old photo

Another Jaunty Felix at the Beach

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  This was the second of two recent purchases. It took a long time to get to me, but it was well worth the wait. Felix strikes an especially good pose. It is as if he is saying, “Come on Jack, let’s blow out of here and find some real fun!” The man seems to be fully at ease – this despite the fact that he is wearing a suit at the beach. Looking further into the background we have lots of women in long cotton dresses and hats – it was a beach with a dress code I guess. A lovely looking beach resort, somewhere in Britain, roaring away in 1920’s full cry. Felix seems to have interrupted this man’s newspaper reading, but no mind – perhaps they are discussing the day’s racing results together.

This postcard is unused, undated and with no indication of location. I have found that these Felix photo postcards are rarely postally used, written on or dated. Clearly you had one taken and kept it for your own enjoyment. I saw my first version of these postcards in a book (the definitive book really) about Felix call Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World’s Most Famous Cat, by John Canemaker. That one, and the ones I was to subsequently find and purchase initially, were people posing with more or less human sized Felix-es. Some even made me wonder if there was a small person inside a Felix costume. In recent years I have found more photos of the sort shown here – larger than a large toy, but definitely not a midget in a Felix suit. Easier for an itinerant photographer to wander the beach with his tripod and camera equipment hawking a photo with Felix I suppose. You had to be set up in a stationary place to set up with the really big fellow.

Unsurprisingly, I have long searched for one of these giant Felix doll props. I came close years ago when someone I was conversing with on eBay said he had one in a storage locker – and then he disappeared! Oh the frustration! You know though that I plan to hunt one down one of these days – and if you stick around you’ll all know about it.

From Your Loving Sister

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: At first glance this photograph was all about the foliage for me. I have a real thing for masses of climbing leafy and flowering foliage in high definition like this photo has. A 19th century garden of Eden. Then I focused on the three woman who are so clearly related – especially the one in the middle and the one on the right. Those two (and the cat) staring right at the camera. A formidable group! It is from Britain and is clearly very early. I have yet to identify the exact photo process, but like some others I have mentioned previously, it has a hard shine on it and a slight moire effect when photographed. (It drove poor Kim crazy getting it right when scanning.) I don’t know if this is a form of deterioration or just the nature of it. The definition of the print shows the large negative off to a real advantage.

This card was not mailed. However, written on the back in black pen is, To My New Brother From your loving sisters Elsie. And below that in pencil Family from Sutton Coldfield. Our friend at Google maps tells me that is the Midlands in the UK. As I mentioned, no doubt that these women are related. So interesting how some families, or even just a few people within a family can end up looking so much alike – others, not so much. At one time my brother and I (sporting similar haircuts) looked so much alike that someone I worked with walked up to him at a club in Manhattan and said, “You must be Pam Butler’s brother.”
Of course this card found its way to me because of that great cat. Very much a voting member of that family he has a place of pride, dead center in the photo and he looks right at New Brother – you can almost see him thinking, Yeah, Buddy, me too. Wanna make something of it?

Try a Skyrocket!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:This was a surprising find – it is a press photo of the Our Gang kids. It is dated July 28, 1925 and says, The Cleveland News, Reference (something I can’t read) Cleveland, Ohio. Also written on the back it says, Don’t Hitch Your Wagon to a Star! Try a Skyrocket! Here are the diminutive Pathy comedians of Roach’s “Our Gang” celebrating the Fourth in their own fashion. Quite the fire crackers, yes? I have always thought that if I was going to have a still from Our Gang that I would want one of the crazy machines or cars in it and this is pretty dandy, even though it isn’t a still, but a photo made expressly for this purpose. I just wish they could have gotten Pete up there too! The photo is a collage montage of images and the “flames” shooting out the back and the lines indicating speed seem to have actually been scratched onto the negative. Very resourceful.

