Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s is a recently acquired photo postcard – it showed up in the mail last night as a matter of fact. I bought it off eBay on a whim and am more charmed by it in person. This photo today would probably be photo shopped or fully AI generated which makes its skill – and its imperfect bits – that much more endearing.
Seven cats are lined up here – several are looking at a spot in front of them and we assume the person behind the camera has something to capture their gaze that way. Almost all of them are very fluffy indeed, and the dark haired one on the left could almost make another cat with that enormous tail. It says a family group and I wonder if it is mom and dad on either end and this variety of kits betweenn. There is one tabby, third from the right who doesn’t fit the family fur, short-haired or so it would appear.
If we assume that mom and dad are on either end, there is a dead ringer for each of them in the pile – the white kit all the way left and the one next to it. The others are a bit more of a wild mix and I really like the one who wouldn’t sit and has his or her back up a bit. Dad just has an insane amount of fluff and both are well brushed and maintained.
Everyone is seated on a garden bench with painted some sort of boxes acting as end tables. There is a nice cushion on the bench being enjoyed byt the cats – no idea how they got the cats on the end to pose so perfectly. There are cusions on the ground in front of the bench, covered in a sort of oriental rug pattern. I wonder if those cushions are for the back of the bench but didn’t work for the photo. We can’t see much of a garden behind them but we get glimpse of the flowering shrubs behind them.
This card is undated and was never sent. It appears to be American made but there is no maker credit on the back.
As the mom of seven cats myself (the Jersey Five and NY kitties) I have to admit that I do not have a single photo of all of them in one frame. I actually only seem to have four of the Jersey Five together, let alone along with Cookie and Blackie. So hats off to this ambitious photographer and cat parents somewhere and back in time.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A short post today and an unusual one as I don’t think I very often feature photos of my own childhood. However these two have been hovering on my desk for a bit and I have decided to share them. Admittedly it is a bit indulgent; they are largely photos only a family member could love, and not necessarily aesthetically special.
The black and white photo is my mom and dad and sister Loren. I am the babe in arms and according to the date on this, November 1964, I am 9 months old. It was taken in front of my maternal grandmother’s home, with the camera facing away from the house. (I wrote a long early post about my grandmother’s house and it is here.) My apologies to my brother Edward but these were take several years before he was born.
It is a bit rare really to have all of us in a photo as my father, the camera man, usually took the photo. He is wearing a trench coat (I still have one of his Burberry trench coats – they were a constand over the years like his very long Eddie Bauer down coats in the winter.) Dad is not wearing a hat which is very unusual. It would have been a wool cap.
Mom seems to be wearing a long trench coat as well and this was unusual – Dad must have bought it for her. I can’t really see her hair in this but it would have been some kind of longish at that time. Loren is two here, her life long curly hair already in evidence – she’d fight that through her teen years but I, of the straight hair, always liked it. I like this little double breasted plaid coat she is sporting.
Mom holds a chubby me in a fluffy top and be-pom pommed hat. I like this long fall shadow outlining use to the left. No idea who took this picture but I would make a guess it may have been my mother’s brother and this is probably Thanksgiving. I do not believe that wildly finned, white car behind us is ours. I think we may have been sporting a woody station wagon in the day – my family never went in for sporty cars.
My sister Loren on the left and me in a profusion of posies on the right. I don’t think these dresses inhibited some wild running around as soon as a few minutes after this – Loren already looks like she is leaping off!
The other photo (they were sort of stuffed together in a bit of plastic when I found them) is early color and is Easter Sunday 1966, two years later. My sister, in the pink, and I are clad in unlikely dresses for the holiday. I suspect they were gifts from my grandmother – I almost wonder if she made them but probably not. Our normal attire ran to the indestructible but were were clearly meant to be memorialized on this occasion as properly dressed little girls.
