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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Boy with Gun Snapshot Collection Jim Linderman

It is always disturbing to see children with guns. Especially one with a huge rucksack of ammo. (Speculation)

Anonymous Untitled Snapshot, circa 1930 Collection Jim Linderman

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Outsider Art Fair 20th Anniversary Review from Afar 2012

No, the pictures above are not from the Outsider Art Fair 20th anniversary.

Viewing the 20th anniversary outsider art fair from afar, through slide shows, it appears after all that time the field (as I hate to call it) is still confused, too inclusive and loaded with baggage. At best a misnomer, the term has been squabbled over for so long I gave up, but with distance and time, I will revisit.

Shown here is the material which first attracted my eye, the Black Folk Art show of 1982. A magnificent exhibition of material which was mistakenly included under the rubric of outsider art around the same time, but a show which to this day remains as one of the best curated art shows of my lifetime.

The true defining criteria for anyone being marketed as an outsider is a complete lack of training in the arts. No schooling and I'm not fooling. I have always felt anyone aware enough of the art world to claim to be an outsider doesn't qualify AS an outsider. I don't mind artists, dealers or collectors fighting over the definition, if they still do..but once again it is obvious a few ringers are slipping in. People who even begin to utter "I am an outsider artist" do not pass the test. And no, art school "drop-outs" do NOT qualify either. Neither does anything from an "other-worldly" environment, culture or country if it is part of the regional milieu.

The other primary criteria is that the artists work in some form of isolation. This could be as a result of institutionalization, a lack or educational opportunities, a religious fervor, an undefined particular visionary impulse...you name it...but while creating their initial body of work they have no idea anyone else is doing it, and they make it all from their own devices. No looking at Sotheby's catalogs or finding a "how to paint" brochure at the flea market. None. NONE.

However, the "trained or untrained" aspect, dicey enough, isn't the most unfortunate definitional failure of the material or the show. It is the inherent dichotomy of lumping together artists who come from no school and FIT into no school together in one place. How can a group of artists be labeled and lumped as outsiders when by definition they have absolutely nothing to do with each other?

Which is why I show the photographs above. You see, these artists DID come from a "school" of sorts. All the artists included in the Black Folk Art show had something in common...all were from fairly early generations which were descendants of slaves. They thus, to some degree or another, shared the common experience of having been displaced...and all held again, to some degree, a shared African-American esthetic which was retained, unconscious or not, in their work. They shared a common origin (to the extent that their ancestors were taken from one huge continent and brought to another) and they shared an inherent consistency of cultural artistic expression. Which is why together they formed a successful exhibition. Not really a "school" mind you, as originally none of them had any idea the others existed, but an esthetic. They lacked educational skills, formal training and awareness of the arts but that was the result of racism more than any other circumstance.

They were mistakenly included originally as "outsiders" when the field formed, and their works still appear here and there as by far the best work in the outsider show. Bill Traylor, Sam Doyle, William Edmondson. Even the lesser known and lesser skilled George Williams, whose frontal totemic carved figures look quite smart above. I say the best work, but that still doesn't mean they belong there.

There is other good work at the show...I presume the magnificent Electric Pencil work was there, and I suspect James Castle was represented, but they were true isolates with completely unique consistent visions. In other words, they qualify but they do not belong.

Unfortunately the few rare genuine articles and the Black folk artists from the exhibition pictured above continue to be presented in a forum which persists to lump together all manner of eccentrics, wanna-bees and what a good friend of mine used to refer to, with little irony, as "failed trained artists" on the walls with no intellectual validity or foundation other than a good weekend bourse. In other words, a good show to visit but not to write about.

