Men in Their Off-Hours (Not)

Mustaches required, it seems.  Don't know when this photograph was taken, but it remains a still-daunting challenge to the viewer.  Do not ignore or demean us.  We are intel-ligent men.  We gave you many things you value.

Still In The Asparagus Biz

Another beautiful card showing Sicilian occupations and their costumes.  Gorgeous subtlety to the colors here.

Preternatural Children Department

A slightly odd version of the standard circa 1900 French 'pretty child' postcard genre.  The blowsy hair and the tension in the arrangement of the mouth--a slightly curled lip on one side and raised nostril--makes this sequin-speckled girl strangely "adult" in presentation.  There's a critical dimension, a kind of incipient bluestocking-ism, here that puzzles.  Puzzles me, at least.

Home-Made Dog Brontosaurians

A hand-colored postcard drawn in  idiot savant mode.  (The medium is chalk pastel.) Luckily, dogs' short legs and insanely long backs (are they meant to be Retrievers?) do not impinge altogether disastrously on the nobility of the scene.

My Favorite Derviche

The hair, the hat--he'ze got it going on.  And did I ever say turquoisey-greeny-yallery is my favorite color combination of the moment?

The. Perfect. Postcard. of. Its. Kind.

No less.

In Process of Rebranding

Still Going Strong!

Dreadful how I've been neglecting my Almanac!   A rich haul from most recent Vintage Paper and Postcard fair, tho.....  So stay tuned.   

Meeting Cute

Tristan, Akt 1.

We Struggled To Understand

But some things are just not self-explanatory.  No, this is not--as far as anyone knows--Rachel Dolezal.  But then who is this coy lady and what is that *thing* she is posing in?  It looks at first like a gigantic piece of rubber tubing, but in the bottom frame, it has begun to take on the appearance of a giant eggplant.  She's resting in it, seemingly unperturbed.

Let's All Be Sultry Together

Not a contact sheet, exactly, but a scan I made after hauling off a bunch of anon. photos from a junk shop on 18th Street in the Mission.  I will need to process everything individually, obviously--especially those strips that ARE from contact sheets, of the same cheesy model--but I think the scan page make an intriguing all-female portfolio as it is.

Click to zoom, of course.

Bouffanterie

There is hair and there is hair.  And sometimes it takes your breath away. 

My Philosophy for the Summer

Someone Running Through Spray

It's a very sad day; this image feels especially good.

Scarlet Pimpernel.....

.....  you go here, you go there---how can I ever thank you enough for what you've done for me.

So I Don't Care?

Who exactly is speaking here?  Pierrette or the homunculus?

The Funny Little Man--to quote the title of Virginia Smith's book (one of my favorite books ever)--is a design joke that never gets stale.   See another version (one of many I have) below.

Don't Point That Thing At Me

To my chagrin, one of my suppliers of archival news photos has gone out of business.  (Sniff.)  But before the sun sank into the sea, I made some interesting bargain purchases: this being one.  Valley Forge Hospital, 1944--so I presume it shows some kind of rehabilitative therapy for a military man.  All very PT-109.  

Yet hard not to marvel, too, at the suggestive poetics of the image and     *serious* plumbing works here on view.  A veritable plethora of stop cocks and nozzles.   Those basins on the right were obviously edited out when the photo ran, but what exactly are they?  Urinals?  Sinks?  Bidets?   Part of the treatment?

Finally--just noticed--that small touch of 'white out' masking liquid just beneath the man's hand, in front-crotch area.  Would seem to be there, presumably, to disguise any compromising militaristic bulge, especially given that Nurse Cherry Ames, playful medical minx, appears to aim her spray at her patient's more ticklish parts.

Yup, I'm A Cardinal