Doggone

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Somehow it seems, if you are going to collect cats you are also occasionally going to end up with mice and dogs – if you’re me anyway. This is a dog entry. While having that luxurious dig through that drawer of photos on my birthday (see also my recent post, The Crimson) I found this fascinating card. Done in the fashion of the cards of those posing with a giant stuffed or wooden cut-out of Felix, these people put their shingle out for photos with this large stuffed and mounted dog. This card was not only never postally used, but you can see in this additional photo the lovely cardboard frame it has existed in for years.

There is nothing on the back of this card and I assume it has lived its life in this holder, although it is a bit big for the card. Regardless, it has been kept nice all this time and perhaps the holder is responsible. You can’t really tell from this photo, but the cover is meant to be for mailing – there is a place for stamp and address on the back when it is closed. The stuffed dog appears to be wearing a muzzle – seems unnecessary – and his platform is on wheels for easy repositioning. A jolly boardwalk scene in progress (with a hard forced perspective) has been painted as the background.

I like this dog, but hey, he’s no Felix the Cat and I wonder about this as an attraction. Is it a real stuffed dog? Local hero? I guess we won’t get the answer to that part, but this gentleman seems quite engaged. While this canine seems to be a St. Bernard, it reminds me of a lovely Tibetan mastiff I met on the street once. He was a rescue and belonged to a curator I knew. Moose is the most enormous dog I have ever met and he was very friendly. As I started petting him and talking to him he was ready to climb into my lap – all 150 lbs. of him! After meeting Moose, I really wanted a Tibetan mastiff – I just loved him and I adore big dogs. But, as Kim pointed out, Moose probably couldn’t even turn around in our apartment so I tucked that thought away for that future day when we are living in a house in the country somewhere.

The Crimson

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Pictorama swerves over into an unexpected direction with this portrait of a sincere young Harvard man posing in his football uniform, peeled from an old cardboard frame I think. Unlike our muscle bound behemoths of today, this fellow looks a tad spongey by our current standards. A quick read on the subject (I probably don’t need to assure you that I am not a historian of long-standing on the history of football at Harvard) reveals that he probably represents a time of Harvard’s early hay day in football. The football program is one of the oldest in the country, beginning competition in 1873, and dominated from about 1890 to 1919. I would guestimate, looking at his attire, that this gentleman slips in around 1920. Harvard did in fact win the Rosebowl in 1920 – their only appearance ever. They had three undefeated seasons, ’12-’14, and perfect seasons in ’12 and’13. Seems like it has largely been downhill from there.

I purchased this photo in a fashion I rarely have access to these days, a nice deep drawer of old photos, well curated, at a store in New York’s East Village, Obscura and Oddities, where I spent a nice bit of my recent birthday happily digging around. Utterly out of my usual realm of collecting, it appealed to me because of his sincere and almost diffident expression. It is hard to imagine him slugging away at his opponents on the field, easier to imagine him assuming a life in banking which is probably what he ultimately did, but perhaps not fair to make assumptions. Again, by today’s standards, his attire seems utterly inadequate for the game as we know it today. Clearly it was a different game and another time and a day when a Harvard man could expect to exceed on the football field as well as in playing the game of a privileged life.

Personally, I didn’t find and embrace my inner jock until relatively recently. Although I did yoga for decades, it wasn’t until about six or seven years ago that I started working out with a trainer and became a devoted gym rat. My sister, Loren, was however always a great athlete. Tennis, running, swimming, skiing – sports for every season. She’d swim in the morning and bike in the evening, lift at lunch and run later. A truly restless and peripatetic soul, we as her family always joked that she didn’t need more than four hours or sleep a night and would drive you nuts if she didn’t burn off energy every day. I mostly remember her running cross country and track and swim team at the beach club in the summer, but there was tennis, field hockey and soccer teams too. (In high school she always wanted to lifeguard in the summers and passed the test, but her severe astigmatism disqualified her.)

As an undergrad at Princeton she discovered rugby and she reveled in it. I visited once and saw a game and, although I kidded her about being mud covered and with bloody scrapes from contact with some gargantuan woman’s poorly shaven leg, I got it. There was a visceral delight in the game and the team was a great group. It wasn’t for a number of years after Loren died that I started working out and developed a passion for it. I had always been the one with a paintbrush in my hand rather than breaking a sweat, so I think she is probably somewhere getting a pretty good chuckle out of seeing middle aged me doing one legged squats and swinging kettle weights these days.

