rppc

Conga Line with Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This was one of those second chance images that I recently caught up with on eBay. The row of toothy, grinning black cats behind this series of come hither girls is an image that I love.

I do not remember seeing the KAO Stunt Show 1911 (75 encircled) that is printed on the negative at the bottom on the first card. This card was pasted into a black paper album according to the evidence remaining on the back. Also printed on the back is, Strauch’s Student Life Series University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. I cannot seem to find a full history on this, but it would seem that this series of photo postcards just illuminated the fun and games of being at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, in the teens. This one below was recently sold on eBay and May Day in particular seemed to be a wild and wooly time there. (It is numbered 10 I see and mine is 75 so we will assume it was a substantial set.)

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I must say, between May Day and dancing girls in front of a line of smiling black cats, it certainly would have attracted me to attend U of I. (Connecticut College was just never that interesting.) Another card recently sold on eBay, just called May Day 1913, shows a couple of hundred people seated in bleachers, presumably watching the festivities. Someone has circled part of the crowd to point out themselves and a group of people they knew. It too was in an album. So it seems it was a series of pro photos issued annually by the school, highlighting the year at the school. You have my assurance I will be keeping an eye out for more.

The ABC’s of Kitties

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School scene

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I was watching this postcard on eBay and forgot about the auction. Kim noticed it coming up for auction and scored it for me as a Christmas gift. It is of a certain genre, but I never saw one very much like it before.

All three cats look peevish, including the one sitting on the shelf behind the little girl – what project have they been gotten into now?  The one on the lap of the boy thinking, “Okay – so it’s a cat. So what?” I generally refer to that as a piss cat expression in our house.

While I am sorry for these kitties, I cannot begin to catalogue all the games I made my cat play when I was a child. I remember putting a reluctant Snoopy (patient heavy-set male, white with black spots) in a baby carriage on myriad occasions. I also distinctly remember trying to balance the cat on the back of the German Shepard – circus animals! Without success of course. (And I used to try to ride the dog like a small pony – but I guess that is a dog story.) Still, that cat slept with me and remained game for whatever I stirred up as a kid. The dog followed me around faithfully (I’m sure I was good for dropping bits of food here and there) and would have ripped anyone who tried to hurt me in two.

Kim feels strongly that I should not dress the cats up and take their picture, despite an equally strong desire on my part. I guess you never really grow up. However, I’m sure Cookie and Blackie thank Kim for saving them from that indignity.

Felix and the Gang

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Felix and gang

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get more of my Felix photos onto this blog. While organizing and recording them was one of the prime motives behind starting it, I realized recently that I have barely scratched the surface of my collection in this area. I have allowed myself to travel down many tributaries, but 2016 will be the year of Felix photos!

There is something a bit homemade about the Felix doll this very lively group is posing with here. One of my never-ending fascinations with Felix toys and photos is the huge variation of the off-model Felix-es one sees. Mickey Mouse can have a similar quality but Disney sat on pikers pretty quick and hard so there is less to choose from. But Felix, hand-made in factories in England, tends to have a wide variety of expression – most often goofy, sometimes downright insane.

Each and every person in this group, shown in their period swimming togs, seems to be enjoying this photo and their day at the beach. Even the fully suited gent in the back is smiling on them. The sun is glinting in and it looks like a raucously good time at the beach today.

Army Cats

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soldier

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I don’t believe that I have ever before been compelled to copy out the eBay listing for an item wholesale, but this one was quite interesting and contains information that is nowhere to be found on this card:

Original RPPC photo of a trooper of I Troop, 4th Cavalry holding two cats at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, circa 1913-1915.

Photo from Corporal Edward W. Lewis, S/N 731612. Lewis was born in 1888 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and worked as a miner there before WWI. From 1913-1915 he was in I Troop, 4th Cavalry in Hawaii. Later he was in the 6th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division in France from 1918-1919. After WWI he settled in Massillon, Ohio.

From the archives of the World War History & Art Museum (WWHAM) in Alliance, Ohio. WWHAM designs and delivers WWI and WWII exhibits to other rmuseums. Our traveling exhibits include Brushes With War, a world class collection of 325 original paintings and drawings by soldiers of WWI, and Iron Fist, an HO scale model of the German 2nd Panzer Division in 1944 with 4,000 vehicles and 15,000 men.

So it seems to be part of a de-accessioning for the above museum and of course, I love it because it fits so nicely into a Men and Cats theme which runs loosely through my blog! (These include but are not limited to: A Man and His Cat, Men and Cats, and Men in Hats with Cats.)

Somehow one doesn’t really think about Hawaii in WWI (as opposed to the big role it got in WWII), but of course the war was there too. I wonder what this long-ago Pennsylvania boy thought of Hawaii? Surely the army in Hawaii must have offered some advantages over the mines of Pennsylvania, although home is home and he was very far away. France followed Hawaii for him. I am glad we know he made it through and settled in Ohio – maybe keeping cats there and thinking of his army kits. These are two great scrappy kitties, barely out of kittenhood, but ready to take on the world. A striper and a tuxedo – tops in my book! Give them the enemy, Germans or mice, and let them at ’em!

