Youngest Reenactors Boys Camp Outing with Uniforms Collection Jim Linderman

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Normally I would count the stars to date this photo, but they may be using an old one to create the proper environment for the boys...if you can call "playing war" proper in any context.  A wonderful photograph,  1890 maybe?  The Youngest recruits for the Spanish - American War?  The Earliest Civil War Reenactors?

You can ponder the details. My only observations?  There was not yet a national obsession with soda, so every boy is lean and fit.  This photo today would require the photographer to stand way back to fit everyone in.  The other?  Leave it to the adults to ham it up.  Every boy is doing his best to show the proper respect, but the hormone enraged goobers "running the show" are doping it up in back.


Anonymous Photograph, circa 1890?  "Boys Camp"  5" x 8"  (Mount 8" x 10") Collection Jim Linderman 

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What's Better Than A Box Of Paints ? These Are! Blaisdell Pencil Box

What's better than a box of paints?  My box of Blaisdell Map Coloring Drawing Pencils!  They are encased in wood.

Blaisdell Colored Pencils No Date Collection Jim Linderman

TOP VALUE ! Looking for Top Value?

Looking for top value?  Shoot, who ain't?  Trading Stamps can stretch your dollar, and just look at the perfect, clean world they come from!  Look really, really close and you can see the Top Value mascot, "Toppie" the frugal elephant painted on the wall of the redemption center, all dressed up in his tartan frock to represent value.  Top Value was located in Canton, Ohio

Top Value Trading Stamps Booklet Top Value Enterprises 1966  Collection Jim Linderman

Jean Lussier Balls the Falls ! Dapper Dry Debonair Devil of Dare

Jean Lussier balled the Niagara Falls only once, but he made a living off it for over 30 years.  As you can see here, he sold pictures of himself as a famous daredevil who defeated the mighty falls as a young man all the way into his old age.  He is looking pretty dapper in the last one, having apparently awarded himself some kind of "captainship" or something.  Dapper but dry as a bone...and dry a long time.


Lussier was smart enough to figure out a rubber ball was the way to survive the fall.  So he created a rubber raft inflated with inner tubes.  The round contraption with him inside went over in 1928.  The rubber beast is seen here poked with flags behind young Jean in the first photo, and it appears he has already started ripping sections out to sell as souvenirs.


I'm not kidding...Jean DID sell off his rubber, one patch at a time.  When he ran out, he sold random chunks of tires he purchased claiming they were historic!  He also toured the country giving lectures at special screenings of the film made while he bobbed and dropped.


After living off his 30 minute trip for 30 years, Lussier decided it was time to rekindle interest. He claimed he was planning another ball drop, this one three times as big around (no doubt to provide him with enough historic scraps to last him the rest of his life) but it never happened.  He passed away in a beat-up boarding house in Niagara Falls, New York.


COLLECTION OF THREE JEAN LUSSIER AUTOGRAPHED REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS circa 1928-1940  Collection JIM LINDERMAN


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Fred the Chain Man and his Carved Gun A True Crime Tale #2 by Jim Linderman

The Chain Man was found guilty October 19,1922 for kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison.  He stayed there three years.

The Chain Man earned his nickname for linking a few young women together in in a hole below his shack near Omaha, Nebraska.  He had tricked them by offering a ride to a nearby amusement park.  His victims were Jean Jenkins and Kathyryn McManaman. While his prisoners were chained to a cement block in the pit, Brown dug their graves nearby.  When H. E. Boyd tried to rescue the women,  Brown simply added him to the chains.

Chain Man was shot while being captured in Medicine Bow, Wyoming after a few days on the run.  He survived to face trial.

Chain Man's trial was delayed while the court decided what to do with hoards of high school girls who came to enjoy the show.  "We will continue the trial in the morning when the children are at their desks" decided the judge.

Brown didn't stay in prison long, unless you consider three years a long time.  He carved this dummy gun and used it in an escape attempt, but he was killed while trying. So was a prison guard.

Several years later, the skeleton of his apparent partner in the crime, Gus Grimes, was found buried near the shack Brown had held his victims.

