Folk Art Carving Woman on Toilet

Well, here's something one doesn't see often, thankfullly. A whimsical folk art carving of a woman taking a break. Woman on Toilet wood carving, c. 1950. Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Bug-a-Boo What is a Bugaboo? And WHO is the Most Famous Woman in the World?

Bug-a-Boo was a term first used in 1598.  It was originally, I guess, an imaginary something which causes great fear.  A ghost, poltergeist, bogeyman…a spirit.  Most famously, it was the pre-Beyonce song by her group Destiny's Child in 1999.  She was great then too.  Incredible great, actually.  Already a Star, but not yet Stratospheric.  She would be.  I believe, actually, that Beyonce is today the most famous woman in the world.  

Forbes puts her just below that creep Meg Whitman (who helped invent eBay then helped ruin it) on their list of "Most Powerful Women" for some absurd, scary reason which makes no sense, but it isn't a fame list.  Ask someone in the rest of the world who Meg Whitman is, and then ask them who Beyonce Knowles Jay-Zee is.   I guarantee you will get A. puzzled looks.  B. EVERY SINGLE HAND raised.  For some ill-informed reason, the New York Times, "paper of record" once said Meg Whitman had a good chance of one day being the first woman president.  Shudder.  At least THAT notion has evaporated, along with her reputation, if not her billions.  I'll wait for the Times retraction.  Beyonce, on the other hand, had earned her billions.  Here she is, below, her destiny awaiting her in 1999.

I found the lyrics to Bugaboo on one of those sites which freeze your computer, so don't bother.  In the song, Beyonce breaks her lease to get away from her bugaboo.  They sample TOTO of all things.  The Merriam-Webster, hoping to get into the social-sharing data collection game, I guess, now asks "What made you want to look up Bugaboo?  Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible).  Here are a few of them.  Sure enough, the song sent some searching, but you'll see also stories of Dr. Phil, the graft policy of Nigeria, and one plaintive comment query "my co-worker told me it was a racial slur." 

I appreciate that the young woman above took the time to look it up.  She has my vote.  The little lapel pin sent ME on my search, but I didn't take the time to let the cyber-dictionary know. 

If it is a slur, it would be yet more bad news for the makers of the Bugaboo baby stroller, which was once recalled by the Consumer Product Safety folks because it spilled your baby on the concrete. 

Enjoy Destiny's Child.  Don't be scared.


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Whorls DNA Fingerprints and Bernice Pepperling

Whorls DNA Fingerprints and Bernice Pepperling.

Are all fingerprints unique?  Well…if you've been following here long, you probably know the answer.  Not really.  We'll get to that later.

Fingerprint and Identification Magazine.  Fingerprint Magazine ran for some 50 years, and guess what?  The Genealogy Today website is indexing all the issues into their database as fast as they can find them! 

The magazine was sold to 16,000 police chiefs who in turn shared it with ten patrolmen.  (yes, sold…it was a subscription item your local chief had to pay for.)  See the stats on the cover?  16,000 sold, 160,000 readers.  In the publishing business that is known as the pass-along rate.  "Mac…stop screwing around.  Go study the Fingerprint magazine."

It ran profiles and the whorls of wanted desperadoes, including gunsel (and cover girl) Bernice Pepperling (AKA Marie Riley) here who tried to slip a weapon into jail to her lover.  She is presumed innocent until rounded up.  If you are doing some genealogical research on your great aunt Bernice, you are in for a surprise.

They also has curious little news items, like the one here about fingerprints being used to control quarantined Detroit citizens…You'll see they fingerprinted the resident of every rooming house to prevent the spread of smallpox.  Sorry privacy advocates.  Public Health wins out every time,  just like it did back in 1924.  Read the piece and you'll see some guys were sending in ringers to give prints for them so they could keep on spreading germs.

I looked for the newest issue of Fingerprints at Barnes and Noble, but it must have slipped back behind one of the Brides magazines or something.

Anyway, back to the initial question.  Is every fingerprint one of a kind?  Turns out it is kinda like every snowflake being different.  Wilson Bentley found identical snowflakes, and he only had to look at 5,000.  We had that many nearly every DAY last winter on my PORCH.  Then Mr. Bentley died of pneumonia.  (True) 

That is, the uniqueness of a fingerprint is  "a working hypothesis"  which is why in court they used to pay someone to come in and say it's a science.  I guess in the trade the problem is known as "false positives" which is an oxymoron, but it works. 

