Snapshot, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
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Global Hobo Mini Micro Hand-Made Comics Galore
As the post office debates eliminating Saturday delivery (and rumors of a tax on email and texting pops up from time to time) there is still much to be said for a package you can carry up the stairs and slit open. I read a good deal of my trash on a kindle now, but still, the book, even if just a xeroxed and stapled pamphlet, rules.
Some of the most creative and certainly most affordable work being done today is available for three or four dollars a pop at Global Hobo, a well-run but low profit distributor of artist made comics. I've cribbed just a few of the covers of work available. Some of the artists selling their wares on this collective are up to ten issues of their titles, others are doing one-shots for fun. Global Hobo has been distributing hand-made comics for nearly ten years. Many of the artist's catalog entries link to their own full-blown websites thus opening up worlds of fun from this beautiful mail-order hub.
Some of the artists, like Geoff Vasile and Vanessa Davis are clearly going to break through to the "ISBN" world, others will likely stew in lonely apartments becoming increasingly morose and dramatically weirder. Which in the comics world is a good thing.
Global Hobo is HERE
Virginia Roehl Photograph and the Art of Window Display The Display News Service
Do these circus banners look at all odd to you? Could it be that they are painted on a bathroom wall, or at least seem to be? At any rate, the display is a miniature of some kind, look close and you can see a shower head.
Virginia Roehl was a window display news service. Located on West 57th Street in the 1950s, upscale (and I mean way upscale) clients like Tiffany's , Bonwit Teller, Bergman's and such hired them to document their window installations. The photographers who worked at Roehl took photographs of some of the most beautiful (and artistic) retail displays in New York. They could well have included installations by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and James Rosenquist, all of whom worked as window decorators. (Not too shabby, eh?) So did Salvador Dali. Warhol, in the last interview he gave, said "Everybody also was doing window decoration. That led into more galleries. I had some paintings in a window, then in a gallery."
Manhattan is literally full of art...and even the tiny spaces in storefront windows utilize it. When you consider up to a million people may pass your display in a week, a retailer best produce something interesting for display. It is also quite a showcase for an artist. How else might a young struggling visual artist reach an audience as large as a good day at the Met?
I can not find too much information on the Virginia Roehl Display News Service, but It would be a wonderful archive (and exhibit) should anyone find them. Obviously, they were connected. If I were still in NYC, I would be all over them.
As window work is temporal, the Roehl photographs may be the only pictures of some extraordinary work. The print here has their stamp on verso, as does one I locate in the Library of Congress of some work by Covarrubias.
The Ohio State University Exhibit Historic Costume and Textiles collection exhibit in 1999 used some Roel images, the catalog "The Art of Selling: A History of Visual Merchandising" is readily available on the web and is recommended.
Untitled Virginia Roehl Display News Service Photograph, circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman
The Lost Chalk Masterpiece of E. J. Vernacular Photograph
I hate to post a sketch of a sketch, but unfortunately the artist who drew the above masterpiece had horrible handwriting which I can not make out. Not that it would have mattered much...the painting here was done in chalk, and as such probably wouldn't be around to appreciate even if I could make out the artist's name. Certainly his initials were E.J. and his children were Floyd and Nellie. The biblical scene was 30 x 50 on a blackboard, dates to 1923 and "was one of the best I had ever drawn" according to the artist. Feel free to enlarge and help...but I suspect E.J's masterpiece will remain unidentified for now.
A post also on the old time religion blog.
Anonymous Snapshot of Chalk Drawing, 1923 Collection Jim Linderman
The Carter Family Bob Dylan Songwriting Credits and Homemade Pie
All songs come from somewhere. Quite a few of them passed through the Carter Family on the way to others, but even the songs A. P Carter found in the hills came from somewhere before he learned them. This previously unpublished photograph of Mother Maybelle Carter and her sweet angels gives me opportunity to discuss only one notable song and where it came from. I guess credit COULD go to the first family of country music shown here...but who really cares other than the lawyers? Songs float around, get grabbed by some kid's fingers and learned again. We all benefit.
Dylan's "The Times They are a Changin'" (One of his earliest, if not THE earliest version which was finally released on The Witmark Demos 1962-1964) was actually, some say "Paths of Victory" which was based on the Carter Family song "Wayworn Traveler" which sounds more like "One Too Many Mornings" to me, but then "Paths of Victory" actually came from "PALMS of Victory" which was also recorded by (guess who) the Carter Family way back in the 1920s. Except that it may have been first recorded by Uncle Dave Macon...I didn't check the dates. It was also apparently known as "Deliverance Will Come" which was written by a minister in 1836. I'm not sure where he got it from. In a Wiki article, scholars seem to have given up. "It is clear that "Palms of Victory" had to be written by someone in particular..." an anonymous and frustrated scholar writes. I suspect it came from either Clinch Mountain or Africa...and probably the latter.
My point is, I guess...that George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was NOT based on Phil Spector's "She's So Fine." except that it was.
