This area in fundraising has had a continued contraction and, while I am far from an expert, I am struggling to find its place at work as older supporters still like it but it is expensive and you can lose money. Direct mail aside, my days at the Met were packed with notes written – a constantly dwindling pile of cards atop my desk for notes to attach to things, my business card and stacks of cards from the museum’s shop which I worked my way through with birthday wishes and other occasions. For years all of our invitations were handwritten and stamped. We did them at home and were paid by the piece – I helped pay for my trip to Tibet by addressing envelopes when we opened the new Asian Art Wing there.
At the Met we had a mailroom which collected our piles of mail and delivered ours to our office. I have learned over time that this is a luxury in offices.
Our Top Dog Gala invitation this year. We are celebrating the work of the police dogs and this handsome German Shephard is representing for it.Invitations have printed envelopes now.
At Jazz I immediately noticed fewer written missives, as well as less time on the telephone – everything was pretty much online and email including invitations. If not a dedicated mailroom, an office manager did distribute mail and bring it to the post office daily. Covid interrupted even that and mail stilled to a full stop and barely ground back into use in the post-Covid work world.
My office today slots mail into boxes in the main hospital building which we try to pick up daily. Somehow I have never gotten the swing of mail pick up there (due to construction it moves around) and we tend to stamp and mail things from public boxes or a trip to the post office. It isn’t true but sometimes I feel like the only person who produces mail beyond the occasional mailing of things like Gala invitations.
Very recognizable Louis Wain signature as per yesterday’s post!
However, what we really touched on the other night and what has stayed in my mind since is the memory of handwriting I have known. I recently had to go through check registers of my mom’s for tax purposes and spending the day immersed in her (slowly deteriorating) handwriting made her and that final year together very real again.
I have only a few samples of my sister’s writing, although it was a neat distinctive cursive I would recognize anywhere – she had the habit of looping the bottom of her capital L’s backward as part of her signature. I never asked her about that.
I saw less of my father’s handwriting than other family members, but certainly would recognize his signature. Somewhere I have a few letters from him, written while he covered the Olympics in Sarajevo. Meanwhile my maternal grandmother had a round script that would come with birthday cards, some of which I still have.
Autographed books, always with a picture, by Kim here and below.
There are those folks whose handwriting I realize I do not know, or only have an inkling of, like my father’s parents who died when I was fairly young. (To my brother Edward, I am realizing that we never correspond with handwritten notes. I don’t really know yours although maybe I would recognize it if I saw it?) I have friends whose handwriting I can see in my mind – some former colleagues and others like my friend Suzanne who is an artist and whose very round writing is distinctive in my mind’s eye.
Kim’s handwriting and his signature are of course well known and very recognizable. Legibility in his line of work is essential. He eschews my cursive as hard to read. (There was a time when I was younger when I corresponding in a tiny neat print, but I found it labor intensive for my needs.) Recent trouble accurately reading numbers people have written on things has reminded us of the importance of neatness – not just for cartoonists, but for all of us. After all, first and foremost, it is a form of communication.
One of the nice things about living with Kim is he continues to receive (and send of course) letters and packages in the mail. We get more real mail than most folks.
I especially like this one for Shroud for Waldo!
When I was in college I remember a professor at the beginning of a course talking about how handwriting was a mark system like any other, one we use constantly and defines us. (She also pointed out that how we dress is another visual vocabulary all our own and I think of that sometimes when I put on make-up which in some ways is the closest I get to painting these days.) However, handwriting is the one that is intimately tied to who we are and is our very own – obviously like finger prints our signature can be used to identify us in a court of law; it is that singular.
Of those folks like my mother, father and sister who are now lost to me the thought of their writing, coming across it or remembering it, makes me miss them all the more. However, it is a comforting odd bit of us that we keep, thoughtfully or unconsciously, and remains in the world long after we are gone.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Ongoing Pictorama readers probably know the rhythm of my posting year and October is time for an anniversary post. Kim and I were married on October 14, 2000, although we had our first date over Veteran’s Day weekend six years earlier which means I tend to think of the period between the end of October and early November as a sort of Kim-Pam fest.
We usually celebrate the weekend after (it falls in the middle of the week this week on a day when I start jury duty), however since our plan was for a day outside we decided to embrace a promising fall weather day yesterday and we put on our walking shoes and headed down to Washington Square Park. Kim is researching a story which concludes there and had already done a scouting trip while I was in Jersey a few weeks ago. I played cameraman and you see some of the results here.
Kim and I ran an errand and started our day walking to the Lexington Avenue subway at 77th Street. Over on 78th we were treated to a view of the dollhouse store (whose windows I like to admire) decked out for the holiday and then a few real townhouses extravagantly decorated for Halloween.
