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Kiss Me Good-Night

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I love a good moon postcard and this one above was one of several I have to share from my recent big buy. I ended up purchasing the other two for Kim, similar but not the same series and from an entirely different source (spotted them online and picked them up for our anniversary – they arrived in the house day of!), and since these will go up on the wall soon, I wanted to give them a moment in the Pictorama spotlight.

Postcards that belong to a series like these seem to have been popular in the early 20th century. It’s curious to think about – so was the thought you’d buy the whole series and send them, one by one, to the same person? With them waiting to see how the “story” comes out? It’s hard to believe that, even at a time which saw daily postcard mailing, that such continuity existed in the real world.

These are remarkably alike in some ways – it is hard to believe that they are not at least by the same company, however no, they are not. The hand coloring of Kiss Me Good-Night is more lurid, although perhaps the others have faded. Kiss Me has a great moon face with a sort of open-mouthed expression. The couple, surrounded by cushions and drapes prepare to embrace in a good-night embrace. That moon looks a little judge-y maybe he suspects something about this couple canoodling the night away that we don’t.

Back of the card at top.

Unromantically, this card was sent by Ruthie to her sister, Miss Lana Russell, 2025 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia Pa. It was mailed on January 17, 1917 from McConnellstown, PA and says, Dear Sis – Just a card to see how you are. I am at Mc at the Present. Just here for a few days. Will write later. Ruthie. Very little romance in that!

However, the two other cards have a bit of a story as both were mailed to Miss Addie Clask, 1715 Pitt Street, Dallas, TX. These share the idiosyncrasy of a big flourish around the M in Miss and are from the same series of romantic cards. I like the card where Teddie signed with the little stars or flowers! Both appear to have been mailed in May (May 4 and 21 respectively – although weirdly 22 has been penciled in on the latter and he has in fact hand dated it May 23) 1915 as far as I can read the year.

The more practical, thank you card from a brother or friend.
Somewhat illegible back of the May 4 card.

The earlier of the two is the more prosaic, What’s on your mind which seems appropriate as the message is distinctly more fraternal. It appears (roughly) to read, Helluw Just (?) of cards and my letters so this least. We all ok and many many thanks for sending any mail for me so answer soon as E (?) of friend. The signature is also illegible and might be Joe something. Something about his abbreviated speak reminds me of my lazy texting. He appears to have writing #7 twice at the top, quite definitely.

Not surprisingly, the more romantic missive of the two.

However, perhaps not surprisingly Would you refuse me a kiss appropriately has the more personal message. Although the handwriting is better is it still a chore to decipher. He provides a return address as Mc Gregar, Texas with the (wrong) date and with a bit of additional flourish it says, Miss addie, My Dearest – I am safely landed and am fine and dandy. Will et Piel (??) a letter soon I miss so…[can’t read] Teddie. B.

I found these two additions to the series online. I wonder if the one on the left originally had something written under it – this from a poster image taken from the card.

I like these cards with their moon seat poses and the starry backgrounds which I can’t quite decide if they were applied later or were a real background. These are from a larger series and several, shown below, were easily found – some have been transformed into different forms – a poster in one case – but you get the idea. These cards appear to be American produced and are identified as Moon Series with corresponding identifying numbers.

Addie must have appreciated a nice M flourish!

While I believe the first card (Kiss Me Good-Night) is also from a series it was not easily findable online like the others. That card, while mailed in the US was German produced. I found only the image below which might be from the same series.

A beaut but not in the Pictorama collection. Seems to be for sale on a site that might be Czech. Look at that leering moon face!

I have a few more moon cards up my sleeve for future posts. Aside from posing with a giant Felix doll, I can’t think of a better way to have been captured in time and place.

Family

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I feel like I used to find more photos like this one for the Pictorama archive. I discovered this on eBay. Unfortunately it is quite faded, I have even assisted it a bit here. Still, this family with their mostly matching haircuts and each girl sporting a member of a kitten family was too good resist.