Dawn of a New Year

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Scan(2) copy 12

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As always, waking up on January 1 is a bit sobering, even to those of us who did not seek year-end oblivion the evening before. The cool gray light of that early January morning is the time when we put the old behind us and embark on resolutions and new leafs.

I bought this fellow several months ago. He looks very unhappy with the operation of photo taking and one can easily imagine him off like a bullet a moment after the shutter snapped. The strange, somewhat amorphous shape drawn around those champagne bottles look a bit like something you might start to see crawling around on the walls after several too many – or perhaps during a fit of the DT’s a la Lost Weekend?

This weird period of photo collage fascinates me – a strange marriage of commercial and homemade. Some of my other posts of this interesting medium include Cat Photo Collage and Mad Jenny. It is a nascent tributary that photography went down, but didn’t fully take hold. Not so much a false start and a dead end – although by contrast elaborate photo albums that were collaged eventually were huge in their time. There was an exhibition about it at the Met which I loved back in 2010, Playing with Pictures: the Art of Victorian Photo Collage. (Some images from it can still be seen on the Met’s website indicated above.)

Resolutions in hand, clear-eyed and determined – here’s to the very best to all in the New Year!

 

 

Pajama Party

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:   Sleepover! Oddly, despite the jammies, the women all sport shoes, and for the most part, have socks on. Their hair is neatly done and the pajamas don’t look as though they were yet slept in. Only one night gown wearer among them and a variety of pajama ensembles – I like the dark striped pair on the woman with the black cat best. This fine feline fellow clearly could be Blackie’s ancestor, although I can’t see the tell tale white spot on the chest. What a great little guy though!

This photo postcard was pasted into an album, bits of the black paper still stuck to the back, but there is no writing on the card. I wonder when I see photo postcards like this – why a postcard? Was it so each of the women could have one? Why not just a photo? It isn’t the first time when viewing a rather singular image from someone’s life on a postcard that I have pondered this. Before I started collecting them I thought photo postcards were generally done by itinerant photographers or at seaside resorts. Clearly there were ones being made by amateurs like snap shots.

There is no evident likeness, so if these women are related I doubt they are sisters. The story here seems to be lost to the sands of time, but there was a jolly sunny morning, probably close to 100 years ago, when some young women, in their pajamas, scooped up their young black cat and had their photo taken. And a good time was had by all!

Nice pajamas makes me think about several years ago when I agreed to visit some folks for my job (I am a fundraiser for anyone who doesn’t know) and this required that a colleague and I spend the night at their house in a somewhat remote part of Connecticut. I realized that, although it was unlikely and undesirable that anyone would see me in my sleeping attire, it was tempting fate to show up to sleep in one of Kim’s torn t-shirts, silk slip or other common sleeping attire of the time. But where to go to buy something respectable to wear to bed?

It finally occurred to me, walking home along Madison Avenue after dinner out one night – Brooks Brothers! And yes, indeed, Brooks Brothers makes what I can only describe as the office equivalent of sleepwear in the form of cotton pajamas – much like the ones sported here. However, over time owning that first pair, the cotton softened and they eventually became my own permanent sleep and lounge uniform. I am, in fact, blissfully wearing them now as I write this.

 

Chow Time

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cats eatingPam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As far as I can tell, written at the top is Daly Ranch and what a fine farm it seems to be! I count fifteen cats here – although close inspection might make an argument for a sixteenth. It came from a photo album and there’s nothing written on the back. This looks like a pretty happy gathering of the tribe – although that dish looks a little small to keep this crowd happy. (And are those wanted posters of cats on the back building I wonder?) More interesting than great photography, this photo is very a pleasing idea for me. I mean, who doesn’t want a farm full of cats?

When I was little our cats came running whenever we used the electric can opener (do they even make those any longer?) which is how cat food cans were opened at that time, before the pop top most use today. Later, they also came to my mother calling Chow time! And, in fact, if a cat went missing we were more likely to call that than their name. This gang stampeding at feeding time was the first thing I thought of when I saw this.

Whenever Kim and I talk about striking it rich, or a well-endowed retirement, I usually reply cheerfully, Cat farm in Connecticut. Why Connecticut I’m not entirely sure. Art Spiegelman once described such a place to me in Connecticut – actually a sort of retirement home for cats – and I think it stuck in my mind. Although I see it as something the size of a horse farm, but just lots and lots of delighted kitties – and I spend my days romping with them and dispensing ear and chin rubs.