Meanwhile, a short history of Washington Square Park tells us that its popularity dates back to the Lenape Indian tribe using it as a hunting ground and references a now gone trout stream which was called Minetta. (I attempted to take us to lunch at the Minetta Tavern but decided it was too expensive.) From this spot has an emerging history which ranges from free land grants to recently freed slaves, to potter’s field, parade ground and onward to residential square.
An extremely Olmsteadian pathway.
The actual park was designed by Olmstead acolytes, Ignatz Pilate who was assisted by Montgomery Kellogg. Their work on Central Park with Olmstead was enough to have me wondering if I had missed that it was designed by Olmstead as we walked it yesterday. I am interested to find out that the current fountain replacing an earlier one, actually came from the south end of Central Park and is by Jacob Wrey Mould.
Fountain is evidently a hand me down from Central Park.
No less than Stanford White designed the Arch – first a temporary one and then it was so popular the permanent one we see today which was dedicated in 1895. The statues of Washington were added 1916 (Washington at War) and ’18 (Washington in Peace) respectively. The arch always surprises me with how large it is. In my mind it is always about half the size for some reason. A stairwell to the roof and to provide maintenance exists although it is rare to have the opportunity to go up it.
Another Olmstead-ish view.
Volunteers were on the scene collecting garbage and tending to copious plants. The park was full to the brim for a beautiful fall day and there was even a tour bus which let off a stream of tourists more than once. A food truck proffering Southeast Asian food had a long line of customers at the south end near a large dog run I never noticed before and some bathrooms which I am sure are much appreciated although stylistically stand out a bit starkly in design. The homeless gather in the northwest corner and long gone are the people who used to approach you to buy pot there.
Bountiful and well tended beds of flowers.
There were vendors for t-shirts and furry hats, someone reading tarot cards and someone you could pay to “have a philosophical discussion” with, although the aforementioned food truck was the only food offering making me think that you can’t just wander into this prime turf and start selling. In addition, there were pianos at either side of the fountain. When we were there one was playing sort of jazz and early rock ‘n roll tunes (hear a snippet below) and the other more classical including a wonderful interlude with Philip Glass we sat for. West side guy seemed to have the better spot for tips – the tourists enter there. Later in the afternoon the piano player was replaced by a small ensemble playing sort of Cole Porter-ish tunes.
Piano on the westside of the square.
All this to say presumably the Conservancy which cares for the park seems to have a clear hand in the running of it and with the huge number and variety of park denizens on a weekend in October they have their hands somewhat full.
Pianist playing Glass on the eastside of the square.
Kim and I eventually wandered out and in search of lunch. Much in this landscape has changed drastically, like the rest of New York, post pandemic and I couldn’t really find anything I knew. While looking we wandered into the Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company where I purchased some Aleppo Pepper. (I discovered cooking with this during the pandemic and it has become a staple for me. A post where I talk about my Covid day cooking adventures can be found here. I usually buy the pepper at Fairway, but wanted to try a different one.)
Sullivan Street Tea & Spice Company.
This is a lovely little shop and I wouldn’t mind finding my way back to purchase some fresh cinnamon and nutmeg among other things. I took their card and it declares flat rate shipping for $8.75 and I will maybe consider that too. Could make some nice holiday gifts for my fellow home chefs.
Ultimately we settled down at a restaurant which advertised itself as vegetarian with double smash burgers on offer. It in fact turned out to be vegan and Ethiopian. It is called Ras (on Bleecker) and I don’t know how their other food is, but man, these were the best veggie burgers of recent memory. Stacked high with two thin pea protein burgers, vegan cheese and mayo; I cannot do them justice.
Raz, great veggie burgers and open to the street yesterday.
Kim and I had our wedding party at an all vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown. It was recently opened at the time and has subsequently shutdown. (We had at least one anniversary lunch there before it closed!) We took over the whole restaurant for the party, although take out and delivery seemed to continue on around us. Anyway, the vegan restaurant seemed like an apt and appropriate touch to end the afternoon before wandering back up to Yorkville and hopefully more years and adventures together!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I am running late today for this post, my second from New Jersey this summer. The neglected garden needed my attention while it was still cool enough to work out here. It was a small start, but I am also tired from my first week as a commuter and getting over a bad head cold last weekend. However, it should also be noted that today is the first day of six since we got here where it has not been a torrential downpour either. Let the garden enjoyment (and work) begin!
Nevertheless, I have this little treasure which arrived at Deitch Studio shortly before our departure last weekend. While the aged quality of this photo makes it less than perfect, it was an irresistible image to add to the Pictorama collection.
Recent acquisition and post as below.
