Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This card wandered into the house last night, in a pile of interesting mail, especially robust as we hadn’t picked up our mail in a few days – more on that in a bit. It was nestled against a wonderfully long, newsy letter from our friends Pete (Poplaski) and Rika in France. Kim read the letter aloud to me while killing time before picking up take out. A delightful distraction, but resulting in my just having a good look at the card now.
I have a weakness for photos of men with cats (see early posts here and here) and a dog seems like a bonus round. Since Spike is the only name in evidence I will speculate that it belongs to the dog or the man? Neither disinterested kit looks like a Spike. This is a photo postcard and nothing is written on the back. The card was never mailed.
From a very early Pictorama post, Men and Cats.Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
If we look closely this chap is posing on the flat roof of a house, the eve of the house next door confirming this speculation. (The house in Jersey has such a flat roof out the bathroom window, but no plans for us to climb out onto it in the foreseeable future. Given the roof issues I’ve had with that part of the house I would say likely never.) This is evidently an old house with tatty, long and worn wooden shudders that look like they have done real window protecting work, hence their dilapidation. A bit of a decorative railing appears to one side of that and I wonder if the actual balcony was in theory limited to that area.
Our human is sporting a suit and tie, hat perched atop his head, and a big grin. He is sitting on a chair of which there is very little evidence – I thought at first he was squatting in order to get everyone into the frame at first. The cats, a lovely little tuxie and a somewhat spotty white one, are obediently perched on each leg.
Bonus video of Blackie considering a water “fountain” a friend sent him as he demands bathroom sink water constantly. While entertained by it not sure he actually “gets” it yet.
The dog, who wears a hefty collar, is at his feet and has a somewhat concerned look if we peer closely. The trees behind him and into the distance have leaves but seem vaguely half-hearted, perhaps it is fall and their denuding has begun. A very careful look at the horizon reveals a few other rooftops and more beyond, but that and the sky are completely burned out.
Evidence of our battle with the Afrin bottle. Bloody but now bowed.
Zipping back to life here in New York City. Those of you who follow me on Instagram may have already seen allusions to Covid having come to visit Deitch Studio. Shown above is the evidence of Kim and I going to war with a bottle of Afrin whose childproof cap proved to be largely human proof. We ultimately scored a victory over it, but it cost Kim a bad cut on his drawing thumb and a less significant one on my wrist. (My thanks to him for his sacrifice to help clear my head!)
Kim, who was felled first, seems to have reached the shores on the other side of well while I am getting there, slowly. Cats are very spoiled, with a lot of me petting and treat time – all discipline with them out the window in my malaise. All this to say, there are some great toys waiting to make their debut, a belated birthday to ultimately celebrate. Hopefully I can tackle some of these with renewed tomorrow.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Pausing some wonderful birthday related acquisitions to show you this pair of cards I bought recently on Instagram from one of my favorite sellers @baileighfaucz.h. (She has a great eye and routinely offers wonderful pics – if money was no issue I’d be buying constantly.) This is a bit of an odd, one off post so apologies for taking this tributary today, away from my more traditional toy and feline exploits.
It isn’t unheard of, but a bit unusual for me as photo purchases go these days, although I always say it is about following your nose. Clearly no cats here, but these immediately caught my eye. They were not technically sold together but clearly, as is sometimes the case, just belong together.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
If anything, these look a bit like photos I might have taken as I was deeply interested in landscape photos for a long time, generally taken with a variety of early cameras and processes. I would like to go back to it some day and now that I have the space in New Jersey I may convert a bathroom into a darkroom. Renting adequate space here in the greater Manhattan area just became too dear.
Timeless landscapes like these have a very calming effect on me – as did the hiking and outdoor time that it took to take them. I like my landscapes with no sign of modern life or human intervention – completely timeless. There is an odd calming response when I look at them.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
It doesn’t take me to say that the photographer had a great eye. The one with the few puffy clouds and no fence is the one I spotted first. It is the more bleak of the two – there’s something about the other one which is more optimistic, hopeful. It is a better tended bit of land and the hand of humans is more evident. In that one there’s something about where the fence and path converge, with the trees visually just touching. I like the way the fence posts fade out into the distance too. It takes you with it.
However, the wilder one if you will, of the two is where the imagination roams a bit. A bit bleak yes, but also promising possibility and the potential for wonder around that bend. Together they make such a visually pleasing combination – I probably can’t really recreate it here but have tried my best.