In January 1949 Victor Records signed the Carter Family, then known as "The Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle" actually, to a record deal.1949 was also the year the Carter Family hooked up with Chet Atkins and they all moved to Springfield, Missouri. At the time A.P. Carter was running a general store in Maces Spring, Virginia, having left the group he founded years earlier. (What records he had on his Victrola has not been reported). In June of that year, they found time to dress up and go to a picnic...I'm glad someone was there with a Brownie. (Click to Enlarge...someone was selling Pies) Original Snapshot of the Carter Family June 1949 (Anonymous Photographer) Collection Jim Linderman
At the Circus in Black and White #20 (In Miniature) Vernacular Photograph
Anonymous Snapshot "Bob Bernard's 1/4" Scale Al G. Barnes Circus Monkey Cage-4 Horse Hitch" typed on reverse. No Date Collection Jim Linderman
Mr. Teeter Finds a Drift Card. Giant Fish DNA Asian Carp, Mistakes in the Great Lakes and Exaggeration Postcards
I have nothing against my friends in Chicago except for a huge, disgusting invasive species known as the Asian Carp. Able to jump large boats in a single bound. In fact, during fishing contests, they often do just that, literally giving themselves up by plopping their gross girth right into the hull. That isn't all they do...bigger eaters than Joey Chestnut at Coney Island after a fast (look him up) they deplete any water they occupy of the good fish...leaving you forced to make a decision. Do I stop eating fish? Or do I adapt and start rolling that ugly water dinosaur into corn meal.
Seriously, man...pictures of those giant goldfish look like exaggeration postcards from the 1950s. They'll grow to four feet on our delicious sport fish!
So far, as near as I can tell, an electric barrier (a bug-zapper for fish!) has been installed to keep the river monsters away...but some carp DNA has slipped through...Ewwww! Around here there are signs on lawns reading "NO MISTAKE IN THE LAKE" and though they refer to the fat, scaly Mylopharyngoden, they always make me think of something I did in the lake as a kid.
Michigan is attempting to force some Illinois rivers and canals to zip it up. Some of them appear to be trying to sneak through near Calumet (a city once known for sin, drugs and strippers)
So anyway, speaking of postcards, here is a nice one. A note sent to Mr. Roy Teeter way back in 1958. Mr. Teeter found a message in a bottle! Apparently walking near the shoreline, he found what is known as a "drift card" released by the Great Lakes Fishery Investigations several years earlier. He was rewarded with this note acknowledging his fine fishy find!
President Obama has appointed a "fish czar" to monitor the situation. I hope they keep an eye on things, or the fake fish postcards of the past will have to show BIGGER fake fish.
"Drift card note" to Roy Teeter, 1958 collection Jim Linderman
Salesman Sample "Freak Fish" postcard circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman
Announcing Dull Tool Dim Bulb EDITIONS Fine Art Prints From the Jim Linderman Collection
Designers and Collectors take note! Dull Tool Dim Bulb has teamed up with Artslant to sell affordable, high-quality prints of selected photographs and images from the Jim Linderman collection. At the shop, you will be given the opportunity to select the size of the reproduction, and even have the pieces professionally framed if you so choose! Some images will be available as large as a poster. Above are a few of the images available for purchase, and again, the operative word is AFFORDABLE. You'll see.
CLICK HERE to see ARTSLANT Dull Tool Dim Bulb Print Inventory.
What's Your Sign? Horoscope Astrology Zodiac Unfurled.
Astrology sign with two lecturers.
Original Snapshot circa 1925 collection Jim Linderman
The new book of photographs from the Linderman Collection is
THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL available from Amazon
Barnes and Noble and publisher Dust-to-Digital.
Mexican Drivers, Freedom, Immigration, Border Wars and the Anniversary
A photograph can certainly launch all manner of thought, but what about a group of old driver's licenses from our southern neighbor?
Are any of the grandsons of these men now doing jobs we could be doing if we hadn't grown obese on high-fructose corn syrup.? (The last time I looked, soda in Mexico was still made with real sugar instead of corn syrup) Maybe that's why they can fit under the fence and we can't run fast enough to catch them. Drug wars on the border? Who do you think is the market for those drugs? Just look in the mirror on the table. Americans are. Not to mention that after Mexico refused our offer to buy what is now Arizona, we just went and took it.
How about those protestors near the future mosque in Manhattan? I know many of the demonstrators drove in from New Jersey, where they can't read what it says on the Statue of Liberty because her rear is aimed at them. If they had, they would know even the FRENCH knew welcoming everyone was our greatest strength. No, not just a platitude...our greatest strength. Some folks seem to have forgotten.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."
When I lived in Manhattan, in a ten apartment brownstone building...my neighbors were, let's see...a gay man...a woman of Mexican heritage and her husband, a large family of Muslims who ran the local deli, a gay woman, an obese man who played piano on the Dick Cavett show, a white woman from New Jersey who was a buyer for Macys, a man from India, a group of three guys from Senegal, a medical device salesman we called "Big Guy" and an 80 year old African-American homeless man named "Pops" who lived in the basement when it was cold, swept up and kept hookers out of the building. Oh...and I moved in the Jew. Does that all sound like trouble to you? Sounds like freedom to me. I can tell you, when we had a blackout, which was frequent...we were all damn glad to see each other in the hallway.