There is at least one other example of this real photo postcard surviving.  There is no way to determine how many were developed, but the businessman who made them probably hoped to sell a few to the high school. 

Fred Brown's Dummy Gun "Azo" Real Photo Postcard 1925 Collection Jim Linderman

See Books and eBook downloads by Jim Linderman HERE at Blurb.com 

Jim Linderman Interview The Auction Exchange and Collectors News 3/26/12 One eclectic collector is seeking the storied past.

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"One Eclectic Collector is Seeking the Storied Past" Jim Linderman Interview with Eric C. Rodenberg The Auction Exchange and Collectors News March 26, 2012. 

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Elephant Train !

CLICK TO ENLARGE ELEPHANTIDAE LOXODONTA TRAIN

It's Dumbo...or Jumbo, or Horton, or Babar...what do I know.  All I can guess is that the train is leaving in FIVE MINUTES and you better get on board.

Original Snapshot 1959  Collection Jim Linderman

Mrs. Labelle and her Giant Papier Mache Heads Stephen Milanowski Photographer

COPYRIGHT STEPHEN MILANOWSKI


COPYRIGHT STEPHEN MILANOWSKI

While the site here may seem to be about photos, art and antiques, It is actually about stories. I'd like to consider myself a visual artist of sorts, one who uses things to tell stories.

There may be no better combination of "thing and story" than this one, and it comes to me courtesy master photographer Stephen Milanowski, who fortunately got in touch after I posted a big head. I found MY big head in the rafters of an antique store in Spring Lake, Michigan, where it cried out to me for several years before I took him down, talked THEM down (in price) and took him home. I posted the big baby HERE.

Imagine my surprise when I received a splendid present in the mail. A substantial and beautiful catalog from the Museum of Modern Art, their 2012 Appointment Calendar. Mr. Milanowski has a photo in the book, one which is in the MOMA permanent collection.

Nice as the book is, the card enclosed is what surprised me! Same scale, same surface, same curious holes in the head...My big baby had a FATHER and he had his portrait taken by an artist.

Mr. Milanowski (who has a splendid website HERE with some serious examples of his work over the years) later took the time to tell me the story. If you deal with the kind of material I love, the story is frequently as important as the object..and this is a good one.

I'll let Stephen tell it in his own words.

"How the Hell indeed. Some time ago, I believe on a FB posting of yours...I happened to notice, purely by chance, a snapshot of you in a den-like room, presumably in your home--and this snapshot showed you in that room with some of your collection...and I suddenly notice partly seen, in the corner of your room...Mrs. Labelle's Papier Mache Head. The Head I Photographed. And, my question was...How the Hell did Jim get his hands on Mrs. Labelle's Head?"

"The short version: before my wife and I & children moved to Madison, we lived in East Grand Rapids (my home town) for many years. On our street in EGR there lived a goofy old lady who, when I was introduced to her--I realized that she was the girls gym teacher and drama teacher at my High School--Catholic Central. I was introduced to her on her front porch...and I could tell that her house was worth being nosy about...I could see rampant pink everywhere in the interior--just by looking through the porch windows. When I then told her that I was an alum of the HS where she long taught (though then she was long retired)--she immediately invited me in--and I could tell this house was going to be a photographer's paradise. Mrs. Labelle gave me a tour...even into her basement...and it was there that she kept at least these 3 great and ancient papier mache Mardi Gras- style heads that she had long ago made for some drama class at Catholic Central. I flipped when I saw them and immediately asked if I could borrow them for photography; she said yes...and there you are."

"Every year in our neighborhood she would put the heads out on her porch for Halloween night. I should have asked her right then and there if she would sell them to me...but I could tell that she was quite attached to them."

"What I assume happened next is this--we later moved to Madison, she eventually died...and someone either got them in an estate sale...or they ended up in an antique store. And somewhere along the line...the head presented itself to you. Fill me in on the rest of the story."