I am somewhat curious that these are photo postcards. They are beautiful photos, but somehow don’t seem to fit that bill. (It seems unfortunate to think of them marred in the mail and not surprisingly, they were not ever mailed. They are fairly pristine if a tad darkened with age.
Although there is not much room on the walls here in at Deitch Studio I would like to frame them, together and put them at eye level somewhere so I can gaze at them once in awhile and take myself to wherever and whatever time that was.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Although some would certainly argue that Deitch Studio’s decor is Halloween each and every day of the year, in reality we don’t really do holiday decorations here. When I was younger I made room for a small artificial Christmas tree (a future post about my mother and her feelings about real trees) and an oversized light up Santa. As cats do, ours at the time liked it very much, pretending they were in a forest fairyland, and I did too. However, the one room that makes up the apartment has grown, well, smaller and smaller over time. Logistically, figuring out a spot where we could negotiate around it became impossible.
Halloween on the other hand was tempting and the door to the apartment beckoned at first. Living in a high rise building at least has the advantage of a safe indoor public space for display. You do soon learn that to decorate your door implies bounties of candy within and Kim and I realized we weren’t really ready for the rapacious distribution center that a building like ours becomes on Halloween. It also occurs early enough that I am generally still at the office and would fall entirely on Kim.
As for New Jersey, for now, my itinerant lifestyle means I decorate broadly for the season. I planted mums in the front yard and bought some pumpkins – a few “ugly” and one regular. These will give way after Thanksgiving to a wreath, maybe some greens on the railings.
Eventually I hope to go all out for the holidays there and give way to some vintage German decorations for Halloween, perhaps a tasteful black cat or two outside, since it is the House of Seven Cats. Christmas too! I’d love a little tree and I am shopping for the right vintage Santa for the living room. I am sad that my grandmother’s decorations disappeared to the four winds, and occasionally I look for their type on eBay – a certain china Santa, a kind of creche.
All that being said, there isn’t as much festive Halloween decorating here as you might think. However, this card just surfaced on my desk (think of my desk as being like an ocean of stuff where things disappear and are randomly thrown back up for discovery periodically), and sadly I am not sure who thoughtfully sent it to me and Kim. It is a reproduction of a very fine card indeed and even as a reproduction it is fairly old. Thank you!
The poem is hard to read but it says:
A very rare sight on Halloween night Is a black cat prowling by candle light If it should be your luck to see – Long life is yours – prosperity.
Oddly it would appear that this flame, which contains the cat and the clever standing mouse or really rat given his size, is almost like a carrot or turnip, or more likely pumpkin reference – if you consider the green bits growing from the bottom. Maybe a squash as a pumpkin sort of tribute? The greens and jack-o-lanterns are very cheerful and decorative which makes you forget the squash-ness/pumpkin-ness.
The cat rides the witchy broom and the rat rides the cat! This nice black kitty sports a ruff around his or her neck and holds a candle, while this wizard-y rat sits on his haunches with this pointed hat atop his head. Wouldn’t I just love to see that sight on a Halloween night! I mean, who wouldn’t?
As things stand now I will be in Manhattan for Halloween and although I expect to see a lot of dogs in costume (an occupational treat), rats certainly abound here and I even have a black cat (or two, although Beau is in Jersey) so it isn’t quite impossible, now is it?
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I am in New Jersey and mulling through a few postcards and photos that I have here, deciding what I want to treat you all to today. This postcard comes from a friend in Canada who occasionally releases a few tidbits from his collection for purchase. This postcard was in a small lot I purchased a few months back. It has an unfortunate tear. Think of it as a Valentine’s Day warm up.
There is writing all over this card but I am unable to decode much of it. It appears that it was sent by someone’s Aunt Brik? The back is addressed to a Miss Ruthie Thompson at an illegible address in Toronto, Canada. Despite the address, there is no postmark and just a spot where a one cent stamp was requested.
Another example of Sullivan’s work. Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
The title at the top is a big high toned for the scrappy black cat pictured as the love interest of this beribboned white haired boy kitty who says, Come and Kiss Me. An irate fellow (perhaps trying to sleep) is at the window getting ready to pitch something at them. An anthropomorphic moon looks on, concerned. A cartoon balloon over the white cat says, Come and kiss me!
Another pithy postcard by Sullivan. Not in my collection.
