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Showing posts sorted by date for query true crime. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query true crime. Sort by relevance Show all posts

True Crime Dull Tool Dim Bulb. The Great Iuka Illinois Bank Robbery of 1921 Original Drawing

A rare first person account of a 1921 bank robbery in Iuka, Illinois. Obviously a notorious day for the residents…but there isn’t enough printed material to write a screenplay. The drawing provides more color than the press. Here there is enough to write a song! the one substantial article found is enough to confirm that yes, bank employee Miss Kelley did leap into her Essex automobile to give chase! Surely a local hero. The account from The Chicago Banker of February 11, 1922 reports “Ed Hall, 19 years old of Flora was found guilty here of robbery in connection with the holding up of the State Bank of Iuca, December 20, in which over 18,000 was stolen. Hall’s younger brother, Lex, 17 years old, who was indicted with him, was found not guilty. The younger Hall had twenty-one witnesses to prove his alibi that he was in Flora, Ill. at the time of the robbery. Ed hall tried to prove that he was at Kincaid, Ill. at the time of the robbery. Mildred Kelly, 22-year employee at the bank, who gave chase in an automobile after the robbery, identified Ed Hall as one of the participants in the robbery. The Hall Brothers were arrested December 26.” Unfortunately, I find nothing written about “the semi-professional ball player” or Lester. Original drawing 1921 collection Dull Tool Dim Bulb

True Crime Dull Tool Dim Bulb. Lurid Drawings by a Young Woman Underworld True Crime Stories

Two lurid drawings by a young woman in 1947. These come from an album of original art (and a few tracings?) with the initials M.R. Lets assume these two weren't drawn from life. There were dozens of true crime pulps during the era, although most confused "true" with "fiction." Dad must have had these issues around, but Mom surely read them.

The Exhibition of Celestial Planets figures created by Occult Prophet Benny Evangelista Bizarre Folk Art Sculptures


The Exhibition of Celestial Planets!  Figures created by Occult Prophet Benny Evangelista of Detroit.  Bizarre Folk Art Sculptures made in the late 1920s, and the work of a murdered bogus faith healer.  Intrigued?  Read my story  in The Chiseler HERE titled Faith Healer Left Headless : A True Crime Tale by Jim Linderman

Original Press Photograph edited and cropped for publication Collection Jim Linderman

True Crime Lost in Time ? Siple RELEASED? Hex Ridden Witchcraft Murder




True Crime Lost in Time ?  Siple RELEASED?  Hex Ridden Witchcraft Murder.

Well, I'm not quite sure how one makes a mistake about a faith healer killing his family, but sure enough, read the small notation scribed by someone down at the paper.  "Siple was released"

Released? 

"Father seized in "Hex" Death"

"Howard Siple, 33 year old faith healer and head doctor, has been jailed at Clarksburg, W. VA, charged with the "witchcraft murder," of his 12-year old daughter, Helen, and the poisoning of six others of his nine children.  Siple migrated to Clarksburg from the Hex-Ridden farmland near York, PA.  Siple is shown above left standing beside a state policeman.  7/3/34"

Now here is a real mystery for you.  Why is Siple smiling if his family was murdered?  I can only think it was a mistake, maybe involving a bad furnace and carbon monoxide?  But even so, why is Siple SMILING?  What is a "Head" doctor?  For that matter, what is a "Hex Ridden Faith Healer?"

I looked around a little and found less.  Short of calling the town historian, I'm not quite sure how to figure this one out.  As you can see, they cops "collared" him…but the touch up guy at the newspaper actually drew in the collar.

Howard Siple Original Press Photograph 1934 Collection Jim Linderman

Shallow Grave Snapshot? True Crime in the Garage

Shallow Grave?  Unless these cops are digging for taters, I believe we have here the staple of murder and true crime, the shallow grave.  I am going to HOPE they are after some less gruesome  contraband.  The cops are taking a break to pose, while the grunt does the heavy work.

Click to enlarge...something looks fishy in the background.  Is that a backdrop?  A curious photograph.

Anonymous Snapshot, no date.  (Said to be Marshall, Michigan)  Collection Jim Linderman

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Keith Bernard Photographer Master of the Pin Up

 
"Unsung Hero of Photography" number eight hid his name, but he worked under one.  Keith Bernard was what he sold his glamor under, but his real name may have been Keith Davis.  The Glamor Photographers site says his full name was Marion Keith Davis, he was born in 1911 and passed away in 1981 still a slight mystery...but he left behind Betty Brosmer, praise the slick pin up lord.

Keith Bernard adopted the Bernard moniker from Bruno Bernard.  It worked for Bruno, after all.  Among his most notable subjects were Jayne Mansfield, and also the famous cover of Modern Man Magazine showing muscleman Joe Weider's wife Betty Brosmer.  Betty's chest to waist ratio was so magnificent, I'm not going to depress you by reporting it. 
Joe is one of my personal hero figures, and not just because of Betty's figure.