Cat Chair Photo Sleuth

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Frankly, there are mysterious things that go on with photo purchases I will never understand, and one stumbling on the weirdness of finding photos that must have started life together, or in some sense hail from the same source, and end up being sold by entirely different entities. I have examined this phenomena once or twice before, most memorably in The Mysteries of Felix where several tiny passport size photos of people wearing a Felix mask came to me via different sellers at very different times. In this case I recently purchased the photo above of this toddler in a cat chair – which I happen to think is remarkable enough with that great cat chair. However, it is also amazing that while I purchased this photo from a seller on eBay, located in Maryland (for less than $10) the other, which went on sale at the same time as mine did (was listed at $35) and is being sold by someone in Indiana. My photo has been slipped out of its stand up cardboard frame, long lost no doubt, while the other one still sports its display frame. While there is nothing about the cat chair that allows us to positively identify it, I think the carpet both are set upon is distinctive enough to tell us it was the same photo studio set. I have put them together below so you can see them side-by-side.

Cat Chair Photo, collection Pams-Pictorama.com

Cat chair image not in my collection

If the cryptic writing on the back of my card means what I think it does, my card also originated in Indiana. Here it is below and very hard to read, but look at the bottom, Evansville, Ind.

Back of photo, Pams-Pictorama.com collection

For what it’s worth, I think the kid in my photo is the more winning of the two by far, and meanwhile who wouldn’t be charming perched in a nice cat chair like this one? I have never seen a chair like this before – in a photo or as an object. I reminds me in design of the ashtray stand I have below which I have written about in one of my most popular past posts, Wooden Novelty Co.

Blackie with the cat ashtray holder, Pams-Pictorama.com

Pip Chair, sadly not in my collection

The chair also seems to be something of a kissin’ cousin to the chair the Pip (of Pip, Squeak and Wilfred fame) chair I was unable to purchase in Close Quarters a few weeks ago. It is my assumption that all of the above were designs that could be purchased and executed by the ambitious lay person – however like the photo in Wooden Novelties, could also be purchased fully finished as well. And yes, space or no space, I would snap this cat chair up in an instant given the opportunity!

I assume we will never know the story of these photos, to what degree they belonged together and wandered away from each other. I imagine that there was some sort of a sale where they were purchased by different dealers and turned over on eBay by coincidence at the same time. What we do not know is if the connection is closer – were these siblings and was it an estate sale they came from? I am a bit regretful that they will part company, but they will at least coexist for awhile longer on this blog post.

Lost and Found Photo

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Some strange things happen collecting photos on eBay and there are mysteries that will probably never be solved. I lost the photo at top in a dog fight of an auction back on October 6, 2015. Early this September, just as I was flying out the door for three weeks, more or less, of business travel, these two photos came up and I scored them easily. It is only now, happily re-ensconced in my Manhattan lair, that I have had time to consider the situation. While I knew that the earlier photo was of this particular Mickey eating ice cream ad, I had no idea that one of them was indeed the very same image until I dug it out of our Facebook archive this morning. The surprising part is, speaking at least the photo I now own, it appears to be an original photo – not a photo postcard or commercial reprint in anyway.

These photos are small snapshots in the way early to mid-20th century black and white were. The images here blown up several times their original size which accounts for the slight breakdown of the image – they are sharp enough in person. Mine have the traditional white border around the edges. There is no date or further information on them – and of course I have two from that scene, not one.

Something similar happened to me years ago when I purchased serial photos, first from one group of auctions but then another months or years later, of the same scene of someone wearing an ancient Felix costume and posing with a cat by a car. It can be found in my post, Mysteries of Felix.

The top image is the better of the two for me and is fairly jaunty. The hand rendered, somewhat off-model (yet well rendered) Mickey is holding his ice cream cone victoriously and these kids are happy to be there. It is sort of classic really. The other photo shows a woman who looks a bit tired, carrying this little girl who evidently doesn’t know that ice cream is in the offing. The woman is attractive in her print dress, has earrings and a bracelet – and yet there is something sort of care worn about her. Late 1930’s or early 40’s?

Below is the one I posted on Facebook back in 2015. No border on that version. I guess we’ll never know, but I am glad to add them to my own Pictorama archive.

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Lost on eBay Oct. 6, 2015

Cat Show…Next

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cat-show

Pam’s Pictorama: Okay, so you might think this is sort of crazy, but I have wanted this photo for a very long time! The first time I lost it for a very high sum, outbid on eBay in a sniping dogfight. The second time, the card had some blue ink writing on it which was disappointing, but I did bid – and was again, outbid for a sizable sum. Strangely, almost immediately, this fairly pristine copy turned up…for very little. I bid…and won! It was a very good day to be a cat card collector.