Like many people, I guess, some of my earliest television memories is a wonderful, never-ending unspooling of Our Gang and Little Rascal shorts on weekend afternoons. These films informed our childhoods and convinced us that we should have a neighborhood gang of kids and dogs, and be capable of building glorious fire engine go-carts, our own taxi cabs, other cars, and club houses – and sit around eating huge cream puff donuts the like of which you never see in real life. (Having said that, I actually finally had a cream puff donut of the kind I am describing the other day – it was on special at Le Pain Quotidien and I split it with a friend – absolutely glorious. I now understand why they were always longing for them in the shorts.) It was years before it occurred to me that those wonderful go-carts and club houses were built by talented adults with virtually endless resources – not a superior kind of extinct child from an earlier generation. It was probably good to have the bar set high however.

Although I watched them all with impunity, it was the earliest generation of them that I liked best. (However, I did not catch up with the silent ones until adulthood so I am thinking of the first generation of sound ones.) I loved this image when I saw it and it set me thinking about a short where they do indeed build a rocket and take off around the neighborhood. Surely there was one like that, wasn’t there?

Tom the Bruiser

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Tom the Bruiser

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Tom is my kinda fella. What a guy! I have long harbored a passion for six-toed (polydactyl?) cats. A commercial card, the copyright information at the bottom reads, No. 5. Copyright 1908, by E. G. Harris, Denver, Colorado. E.G. Harris seems to have had a line of animal novelty cards, but I can’t find much information about them as a company. The back of the card reads, in a child’s handwriting, Dear Cousin Elsie, how are you. we are all well. why don’t you write. answer this card soon. from your loving cousin, Ollie Nitsch. It is addressed to Miss Elsie Pugler, Ellis Kansas. It is dated November 21, 5 PM. You can’t read the 1908, but Ollie dated it as well. Isn’t it interesting that people rarely seem to comment on the photo on the card they send?

Tom clearly spent his sixteen years living hard, and either lost those ears fighting, or was perhaps also a short-ear to begin with. Those six-toed feet look like little boxing gloves on him. Hemingway was famously said to be partial to extra-toed cats, having been given one by a ship’s captain. Evidently polydactyls were prized for ship’s cats and considered good luck to have on board. One imagines that those extra toes might have made for superior mousing ability. When I was a kid I was told all the six-toed cats came from Boston and were descended from a single cat who arrived on board a ship.

One of my very best cat friends was a multi-toed cat – I believe she had seven, not six on each foot, but one was sort of small and hard to see. She had large thumbs and her front toes seemed oddly jointed and made her look like she was standing on tip toes. She was a calico and her name was Winkie. Winks, named by my brother who was very small at the time, was a wickedly smart cat and somehow those giant paws with thumbs made her appear like she was evolving into a new kind of superhuman cat. She had silky soft hair and was endlessly happy to be held and petted. Winkie discovered a stair she could sit on which would allow her to look out a door window and to the driveway when waiting for me to come home from a date; I would be greeted with a meow. She was a chatty cat. There are many stories about Winkie (she taught herself to use the toilet for one), but for now I will mention that she actually replaced an earlier multi-toed kitten who only lived a few days. My father had been filming a story with Roger Caras (famous reporter of all things animal) and brought the little guy home. Sadly he died in his sleep a few days later. When a friend of my mother’s heard that the kitten had died suddenly she sent us Winkie, fresh off a farm in South Jersey.

I have not had a cat with extra toes since Winkie, but remain convinced they are indeed special and I feel an extra sort of kinship with any and all I meet which is why I snatched up this card immediately.

With love from Puss

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: God bless the British and their devoted postcard writing at the turn of the century! So many nice cards and notes as here. This card was sent to B. Grey, at 144 Grosvenor Terrace, Camberwell, SE, from Folkestone and is postmarked March 11, 1909, 11 PM. On the back the following is written in fountain pen ink, Dear Bobbie, I know how fond you are of cats so I have sent you on the photo of our cat. I hope to come to see your mother soon. I hope you are all keeping well. Yours lovingly, Ruth.

