Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Cuba Si Real Photo Postcard set of Tropical Paradise RPPC

Tropical paradise Cuba a few decades before Batista, before the mob tried to make the place their own personal Vegas and before Fidel kicked them out.

Set of Real Photo Postcards, Cuba Circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman
DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOK CATALOG

Milk of Amnesia by Donna Lethal The Real Deal

PHOTO BY CRAIG SEMETKO

I like to say this blog is about authenticity, and you can not get any more authentic than Donna Lethal, a woman I love like a sister and would suspect WAS my sister except she has the wrong hair color...she being one of Hollywood's most beautiful and few authentic Gingers. My love and respect is real too.

Donna has (finally) written her memoirs. Milk of Amnesia. That she is from the same town as dear Ti Jean (Jack Kerouac) is no coincidence, as lightning has been known to strike twice. And wouldn't you know it? Donna Lethal is Amazon's newest 5-star author.

Can a bright young woman survive a father who is a bookie, a mother who is an ex-nun, a brother in and out of jail and the whole scene smothered in minor crime, minor drugs and major drama? AND make it both funny and serious? Ayup!

Donna Lethal, who is pictured here in just two of her guises...truly is a genius. This book receives a Dull Tool Dim Bulb guarantee(shirt). That's right...you don't like, I send the white. Read the reviews and trust them all. Buy Today.

Massachusetts-born Donna Lethal divides her time between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, accompanied by her 90-pound pit bull. She won her first writing contest (third place!) in fifth grade and is currently collaborating on a book with fellow poet Nicca Ray and painter Jesse McCloskey. Intending to teach film studies, Lethal attended the New School in New York City, but decamped for Los Angeles after 9/11. She has also lived in Boston, New York, and London. Her collage work and photographs have been shown in Los Angeles galleries, and her work can be found in Dowager Quarterly, The Hair Hall of Fame, Find a Death, The LA Beat, Cold Dirt Press, Scorchy Girls and a chapter in the book Weird Hollywood. Her blog, Lethal Dose (www.DonnaLethal.com), and its collection of vintage beauty ephemera has been featured in Elle Girl (Korea). Since 2010, she has assisted celebrated photographer Phil Stern in organizing and archiving his vast collection of slides, negatives and prints, spanning over seventy years of classic material. She has also worked as a photo researcher for Cameron Crowe on The 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert for HBO and on the Peabody-nominated special 48 Hours: Black Dahlia. She is an avid amateur ornithologist.

The Legs of Bettie Page

Detail from an original hand-tinted photograph circa 1952 taken by Rudolph Rossi at a Camera Club session in New York City.
See also TIMES SQUARE SMUT
Also of interest is THE BOOK OF ROCK AND ROLL

Miley Cyrus versus the Fly Fisherman Feathers Hackle Tackle Lure Lore and Fashionistas

Miley Cyrus started wearing bird feathers as hair extensions. Steven Tyler did too ..a beauty trend started in Hollywood but taken from nature. Wouldn't you know it, the feathers, which are the staple of hand-tied fly fisherman who make their own lures, are now in heavy demand among fashionistas and they will pay more than the fisherman. There is a run on feathers.

Hand tied lures are part of the fly-fishing lore. Tackle makers are master craftsman, I guess. Me? I just look for cool things in my free time, and I found an enormous collection. 28 envelopes full of feathers. I'm all ruffled! As the envelopes have return addresses without zip-codes...which came along in 1963, I am guessing all these feathers are 50 years old.

Hackle is the term for a feather plume, so I guess what I have is an instant collection of tackle hackle! But if Miley wants them, she can have her dad get in touch. He ain't doing nothing.

Bird feathers! Jim Linderman All circa 1950.

DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOK CATALOG HERE

First Book Ever on African American Pin ups SECRET HISTORY OF THE BLACK PIN UP

NEW FROM DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS

Intrigued by the question "Why aren't there any black pin up girls" on an internet message board, writer Jim Linderman decided to find out. With 100 rare vintage photographs all showing women of color in magazines not seen for over 50 years, Linderman not only reveals many answers to the question, he reveals a long gone part of America and African-American culture. Secret of the Black Pin Up takes us from "tease" to "sleaze" and reveals a world never before seen. Using rare photos and publications, the untold story of African-American women in the soft-core pornography world from 1940 to date. Yes, there WERE black pin ups, and they are found HERE.

$22.95 Paperback 120 Pages Over 100 Photos

FREE PREVIEW of the New Book HERE

WIN a PONY from Tom Boy Shoes!

Imagine a rural world in which a shoe company could offer a HORSE with no more hoopla than a free week at Disneyland. A contest held in the Upper Peninisula of Michigan, which actually hasn't changed much since!

Free Tom-Boy Pony! Your lucky ticket 1931 Collection Jim Linderman

SEE DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS IN PRINT HERE

George Jones turns 80

Who said to me after I told him his music was one of the very few things I kept from my drunk days, shook my hand and said "That means a lot to me son" George has lived nearly 15 years since then, and so have I.

Life is Good

Tender Years / Battle of Love 45rpm Picture Sleeve Collection Jim Linderman

First Sin ? Raccoon Eyes on Preacher Aldrich and Wife

Someone was given a pen to shut him up in church. Note reverse: The Way to Hell --Simply Do Nothing

Defaced Church Invitation, circa 1900 Collection Jim Linderman
(Also posted on old-time-religion the blog)

Cross Writing Cross Eyed Dull Tool Dim Bulb Greatest Hit

I am working on a big project, so you get a rerun today. Stick Around.

