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Showing posts sorted by date for query at the circus. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query at the circus. Sort by relevance Show all posts
At the Circus. Vintage photographs of Circus Performers and Trainers from the Jim Linderman Collection
Gay Aquatic Review and Mike Duffy Miniature Sideshow Carnival At the Circus in Black and White
I've done thirty or more "at the circus in black and white" posts here over the years, but this one is most curious. The snapshot appears to show a MINIATURE circus. Small period signs announce the performers. A tiny "Cotton Club" stage and show. The snapshot reverse reads "Mike Duffy and nephew on horse. Carnival Midway front and background". No date, but 1930 to 1950 I presume. I have no idea what the "Gay Aquatic Revue" is.
Original snapshot photograph of miniature Duffy Circus Collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb
Dull Tool Dim Bulb is TEN Years old!
The site is ten years old. There is no big whizbang shindig to celebrate, as I am working on a book. There ARE a hundred or more people to thank. Lauren Leja, Natalie Curley and Shannon Regan in particular have contributed objects and ideas over the years. ALL the followers are appreciated, many of them artists and art dealers, antique dealers and pickers. Folks who "get it" and let me know they do. Some of the brightest people I know and admire have found the site.
Most encouraging is the mail I have received from relatives, friends and such who have written me over the years and add to my stories. Being thanked for writing about forgotten folks they knew, they married or grew up with. It is humbling. For example, the post I did on obscure bluegrass and country performer Rem Wall. Nearly FIFTY comments from folks who remember or knew him. What an honor it is to receive such feedback.
My wife Janna lets me do it. Not everyone has a wife who allows their husband to dwell in curious places and sully his reputation with risque images once in a while. I get to.
There are a few special friends. The late Jay Tobler, one of the smartest people I have ever known. Robert Reeves, who shared my interests and made me laugh like no one else. Jimmie Allen, A golden Southern Picker who influenced one of my most successful books. Steve Slotin, a hero. Craig Yoe, the world's greatest comic art scholar and collector. Lance Ledbetter and Dust to Digital. Brian Wallis and the International Center of Photography. Tanya Heinrich and the American Folk Art Museum. The fascinating Dire McCain at Paraphilia published some of my favorite pieces. I could go on and on. Lisa Hix at Collectors Weekly has been wonderful and written about a few of my
projects.
I can't thank enough the folks who took the time to write about the site and my projects. Many of them are found on the side banner. The banner is not often seen on a smartphone, so I am copying them here. Since I don't make any dough on any of this really. I am lucky to break even...so the words mean so much.
The people and publications who took the time to write about me have made what I do legitimate. It is and was liberating and encouraging. This list is again far from complete, but I truly never thought I would "receive press" and boy, have I had lovely things said about me. Here are links to those to whom I am in debt.
"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
"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016
"...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
"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama
"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
Thank you all so very much. Everyone needs a hobby. I am so grateful for mine.
Blackface Theater. Young Women and Children of Vaudeville photographs by Frank Wendt
There are numerous studies and photographs of blackface in the American theater, but it is a bit less common to see women…and I guess even more unusual to see young women and children. A series of cabinet card photographs circa 1910 of young vaudeville performers in burnt cork. These were essentially among the first "publicity photographs" and sold at the stage door following performances.
Original cabinet card photographs by Frank Wendt circa 1910 (Wendt was the understudy of Chas Eisenmann, famed circus freak photographer.)
Collection Jim Linderman
Mimi Garneu Ricky Rocket and Captian Zoom Zoom the Trained Fleas of the Amazing Mimi
Are flea circus acts real? Mimi Garneu's was. Here Mimi makes her tiny troupe run through the act on her desk. The world's smallest slave labor! The film shows a competing group, but you get the idea. I once tied a fly to a piece of thread and he few around in circles, but I felt it cruel and let him go. Fleas, however, get no pass. Creepy little chiggers. At least Mimi knew how to control her infestation. Mimi was a sword swallower too. To see more information about the Amazing Mimi Garneau, see the book project on her HERE
The BIG HEADS of HARRINGAY Satan on Tandem and Cannibal Kings
Here comes the scary part, kids. SATAN ON TANDEMS! Well, the UK had been through one tough war and the kids needed some lively entertainment. The big heads of Harringay! T. Arnold Harringay Circus performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1952. Look at the line up...Big heads abound!