This photo postcard was never mailed and the clothes on the kids are sort of timeless, but I would guess maybe the 1920’s or 30’s. They are posed by the “side of the house” from what I can figure. I would say spring considering the shortness of the grass, the clothes and of course the kittens they hold.

My sister Loren in an undated photo I keep next to my desk at home. Judging from the car I would say from the early 1980’s. If I was in NJ I might find a photo of all of us. Will have to wait!

You can’t really see it easily but there is a great variety in kittens here. From left to right we have a tortie, a tabby, a sort of gray soft stripe and a gray tuxie. Not at all impossible that they are all from the same litter however.

These kids are clearly also of the same litter! Far from identical, however there is a strong family resemblance brought out further by their matching bowl style hair cuts. Each one wears it a bit differently though – bangs aside or straight, one where they are cropped short. The girl in the plaid dress is clearly the eldest but the exact order of the others is left to our musing.

A close look at their faces and the girls look more alike to each other than they do with the man who I have been assuming is dad. Family resemblance is a strange thing I always think. Sometimes I am sitting on the subway or walking down the street and a family passes and all I can think is that they could never deny all being related. This always comes to mind in my reading of early novels (someone denying a child is theirs) and this was satisfied as a plot point in a Rose Mulholland novel recently – the striking resemblance to her father could not be denied! More on that possibly as a tomorrow post.

A still young Cookie and Blackie bearing some resemblance here.

My family sort of mixed and matched with familial likeness – not looking alike, stronger resemblance to one parent when young and then another. My sister and I, she of the curly hair and I of the straight, never looked much alike however once someone who knew me from work walked up to my brother and announced we must be siblings. (We were at a rare moment, like these girls, when we were sporting approximately the same haircut.)

My brother may be surprised to hear me say it but, although he and I have always looked more strongly like my mother’s side of the family, I saw a recent photo where he looks very much like our father. (I think it is the beard Edward.) Kim has a rather extraordinary family likeness with his brothers and I gather his fraternal grandmother from whom he inherited his distinctive eyes. There is an additional family resemblance though also to both his mother and his father.

This is of course also true for cats and cat families. My mom used to quote from an old genetics text that this kind of cat and that kind of cat likely to produce this or this cat. I could never keep it straight.

There are days when you can tell that Cookie and Blackie hatched from the same mom and dad combo. Other times, Cookie being smaller, mightier and a tuxie to Blackie’s bigger all black handsomeness makes it appear as if there is no resemblance.

Beau (left) and Blackie meet for the first time.

The one litter of kittens I grew up with bore a remarkable resemblance to each other (variations on gray and tabby striped), but not to their mother (Winkie, a tortie) at all. And for that reason perhaps, she utterly disowned any knowledge of them after a point. I have commented on how Blackie and Beauregard (the all black male kitty of the Jersey Five) stared at each other, clearly in recognition of the fact that they looked alike. (A post about the New York cats meeting the New Jersey cats can be found here.)

It is too bad no one thought to include the mom cat in this photo – assuming she was a denizen of the same household. It would have rounded things out nicely. It is fun to speculate that the cats and the kids grew up over time side by side.

A Variety Performance

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As some readers know, last week was a satisfying visit to the Metropolitan Postcard Club show where I loaded up on a wide variety of postcards which I plan to revel in for a long time to come. However, having said that, the show seemed to be notably low on photo postcards in the categories I perused. Today’s card however was one of those photo postcards I did purchase. (And you can see I eventually wander into silent film territory today!)

This card makes me laugh. It is hard to imagine what on earth a performance of these two, given the visible implements, might have put together – clearly you had to be there. Meanwhile, I had a moment of thinking that the bubble pipe had been applied after the fact but a close look under magnification shows that she was indeed holding it in her teeth. It is my assumption however that the bubble itself was a bit of photo magic, a bit too perfect and visible.

