Dull Tool Dim Bulb

A Well Dressed Wood Carving Folk Art collection Jim Linderman

Well-dressed Well-carved Folk Art Man, 19th Century. Collection Jim Linderman

In Honor of the Roswell Anniversary, My Personal Collection of ACTUAL UFO PHOTOGRAPHS

Every serious photography collection should have a few original snapshots of Unidentified Flying Objects. These are original Kodachrome photos from a set dated 1964. I believe, I believe!

All above DATED and AUTHENTICATED by my own alien contacts.

Five color Kodachrome Print Snapshots 1964 Collection Jim Linderman

Kopeefun Fun!

It's Kopeefun fun! Early copyright violating "storage systems" for copying your favorite characters. Here is a group of obsolete cartoon critters I can't identify...Let's ask the blog's oldest follower to contribute the answer. They look like one of those "If you can draw THIS" ads from the 1950s, but submitting a Kopeefun drawing as your attempt would be cheating.

It is a double delight on Dull Tool Dm Bulb today. The sister blog shows some risque versions of kopeefun! Have fun!

Original Kopeefun Magic Sheets (Used) circa 1945 Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN AVAILABLE HERE

Courtship from The Birth of Rock and Roll Book available NOW by Jim Linderman

"Courtship" (or The Birth of Rock and Roll) Vintage snapshot c. 1960.
FROM THE BIRTH OF ROCK AND ROLL BOOK by Jim Linderman
AVAILABLE FROM THE PUBLISHER DUST-TO-DIGITAL OR AMAZON.

Original Snapshot circa 1950 collection Jim Linderman

July 4th 1939 Lou Gehrig Day The Luckiest... Anonymous Painting of 1939

Yes, it is July 4th, Independence day, but it is also Lou Gehrig Day. July 4, 1939, one of our greatest baseball players took to the field and Yankee Stadium to acknowledge the crowds. Movietone was there to record it, and it obviously moved the young artist here.

The…The…The
Luckiest…Luckiest…Luckiest…
Man…Man…Man.
Lou was sick when he stood before the microphone. No one had even heard of hockey then, and basketball was still a joke. We had one sport and Lou was the epitome of it. Of all his accomplishments, the greatest was that he played 2,130 games in a row. From 1925 to 1939. Have YOU ever called in sick? Lou didn't. Not once. And all they had back then was aspirin.

The anonymous painting here, too large for my scanner, was found folded in a "one dollar" basket at the end of a table at a garage sale. Who would throw this out?

Anonymous Child's Painting of Lou Gehrig Day. Date, possible, 1939 Collection Jim Linderman

Preview and purchase Art and Photography books (paper or $5.99 ebook) by Jim Linderman HERE.

Antique Sailor Whirligig Folk Art

Large crusty sailor whirligig wearing bell bottoms and doing a jig. Collection Jim Linderman

Snapshooter Snapshot taken by another Snapshooter

A perfectly centered snapshot of a snapshooter. What? Google doesn't recognize the word snapshooter and wants me to check my spelling? The first use was in 1896 according to Meriam-Webster dictionary. Get with it Google. Looks like Meriam Webster is kicking your robot's butt.

Orignal Anonymous Snapshot (Dated on Reverse 1950) Collecton Jim Linderman

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE HERE

Antique Folk Art Rooster Weathervane collection Jim Linderman

Folk Art Weathervane Rooster Sheet tin circa 1930? Collection Jim Linderman

Painting a Little Wooden Folk Art Dog for the Garden

Painting a Wooden Cutout Dog. At least I think it's a dog. It has a collar...cat?

Original Snapshot circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman

The Day I Spoke to Captain Kangaroo

The Day I Spoke to Captain Kangaroo

My first real, paying job in Manhattan was working at CBS News, and at the time the Captain was still around. Way at the end of the building (a converted Milk Factory on West 57th Street) Captain Kangaroo was still being broadcast, though the year I started they had just shorted him to a half- hour a day…to concentrate on the CBS Morning News rather than educating the kids. The Captain didn't like it and eventually quit. Still the props were around and it was pretty cool to see them.

Bob Keeshan was certainly a part of my life, as were the libelous dirty jokes we told about Mr. Green Jeans behind the barn when I was older. We were being mean, as I don't think "Lumpy" Brannum, who played the barnyard buddy, would do the things we described. Other regulars on the show, which you have forgotten, were Dr. Bill Cosby, Dr. Joyce Brothers and Dr. Cosmo Allegertti as Mr. Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, Miss Frog, Mr. Whispers, Dancing Bear, Grandfather Clock, Uncle Ralph AND the Magic Drawing Board!