A Pair of Zebras at the Circus Original Frank A. Fernekes photograph circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
A pair of zebras. On reverse Photograph by Frank A. Fernekes, Hollywood California. "Backstage" at a circus with a line of performers waiting their turn. Frank Fernekes (1872-1953) was a commercial photographer with an interest in circus and Wild West themes; he was born and resided in New York until sometime before 1927, then moved permanently to Hollywood, California and was active through the 1940s. More information about the photographer is HERE at Duke University Libraries special collection.
Circus Photograph by Frank A. Fernekes Collection Jim Linderman
Howard Campbell and Woodrow Hill A Book and an Exhibition of Paintings
It is hard to describe Howard Campbell, as those fortunate enough to have known him will readily agree. He had a shock of white hair higher than a mountain. Bare feet and Bib Overalls. (Howard didn't go many formal places, if he could avoid it) He didn't go to many places he couldn't be barefoot either…including his back yard covered in snow, which I myself saw him do several times without a grimace. Howard Campbell usually had a goal in mind, and he would speed towards it without thinking much about his feet. His feet were tools to achieve a goal.
Howard was a painter and folk art collector in the mountains of North Carolina. A good one of both. His house, precariously placed atop a mountain, was for him a refuge. For me it was a museum with a great docent. I am not sure if the house is occupied now, but I hope so. We have allowed an increasingly facile world to be built around us. Howard's house was way up there, but real.
I am also not sure if Reader's Digest is still around, but they used to have a series called "Most Unforgettable Character" or something like that. It was a form of participatory journalism with a prize. The local barber who found a baby on his doorstep and raised him as his own (despite having no wife) and the little fellow grew up to be a doctor who treated sick children even if their family had no money to pay for care. Unforgettable persons were flawless role models who earned the amateur writer a trip to the mailbox every day for months hoping for a check from Mr. Luce and his publishing empire. I don't have to say Howard was an unforgettable character.
When Howard was a young boy in Oklahoma, he visited a wonderland of small woodcarvings created by Earl Eyman of Oklahoma. Eyman carved hundreds of tiny figures. His house was a tableau of miniature circus figures, baseball games, marching bands and more. Each figure intricately whittled and and painted by Mr. Eyman. Having only an eighth grade education, Earl didn't read in his spare time. Instead he created an entire town with a thousand inhabitants and charged a dime to see it. It certainly impressed young Howard.
When I met Howard for the first time, we shared another interest. I had just quit drinking, and he was trying to. I told Howard, who would mask his vodka in bottles of Mountain Dew soda, that I would always be there to help him if he wanted to chat. I succeeded in quitting and have been sober a long, long time. Howard didn't. I don't think that is a secret either of us kept to ourselves really, so I can share it here. It was appropriate a decade or so after I met Howard, that many of the 22 boxes holding his collection of books on Southern folk art were sold out of cartoons which once held vodka and whiskey bottles. I don't know if it killed him, but it couldn't have helped. My offer to help keep him sober may have ultimately allowed me to purchase the piece of furniture I mentioned. It was one of Howard's favorites too, and he had a standing offer from me to purchase it whenever he was ready to sell it. For YEARS. And every time I visited and saw it there, the offer went up a bit, but he would wave me off. To this day, although I never asked him, I believe he allowed it me to finally purchase it out of his own regret for failing to conquer the bottle. After five years of my offers, he had two requirements. One was the price, which was fair, and the other was that I never sell it. People say that all the time but he meant it. I won't ever sell it, and I have already moved it 800 miles twice.
There is not much space between tribute and rumination. Howard is on my mind every time I glance at a cupboard next to me in the room I use for ruminating.
Howard Campbell was a brilliant, learned man. Neither is an exaggeration. A auctioneer north of Atlanta who sold a chunk of Howard's collection (while he was still living) asked him to write his autobiography for the auction catalog. A portion follows:
"I was always a collector. As a small child on our chicken farm in N.W. Arkansas, I dragged a horse skeleton out of the woods and tried to re-assemble it. The time was WWII. Mom and Dad were getting white rocks from hatchlings to broilers in seven weeks. I was dragging stuff out of the woods. I was an only; a self-absorbed/contained little kid. The parents (God keep them!) would ask me what I wanted for Christmas, birthday, whatever, and I would answer, “A little brother!” Because they had different rhesus factors it was 1947 before advancing medical technology gave it a chance. My little brother was born on Valentine’s Day in 1948. He and my sister-in-law don’t want any of this stuff! Being of sound mind and judgment, but realizing that a tree could fall on my head tomorrow...