This little girl is well appointed in her dress, with her hair curled nicely and she holds what appears to me to be a handkerchief in her hand. (Her other hand, unseen, is probably resting on the dog.) It requires some imagination to envision any configuration of an act. There is, additionally, a box on the ground near her where there is also an additional pipe like the one in her mouth. Huh.

Kim especially recommends this Louis Feuillade film outside of Judex.

The much gussied up poodle holds a basket and it is my guess she knows a few tricks too. While I am not entirely a fan of the extreme, if classic, haircut she sports it fits the circus dog implications. They are both seated on some sort of print tile floor and best I can tell the dark background was smudged in manually in the making of the image. In the upper right corner in small type it says, A Variety Performance.

This card was never used or mailed and the only information on the back is for the company which appears to be called Aristophot Co. London. This company seems to have been active in the very early years of the 20th century, was sold and appears to have ceased to exist by 1909. However, it left many and a wide variety of postcards in its wake.

All 12 chapters and a prologue are available here at the the time of publication.

This card especially appealed to me this morning because last night I was catching up to where Kim is in a serial called Judex from 1916. A beautifully restored version done in 2020 is available on Youtube. Kim was turned onto it last week while we were watching the Pordenone silent film festival and in particular a series of shorts by Louis Feuillade which made Kim have a look around and another look at the director.

A great shot of the pack of dogs from Judex.

You may ask still, why might this postcard remind me of that? Well, without giving any of the plot away (because if you have any interest you really should watch it) one of the aspects of the film is that the protagonist, the mysterious Judex, travels with an enormous pack of trained dogs! Many hounds, one huge black dog with long flowing hair, and a well trained poodle trimmed up just like this one. Great shots of them all flying around the countryside abound.

Among the wilder looking pack of dogs this very perfectly clipped poodle emerging as one of several performing pups really helps lift this early series up into our Best Of Serial category even though we are only on the fourth installment. More to come there!

Reine Eymard – Cat Impersonator!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Ongoing readers know that I have been on something of an animal impersonator role lately! It was true synchronicity when I saw this hit a favored account on Instagram (@Marsh.and.Meadow) during a casual scroll stroll. I snatched it up – my head was still full of last week’s post where Steven Phillips (@woodenhillstoys) shared his whacky and wonderful poster of a cat imitator. (That post can be found here.) And here was yet another photo of a cat imitator – my first French entry. (Animal imitators abound here at Pictorama and a few other posts are here and here.)

Subsequently Steven showed me where that imitator was named J. Hurst – to date I cannot find any information about him, aside from his stint for Black Cat Cigarettes. I am sorry to report that Reine Eymard appears to be equally lost to the sands of time. My own Pictorama posts are the only items I find!

A sister perhaps? Royet, Hyacinthe. “Eldorado Aimée Eymard”. Lithographie couleur. entre1880-et-1900. Paris, musée Carnavalet.

There is an Aimee Eymard who appears to be a contemporaneous performer (chanteuse) and I wonder if it is a sister. There is scant information about her as well however. Just a couple of posters. It’s fun to think about sisters on the same bill in France of 1890 – one in a cat outfit and the other a singer! Perhaps the cat sang too. Me-ow!

Sadly I cannot decode the date that this was mailed from the canceled stamp that is on the front of this card. The back is covered with writing, in French. It is of note that this particular card appears to have sold on eBay recently. Clearly I wasn’t doing my work well and if I had I would have paid a tad less – still, just happy it landed here at Pictorama.

Am open to further translations!

The text on the back roughly seems to translate as, My Dear Cante, I hope this finds you well. Since you left something about mother and a bad head cold and bad weather. I hope it will be fine and it will ruin things if everyone gets it. With love, Gaby L.H. Weirdly, although it has a canceled stamp I do not see an address so no idea how it was sent.