Puss certainly is a handsome and fluffy specimen of cat, perched on a very romantic looking roof. It would seem the roof was easy access to all given how unconcerned kitty and, we’ll assume photographer, are here.  I am sorry that the chemicals seem to have gone a bit hinky, although Kim does what he can to reduce the moire effect produced by this. I love the soft dark edges though, like a still from a silent film. We will assume Bobby enjoyed it, given the evidence that it is still here with us, over 100 years later.

Scan(2) copy

Hotsy-Totsy!

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Scan

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It was not, and is not really, my intention to start collecting early, risqué photo postcard of women and cats – although there seems to be a deep French tradition of these photos and cards to be explored.  This one got me, in part, because it is a sharply composed photo – all the angles are sort of just right. And there is that super, nicely jointed, little teddy bear she is holding and teasing kit with.

But really I bought it because I like how peeved the cat looks. He has no intention of smiling for the camera – he is most interested in attacking that nice little teddy bear, goddamnit! He is moments away from pouncing and I can imagine that a moment after the shutter clicked he attacked the bear – as well as the arm and the hand holding it. There was probably yelling and maybe even hissing. The cat looks like a nice, big, tabby Tom who knows his way around – hunting mice in that photo studio – a denizen who enjoyed the cushy pillows and soft throws when no one is needing them, layering them in cat hair. Not a prissy kitty at all, but a fellow who knew when and how to sing for his supper as photo prop nonetheless.

Got Milk!

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XO#3

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: For a professional photo postcard, this one runs a bit dark and has a strange metallic glare on it that some old photos seem to get from poor developing – tired hypo? Kim has lightened it a bit for your viewing pleasure which does reduce this effect and makes it much more viewable. It is postally unused and the bottom reads, Direct to Consumer, Copyright, 1907 by  Louis N. Gishwiller. Almeda, Kansas. Quick research only serves to confirm Louis Gishwiller as a photographer in Almeda and that there seem to be prominent descendants who remained active in the life of Almeda subsequently.

At the same time I purchased this I was bidding on another, more homemade one, which I am guessing came from the same collection. Lost that one sorry to say; it would have been nice to keep them together.

This cow/milk/cat concept has long fascinated me. I guess it starts with someone squirting the cat square in the face with some milk straight from the udder and the cat liking it. Cats probably hang out because of the smell of milk anyway. Still, cats don’t especially like getting their face soaked so I figure they must really like the taste of the milk to stand for it.

We are now told that milk is not so good for cats and I have not put any out for a cat in years. However when I was a kid, I used to put a saucer of milk out for my cat Pumpkin nightly, from the time he was a little fellow. (I have written about this glorious orange tabby most recently here in Ahoy! Cats at Sea.) Pumpkin adored his saucer of milk and he would settle in and polish it off in one go, his enormous striped tail slowing waving back in forth in appreciation as he drank it down. Although Cookie and Blackie will not know the joys of a milk nightcap, it should be said that Pumpkin lived to be north of 18 years old it did not seem to harm him substantially in any way.

More Strange Cat Costumes

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Horsie and cat

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I feel the need to confide upfront that the image of this photo has been enhanced by the magic of Photoshop at the gifted hands of my multi-talented husband. (Yay Kim!) In fact, I wanted to confirm that it was going to be possible to bring out the image before I purchased it and he fiddled with the eBay scan first. Sadly, it is so light that it is hard to make out – although clearly the information exists in the image or making it darker would not improve it. The image is so bizarre and interesting however, that I couldn’t let it slip by and purchased it, so here we are.

That bit of disclosure out of the way – wowzers! What odd photo indeed! These very indulged children do not look especially pleased or entertained despite the glory of the scene, starting with that splendid horse cart, drawn by that perky pony and those two wonderful colts frolicking nearby. Then there is the handsomely dressed woman on the perfect white horse, riding side saddle – and the view which is something out of a Hudson River School landscape. But of course, what makes it all and has me stop in wonder is that outrageous cat costumed individual in the cart! A glorious costume which is so fluffy that he takes up the entire back of the cart. The mind boggles – did he dress up weekly or even daily for their entertainment? Was there a time when all wealthy children had adults dressing in animal costumes for their entertainment and I have just failed to hear about it? While I do not know their story, I can only hope that were I such a lucky child that I would enjoy it more than they appear to be. However, we will never know.