This card is one in a series of cards by the artist, P. D. Sullivan. As below, each of the cards in this series has a pithy phrase at the top. While these other cards turned up, no biographical information appeared on the same search. However, it seems like he was quite prolific.
Tiny stickers, largest is about two inches high. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Packed in with this card and a few other things, were these two small but sort of wonderful cat stickers. While both are common images, they are small but nice! Back in the day I would have wanted tons of these to decorate envelopes, cards and notes! They have glue on the back and would have become sticky with a bit of water from a sponge or tip of the tongue, a somewhat antiquated idea I guess too – in a world where even postage stamps peel and press on.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It has been well publicized that New York City has been snowless (some might say snow free) for a 700 day streak which we just broke last week. There is (some) snow on the ground as I write. As a generally glass half full kind of girl I like snow and usually can immerse myself in the romance of it. It’s pretty. It covers the city in a temporary blanket of white, briefly hiding a multitude of sins. Of course on the other side you have to accept drippy messy days as it melts and a reality of black ice underfoot.
My first day of work was the snowy day and I have ended up wearing my snow boots to the job each day. This job and I have an odd track record for extreme weather as I interviewed during a historic rain which triggered mass flooding in the city. I’m not sure of what the broader implications are for the meteorological effects of my working at this animal hospital are going to be under the circumstances! Considering my commute is a walk a little more than a mile each way to and from work, weather is going to matter. (There is a pokey bus, but I am generally too impatient to wait for it.) This week’s snow was a mostly decorative not inhibitive one.
A bigger snow out our window from 2022.
In anticipation and celebration of impending snow I picked up this odd postcard. I have never seen a similar snowman costume and I wonder how long this kid, or any kid, was a willing participant. His hands are entirely covered in the cotton batting that makes his suit. The snowy batting gives him the requisite round head and suggests a rounded body, especially if you add in his arms. Those thorny looking sticks remind me of something Krampus carries. A crushed and not quite jaunty hat with a bird atop finishes the look.
The writing declares, Happy New Year! There is a sort of a full moon behind him with a few more birds atop it. If you look carefully you can see a dark line to define it was added and also that there is a white layer of snow gathered on top. Snowflakes in the form of white paint cover the surface as well, offering some depth to the very artificial scene.
Back of card.
This card was mailed on December 27, but the year is indistinct. It may be 1908. It is addressed in pencil on the back to, Miss Margaret Cosgrove, New Hampton, Orange Co. NY. The sender is harder to read, but is something along the lines of Bob Bruening Batt HH St. TA AEH. It is also marked, Soldiers Mail in the same hand and stamped As Censored and noted in a different hand, in pen, O.K. E.P. Woodard, 1st Lt. 21st F.A.(?) There is no personal note however.
While my first instinct is a childlike enthusiasm for the white stuff, it does impede my running and generally gums things up and slows them down. In New Jersey the driveway and sidewalk have to be cleared. Somehow the world no longer really stops for a snow day the way it did when you were a kid and school was called off. However, I will try to cultivate a cheerful attitude about it since I think we see more snow ahead here in New York City in the coming months.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Back in February I posted about my recent birthday trip downtown which included a brief foray at the flea market on 26th Street. (That post can be found here.) While there, I quietly picked up this rather splendid postcard to give Kim three days later for Valentine’s Day. It has never been used and there was no writing on it. There is some solarization I cannot quite get rid of when I photograph it. Mostly it has a wonderful and whacky sensibility which I thought would appeal to Kim’s taste.
The seller at the flea market had just a few random letters so I was fortunate to find a D among them, however it also turned out to be an especially good photo from this series. The lyrical looking woman holds apple (?) blossoms in front of this great scene of the two children (girls perhaps) having a photo shoot complete with box camera, tucked inside the letter if you will. We see nothing but the feet and back of one, and the other posing prettily, dressed up, primped, furbelowed and curled, with a flower in hand. A photo within a photo.
The D is painted, as is the scenery landscape beyond the children and somehow they have melded the photograph pieces together by a delicate operation of painted blooms and clouds. It is pretty seamless and I have a bit of a hard time deconstructing how this was put together. As one online source questioned – is it really a photo postcard? It is certainly a hybrid and the photo over painting and photo is delightfully many layered.
