What is New at Dull Tool Dim Bulb 2012 Update Jim Linderman

A few recent developments from the Dull Tool Dim Bulb empire!

MUCH pleased to have had no less than David Sedaris recommend the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Blog to his readers.  As one who has gone from sitting in Barnes and Noble watching David read to becoming a writer (of sorts) himself, this is a great honor.

Skilled writer and artist Emma Higgins has written a lovely profile titled "Jim Linderman Perpetually Ahead of the Collecting Curve" HERE on the Grand Rapids website H.A.C.K.  Grand Rapids, as you may or may not know, is a booming city in the culture department, with their annual Art Prize awarding $$$ and attracting many artist participants and visitors annually. HACK is a wonderful guide to the West Michigan Art Scene and much more.

Two new books, I'm With Dummy: Vent Figures and Blockheads: Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection and PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s are now available.  Each is available in paperback OR Ebook download for the iPad.  They lanquish on the virtual shelves of Blurb.com.  ALL the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books are now available as $5.99 downloads.  Save a tree and buy a virtual book.

Vintage Sleaze the blog now has an astounding 36,000 followers on Facebook and the network of blogs under the Dull Tool Dim Bulb umbrella is approaching 2.25 million page clicks.  If clicks were coins and followers were finance I would be rich...but I prefer happy.

In the not to announce category The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami may be doing a show based on the Vintage Sleaze series and Book Secret History of the Black Pin Up: Women of Color from Pinup to Porn which would be an honor.  More as, and if, this develops.  I think it will...and if so, linkage will result.

Design Weekly wrote a nice profile and recommendation to Vintage Sleaze, thank you very much. 

I recently made what I believe is a significant contribution to an important new book by an important comic book historian, but I'll report on it in the next update.

Music fans can now follow Bob Dylan Record an Album of Songs by Charlie Patton on Facebook.  The site grows out of a series of infrequent essays on Dylan...who, with a new album out any day now, has once again failed to do what I wish he would.  He will.

I also presume all have seen the recent Jim Linderman New York Times Profile?  The article uses a photograph by Michigan-based photographer Adam Bird which I much appreciate.  Mr. Bird is a young photographer with considerable style and skill.  The Times also quoted me in a recent article on the rebirth of pinup style.

I have discovered an original stag film of Texas Legend Candy Barr dancing.  This is not the common film on Youtube, but a film shot on the same set or stage around the same time.   I'm not quite sure what do do with the film, but It has been transfered to Digital CD and I'm pondering selling copies or using it as a gift to friends.  The only problem is that once the Candy is out of the bag, it will be bootlegged wider than Justin Bieber's next recording.  Any ideas?

Frank Wendt Ida Iva and Eva the Hanna Triplets

The beautiful Ida, Iva and Eva Hanna were in the business from age 10 months old. As Iva explained in 1967 from her retirement town of St. Augustine, Florida, there weren't too many triplets in those days who survived...so I guess you could call them freaks who weren't freaks. Their father had them each wear different color ribbons in their hair so he could tell them apart. They worked for Ringling brothers and the A.B. Marcus Musical Comedy group after they learned how to dance. They stopped performing at age 20 when they started getting married. Iva married a stagehand, Eva married Blumpsie, A.K.A Blumpsy the clown. I'm not sure who Ida married, but she did...and all three were happy and kicking their heels up some 60 years after these photos were taken. They regrouped briefly in 1956 to perform and celebrate their 50th birthday. These photos are also posted on WONDROUS WORLD OF FRANK WENDT my tribute and biography of the photographer.

Group of Frank Wendt Cabinet Card Photos of the Hanna Triplets, c. 1910. Collection Jim Linderman

Lifting Up Jesus Ministries

Original 35mm photograph, location unknown, American South c. 1993 Collection Jim Linderman

Rev. Promise House of Prayer Spiritual Healer & Advisor

Original 35mm photograph Location Unknown American South c. 1995 Collection Jim Linderman

Not all Sideshow Freaks were Human Frank Wendt

Linus II had a 10 foot double mane and a 16 foot tail. He was owned by W. A. Rutherford of Marion, Oregon, and presumably won many ribbons at the local state fair, not to mention attracting many nickels and dimes from sideshow attendees in the 1880's. Circus sideshow performers with unusual attributes were far from common, but even fewer had four legs.

Original Cabinet Card Photograph c. 1880 by Wendt Collection Jim Linderman

Rev. Anderson Johnson Artist Singer Preacher

The congregation of Reverend Elder Bishop Anderson Johnson numbered in the thousands, but they were virtually all painted by the preacher himself and most hung by threads from the ceiling instead of sitting in pews. Surrounded by crime, blight, drugs and wig shops, he appeared to lead a quiet life on Ivy Street in Newport News, VA following a long career of selfless ministry. I am only now beginning to appreciate, some 15 years after my first visit, how special was his gift and talent. Within the door of his church and home a dark cave of religious passion entirely of his own making awaited. Completely surrounded by his own paintings of "followers" he performed on guitar, pedal steel and piano, hidden within the walls and largely for himself. I was surprised years later to find he had recorded commercially. Despite many conversations about his life, service and mission, he never mentioned his gospel steel guitar recordings made by Henry Stone in Florida in the late 1950's released on the Glory and Angel Labels. I understand there has been a resurgence of steel guitar gospel players in Florida since, I suspect the roots of this movement were planted by Reverend Johnson. He passed away near poverty, but at least one painting was added to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1998. He once told me, in all seriousness, the reason he painted so many portraits was that he hoped to find work as a courtroom artist. The house he transformed was destroyed by urban renewal (which in this case was needed, believe me) Portions of the environment also remain in historic preservation museum projects in Virginia and in private collections. There is a beautiful essay about his life on the website of the Middle Passage Project run by the College of William and Mary. Some of Mr. Johnson's recordings have been reissued, one appears on the Dust-To-Digital "Goodbye, Babylon" box set of 2003

Original 35mm photographs 1993-1995 collection Jim Linderman

Rev. N. T. Rucker Brown's Holy Chapel

Unknown Location, American South c. 1995 Original 35mm photo collection Jim Linderman

Split Silk Baptist Church

Original 35mm Photo Between Atlanta and Athens, GA c. 1995 Collection Jim Linderman

Livelystone Church

Location Unknown Southern United States Original 35mm photograph c. 1994 Collection Jim Linderman