Okay, I will. Betty Brosmer had an 18 inch waist.  She may still!  Take your two hands, put them together in a circle and you just about approximate Betty Brosmer's waist.  No photoshop.  The Gym.

Keith Bernard sold TWO HUNDRED MAGAZINE COVERS of Betty Brosmer.  For that alone, he is awarded the Vintage Sleaze Unsung Hero award!  His photos of Ms. Brosmer are some of the most incredible glamor photographs ever created, and if there is a library of men's magazines in a box when you get to heaven, head right to the one with Betty Brosmer done by Bernard.  Bernard has the brains to sign her to an exclusive, and he did her well.





The three (magnificent, IMHO) photographs on top, each 8 x 10, show the master at work with Patti Conley, who is ALSO quite a story.  Apparently, Ms. Conley earlier posed in bondage photographs (under far less glamorous circumstances) for somewhat demented fetish kinkster John Willie.  Don't look them up.  They look like true crime photographs and will creep you out.
 

However, if you want spend a pleasant few minutes typing Betty Brosmer into your friendly search engine, it might motivate you to get to the gym.  And yes, as far as I know, Keith whatever his name is took these all.



Three original photographs top, Keith Bernard and Pat Conley each circa 1955 Collection Jim Linderman

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Human Detective Art versus the Courtroom Artist Pale by Comparison to Pulp






What do they mean here?  As opposed to bloodhounds?  Now that we rely on cyberslueths more than gumshoes, it is nice to be reminded of the days when a hard working human dick brought in the perps.

Human Detective was lurid, but then so is 48 hours (and the knock-off on A&E The First 48) both which are gripping…and as long as we have criminals, we'll have headlines, even if they come in digital form.

The best Human Detective covers are painted.  Later, tricked-up photographs were used, but one could hardly tell the difference, with all the hyper-realistic color and primary color luridness added.  Still great. 

Here is a question:  How come today's courtroom artists suck by comparison to the old-timers?  Seems to me that market, if one were a commercial artist looking to dominate a field, is ripe for a lurid illustrator rather than a quick sketch artist.

Two lovely books which reproduce covers of True Crime pulps are, first, the way totally cool Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in 50s America, which was published in a limited edition of 3,000 copes (and comes with a huge fold-out cover) and True Crime Detective Magazines 1924-1969.  Both are great.

Killer Show Book Review The Best True Crime Book of the Year is also the Best Rock Book of the Year



The best true crime book of the year is also an unlikely candidate for the best rock music book of the year.  A major accomplishment on a dozen levels, and one which provides uncomfortable truths about show business, rock and roll, greed and brutal death.  Killer Show is horrendous, meticulous, and as gripping a book I have read this year.

Outside of the residents of West Warwick, Rhode Island few will remember the Station Nightclub Fire which killed 100 people in a scorching chemical inferno which lasted a brief five minutes.  It was a national news story for a few days, and the opening seconds of the harrowing, brutal video recording of the event were aired for all on the evening news, but as it is easier to forget horror than dwell, the story faded. 

Killer Show brings it back with astounding documentation enabling the reader to absorb graphic, deadly evil without flinching.  The Great White Fire was horror.  True, unfathomable horror…but the author's anger and desire to name those responsible, in a detailed, step by step manner (as behooves a lawyer) removes all tawdry shock value…this is no cheap exploitative read, and years beyond an "instant" book pumped out to cash in on an event.

A University Press of New England book, with none of the greed and sleaze which distinguishes the criminal club-owners, promoters, a beer company, pyrotechnic manufacturers and even worse, the chemical soup created by "sound insulation" foam producers,  all who are forced into paying considerable fines reaching well over 100 million dollars to avoid being shamed in public court. 

This is an indictment, and expose, a tribute…but most of all a remarkable literary (yes, literary, heavy metal fans) accomplishment of the highest order, and one which takes the traditional true crime genre to a new level of achievement.  Once living and vital participants turned murder victims in a flash are located on the fortunate tape and sound recordings like ghosts who come back for justice.

If you want the gloss, razzle-dazzle and "glamour" sham of rock and roll, you know what to read.  If you want a serious, fascinating account of what really happens when commerce meets electric guitars, read this.  You will never enter a juke club without locating the exits again.  This book could literally save your life.

Author John Barylick is an attorney who represented victims of the Station nightclub fire.  With the damning, incredible preparation and documentation he provides here, it is no wonder a dozen companies, some who spend millions a year to make their names roll off your tongue, settled out of court.