Letter P not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
I devoted part of the morning to looking for more of these and some information online. (A pleasant trip down a postcard rabbit hole I will say.)They were produced by the Rotograph Company and one source says this series is from 1914. The woman always poses, usually with a floral flourish, in front of the letter and the children appear in tableaus behind her, usually two but sometimes three as in the P I grabbed online below. I like the P, although not as much as the D. For me the two cheeky little girls, sort of up in the tree that makes the P really put it over.
The B isn’t in my collection either and I find it a tad disappointing.
In a continuing search for our initials, I found the B, but like it least of all. Despite the pup in front and a very sweet view of a home in the distance, I find the woman and children less interesting in this arrangement.
To my dismay and surprise, the K turns out to be a bit rarified and I was unable to find a photo of it to examine or snatch for my examination. Instead I offer you the letter E which I found a bit compelling along the way although it doesn’t do us much good. The woman is back in her floral mode and the two kids are hanging out in the middle of the E under an umbrella. I like the sort of marshy scene.
I just like the E, but also not in my collection. I’d grab it though.
There is a hand tinted version below, but I can’t say I think the tinting improves them really.
A hand colored version for comparison. Not in my collection.
Now the D is framed and has a place of pride on the wall, as you head into our kitchen – just across from a wall of Felix photos and under the Little Orphan Annie and Sandy wax cloth dolls.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Here at Pictorama we have been known to indulge the off-model, the fraudulent and in the case of Felix, sometimes even the somewhat demonic period renderings of his visage. Unlike the iron hand of Disney, Pat Sullivan (a faker himself who claimed to draw Felix when it was in fact Otto Messmer) didn’t seem to have the bandwidth to control the proliferation of fake Felix-es, especially those being churned merrily out by the British.
These jolly, and some might point out occasionally terrifying, toys form the bedrock of the Pictorama toy box. And yes, they leer happily over us in bed each night from their various shelf perches. (Some posts featuring those free-form Felix, presumably unlicensed, toys can be found here and here, just for starters.) Meanwhile, eBay listings for Felix may cover everything from Krazy Kat (see yesterday’s post about his identity crisis here) to, oddly, Mickey Mouse.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection. A seriously off-model Felix toy!
In his two-dimensional incarnation I have some examples of liberties taken as well. In my possession is a set of postcards made from stencils one could purchase for this purpose. The hand traced and colored results can be found occasionally in the sorting through of Felix memorabilia. A post about these cards before I knew about some postcards made from the stencils can be found here.
Felix Porchoir – French stencils for making your own postcards.Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection – but I would love to have them!Examples of postcards made with stencils. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
All this to say, I snatched up this odd card recently on eBay. It is a bit fragile and the postcard stock perhaps a bit lighter than it might be. I liked the hands on hip blocky Felix body – the tail curls up and around for a nice juxtaposition. Things get a bit odder up around the face – the ears are off and the nose too long and bulbous. However it is the filling in of the eyes and mouth that give him his distinctive oddness.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Upon closer inspection, there is a signature (people ripping off Felix rarely did that I thought to myself) of the renderer, Louis Ollier. A quick search mostly turns up work by Ollier and there isn’t much on his biography. I believe that folks have somehow conflated his biography with a famous bone surgeon of the same name who was born in 1830 and died in 1900 – clearly this is not the same person as he couldn’t have drawn Felix before his creation almost 20 years into the new century. This fellow was working mostly in the 1930’s, although I turned up some oil paintings that might be his from earlier decades.
In addition to a number of sketches for sale by Ollier what I was able to figure out is that his gig was he would do sketches of famous people, send them to the person and ask them to sign and return if they were pleased with it; Ollier would sign them as well. As far as I can tell, some of these were then made into prints which also bear Ollier’s name or sold as originals. Evidently there is a substantial body of his work devoted to race car drivers, although those were not among the ones I turned up. My guess without knowing, but based in part on the subjects I could find, is that he was British.
Not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Ollier entered Felix into his pantheon of the famous and thus depicted. Felix seems to have declined to countersign this postcard – perhaps the likeness did not please him? And then question printed below, Puzzle – Why does he keep on laughing? Well, Felix does chuckle a fair amount, but usually only after he does something especially clever.
This postcard was never used and perhaps it is most notable that I never saw one before which means there probably are not a large number in circulation. I found frankly uninspired renderings of Robert Taylor and Edward G. Robinson online, but the drawing of Sydney Horler (a British writer of thrillers) is available on eBay at the time of writing and I share it below. I suspect somehow he was more successful with lesser known subjects – they feel looser and more free.