But enough about me. Amy and Steve asked me to write some kind of bio-sketch that would emphasize my philosophy of collecting.
Philosophy, Schmilosophy! If it made me laugh, or chuckle, or snort, and it wasn’t too expensive, I dragged it home, where it was immediately lost amid the other junk...If it should affect others likewise, please bid and keep bidding! My poor widowed mother needs new shoes. That last sentence was a lie... My mother went to Heaven over five years ago. Like me, she hated shoes. Imelda Marcos she wasn’t.
Mom came close to being a Zen Master. She begged her children, grandchildren, etc. NOT to buy her ANYTHING for Christmas, birthday, whatever. And she meant it! I understand more and more what she was saying. Who wants to spend his last years dusting the bust of the deceased Duke?
It’s simply the thrill of the chase, or of the find, gentle readers. The money’s worth less (one Euro = $1.30) as I write. So keep bidding...
An English gentleman (Thomas Rowlandson - borrowed from Hippocrates) wrote “Life is short, but art is long...”* Remember that and keep your paddles in the air. Your kids don’t need expensive Nikes, Converses, etc. either. They’re better off barefooted. Watching out for broken glass or dog doo will serve to sharpen their perceptions. Believe me, I know."
Howard talked like that too. He was funny. He could paint too, but he never bragged on it. Every time I visited Howard, he had a canvas in progress. I wanted one of his paintings too, but he never delivered. It was a different part of him, and one he did not really share with me, though I hinted over the years I'd love one. I never took the time to find out how many he painted. It turns out quite a few, and for years.
I am thrilled to know an exhibition of Mr. Campbell's paintings is to be on exhibit starting August 27 at the Art Cellar Gallery in Banner Elk, North Carolina in conjunction with what looks to be a fascinating and remarkable biography written by his brother. HOWARD CAMPBELL AND THE ART OF WOODROW HILL. There is a free preview of the book HERE. I eagerly await both. In a perfect example of consistency, Howard's meticulous paintings mirror both his interest in the authentic material culture of his world and his love of quirky things. I have purchased a copy of the book, as I am a collector and collectors spend money if they have any. Howard told me that once. I happen to have just the amount needed, and while it is pricey my only regret is that he can't sign it. It would give me an excuse to see him. That the show is in Banner Elk is appropriate, as once in a while, Howard would truck down some smalls and put them in an antique booth there.
He served in the Navy. His bathtub was hand built of stones from the mountain below his house, and he listened to the radio, bluegrass usually, from a space taller than the towers which broadcast it.
The Art Cellar Gallery, which is exhibiting the paintings of Woodrow Hill August 27 to September 27, 2014 is HERE
A book of drawings done in 1974 titled CAMPBELL THE BARBARIAN published in conjunction with Howard Campbell and the art of Woodrow Hill is HERE
HOWARD CAMPBELL AND THE ART OF WOODROW HILL is available HERE
Guest Post by Natalie M. Curley Antique Dealer
Natalie Curley is one of the rare breed doing the heavy lifting for collectors. All these objects have to come from somewhere, and the folks who find, save, protect, share and sell them to others are how I connect with the past. Natalie is a little like me…she has to own an object to understand it, and that unending search to learn is what keeps her going. Anyone can sell an object, that's what Craig's list is for. But it takes a special person to find it, figure it out, treat it with respect and pass it along at a very small mark up to other collectors. I own things with Natalie M. Curley provenance and so do many others. It's time to share a favorite source. I asked Ms. Curley to discuss a few of her finds with us and to explain what gets her up in the morning. Ms. Curley has a splendid website, sells on eBay, restores and frames objects and hits the road early to find great stuff. See what Natalie has available at CURLEY'S ANTIQUES and on her eBay listings. Stay up to date with Natalie's travels on her Facebook page.
Because Ms. Curley's interests are wide, we are posting two versions of this piece. One here, the other on Vintage Sleaze the Blog.