The concept of the perfect Felix costume has long stoked my imagination and I believe informed Kim’s Alias the Cat. (That book – one of the best ever! – for purchase can be found here.) While I search to acquire the perfect mask photos of Felix costumes can also satisfy. I just posted about another and it is unusual because I don’t really have that many in my collection. (A post about that recent acquisition, shown above, can be found here.)
Opening of Kim’s Alias the Cat.
Early in my collecting I found an interesting clutch of early photos of folks donning Felix costumes. Tiny snapshots of people in masks or full costume. Oddly, I didn’t acquire them together either which is sort of fascinating. That post from the early days of Pictorama can be found here.
Today’s photo is a tintype and as to be expected that means the writing on Felix’s chest is reversed. Hard to know if Felix was an adult with these two small bunny attired kids. More likely an older child. While it is definitely an off-model mask it was commercially made, as were the bunny outfits the other children sport.
One from a series of photos from the post mentioned above.
I have no explanation for the staff or cane held, but the older of the two rabbit kids. If I had to guess (and it would be a guess) I would say the older of those two is a girl. I have no idea at all about the younger. They are outside and a careful look shows a woman behind them and some buildings, or more likely pictures of buildings, behind her. There are other indistinct people and things, however the picture grows wavy there and they are unreadable.
I was surprised to be reminded that this photo actually came from Louisiana, not Great Britain. The holder strikes me as oh so British and of course it’s most recent home before mine was not necessarily its place of origin. I believe that virtually all of the Felix tintypes I have of this sort have come from either England or Australia. Having said that, most of them are people posing with large Felix dolls and this is just kids in costume.
Wall decor at Deitch Studio.
I have yet to decide how the Pictorma library will stretch in the Jersey digs and have yet to start to hang things, although some of the yard long photos are on display. I mostly leave the items here that have ended up here, but I hope for the leisure to make some determinations about decoration. More to come when I figure that out. For now it has gotten too hot for the garden and there are numerous cats requesting pets.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: We announced that we would head out here a few months back when we were told that Kim would be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame.
It’s been more than a decade since our last trip to this con, although I made at least one return trip for work subsequently. 150,000 people are said to crowd into this tiny town which does appear to literally be bursting at the seams under the weight of it.
As Kim said, there’s one in every crowd. Although, you actually don’t see many Supermans. A lot more Batmans.
Without getting too into it, travel was difficult and verged on disaster at times – a worldwide meltdown of all international and domestic airports, followed by a fire near our terminal at JFK which meant the evacuation of thousands mere hours before our departure. Add in some sort of traffic mess (3 hours from York and 86th Street to JFK essentially not long enough, we almost missed our flight) and my personal favorite, our hotel reservations turned out to be canceled when we got here at 11:00 at night. Visions of bad films with no place to sleep being the punchline occurred to my sleep deprived state. (2 AM NYC time!)
Seemed sort of classic.Sidewalk stroll at the Con.
San Diego is just clogged with folks. Young, old, those in costume (I Dream of Jeannie anyone?), those not. We are concerned with an ever-shrinking comics related part of the con which is like a snake eating its own tail as first the animation and then action film industry slowing takes over.
From where I sit in our highrise hotel, the Hilton across from us is wrapped in an ad for FX which says, What we do in the Shadows with creepy heads. Gigantic seagulls cartwheel in from of our 20th floor window. Isn’t it too high for them?
View out our window.
Kim was part of an interesting panel on Harvey Kurzman first thing out of the bag Thursday. Luckily a woman named Becky jumped into the fray and got us our badges in time for getting into the session. (The lines to get in are like Disney World long – this apt comparison from our friend Bruce. The lines are like miles long.)
Kim with our friend Bruce Simon at lunch on Thursday.
Kim offered to take an afternoon adventure with me and I found an antique mall out beyond the airport here. It was a large place, in the style of the ones we go to in New Jersey.
Being San Diego, it was somewhat open on two sides to the outdoors where furniture and plants were on a sort of porch. Kim found a Dumas novel he hadn’t read – something found and published posthumously. Sadly, I found nothing portable enough or that I was will to solve a shipping issue for. This Felix tea set below tempted me a bit.
In retrospect I am amazed I resisted.The interior of the antiques mall.
*****
The morning (Friday) was taken up with the Eisner Lifetime Achievement awards. Many stories were told – some especially moving ones by the grandchildren of the people being honored. (The family of the guy who created Classic Comics – see my post about those here.) However, Kim and Gary Groth (editor of Fantagraphics, Kim’s publisher) were among the living folks honored.
Kim accepting his lifetime achievement award.