Pair of original "installation view" photographs by Michelle Andonian 1983 Collection Jim Linderman

Blurb features Arcane Americana by Jim Linderman Best Book of the Week

Much pleased to have been selected as Blurb "Book of the Week" at the Blurb Blog Blurberati HERE

"A card player faces off against five versions of himself. A young boy poses with a snake around his neck. A woman in devil horns takes the stage. Welcome to the world of Jim Linderman, a collector who specializes in American folk art and ephemera. His new Blurb book, Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana, shows off such an astounding array of characters and scenes that it’s hard to write this Book of the Week post and not sound like a carnival barker.

Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana is Linderman’s twelfth book with Blurb. Previous books cover, among other things, pin-up girls, painted backdrops, and religious photos and ephemera. Linderman’s books are not for the feint of heart (or those lacking a sense of humor or adventure). But if you’re the kind of person who’s fascinated by carnival sideshows, or spends hours pouring through boxes of old photos in antique stores, you’ll find a kindred spirit in Linderman.

You can get Linderman’s books in either printed form or as ebooks, the latter priced at $5.99 – making a long strange trip through the delights of folk Americana extremely affordable. You can check out 30 pages of Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana below (but be advised: Besides card sharps and snakes, you might see a bit of old-time nudity too). Reality TV has nothing on the car wrecks (both literal and figurative) in Linderman’s book."

Thank you!

Funky Furniture Eccentric Handmade Vanity with Flash Outsider Art on Wood African-American

A very small (25" tall) handmade vanity "thing" from Muskegon, Michigan circa 1930 or so. While the piece is made by hand with an eccentric construction, the paint flash strikes the eye first. It strikes the eye hard!

In my travels and years of collecting, anytime I see a piece of furniture with sawcut edges, unusual construction and more than anything such decoration, especially with gold, I think the piece could likely be African-American. Scholars will point out such characteristics and make a good case, but we will never really know.

Muskegon and Muskegon Heights in particular have a slightly higher percentage of African-American residents than some Western Michigan cities, and I have seen a good many pieces of furniture like this from barbershops which came from Black neighborhoods over the years.

On the other hand, I have seen some damn crazy rustic country furniture from Peckerwood Gulch with some wild paint, and sometimes the tallest bottle trees grow in Caucasian gardens.Handmade, paint-decorated Diminutive Towel rack with drawer thing, circa 1930-1940 collection Jim Linderman

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Weegee the Technical Assistant 1956 Photographers Showplace Magazine

The Weegee show "Murder is my Business" at the International Center of Photography in New York is certainly a must see, and I thought I would post a little Weegee curiosity to celebrate it. While Weegee is often thought of and portrayed as something of a lone wolf prowling the streets at night with his camera, which is certainly true, he was also a social creature active and involved with the photographic community. He participated in social camera club shoots and had friends who did the same. In addition to the crime and nightlife scenes in the ICP show, he had a successful active and creative role in the places you might not think...including this unusual gig as "technical assistant" to a most unusual photo layout in Photographers Showplace magazine in the December 1956 issue.

Photographer's Showplace was by far one of the most interesting periodicals for the photographic community at the time, it had models and nudes, but was actually serious about it, unlike the large number of "under the counter" publications claiming to be "figure studies" but which were little more than soft-core pornography skirting the law. It was also entertaining without being too technical...serious about the emerging art and craft of modern photography, but light on the jargon.

Here are bits from a painterly picture set. As you see Weegee is credited as "Technical Assistant" although his precise role is not described. Certainly he checked his light meter! Maybe he found the model (identified as Rae Chandler) The artist (the one with the brush) is Ralph Therrien, and the photographer is James Pappas. An unusual collaboration of painting and photography from a time when both arts were experimenting. The layout is extensive, no less than 12 photos are presented, several full-page and in color.

Interestingly, the same issue has a full page spread which claims to be the first published example of Weegee's unusual photographic experiments, abstractions which are referred to as the "Weegeerama Kaleidescope" which is a post for another day.

Though a big fan, I have posted only once here about Weegee, but had fun putting it together. Revisit my piece on the relationship between the photographer and the pin up girl Bettie Page HERE which I am still grateful for being allowed by the ICP to use images from their collection to illustrate.

