Having spent a week wandering down Tin Pan Alley, examining the songs of the past and the usdes and abuses applied to them, we may have forgotten that there were plenty of other sources of inspiration being offered to the postcard artist. It was one of the golden eras of Memorized Poetry, when goodContinue reading “Making It Verse”
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One of Those Songs, Part Three
To conclude this week’s investigation of popular music and the postcard, I thought I would collect a few stories I came up with on my way to somewhere else. We opened, above, with another comic postcard by travel photographer J. Murray Jordan. This represents a hit song-Come Away With Me, Lucille, In My Merry Oldsmobile—andContinue reading “One of Those Songs, Part Three”
One of Those Songs, Part Two
As you may recall from our last thrilling episode (if not, see above) we are considering the various ways postcard humorists made use of popular songs, whether these were destined to become classics or swept under the rug with the dust of a previous generation’s joys. Old reliable songs were, of course, fair game. EverybodyContinue reading “One of Those Songs, Part Two”
One of Those Songs, Part One
Pop Music was defined by one wise man as the music your father listens to. What YOU listen to is REAL music, not popular stuff, and the songs you find yourself humming are songs that will live forever and not disappear into the mass of forgotten “pop” music. Yeah, we’re always kidding ourselves about theseContinue reading “One of Those Songs, Part One”
Oh Yeah?
You will recall, of course, from our last thrilling episode that postcard publishers were always ready to supply ammunition to those people who wanted to motivate their friends and family, passing along wisdom about how to conduct one’s life and how to feel about it while they were doing it. Work hard, mind your ownContinue reading “Oh Yeah?”
Necessary Nagging
I was thinking of returning to a topic I’ve blogged about before, possibly blaming it all on Psalm of Life, Longfellow’s magnificent bit of motivational poetry. But it obviously goes back before that. Poets, among others, have always been willing to tell us how to live, and how to feel about what we were doing. Continue reading “Necessary Nagging”
Oh! You Running Gag!
Albert and Harry Von Tilzer were responsible for a lot of pop culture at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Albert composed “After the Ball”, considered the first pop song to sell over a million copies (sheet music, since records were at this point going through a format war andContinue reading “Oh! You Running Gag!”
Undivided Attention
Some people have noted that the postcards I have been showing off in this column have had writing on the front, and asked if the message was just so long it wouldn’t fit on the back. It’s a bit of postcard history reflected in the design of some of the cards. Sending a cardContinue reading “Undivided Attention”
Behind the Seen
I have always stood with Jim Henson and his Muppet crew, who had as one of their guidelines the motto that “A joke not worth telling once might be worth telling seventeen times.” I have tried, in my own small way, to hold true to that standard, and I see that the postcard makersContinue reading “Behind the Seen”
Insufficient Centennial Note
Once upon a time, Pineapple Fry, there was no Internet. No, come back. I know most of your grandfather’s stories start this way, but stick with me and we may get somewhere. In those dear, bygone days, the major electronic entertainment devices in our home were the radio, which we used for weather reports, news,Continue reading “Insufficient Centennial Note”
Blogsy Babbles 