Mascot – U.S.S. Custodian

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XO#8

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I never would have guessed how many photos of cats on ships I would acquire over time. I do find these photos irresistible. The stalwart cats of the sea – the preferred mascot for ships, probably due to their predilection for mice and rats which must abound in the cargo and supply areas of these ships. There seems to be real affection for them – hence the photos, many which include a crew member holding them. It is almost an archetype – hard to imagine a dog being a ship’s mascot. This photo postcard is unused and I can find no information on the T.S.S. Custodian.

This scrappy fellow presents his own archetype of  elder statesmen tabbies.  Ears intact, he hasn’t spent his life scrapping with other kitties, but looking at this barrel chested fellow you can imagine that more than a few rodents fell under his claw paws! He probably knew just where and when to prowl the galley in time for a hand-out too.

I have mentioned Zipper, an alley cat rescue who joined our family when I was still quite little. (See prior post, Old Tommy for more on Zipper.) Zips was very grateful for his adoption, but despite having been rescued when he was very young, he never transcended his alley cat roots. His tail, cruelly broken before he came to us, remained perpetually downturned and crooked at the tip. He lived cheerfully among us, but somehow never quite fully domesticated. Zipper ruled our neighborhood with a roving band of fellow kitty miscreants and there will be many future posts devoted to his antics. Still, as I write this I realize that I don’t believe we have a single photo of Zipper. I don’t remember him ever sitting on a lap or accepting more than a few occasional pets. Our large, gentle cat Snoopy, endured him with a bit of a sniff. Snoopy was top cat of the house, but didn’t need the title of King Cat of Waterman Avenue which seems to have belonged to Zipper.

When I was about 12 we moved several blocks away. Zipper, however, refused to make the move and returned repeatedly to his stomping ground. Luckily, there was an elderly neighbor who had a soft spot for him and said she would take him in. Zipper never had to give up his title and fight for new turf, and when he was ready to retire we were pleased to know he had the devotion of someone who doted on him, fed him delicacies and gave him a proverbial place by the fire.

Little Red Riding Hood

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Sometimes even I am amazed at the unexpected things that turn up in this tiny apartment. The other day I came across this which I had purchased early in my photo collecting career and tucked away. While I do remember the purchase, on eBay, it was like it was new.

It is a photo postcard and it is printed upside down on the postcard paper – and sloppily as you can see, overexposed and with a messy bottom edge. Still, what a wonderfully whack-a-doodle card this is! Clearly an interesting and homemade (and somewhat terrifying) take on the Little Red Riding Hood story – the “wolf” a bit cat-like (which might explain how it even ended up in my hands) but that axeman more than scary enough to keep any wolf in line. Little Red Riding Hood pales somewhat in comparison to her angelic cohorts who seem to be additions to the story. Grandma does not seem to make the scene at all. By necessity, their story seems to take place on the barren prairie rather than the forest. Still, one assumes a good time was had by all and that it was one heck of a show.

Oddly, the writing on the back of the postcard makes no reference to the image. A neat script on the back says, I suppose you are farming now. I hope you were not sick long. Mrs. Walsh. It is addressed to Max McCandless, St. John, Kansas. It is not stamped and therefore there is no postmark date.

The Little Red Riding Hood story has always interested me. I loved the outfit – the red riding hood I suppose. I grew up on a sanitized version of the story where the woodsman just saved Little Red from the wolf – it was a while before I encountered the original where she has to be cut out of the wolf’s tummy. Ick. I always felt badly for that wolf whose sweet tooth for picnic baskets, little girls and grandmas got him in a whole lot of trouble.