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Effie Myers

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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!

Cat’s Eye on Parade

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Portland, OR is penciled on the back of this card and given the great history of the cat parade float there I would assume it is true! (The seller seemed to be offering a number of Portland Rose Parade related photo postcards so perhaps it was an album of them.) For those of you who have been here since the beginning of this blog know that some of my earliest photo postcard posts hailed from this auspicious location where extraordinary parade floats – sporting Felix and black cats of other kinds – seem to have been the norm at the early part of the 20th century. This card, with its enormous glowing cat eye and cat outline alight in bulbs was not clear to me at first. Once I looked carefully and realized what it was, I was utterly enamored.

This precious card was never mailed and there is no obvious way to date it. If I knew a bit more about the history of printing these cards I might be able to make a more sophisticated guess, but I would say the aughts or the teens looking at the costumes and how the card is made.

This enormous kitty, arched back, has his own bright eye and spiky lit-up whiskers, big bow around his neck, and then there’s that huge single cat eye glowing in the middle of the float. In reality it is amazing that in the dark with just the kitty float for light that they were able to get such a good photo. Written in a neat hand at the bottom it says, The Catseye, 15 ft high, 60  yds black velvet, bows [sic?] up back, lifts its tail opens & closes its mouth. How I would have liked to see it in action! Oh lucky costumed few who got to ride on it. Can’t help but wonder what it all meant. Perhaps a secret society like the Hoo-Hoos as outlined in my post Spirit of the Golden West? Could be that very one. I have never belonged to a secret society, but if I could find one that promoted parade floats like this one I would be very tempted indeed – it would have to be some kind of interesting. I will pull Cookie and Blackie into a huddle later and see if we can come up with a plan. A good project for me and the kits this winter. (We’ll let Kim join too I think.)

 

 

Fat Cat

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It is hard to read, but at the bottom of this photo is written Alec – 5 yrs old. 31 lbs. In case you do not know, I am here to tell you that 31 lbs is an enormous kitty! Not surprisingly, it is a man in a chef’s hat that has treat trained this pudgy fellow. Kitty is clearly used to standing on his hind legs for food treats, although his ears are back here. This card was never mailed and there is nothing else written on it – no indication where it is from although it was purchased from someone in the United States.

It isn’t a good photo. A lousy composition with cat and man way too small, it was obviously snapped in a hurry – perhaps kitty was harder to get agree to pose than I state above. However, it is sort of great anyway and I wanted it for my collection. The chef’s hat on the man really adds something and even though we cannot see kitty well, his personality is obvious. Despite his declared girth there is something of the working cat about him. I do not think he achieved 31 lbs on rodents alone, but I can’t help but suspect that numerous ones fell under his claw paws over time and supplemented his diet. He must have been beloved in some way for this inky card to have made it through time before coming to reside in the Butler archive.

Quite a ways back I posted another photo, Sporty, of a cat performing on his hind legs – that time for a toy and not food. As all of us who share a home with cats know, engaging them in feeding time rituals is necessary, but you have to be careful. Cookie and Blackie seem to attempt to move their feeding times (morning and evening) ever earlier each day. Everyday we do our best to remain firm, lest we end up feeding them on command hourly! Kim tells me tales of cats he knew who drove their owners out of bed in the middle of the night for snacks or would begin destroying the apartment. We had our own unfortunate brush with a cat treat obsessed kitty – treats have been banned from the house as a result and these kits do not even know of their existence. (I trust you all to keep the secret.)  Still, Blackie seems to know when smoked salmon for a sandwich is making an appearance in the kitchen, and Cookie will speak in full cat sentences if her dish of dry food reaches below a certain point. We are just glad they are unable to pop the top of a can or open the refrigerator on their own.

Felix Mugging

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Felix on the beach w baby

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Some of you ongoing readers know that Pam’s Pictorama was originally conceived as a way of organizing my collection of photo postcard of people posing with giant Felix dolls. While I almost immediately switched course to incorporate all of my various collecting interests – toys, other photos and cat items – my collecting of these rarified beauties continues apace. That said, I generally only get one or two opportunities to purchase such cards each year. This one, as is the case with most, was never sent, and there is nothing written on it.

As summer hits its humid stride this year it seems like a fine moment to look back on a beach day long past. In the background we are treated to wonderful low wooden beach chairs and those fascinating little tents that people used to dress in. I have always been a fan of those – you see them in films occasionally and I have always wanted one or at least to be offered the use of one. You can just about make out what is probably mom and and older brother on the right hand side, blurry and behind them.

This Felix is a very fine looking fellow. I love that he sports a big bow and a careful look reveals whiskers on his face. Felix looks relatively new – in some of my other photos it is clear that the Felix doll in question has been dragged to the beach daily for numerous seasons and as a result he doesn’t stand quite right any longer, or he looks a bit ratty. Not this fellow. He and this youngster, who is wearing the least attractive sort of early children’s bathing attire-diaper thingy, are both pretty new on the summer scene; likely one of many to come for both of them. Perhaps his brother was up next for a photo and his still lurks somewhere out there, waiting for me to find it.

