Thank you to all who came to the opening of Take Me to the Water at the International Center of Photography in New York City this week! It was a pleasure to see so many old friends and to make so many new ones. The exhibit was curated with great skill by Erin Barnett, Assistant Curator of Collections and is presented beautifully! Very much appreciated, and I hope ALL have the opportunity to see the exhibit, which will run from January 2011 to May 2011. I have been told additional images which were donated, including many larger images are available on the ICP website.Also showing currently at the ICP are three astounding exhibitions! Wang Quingsong's "When Worlds Collide" "The Mexican Suitcase" (rediscovered negatives of Capa, Chim and Taro) AND of particular interest to followers of African-American culture, history and photography, a striking show of vintage photographs created by Alonzo Jordan from Jasper Texas, all three shows not to miss. In my humble opinion, any one of these exceptional shows are worth traveling for, to have all four up at the same time in the same institution is truly remarkable. More information on all these shows is available at the INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITEPair of anonymous baptism photographs. Arkansas 1927 Collection Jim Linderman
A flapper in the flag struts her patriotic stuff 50 years before Abbie Hoffman was arrested for doing same.Anonymous snapshot, circa 1920 collection Jim Linderman
Imagine my surprise when I learned this 90 foot cement tribute to an imaginary mish-mosh of Native American Tribes not only still stands, but it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places! (Not the more exclusive register of Historic LANDMARKS, but still) I thought I had just bought yet another photograph of a long forgotten goofy thing. Goofy it may be, but it was carefully restored and repainted by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association. That it is in Oklahoma seems not to have mattered to the Kansans. It is claimed to be "The World's Largest Concrete Totem Pole" (um...yeah, duh) but maker Ed Galloway cheated...he built it on a giant five foot tall turtle barely seen in the photo.
This Press Photo dates to 1947, just about near the time Ed claimed it was finished. It was even given an unusual amount of respect at the time from the press...note the text on the reverse says nothing about Ed's mental state, though if you look really close you CAN see they titled the caption "Monumental Joke." They also call it "grotesque" and infer it was made to trick future paleontologists. However, as Ed is passed away now, I can question his sanity! What crazy Okie would build a giant cement totem pole?
Whether Ed's mind was fit as a fiddle is questionable, but he made fiddles too...400 of them, though many were stolen out of the Fiddle house he also built next to the totem to hold them a few years after he passed away.
Ed's pole is estimated to weigh 134 tons. The big goobers on the side here also still remain. Ed mixed up his tribes a bit, putting some traditional Northwestern motifs down in the Sooner State too. In fact, the Indians Ed is depicting in his gravel and stone monolith are in a way responsible for the State's nickname, as after having driven them all further west (or 6 feet underground for good) the territory was opened up for all (All Non-native that is) in a giant landrush...and the cheaters who snuck in early received the more charming name of Sooners.
Ed Galloway was born 20 years before Oklahoma became a state, and started building his thing thirty years after.
Original Press Photograph 1947 Collection Jim Linderman
In 1858 the John Manufacturing Company was founded. Their main product was fire-resistant asbestos roofing material. (At the time, virtually nothing was worse than fire...entire towns could burn to the ground while waiting for the horses to get hooked up and gallop to your block with a tank of water big enough to put out a campfire) Well...as we now know Asbestos was a mixed blessing. So mixed the lawsuit commercials pepper late night TV like flutters of fibers falling from a roof being torn down even today.
But the point of this post is not asbestiosis, not even the pulmonary fibrosis which killed the founder H.W. Johns HIMSELF some forty years after founding the company. This post is actually about a fire of a different sort...a fire of love which burns deep in the chest of a billionaire's rotten son...One Tommy Manville, who became "the asbestos heir" after his father merged his Manville company with the Johns company to become Johns-Manville By 1925 they were producing over 200 asbestos products. They were listed on the Fortune 500. But at the very same time, their executives were learning what their products did...and they paid some quiet lawsuits during the 1930s. But the cases kept coming and eventually Johns Manville was little more than a trust set up to pay off claims of the dead and dying. But the real hero (no...let's make that the real boob) of this tale is not the founder, not the buyer, not the victims, not the lawyers...it is the goofus son. Thomas Franklyn Manville Jr.