"Prior to the hipster “heritage,” and crafty “repurposing” revolutions born of reality television so many years ago, the only context the public really had for the artifacts of their collective history not stored in struggling museums seen only on childhood school trips were the legions of condescending retirees smelling vaguely of lilac and rambling about “book values” running prissy but dusty antique shops in vacation towns. I rightly cannot fault y’all for not finding those very accessible or worthy of your precious free weekend hours. But for folks like me, weirdos ooking for points of connection in an uncomfortable world, the very idea of “forgotten” makes our hearts race and we think you’re crazy to resist! An abandoned parking lot or the field of an underutilized historic landmark in need of the funding, completely uncatalogued piles of every single thing ever possibly made by man or machine before this very day with no answers and not many hints, likely beginning an hour before dawn and potentially slogging through mud or 90 degrees, sounds better than sex! Its a never ending number of too crazy to be imagined stories, lives lived, lost achievements, personalities and insights all silenced by the years and the graves just waiting to wake up and chat. The age and construction of a thing, the society that produced it, the intent (folk art is ALL intent) of the maker, the make-do necessity of the materials used, how its aged and how its been damaged all tell the story. I can become aware of things I never imagined and with the context I piece together, so can the new owner. In the process, we all learn something about ourselves. Theres nothing better than that discovery and I’ve made ALL my professional choices in this life so that I can afford to run away to this circus every-day."
Handmade and electrified by the same tiny hobby light bulbs any early train set would use, but a mystery past that. The imagination runs wild, part of some odd religious revival or stage play? Carnival prop or weird advertising? No idea, but its all patina and sculpture now!
1920s Post Toasties General Grocery Store Advertising Work Apron
The early 20thc American economy was not only moving rural to city, self reliant to national, but was unknowingly writing the rules of a modern global economy at the time. Like so many of our most insightful antiques, who would expect this apron to survive nearly 100 years? It dates to pretty much the moment when BRANDS made family owned General Stores into competitive groceries, first launching invasive campaigns into our collective conscious. The lucky laborer to wear this one got to wear a sign on his chest and advertise the day’s specials!
Real historically relevancy is a rare treat, here is Ruth Law (Oliver) identified “Apollo Fair Mrs Oliver (married) on her frame stunt flier, August 8 1919” on reverse. Law bought her first Curtiss plane from Orville Wright in 1912 and in the next decade worked as a commercial pilot, dropped “baseballs” (grapefruits) from planes to Dodger catchers, set many flight records before being denied entry into WWI combat when we entered the War in 1917. Her passionate article “Let Women Fly” became canon for even decades later aviatrix.
Disturbing Wonderful 19thc Victorian Nursery Rhyme Playing Cards
Antique paper should not be. It was only ever advertising, marketing or toys made cheaply and treated poorly. The quality of construction and carefully crafted graphics make so much of it timeless, when its lucky enough to survive the trash bin for a century. Much of it becomes unique by default and theres no research to be done, and such is the case here. These might have been made by a popular Victorian printing company McLoughlin Brothers, responsible for so many of our classic fairytale and nursery rhyme images, or maybe not.
Handmade things are usually born of necessity, but the art is in the spirit of survival and joy. There is nothing new in the reuse of feed sacks during the Depression and Dust Bowl years, it was so common that Feed companies started to print patterns on the fabric for their customers. What shows spunk is taking a bit of window screen (itself a commodity at the time) and having sewn it loosely to two pieces of old feed sack charge into a beehive to get the family a little treat or sell the honey. That’s something, and that makes me smile.
——
www.curleysantiques.com
www.facebook.com/curleysden
http://stores.ebay.com/rarebooksandpaper
Trained or Chained Pair of Horse Riding Monkeys 1944 At the Circus in Black and White
I have posted some 40 images in the AT THE CIRCUS IN BLACK AND WHITE series.
Animal Trainers At the Circus in Black and White #34 on Dull Tool Dim Bulb collection Jim Linderman
Others in the series are found HERE
Snapshots circa 1959 collection Jim Linderman
Books and Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE
Gertie Cochran Mental Wonder Vaudeville Performer (First Human Computer?) Photograph by Frank Wendt
 | |
| CLICK TO SEE WHAT GERTIE KNOWS, AND YOU DO NOT |
She answers like a flash on lightning, purely from memory, thousands of difficult questions on all subjects. Biblical history, national history, population of all the large cities of the earth, dates of discoveries, dates of great battles, with generals officiating and numbers killed and wounded, national debt of all nations, including our own national debt…"
Gertie Cochran was speaking at age seven months and was not long forced to memorize everything! Well, maybe to everything, but certainly more than I feel like taking the time to copy! Gertie was on the road was on the road at age 5, and "she…created a perfect "furore" wherever exhibited." Click to enlarge the patter…and be prepared to ask questions. Gertie takes them all on. Prepare to be dumfounded.
See the book HOOFERS AND SWEETHEARTS: THE Little Women of Frank Wendt. Vintage Photographs from the Collection of Jim Linderman. 80 pages. Paperback $21.95 Ebook $5.99.
