Horrors in Wax # 14 The SECOND Wax Oswald!

Another installment in my Horrors of Wax series, and this one is my SECOND Wax Oswald. So which Wax Oswald did the dirty Dallas deed? Neither...but there certainly were at least two Oswalds made of wax, and to prove it to all you conspiracy buffs here they are, BOTH IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME! The other post focuses more on Wax Jack Ruby. Click Blue subject heading below to see the entire "Horrors of Wax" series.

"Wax Oswald patiently waits for triangulation fire signal from Umbrella Man" (my title) Wax Museum Postcard, circa 1965 Collection Jim Linderman

Sparse Circus (At the Circus in Black and White)

Click to enlarge. Hard to believe, but I THINK they've set up a ticket booth, so they're CHARGING for this ride. Snapshot, circa 1925? Likely Michigan. Collection Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman "Best Art Books of the Year" Oxford American

HERE Oxford American selects Jim Linderman and Lance Ledbetter Take Me to the Water for "Best Art Books of the Year" column. A subscription to this magazine would be well received by anyone, I have admired and read it for years, in particular the music issue.

The Greatest Masterpiece and The Missing Painting

Circa 1935 postcard with "missing painting" gummed insert "canvas" to affix a picture of a loved one (or to mail a picture of yourself to one) Unmailed. Colllection Jim Linderman

The Bizarre Erotic Outsider Art of B. E. RIDDICK

Examples of the outsider art by African-American Outsider Artist B. E. Riddick, who drew on flattened shopping bags and other paper circa 1970

Ta DA! Flipped Mirror RPPC from ANITA

Pretty hot, eh? Dearest Anita flipped it over for me! She's the BEST. We've corresponded, she is a bright young woman with a splendid eye and splendid blog and seemingly splendid life! Follow!

http://AnitaNH.blogspot.com

Novelty Reverse Risque Real Photo Postcard RPPC

Now HERE is an unusual real photo postcard. I apologize for not having mirror software...you'll have to lug your computer over to the mirror in the hallway. Caption reads "SOME CALVES AT THE ROPING CONTEST July 4th Dewey OK" but what appears to depict some hooves passing a fence is in fact some lovely legs of well-heeled women taken from under the grandstand bleachers. I suppose in 1911, it was so taboo to show dames gams, they had to resort to this convoluted deception. Note: Photoshop has a mirror effect, reverse technique which will allow one to "flip" an image. If anyone out there has the time, mail it back to me and i'll post it!

Real Photo Postcard Dewey Oklahoma 1911, Collection Jim Linderman

WORK

Illustrations by Nellie Farnam and Clarence Biers, 1939.

A BIG HAND of Giant Cards

Fred Kaplan at the National Bridge Tournament 1938
Original Press Photograph 1938 Collection Jim Linderman

Busy Workers Homemade Biblical Postcard

Handmade Postcard with Biblical Phrase and Applied Cut-out (Busy Work?) Collection Jim Linderman Also posted on old time religion blog.

Sherman Alexie The Hardy Boys and Kindle

So I saw Sherman Alexie on Colbert. He is a great writer with more guts in him than just about anyone I can think of, and if you don't believe me find his ten minute lecture on you tube from 2001, you'll see an example of the courage of a Native American. It is unfortunate he seems to be loosing some of his splendid Northwestern Indigenous patois, but that is beside the point. He doesn't allow his new book to be sold on Kindle. For him, it's about digital privacy and royalty payments for the most part, but here's another scary little gem I came across.

Say there is a "mistake" in the "first printing" of your book. Kindle plans on always selling the latest version. That's right...without the permanence of the paper page they will be continuously selling the um..."corrected" version.

When I was young, like all boys, I was mesmerized by the Hardy Boys. GAWD, I was horrified to find 30 years later while browsing the same book I had owned that the fellows had joined a ROCK BAND! In a book with the same title! Cripes...nothing is sacred. I don't remember if they had their fat friend Chet playing the drums, but I think so. I shudder. I didn't want my heroes to be practicing in the garage in a lousy group that probably sounded like the Monkees or the Jonas Brothers or whoever...I wanted them chasing scoundrels in outdated language and wearing outdated knickers while they chased them. It was atmospheric and exciting.

Use a Nancy Drew analogy if you like.

So what's to prevent Kindle from "correcting" something stupid a stupid politician says in a subsequent "edition" of the one for sale today. Or changing (they'll call it "updating") a statistic to more "accurately" reflect a situation?

There is a REASON books on paper stay the same. Because they are BOOKS.

Battling Queens of the Bronx Bad Girl Warfare Gang of the Fifties

Anonymous illustration from "Battling Queens" a short story by an anonymous writer, circa 1950, which describes a female shoplifting squad that operated as an auxiliary to the Battling Kings. "They sometimes even take on a boy gang, and they could use tire chains and sand-filled bobby socks as expertly as any of the boys." The Bronx is looking better these days.