I don’t know exactly why I kept going to war to get this card, but I am not disappointed. The pretty woman, holding this fine specimen of a dog, both posing for the camera, appear to be coming from the dog show. One wonders if Cat Show Next means this way or next week, for example. Then, down at the bottom where I didn’t notice it for a long time, in tiny white drop out print Beastly Affairs. And apropos of nothing, can I just note how much I love this woman’s whacky hat? It is like a tiny, flowering garden perched on her head.

This card was mailed on September 9, 1909! It arrived in my mailbox almost exactly 107 years after it was originally postmarked in Winthrop, MA. In a not especially neat hand, written on the back is, I see Alic [sic] today and addressed simply, Mr. Gilford Martin, Amherst, New Hampshire. Also on the back the following is printed at the bottom, This card is a REAL PHOTOGRAPH on bromide paper. The Rotograph Co., N.Y. City, Printed in England.

For whatever reason, this photo also reminds me of one of my favorite Our Gang shorts, the one with Pete and the dog show, Pups is Pups which of course ends with dozens of dogs let loose and racing around in a wonderful doggy melee. The kind which is magnificent onscreen, but would of course, be quite something else in reality. Speaking of reality, while looking for the link to Pups is Pups above, I found this very nifty short of Pete with his trainer which I had never seen. Enjoy! Pete Rare Training Film, Little Rascals’ Pete the Pup

Effie Myers

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kim

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This year, several posts are photos or advertising that, freakishly and by coincidence, have September anniversaries. This card which has the date September 17, 1911 written on the back is celebrating its 105th anniversary today – to the day! In the same hand is written Miss Sofie Myers, in pen. In another hand, in pencil, Effie Myers and the old home place is scrawled at the top. It is stamped with Photo by E.F. Baker, Siddonsburg, Pa. It was never mailed.

In a sense I keep buying this photo again and again. Seems I cannot resist someone posing with their pets in a garden, sun streaming down on them. Effie, in her beautiful white dress and locket pendant, holding a splendid black kitty and with her lovely pooch laying in front of her, is an optimal version. She is on a blanket and seated on some fluffy large pillows, the white picket fence behind her, sun hitting it. It is as beautiful a September afternoon as any of us could wish for, even 105 years later. (Although I cannot complain, we in New York City seem to be enjoying one almost as nice today.) She has her beloved pets and is in what we will assume is the yard of the family’s old home place. However, there is a hint there of eventual change and dislocation in that note, triggering homesickness too. Where was the new homestead? Was everyone happy there too?

As I send some of these missives honoring September weekends long passed, I will be traveling far from home, in Europe. It will be beautiful where I am going, but I will be missing that fast changing September light of New York which reminds us of back-to-school in years passed and the approach of the shorter days of fall, only about a week away. I am already a bit homesick for Kim and cats and have not even yet packed my bags!

Kitty Sextette Singers

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Skim

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I concede that I have been completely unable to find a trace of what the heck this item is and any information about Amos of Hollywood, let alone the charming cat sextette represented here. The cat chorale is made up of largely striped cats, but there’s one stand out white kitty and of course my favorite is the all black cat which is represented almost entirely and solely by his glowing eyes. Another black kit is the maestro conductor, perched on his hind legs to add a purpose to his position. The illusion is, of course, to a noisy bunch of backyard felines driving hopes of sleep away, but I would love to find these songsters on my fence.

If you look carefully you will realize that the photo is a composite of numerous photos, six as far as I can tell. (It is easiest to see if you look at the sidewalk.) I cannot entirely identify, but I believe the cats on top of the fence were all stripped in later as well. There is some loss to the photo where you can see bits of white. A nice, tiny moon has been placed in the upper left corner. I am sure that the conductor cat holds his baton only through the magic of the darkroom. The poster for the Hollywood Bowl shows a date of July 7-August 28, but no year appears any place on the card to identify it. And what are the dogs up to? Are they appreciative audience? Chorus as back-up to the cats? Or are they getting ready to chase them?

And finally, does Amos of Hollywood refer to the black conductor cat? I cannot find anything, but Amos and Andy when I attempt to search it. T.K. Hastings has also disappeared as far as I can tell. This card is about 8″x 5″ and I assume it was some sort of lobby display, although a bit small for that. I purchased it off of eBay and admit I was the only taker, but I am delighted. I stumbled on it under an obscure listing. With the damage to the corner I will try to get it framed as soon as possible and up on the wall. In the meanwhile, I offer it to you all for your delectation. May dreams of cat choruses dance in your head tonight.