Must click to enlarge

Two 19th Century "cross written" letters. Cross writing was a technique to save paper when paper was scarce. Every scrap mattered at one time (one of these is dated 1823) so the writer, upon reaching the end of the page, would turn the paper 90 degrees and add a second layer of text. Once it becomes familiar, the mind adapts easily and cross written letters are surprisingly legible. Charles Darwin famously used the technique.
Original Post from Dull Tool Dim Bulb the Daily Blog
Two Early 19th Century Cross Writing letters, Collection Jim Linderman

Black Forest Carvings are all BROWN Totem Pole with Jesus and a Cowboy

WHAT the? It looks like Jesus climbed up and took the ladder up after him! Actually, this is an image of, well...a totem pole? A crucifixion? Note horse, rider and weathervane! A serious conglomeration of carver crafts all mounted on one goofy pole! Incongruity defined!

This is a 1914 German postcard from the Black Forest area. Long known for their carvers (of the most bizarre things...bear cubs holding a bench up, pile of pile upon pile of fake wooden deer heads with antlers, crazy cuckoo clocks, various gnomes and yodelers) and every damn one of them BROWN. They HAD paint, as seen here, but for some reason never used it.

The carvings might be German, they might be Swiss, but they are all brown. For those of you interested, the Black Forest belongs completely to the state of Baden-Württemberg and comprises the city of Pforzheim as well as the following districts (Kreise). In the north: Enz, Rastatt and Calw; in the middle: Freudenstadt, Ortenaukreis and Rottweil; in the south: Emmendingen, Schwarzwald-Baar, Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Lörrach and Waldshut. Does that help? As you can see, Ida visited.

I remember once a dealer had dumped like two hundred Black Forest carvings on tables at the 26th Street Flea Market (R.I.P)...most of them deer heads and most of them busted up. No one showed any interest at all.

German "Postkarte" mailed 1914 Collection Jim Linderman

NOTE: An outstanding and thoughtful interpretation of this piece appears on the beautiful site "THE JESUS QUESTION" HERE. by Victoria Emily Jones. Very much appreciated and recommended...and a great site.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books

Fotofun ! The OTHER Pre-Photoshop Postcard Game! Laugh your HEADS off!

As promised, the other Fotofun product from the 1930s. See the original post HERE. This booklet was also designed to encourage lopping the heads off your loved one's photographs and pasting them on hilarious templates...70 years before photoshop! (but with a one-cent stamp twist) Send them to friends! How many were actually created and mailed? I have no idea. Any deltiologists out there with one that went through the mail, glued-on noggin intact? Seems like a collection waiting to happen!

Fotofun Post Cards original booklet 1935. "Just cut the heads off photos of the family"
Collection Jim Linderman

Inherited Values (Essential) Deanna Dahlsad contest, collectibles and MORE

The lovely, talented, prolific and brilliant Deanna Dahlsad is having a seasonal Fall contest on her Antiques and Vintage Collectibles site INHERITED VALUES which provides a perfect time for you to explore her site, one of several, and one I recommend. Deanna is a writer and scholar, smart as a whip and with a far better eye than I. Check out Inherited Values. One of the best antique sites on the web and a site to treasure. Inherited Values is also on Facebook.

The Magic of Abbott's Magic What's in YOUR Colon? RPPC collection Jim Linderman

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Michigan has been blessed for the last 80 years with the Abbott Magic and Novelty Company. They have been located in Colon, Michigan since 1933. I am in love with Abbott's even though I'm not a magician...so anything I write would be biased. The firm's WEBSITE is HERE. An AMAZING collection is shown HERE in a 6 minute film.

My copy of the catalog, from which I have cribbed a few astounding images, is the 22nd edition dated 1976. It is, I'm not kidding, 433 pages. That I have never left it behind in all my moves since should tell you something.

Want a taste of the real thing? Check out this astounding and quite beautiful film made around the same time showing Percy Abbott and his business partner Recil Bordner performing in front of the store. Ignore the funky finger plunked bass-line and enjoy the show.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books HERE

Sexual Equality

PAY ATTENTION

PAY ATTENTION
(SEE ALSO VINTAGE SLEAZE THE DAILY BLOG)

RAG PICTURE How to Make a Rag Picture

The Rag Picture is a forgotten art. The Balda company, located in beautiful Oshkosh Wisconsin, started selling instructions back in 1928 I believe, but the history is incomplete. Balda sold to magicians, preachers,vaudeville performers and anyone who could develop a convincing patter to go along with their show. They not only sold the backing and the easel, they sold the RAGS. Impressive? Just wait! Dim the lights. Balda also sold BLACK LIGHTS so the speaker could finish with a trippy flourish!

Balda is a history aching to be told, but I'm going to take a nap instead.

Balda Advertisement circa 1967 and catalog images circa 1936?

A Delicate Balance Curt carries a Chair RPPC collection Jim Linderman

Curt "No Last Name" and "A Member of Our Group" balances a chair.

Real Photo Postcard circa 1920 Collection Jim Linderman

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

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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.

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