 

 

Tom Turkey and Cats

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As another Thanksgiving slips into the past, sending us racing toward Christmas and the New Year, it seems to me like a moment to pause and consider the relationship between large fowl and cats – sort of an interesting one. As shown here, they can certainly co-exist, but there always seems to be something lurking deep in the instinctual cat brains which is saying,  “It’s really large alright, but I think I can take him. Yum!” I don’t know off-hand if cats actually do kill turkeys, geese or other large birds. I may have told the story of the neighbor’s cat, Tiger Lily, who jumped on the back of a goose one day with evil intention, only to be taken out into the river by the irate bird – requiring her to abandon her plan and swim back to shore. This leads me to think that for a cat killing a goose is harder than it looks. Turkeys look even tougher.

As some of you may know, my mother aided and rescued injured water fowl for years. More often then ducks or geese, this most frequently took the form of swans with various injuries – many had swallowed fishing line which required surgical removal by a vet, but others had been pinioned and thoughtlessly left to starve in a pond with no food source. (Swans, geese and ducks cannot survive on scraps of bread and food does not just appear in small man-made ponds for them.) Anyway, at one time my mother had a (relatively) small swan she was caring for and she would bring it into the house at night. Water rats can and will kill an injured bird so it was necessary and I cannot remember why the garage was not a suitable place. Anyway, my mother’s cats would all watch with huge, shining eyes when this swan was brought past them, through the house, to spend the night in the guest bathroom. They would gather by the closed bathroom door…considering, thinking, dreaming.

This card was never sent, but on the back, in pencil is written Lottie’s Tom & cats. Lottie’s gray cats have clearly multiplied and to my count there are seven in this photo. The one with the white bib looks somewhat philosophical, but the two gray ones coming at the camera – and Tom the turkey for that matter – have something more in mind. They are coming right at the camera. Take care, turkey eaters!

Scratching Post

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Bad Kitty! No scratching! How very many times have I repeated that phrase? Like all cat people, ours is an uneasy treaty with our little wild animals in our one room apartment version of Eden. We are loath to allow the destruction of beloved antiques (oh those caned chairs – like this fellow is going at) or expensive couches and rugs. I love the little devils more than any piece of furniture, but it can get expensive and annoying. There are scratching posts, cardboard boxes with catnip and whatnot where scratching is sanctioned – encouraged in fact. Obviously, declawing is not a phrase we utter in this house.

Like bunnies and beavers which have to nibble and gnaw in order to keep their teeth filed, I guess cats need to scratch to keep their claws sharp and from getting too long. Still, scratching is more than that to a cat – there is joy to scratching. Scratching is a way of marking your turf – it’s a statement. As shown here – it is both a cross cultural phenomenon, Mr. French cat, and one that goes back quite aways.

Blackie is the first cat of my acquaintance who appears to not have so much as a clue as to what the various scratching devices scattered around our tiny apartment are to be used for. He watches Cookie happily scratching away – putting some real back into it. But he has never so much as taken a side swipe at one of them – I have tried every type: cardboard, carpet, rope, large, hanging and on the floor. We’ve showered them in catnip – tried running his feet across them. If anything he seems horrified by them. This does lead to some friction. I occasionally tell him he would be a PERFECT cat if only he could figure that out.

Meanwhile, although my cat Otto knew all about scratching posts and employed them, she had a fetish about Kim’s work chair. She is shown below, in a former apartment, in a series of polaroids Kim took over several days in April, 1995. Evidently she would take the chair on every day at the same time. Needless to say, she eventually denuded the entire chair. Kim continued to use it however, until the frame too fell apart one day, years later.

Otto 4/16/95

Otto 4/16/95

Otto 4/17/19

Otto 4/17/19

Otto 4/25/05

Otto 4/25/05

Kitten Women

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Kitten Women

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Who can resist taking a photo of new kittens? Clearly the instinct goes back pretty far, as shown here. This card is very beaten up, but I do love it. The alternating height of the women, black and white of the skirts – and in fact kittens! – is wonderful. It is a well composed and thoughtfully executed photo, in addition to the design of the women and cats, the foreground divides against the rising background nicely. It could almost be a set, but is not.

For all of that, it is very poorly printed – negative unevenly placed and black edges showing on two sides, and printed upside down on the postcard stock. Sloppy. Makes me assume that the person who took it was not the person who printed it. Either that or they couldn’t help having a great eye, even if they didn’t much care about the end product of their work. Nothing is written on the back and it was never mailed.

The shorter women of the four, #2 and #4, have tiny, nipped-in waists and are the more fashionably dressed. The women in white seem to be a bit tattier – especially their shoes. No one really looks a lot alike among the four, although if you really study them a case could be made for them being sisters or otherwise related.

Among the kittens, of course I have a soft spot for that black one, #3, curled up contentedly in the hands of the one woman. Cat #1 has annoyed ears, #2 napping, and #4 is the action one – poised for adventure. Let him get at it!