We would have had an Easter egg hunt either out in the yard or, if the weather didn’t cooperate, in the house. The ones in the yard, which I believe were courtesy of my uncle, are glorious in my memory. My (Jewish) father always had Easter baskets for us (usually Russell Stover ones) which were also wonderful. (I can remember a fascination with a soft, lifelike, tiny toy chick someone gave me one year and I was very sad when it got lost in the hustle and bustle of things.)
Loren is looking a bit angelic here although I knew her well enough to say she was probably like she was shot out of a canon two minutes later – and hadn’t even started on a sugar high. These dresses are really wearing us! The fabric comes back as unforgiving even now as I look at it. Oh the bows and flowers! I feel like my hair is a bit of a babu mullet here.
We are seated on a couch that lives in memory as an itchy green sort of flocked fabric. That small bit of flowered wallpaper brings back memories of my grandmother’s living room – and the blinds on the windows behind us were often closed, probably so the furniture wouldn’t fade. It was therefore usually a somewhat dark but not unpleasant room which I spent many hours happily in. A television ultimately found its way into that room in a giant wooden console that included a very fancy radio and record player.
The family would have headed into the kitchen where we would sit around an expanded table (or if the guest list was really big it would have reached through the living room) and as it was Easter there would have been a wonderful cakey homemade bread, fried dough (these were Italians doing this cooking!), ham, sausage and depending maybe my grandmother’s rather incredible meatballs. (I didn’t become a vegetarian for many years yet to come. I have attempted to make a fakemeat version of her meatballs!)
At that time Loren and I were the very first grandchildren of our generation – it would proliferate with the addition of my brother and several cousins over time. Sadly now several of those, including my sister, died very young and are already no longer with us. However, here we are, at the beginning of it all – a twinkle in everyone’s eye for the spring holiday.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As we head toward the Easter season, this is one of a few seasonally appropriate items I have. The odd image doesn’t necessarily scream Easter, but there it is at the bottom of the card, Easter Greetings 1908 and the photographer’s name front and center although barely legible, G. Butney. It also says, Novato.
It would seem that Mr. Butney was a well-known (in the day) photographer in the early days of the 20th century, evidently headquartered in Novato, California. In July 1908, presumably several months after this card was created, he took a series of photos of a train wreck in Novato and turned them into photo postcards which he became best known for. (If, like me, you aren’t familiar with Novato, it is north of San Francisco.) It seems somewhat odd that photo postcards of a train wreck would be so popular.
For all of his sort of ten minutes of fame with this series of photos, there isn’t much left about Mr. Butney – no biography available, nor is his first name even evident.
Wreck on N.W.P. at Novato July 3 ’08.From the train wreck series that brought G. Butney brief local fame.Image via University of California.
It is a bit hard to see the connection between the train wreck photo and mine, but there you are. I assume mine was made as some sort of advertisement for his services and distributed earlier that same year. As an advertisement the difficulty reading his name at the bottom probably did not work in his favor – however, this very clever and eye-catching photo probably did. There is nothing on the back and it was never sent.
On close examination, it appears that each of these children really did pose with their head poking through this large homemade flower sort of collar. At first I thought it was photos collaged into the flowers, but I think not. It would appear that each flower is a separate photo or more likely negative, printed together into this image. It is quite a funny design and had to be more than a little work to execute. A careful examination shows some slight differences in exposure and printing – further contributing to my idea that they were each shot and printed individually.
There is an array of boys and girls, some smiling, others not – especially among the boys, although really, frowning might be evenly distributed. There is a range of age as well from toddler to a woman just to the right of Novato who appears to be an adult – his wife I wonder? Did he have a studio where he collected these over time as he took photos (Oh and just one more thing before you and Junior go…) or was there just a day or two of madness when he had a pile of kids come in? There are 26 (I think) separate images.
My other Easter treats are a bit less unique however I thought I’d share this one today, a tribute to the Ides of March and the spring season to come.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today I have plucked this hand-colored card out of the pile. It was used as a birthday card and it certainly is cheerful enough to make a good one. Kitten pictures are like dopamine hits and during stressful times if I can, I find watching videos of them or looking at pictures of them very soothing. Given the feline nature of Pictorama this is probably not surprising.