However, for what it is worth, his drawing of Felix, perhaps unexpectedly, brings Mr. Ollier a smidge more immortality here in the annals of the Pictorama collection today.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s Felix postcard came via the same source as yesterday’s – and I hope there will be more to come from this recent Felix El Dorado. I will report on that aspect when I know a bit more, but for now another interesting card.
This postcard appears to have been blackened by hand and probably traced from a master source. This is clear from looking closely at the brushy and uneven application of the ink and the ghost of a pencil line or two. The precise origin of this series (other than it appears to be British) is also a mystery and I have written about them before and own a few others. (The posts about the earlier drawn cards can be found here and here.)
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
While at first it seemed somewhat improbably that postcards were being produced this way, consider the handmade origin of some of my treasured stuffed Felix toys. I once wrote a post on how many were produced by hand on the East End of London in a project to employ indigent women. (That post can be found here.) It helps to remember that postcards were the email of the early 20th century, mail delivery twice a day, and were used to make dates and for simple greetings and communications.
People here and in Britain must have kept well supplied to drop a note to this friend or that. Many of my cat photo postcards contain simple messages about having arrived safely at a location, missing family or reporting a visit with a friend or family. So while it still seems rather remarkable, this operation of hand production is the explanation I have settled on.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
This card sports a Felix-y message, How I am coming in a fortnight’s timeEthel, PS not with a tail, Fred’ll keep that. It is addressed to Z. Honeysett, Woodview, Silverdale Road, Eastbourne. However, it is worth noting that there is no stamp or postmark, so perhaps this was included in a larger missive or package. The card has two pin holes from where it did time tacked up somewhere.
Meanwhile, Felix is zooming on his scooter which could fairly be said was one of his preferred methods of transportation. Here his tail is sort of ballast – that tail which fans of the cartoon know could come off and be used for many purposes. The tail is special indeed.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection. My version of the upright kitty toy I use as my avatar for this site.
Here in the pandemic period of the 21st century, I have adopted an image of Felix as my Zoom and social media avatar. He has graced my Instagram and Twitter accounts, although Pictorama has a sporty wind-up cat of less distinction which I did had not acquired when I started the blog. (Pleased to say that I am now happily in possession of this item and featured him above. He was given a post which can be read here.) I do not own the zippy version of Felix on a scooter that I use – it is a rather rarefied Italian (I think) variation that I have only seen for sale a few times and at unattainable prices. I have a somewhat non-functional version that charms me by sitting on the shelf nonetheless.
My somewhat broken down version of the scooter Felix. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
It should be noted, however, that the version that my avatar version wears has very zooty polka dot trousers and enjoys a spring for a tail. This does make him very desirable in my opinion and I find his off-model face rather charming as well. (I wonder what it says on his tummy?)
(Sadly) not in my collection.
When Zoom came into our lives abruptly in March of 2020 I replaced the generic “snowman” with Felix figuring I would give everyone a giggle. It did although some folks didn’t seem to know Felix or at least recognize him. Strangely you do become identified with your avatar quickly and it was almost surprising when someone new on a call would ask about him. (Having said that, I actually try to do at least part of my meetings, especially with colleagues, on camera to humanize the activity somewhat.)
After my Memorial Day fall my face was swollen and bruised and I decided to spare everyone and myself the sight of me on camera for a bit. During this time I received a request to change my avatar for a work related event where I had declined to go on camera and I switched to a photo taken a few years ago when I started my job at Jazz at Lincoln Center. I have yet to change it back again, although it is my plan because looking at this slightly earlier version of myself doesn’t suit my mindset after 15 months of working at home. Perhaps the little upright cat deserves some air time, although somehow the idea of zipping along as Felix has special appeal.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s postcard post is devoted to the heir to the Louis Wain wacky anthropomorphic cat throne, Eugen Hartung. Hartung is sort of the Otto Messmer of cat postcards. Hartung is a Swiss artist (1897-1973) whose career blossomed in the United States after WWII somehow became know by his publisher’s name, Alfred Mainzer. Was it post-war anti-German sentiment? Was it conscious like Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer, or did it happen of it’s own accord? For whatever reason, Mainzer’s name is the one prominent on the back of these cards it is the name I knew them by until I started digging a bit for a blog awhile back. I wrote about one of these cards I purchased back in 2019 and recounted some of this history. (That post can be found here.)