Images from Photographers Showplace Magazine December 1956, Creative Publications. Collection Jim Linderman

The Blues had a Baby and they Called it These Doofus Racist Guys

Well, what can you say? We COULD be generous and speculate the masks are green and they were going for a spaceman mystery zombie rock vibe, but who knows. Whether minstrel or mishap, it is quite a photo one must admit.

Circa 1955 anonymous snapshot collection Jim Linderman

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Arcane Americana Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection

I am proud the new book ARCANE AMERICANA was mentioned on Boing Boing, and also welcome any new followers here from the review.

Feel free to follow VINTAGE SLEAZE and old-time-religion as well!

Copies of the book or ebook for iPAD can be ordered HERE or by clicking the cover over on the right. 120 Pages. Thanks!

The Great Lost Original Beatnik Photograph Fake Beatnik? WHAT Beatniks?

I would call these fake beatniks, but then there were less "real" ones than I could count on two hands. Burroughs, Cassady, Kerouac, Ginsberg...that's IT. Plenty tried, but nope, WAY too square. Lawrence Lipton tried, but the beret was just to hide his bald spot. One could add Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti to the short list of the real thing, but certainly no more. That is seven beatniks in the whole damn tribe.

You COULD make an argument to include Herbert Huncke, but then you would have to dump all the others and he would be the ONLY beatnik. Herbert makes the original seven beatniks look like poseurs. Actually, so does Neal Cassady. So let's settle on two. There were two real beatniks.

Truly, Beatnik was much, much, much ado about nothing. But boy did the media jump on it. Sheesh...it was during the post-war Eisenhower years, and ANYONE who didn't have two kids, a garage and a mortgage had something suspicious going on, so let's give them a label and put them in Life Magazine.

Untitled (Beatniks) Original 8 x 10 photograph, No Date Collection Jim Linderman

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

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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.

Hollywood Censorship Isn't New (Hands OFF the Web)

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Hollywood is the primary force encouraging our increasingly record low approval body of lawmakers (many of whom wouldn't know how to even ask their congressional intern how to look something up for them) to limit what appears on the internet. My contribution to the protest is not a blank screen, It is this not at all subtle reminder that Hollywood has been censoring what we see for decades.


Here some proud hired anti-intellectual freedom goons show off the fine job they are doing at keeping us safe from what we want.


Who were the DPS? I don't know, Wiki is down today.


This picture is from 1929 (the year before Hollywood clamped down on what was shown on the screen officially) and likely represents one of the several organizations which emerged to stop miscegenation, various words, various body parts, sexuality of any kind and insisting on happy endings (no, not THAT kind...the kind where anyone breaking the law gets caught and punished at the end of the movie.) A year after this picture was taken, the Motion Picture Production Code was accepted and practiced by the entire movie industry...thus insuring what we choose to pay and see is light, harmless fare, safe for all and neutered of anything challenging or controversial.

Thanks guys...how about going after what I read next?

So this is the track record of the folks who today want a bill passed to limit content on the web and give authorities the right to control what appears on domains.

Take a minute to contact your probably rich, probably male and probably Caucasian representative and tell him to keep his hands off the internet. It is working fine, the rich are still getting richer, not to worry (by FAR) and the minute they start to regulate it they'll muck it up like everything else they touch.

They think they are unpopular now? Just wait until they get 60 million school kids mad at them.

Original Photograph "Motion Picture Censorship 1929" by P.E. Genereux, E. Lynn, MA Collection Jim Linderman

Ivan Rasputin Will Use His Bear Hug

From WRESTLING the Scrapbook HERE

Primitive Stereograph Stereoview Homemade Handmade 3-D

Does this primitive 3-D stereoview (or stereograph) work? Stare at your own nose and see. YEP! Even an amateur can make a 3-D image. So why does Hollywood persist in spending 100 million dollars each on horrible big screen crappers in 3-D with plots no deeper than a serial murderers's hasty, hand-dug shallow grave? Same reason any media company does anything these days. Scared of the Internet! The only thing missing is a slow-motion bullet splitting a tree.

