Now that we all have handheld devices to show our mugs, and chat roulette is bringing faces from the furthest corners of the world right to our palms, I present here the necessary techniques of Eye Flirtation. You can thank me with your fingers.
From Undated Pamphlet "All About Girls" circa 1900. Collection Jim Linderman Tweet
Despite a million voiceovers and enough color commentary to delay the beginning of my favorite show the Simpsons, it always comes down to ball-handling. No more, no less...you can dribble down your chin for all I care, but you can't say anything else. Ball handling.
A local photographer, local from who knows when or where, couldn't bother to focus, but he recorded some beautiful kids doing their best to look pro. Stark black and white reminders of our shallow, brief lives and the time we have on earth? Or some pictures of ball handlers.
Group of anonymous "sports heros" photographs, circa 1950? Collection Jim Linderman
Collector's Weekly is fast becoming the "go-to" site for the collectibles market. I love it, I contribute to it HERE (in the popular "show and tell" section) and I suggest you follow it as well.
Are ghosts real? Yes, in two cases. One, when you see a dead celebrity walking around on television. Pick one from the past...let's say Humphrey Bogart. Long gone, but there he goes, in mysterious flickering grey tones, eerily bashing the nose of some gunsel at the conclusion of a dime store novel plot.
The second proof of ghosts is the hand shadow. Lost art, entirely free and available to anyone with the sun or a light bulb (though the curly ones we use today don't throw as warm a temporary canvas on the wall.)
I was always impressed with modern installation art. Whole room constructions which leave in a month and never return. Nothing to buy, but a true exhibit of an artist's talent and nerve. Sure, there was usually an edition of something for sale at the counter and portable pieces of the artist's work available in the back room, but the intention was usually to build an artist's reputation and "wow" the audience. The fleeting nature (and the bragging rights of having seen something no longer available to others) made the experience all the more special.
Hand Shadows is an even more temporal art form in that it exists for a shorter time. In fact it really doesn't exist at all. Can't be owned, can't be captured, has no physical form or shape. Largely forgotten now, the hand shadow is an art exhibit which isn't even there, and depending on the shaking and quivering of the artist, it might not even work for the few seconds one tries to throw it up there. The ephemeral here briefly and gone in seconds shadow.
Everyone can make one or two, but the early practitioner who would travel from gig to gig (or birthday party to school assembly) often had a patter to go along with the work...moral tales, jokes, and frequently an agenda of either the person paying for the show or the artist. But it wasn't necessary. The mere, temporary existence of the work was enough.Like the chalk talkers I love so much, the art form was often, and is today when you can see it, frequently hijacked by the religious prothelesizer. Get thee before a light! I don't think they do any "in and out" shadows with a circle and a thrusting digit, but that is probably the most popular example today, and usually made in a dorm room or, if you can find a spot, a well-lit corner of the local tavern.
It has a name...Ombromanie. It probably started with the Chinese, but the most famous old time practitioners appear to have been fussy French folks. The classic texts go way back...even before motion picture ghosts. You can look them up yourself, and you can find books which will allow you to reconstruct the lost art form. Get good at it and you can also entertain your friends. Get REALLY good at it and you could bring back the form!
I guess when you are given lemonade, you make a state song. In 1930s through the 1950s popular media, anytime a goofy "Slackjaw" was depicted, the Arkansas Traveler would play in the background. It was the "go to" song for down home goobers. A real "sligh tapper" if you wish. The original song melody was written by one Colonel Sanford C. Faulkner of the Confederacy.
There are as many versions as there are Arkansanianers. It became a generic melody for all manner of rhymes and tales, most of them involving some flashy fiddle playing, drunk jokes and one tooth yokels. Aw, huck, gawrsh, that's a purty song, I feel like dancin, Ayup! The song even became the unofficial theme song of Foghorn Leghorn! "I'm telling you, that's a JOKE son! "
In vaudeville, it was an excuse for a country bumpkin' to poke sly fun at the city slicker. There is a well-known version in which a goofus named Bocephus grabs a bumblebee and puts it in his mouth. He hurls it back up after being stung, all accompanied with frantic arm pantomine!
School children used to sing the song before naptime...in their version, a red nosed hillbilly puts off fixing his roof because a sunny day will come soon, so why bother?
The versions I am most familiar with are by the Skillet Lickers and even earlier, the one by FIddlin' John Carson. In his version, a trippy drone overwhelms the entire melody, but if you lean in close, you can pick out the "turkey in the straw" like tune. Both are great, but Carson creates a real mood...It sounds almost psychedelic...maybe that is why Jerry Garcia later recorded it.
Check it out.
Far and far away down in ArkansasThere lived a squatter with a stubborn jaw.His nose was ruby red and his whiskers grayAnd he would sit and fiddle all the night and all the day.