What great invention of commerce, or political office, or educational institution did he found? Umm..well...I can't find any. But he DID MARRY THIRTEEN WIVES (!) and not a clunker among them! Was young Tommy groomed to take over the company lethal business? Nah..after being thrown out of EIGHT public schools for misbehaving, he decided edjucatin' wasn't for him. He married his first wife at 17. Florence Huber was a Ziegfield Follies showgirl. Natch. Tommy had to lie about his age, and when Daddy found out he was outraged...Tommy and Florence had to cross the river into New Jersey and marry again using his real age. The marriage, surprisingly, lasted 7 years. When it ended, Daddy gave Flo $16,000 as a settlement. Tommy as now free for number 2, his father's personal secretary, Lois McCoin! Not surprisingly, this shocked his father into a heart attack and within months, Tommy had a two million dollar trust fund and 25,000 shares of stock.
New found wealth apparently gave Tommy notions of new wedded bliss, as he paid off wife number two with a guaranteed 20 grand a year for life. For wife number three, Tommy went shopping at the Follies again. Another bombshell named Avonne...that one lasted 30 days. With a Mexican divorce and over $100,000 in gifts, the pretty bride left with a pretty penny. Wife number 4 was a spicy blond who lasted four years of fighting...she hit the road with twice the purse...$200,000.
Number 5 was a 22 year old showgirl Tommy met while judging a beauty contest. That marriage lasted 17 days. They were divorced the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Prescient, as bombshell number 6 was waiting in the wings. Billie Boze. Billie was 20 and lasted about as long as you would expect. Two months and Tommy gave her the asbestos-sole boot. No payoff was reported, but I suspect she left the house with more than white fibers in her clothes.
Sunny was next. Now Sunny Ainsworth had already been married. FOUR TIMES! And she had yet to reach her 20s. Sunny was a sunny 19. Her age wasn't the only record she would hold...as Sunny's marriage would last...are you ready? Seven Hours. Wife number seven lasted seven hours. When I was a sexy, single, and most importantly straight bachelor in Manhattan, a good number of my DATES lasted longer than seven hours. A settlement? Yes.
Number eight was a reporter, one Georgina Campbell. They had a few good battles and made up several times, but when the reporter sniffed out a story taking place in Tommy's bedroom with his secretary, there was a little problem. Georgina was in it for the long haul though, and it was an automobile accident which took here out of the picture.
Mere weeks later, number nine was in place. Anita Frances Roddy-Eden. It lasted ten days and she left the house with $100,000. Number 10 was...jeez, let's see...A SHOWGIRL! 26 year old Pat Gaston. A 6 month marriage.
Now, it gets complicated...as Wiki says, "the record is confused" since two of ten listed here were married to Tommy Twice. So that makes TWELVE marriages. And who was lucky number 13? 20 year old Christina Erdlen. That one appears to have lasted until Tommy croaked in 1967, but I am not quite sure. Much to my chagrin, I have not been able to find pictures of the last two. 
A striking snapshot I found the other day. Literally striking...as in he got struck. There has been much in the press of late about bullying and the psychological damage it does to kids. Here is another form of damage...
"According to Gail L. Rosseau, an AANS spokesperson and a neurosurgeon in the Chicago area, an estimated 300,000 football-related concussions occur each year in the United States, and nearly 45,000 football-related head injuries were serious enough to be treated at US hospitals in 2009.”
Now I do not know if the revenue generated by football ticket sales at schools is enough to pay for the training programs...but given the latest dismal rankings of United States educational achievement compared to the rest of the world I suspect we would be a bit better served if we spent more money on the library and the science lab, and a little less on the jocks. Not to mention the cheerleaders. Have you seen what a fall from the top of a pyramid can do?
Original snapshot, circa 1940 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.
They have a Facebook Page and the direct site is HERE.
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!
Jim Linderman
Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books Catalog HERE