Meanwhile, I have seven cats, no shortage here, and yet looking at more cats still appeals to me, although I do recognize that I do not need to acquire any at the moment. (I’m not sure I documented the sudden acquisition of five cats when my mother died, although longstanding readers probably figured it out. For new readers, that is how I went from always having two to having seven more or less overnight. It’s a lot of cats.) All that to say I am cheerfully contributing to your dopamine acquisition online today, a bit of cat fluff to cheer your weekend, (another) rainy one if you are in Manhattan. (Not to mention to help get with the time change – that certainly snuck up on me.)
This young woman might be from the early 1920’s to as late as the 1930’s when we take her clothes and hair (careful marcel wave) into account. She holds two very likely little suspects, a tabby (always a good look on those) with his small paws wrapped around her arm, and fluffy white one with spots, the true color of which is hard to peg.
The kittens are small enough to be easily subdued by the young woman holding them. Her dress has a wild print and has been painted in this interesting orange, red stripe running down the front and a sort of Keith Haring-esque pattern. She sports a bracelet which appears to be silver and has a charm hanging off of it. Her ruffled cuffs and collar have been left a bright white. There are some sort of illegible decorations down the front of her dress and artificial looking ropes of flowers are color sketched in behind her. If she wasn’t such a pretty woman, she would recede behind all this visual noise, however she holds her own.
Inked on the back in neat script is says, Dear Kathie, Wishing you many happy returns of the day. From Lily & John. However, there is no postmark, it must have been handed to her or on gift perhaps.
Given my affection for such antique missives, it probably isn’t surprising that I am still a sender of cards. Although the circle is smaller than it used to be, physical cards still go out for birthdays and for some, Valentines, Easter and for a large group (as you have seen) Christmas. Are the best of my cards being saved to turn up in the future? It’s hard to say, but I believe the folks I send them to seem to appreciate the physical reminder that I am thinking of them and have chosen a card for them. (And who doesn’t love a bit of unexpected mail that isn’t a bill?) However, it is undeniably an anachronism, albeit one I hold dear. So this is a cat card for all of you today – I will say that personally I needed a cat pic today and this one has done just fine.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I have a Pre-Valentine’s Day post today to get us all in the high mystic mood for next week – when I will have a super great Deitch Valentine reveal this year. I don’t think I am spoiling the surprise when I say it is the height of hotsy totsy this year.
I admit to having accidentally left Kim to open his Valentine’s Day gift which arrived early last week! It was an early hardcover edition of a book called Lefty of the Big League by Burt L. Standish of the Merriwell book fame. I saw it in a Flat Lay Friday group photo of objects for sale on Instagram and grabbed it up on a whim for Valentine’s Day. Kim is a Merriwell fan and miraculously it seems he has not read this other book by Standish. I was performing well until I handed him the package to open! Alas, timing is everything but the love and the thought were there nonetheless.
Not Kim’s copy but this edition.
Meanwhile, today’s card, purchased back in the fall, is wonderful and wild. This woman is a “spider” who has cast her love net and scored this man who is now quite literally her puppet! He looks to be a well-heeled sort of the day, a watch chain stretching across pronounced ample girth, top hat, glasses rather than monocle although they sit atop his head in a jaunty fashion. He wears a print waistcoat, bow tie and jacket with some sort of other print on his fat legs ending in tiny, shiny shoes.
This fellow is smiling and I might point out that he also has a bottle of champagne in one hand and a full glass in the other – if the strings that bind him are obvious, may I say he does not appear to mind in the least.
The hand-colored beauty who is the woman-in-charge sports a green top, trimmed in red hearts (!) and stripes that really make this card for me. (Can I just say, oh to find such an item at a vintage sale and snatch it up!) A slight blush is added to her cheeks, skin and her curly hair which is highlighted brown – all adding to her winsome appeal and, shall we say, allure.