The Laurel and Hardy short The Music Box, also known as The Piano Movers uses the tune briefly. Now THAT is high honor. This may be one of the few songs with Arkansas in the title, but still, it seems an odd choice for official state song, but that is what it was for some 20 years...an expunged version was commissioned by the state...gone were most of the h'yuk h'yuk references, and we are left with golden grains waving in the wind. It lasted until being put out to pasture as the state "historical song" in 1987. Now you state historians don't bother writing in...I just wanted to post the John Carson song here...so take no offense and don't bother to correct any mistakes.
You can not do any better than Bill Monroe (no matter what you are trying to do) so here is his version. You can yell yehaw after any solo.
Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman circa 1910
Ephemeral Folk Art well-stuffed Figure. Common use of the phrase "ephemeral folk art" derives from the remarkable photography book Ephemeral Folk Figures: Scarecrows, Harvest Figures and Snowmen by Avon Neal and Ann Parker. Published in 1969, the book was the first to illustrate decorative and functional constructions like this fellow. The pair went on to publish numerous photo essay books on other forms of vernacular art. Worth looking for! Anonymous Snapshot circa 1935 Michigan Collection Jim Linderman
These pictures were taken during the the agrarian United States on the cusp of Industrial Society. The horse played a role in both, and it is no wonder it also played a role in the traveling circus.
Horses with long tales can swat flies easier, but the mane seems purely decorative. Depending on genetics, many horses can grow spectacular heads of hair, but normal wear, tear and snags usually keeps the mane at a manageable length. Show horses are often allowed to grow it longer. They will even have it braided and let loose before the show in an attempt to create perfect waves, but even their splendid "dos" pale compared to a wild horse, of which I recently heard there was some 30,000 roaming in the states today. A number increasing through abandonment...it is expensive to maintain a horse, often costing far more than the horse is worth.
Horse were also taught tricks. Fake tricks, but then all tricks are fake. When you see an educated horse clomping off a count, or solving complex mathematical problems, it is usually because the trainer has tipped Trigger off. It is a fairly easy trick to teach your horse to go get their food bucket. Even a dog can do it without training. Teaching your horse to shake his head yes or no is easy as well, and we're not even into Mr. Ed territory here yet. But for the math genius horse who knocks off numbers like an accountant? Usually he has been taught to respond to cues from the boss, not to operate a calculator in his head.
First up is Mascot the Talking Horse. Looks like Mascot could shake hands and push a lever in addition to talking. What? You don't hear anything? Neither do I. Mascot was active in Connecticut, and the Syracuse University also holds one of these cards in their collection. Note the photo of the Professor making out with Mascot...the backdrop depicts hoards of painted customers watching in awe.
Next is Chief. The reverse of his card can tell you all you wish to know about the Shetland with the tail of steel. At right is Edward Daley, Chief's chief groomer. If you wish to avoid reading the small print, Chief travels first class in his own little baggage car.
The next horse has no name indicated, but someone has taken the time to point out his particulars. Eighteen feel and nine inches of tail!
Elsie Sutliff is the trainer, not the horse. The Syracuse University Library holds another Wendt image of Elsie, and in their copy a large dog is standing on the back of the horse, so Elsie must have trained several animals. (A "Dog and Pony" show.)
Happy Jack was "The original and world famous Lone Pacer" according to the barely visable text embedded in the image. Also shown is trainer Frank Schneider and Charles Fose the owner. A Lone Pacer is an archaic term for a lead horse which sets the pace, I believe...at any rate, the time shown (2:03) is for a mile. Happy Jack is also reported to have run the mile at 2:13 in Louisville, Kentucky in 1897.
There were several horses named Linus, and in fact one reason was so the folks in one part of the country would think they were seeing THE Linus, when the real Linus was appearing somewhere else! Suffice to say, "carny" folk aren't usually thought of as being the most honest cards in the deck. At least the two Linus horses follow here and both are the real deal. The website "Messy Beast" has the whole story, and numerous examples, including several photos of these same horses. A whole herd named Linus!
Linus and Linus II were both Long Haired Oregon horses. Through genetics and a little hocus-pocus, it seems the Linus long hair was a trait passed down among generations of Linus breeders.
Most of the horses shown here have extensive notes, personal history and such either printed or noted on the reverse.
All Photographs Frank Wendt circa 1890-1910
All Original Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection.
Excerpt above by Jim Linderman from the forthcoming book "The Wondrous World of Wendt"and copyrighted! Not to reproduced without writing. See ALL the Dull Tool Dim Bulb BooksCATALOG HERE See also The Wondrous World of Wendt (In Progress)HERE
Curator Erin Barnett has posted an announcement about the upcoming Take Me to the Water exhibition of Real Photo Post Cards (along with numerous photographs) at the International Center of Photography blog Fans in a Flashbulb, as follows:
"In January, ICP will be presenting a small selection of postcards of river baptisms, drawn from a treasure trove of over 200 images, which was donated by collectors Janna Rosenkranz and Jim Linderman in 2007. Since there’s not enough room on the walls, here’s a peak at some of the wonderful images that won’t be in the show (but that can be found in the Grammy-nominated publication and CD Take Me to the Water." MORE INFORMATION and PRESS RELEASE HEREExhibit will run from January 21 to May 8, 2011
Gross handmade postcards from Borat land! Circa 1900 and circa disgusting!This year a single feather from the extinct Huia bird sold for nearly $7000.00 at an auction in Auckland. I don't think you can clone a bird from a feather, but maybe one day. Ritual objects of Native American Tribes containing eagle feathers are illegal to sell, and there are numerous other laws protecting the use of our animal friends in collectibles today, thankfully. I don't know the species here, or if the feathers match the paintings...but they are grisly and gross reminders of when Victorian "fashion" dictated the wholesale harvesting of feathers for silly hats. Not to mention post cards.