Playing with a Marked Deck

6" x 10" Photograph of marked cards, cropped, dated 1928. Evidence Photograph?
Hand embellished dated 1928
collection Jim Linderman

GRAMMY NOMINATED Jim Linderman, Lance Ledbetter

December 3, 2009, Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography 1890–1950 
Steven Lance Ledbetter & Jim Linderman, compilation producers; Robert Vosgien, mastering engineer (Various Artists) 
[Dust-To-Digital] was nominated for a Grammy award, Category 24 "Best Historical Album"

PUBLISHER

REVIEWS, FILM

Things to Make Paste Paper Pin

Instructions not necessary

Gals Gams Garters the BOOK

Selected Pages from Gals Gams Garters Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books (#2)

The Heartbreaking Home Health Care Scrapbook of Miss Ruth Miller

A testimony to loving, respectful care compiled by Ruth Miller, who earned her Red Cross badge and then some. These images from her homemade scrapbook not only contain carefully clipped tips for the well-managed home, she has compiled a compendium on health, welfare, positive thinking and attitude. Among the manilla pages of the book, which she titled "Caring for the Sick in the Home" are included everything from tips to finding pasteurized milk to "39 points to avoid functional nervous disorders." She has a page for a well-made bed, glued pamphlets indicating how to properly light a room, a page listing the proper elements of posture:

Just square your shoulders to the world
You're not the sort to quit
It isn't the load that breaks us down
It's the way we carry it

From "What to look for when buying children's shoes" to the ravages of syphilis, Ms. Miller has it covered and in considerable detail. She has notes to remind her to be patient and wait while her charge performs a task, Her attention to detail and creative arrangement of visual cues gives me no doubt she was the kind of woman I would trust with anyone I love.

"Caring" a homemade scrapbook compiled by Miss Ruth Miller, circa 1930. Collection Jim Linderman

Confidence man and Confederate in Cahoots with a Co-Conspirator the Clairvoyant Criminal. (And Carnac)

Those of you old enough to remember Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" might understand this photo. The master talk show host conspired with his straight man Jolly Ed R.I.P to produce a skit which never got tired. Here, Some poor woman having turned over her life savings for one brief message from her dearly departed has no idea the news from heaven is actually coming from the proverbial man behind the curtain. Slick! Known as "Billet Reading" the message could read "withdraw funds from bank and give to man with moustache.

As for Carnac, I would link to them all if I could, but you'll find the good ones.

Original Press Photograph 1924 Collection Jim Linderman

Tijuana Bibles for slightly more Polite Company The Risque "joke" Book

All these examples, I believe, were published by the Ceagee publishing company in the 1940's, although none have publisher imprints or dates. The same size and format of the famous Tijuana Bibles (or 8-pagers as they were also known) they contain dirty jokes and racist humor, but of a more gentile nature than the X-rated ones. They each have something of a formula...a gentle racist joke, a gentle "boner" joke, a "whoopsie" of some type, maybe a effeminate man in some situation, some women conspiring to get a fur coat and of course, the housewife home alone and a plumber. Each page has an illustration, but many are blurry and appear to have been handed down and passed around before, so the print bleeds and some are virtually indecipherable. Some have been cribbed and a new punch line typed in. Curious little giggles probably traded at drinking establishments, carnivals and such.
Group of Ceagee Publications, circa 1935-1935. Collection Jim Linderman

Open Air Baptism Under the Lights Georgia 1938, a Christmas Gift Suggestion and a Milestone!

Dull Tool Dim Bulb will receive hit number 100,000 today though I only added the counter in August 2009. The figure includes all my sleazy sites as well, but STILL! I am amazed. This site started one year ago to occupy my time while my first book/cd project was being printed by the good folks at Dust-to-Digital. The book, Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950 is something I am very proud of. The institution the original photographs were donated to will announce an exhibition soon.

You can read the reviews. In fact, this week I read one in DUTCH. They are all, I am also proud to say, great. If great reviews were coins, we would all be shaking our hips like Shakira at the American Music Awards. Not being available at your local Barnes and Noble, you'll have to click it on home. Needless to say, it will make an outstanding Christmas present, as will any of the discs at D to D. Don't expect to see my publisher's house on MTV Cribs anytime soon, this is most certainly, as they say, love labor... but I can promise anyone who receives the book will not re-gift. It is a keeper.

"THEIR CLOTHES DRIPPING AFTER THEIR BAPTISM IN THE OPEN AIR RESERVOIR IN THE HILLS NEAR HERE, MR. AND MRS. HOWARD MCGEE AND HUGGED BY THEIR THREE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, PEGGY, AS THEY EMERGE FROM THE POOL. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE DEEP SOUTH, THE BAPTISM WAS HELD IN THE OPEN AIR UNDER FLOODLIGHTS. THIRTY-ONE "APPLICANTS" WERE DUCKED"

Original Press Photograph, 1938. Collection Jim Linderman