Reine’s full hair barely fits under her cat ear hat and she looks coyly out at the viewer. Her hands curled into faux claw paws. Her cat hat has huge whiskers and somewhat googly eyes. Her flowing gown has some colored highlights added and falls almost entirely off one shoulder. She looks like a real handful – one can only just imagine that act!

I am a bit amazed that nothing comes up on the internet when I search these performers – no posters, no theatrical listings. For now, except for these photos, they are really lost in the cracks of time.

Moonlight Serenade

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This fetching and fluffy feline caught my eye recently. This card is a bit later than the majority of cards in my collection and was sent on September 9, 1933. A woman named Agnes sent it from Whinchmore Hill to Miss Connie Connors at 63, Park Av. Park Estate, (can’t read the town) Northumberland for a penny.

Agnes writes simply, Dear Connie, It seems ages since I have heard anything about you all. Hope you are well. Lots f love, Agnes xxxxxxxx. Presumably it is Connie who had and kept this card to make it down the decades.

And I ask, who wouldn’t have kept this card? This little fellow is caught mid-meow posed on a faux brick wall for this purpose. In some ways it is the evocative bright moon scenery behind him that really does it for me. At the bottom in a script font it reads, A moolight serenade and W. & K. 1592. W&K postcards is the logo for Wildt & Kray, London. The company was founded in 1905 and was active into the 20’s publishing postcards of several genres but most notably cats – including Louis Wain.

Therefore if this card is postmarked 1933 (which it clearly is) it was either a bit old at that time or had been reprinted and distributed somehow subsequently. (Therefore the esthetic appeal to me makes sense since it was likely made before 1925 or so.) You can see it a bit above, weirdly the postmark machine has come through and embossed half this card.

Back of card.

I am glad I have not lived in a time and place where caterwauling is a nightly event. As a cat lover on the rare occasion I have heard it, and the likely fight that might follow I have found it hard to ignore. Just a cat meowing outside will of course garner my attention. Not that I would ever have thrown shoes at them – and not that I can imagine that would do any good.

In this mature period of her life Cookie (age 13) has become very chatty. She demands our attention, especially in the morning, with long, complex cat sentences. This is generally combined with a certain amount of staring (you human fool! why don’t you do as I ask?) and some rolling and stretching and expectation of tummy rubbing. (Cookie is the tummy rubbing-est cat I ever met! Growing up a cat would just bite you if you tried to rub its tummy, but oddly Cookie demands it.)

This leads me to a topic which may require more examination in a later post but there is a movement afoot on the internet where people are teaching their cats to “talk” using buttons spread across the floor. Of course, living in a tiny apartment in New York my first thought was, man, these people have space to spare and waste! Once I got over that, I started following a few people on Instagram who document their interactions ongoing.

To aide your cat or small dog in being a Chatty Cathy!

As far as I can tell one chooses word buttons and spreads them out on the floor and trains kitty to step on the appropriate one to converse. Obviously word choice is limited and a sort of pigeon English (if you pardon the term) emerges. Of course my friends at Chewy sell them but I have no real sense of how popular this trend is.

The account I watch most is a science fiction writer named Alice with a calico cat named Elsie (@elsiewants). Alice says she introduced button talking as something for a novel she was working on and thought her cat would better be able to tell her what toy she wanted to play with. Instead she seems to have gotten a Demanda Kitty (something we call Cookie occasionally) who appears to embody exactly what I always imagined cats would say if they could talk. It is sort of feline trash talking, a series of what she does and does not like and mostly what she wants.

There are companies like Fluent Pet that sell the buttons, lodged in brightly colored mats like those you see in a kid’s playroom. The companies have training instructions (do you want to talk to a cat or a dog?) and of course there are videos online to help. The real question we have to ask is, do we actually want to hear more about what they have to say?

Cookie not really asleep this morning. Do you really want to know what this cat has to say?