Our manipulating maiden emerges from this spider’s web (tiny tear to her left so maybe it isn’t the first rodeo for this photo set) with fat cloth hearts pinned on in a circle around her. Aside from the green label of his champagne bottle (borrowed from her shirt) and a bit in the top of his champagne glass, our puppet man is left in black and white, aforementioned strings top and bottom quite visible.
I can only really confirm that this card was sent in 1907 – there are three cancellations, two overlapping and European and I cannot verify the month or day although it might be August. This card (which the internet attributes to being Russian maker – again the cancellations make it a bit hard to see) was sent to a Mademoiselle L. Guilloim… on the Avenue de la Gare, Vielsalm, Luxembourg.
Thanks to several readers I now know I can put the image of the note into Google and get a (very) rough translation:
It is a pleasure, my dear, for the good wishes you sent me. Like a verse, I thank you for it, and I think of it often. For short nights, I will be accused afterwards. I slept very well, a big thank you that the present during your trip? Please reply. Best regards to all your team.
Maria
Sort of interesting to chose such an extraordinary card with no mention of the image, but it seems Maria had other things on her mind.
Whoever Mademoiselle G. was, I am very glad she saw fit to keep this card in fairly pristine condition for me to share with you today and wishing you a romantic week leading up to next Saturday.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Perhaps not surprising as a large swath of the country buckles down to what could be the most substantial snowfall of many years, that this photo (just in the door from my friend @marsh.and.meadow via Instagram) should be top of my pile for today.
Mounted and undated, other than a bit of damage at its edges it is in good shape. It seems it was a treasured photo despite it being overexposed, although somehow it works with the effect of the snow. This little boy is wearing the kind of long coat I think of more for an adult, but I guess he maneuvered on his sled just find nonetheless. (I bought a very long down coat this year to replace one I have been wearing for decades. It has zippers in the side so I can actually walk in it or keep it zipped all around in terrible cold. I can’t image it on a sled though.) He wears a cheery sort of beret and sort of has the look of a race car driver standing next to his beloved vehicle which is why I purchased it.
Early morning view out the window of the apartment this morning.
He has a very elaborate sled. Better is painted on the side but I cannot read the rest and there is more – it is obscured by a sort of jointed wooden handle – perhaps to steer? How would that work? The top of this sled is made of wooden planks – it all looks very heavy for a sled. The runners are the carved bottom. I think you would need some heavy snow to take advantage of this design. Growing up we were the generation that moved from the traditional wood with red metal runners to dishes of metal or plastic which picked up great speed, even in less snow. Growing up near the ocean and a river it was frequently a bit too warm for much snow to hang around.
This card came from the Midwest and they do generally know something about snow out there. I am not sure if that is a house or a barn behind him, behind a fence. Skeletons of denuded winter tress are visible and it is snowing as the photo was taken, white dots on his dark clothes, gathering still all around. (As it is out my window right now – a complete white out here on the 16th floor, looking north.)
Snow at the house in Jersey last weekend.
Last Sunday I was in New Jersey and shoveling some of it in the evening. Monday dawned to an unusually pretty day of snow – everyone was talking about how picture perfect it was. It was a holiday for many including from school and provided ample opportunity for sledding down a very large hill near my house which I drove past. A pretty church, aptly named Tower Hill, sits at the top. I’ve run up that hill and it is steep! Perfect for sledding however. Growing up, it was a bit too far for us to get a ride two towns over, so I think I ever sledded there once or twice and when I was older. It would have seemed like Everest as a little kid. I want to say my folks drove us to a hill near my grandmother in a town called Long Branch, but I don’t remember where really.
Tower Hill Church, the slope continues down about three times as far as what is shown here – unobstructed and perfect for sledding.