Howard Campbell Folk Art Collector and Collecting. A Piece I Won't Sell
Howard Campbell was one of the most interesting men I ever knew. I'm not quite sure how to describe Howard, and those of you also fortunate enough to have known him will readily agree with me. Let's see…a shock of white hair higher than a mountain? Bare feet? Bib Overalls, even in the most formal of places? (Howard didn't go many formal places, if he could avoid it) He didn't go to many places he couldn't be barefoot either…including his back yard covered in snow, which I myself saw him do several times without even a slight grimace.
Howard was a folk art collector in the mountains of North Carolina. A good one. His house, precariously placed atop a mountain, was for him a refuge, but for me a museum. I cherish my visits there still.
When Howard was a young boy, he visited a wonderland of small woodcarvings created by Earl Eyman of Oklahoma. Eyman carved hundreds of tiny figures…you can see a few here I used to own, but Howard never owned any. The house was a miniature museum of circus figures, baseball games, patriotic scenes and more. He charged a dime to get in. The Eyman environment was dispersed, and over the years I would find them at shows and such, love them for a while, and then trade them to Howard. He loved them even more than I. For me, an Earl Eyman carving was as good as cold cash at the Howard Campbell mountain museum, and I squeezed a few things out of it by dangling the little carvings in Howard's face over the years. I got good at picking them out at folk art shows and such, and I did it for Howard. No small feat, as the figures were tiny and their provenance was lost, having been dispersed and eventually tossed into boxes with more important things. Two I found are here. I found an astounding little carving of a woman holding a flag once, and Howard got that one too.
The piece is a handmade desk, dresser, chest, whatever with an attempted decorative scroll and the original mirror. It dates to the late 1800's and was likely made by an African-American man who was a former slave who ended up in Tennessee, which is where Howard found it, and he told me so. There is a name in pencil on the inside I have never even tried to research.
Howard Campbell was a brilliant man. That is an overused term. It applies here. Amy and Steve Slotin, auctioneers north of Atlanta who sold a large chunk of Howard's collection while he was living (to benefit the American Museum of Folk Art, as he wished) asked him to write his autobiography for their auction catalog. A portion follows:
"I was always a collector. As a small child on our chicken farm in N.W. Arkansas, I dragged a horse skeleton out of the woods and tried to re-assemble it. The time was WWII. Mom and Dad were getting white rocks from hatchlings to broilers in seven weeks. I was dragging stuff out of the woods. I was an only; a self-absorbed/contained little kid. The parents (God keep them!) would ask me what I wanted for Christmas, birthday, whatever, and I would answer, “A little brother!” Because they had different rhesus factors it was 1947 before advancing medical technology gave it a chance. My little brother was born on Valentine’s Day in 1948. He and my sister-in-law don’t want any of this stuff! Being of sound mind and judgment, but realizing that a tree could fall on my head tomorrow...
But enough about me. Amy and Steve asked me to write some kind of bio-sketch that would emphasize my philosophy of collecting.
Philosophy, Schmilosophy! If it made me laugh, or chuckle, or snort, and it wasn’t too expensive, I dragged it home, where it was immediately lost amid the other junk...If it should affect others likewise, please bid and keep bidding! My poor widowed mother needs new shoes. That last sentence was a lie... My mother went to Heaven over five years ago. Like me, she hated shoes. Imelda Marcos she wasn’t.
Mom came close to being a Zen Master. She begged her children, grandchildren, etc. NOT to buy her ANYTHING for Christmas, birthday, whatever. And she meant it! I understand more and more what she was saying. Who wants to spend his last years dusting the bust of the deceased Duke?
It’s simply the thrill of the chase, or of the find, gentle readers. The money’s worth less (one Euro = $1.30) as I write. So keep bidding...
An English gentleman (Thomas Rowlandson - borrowed from Hippocrates) wrote “Life is short, but art is long...”* Remember that and keep your paddles in the air. Your kids don’t need expensive Nikes, Converses, etc. either. They’re better off barefooted. Watching out for broken glass or dog doo will serve to sharpen their perceptions. Believe me, I know."
Well, that's Howard, and he talked like that too. He was funny. He was hilarious. He could paint too, and while I can only find one online, it's a good one, a one-eyed dog and a young boy I believe is Howard. I wanted one of his paintings too, but he never delivered.
Books and affordable ebooks ($5.99) by Jim Linderman are available HERE
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