Anyway, I was working in the library fielding calls like "How do you spell Hosni Mubarak's first name" and "Did anyone ever cross the Pacific in a balloon" when to my surprise the next call didn't ask a question, didn't say hello…it just said "This is the Captain" in a soothing voice which put me right back on the couch before school in the second grade. He really called himself the Captain! I can't remember what he wanted…but I'll never forget hearing his voice.

Bob Keeshaw marketed the "googly eyes" drinking cup here himself. The eyes are "lenticular" which means they follow you as put the milk carton carefully back into the fridge all by yourself. "Captain Kangaroo" is a trademark of "The Cashin Comedy Company" which he did. The cup on the base has "Robert Keeshaw Associates" scrolled around the center.

Captain Kangaroo "Sip" Cup. Collection Jim Linderman

Browse and Order books by Jim Linderman HERE

Butch Austin Black Cartoonist for (and OF) Jive

Butch Austin Forgotten Black Cartoonist for Jive.

Still no help a year later on my query for information on the hep jive talking African-American cartoonist Butch Austin, who worked for Jive Magazine in the late 1950s. Let's try again...

Anyone out there know the story of Butch Austin, Forgotten Black Cartoonist?

BOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN AVAILABLE HERE

Lingerie Show (with hat) 1959

I don't really know how enthused the fashion editors are, but this is a wonderful pair of snapshots. I guess one could say a ritual seldom seen?

Anonymous "Lingerie Show" 1959 Collection Jim Linderman

BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN AVAILABLE HERE

Harry McGregor Pulls a Wagon

A 1933 postcard from the Ripley's Odditorium at the Century of Progress Fair in 1933. Harry's wife adds insult to injury by threatening to poke one of his hard-working eyes with her finger.

Real Photo Postcard 1933 Collection Jim Linderman
Books and $5.99 Ebooks by Jim Linderman available HERE

Original Paintings by Nyla Gladine Thompson Mouth Painter c. 1950 Polio Survivor Collection Jim Linderman

Nyla Gladine Thompson Mouth Painter

Small hand-painted works by a remarkable artist. I've been collecting her original works for a few years, and always try to purchase them when I find them. Do not be confused by reproduction postcards, which the artist also sold…these are all small oil paintings by a woman who painted with her mouth.

Ms. Thompson painted flowers, landscapes, animals and more. A family genealogical site speculates she also painted (in sections at a time) decorations for a "Tee Pee" restaurant in Texas, this would likely be the Tee Pee Motel which was recently restored and put back to service by a lottery winner (!) but I can find no photographs of the decorations on the standing buildings. They were certainly painted over or cleaned over the years.

That the artist manages to fully realize a recognizable, personal vision in her work is amazing considering her physical handicap. The detail is extraordinary. One distinguishing mark of her work is the countless specks she applies one at a time. A primitive pointillist. In the earliest work here, she has even decorated and signed the painting on the reverse to create a traditional postcard.

The best biographical material on the artist comes from Annette Patterson's website HERE. Ms. Patterson has done a wonderful job tracing information on her extended Texas family, and has also written a book with several pages on Nyla. Family photographs of the artist appear on the site.

Ms. Thompson was fairly well-known during her time. The website shows letters she received from both President Franklin Roosevelt (another polio survivor) and Lady Bird Johnson (a Texan who certainly loved flowers as much as Nyla.) As such, it is odd that she has not been included in the many books published in the last 40 years or so on "outsider" artists. She would seem to be right up Herbert Hemphill's alley, but I do not recall seeing her work in print. I sold my Texas Folk Art books years ago, maybe someone can help here.

Nyla Gladine Thompson Paintings, each 4" x 6" circa 1940 - 1965 All Collection Jim Linderman
See Books and $5.99 Ebooks by Jim Linderman HERE

Dollhouse Old Sparky MIniature Electric Chair

For the Dollhouse with everything. A miniature Electric Chair.

Early Folk Art Whirligig Man (or Whirling Arms Toy) Collection Jim Linderman

Early Folk Art Whirligig Man (or Whirling Arms Toy.) Lovely wear and paint on this small spinning arms whirligig or toy. There is an old wire mechanism (seen on reverse) which allows the arms to rotate and move back and forth.

Wooden Whirling Arms Toy Circa 1880 Collection Jim Linderman

Fish Jack In A Box THE PAPER WIGGLEFISH

I probably should have saved this for Shark Week, but I post them as I find them. Another of what Poet William Carlos Williams must have been thinking of when he wrote one of my favorite lines: "The pure products of America Go Crazy."

"Wiggle Fish" Paper Fish "trick" novelty gag 1943 The Lester Game Co. Toledo, OH. 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

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