Living near the ocean and between twin rivers, it was frequently too warm for snow to stay around long. Snowstorms also often caused flooding which meant water (river water) on the ground rather than snow and certainly not driving anywhere. Therefore, the perfect sledding snow day was a bit rarified. Here in Manhattan we have sledding hills in Central Park and even a small one here near me in Carl Schurz park. I bet the kids are heading over even early this morning although maybe everyone being kept inside while it is coming down so hard.
Weirdly when I watch the Winter Olympics I have a vague yearning to try the luge and skeleton. There is a place in upstate New York for training and the thought always tempts me, no idea why that particular sport speaks to me. My girl cat Cookie likes to watch it with me – television interests her and anything zipping around like that is a bonus. I was born in a blizzard (and as a February baby I also have many snowy birthday memories of plans canceled or adjusted for the celebration) so maybe it was born into me.
Meanwhile, at work we will likely be the only animal hospital open and our vets and techs who come from a broad swath of the tri-state area will have trouble getting in, but of course animals will still need us. Most of the interns and residents are a bit closer – we provide some housing not far from the hospital. It is a bit sad for me that my first thoughts about snow are practical about slippery sidewalks and shoveling at the house, getting to work and losing power – instead of fun and beauty. I will try to repair my sense of wonder, dream about fast sleds and do some cozy cooking and at home projects.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am taking a break from holiday influenced item posts (but evidently still devoted to dogs), to bring you an item I purchased at an odd venue last weekend. An ad on Instagram for an Oddities Flea Market (@odditiesfleamarket) caught my eye and on a whim I paid for tickets for Kim and I to go. I knew most of it would not be of interest to me, but I figured that maybe 25-30% of the vendors might be interesting. The line to enter (even with tickets) went down West 18th Street at the Metropolitan Pavilion and evidently it is an annual affair with a devoted following I have just never heard of previously.
The percentage of Pam’s Pictorama type vendors was perhaps a tad lower than 25%, but black cat items sort of did have a big moment there and I ended up making a not insignificant number of purchases in the end – and could easily have spent even more. One thing that got away at this table was an old orange ceramic cat that lit up. It had already been broken and repaired and I would say the ability to get it to light up seemed dubious, but in the end it just seemed too fragile to come live here at Deitch Studio. Still, I imagine that it must have a great orange glow if you could get it working. Anyway, you will be the beneficiaries of those interesting tidbits I did buy in coming weeks and this is the first of them I am sharing.
This photo postcard came from a vendor who had a nice little cache of black cat and other interesting items. After shelling out for some bigger items I pawed through some excellent (and reasonably priced) boxes of photo postcards. I plucked out two, and Kim one, and today I share the first of them now.
A quick search of Paul Pilz turns up a fairly thorough blog post on him which can be found here. I have nicked this other photo of Pilz from that site. It is a larger shot of him but very similar.
Alternate version of the same publicity photo, seems like this one was used pre-War however – not in Pictorama.com collection.
I won’t endeavor to repeat what that post has to say, but between that site and AI I learned that Pilz was evidently part of a traveling troupe on what is described as very small stages with a dog act, accompanied by him on the trumpet and doing comedy. This popular act ultimately morphed into one where he was a featured performer entertaining the German troops during WWI. (Wanderfheafer Armee Abf. A. on this card – they were already an army headliner. I shudder in horror some indeed at the idea of what traveling with a troop of dogs entertaining troops during WWI might have been like although for the dogs it might have been the best of gigs and options.)
Although I generally collect images of animal imitators (some posts on those can be found here and here for starters) I do have a sub-genre of photos that feature acts (here is one of several) and these seem to belong here too.
There was a recent article in the New York Times about a dog act at the Big Apple Circus (at this time it can be found here, entitled The Show Stealing Dogs of the Big Apple Circus) and so I had a moment recently to contemplate the treat filled world of dog tricks. I like the part where the trainer says if they mess up (balk at jumping through a hoop for example) he just makes it part of the act.
From the NYT article, performing pups.