I quote.  "Five examiners made false positive errors for an overall false positive rate of 0.1%. Eighty-five percent of examiners made at least one false negative error for an overall false negative rate of 7.5%."  For you sticklers, the citation is  "Accuracy and reliability of forensic latent fingerprint decisions"  by Bradford T. Ulery" National Academy of Sciences. Even better is THIS ONE.

Fingerprints are increasingly being replaced by DNA.  DNA never lies, but the problem is often getting juries to believe in science.  Some jurors zone out around 10:30 and miss the explanation…and they zone out again after those two hour lunch breaks.  I do know there has been a marked decrease in the number of perps trying to file or burn their fingerprints off…something which happened in movies during the depression and in Dick Tracy comics.  By the way, did you know John Dillinger tried to burn his fingerprints off with acid?  Yep…not long after this magazine appeared.

Fingerprint and Identification Magazine September 1924 Collection Jim Linderman

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The Little Girl Who Invented the Hot Dog (Holiday Special Dull Tool Dim Bulb)

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Just in time for your holiday cookout, Dull Tool Dim Bulb presents the origin of the Hot Dog!  Share it over the campfire.

Real Photo Postcard 1948  Huntington Indiana Collection Jim Linderman

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Rude Novelty Gag Adult Bad Tasting Valentines

Ten cents worth of eleven novelty gag Valentines. One shown.

No date, no publisher Circa 1960 Collection Jim Linderman

Lucky Strikes Takes to the AIR Skywriting as a Technique for Increasing Brand Recall and Advertising Effectiveness

Looks like the breeze has started to "clutter" the Lucky Strike "message" a bit.

Skywriting has never been measured for advertising effectiveness that I know of. Certainly "brand recall" would apply here. That is the measure of effectiveness advertising agencies fall back on after the campaign is over and sales have not climbed one tiny bit.

"Hey Charlie? Did you remember what them skywritin' pilots put up there in the sky" "Ayup, sure do Gordy, T'was the Lucky Strikes"

Brand Recall!

What we do not know if either Charlie or Gordy went to BUY a pack.

Similar era photographs of a "ground team" working on market share for a competitor are HERE.

Untitled Original Photograph (Lucky Strike Skywriting Advertisement) No date Circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

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Elmer Anderson Mike Kelley Inappropriate Appropriation, The Thing , Genuine Genius Scott Warmuth and Ghostly Afterimage

There is nothing better than a slow-burning low-art mystery, and Elmer Anderson just continues to prove it. My third post on Elmer in as many years, this one prompted by a remarkable find by the brilliant Scott Warmuth. An actual ad (!) taken out by Elmer's distributor, in of all places Billboard Magazine! Maybe they thought musicians were the perfect consumers for his wacky and incomprehensible drawings. You know...the reefer.

NOW having done three posts on the artist Elmer, I should be recognized as the world's foremost Elmer Anderson scholar, though I know absolutely NOTHING about him. As such, I'll take any opportunity to exhibit Elmer. Or as I pointed out HERE, "Genuine" Elmer. Certainly one of the most infamous, if unknown, artists of Waterloo, Iowa.

I have also since learned noted contemporary artist Mike Kelley used an Elmer Anderson image, "The Thing" shown above, as the source for his painting "Ghostly Afterimage" in 1998. Now that may be appropriation, but it certainly is not appropriate. "The Thing" can stand on it's own, it being a dramatic and profound anti-alcohol piece with a sufferer choking a whiskey snake.

Here is what falutin' art magazine Frieze had to say about Kelley's piece based on "The Thing".

"Ghostly Afterimage, for example, a brutish self portrait in oils by the fictional ‘Elmer’, accompanied by a psycho-babble commentary claiming that ‘Elmer’s shaky paint is typical of those who suffer from the type of violent delirium characterised by the sweats, trembling, anxiety and frightening hallucinations’"

Brutish? FICTIONAL? Humpf. May I suggest another word starting with BR? Brilliant!