After fighting our way through another morning of crowds at the Con we decided to take a shot at a used bookstore I had read about, Verbatim Books. Unlike yesterday, when the car took us to the middle of industrial wasteland no man’s land, we were delivered to a sort of interesting up and coming part of town about a ten minute car ride away.
The trip through the Balboa Park neighborhood was filled with the most wonderful old cottages. Our driver told us that they, not surprisingly, sell for around $1m. Many were in a Spanish style, but some cute Craftsmen ones as well.
Rather good Mexican food for lunch.Strange ancient pinball machine in Mexican place.
You’ll likely be seeing the loot in future posts, but among other things I found a few interesting books of early 20th Century fiction – let’s see if there’s a new writer for me in it. (I saw but did not buy a vintage Judy Bolton novel. For those of you who are late to the Pictorama game, a post devoted to reading that entire series of mystery books can be found here.)
And I restrained myself from purchasing a very large book on collecting American toys. Restraint ultimately failed me however on one or two other purchases that will require some navigating.
We decided to roll the dice again and had an Uber take us to another bookstore, Bluestocking Books. Much to my surprise, I scored several books and a photograph there. We tried to parley it a bit further and find an antiques shop described to us by the folks at the bookstore, but after a six block walk to a somewhat dodgy neighborhood we gave up and circled back. Our afternoon of adventure at a close and soon our San Diego adventure as well.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Just when you least expect it, a collecting opportunity appears which you have not considered previously appears. Pictorama readers probably know that just last week I was opining on my buying jags for everything from antique jewelry boxes to bowls. Somehow during that same time, these two bisque nodders crossed my path and here I am, let loose on another trail of things to look for.
These Our Gang figures came to me via my Midwest supplier of goodies, Miss Molly (@missmollystlantiques) on Instagram. She wasn’t even having a sale when she shared these and I asked about them on a whim. These weren’t keepers for Molly and so a deal was struck and here we are. As it happens, coincidence or synchronicity, Kim has been working on reproducing the Little Rascals on a page he is working on and as a result the opening tune has been playing in the apartment (always taking me back to weekend television of my childhood), and I have been treated to the glimpses of what he is working from and on – and now you are as below. (For a prior Our Gang post, a publicity still I got for a steal years ago, go here.)
Detail from Kim’s unfinished page which includes the Our Gang kids.
I acknowledge that the very law of averages to fill in around this entirely without a lot of repeats are slim, but we’ll see how I do over time. Not surprisingly there are a lot of variations on these out there and one of the things I need to be careful about is that I match the same set as these. There is at least one other period one that is fairly similar, but not nodders, and not the same. (The whole concept of nodders and their ongoing appeal is one for further Pictorama consideration I think. Weird, right?)
A different, partial period set. Less finely done – not sure I would have been as tempted by these.
Also not a shock to see how much merchandising there has been, evolving over the decades, but quite a rabbit hole to go down. An entire, decidedly less finely executed, set of china figures was done as late as the 1980’s. To look for information is to be immediately swept into a windfall of collectibles over many decades. Among the participatory options, is this Jean Darling sewing kit with bisque doll you sew an outfit for, shown below – back in a time when the expectation was that a child would be able to execute that simple level of sewing.
Being sold on Etsy at the time of writing. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection, but oddly tempting.
Mine are made by a German company called Hertwig. They produced well known bisque figure from 1864 to 1958. They were best known for their snow babies which were based on holiday confections of the same, but meant for decoration rather than consumption.
I’m not sure how this would work as a comestible. Hertwig Snow Baby bisque.
Hertwig was immersed in reproducing the popular culture world of the US in the 1920’s as well however. In addition to the Our Gang figures, Gaseoline Alley ones turn up as routinely as well as Little Orphan Annie.
In reading descriptions these are described as cold painted and I think the other set, shown above, may have been ones you painted yourself as a kit. Mine are too precisely executed, especially the faces, to have been done by amateurs.
I’m amazed actually at how nice these are. They are a tad smaller than I imagined they would be. There is some chipping to the cold paint process on these – the downside to this method I would think. Still, with the many decades of wear they have held up well.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
As above, the name of each character is embossed on the back, Wheezer and Mary Ann Jackson in this case. It also says, Germany. The company name is not on them; I found that when I started to research them. They are hollow with holes in the bottom and their nodding heads are held on by bits of tied string. The figures appear for sale individually certainly, but seem to largely be sold in groupings. Pete is the most likely to be missing it seems and you have to wonder if those prized ones were just scooped up individually over time.
Mel Brirnkrant’s (perfect!) full collection from his website. Roughly what I am shooting for.