Amateur Homemade Stereograph card. 1952 Collection Jim Linderman

Time for the Accordion Class Portrait collection Jim Linderman

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"It's time for accordion class" is not a phrase heard often these days. A few years ago there was a big flap in certain circles when the Grammys eliminated polka as a category. They did it because the same performer won every damn year...his competition had dwindled to nil.

I don't play and never will, but I can guarantee the first lesson, on the very first day, went exactly like this: "All right children...let's start with how to hold the instrument."

Accordion class Portrait Original Photograph by "The Camera Shop" Grand Rapids Michigan circa 1940. Collection Jim Linderman

The Most Beautiful African-American Model of the 1950s ? Lost and Forgotten Cheesecake Pinup of Color

She appears on the cover of "Tawny Models" in the early 1950s, a smut digest pretending to be "figure studies for artists" to avoid censors. She appears in 4" x 5" photo sets sold from the back of magazines...and was photographed at the same sessions which produced the most famous pinup model of all, Bettie Page.

Fifty years later, she appears on the cover of my book which could tell the story of every African-American model trying to find a place in front of the camera during the second half of the 20th century. She likely faced racism, prejudice...and as was the case for all nude models during the time, she may have faced arrest and prosecution. Today no one knows who this young African-American model and pioneer was.

"Tawny Models" though undated, was published between 1950 and 1955 with a Miami, Florida address, but that could be a mail drop or a ruse, as nearly identical booklets appear with New York addresses at the same time. Nude photographs were sold under the counter and by mail at the time, and arrests were common. "Tawny Models" was part of a large group of picture only "Art Study" booklets by a largely unknown photographer going under the pseudonym of Marno. "Marno the Photographer" actually, but he had other names too.

Likewise, the color picture here (color only because the photographer tinted the original by hand) was taken around 1955. The undated "stag picture" with the other models would have been sold as a "strip-set" of 8 depicting clothes being removed. There is no documentation available.

Light-skinned, short natural hair...the photographs, while cropped here for discretion, could have been taken then or now. Just one of the thousands of models who worked for five bucks a session, now lost, and always anonymous. Something of a rebel in a field which seldom took note of African-American beauty. This model who today would be called "a fresh face" would likely be well into her 70s, but since the racket was tough she might not be around at all.

Tawny Models Camera Digest circa 1950 Photographs by "Marno" and Hand-Tinted photograph by Rudolph Rossi circa 1955, Collection Jim Linderman

Additional, un-cropped and uncensored photographs of the model appear on the "adult only" website Camera Club Girls HERE

The Animated Chocolate Eclair and World's Smallest Perfect Woman Princess Wee Wee RPPC

A previously "unposted" real photo postcard of Princess Wee-Wee, A.K.A. Princess Weenie Wee, Winnie Wee, The Animated Chocolate Eclair, The World's Smallest Perfect Woman and Harriet Elizabeth Williams. Wee Wee was weaned in Bryn Mawr, PA, born 1892. Her "Linked-in" profile would today include stints at Dreamland Circus Sideshow 1908-1917 and Barnum and Bailey, dates unknown. She also apparently toured on shows with Count Basie, Pine Top Smith and other prominent "Negro Vaudeville" routes. She appeared in one film, "The Music Goes Round" in 1936 according to one source. I haven't seen the film.

Not surprisingly, there are dozens of photographs of Ms. Wee Wee, nearly all with her standing next to a prop (either a person or a piece of furniture) which puts her wee-weeness into perspective. Whether this chair is normal-sized is unknown. There are numerous claims made as to her height and weight. I think wee suffices.


Real Photo Postcard circa 1910 Collection Jim Linderman

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How To Start A Fire

Snapshots circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman