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”
Tag Archives: Postcards
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”
Around His Neck
So in our last two installments, we considered the mockery postcard cartoonists made of two items of women’s fashion in the 1905-1915 era: the hobble skirt and the picture hat. Can we have the same wild and crazy time considering men’s fashion of the period? Well, if you look at that first picture,Continue reading “Around His Neck”
Picture This
Now, the world has never been long without big, bizarre hats, the kind that really catch the eye (and the wind.) Floppy or rigid, expressing extreme elegance or extreme zaniness, the wide-brimmed hat was worn by women who wanted to express SOMETHING with a flair. The postcard hasn’t been around long, its modernContinue reading “Picture This”
More Worries
We were discussing faded fads in our last column, considering those phenomena that blazed through the culture with such acclaim that everyone knew what they were about, but which disappeared so suddenly that it isn’t easy to figure out, years later, exactly what was going on. (Not now, Butterscotch Broth, we’ll discuss pogs someContinue reading “More Worries”
Blogsy Babbles 