I’m eyeing a little cabinet I have in New Jersey for these as a finished group. (A post about that gift from Kim can be found here.) Meanwhile though, these will stay here in New York as we hopefully fill in the remaining four.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A Pictorama part two post with this framed postcard. The frame was purchased first and much earlier than the postcard. I picked that up from @marsh.and.meadow.overflow in a sale of odds and ends. It’s a beaut! I knew I would find a use for it and even though I was on something of a money diet at the moment I jumped at putting it in my electronic cart. It has some age on it and sports a decorative faux wood design. The back is very old, probably more fitted to sitting up on a desk or table than hanging on the wall, although I guess we’ve figured that out too.
After it arrived and perhaps even in my mental machinations, I realized that the right postcard in it would make a dandy gift for Kim. Although I spend a lot of time with cat photos obviously, I was looking for something more Deitchian for him.
I felt truly inspired when I ran across a set of these Art Nouveau postcards, once again on Instagram, from a seller I have followed for a while but never purchased from, @ghost_era. Presented as a group in a series but sold individually I zeroed in on this one immediately – although I admit to being tempted to buy several! (A few remain available at their shop at Ghost Era Antiques.) Hard to explain but this photo postcard seemed to be perfection.
Another Reutlinger photo postcard, not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I’m not sure exactly why I love this photo so much but I really do; the woman, the moon and the radiating light, and then the stars! It epitomizes a certain kind of picture. There is the subtle color, from yellow to blue. I like the way some of the stars have been left bright white though for emphasis. The moon has some mottling (a nod to the man there?) and a deep shadow behind her. The woman is in a sort of nightgown dress – she’s dreaming? We are?
It would appear that this card was produced by the photographer Léopold-Émile Reutlinger (March 17, 1863 – March16, 1937). His uncle founded a Parisian photography studio where his father worked as the photographer. (Léopold’s son Jean became a prominent photographer too although sadly died in WWI.) Both photographed the rich and most importantly famous of the day, but he took the family business to a new height and is the one remembered today. I wonder if this is due to the popularity of photo postcards and I would think in part this Art Nouveau style which he excelled at.
I gave this to Kim last year. And yes! I believe that is the trademark R for Reutlinger at the bottom right!
As I look over his work online I can’ help but wonder if a few of the other postcards in my collection can be attributed to him. I am thinking of a Valentine’s Day gift I gave Kim last year below. (Post can be read here.)
In 1930, Reutlinger suffered an accident with a champagne cork, (weird sort of irony, yes?) which cost him an eye and seriously affected his profession. But he continued to run the studio until his death in Paris in 1937.
Meanwhile, Kim has a good spot on the wall over his desk picked out for it, above a Frank Borzage still from Lucky Star. Some rearranging needs to go on first but I look forward to seeing it there along with a few other Borzage stills we are swapping in for other photos. (A post on those stills can be found here and here.) Maybe a future post on the walls here at Deitch Studio. For now, enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend if you are reading in real time.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I continue my second part, tulip treatise today with an odd alignment that came out of tulip talk recently here at Deitch Studio. As occasionally occurs here over leisurely morning work, reading and discussion sessions, Kim and I meandered through both my tulip triumphs in New Jersey and his interest in this book and comic as outlined below and these posts were born. Welcome to The Black Tulip and part two of the Pictorama post.
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I commence with a full admission that before I met Kim Classics Illustrated comics were at best known to me in a theoretical way – a sort of punchline to a joke about not having read a school book assignment – as in clearly they read the comic book version. I confess I have never actually read one to date.
A pile of the comics within eyeshot, next to Kim’s desk, while I write this morning.
A number of years back Kim discovered a guy on 86th Street who was selling them. Not every day of the week, but most weekend days and maybe a few others piles of them on a table with their bright yellow logos being hawked. Over time they began their siren song and Kim was lured into slowly acquiring both those remembered from his youth and then ones he had missed along the way. Slowly his collection grew if haphazardly. I can’t remember now if the fellow gave up before Covid or it was the pandemic that did his periodic business in. And it wasn’t a constant flow, but an occasional addition would be made via eBay. Although he might give a quick look when I was with him it was generally a mission he completed on his own – an excuse for a walk on a nice day and presumably some comics chat.
A better look at that pile. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Kim’s collection.
Kim, a voracious reader and particularly of classic literature, seems like an unlikely candidate however most recently he uses these as sort of massive supplemental illustrations to something he is reading. (The man is devoted to illustrated fiction in all its guises.) A large trade paperback on the history of Classics Illustrated found its way into the house recently and, although he is a committed Dumas fan, his purchase of The Black Tulip I believe was a result of his reading of that. The novel is on its way so he has not commenced reading it yet.
