Man in a Hurry with a Fast Blue Car

Kings! At the Circus in Black and White Dull Tool Dim Bulb Series #12

Snapshot, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

By the way...he was deaf in one ear.

Til I Die Brother Publishing Co. BMI
by Brian Wilson

I'm a cork on the ocean
Floating over the raging sea
How deep is the ocean?
How deep is the ocean?
I lost my way
Hey hey hey

I'm a rock in a landslide
Rolling over the mountainside
How deep is the valley?
How deep is the valley?
It kills my soul
Hey hey hey

I'm a leaf on a windy day
Pretty soon I'll be blown away
How long will the wind blow?
How long will the wind blow?

Dip do do do
Do do do do
Do do

Until I die
Until I die
These things I'll be until I die
These things I'll be until I die
These things I'll be until I die
These things I'll be until I die
These things I'll be until I die
These things I'll be until I die

Drink Dream Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Dream Orange Soda Everyone's...Anytime. Ingredients on crown. Contents 6 1/2 FL. OZ. Property of Standard Bottling Co. Alliance, Nebr. Collection Jim Linderman

My Loving Parents, Hank, Luke the Drifter and New Years Day

Some of you may know, of all things, that I was nominated for a Grammy this year along with Co-producer Lance Ledbetter of Dust-to-Digital for the project "Take Me to the Water." This is a personal post, and one which I hope to avoid boasting or gloating.

I don't remember when New Years Day began to mean the day Hank Williams died to me, but I do remember writing a poem about it way back in High School. You see, I was born the same year Hank died on New Years day. He was riding in the back seat of a car being driven to a gig. I believe he was wearing his boots, or at least I like to think he was, and I've always imagined them crossed and propped up against the car door as he rested on his back and got some sleep. I think he was alive at midnight, but was gone with the light of the new year. The next year, Elvis made his first recordings. So as a baby I was able to share a life with both events, something I am proud of but which came about through no choice of my own. Pure dumb luck. How lucky am I to be able to say "the soundtrack of my life" began with Hank and Elvis?

I always favored Hank's "Luke the Drifter" songs best, the pseudonym he used for his gospel and religious material. I've said many times over the last 6 months, while talking about "Take Me to the Water," that artists perform harder when they are singing of their faith. I first realized this because of Hank's Luke the Drifter way back as a boy. He may have been the first Honky Tonker, but it was his Sunday morning material which moved me the most. I also believe it was an outlet he felt necessary to save his own soul.

Today as I helped move both of my parents to safer, more assisted living, I took some time to think about Hank, as I always do, but this year it was a deeper, more grateful appreciation. It was how fortunate I have been to share New Years with his soul...because my beautiful pair of loving parents somehow timed my arrival to be able to say it...and that on this very day I am able to still feel his presence even as I accept the difficult and taxing fact that my folks are waning profoundly this holiday. That it came in the same year as a nomination I never thought I would be able to receive has made this the most memorable New Years day ever.

Mermaids and Webb's Wonderful World of Retail

At one time, Doc Webb's store in Florida had 1,400 employees. The retail mega-mall miracle had miles of merchandise and at least a few mermaids. Way ahead of his time, Doc opened the store in 1925 and it spread like kudzu. By 1951 it was bigger than a Wal-mart, but he had tricks they haven't even thought of. He would sell dollar bills for 95 cents and serve breakfast for 2 cents to attract customers. The shop grew to 85,000 square feet. The soda fountain was so long it had 60 employees. He sold 16,000 packs of cigs a day and 60,000 rolls of film a year. He invented the express check-out line (ten items or less) and eventually had 70 different stores on the lot. Doc even supported African-American civil rights before most of his neighbors and fought against high taxes...but all things must end and Webb's went belly-up like a dead mermaid in 1979.

Webb's Talking Mermaid Show Postcard, circa 1940. Note on reverse: "Hi Bud. Saw the mermaids today at Webb's City. They really talk" Collection Jim Linderman

The Cookhouse by Robert D. Good At the Circus in Black and White

Chuck Wagon! "Cook House of Stevensons Brothers Circus in 1946" by Robert D. Good. For an additional photograph and biographical information on the photographer, see earlier entries in the "At the Circus in Black and White" posts.

Original Photo 5" x 7" by Robert D. Good title typed on reverse Collection Jim Linderman

Frozen Stiffs! True Crime True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines

I haven't done a book review in a while, since like all the rest of us, I only look at pictures. It will be a few weeks before Kindle figures out how to incorporate graphics like these into their digital downloads, so I'll use the time to suggest a hardcopy purchase.

Canadian true crime pulp magazines! Written by Carolyn Strange and Tina Loo, I presume their real names...a fabulous collection of covers and entertaining text providing the history of detective rags from above. I suspect these magazines are FAR more scarce than those churned out in America during the 1940s and 1950s and as such seldom seen, so the writers have done us a service. As you can see, the covers are just striking. More primitive than ours, the Canadian illustrators opted for a sparse, open, esthetic as forlorn as their landscape during December. With their muted colors, these pulps seem as lonely as the folks who read them. Even the man on fire seems cold! I see a few soggy and nearly frozen pages of these in a pile on a cabin floor in my mind's eye as I type. The book, 100 pages of true north crime bliss was published 6 years ago, so my review is a bit late...but it doesn't diminish the appeal. Using images from the National Library of Canada and a wonderful layout and design, this is an inexpensive book as cool as a Canadian on a cooling bed...and even though it was published in 2004, It's still good...after all, it's a BOOK. Put on your cyber mukluks and go buy one.