As much as I adore Cookie and Blackie, I’m not sure there is much to improve our relationship by giving them more control over the daily demands they already make. Although maybe a diabetic Blackie could communicate better about his sugar levels, too easily I can imagine Cookie pressing the same button again and again – and Blackie always insisting he hates Cookie. I have to say, this might be one area where ignorance is bliss and we shall not go.

Leaping?

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It’s a cute kitten post today with this somewhat scrappy looking fellow or gal. For no particular reason I am going to say fellow – something about the build. You have to look a bit carefully to see Sautera? printed at the bottom.

This card was never mailed and there is nothing written on the back. It was produced by Reutlinger Studio, Paris. These were popular photo postcard producers at the dawn of the 20th Century. (There are a few other postcards in my collection by this Peruvian born French photographer. Those posts and more about him can be found here and here. Reutlinger evidently lost an eye to a champagne cork – how very French! A very bad for the photography business as well. And also to note, I always wrap a champagne bottle in a towel before opening.)

When I purchased this card I was thinking that this kitty was perched on a martini style glass (falling into the drink sort of thing), but instead it appears to be a glass funnel of sorts. Try as I might, I cannot figure out what is at the bottom of the funnel, pebbles perhaps? (I considered olives when I thought this was a martini glass.)

It is tucked into the glass neck of a large bottle – and in fact, even if that kit is quite small the funnel and bottle must be quite large – it would have made a truly man-sized martini in retrospect. Having said that, toward the end of his life my father became very enamored of martinis and purchased a few very large martini glasses, but perhaps not quite cat-sized.

A quick translation of Sauterna? from the French is Jumping? I guess he is planning to since curling up on or in the rim of that funnel isn’t going to do much for him. He does have a thoughtful look on his little mug though – a tiny kitten, staring into the void.

There seems to have been a series of these cards and with this very cat, which I have found online and share below. The second one seems to have been more recently appropriated.

Cats are ace jumpers. They seem to understand not only their own overall capacity for the leap, but have the ability to size up distance and other factors which you can see get calculated in their brain. Those of us who live with cats have seen them study such a situation, sometimes resulting in a preliminary butt wiggle – the tail is essential to the balancing act of the cat – especially when it is a floor up trajectory. A cat rarely misses its mark with a jump – and are very embarrassed if they do. I had a little girl tuxie, Otto Dix, who seemed to just float upward. It was as if all she needed to do was think about being somewhere and land there.

And who hasn’t stood poised in a similar, if metaphorical, position? There have been a few notable times in my life where there was a leap to be made. I always think of leaving my job at the Metropolitan Museum to go to Jazz at Lincoln Center as an enormous leap – which it was. I almost broke my neck but I found my footing eventually.

The more recent vocational leap was to the animal hospital I raise money for and that was less dramatic, but a bit of a leap nonetheless. (Posts about those professional leaps of faith can be found here, here and here, although much of my time at Jazz was shared in the annals of this blog.) I am still finding my sea legs on that one so the jury remains out.

Bonus picture of Cookie and Blackie from early this morning – rare sleeping together pose!

I Am Enjoying Myself Very Much

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card is so painted and embellished that I almost hesitated to say it was a photo but of course it is. There was something about this card when I spotted it recently, the evocative mood of this little girl and kitty, that appealed to me. She is dressed up for her photo and posing nicely for the camera but so is puss. (While not quite enthused he is submitting his beautiful Persian self passively to the pose anyway.)

I grab up Blackie like this not infrequently. Cats don’t especially like to be hugged and held this way, especially while you are not seated and if it isn’t their idea, but he will permit me that. Once in a rare while Cookie is hounding me for attention and I will even pick her up and carry her around for a few minutes. Oddly it quiets her down but to do it of my own accord would be inviting wounds.

A somewhat peevish and demanding Blackie on my lap in front of the tangle of junk on my desk.