Classics Illustrated (which has lodged in my brain as Classic Comics) had a 30 year run, from 1941-1971, launching with The Three Musketeers. With printing and reprinting and the collecting of them, it can be a deep and largely affordable vein of comics collecting. If Kim were writing this there would be color and lore I cannot provide – thoughtful observations about the various artists who illustrated them, some who were wrapping up a career during the heyday of comics.
The opening pages of our rather tatty copy.
The Black Tulip (based as noted on the novel by Alexandre Dumas) was illustrated by Alex A. Blum (1889-1969) and I would say his illustrations are definitely part of the appeal of the comic. The story takes place during the tulip craze in the Netherlands of the 1600’s after the introduction of the plant from the near east in the preceding century. As you probably know, tulips were wildly sought after and the bulbs traded like gold or cocoa on a world exchange. Fortunes were made and lost in tulips and even poor and middle class families might stake their fortunes on the waxing and waning of them.
Queen of the Night variety of tulip – appears to be pretty much as close as we come to black.
The plot of the novel is the race to develop a truly black tulip and the nefarious individuals who would do anything to capture a $100k guilder prize for the development of it. (For the record, a true black tulip does not exist even today and a very dark purple one called black is as close as one comes.) Since Kim is planning to read the original novel as well so I will have to ask him if they explain why black seemed so desirable – I prefer red and orange among others myself. (It should be noted that blue does not exist either – only a sort of lavender to blue.)
The jolly cover caught my imagination and a stroll through the comic is not disappointing. For the record, there is a column in the front cover called Student Boners which claims to be funny mistakes made on regional state exams – along the lines of Name two explorers of the Mississippi – answer: Romeo and Juliet. There is a bio of Dumas and encouragement to read the full novel at the back. Throughout there seems to be a layer of an in the service of sort of self-conscious educational mission.
The back of the book – free comics tattoos with your purchase of 10 issues.
Along those lines also included at the back is a plot summary of the opera Boris Gudenof (what did kids make of that?); a bio of Alfred Nobel (Inventor of Dynamite!); and an unrelated short story about a dog. Kim informs me that the books had to be weighted with a certain amount of text in order to get a book rate for mailing. (This is part of the eventual undoing of the company as they ultimately lost this status.) There is an emphasis on the great literature these are based on (There have been no greater story-tellers than these immortal authors) and on reading in general.
A page from a story to be published next year called Apocalypso.
As I alluded to above, these comics were a fixture of Kim’s childhood and a recently completed page from an upcoming story for his next book shows a young Kim and a friend in a room littered with them. (We had some discussion over which covers would be featured.) As for me, well my generation had Cliff Notes (which also took a final bite out of these comics) instead. I never read them, but I am sure they were far less romantic and potentially interesting as Classics Illustrated and in addition I doubt that anyone collects them today.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Good morning! Sunny April day here and today’s picture post presents these three self-possessed looking miscreants curled up in a variety of battered chapeaux. Although this was evidently used as a Valentine greeting (written in admirable script at the bottom), I am thinking of it as a nod to the season and time to break out my straw hat.
The two tabbies, who are remarkably identical, are curled up in the first two hats while my sort of tuxie friend is vacating his black one. The disintegrating straw hat is the most interesting, not sure what is perched on the side – a tossed out cigarette? A bit of paper? What I call a claw paw grips the brim. Comfy kitty in the first hat fits nicely, tail curled around himself, the very tip pointing out. The odd fellow (or gal) out appears to be a tux or tuxie mix of some kind, hard to tell as his entire back half is in this black hat. The bad guy hat!
All three kitties have had their attention drawn off camera in the same direction. To that extent at least they are posed.
Someone has scratched into the negative, The Latest Thing in Hats in Wilawana. PA. According to my (albeit limited) map reading on Google, Wilawana appears to be a small town near the Chemung river and on the border of New York state.
In penned script on the back it reads, With love, From Mrs. ME Knighte and For Beulock Cosaiy [?] Wills NY Hamilton Co. However, there is no stamp so it was hand delivered or ultimately put in an envelope.
Dad in his white hat, more or less dead center of this photo.
My father was a devoted wearer of hats. I have written about Dad’s career as a news cameraman for many decades. (One of those posts can be read here.) At more than 6’5″ and with a ubiquitous fisherman’s hat on his head he was easy to pick out in a crowd and we would look for him on long shots of events on other news stations. Although a cotton fisherman’s cap (usually a fairly crisp, newer one) was most frequently worn to work, the older ones and a series of baseball style caps were employed outside at home. My father kept his hat on a great, small bronze statue of a running horse which I (sadly) no longer have, on a table outside our kitchen with his keys in it. I’m not sure I ever saw my father outside without a hat and prescription sunglasses.
The style of hat most frequently worn by my father.