Robert Leslie Bellem did the words. Adolphe Barreaux did the art. Decades before Harvey Pekar wrote stories for others to illustrate, Bellem did the same, but his were goofy crime tales told in the Hollywood hills. Bellem was the auteur of the pulps...this one issue of Hollywood Detective is edited by Bellem, contains four articles by Bellem AND a "Dan Turner in Pictures" cartoon done by the two. It's nuts...but it works if you care to immerse yourself in one man's odd vision of fictional crime (supported by another man's vision of the scene.)
During his time, Bellem became something of a joke for his writing. 300 of his estimated 3,000 stories were about Dan Turner. S.J. Perelman satirized his work in a hilarious essay "Somewhere a Roscoe..." for the gumshoe slang he created...and he didn't have to work too hard to make it funny.
I can't put it any better than Kevin Burton Smith does on the outstanding Thrilling Detective website HERE"...it was the high-octane use of every slang word known to man (and more than a few Bellem must have coined himself) that fueled the tales. Women were wrens or frills, and their breasts were pretty-pretties or tiddlywinks, something that Dan, "as human as the next gazabo," always took the time to notice. Cars were chariots, money was geetus and no one ever got killed in the stories, they were croaked, cooled, iced, de-lifed or had an act of killery performed upon them. Guns didn't go bang – they were roscoes and they spat, coughed and belched. Or sometimes they just sneezed, though the end result was the same -- people ended up dead."
I guess when you write 3,000 stories, you reach a bit. I'm glad he did! I could spout the slang all day long and feel tough as nails, even if I am not. It is certainly no coincidence Bellem later wrote the story lines for the stilted Superman television series.
And seldom does an illustrator merge so well with a writer. Barreaux did more than draw, and was actually editor of Trojan Publications later...the company which put out Hollywood Detective. When the comics code came in and artists of his ilk were S.O.Luck and S.O. Work..he turned to producing "art" books with naked photographs of the dames he portrayed in his drawings. He even produced Bunny Yeager's Nudes!
Dan Turner Hollywood Detective (illustrated by Adolphe Barreaux, Story by Robert Leslie Bellem) from Hollywood Detective December 1944 Collection Jim Linderman
I pride myself on collecting unusual photographs, but no one collected more and with more vigor than Bernard L. Kobel. It is a clear case of the freak collecting the freaks!
You see, Bernie didn't just take and COLLECT photographs of medical abnormalities, circus freaks, war atrocities, lurid and lewd crime scenes and such, he reprinted and SOLD them from the back of sleazy magazines! You have likely seen some if you are a bit adventurous...the woman with the world's largest whatevers, the guy with the giant stuff, the bizarre pair of thingamabobs...even I don't want to show them and I'm pretty much immune by now. I'm cheeky but Bernie crossed the line!
You have also seen reproductions of his collection without knowing it. The famous picture of armless and beautiful sideshow performer (and actress) Frances O'Connor who appears on the cover of the Re/search book Freaks (linked at right) is a Kobel photo, even if not taken by him, but he did take plenty himself. Some of the photographs shown on the billboard at Hubert's Museum in Times Square (and later, on the cover of the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street album) were Kobel shots. His reprints sold fairy well, at least well enough to have entered the sleazy underground where gourmands of gore dwell. They continue to sell long after Bernie moved from Indiana to Florida and then Sideshow heaven, as bootleg reproductions and, I guess, authentic ones on auction websites.
Not all Kobel's photos were gruesome or gratuitous, but plenty were...As you can see here, he advertised kinky tattoo photos in girlie magazines, (often showing far more than the tattoo) freaks and contortionists in entertainment trade magazines, and I suppose he advertised his gruesome war photos in whatever war folks read. A pair of originals are shown HERE.
I do not know much about Bernie, but I know as much as I want. Interestingly, a later advertisement shows he was trying to leverage his collection into a new direction....stamp collecting! "Lists sent, natch...Will trade for U.S. stamp collections." Natch indeed...one of his catalogs from the 1950s lists nearly 500 photos which I don't even want to print the descriptions of. On the other hand, one of his photographs for sale in a catalog is "The First Official Hair Pulling Contest...held at the Palisades Amusement Park with 24 girls from the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency as contestants."
