Dull Tool Dim Bulb

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.

A cabinet card photograph by Frank Wendt, likely used, and sold, as a souvenir at Little Miss Gertie's shows. Wendt was understudy to the famed circus freak photographer G. Eisenmann, and worked out of both New York City and later Boonton, New Jersey. The card dates to a performance in 1898 in Lake Chautaugua, New York. Wendt was also known for his circus and sideshow photographs, but the book below collects his numerous photos of young women forced on the road at an early age.

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.

FaceTime Etiquette Secret Codes Handwriting Analysis Typewriter Tracks and Cam Communication in the 21st Century

Since touch pads and keyboards have finally eliminated handwriting, and the long anticipated "face to face" telephone has arrived through camming with surprisingly little fanfare, I thought it time to rerun the "Eye Flirtation" chart here which one should always keep in mind when having some FaceTime. Let's see…do I have to put a trademark next to FaceTime? No…but when I type it on my Apple, they automatically add the capitalized T for me. Strange.

Anyway, one used to be able to analyze potential dates through their handwritten requests. I guess delivered by hand through calling cards, butler to butler? So gentile. Not anymore. I write every day, but even signing a check hurts my fingers now. They are out of shape. Writing by hand, and the ability to tell if a written by hand letter was composed by a serial killer is now officially over.

Remember back when criminals were convicted because one of the keys on their typewriter had a distinctive character? Now, as everything we type is stored forever somewhere, it's been a long time since anyone was called to testify about a little chip out of the comma key on a crook's Underwood.

Anyway, for your delight and despair, if you have been giving out messages you wish to have kept private, here is the official guide to "eye flirtation" I posted long ago. It is back, but through technology, it is growing more useful every day.

BOOKS (AND EBOOKS $5.99 each) BY JIM LINDERMAN are available HERE

It's OFFICIAL

Proud (and OFFICIAL) participant in the system!

Mastercraft Decal Company, No Date Collection Jim Linderman

Two Sided Bathing Beauty of Wood Folk Art What does your Swimming Suit reveal? # 6

It is a bit early, as Spring is not even Spring yet here, but it isn't too early for number six in the "What does your Swimming Suit Reveal" series.

Folk Art wooden Bathing Beauty in a Bikini circa 1940 (From an upstate New York Motel Swimming Pool) Collection Jim Linderman

BOOK AND eBooks by Jim Linderman HERE

Pair of 19th Century Folk Art Children's Drawings by Harry Moar More Folky than Children's Drawings of Today?

Two consistent drawings by young Harry Moar which I am dating to around the turn of the century. The 19th one. They are signed on the reverse, so young Harry had an idea of his own capabilities as an artist, or his parents did. Some young and naive artists have no idea they should imprint their stamp on a work until they are told to claim it. It would take a mighty precocious child to sign his work before being told.

Lined paper such as this came into being around 1900.

19th century drawings by children look more like folk art to me than those done today. A children's art specialist could tell me more (and maybe one will write in) but these just look more folky than kids draw today.

Now that kids draw with the "help" of touch pads these days... I won't have anything to find at antique shows, and I suspect they'll all start to look more or less the same.

Pair of original 19th century drawings by Harry Moar. Collection Jim Linderman

BROWSE AND PURCHASE BOOKS AND eBooks by Jim Linderman HERE at Blurb.com

Risque Hurly Burly Hootchie Cootchie Dancers of Professor G. W. Van Sideshow Burlesque

CLICK TO ENLARGE COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN


CLICK TO ENLARGE COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

COLLECTION JIM LINDERMAN

Professor G. W. Van presents his talent in this, frankly, remarkable group of photographs I was able to purchase recently. They are unusual not only for the content, which shows a pleasant afternoon full of hurly-burly, hootchie-cootchie and risqué behavior for the time, but also splendid examples of period dress, gentlemen when hats were virtually required (even for dusty fairgrounds) and a wonderful group of original painted sideshow banners.

The same banners are shown elsewhere in a photograph dated 1915.

Prof. G.W.Van was from Lockhaven, PA according to one of my heroes A. Stencell, who promised me an interview once but I am too intimidated. His book Seeing is Believing is essential for anyone interested in sideshow history (or simply a good book)

I don't watermark items from my collection posted, but credit appropriately if you repost.

The New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown owns a photo of the same touring troupe HERE

Group of Original Photographs Anonymous circa 1915 G.W. Van sideshow
Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND ($5.99) EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE AVAILABLE HERE

Oddities Antiques and the Curiosities Business Not Dead Yet Reality Shows of Pickers Spur Interest in Antiques

To be honest, I am not sure if "OUF" is a name or a group of initials, but unfortunately she has passed away. Memorial cards are among them most common cabinet card photographs, but this one has the distinction of delicate hand-tinting and the curious tribute to OUF apparently hand-stamped over her flowers.

Netflix is streaming the complete two seasons of Oddities, the Discovery series on curious and creepy antique dealers Mike Zone, Evan Michelson and Ryan Matthew, master bone articulator. The three ghouls are the Pawn Stars of the Dead and American Pickers of the Body Farm. Twenty episodes in a row, a binge viewing totally unlike me, has left my mind with an odd and curious feeling of morbidity and mortality. So the funeral card here is shared.

