1939 World's Fair Snapshot Photograph Album High Quality Unusual Subjects Vernacular Photography New York City

Unusually good snaphots of the 1939 World's Fair.  Also some lesser seen installations.  The Tree of Life  and the Town of Tomorrow Bungalow!  Monkey Mountain!  

1939 Photograph Album of the World's Fair Collection Jim Linderman
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Astounding Prison Polaroid Collection arouses Considerable Controversy

An unusual and remarkable archive of prison photographs have generated controversy.  Read the story HERE on the Prison Photography Website

MARVILA ! La Mujer Maravilla Si! Wonder Woman Publicaciones!

Herramienta Dull Bulbo oscuro presenta a la mujer más caliente de superhéroes de la historia ... La Mujer Maravilla Marvila!
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First Nation Huddle Tribal Event of Significance on the Great Plains Photograph

 

It is said the huddle was invented by a deaf football player, but I have lived long enough to know just about anything I have learned isn't really true.  I suspect it was the Native American, but I suppose we will not learn anything about this photo.  


Based on the beadwork, I would have guessed this was a Woodlands tribe, but immediately realized they are on the plains.  Whatever is going on is special, as the interlopers are keeping their distance. 

I really would like tribal identification, and while there isn't too much to go in, there is a feather headdress involved.  

Anonymous cabinet photograph, circa 1890 Collection Jim Linderman

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Handcarved Miniature Folk Art Toy Plow collection Jim Linderman

Minature Folk Art Plow Handcarved circa 1950  Collection Jim Linderman

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Schicklgruber on the Run Carnival Novelty Backdrop Photograph circa 1944 collection Jim Linderman

Anyone can join in the war effort with this painted novelty photographer backdrop (actually a foreground.)  Anonymous photograph Circa 1944 collection Jim Linderman
You may wish to preview two related books I have published, linked below.  Ebook versions are only $5.99.  Thanks!  Jim.

Comic Foreground Novelty Photographs from Argentina ARGENTINA TINTAMARRESQUE EBOOK $5.99
FREE PREVIEW AND ORDERS HERE

Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography 1860 - 1920 THE PAINTED BACKDROP
EBOOK $5.99
FREE PREVIEW AND ORDERS HERE

Essential Design

Anything John Hubbard does is great, so this site will be well worth watching.  I have no idea what he has up his designing sleeves, but it will be interesting.

Teeny Tiny Articulated Folk Art Figure

Wooden carved articulated folk art figure, less then 3 inches tall.  Circa 1935 or so.
Collection Jim Linderman

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Continental Hula Hips be GONE and the Hippy Hippy Shake America Discovers the Hula and Hips

There are two types of Hula dance. just like there is two types of American Indian art.  That would be Pre-Western world  and Post-Western world.

The Pre-Western world Hula was an integral tradition of a great cultural, spiritual and social significance.  (Again…just like Pre-Western Native American Indian art.) 

The Post-Western Hula is a way for American women to discover their hips. Or to look coy.  Or to ham it up for their hubby.  Or, now that I think of it…a way to be slightly offensive to a culture which spread from Tahiti to New Zealand, with hula hotspots in Hawaii, Somoa, Tonga and other locales.

The Post-Western world American Indian art was produced for sale, at slave wages, by people transitioned to reservations in need of a survival  income.

Okay…factual but unfortunate history lesson out of the way.  No, wait.   It gets worse.

When Protestant missionaries arrived in the Hawaiian islands, they immediately found the traditional dance obscene.  First step of learning the Hula?  BAN it.  By the time of our Civil War, the missionaries had managed to nearly stamp out the Hula on the islands, and believe it or not, LICENSED it so when it occurred in public, it was closely monitored.  

The missionaries didn't know about, or didn't believe in, or didn't enjoy women's hips.  Especially women's hips which were apparently enjoying themselves.  It is pretty hard not to smile when either watching or dancing the hula.  The hula was hot.  The hula was Shakira on a good day.

(According to Wiki, the missionaries allowed the dance to continue in their OWN little Christian hovels, but denied it to the natives.  That too is an old story. )

Am I being too harsh?  Nope.  The church has a history of banning hip-dances.  You want a little "Hippy, Hippy Shake?"  Well…okay.  But by those cute mop-top Beatles, not Chan Romero, the "ethnically outside" Spanish and Apache man who wrote it.  

The real, original, deeply rooted cultural dance known as the hula signifies nature, an ocean wave, a yearning, and a whole spectrum of deep, complex meanings… but the interlopers only saw the hips.  I am not sure if the cocoanut breast covering now seen at vacation resorts was part of the original dance, but I don't have to look it up.  I don't think so.      

Is there ANYTHING good to say about the history of the Hula?  Yes.  Hula Hoops.  The recent fitness craze.  The sound of the grass skirts  and the brief glimpses hinting at what is within.  And again…the smiles.

I collected these vintage photographs of American women doing the hula "ham it up" just to tell this story.  See how an image can be worth a thousand words?  So can a video.  Here is Chan rocking it.  Chan wasn't afraid of hips, but Ed Sulllivan was.  Look up Elvis.  He liked Hawaii too.



Maybe one day I'll tell the story of the slide guitar and what it meant in Hawaii.


