Small Press Art books seldom made the stores, an as a result your friends have never browsed them, as such they make perfect gifts! Three of the best and most unique 2009 Art books are available online and should be seen! The first two come from the new art house DULL TOOL DIM BULB run by Jim Linderman. The first Gals Gam Garters documents the anonymous scrapbook of a 1950s leg fetish. He cut out hundreds of women's poses, from the waist down, clad in all manner of stockings. Risque but with no nudity, the collaged pages were found in a dumpster 50 years ago and have been published for the first time. A secret but fascinating show for the risque retro fan. The second, also released by Dull Tool Dim Bulb, "Shy Shamed Secret Shadowed Hidden" shows the amazing vernacular vintage erotic photographs of Victor Minx, a pseudonym. The photos, collected over years, each show a woman in states of undress but hiding her facial features. They are extraordinary. The third, also from the unusual Jim Linderman archive, Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography consists of dozens of antique photographs of folks being baptized. A staggering exhibit of humanity and just perfect, the book comes with a CD of old-time baptism songs and sermons compiled by the Grammy Winning Dust-to-Digital house. It could quite likely win them another this year. All three available online with a few clicks! None of these adventurous and unique books will have been seen by your friends, but ALL deserve your attention! All are well documented and reviewed online, with free preview pages, but seldom seen in stores. There is life in publishing still, but Barnes and Noble certainly do not carry them!
"Exhibit at Houghton Lake, Mich." (Real Estate Office) EKO Real Photo Postcard c. 1945 Collection Jim Linderman
It is "climate change" not "global warming." Every day I hear some misguided, misled and misinformed Fat Rush fan say "it's colder than ever...so much for global warming." First of all, Fat Rush is an ENTERTAINER, not a SCIENTIST... an increasingly dangerous one. Secondly, global warming means a change in weather patterns, not simply that it might get hot. Our weather is now the weather which used to be in Seattle, and I'm 2000 miles east of there. We've had a pounding "winter of a century" and a drenching "wet spring of a century" two years in a row, while California bakes and burns. The earth is a closed system. All that moisture changing from one physical and chemical state (ice) to another (rain) has to go somewhere. It seems to be going here. Admiral Byrd, shown as a penguin in an early child's game, traveled to the North Pole in 1926 and the South Pole in 1928. He wouldn't recognize either place today, and I think I know which way his political opinions would lean.Admiral Byrd Game Card, c. 1940 Collection Jim Linderman
Woodstock. It is curious to this day why the only band who actually both LIVED there and performed at the gig has to this day not had their set shown or released. Most folks don't even know The Band were there. At the same time plans were being made for the giant festival, The Band were living right down the road, practicing every day and in the woodshed with Dylan, another well-known, though reclusive resident I mentioned in an earlier post. Bob didn't make it, despite rumors he would. His backing band did...a full set of ten songs which have never been put on a compilation or added to endless reissues of "bonus" material on editions of the still essential film. In Levon's autobiography he claims it was because they forgot to turn Robbie's microphone off before the performance. (Personally, I like Robertson's voice, but he was no Levon Helm , Rick Danko or Richard Manuel) The set has been bootlegged, of course.
There is another angle to the story not told enough. While Dylan was healing up, drying out and raising a family nearby, very few pictures of him came out. Being fan, I was always glad to see the few that did, including a famous luminous shot of a 28 year old healthy gentleman Bob in pressed pegged pants leaning against an old car, surrounded by an aura of pink which ran on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. A few more trickled out, notably the striking, in fact now legendary photos of the boys in The Band. They were credited to one Elliott Landy. I always thought Landy, who happens to have a last name which is an anagram of Dylan...were one and the same. By that time, serious Dylan students were used to his attempts at preserving a life by hiding his under myth, I always just assumed he picked up a camera and took the shots himself. Whoever did certainly had Dylan's artistic skill (or extraordinary access)
Well, Elliott Landy is in fact a photographer, and a good one indeed. Many of his photos have become both iconic and emblematic of the era. The most comprehensive catalog of his work has just been released, shown here, and the photos are beautiful, colorful, crystal clear. Although of the time, they somehow manage to avoid the psychedelic claptrap of the period (something The Band did as well) The set? Not The Band's best, which is still to say better than almost everything else.
The woman above? Placed there by the photographer to make the boys smile, something they didn't do enough. It worked!
Elliott Landy's Website
So when one of my heroes announced she was going to start a blog, I knew it would be good. It is. I approached Astrid a year ago for help with a book idea. I hope to get back to it one day, but what with harvest time approaching and my required four hour nap...who knows when. She was immediately helpful, forthcoming, charming, friendly, open...and in no time a very, very good friend from afar. She is also beautiful and a genius, her significant guy is buff and a genius, their art, photography and book collection is as extraordinary and unique as it is rare and unusual...and now having been carefully born it is being shared on their blog FRINGEPOP. Worse than all that, they are both frightfully young, well educated and perfectly positioned for the future. I hate them. But I love their blog, and you will too. I expect it to grow like kudzu on a steamy damp day and if you would like to get in from the get go...now would be the time. (The painting is by Mark Ryden, the juxtaposed images by Astrid)
Selected images from FRINGEPOP the blog.