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
Much to my surprise, two handfuls of these cards found their way to me back in December. After retrieving a mysterious package that had been left for you in the parlance of our doorman’s communications, I discovered that a friend who lives on the other end of 86th Street (and who I haven’t seen in person given our pandemic times) had dropped off a packet of these cards for me. Evidently she had found them years ago when cleaning out her parent’s house and put them aside for me. In a recent apartment renovation she discovered them again and brought them over. When I emailed my thanks she said that she remembered thinking when she found them that I was the right home for them and she was glad she had finally united them with me.
Oddly enough though within the month, another handful of these cards showed up in a Christmas card for Kim. I want to say it was either Rick Altergott or Evan Dent who sent them along. I apologize for this slip of mind and not remembering better. I was struck by how odd it was that two bunches of these cards should find their way to me at the same time. If you’re reading please raise your hand so I can correct this and thank you properly!
These cards were still widely available when I was a little kid and I always liked them – purchasing them when I could although those particular ones are long disappeared. They have a texture to the paper, that I remember with tactile memory, and the deckle edge lives in memory too, somehow rooted in the 1960’s in my mind. It turns out that, on the other side of the country, a young adult Kim Deitch was purchasing them in Berkeley. All great minds think alike it seems. Little did either of us know that decades later Deitch Studio and Pam’s Pictorama would unite to be the blissful cat laden bower that it is today.
I have long wondered why, although extremely popular, Hartung’s cat cards have never risen to the level of Louis Wain. (I have written several times about the cat artist genius and some of those posts can be found here, here and here just for starters.) I think in part, although plenty chaotic and wacky, they lack the underlying maniacal frenzy of the Wain universe. They are beautifully choreographed compositions and there is a prettiness that Wain’s drawings don’t have. As Louis Wain himself began to descend into mental illness, the drawings had an increasing edge to them – until of course they become almost entirely abstract. At least this is my theory. Even at their most frenzied they are a bit polite and well bred in a way that Wain isn’t.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection
I give you a selection of a two of my favorites out of the group, more to come. This Western scene above – a cat cowboy evidently breaking a bucking bronco goat – was a evidently a much beloved one. It has multiple push pin holes in the top edge where someone kept it on view. (None of these cards in either bunch were ever mailed.) A girl cat is using a home movie camera (circa the 1950’s or ’60’s) to film the action and she’s right in the midst of it, tail politely poking out beneath a short skirt. In the top right, one cowboy pushes another off his perch on the rails and a Siamese cat is amongst them for diversity. I once owned an Annie Oakley jacket like the one worn by the fleeing fellow in the lower right – was my favorite jacket for years and I wore it until it fell to pieces.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
The next one is this family scene of kitty chaos. I think it is very funny that these cats are dog owners and it is the dogs that are causing today’s troubles. The cats are exceedingly genteel and the cafe scene is decidedly European. The spilled drinks appear to be hot chocolate (the children were drinking it) and the waiter’s spilling tray is full of petit fours. (The one young fellow, strategically under the tray, is preparing to snatch them up as they fall.)
Comically, two birds watch the action from the lower right – none of these well-bred felines pays them any mind. The cats are civilized and all the others are playing their animal roles. This card is heavily faded along the very top edge, but only a persnickety collector would have issue with this. It too has many pin prick holes, top and bottom, from being on view somewhere.
I end today by saying I would expect that at least a few more of these will find their way to the pages of Pictorama so cat card lovers stay tuned.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: While I purchased this because I was in a Halloween mood, it is an interesting way to have promoted a long ago and evidently foreign postal service. Perhaps ours in the US today could use such a boosting campaign? A witch and a toy black cat can do a lot for business, at least in my opinion.
This card, never mailed, is Dutch. The stamps featured on the card entice and call out to the viewer to: think of me, call me, give a shout, stay true to me, visit soon,shout soon, as well as I love you, I’m waiting for you, 1000 kisses. Oh the things you can say with a postcard – the possibilities are endless. (A reader tells me that the stamps indicate that the card is from 1957 or later.)
Why there was a need to promote postal service, as well as why they might have used a Halloween motif is somewhat beyond me, perhaps that information is just lost to the sands of time. However, she is a fine looking witch and the black cat toy she is shushing or sharing a secret with appears to be a very nice and fluffy looking one. His or her kitty head is appropriately cocked for listening to the witch.