Group of Vintage Snapshots of Hula, American Style.  All circa 1930 - 1945 Collection Jim Linderman

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Bathing Beauty in Cap with Decay, Abandonment and Rust. Guest Post

A lovely guest photograph by Anne Riepma, who is not only a follower of Dull Tool Dim Bulb...she is a friend.

"Say what you will about Instagram, but it has gotten me looking at things in a new way and I'm having lots of fun with it. I guess I'm making my own little digital footprint! I'm into decay, abandonment and rust."

Sent from my iPhone

Untitled (Reed's Motel) courtesy Anne Riepma

Sublime Horizontal Performance A Photograph Good Either Way! Young Woman Gymnast Collection Jim Linderman

A beautiful snapshot, undated and anonymous, of a young woman with perfect balance and skill.

Circa 1950? Original 4 x 5 snapshot Collection Jim Linderman

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Lurid Magnificence of the Big Little Books and the Forgotten Drawings of Henry E. Vallely

For a "Big Little Book" this tiny volume amassed a pretty big body count.  If one wants to understand gun violence today, peer back to what Gramps was reading in 1937.  Maybe the Kefauver Commission who wanted to tone down comic books in the 1950s avoided the Big Little Books because no senator wanted his picture taken of him reading one.  They were for kids, and they were as violent as the most of violent, well… fairy tales.  And then some.

Big Little Books are cool, but I am interested here in one particular artist, Henry E. Vallely.  Before I go any further, check out THIS little gem in which scholar "DSK" seemingly proves Batman comic artist Bob Kane swiped from Vallely.  Holy smokes, Batman…our inventor is a CROOK! 

I swear.  No honor among thieves or comic cook Illustrators.

There are literally hundreds of fantastic illustrations by Mr. Vellely in books for children  There are nearly that many in one book alone, and all shown here came from just one.

The problem with Big Little Books is that they are brittle with acid pulp and literally disappearing while we twiddle our thumbs on smart phones.  They can be frozen or treated in other ways to preserve them, but like capitalism, I guess, they held within them the seeds of their own destruction.  (Marxist theory from my college days!)

The other problem is that no one can SEE the work of the artist anymore, as if you even touch the spine to read one, the entire little book cracks into a puff of brown paper dust.  Wear a mask.  Those collectors might as well be wrapping dead fish in their mylar bags…they're not going to last much longer and you can't stop it.

In order to illustrate my profile here of Henry Vallely,  I have solved the problem of opening a book to scan it by shelling out four dollars for a completely beat copy of "In The Name of the Law" copyright 1937 by Stephen Slesinger published by Whitman Publishing Co. of Racine, Wisconsin.  If they feel I have violated their copyright, I will gladly remove the images here (and ask vigorously what THEY are doing to preserve the work) but my initial check reveals they never renewed it.  I'll proceed to tear and scan.  Whitman gave up on Little Big Books and concentrated on those blue folders for coin collecting.

I am RIPPING IT APART and RUINING IT Comic book guy!  Physics, chemistry and time are going to do it anyway.  Someone better scan this work before it goes, and I don't think Google is including the little buggers in their massive book scanning program, deciding instead to concentrate on things no one is interested in while running rampant over copyright laws of their own. 

Vallely's work is simple, effective and astounding.  Vallely did more with a few black shadows than most artists do with full color.  Endlessly creative, not a thing repeated.   He did clothing ads, book covers and children's books mostly, but Vallely did Bible stories too.  Why doesn't that surprise me?  Big Little Books seem to have paid most of his bills.

Now for the biography!   THERE ISN'T ONE. Not only unfamiliar and unrecognized today, the ASK ART website indicates there are NO biographical sketches to speak of.  According to The Vallely Archives blog, he passed away in 1950…but even that source stopped seven years ago.  No Wiki entry.  Nothing.  It pisses me off, and here I am doing it for free.  What the hell ARE Phd. candidates in the arts writing about for their dissertations anyway?  Effing BANKSY? 

All illustrations by Henry E. Vallely from In The Name Of The Law 1937
 
Above Text by  Jim Linderman

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Young Hoofers Show Business 1952

An 8 x 10 photograph of young buskers dressed for the show.  Dated (with names) on the reverse

Anonymous Photographer 1952 Collection Jim Linderman

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The World's Largest Boy Band Roney's Boys TEN THOUSAND MEMBERS!

Today musical groups MAY have a member come, a member go, but bands seldom have more than a few who dropped out.  Overdoses, squabbles over money, going on to pursue a solo career.  But the band above had OVER 10,000 members!

For twenty five years, "Roney's Boys" toured, each one hand-picked and "trained" by Henry B. Roney.  Personally, I like to think all 10,000 boys were "taught" rather than "trained" but if it worked for Roney, I guess he knew what he was doing. 

Each year he found a new batch of boys to replace the old ones.  Changing voices, I guess.  He dressed them up in Scottish Garb to perform.

When Henry retired from the "boy training" scene in 1913, he stayed on the road lecturing in a presentation he called "Boy Problem" in which he shared his experience in raising boy singers.  He kept one around to show "what can be done with boys of talent." 

Now THAT is a boy band. 

When I typed in the band's name, Google corrected me and asked if I wanted to learn about "Romney's boys" instead of Roney's Boys.  Bwah Hah Hah!   Not in the LEAST.

Roney's Boys Photo Postcard, 1911  Collection Jim Linderman

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