Mascots

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Photos of cat mascots on ships are becoming a sub-genre to my collection. Prior incarnations have included: Tom the Fire Boat Cat, Ahoy! Cats at Sea and Mascot – U.S.S. Custodian. I find them utterly irresistible, the beloved cats of the sea, and this ship clearly had a full menagerie on board! The U.S.S. New York seems to have a current incarnation of very recent vintage, so it is hard to know from what era this version hails – although the style of the photo postcard makes me think the 1920’s. The postcard is unused with no writing.

The simply named Puss, gray tuxedo, has his back to us – or perhaps is giving that adorable fluffy pup, Kaiser Stamps for Short, a look before starting something with him, like a bop on the nose. Lady, like her name is clearly elegant and above the fray, also turned away – and then there is the goat, Buck, who I really love. Whose idea was it to bring a goat on board? Buck and Kaiser are the only ones looking at the camera. Buck, like Lady, appears to wear a collar – a goat with a collar, does that happen often? He would seem to be a smallish goat from what we can see. I can’t help but wonder how hard it was to get them to all pose together.

In theory, I find goats charming. I say in theory because I have never attempted to get too close to one and I understand they can be temperamental. When I was in Tibet years ago I saw tiny, doglike goats, the size of Scotties, all over the place. Of course they were extremely sure footed and would run up and down the mountains, and we often saw small herds of them belonging to farmers. I believe that they make cheese from milking those tiny goats. The goats always seemed to be high spirited and romping around. Cute though they were I wasn’t risking injury by goat while hiking on the Tibetan plateau so I did keep my distance. (It should also be noted that in Tibet I found very few cats and many, happy dogs. The dogs hung out at the monasteries and the monks would feed them tsampa, made of barley flour and yak butter rolled together. Perhaps that diet is why there aren’t many cats.)

The notion of mascots is interesting – animals bringing luck and ships often sport them, hence my growing photo collection. I wonder where that tradition came from originally. I read that inanimate things were the first mascots, such as mastheads on ships. It then morphed into living animals. I happen to be of the general opinion that you need all the luck you can get on a ship. With four mascots the U.S.S. New York was taking no chances.

Getting a Grip on Kitty

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Just like something out of a Lilian Harvey film from 1930, this German photo of man, child and katze caught my eye recently. A bit of google search tells me that Vandenheuvel is a surname, although obviously also an advertisement here. It could perhaps, be the name of the man and girl. I like the little girl – she is at a gangly stage with her legs a bit out of proportion (tights bagging at the knees) to the rest of her, big smile and of course clutching her tuxedo cat; him, one ear cocked in vague irritation, tucked neatly under her arm. The man, smoking a pipe, with a smile more in his eyes than on his lips, looks like a nice man. While everything about them is a bit worn, there is a sense of ease if not actual prosperity about them.

A girl and her cat – a favorite theme of mine. While cats have been my friends and confidents since childhood they, like me and especially the childhood me, are also notoriously willful. It is very hard to get a cat to do something that wasn’t the cat’s own idea to begin with, as we all know. This includes getting them to sit still in a photo.

The way she is holding the cat is what my family refers to as cat prison. Obviously cat prison is a gotcha grip on a cat that guarantees the best result for holding onto said puss. The hold in the photo is one of the dependable ones and certainly one of the few that can be employed for photo taking – although in looking over some photos we’ve also been know to employ the method of flipping them over on their back like a baby. As a kid I used to carry our huge orange tabby Pumpkin around like the girl in the photo – which he allowed if not actually encouraged. (Pumpkin and I were close. He would have taken anyone else’s arm off.) My father coined the phrase cat prison – his preferred hold is on his lap with his two large hands holding the cat on his lap – nothing fancy for him. Usually employed in his case for brushing said kitty. It can be the only way to get a photo of some cats – but it is also the struggle of man against the determination of cat – a never ending battle.

 

 

Tuxedo on the Job

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: The slide back over to photographs continues with this recent acquisition. It made me laugh out loud – not sure that was its intended purpose, but it did. It was never sent and there is nothing written on it. Somehow the woman and the dog look like sister and brother. The birdcage appears to be empty – that little fellow has flown the coop one way or another I guess. For me, best of all of course, is that sharp looking tuxedo cat; all a-point, looking like the only one with any sense in the family. This woman looks as if she can use the help.

For regular readers it is not news that I tend to favor tuxedo cats. Although my very first cat was white with black cow-spots, and the one I really considered my furry sister was a calico, it has been tuxedoes that I have been drawn to adopting in my adult life. My first tux was a childhood pet, Mitzy. She was a pretty and precise little black and white girl who lived an extraordinarily long life considering I believe I was a teenager when we acquired her and she lived long enough that Kim met her. I forget now exactly how we ended up with her – I have a vague memory of a neighbor boy coming over with her and announcing that he knew we had cats and did we want this one? The young man in question was not a model citizen and I guess Mom had no real choice, but to take Mitz in.