I would say this nice toy is based on Steiff, but fluffier in the tail and overall design than Steiff, more appealing for my money. (For me there has always been something a bit lifeless about the series of Steiff black cats. Unlike their teddys which all seem to have a knowing gleam in their eye, the cats seem remarkably without character.) One bright cat eye gleams out at us. A great toy overall – I would snatch him up in a flash.
A quick Google search shows that not surprisingly Halloween is a relatively new Western influence for the Dutch. (The reader who wrote in agreed that Halloween has only started to gain traction in Holland in the last decade or so and therefore it is a bit hard to explain why the image.)
Perhaps as we consider an upcoming winter largely to be spent at home again, we might all think about who we might surprise and cheer up with a handwritten missive. I have perpetuated a long held affection for the handwritten word as a special way to remember someone or cheer them up. I send my mom cards for every holiday I can and have for many years and she looks forward to them in the mail. When I was younger and traveling I was an excellent correspondent and would at a minimum send postcards from almost any new locale.
On the receiving end, I can tell you that the mail became far more interesting once Kim became resident – Deitch Studio mail was quite different and far more interesting and exotic than my own. A prodigious letter writer himself, Kim received many – also interesting packages with books, videos (and later dvd’s) might show up unbidden. He continues a written correspondence with a clutch of people, although like me some handwritten relationships supplanted by email. My own correspondence has slowed mostly to the aforementioned cards to a small group of people – otherwise largely gone to email. However, it is a cheerful thing to find in the mailbox among the ads and bills. (Yes, I still largely pay bills by mail.)
However, it is no mystery that here at Pictorama we enjoy a great many lovely parcels coming in the door as I am constantly adding photos and items to the collections here. It is always a cause for joy when one shows in the mail, especially during these quiet days.
Nicely some of the folks I buy from frequently these days, largely my new Instagram sellers, pack their photos with extra care, enclosed in waxy envelopes with a note or a sticker, frequently adding a few random old photos they have around or a note. Miss Molly tends to use whatever is at hand for her homemade packing and sometimes I laugh at what old boxes and papers she has employed to ensure a solid package.
I have purchased two items from a woman who sells jewelry and clothing, predominantly from the teens and twenties. She’s British and lives in the countryside there and is largely known to me as Wassail Antiques although I gather she is also Rachel.
Wassail Antiques, aka Rachel, takes stunning photos of her items and seeds equally beautiful ones of the British countryside surroundings of her home as a backdrop to them. Looking at them always cheers me and takes me out of myself and the four close walls of Deitch Studio at least for a moment. She is evidently a professional photographer – taking pictures of musicians in the time before the shutdown. Her packages arrive wrapped in layers like splendid little gifts, an old photo and a note thrown in. They are an event to open, beyond the appealing items within.
A partially opened package from @WassailAntiques
At some point I may take more time to share those items – oddly both are silver rings. This is somewhat notable to me. In the before time I liked to wear rings and wore gold ones on a variety of fingers daily – my lucky horse cameo, a huge bee ring made for me by a jeweler friend on the west coast for a recent birthday. However, for a variety of reasons (finger swelling and apathy among them) I have generally not been wearing rings during our time of captivity and have actually rarely put on any jewelry.
The ring from within!
These rings remind me a bit of ones I might have purchased when I was younger – appealing colored stones set in sliver with Deco designs. They cheer and please me in a quiet way. I have worn them out for my limited forays into the world and even just around the apartment to cheer a dull day.
This week I gather myself and put on an inexpensive flowered fall dress, purchased for upcoming Zoom events such as panels or teaching gigs in the coming weeks. I was headed to get my hair cut for the first time since February (I was not one of the folks who had the foresight to do it before the shutdown) and I thought my hair dresser of 20 years, David Smith, would appreciate seeing me in something other than sweatpants and I wondered if I still knew how to get properly dressed.
I pulled my now shoulder length hair into a braid (I haven’t been able to wear it that way since I was about 25), pulled on an ancient leather jacket and my old straw hat. I put on the rings and even applied a bit of make up before heading over to the west side. As I went to enter the basement staircase to Smith and Morgan, a young man paused and with a grin looked at me and told me he loved my dress. I thanked him profusely for the compliment, we exchanged a few more words of mutual appreciation and then we beamed at each other for a moment before continuing on our way, basking in a brief moment of connection and the sheer enjoyment of being outside on a gorgeous fall day here in New York City.
Pam's Pictorama 