"By the way--the promo card I sent you is also a Head by Mrs. Labelle."
SM


Stephen Milanowski also has work in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The High Museum of Art and the Polaroid Collection. His Facebook page is HERE

The Museum of Modern Art Store (which is the finest shop for gifts in Manhattan) is HERE

Mrs. Labelle's Big Head Collection Jim Linderman

I've Been Working on the Railroad (In China with Warren) Folk Art Railroad Men

Another pair of honest. hard working guys (see post of yesterday) but today our worker class members are tin articulated railroad men. Bonus below is Warren Buffet singing the song to the Chinese.

Tin articulated toy, circa 1900? Collection Jim Linderman

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Looks like Warren is getting better along with the rest of the world than some Republicans I know. Railroads are good here too...one can move tons freight with a few gallons of gas and without the diesel pollution. Warren seems to have the right idea.

Hex CRAZY Zook's Distlefinks and Barbeque Signs of Plywood

Distlefinks and such threaten to bury a likely commissioned BBQ Pig at the Jacob Zook Hex sign factory and house of crafts in Paradise, PA. I believe I remember seeing that very pig sign rotting away behind a restaurant which served breakfast in a skillet 20 miles past the Delaware Gap! I had just filled up and didn't have the gumption go back in to ask if I could have it, nor the energy to steal it. It COULD have been a "later edition" as it looks like Zook could crank them out.

YES Zook is still in business and has a most handsome site HERE

Zook's hexes have "traveled to the fifty states and many foreign lands" according to the reverse.

Jacob Zook House of Crafts Postcard photograph by Jim E. Hess, no date. Collection Jim Linderman.

SEE ALSO IN SITU: American Folk Art in Place Book or Ebook HERE

American Library Association Newsletter Mentions Dull Tool Dim Bulb

American Library Association Newsletter mentions Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Mining the margins of pop culture
Every morning Jim Linderman gets up in his home in Grand Haven, Michigan, grabs a cup of coffee, and sits down at his computer to blog. A former librarian and archivist, Linderman collects, researches, and writes about the marginal, the forgotten, and the not quite seemly in American folk art and popular culture. In his three blogs—Dull Tool Dim Bulb, Old Time Religion, and Vintage Sleaze—Linderman also discloses an underground history of American popular culture, one oddball tale at a time....
New York Times, Feb. 9

(American Library Association e- Newsletter February 15, 2012.

THANK YOU TO STEPHANIE ZIMBLE FOR POINTING OUT THE STORY!

What Makes a Washer Woman Work on Wash Day? Whirligig with No Wind Works Revealed

A pair of snapshots reveal the workings of an articulated sign. Both women here are among the most commonly seen whirligig figures, but no wind is required for these.

Anonymous Photographs, circa 1920? Collection Jim Linderman
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Teeny Tiny Mickey Mouse Goes for a Ride Snapshot c. 1935

A little rat hitches a ride on a roadster. Date unknown, but it looks like an early Mickey to me.


Original Anonymous Snapshot circa 1935 Collection Jim Linderman

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Bring the Whole Family to Mystery House Vernacular Architecture Gone Blood Mad

The whole family visits the Winchester Mystery House!

Full of ticky tacky construction...and as the first image pulled up when I search the place is a real photo postcard which reads (in shaky handwriting) " Winchester Mystery House Near San Jose BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE" I have to assume these folks were there on a good day...it looks terra firma anyway.

The stupid place was an attempt by the crazy heir to the Winchester rifle fortune to make up for "settling the west" by spilling blood and inventing a machine which could kill three native people with one load...if you had good aim and weren't drunk.

The fantasy ramshackle pre-Disneyland hunk of balsa was the creation of Wirt Winchester's nutty bride, Sarah. Sarah inherited a good chunk of Winchester blood money when Wirt contracted tuberculosis and joined his once youthful and proud civil war friends in 1881, some twenty years after his family helped put them into early graves.

What to do with $20 million 1881 dollars? Why, take it to a seance! The spirits told Sarah to move west, buy land and commence drawing up plans for a house as nutty as she was. With no experience in architecture, Sarah began drawing up plans on paper and handing them to her builders. Obsessed with the number 13, she insisted each window have 13 panes of glass. Windex was not invented until 1933, so those corners probably got "durn dusty" even before the quake.