(My guess is that those of you against gay marriage have never had a gay man walk towards you in a pitch black slum hallway with a six battery flashlight he had the good sense to have purchased in advance. Until you have, I suggest you keep your opinions about his rights to yourself.)
See, we liked the diversity. It was as natural as living, which we are all lucky enough to do for too-brief time. We should try to make it as happy, wonderful, thrilling and diverse as it can be. We might as well...since it's going to happen anyway, just do the math. Look at the globe and add BILLIONS.
Collection of Five Driver's Licenses from Mexico, Zinc, circa 1960 Collection Jim Linderman
Antonio G. Silva Torres
German Perez Huidobro
Emiliano Rodricuez Huitzil
Conrado Vazquez Espinosa
Antonio Gonzalez Fernandez
Keef Clocks a Creep! Keith Richards
In Honor of Keith Richards, just because...and his highly anticipated autobiography is coming out next month...(linked at right) Here is a brief clip which shows what happens when some gobber feels like freakin' with the Stones. So did they REALLY need those Hell's Angels bodyguards? I'd let Keith take care of any situation.
Psytrait Psychozics Sensitron Radiesthesia and Mind Bombarding! Forgotten Frauds of the Golden First New Age (Look Deep within your Orphanus)
Need a Psytrait painted? How about improving your life with Psychozics? I can tell by your aura that you need some Radiesthesia, and right now! Your Biomagnetic Rapports are clearly askew, and evidence of third teeth clearly indicates a few hours of Grey Sound might help. We could be too late, but if the Sensitron doesn't work, maybe Mr. Mir Bashir can help!
Examples of Modern Frauds, all from 1969, obviously the dawn of a new age.
Read Jim Linderman Interview from Collector's Weekly on Folk Art, Photography and More
Homespun Beauty: Jim Linderman on Folk Art’s Authentic Appeal
By Maribeth Keane and Bonnie Monte
For collector, blogger, and author Jim Linderman, beauty is all about the imperfections, which is why he’s so attracted to folk art. In this wide-ranging interview, Linderman talks about his favorite folk-art pieces he’s collected over the years, explains why he just can’t stand the phrase “outsider art,” and reveals what drew him to vintage photographs of circus freaks and glamour girls. Linderman can be reached via Dull Tool Dim Bulb.
Empty Tintype (No one Home) Interior Tintype with Divan
Any tintype is an "interior" unless it was taken outside, I guess. But unusual indeed is the tintype with no one in it. I have no idea why someone would lug their tintype camera to a home and take a picture of an empty divan. But there you go. Maybe while the photographer was fumbling around with his equipment, the model stepped out.
1/4 plate tintype photograph, circa 1900 collection Jim Linderman
Jim Linderman is author of The Painted Backdrop: Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography 1860-1920
Barnes and Noble Learns a Lesson from Libraries (Too Late)
So Barnes and Noble is closing their flagship bookstore in Lincoln Center. It dominated that triangle for 15 years, and was one of my favorite places...to arrange meetings, to browse the magazines and more, It was central to my Manhattan life for a long time. I met Elmore Leonard there. I watched Steve Earle play half a set and read from his book there. It also probably had the highest collective IQ group of customers of any Barnes and Noble in the country. (That is a guess, but the rest of this post isn't)
Here is a secret about bookstores. They have the same problem as libraries, but have to show a profit too.
Usage studies will show you 99% of books in any library never circulate. That's right...no one ever takes them out. Does that diminish their usefulness or utility? Not one bit. You see, it is impossible for a bean counter to measure the effectiveness of a book on an impressionable mind. Who knows what impact one obscure, buried volume will have on the one right person who finds it? You can't anticipate it, you can't predict it, you can't even imagine it, but if the book isn't there...THEN it is useless. The true value of a library is the potential, not the statistics.
Libraries are often subject to ill-advised "usage" studies by efficiency "experts" and account managers...and they are often one of the first things to go when a company cuts cost. Why? Because their usefulness can not be measured. It is not a "business" model which is applicable to financial appraisal. That's why libraries are funded by public money and endowments. Because they are too damn important to leave up to accountants who don't understand them and attempt to apply financial standards to them which do not work.
I'm sorry to see Barnes and Noble go, but they are falling victim to the same thing...they carry an enormous inventory, but 99% of the books sit on the shelve while the top 1% of sales, best-sellers mostly, account for an enormous percentage of the shop income. But unlike libraries...they are subject to economic pressures which the great libraries aren't...the need to show a profit.
I'm just sorry they put all the small, better managed local bookstores who knew their clientele out of business before they learned the lesson. And the lesson is? One nationwide bookstore with a cookie-cutter huge inventory all over has just learned it. 99% of the titles don't circulate. But you still have to pay to store them.
by Jim Linderman
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