Hopefully, the popularity of Oddities will help the antiques business. Everyone needs a hobby after all, and in these digital days a few actual physical objects on the shelves would be nice.

Cabinet Card circa 1900? Reed Studio MA. Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND AFFORDABLE EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE HERE

Adbul "calls in sick" 1941 Penmanship Lesson Example

Those of you who might need just one more day after Spring Break may find this useful, a template page from New Model Semi-Upright Copy Book Number 6 used to teach writing to students in India. Bunder Road, Karachi.

New Model Copy Book circa 1941 Collection Jim Linderman

BROWSE AND ORDER JIM LINDERMAN BOOKS AND $5.99 eBooks HERE

Ventriloquist Dummy (Vent Figure) circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Circa 1940 Handmade Ventriloquist Figure Collection Jim Linderman

SEE ALSO the new book I'M WITH DUMMY: Vent Figures and Blockheads Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection. 78 Pages Softcover or ebook. Nearly 100 original photographs 1900 - 1980 of ventriloquists and vent figures never before published. Creepy? Yes!

FREE PREVIEW OF THE BOOK and ORDERS HERE

Lund's Plywood Garden of Michigan

Lund's Plywood Garden of Maple City, Michigan.

E.K. Lund was a part-time magician who lived to the age of 100. From the looks of these rare postcards, that is about one plywood figure a year.

Photo Postcards from Lund's Garden, formerly installed in Maple City, Michigan.

See Also "Preacher, Artist, Magician, Centenarian" HERE

DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS HERE

Strike Up the (Native American Peoples?) Band!


CLICK TO ENLARGE

I can't tell you how many, or if ANY of the players here are first nation performers, but there were authentic Native American bands. Along with other enforced cultural changes, some had instruments forced on them. On thing I do know is that there were not too many tribal trombones until not long before this picture was taken.

Curious Concert Band Anonymous Photograph circa 1900? Collection Jim Linderman

BROWSE AND ORDER BOOKS AND $5.99 eBooks BY THE AUTHOR HERE at Blurb.

Opening April 1, 2013 Art of the Potholder

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

Lawn Leporidae of Galvanized Steel Folk Art

Galvanized Steel, Iron, Paint. No date, circa 1950?

Confetti on the Floor Salesman Samples for the Basement Retro and Modern at the Same Time!

When I was a lad, one of these was the entire basement floor…I scuffed them up playing ping-pong down there. Retro madness confetti floors of asbestos from the Matico Company and their line of "Aristoflex" floors.

I am a big fan of paint chips and floor samples. For one thing, they are the only thing free at your local Home Depot. They are also fantastic for art projects, and they look great on the shelf. Unfortunately, you can not get the asbestos ones anymore…but I guess that is a good thing.

Group of Salesman Sample Flooring tiles Matico 1957 Collection Jim Linderman
BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE HERE

A Full Yard of Grand Rapids! Yard Long Panoramic Photograph

CLICK TO ENLARGE (THEM ALL)

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

A yard of Heaven! "Yard Long" or panoramic photographs are frequently seen but seldom as crisp as this pair showing 1942 Bible School Students and their teachers from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Too big for my scanner, and a shame as they are splendid. There is a slight "row" in one row...(second row on the left, detail shown) but all in all, the little monkeys behaved and each holds their little Bibles with respect. Photographed at the height of World War Two, it is exceptional to realize virtually all these children had a father serving in the Armed Forces. We can also surmise most of the teachers had husbands or sons serving. A beautiful pair of integrated images at a time when segregation was still common, and together a splendid example of what panoramic photos are for. The special cameras used for these giant pictures were developed as early as the late 19th century and their high resolution is still a marvel.Harshberger began commercial photography in Grand Rapids in 1921 and closed the shop in 1949.

Two Panoramic photographs, each 8" x 28" Charles I. Harshberger "Photos of Quality...Groups any time or place in Michigan" 1942 Collection Jim Linderman

Also posted on the old time religion blog

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

"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

"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

Fair Use

Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
1. The image illustrates an educational article; its inclusion in the article adds significantly to understanding the text because it is a historical sample of the art covered in the critical commentary, and shows use of an innovative style. Therefore the image substantially improves the educational value of the article.
2. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of the article topic, which directly concerns a visual artist, and is indicative of the style for which hethe artists are renowned.
3. Images are of lower resolution than the original. The image is not used here for profit.

4. It is not in any way replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image pertinent to the work referenced in the article

The copyright for some images are most likely owned by either the publisher, the writer(s) and/or artist(s) which produced them originally.

Any other uses of this image may be copyright infringement.

Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

Any Trademarks used in this item listing are used for strictly descriptive purposes only. No association or endorsement is implied or inferred. No character or trademark ownership is given or implied.

If you are the owner of any aspect of an item which you believe to be copyrighted, please contact us immediately at j.winkel4@gmail.com