Moo Marvelous

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: For some reason it seems that there have always been folks who were willing to put on a costume and join forces to portray a four legged critter. It is easier to find references to people, usually kids like these, in pageants playing horses, although Christmas pageants would probably need cows like this one too. Obviously, there are jokes and references aplenty to playing the back end of a horse – as well as one rather entertaining description of actually doing it which I found online. To me this costume looks like a well executed homemade one. I suspect for comfort sake however, the boy we see leading the duo probably lucked out.

This is a photograph, not a photo postcard although about the same size, and it has the black bits of paper on the back that show it was in an album. There was something written on the back that starts with cow, but is now obscured. It is hard to say but my guess is the late 1930’s or early 1940’s for this photo, but I am open to suggestions.

I have a well documented affection for animal costumes. For my money, the film of The Dancing Pig 1907 is the very best example of the genre. However, I will always perk up at the sight of a good animal costume or mask in play. I recently published a Pictorama Post on a book I bought years ago, How to Put on a Circus, and it was chock-a-block full of step-by-step instructions for constructing a myriad of animal costumes at home. This clearly required that you were at least a very capable seamstress, comfortable wielding a hammer and nails, and not a stranger to other somewhat esoteric crafting skills so building those costumes is likely to remain a pipe dream for us here at Pictorama.

Alfred Latell, also a blog post of the same name based on an early photo postcard, rose to fame in vaudeville as a one-man version of a dog and poking around on the internet leads me to believe that, perhaps for obvious reasons, vaudevillians most frequently embraced solo portrayals of even the largest animals. However, recently Kim and I watched the film Varieties on Parade 1951 (a shout out to friend Bruce Simon who sent it our way) and there is a hot five minutes where two guys dance in a horse costume. They are remarkably light on their feet and for me, worth the price of admission right there. Bring on more dancing animals I say!

Nice Kitty

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Scan(3)

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This snapshot came out of a album by the look of the back of it, and with the highlighted title Nice Kitty preserved as well. There is no date and it seems timeless other than to say my guess about the printing is the 1940’s or later. This is a pretty fine cat costume and I would have enjoyed owning it myself. I do hope there is a tail somewhere even though it isn’t in view of the camera. And of course, I would have preferred it in black, or black and white. Nonetheless, this little girl is enjoying her role and is nicely crouched for the camera in a kitty pose.

Although the idea of a childhood Pam dressing up as a cat would seem self-evident, I do not believe I ever had the honor. These days you can purchase such nice cat ear hair bands and tails that one can put together a very fine outfit indeed. I do own a pair of cat ears, black fur with orange sequins lining the insides. I bought them more than a decade ago when my cat Otto was still around. I remember the first time I put them on and showed her. Clearly, although cats may not see things in detail they understand outlines, and mine had just turned into a giant cat. Her eyes widened briefly and then she gave me an utterly disgusted look and backed away, almost shaking her head in dismay. Her expression was exactly the same as someone who had just heard a racist joke and was deeply offended.

Pet Family Photo

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I fell hard for these photos as soon as I saw them. This young woman in her turn-of-the-century outfit holding her cat – who is making a piss-cat face, as we call it in this house, disdain at having been detained for the photo taking activity. The woman has one dog on her lap and her hand placed gently on the other, her affection for her pets is clear. Whoever printed this photo lightened the area around her a bit with some darkroom magic, as there is a subtle halo around her and the animals as a result. And then, not to be left out, the third dog was taken on the same bench (he required a bit of lightening up too I think) and framed together and the two make a whole family portrait. I guess they couldn’t round him up for the other photo? Whoever did it has him posed pitch perfect to create this double portrait.

The practice of matting photos this way is long gone and I am not even sure how one had it done. The one that has slipped cannot be moved back – it is not loose in the mat, although it looks that way. It pleases me that these photos will likely always be together this way. This photo has some other developing, chemical issues that have emerged over time, the silver shine at the bottom of the single dog is some sort of chemical wonk that has emerged.

Despite the need for some printing intervention, the light in these photos is wonderful – drifting down from above. Dreamy, late afternoon sun falling on the leaves and trees. This photo duo came from Great Britain and there is something distinctly British about the garden and the light. The young woman is looking up at the camera, almost shyly, still clearly the queen with her animal subjects and of all around her.