Little almost glowing dots of paint have been applied to the trim on the little girl’s dress, like tiny pearls, probably even brighter when the card was new and cleaner. Her hair ribbon is sumptuously velvety holding her abundant curls, a gold bracelet on her arm. An artificial blush to her cheeks and rosiness to her lips have been applied via a paint brush in the same tones as the flowers on her dress. She is not a child having her photo taken for her doting parents, she is hired for this reproduction card.

I’m not sure I really have many other photos in my collection that are like this although they exist in abundance. It relates most closely to the sort of birthday greeting cards of a small child and Felix that I might have,

I cannot blame cats for disliking that loss of autonomy. I am quite sure if I was small enough to be carried about I would resent it as well and I feel a bit guilty every time I turn the bathroom water off while Blackie has commandeered the sink there. He would of course have me turn it on and off all day and I have other plans for my time but it is unfortunate he has been unable to acquire the needed skill.

I always had a strong disliked not being in charge of my own destiny, even in the smallest sense, since I was a child. I was a quiet kid but I remember that I seethed a bit at the casual bouncing to and fro you are subjected to as a small child – left to stay with grandma or required to go somewhere or do something when you would prefer not to. I looked forward to adulthood as the end of that and I was right. Some of that attitude has lingered, although my reluctance to learn to drive a car has bedeviled it a bit – if you cannot drive you are dependent on others, unless of course you live in New York City which I do for the most part.

Back of card.

The back of the card shows it was mailed on June 20, 1912 – although the year is a bit obscured. It was mailed to the Missis Speedays in Keswick, but I cannot see if it says where it was mailed from. In a bold black hand it says, I am enjoying myself very much. I don’t think I will come home when you come back. Peter. We’ll assume it was tongue in cheek but there is something about it that maybe seems a bit serious too. Alas, what were the Misses doing in Keswick and where was Peter? Poor Peter was left out.

Despite what I wrote earlier, Blackie is on my lap and positively insisting on hugs and pets – both handed mind you. It isn’t just what we don’t want, but equally the attention we insist on too. I suppose this holds for people as well as cats.

The Commanding Officer

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Another in the long line of postcards from the show earlier this month. Although I am somewhat judicious in my acquisition of this avenue of cat photography they do slip in occasionally. Pictorama readers know I have a bit of a weak spot especially for kittens posing with the moon cards. (Read about one of those here.) Cats in clothes can be worthy of my notice, like this one.

Recent photo of Milty, senior cat of NJ.

This senior fellow of a puss in this picture is peeved at his human constructed accoutrements. Maybe his longstanding role at the photo studio was more mouser than model normally – he is an elder statesman of cats no doubt and I am sure claws in teeth sufficed for his real world duties. (He reminds me of my cat Milty whose age seems to hover in the early 20’s.)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Someone has given him a tiny sword to wear at his side and a homemade tri-corner hat with plume stuck in, but again he seems decidedly displeased with the decoration. He does have a battle weary mug and the aging physique of an old guy. His tail must be wrapped around him on the other side as no sign of it. His white paws are a bit grotty and the whites around his chin not quite white any longer either. His fur is that of an elderly cat.

The card has a copyright by the Rotograph Company from 1906 on the front. And this particular one was mailed in 1909, on August 13 from North Hackensack, NJ. It was mailed to Miss D. A. Brown, River Edge, NJ. I was not familiar with River Edge and it turns out to be near Paramus in northern Jersey.

The slightly illegible back of the card.

I have to say, although the handwriting on the face of it looks legible I am having trouble decoding the message address to Dolores. A card from Dolores seems to have arrived by a later train then it should have and there are plans here for the evening in question. It gives some thoughts about places they may go (Maeks? she has written clearly) and R.E. and ends with instruction to come in the surrey with your Dexter and it is signed Aunt Lila. Of course I can’t be sure but Aunt Lila probably didn’t care what card she grabbed for this purpose, however she too may have been aptly named The Commanding Officer. Just a guess.