Sure enough as seen here, lower right, Kelley's painting is a perfect reversed image of Elmer's brilliant work, but appears to be painted on (the then) trendy plywood backing contemporary artists were using in the late 90s. The IRONY. Well, Elmer didn't work in irony, and I doubt he ever knew his image was shown as "kunst" in Germany. If you dig around enough, you will find the brochure, which is a German art catalog, but you'll have to use Google translate to see if the "critic" liked it!
Jim Linderman is a collector of Elmer Anderson Postcards, and author of THE HORRIBLE HANDMADE POSTCARDS OF ANONYMOUS printed by Blurb. Anonymous would have liked Elmer.



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Bombs Away Comic Decal Transfer Death from the Sky World War Two Gallows Graphics

One day someone will write a book on the relationship between the rudimentary graphics of World War Two and tattoo art, pin up art and the comics. Maybe I will!
 
Countless cartoonists, illustrators and artists began their careers drawing for their foxhole friends, mostly for duffel bags, helmets and such. Most of the soldiers were barely out of high school, and what should have been drawn in schoolbooks and scratched onto desks were being created as patches for patriotic young cannon fodder.
 
Death became a game. It had to. We were losing the war, and encouraging a little more war fever with a clever drawn gag didn't hurt. War is ugly and the furthest thing from funny, but gallows humor thrives in the face of atrocity, and many a bomb was decorated with humorous graffiti before being dropped.

The illustrations here come from an enormous collection of circa 1940 paper decals I found.  All anonymous. All are on scraps of waxy paper, and I believe they are intended to be applied to uniforms, helmets and footlockers. I cleaned up and isolated the images from the paper backing. Anyone with more information on either the artist or the use of these graphic appliques of doom are encouraged to write.

World War Two decals circa 1940 collection Jim Linderman
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The Art of the Pot Holder A Traveling Exhibition

The Art of the Pot Holder is supported by a grant from the Makers of Rayon and generous funding from the Skillet Foundation.

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Travels with Charlie (McCarthy) Blockhead, Personality, Smartass, Dummy

A young boy or girl practices not moving his or her lips. Charlie McCarthy was once the world's most famous blockhead, sidekick and as unlikely as it seems (since the whole point is to SEE the ventriloquist) radio personality. He was owned by Candice Bergen's father.

Actually, now that I think of it, Charlie had a whole lot more personality than Ryan Seacrest.

W.C. Fields: "Quiet, Wormwood, or I'll whittle you into a venetian blind."
Charlie: "Ooh, that makes me shutter!"

Other Vent Figures HERE

Vernacular Snapshot of a child with ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy Circa 1940? Collection Jim Linderman

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Okay, now Turn Around

Three original photographs in sleeves, circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman

How to Find the Museum of Woodcarving and Let Others Know if it was Worth the Trip

Joe Barta picks a nice, sunny day to chisel his spear and shield carrying African warrior boy, who will soon be placed in the "Suffer the Children" exhibit inside his curious shaped museum building in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. I am going to guess the extension to the building is where the massive Last Supper is displayed, but you shouldn't take my word for it. The museum is open May through October, so wait for a thaw. Joe carved 100 life-sized figures and 400 miniatures.

For those of you who do not know where Shell Lake is, go to Spooner and you will be close. In the old days, say 5 years ago...you could stop at the local gas station and ask Gomer "Is there any good stuff to do around here" and probably learn about his dog and the time he fell into the grease pit while giving directions, THAT was quite a day...but today there is a better way.

Trip Advisor® (A website which provides information on things one used to "happen upon") kindly gives not only numerous links to travel and reservation sites but tons of aggregated information you don't really need like Weather Underground® average rainfall in August (5 inches) , the "top rated" restaurants nearby (Bistro 63...7.4 miles down Highway 63 from the museum, so skip the restroom) it also allows all to contribute their OWN reviews of the attraction! (In case you are one of those people who can't mind their own business)

I will let you read the detailed reviews from your peers yourself while you plan your trip HERE.

Joe Barta Museum of Woodcarving Real Photo Post Card collection Jim Linderman

World's Largest Camera Redux! One Monster Lens and Big Bellows

A 1923 Newspaper Morgue Photograph of Linsenmeyer's big one...a three and one half ton camera. Hold on to your hat when the bellows moves!


See my previous post HERE for some other giant photographic constructions.


Original Press service photograph 1923 Collection Jim Linderman