Years ago Kim took me to a cat circus (Russian) performing downtown here in New York. I even had my photo taken with the ringmaster – for a price of course. I loved it! The photo hangs on an overflowing corkboard near our computer where a drawing of Kim (by Dave Collier’s son who visited about a year ago), something about Carter De Haven and an long ago article on a nascent Ugly Betty cover it. I wanted to pet the kitties which was, understandably, not encouraged. From the perspective of having seen that, I will say, cats or dogs, performing is a treat filled activity and I can only assume it is the rigorous work outs that keep the animals trim.
Under his name it says, roughly translated, with self-written repertoire – I guess a way of saying original gags? It declares Humor at the top, in case the photo didn’t alert you. The sort of masked characters on either side of that are a bit terrifying. Urns of flowers are on either side and a decorative bow tied image of him make up this card.
In the photo he presents a comical character with his trumpet, and his dog in his arms held like a baby. He looks at the dog and the pup looks out at the camera. I’m not sure but this photo may have been artificially put together from two – it doesn’t quite fit as a real image. I’m not sure I can entirely follow the concept of a dog act driven by trumpet playing. It sounds – loud!
This card is a bit tatty but was never mailed, no writing on the back and therefore no date certain, except that it clearly was during the war. I wonder if these were given out to troops when they were performing – and how strange that if so it has survived all these years just to land here in December of New York City of 2025 and find its way to the Pictorama library.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card showed up while I was looking for holiday gifts for a few staffers – it was a gift fail so to speak. I never would have found it however, if I had not been searching around in dog photos on eBay, where I generally do not belong.
Some of you more longstanding readers might remember its sister card shown below which I wrote about all the way back in 2016. At the time it was a hotly contested card which I had lost and subsequently won as outlined in that post which you can read here. Obviously that one turned up in my feed because of the cat reference.
Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection.From a previous post.
While these two cards are definitely of a piece, the Dog Show sign is definitely the same, there are some differences. While I am fairly certain this is the same woman and dog (same Dog Show sign) she is wearing a different outfit in each. The Cat Show Next card is entitled Beastly Affairs.
However, most notably the Cat Show Next card has a different, patterned floor, the other one is a plain wood. A very careful look (lower right corner) shows that the copyright for these two cards is a year apart with the cat version being earlier by a year, 1907 although my copy of that card was mailed in 1909. So did it prove so popular they brought out this variation the next year? I wonder if there are more.
Today’s card is called Going to the Dogs. Unlike the earlier card, this one has writing on the back although no stamp or evidence of mailing so I don’t know when the writing, in pencil, was added. To the best of my ability to read it, it says, Bascom this is EdniceJain. Look good & she has gone to the Dogs good – Ha Ha Ha. She is a Dog catcher & not 1/2 as good as one. An odd note, no name signing it.
I prefer the earlier card somewhat and it is more than the cat show reference. The composition with the additional sign is a bit better and somehow holding the dog, and even the patterned floor, make it more dynamic. She has a bit of a smile in the first shot and a hat full of flowers – the hat in today’s card notably appears to have a whole bird on it. She wears a different fur trimmed jacket in both.
Unidentified card online with a Pitbull and similar woman but not the same series.
The card was made here in New York City by the Rotograph Company but printed in England, oddly enough. A quick search online does not turn up more cards in the series, but neither does it tie these two cards out to each other. I don’t even find more copies of either of them online, however above I have shared one that turns up that could almost be in the series.
My colleague will now get a card from 1908 with a big footed puppy, vaguely reminiscent of his own recently acquired little fellow. I will dig out my copy of the other card and a find a place to install them side by side, either here or in New Jersey. They make too a good story together to break apart.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A flurry of purchases for holiday gifts is commencing and, although there may be one or two readers from the animal hospital who check in over here, I’m pretty sure I am safe posting this particular one in advance of giving it. My work gifts are largely of the canine kind – I must admit that my office is far heavier in pup than kit and therefore dogs are having their day once again here at Pictorama.