Mitzy seemed to end up as my brother’s cat to some degree, although I think it would be fair to say that we were what I will call cat wealthy at the time. There were a few dogs too. I think my parents were taking the in for a penny in for a pound approach with animals and kids abounding at that time. Mitzy was a precise cat – as girl cats and especially tuxedoes tend to be. Kept her whites white and her black hair shining. Would always enjoy a few pets and didn’t fight with the other cats or cause much trouble, a model citizen. As I mentioned, she lived into her twenties. A Methuselah of cats. A series of tuxedoes in the family followed: Otto, Milkbone, Zippy, Roscoe and now the mantel is worn by Cookie who is asking for dinner as I write this. If it was Miss Cookie in this photo she probably would have eaten the bird and struck up a fight with the pooch. Not all tuxedoes have the same sense of responsibility.

Graduation Day

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Graduation crowd

Pam’s Pictorama: I have owned this photo postcard for many years. It is one of my early purchases, on eBay I’m pretty sure. The light appealed to me – these girls in white, daisy chain and crowns of flowers – in this halo of light was irresistible. Observing it further it is a bit curious. It appears to be the twenties or thirties, unless their clothes are just old fashioned. It is interracial which seems somewhat surprising for the time. However, presumably left to their own devices, they have divided themselves into black and white groupings within the group. There is nothing on the back to provide further information and it was never mailed.

I especially love the girl three from the end on the right. She is beautiful, but out of all of them she seems to express the most poise, confidence and charisma. I wonder about the boys, they appear younger and have only a supporting role in this play it seems. These kids appear only semi-posed. If they had been properly posed some of the shorter kids would be in the front.

I couldn’t find much on the history of the daisy chain although it is clearly a long one. At Connecticut College, my alma matar, we called a commencement tradition the daisy chain although it was actually a laurel chain. (It was held by women from the rising junior class at commencement.) The symbol of the laurel a bit easier to figure. Still, the idea of flowered crowns and garlands seem an apt way to honor the passing of a stage out of childhood and onto the dubious road to adulthood.

As a kid you are pushed through various graduations, markers ending one stage and another, virtually starting in kindergarten and then junior high and high school. I remember when I graduated from college and somehow it dawned on me (admittedly very late in the game) that it was all just over – a lifetime of school. Now I was dumped into life, faced with the job of getting on with it and figuring it out. I was stunned and terrified. So, to all you new grads out there, here’s to you and please know, it works out just fine.

 

 

 

Catville

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I have a complicated relationship with posed cat photos. I find a lot of them (think cat weddings, cat hanging laundry, cats using a short-wave radio type Harry Whittier Frees photos) smarmy and the cats vaguely drugged and tormented looking. However, once in a while Frees and his wanna be’s hit it on the nose for me. (See a past post, Flying Dutch Kitties for a favorite example.) These cards by an unidentified photographer are another example.

Although neither card has been mailed, the second one has the following written in a neat script on the back, Mrs. Wm. Durrant, 810 West Fifth St, Plainfield, NJ.

I especially like the first shot – this cat looks nicely set up with the drinks and pipes, paws folded neatly in front of him. The cards seem a shade less than professional somehow and there is no studio marking or numbering system. The cat appears to be a gray tuxedo – a cat who is always in formal wear, by definition. Despite my disparaging of some of the Frees photos, I readily admit to a yen to pop a pair of specs on the kitties, bunny ears – or perhaps a well chosen chapeau. As I have mentioned previously, Kim has rescued the kits from this fate. I know it is undignified, but I can’t help but think it would be so much fun! I almost wonder if this was an early, similar attempt by someone with a well behaved cat.

This kind of dressing the cats up fiesta, always leads me to thinking about the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Dogville Comedy shorts. Made between 1929 and 1931, these shorts, enacted with an all dog cast, usually featured dog-centric remakes of popular recent films of the day. The selection of these on Youtube was a bit thinner than I expected. However, for those of you who have not experienced these before I will recommend you give this group of three a try, Dogville Comedies. The Dogway Melody is perhaps the best of the lot and is the last.

As with the cats posed in the Frees photos, sadly one has to assume not all was happy in Dogland when these were being made. Still, in my mind I imagine instead, a series of Catville shorts with all cat casts – all singing, all dancing cat productions!

To Ruth

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s-l1600-9.jpgPam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This card takes a few minutes to kick in. I was first attracted by the matching striped cats on either side, tails in the same position like bookends, and nice, white bibs. The mostly white cat seems to be younger and of a different origin, but it’s always hard to tell with cats.

This card was never sent, but written on the back, in a child’s writing in pencil it just says, to Ruth. In my imagination, Ruth was away and missing these kitties. (Maybe because I am just home from a long business trip – and missing my kits!)

Kim says he doesn’t see it, but I clearly see the people taking this photo, reflected in the window. There is a woman, hair up high, behind the larger of the two striped cats, and a harder to see one, perhaps a man, above the smaller one. In this way it becomes a sort of a family portrait. If your cat family is like mine, it is rare enough that three cats gather peacefully together long enough for a photo however. Definitely worth documenting.