Actually, I pulled this card out of the stack because I think I too am a bit weary from my roles and responsibilities right now as captain of this particular ship. Demands of work, taxes, wrapping up my mother’s estate and even the imperative to make soup on this rainy Saturday, seems like more than I should have taken on – however understanding that much of it arrived unbidden and of its own accord. Maybe it is just a case of the April blues, but this commanding officer (such as I am) is tired today and I too would prefer to lose the yoke of tiny sword and hat and romp freely for a bit.

Postcards – Behold the Beginning of the Stash

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Readers from last week know that Kim and I went to a postcard show, held in the West Village, where I purchased my way through a whole lotta postcards. I came away with holdings that I will be working my way through for the foreseeable future. I am hoping you enjoy the launch of what I can promise will be a varied trip.

I am kicking off this visual feast with one of my favorites from the pile. Although there is a nominal kitten here, it is the attitude of this beautiful young woman I love. It is a suggestive card but her energy and winning charm are amazing. Our woman is looking right at us and pointing at You out there. Her be-flowered hat is placed properly on her head and she sports a pretty necklace if you look carefully, a tiny opal or pearl at its center. (I will vote for opal as we know I am partial to them.)

I own a few other somewhat salacious cat cards, the French produced a line of them around this time. One of those prior posts, photo below, can be found here.

French card. Pams-Pictorama.com collection. Another unhappy camera ready kitty!

She is wearing what I guess would have been called a petticoat although that is a bit generic and people who know about these things would probably know a more precise way to describe this chemise. Although it looks like tights she wears I assume that these were sort of the regulation stockings of the day, although with her little low boot shoes.

She supports the kitten with the other hand, his hold on the back of the chair is otherwise tenuous. It is a tiny tabby kitten – and actually close study shows he has no grip on the chair back at all – and that he is not especially pleased with his part in this proceeding. Kitten career as prop. I believe about his world at the time that he could have done worse than working for his living in front of the camera. Maybe he grew up to have a sideline in mousing at the studio. (Blackie is on my lap and I just inquired about whether he’d be up to a mouse if presented with one. He seems on the fence.)

This card was never sent, like so many of these postcards. There is an odd torn edge along the left side. Somehow it feels like it was torn way back in the day at the point of origin, or near to it. It was evidently once sold for 87 cents – I paid a lot more than that I assure you. Someone has also written 1900 but that might just be their guess too.

I can’t actually say I am partial to those cards that were never used although less beat up. The tiny missives on the back (sometimes a bit of cheeky text added to the front) of those that were sent always thrill me. They are windows into a brief moment in a life and I sort of treasure that.

Belated Birthday Fare

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: As those in the New York area know, it was a freakishly warm day here yesterday, topping out around 80 degrees. As a result the denizens of this metropolis poured onto the streets in wrinkled summer garb (or simply lack thereof) all white bellied and sleepy like a city of Rip Van Winkles. Kim and I entered the fray and spent the day hunting small Pam pleasures as is our program for my birthday.

A February birthday girl, this year I was bedeviled first by Kim’s Covid, followed by my own – and then a distressing string of funerals and memorials, plus one wedding! The MoCA comics festival thrown in too. All this to say, yesterday was our first day in a long time when we were left to our own devices.

Old Good Things is chock-a-block full of antique fixtures and a lot of brass. My dad was a utter sucker for brass fixtures and I can only imagine he would have come home with one of these. My father’s daughter, I too was tempted…

I started our itinerary with a stop at an antique and architectural salvage store, way over on the westside of midtown called Old Good Things which I have been curious about. (Their website can be found here.) I follow these folks on Instagram and while what they offer is generally just too large for my living situation but I have always wanted to visit the store. I do fantasize about replacing bathroom fixtures, maybe a fireplace mantel in NJ and light fixtures as well, and it sends me musing. There is much wonderful furniture, with an emphasis on wooden cabinets of drawers which is one of my own forms of kryptonite, hard to resist. Still, these are very large pieces for the most part and I live in small spaces.