The rest of the family did not sport hats. I cannot remember my mother wearing one, even on the coldest of winter days. (Mom would head outside with her short hair wet and the ends would freeze. She was hat resistant.) My sister Loren skied and therefore must have worn the occasional winter hat, although I can’t remember it and must feel she eschewed them in general. Edward (who may be reading this) was not especially inclined toward them either. (Ed, have you become a hat wearer?)
The much beloved Buck Jone Rangers hat.
I had an early inclination to hats, but in practice did not really figure them out until well into adulthood. There is my much sweated in cotton baseball cap for running (from the Gap, no logo) which reminds me of Dad’s, keeps the sun and sweat out of my eyes and also helps keep my hair up. Winter running requires a warmer (but washable) hat however – sometimes a hood too – something over my ears. The NJ variant is bright yellow green so I don’t get shot in the woods or runover in the low morning light.
I am very devoted to hat wearing in the cold in general and have a series of wool hats, always one stuffed in my purse in the transitional seasons, just in case. I lean toward a loose black wool one these days. As a kid I delighted in stocking caps and went through a stage of rather electric long ski hats that were popular for a bit. I was employing a wool cowboy style one in winter (sun protection, but good in light precipitation) until it was accidentally taken from a party. It was returned to the hostess, but I have yet to retrieve it from her. That one came from a hat store in Red Bank, NJ near where I like to have brunch if I first come into town on the weekend, the Dublin House.
This time of the year I break out one of a few straw hats. I like a small brim fedora style straw hat, although it has been pointed out to me that if keeping the sun off my face is my motive (which it is in large part) that a wider brim would serve better, but I don’t seem to be able to commit to those hats the way I can to a smaller one. For one thing my head size is small and it has helped to learn that a large hat is awkward on me. I like being able to smush it into my bag if needed. Like Dad I have adopted prescription sunglasses.
These days the favored hat is an aging straw one purchased in the airport on the way back from a business trip. I was in an airport in Arizona I think, on a leg back from California, San Diego I want to say which makes it a number of years ago now. I was killing time and vaguely in the market for a new summer hat. As these things go, I had no idea that I would still be wearing it daily for 2.5 seasons a year for so many years to come. It has only become every so slightly disreputable.
Recently purchased and subsequently installed hat and coat rack in NJ.
It’s elderly cousin is a blue straw version which was purchased in San Francisco on a donor visit years ago when I worked at the Met Museum. I had gone to visit an elderly (and remarkably fashionable) woman out there, Mona Picket, who was appalled that I was wandering around California in spring time without a hat so we went to a department store and bought me this one. Mona has subsequently passed on and I do think fondly of her when I wear that hat. It is very nicely made (and terribly expensive) and will probably outlast me if I continue to care for it.
Last summer Kim and I were on our way to meet people for dinner on the lower Eastside and I stopped us in our tracks to go into a store and buy a rather electric blue one. It was actually a yellow cousin which caught my eye but they did not have that color in my size. This blue one got a lot of action last summer and is my “good” work hat now.
Kim is an inveterate hat wearer in the tradition of my Dad. I’ve seen him through numerous baseball caps since we met, all of which somehow crossed his path and acquired somewhat (although not entirely) indiscriminately. To my memory, in some order or other, the following baseball hats have been employed: a blue Tar Heels one, a favorite was one acquired at a reading he did in Seattle for Fantagraphics, and the sort of stone favorite was a Buck Jones Rangers hat – the remains of which sit on a shelf over my head even as I write.
Seasonally a series of straw cowboy hats followed and there was one purchased at a K-Mart on a trip to Butte, Montana; a business trip for Kim. (Read about that trip which featured a whorehouse museum here!) For a cheap hat it lasted a good long while.
Kim keeps a bright Kelly green leprechaun-ish bowler around for wearing on someday other than St. Pat’s. Early in our relationship I stretched my wallet and purchased him a very good Stetson as a gift. It languished for several decades before it evolved into use and has now been his daily hat for a number of years. It is getting a good worn-in look and gets frequent compliments.
Kim was willing to pose for this out-the-door pic earlier.
I just installed a coat and hat rack in NJ. However, much in the style of my father, our hats are piled near the front door, some decorating an unused lamp. I do try to resist the temptation to put hats on the cats, but sometimes the Devil wins on that one.
Miltie, senior feline of NJ, in a hat from a post earlier this year.
Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: Today may mark the end of the birthday post fiesta – I have dinner with my friend Eileen Monday night and that technically marks the ends the annual month of shared birthday festivities with my Aquarian brethren. There was a time when there were several other members of the fold, but sadly folks have moved or are gone now so the February birthday dinners are less numerous. (Incidentally, for anyone just in this post for the toy, skip down to the bottom! Books and birthday at the top.)