Eventually the Winchester fortune resulted in 160 crazy, rich widow rooms. Then came the quake. Sarah was trapped in her own insane, pre-code monstrosity.

Fortunately she survived to crazy the place up again for 15 more years before passing away in her sleep in 1922, putting an end to the madness and setting the stage for landmark status!

Today the Winchester Mystery House tricks the public into a visit by spreading myths the place is haunted. The website, complete with the sound of a rifle being cocked, is HERE, a testimonial to what happens when too much weapon dough is left to a emotionally fragile visionary of sorts. There is no indication on the site if a NRA card provides a discount.

Anonymous Snapshot, circa 1925? Collection Jim Linderman
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Sucrology and Sucrologists Famous American Women Sugar Packets

An average of 15 calories per packet, and invented for several reasons. One, because kids in the 1960s were using the once common "cubes" to dose with LSD. (I am kidding...sorta.)

The sugar packet was invented by Benjamin Eisenstadt, who founded the company which is now known as "Sweet 'N Low. He was sick of refilling and unclogging sugar dispensers in his Brooklyn cafeteria. Sugar Packets don't spill, usually, and children don't unscrew the top and screw things up on the table.

In the old days, sugar was so valuable, it was stored in locked "sugar chests" now prized by folk art collectors. Today the average child has enough in their breakfast cereal and lunchtime soda that what appears above doesn't even matter.

The collectors of sugar packets are known as Sucrologists. I do not know what they are called in the restaurant trade, but I myself have left with a pocket full, and I don't even LIKE sugar that much.

At the time these came out, around the height of the nascent modern day women's movement, they were pretty controversial. Well, not really, but they WERE noteworthy. One was Margaret Sanger, and there are still clowns who hate her.

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Untitled (Love during Wartime) Watercolor

Untitled Watercolor, 6" x 8" Irregular Anonymous circa 1918 Collection Jim Linderman

Duffy's Pool Hall Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman

Duffy's Pool Hall Azo back Real Photo Postcard circa 1920? Collection Jim Linderman

See also Arcane Americana the book / Ebook HERE
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Rolling Stones Glitz, Glamor, Truman Capote and Authenticity

I seldom write about music here, as music is personal. I've said before, there is nothing more pathetic than a fellow making an "I love you" mix tape (or whatever they call a compilation these days) for a woman who has left him. It won't work, it never does, and don't do it. You can't talk someone into loving your music, OR you.

There is a point or two here, I guess. First of all, The Rolling Stones Facebook page has been posting extraordinary footage for their followers. So join up.

Second, one of the most audacious moves in the entire 20th century was for two pale, war-torn skinny British kids to somehow decide to become the greatest blues band in history. Read Keith's autobiography and marvel. How two kids, one of whom had obtained the mail order address for Chess Records in Chicago, met and not only dreamed but DID is one of the most extraordinary accomplishments to happen during my life. Their odds would have been better had they decided to be basketball players. I need not point out the two little goofballs were white and in the wrong country.

Second, in these clips, both from 1972 I believe, what you see is what you get. 7 or 8 guys on a stage playing. No bullshit. You hear it, they played it. Someone tinkered around with it a bit later, editing and such...but this was probably one of the last times a handful of guys, including the TRUE history of rock and roll Bobby Keys on saxophone (who figures prominently in Keith's book and is today a living connection to the entire history of 20th century rock) got on stage, plugged into their amps themselves and played their songs...simple. They could create this exact sound in Mum's garage or an estate in the south of France.

Am I nostalgic or a grumpy old man? Nope. I just like authenticity. And through all the glitz and glamour of Truman Capote on the plane with them for this tour writing the story up for Jackie O, Andy Warhol and the rich folks back at Studio 54 doesn't matter anymore. These guys were a blessing.

Ivan Rasputin Will Use His Bear Hug

From WRESTLING the Scrapbook HERE

The Art of Sewing Cards (Sewing Card Set No. 48-558)

Lillian Ethel Wandel (4th Grade) completed Sewing Card 1927 Collection Jim Linderman

(More Sewing Cards HERE and HERE from Dull Tool Dim Bulb)