Dull Tool Dim Bulb: Seeing Mystery Spots

Seeing Mystery Spots

Actually, the real mystery to me is how these guys can wear their pants so high. There are numerous "mystery places" in the US, three of them are shown in these postcards. Mystery spot, number one, come on down! The black and white images are early photos from Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, Ca. They are still confusing hordes of tired drivers, see their web "spot" here. Mystery spot number two is actually a Mystery HOUSE and operates in the Black Hills near Mt. Rushmore, (although they have since changed their name to Cosmos Mystery AREA) and are represented here by the mystery of a big-eared father and his big-eared sons. Here even JUNIOR wears his jeans around his chest. Mystery Spot number three, seemingly in a sauna, shows here an attractive young woman in saddle shoes and a woman in extra precarious position due to her high heels. Three is in Michigan, of course, and still thriving as well. They claim one million visitors, each who will "no doubt remember your visit" for years to come. There are no less than 25 similar identified spots in the United States, and I would love to visit every single one.

Group of Mystery Post Cards c. 1950-1960. Collection Jim Linderman

8 comments:

AnonymousJune 1, 2009 at 7:07 PM
I beleive that there is a mystery Spot in St.Ignace,MI. They get many visitors during the summer months.
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Dull Tool Dim BulbJune 1, 2009 at 7:38 PM
Yep...that's one of those shown here.
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Tattered and LostJune 1, 2009 at 9:26 PM
Mystery spots are great fun. You know what you're seeing can't be true and I remember visiting the one in Santa Cruz and thinking somebody was pulling my leg. My father told me it was all real. He was a Naval aviator and told me about how the instruments would go haywire when you flew over the place. I then became a believer.
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AnonymousJune 2, 2009 at 8:50 AM
God ive never even heard of Mystery spots.
I thought at first this was some kind of trick photography until i followed your link. Id just love to visit on of these places...Thanks for learning me something new today :)
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AnonymousJune 2, 2009 at 2:22 PM
YES! The Santa Cruz Mystery Spot is the best interactive entertainment that exists. And, it's in the trees. Balls roll up hill and people lean all funny-like.

Anyone else reminded of Saddam's statue (2003) leaning over but propped by internal support?
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Dull Tool Dim BulbJune 2, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Thanks for following and for taking the time to comment! Folks, "prisonphotography" is a fascinating blog, I suggest you click and view.
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christieJune 27, 2009 at 3:03 PM
i have actually been here! very fun. it really is fascinating.
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Dull Tool Dim BulbJune 27, 2009 at 3:43 PM
Great! Thanks for taking the time to comment, make sure to follow.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017

"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016

"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014

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"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

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"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

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Seeing Mystery Spots

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