In addition to the February birthdays, there’s always a nice day spent with Kim roaming somewhere in the city. This year we ended up spending most of the day book shopping. We made a quick visit to Alabaster Books (on the ever mysterious 4th Avenue which exists as a stretch of street in that part of town around 13th Street) where we were intrigued, but the prices on the early juveniles volumes that appealed were too high for our blood, although I admit titles stayed with us and Kim later found another copy of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come by John Fox, Jr. illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, shown below.
Discovered at Alabaster Books in the East Village,but purchased elsewhere.
I have only had a backseat to Kim’s subsequent reading of it which seemed to veer from thinking it was amazing to a distinct sense of it falling off a bit. I will mention that he was particularly impressed with the illustration below and the song (Sourwood Mountain which can be heard on Youtube here) that it illustrates.
One of the N.C. Wyeth illustrations in the above volume. Link to the song being played above.
I, on the other hand, was tempted by The Boy Showman and Entertainer which essentially gives instruction on how to put on a show. These instructions were meant for someone much more handy than me (think of a kid who eventually grows up to work for NASA), but fascinate me nonetheless. I have another book of this type, How to Put on a Circus which I am very fond of and have written about here. Maybe I will go back for it.
Another almost purchase. Maybe eventually.
Sad that we did not feel inclined and able to support this bookstore on this particular day (they used to have the very most charming calico cat I liked to visit) we moved around the corner to The Strand. Much to our surprise and delight The Strand has re-opened their Rare Book Room upstairs. We scored a few interesting ratty volumes on the first floor before making our way up.
The Rare Book Room – welcome back old friend!
However among the purchases on the first floor was this interesting illustrated volume, A Captured Santa Claus which is a children’s chapter book, evidently about the Civil War. It is by Thomas Nelson Page and illustrated by someone named W. L. Jacobs. Perhaps more to come when I read this volume.
Purchsed downstairs at The Strand, merely old but not rare?
We were pleased to find some additional volumes in the old but not quite rarified enough to be truly rare. My significant purchase was the second volume in a series of three about Pixie O’Shaughnessy by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey, aka More About Pixie. I was able to download volume one, simply Pixie O’Shaughnessy, and read it first. (Project Gutenberg and an illustrated version can be found here.) As Pictorama readers may know, I have a real soft spot for a certain kind of early 20th Century series book and this fits the bill gloriously. I think I owe Pixie and Mrs. de Horne Vaizey their own future post, but it all started here.
I’m already into this volume and I am a fan.
After a trip to the art supply store where Kim bought a new light board – a festive purchase; Kim loves this piece of equipment in his arsenal. Kim and I wandered over to The Smith where Kim treated me to a lovely lunch. I discovered a photobooth in the basement and we took the pics below – first photo strip in a long time.
The Smith in the East Village – a nice lunch and photobooth in the basement!
Meanwhile, I have buried the lead and toy folks are wondering when the heck I was going to get to this wonderful cat toy! I have lusted ongoing over toys on wheels and someday I will have (at least one) wonderful wheeled toy large enough for a small child to ride. There are wonderful elephant ones and many bears. We shall see about that!
Commemorative photostrip pics.
Anyway, this is a very early cat and he came to me via Brussels. I purchased him via an online sale on Facebook and Kim bought him for my birthday. He is the first wheeled fellow of this sort in my collection. He is missing one of his four wheels otherwise he is remarkably intact. The wheels are nicely made bits of wood with good hardware so I doubt that I can make or find much of a substitute, but luckily he will spend his days quietly.
A glorious and sturdy device he sits upon, ready to take turns as needed.
If you look at the front wheels you see that there is a nice bit where you could attach a lead of some sort to pull him around and the ability to turn the front and direct him that way. His ears are a bit less pert than they probably were in the day, but fully intact, as is his tail. He has a few tiger-y stripes and his stitched mouth and news were likely very red originally. He’s a solid citizen and is heavier and perhaps a tad larger than you might think he is.
Rear view with his tail shown.
There is evidence that at one time he had a bow around his neck which may have been red or pink, just a few faded orange threads. There’s something about his neck which made me wonder if his head moved at one time, but if so no longer.
Not surprisingly for a toy of this type there is no marking so I do not know if he was native to Brussels (a place which does oddly seem to cough up antique toys – one prior post to something I bought from a very sweet dealer there can be found here, Brussels may turn out to be an El Dorado of antique toys) or an import. I am looking at him and have decided he has a very sweet face. A beloved toy, probably from the earliest part of the 20th century which has made his way to me. My birthday may make me feel old, but I am a youngster compared to this fine fellow.
Pam's Pictorama 