Two intriguing standing lamps that had just come into stock. They are being rewired so I have a minute to think about investing in them.

Notably there were a few rather comfy and wonderful leather arm chairs but all I could see were happy cat claws so I moved along. These two standing lamps which just came into stock and had yet to be rewired were of interest – we could use a standing lamp here in the New York apartment and the weird sort of jadeite on one interests me. They were pricey but I will consider them. A good standing lamp is hard to find.

Then we headed downtown for what I considered the main event – the Metropolitan Postcard Club show and sale. I have not been to one since before Covid when they used to take place on 57th Street at a rundown Howard Johnson’s hotel near 8th Avenue. It was then a much larger affair, easily 3-4 times the size of the group yesterday. However, this just meant I burrowed a bit deeper and a very patient Kim joined me in sorting through boxes of cat postcards, with a few of New Jersey thrown in for good luck.

It was held at a pleasant, small and essentially non-descript church in the West Village called the Church of the Village. About a dozen dealers had a large circle of tables and it was quiet enough that you could sit and patiently go through the labeled boxes. I flashed a picture of yesterday’s Felix card on a few dealers to see if they had ever had any go through their hands. One looked quite stunned and said no, the other gave me a knowing look and said he might have one at home. I gave him my card.

I left the show lighter in dollars but happily heavy in cards and I will commence a liberal dissemination of them here in the coming weeks. It was well passed lunchtime and our tummies called so we wandered over to the Old Town Bar on 18th Street. I had a craving for an old establishment and this fit the bill perfectly. We’d eaten upstairs not that long ago but for lunch were seated at a table in the back.

My view of the main room at lunch yesterday. I would like to be there when it is quiet enough to go around the room and read what is on all the walls.

After lunch we made a quick trip to Blick so I could buy some watercolor brushes and paper. My friend Eileen (@EileenTravell) gave me a very lovely birthday gift of a nifty watercolor set for my birthday and I hope to commence playing with them soon.

Thank you again Eileen! I hope to make some use of these.

The next real stop of the day was The Strand bookstore. Our original thought was that we would just pop in to look in used fiction. (Kim looking for Dumas and I for someone named Carol Brink. We just saw a somewhat obscure Barbara Stanwyck 1953 film based on a Brink novel called Stopever. The films was renamed All I Desire, and directed by Douglas Sirk. It is masterful film making and visually stunning, like many of his films although this one in black and white and not the signature saturated color. A good TCM write up of the film, with spoilers, can be found here.) We came up empty handed on both scores but decided to head up to the Rare Book Room.

We’ll see if this acquisition is more than good looking on the outside.

Kim and I more or less nibble at the edges of the Rare Book Room. We aren’t interested in the signed first editions, but instead make our way to a few bookcases of more or less random old books. I have scored several items at this venue, including some that lead me further down the path of interesting authors or series. Despite the name, some of these volumes are very affordable.

Very competent illustrations by someone named G. Demain Hammond R.I.

However, I did pay up a bit for the book I bought yesterday. Shown here, it is a very pretty looking, illustrated volume which helps its cause. It actually may not need any help. I looked up the author, Rosa Mulholland, and she appears to be quite interesting. She was an Irish writer, very prolific and also wrote under the name of Rosa Gilbert, her married name – aka Lady Gilbert. Rosa appears to have worked the side of the street of fiction I like so maybe more about her to come over time as well.

A frequent stop either to or from The Strand.

We wrapped up with a quick look in Alabaster Bookshop around the corner from The Strand. Still checking for Dumas and coming up empty handed. I like Alabaster although they focus more on recent books and art volumes and I feel like I haven’t bought anything there in a while. I always check their kids and juvenile books, but it is a somewhat diminished section. I always remember that had a charmingly grumpy calico cat I saw grow from kittenhood on there. Her ghost still wafts through and I miss her.

That was it, a wrap on another birthday, perhaps all the better for the wait this year.