(Book Linked at Amazon on the right here under "GOOD THINGS)

GM Hybrid Auto from FORTY YEARS AGO

Full Page in Hod Rods and Racing Cars June 1970. FORTY YEARS AGO. Um...maybe the profit margin was a bit greater on the Hummer?

Deconstructing the Hindu Magic Book from Japan Book Arts

Dissection performed on the Hindu Magic Book reveals secrets.

Hindu Magic Book from Japan c. 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Make-Do "Christmas Tree" Homemade Postcard

Homemade "Christmas Card" Dated 1924 (Pressed Fern) Collection Jim Linderman

Santa Puppet Made from Glove Box Cardboard

Indian Apple Glove Company Santa, Size 8. Circa 1930. Collection Jim Linderman

Holiday Rush got you Down? Try Derck's Simple-Fyer

It doesn't matter if your problems involve determining the "small end of a reamer" or the "thickness of a Woodruf key size" the Simple-Fyer is the answer. Body Drill? Basic OD of a screw? Threads per inch or fine versus coarse? A cardboard disc with multiple circles, any Christmas problem involving sines, cosines, tangents, cotangents, secants or even CO-secants are no problem with the Simple-Fyer. This year, save time with Derck's. Only one dollar at all Cardboard Gauge Dial stores!

Derck's Gauge Dial, 1943. Collection Jim Linderman

Striking Photographs by John Stryker. Fast Modern Action Pictures of the Rodeo

The modest little postcard folder I found here opens up a striking world...Stryker's world! A regional photographer who deserves to be rediscovered, John A. Stryker obtained his first camera in 1916 while occupied as a penmanship teacher and was soon attracted to more adventurous activity. Stryker began photographing the local cowboys and rodeos. I don't know what type of lens he used, but these images would almost qualify him to take pictures in a war zone with combat pay. Kodak thought so as well and used one of his pictures in an early advertising campaign. Stryker also used his voice to advantage at the rodeo. Blessed with a barreling baritone larger than those rodeo clowns hid in, it is said he could be heard 3/4 of a mile away without a microphone. So while taking pictures, he became a rodeo announcer and was soon hired by no less than the Ringling Brothers to announce acts!

After years traveling with the circus, Stryker retired to Fort Worth and spent the rest of his life taking pictures. In addition to many postcards, he sold images for restaurant place mats and through mail order. The images here are from "Stryker's Famous Rodeo Folder Number Three" and the postcard book became a catalog for selling enlargements at $1.00 each, but "if special, made to order glossy prints are wanted for reproduction, advertising and publicity" one is instructed to write for prices. He sold photos up to 40 x 60 inches in size and would "travel anywhere to make up-to-date pictures of rodeos, ranches, historical sites...and individual poses of fine cattle, horses or mounted people" and at one time, his inventory contained 1200 photos.

Stryker's work is held in the Lamb collection at the National Cowboy Museum and in thousands of postcard collections. I based much of the above on the history provided in Buffalo County Historical Society newsletter by Mardith Anderson.

"Famous Stryker's Collection of Modern Fast Action Pictures" postcard folder circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Bandleader Mitch Miller Brings Cheer to Children in Yellow

Vintage Sleaze Art and Illustrators It Ain't Just Paperbacks anymore!

Boys on Top RPPC Real Photo Postcard

"NOKO" Real Photo postcard Anonymous c. 1900? Collection Jim Linderman

Carny in a Pork Pie Hat At the Circus in Black and White (in color)

What is cooler than a slim strutting carny in a pork pie hat? One in COLOR! An exceptional exception to my "at the circus in black and white" posts. This a snapshot pasted on a page of circus scrapbook. Circa 1950? A tall drink of water, our slim striding sideshow side hand!
As a further aside, if you like sideshow folk, my Wondrous World of Frank Wendt site has some splendid examples, as does the Fringepop site.

Carnival sideshow Photograph, anonymous. Circa 1950. Collection Jim Linderman

Things to Make Crepe Paper Buffalo Bill Cody

May Houser and her Buffalo Bill (to whom I am proudly related (!) constructed from crepe paper and discarded ladies gloves. Prizewinner!

Original Press Photograph, 1946. Collection Jim Linderman

Where Babies Come From: Competing Illustrations Dull Tool Dim Bulb

BOTH illustrations appear in the May 1957 issue of Sexology: Sex Science Illustrated Volume 23 Number 10.

Where Warhol got the Heinz ?

Hand-drawn tracings from 1927 Heinz Kindergarten Book "Pictures to Trace" Collection Jim Linderman

Fooled and Fooled Again Design of Magic Japan

Japanese Card Trick circa 1950, collection Jim Linderman

"How He Looked" Place your Head Here Remnant

The remaining portion of a "place your head here" box from Holy Land environment in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Original Photograph (detail) Jim Linderman 1994