A few old newspaper stories about people rescuing cats

From the January 8, 1927, edition of The Gazette and Daily in York, Pennsylvania. Thank you, John Almony.

From the January 26, 1925, edition of the Atlantic City (New Jersey) Daily Press.

From Dorothy Gaines' "In and About Tucson" column in the October 25, 1973, edition of the Arizona Daily Star. Sister Theresa Seraphim, a Russian Orthodox nun from England, wrote a 1966 book titled All God's Creatures. She died in 1990, but her legacy and work continue at The Hermitage No-Kill Cat Shelter and Sanctuary in Tucson. 

Book cover & inscription: "A Confederate General from Big Sur"

It's been 13½ years since there was a post that was fully about a Richard Brautigan book, so I think it's high time for another. 

• Title: A Confederate General from Big Sur
• Author: Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)
• About the cover: The wave is a portion of the 1831 woodblock print "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai. That's Brautigan himself holding the umbrella. I have searched the internets far and wide, but cannot determine who the woman is. Please leave a comment if you know!
• Back cover promotional text: "An amazing story ... You'll feel better about the whole world after reading this." — Los Angeles Herald Examiner
• Original publication date: January 22, 1965
• This edition: This is the Ballantine Books paperback. First printing, June 1973.
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 160
• Cover price: $1.50. (A little pricey for a 1973 paperback! That's the equivalent of about $10.50 today.)
• Dedication: "to my daughter Ianthe"
• First sentence: "When I first heard about Big Sur I didn't know that it was a member of the Confederate States of America."
• Last sentence: "Then there are more and more endings: this sixth, the 53rd, the 131st, the 9,453rd ending, endings going faster and faster, more and more endings, faster and faster until the book is having 186,000 endings per second."
• Random excerpt #1: "I went downtown to see three movies in a Market Street flea palace. It was a bad habit of mine. From time to time I would get the desire to confuse my senses by watching large flat people crawl back and forth across a huge piece of light, like worms in the intestinal track of a tornado."
• Random excerpt #2: "She went down to the pet shop and came back with two alligators. We asked her why she'd gotten two alligators and she said they were on sale."
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.98 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review: In 2007, Kyle wrote: "The best use of weird metaphors, brilliant and silly and vulgar and nothing to do with anything. You can read it in two hours and it will make you happy and sad and think differently about alligators, motorcycle parts, hippies, and hitchhiking down highway one to Big Sur."
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2011, Michael H. Jones wrote: "I first read this novel forty years ago while working as a poll watcher in New Jersey. I forget what party I was supposedly 'watching' for, but my dad and I were the only ones in town. During the long, boring day I read Confederate General and laughed so hard at different times that I cried, and snot dripped down my face. I am sure the other party's watchers are still convinced that Democrats are mental."
• Twitter memory (I'm not calling it X): In 2022, @DougieTraill tweeted: "A Confederate General from Big Sur. It was my gateway to Richard Brautigan. My dad recommended it to me, and let me read through his Brautigan collection. Gave us a shared interest to talk about, and brought us a bit closer when I was being a moody 14-15 year old dickhead!"

Bonus: The inscription in this copy of the book

The "magical" world of early 1970s interior decorating

I came across the 1970 book Better Homes and Gardens Creative Decorating on a Budget a while back at a Goodwill store and knew that it contained vast horrifying treasures inside that would be worth sharing here. The late 1960s and 1970s were indeed an, ahem, magical time when it came to interior decorating, and most of that "style" was still around, albeit in grungier and smelling-of-smoke form, when my generation was growing up in the early 1980s.

Weirdly, when I search Google now, I mostly find articles that say 1970s interior decor was unfairly maligned and/or is making a well-deserved comeback. It's kind of crazy. I think most of this must be coming from hip younger folks who didn't live through the era in their parents' and grandparents' houses. 

James Lileks had it right with his 2004 book Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible '70s. (There's also a valuable website documenting the horrors to go along with it.)¹ 

Without further ado, here are some images from Better Homes and Gardens Creative Decorating on a Budget. Prepare to be triggered.

Leading off with a daily double: 

What if the entire room were green?

I'm not sure this in an upgrade from the green rooms

Wood paneling, a jaguar pattern and Snoopy

I have so many questions. Let's start with the rugs. That little statue. And the chair that looks like it would be at home in "The Changeling."

At least the TV isn't the center of the room

We are not discussing the thing hanging on the wall²

"Butt joints and glue" sounds right

That's one way to establish a maritime theme

We're sitting on WHAT to eat our watermelon?

The infamous beaded divider curtain

Finally, we're not finished until we show a bathroom with a carpeted toilet cover

Footnotes

1. James Lileks was previously mentioned in the 2019 post "Matchbook: Hartwig's The Gobbler Supper Club & Gobbler Motel."

2. And we are definitely not revisiting this clown painting on the wall.