In our last thrilling episode, we took up the question of postcards with slightly surprising content. U grew up being told, don’t you recall, that the nineteenth century was an era of repression and tight-lipped prudery which forbade books by male and female authors to sit on the same shelf (unless they were married.) Continue reading “Wait, What? II”
Tag Archives: Postcards
Wait, What?
When making one’s way through another world’s jokes, something we do here as we examine the comic postcards of a century or half century ago, it us important not to get too judgy. Roger Ebert stated once that it is not a critic’s job to say “That’s not funny.” No one appointed the criticContinue reading “Wait, What?”
Love Road
It has been oh, WEEKS since we have checked in with the Dutch Kids, so I thought we might revisit this social phenomenon of the last century. Doe newcomers, and for those with psychogenic amnesia whose brains have blotted out the information in self-defense, there was a craze beginning around 1910 for postcardsContinue reading “Love Road”
Dr. Cupid
Once upon a time, starting in 1879, there lived a cartoonist named Walter Wellman. He was not a cartoonist yet when he was born, in 1879, that is to say. He probably wasn’t allowed access to ink until he was able to crawl around and grab it./ Anyhow, he was one of those cartoonistsContinue reading “Dr. Cupid”
Broad Humor
I wrote a whole book once of jokes singled out for their absolute omnipresence, what a layperson might call “old jokes”, or, if they were people were as old as the jokes, “chestnuts”. The book was presented in the form of a quiz: if the jokes were really all that stale, you would beContinue reading “Broad Humor”
Bygone Wishes
One of the things people do not talk about when studying serious history are the little pleasures and customs of life which have faded away. This is left to people who write mere nostalgia: a loving look back on such disappearing pleasures as the key you had to use to open canned meat orContinue reading “Bygone Wishes”
Fish Story
Seventy years ago this spring, general Douglas MacArthur made his famous address to Congress, in which he reminded everyone that “Old Soldiers never die. They just fade away.” Though he was not the first to express the thought (it apparently comes from a song parody of around World War I) he made it hisContinue reading “Fish Story”
Go Fourth
If I have scared away my readership with the previous blogs this week, I now have a nice private moment to do something I was fairly certain I would never do. There will thus be no witnesses, giving me plausible deniability if someone says “I saw you were reminiscing about the Fourth of July.”Continue reading “Go Fourth”
Such Is Life
“Mister Farmer! Mister Farmer! How is it that your cow there has no horns?” “Well, Ma’am, cows and their horns are an interesting subject. Sometimes a cow never grows horns at all. The scientists are still working on why: it may be the Good Lord just never meant that cow to have ‘em. Continue reading “Such Is Life”
Grin and Bear
I hope what I wrote in Monday’s column could not be construed as suggesting the donkey (burro, jackass, etc.) served only one purpose in the postcard of midcentury vintage. The donkey appeared regularly on postcards in many roles: at the beginning of the twentieth century he appeared as a sometimes patient, sometimes recalcitrant beast ofContinue reading “Grin and Bear”
Blogsy Babbles 