Those who have followed me in the years since I left Jazz for the animal hospital know that, especially for a devoted cat person, I now spend a lot of time with dogs. (In fact our annual Top Dog Gala where we celebrate a dog, class of dogs and/or supporter of the hospital’s non-profit mission, is Tuesday. A post about my first Top Dog can be found here. As these events go, dogs do make it a lot more fun!)
An early fall update was doggie indeed and I shared photos of our Paws & Pints event and perhaps our canine concert. (That can be found here.) Puppies and working Guide Dogs populated a Woof & Wine for the younger set interested in our work. So this cat woman is doing a lot of belly rubs and good boys with a whole new crowd. Seven cats means it is unlikely that there is a dog in our immediate future at Deitch Studio, but then again, you never know.
My first Top Dog back in December of ’23.
Meanwhile, as the holidays approach I have applied my same searching rules and know how to finding something to fit and personal to each of those recipients. (Last year I luckily stumbled on a number of small vintage prints of various kinds which made up about half the group.) In my shopping and searching I set a fairly low ceiling on the cost so it took a while for price and aesthetics to come together.
Really, I got lucky pretty fast and this card, mailed back in March of 1908, was one I could just purchase. (Another is on its way to me for a colleague who just got a puppy – his first pet in a number of years. He is a musician and almost got early canine related sheet music but the card I found for him looks like an early 20th century version of his pup!)
In this process I should admit that one photo has come to stay (an occupational hazard – more on that one in a future post) and I thought this one rated the Pictorama treatment. In this card a big footed fellow appears here in straw boater and spiffy collar better suited for a summer outing for the 4th of July than Christmas. A quick search tells me that this image was first distributed in 1906. The ultimate recipient of this card has smaller dogs but I think will like this early guy’s style.
Although it is postmarked March 5, 1906 I cannot read the location of the cancellation. It was sent to Miss Marion Deverance in Durant Okla Box 598 without a message; I guess they felt the card spoke for itself? It’s a simple image in black and white, really just depending on the props for the pup and also the sweet and somewhat urgent look in his eyes. This little fellow wants to please the person behind the camera – perhaps one holding a treat?
I amaze a bit at the difference between dogs and cats as I spend time with them these days. It’s pretty universal that cats hate going to the vet and the best you can hope for is one that doesn’t howl, or in the extreme, bite. Dogs are a mixed bag. Some seem (not all to be sure) to honestly be happy to enter our doors and see their doctor friends. Others are at least resigned as long as they are with mom or dad. There are some who, like the felines, just aren’t having it.
In general though, dogs are so much more social and enjoy participation in the world with their people in a way cats just cannot. I have had some success planning dog friendly events over these past two years. Finding establishments that can and will welcome dogs has been one of the interesting challenges. Our annual Living Legends luncheon typically honors a dog, cat and exotic animal setting the bar for that location even higher. (Bearded dragon welcome?) Meanwhile, we have a parrot joining its mom at our Gala next week, a moveable perch needed to be found for it so that it could join in some photo sessions. Again, this is a very different job! (For your information and in case you need one, Amazon had the perch.)
There are a smattering of dog friendly bars and restaurants uptown near me. Interesting to note that NYC parks are not especially friendly to dog gatherings, although the individual conservancies are willing the Parks Department gives us a thumbs down. I worked for Central Park for several years and am well aware of their leash laws but these have not been requests to have dogs off leash, just gatherings where people could bring them.
My hardbound copy of this book. I bought a bunch of paperbacks to give as thank you gifts this year at work.
Obviously fund raising for an animal hospital raises specific and different challenges from my years at Jazz and before that decades at the Metropolitan Museum. In some ways I am uniquely prepared with my deeply devoted pet past and present. And it’s not all about dogs – donors to a new cat fund for needed emergency surgeries has received May Sarton’s book, The Fur Person which I wrote about in a post that can be found here.
I hope my colleagues will like their canine cards and other holiday treats and that next year, my third, further indicates that I am getting the hang of this fundraising for animals thing right.
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.
Pam's Pictorama 