After reading this book, you will no longer believe crooked politicians who argue for "tort reform" while taking funds from insurance companies and corporations.  If the victims and family members who suffered through this debacle lived for a purpose, it was to insure our legal system remains strong in the face of corporate interests who would like to legalize unabashed greed…and this book should be required reading for any future lawyer, not to mention nightclub promoters, their patrons and those in the insurance industry who aim to maximize profits rather than do what is right.  This book is an indictment, and the best argument for safety regulations you will ever read.  A "killer show" indeed, and one of the most important books of the year.


The Killer Show website is HERE.  The amazon Link is HERE

The Case of the Tasteless True Crime Talisman Lindberg and the Most Famous Ladder in History by Jim Linderman


Gosh, didn't cops back in the 1930s have great coats?  Check them out...thick, rich leather and thigh-length long, with great leather boots too!  You won't see THESE guys on a Segway at the mall.  Anyway, the photo shows two hog-riding constables checking a barn for clues in one of our greatest national mysteries, the Lindberg Kidnapping Case.

I won't go into detail on the crime, as there is certainly enough for you to find yourself...and the tousled-topped national hero turned out to sorta be a creep anyway by nearly aligning himself with THE WRONG SIDE during World War Two. How the...?  At so called America First Committee meetings, the airman apparently lambasted our impending involvement in the war by lecturing others on American Jews and their undue influence.  Well...best left forgotten.
 
This post centers on a small aspect of the crime.  The same one our tuff-dressed crime busters were centered on as well.  They may look like the guys from "American Pickers" entering a honey-hole, but they were trying to find a connection to the central piece of evidence.

The ladder.

Bruno, or whoever, had to climb up to snatch the child, a horrible thing...and he built a ladder to do it.  The ladder became what used to known as "The Macguffin" in Alfred Hitchcock movies.  A recurring element which might mean nothing, but could just mean everything.  Literally the O.J. gloves of the 1930s. 

As the investigation progressed into trial, a spectacle unlike any before due to the nascent and emerging mass-media, slimy vendors sold miniature kidnap ladders outside the courthouse!  That's right.  Tiny souvenir wooden ladders, an early example of crime capitalism gone crazy!  The tasteless newspapers ran tasteless photographs of tasteless spectators holding tiny tasteless ladders for the camera.
I have looked for one of those wee ladders off and on for a long time.  I've owned a few miniature wooden handmade ladders, but had no way to tell if they were a legendary murder talisman representing the double horror of crime and unseemly opportunistic greed,  or simply something a father made for his kid's Farmer Brown playset.

I even consulted a Lindberg Kidnapping expert at one time to see if he knew where I could get one.  He brushed me off, clearly so as not to reveal his own pursuit of the holy grail of true crime novelties.

Guess who else was obsessed with the miniature ladder?  No less than Maurice Sendak!    He apparently traded one of his drawings for one, and used a similar image of a kidnapper's ladder leaned against a window in one of his works. 

Once in a while I do a true crime story.  You can see some of the others HERE.


Original 8 x 10 glossy press photograph March 7, 1932 with Handwritten description Collection Jim Linderman

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Fred the Chain Man and his Carved Gun A True Crime Tale #2 by Jim Linderman



The Chain Man was found guilty October 19,1922 for kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison.  He stayed there three years.

The Chain Man earned his nickname for linking a few young women together in in a hole below his shack near Omaha, Nebraska.  He had tricked them by offering a ride to a nearby amusement park.  His victims were Jean Jenkins and Kathyryn McManaman. While his prisoners were chained to a cement block in the pit, Brown dug their graves nearby.  When H. E. Boyd tried to rescue the women,  Brown simply added him to the chains.

Chain Man was shot while being captured in Medicine Bow, Wyoming after a few days on the run.  He survived to face trial.

Chain Man's trial was delayed while the court decided what to do with hoards of high school girls who came to enjoy the show.  "We will continue the trial in the morning when the children are at their desks" decided the judge.

Brown didn't stay in prison long, unless you consider three years a long time.  He carved this dummy gun and used it in an escape attempt, but he was killed while trying. So was a prison guard.

Several years later, the skeleton of his apparent partner in the crime, Gus Grimes, was found buried near the shack Brown had held his victims.

There is at least one other example of this real photo postcard surviving.  There is no way to determine how many were developed, but the businessman who made them probably hoped to sell a few to the high school. 

Fred Brown's Dummy Gun "Azo" Real Photo Postcard 1925 Collection Jim Linderman

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A True Crime Tale by Jim Linderman


I am pleased to have the following article published in THE CHISELER this week! The Chiseler is a highly regarded web magazine edited by Daniel Riccuito. It is a site much worth following. Special thanks to Jarett Kobek, who inspired the story, having transcribed "The Oldest History of the World" book and the story from which I originally found the information I used for the story. I purchased the photograph above intending it as a post on the old-time-religion blog...imagine my surprise at learning what was in my hand.



FAITH HEALER LEFT HEADLESS: A True Crime Tale by Jim Linderman


In 1932, according to an AP wire story which ran in several newspapers, including places as far afield as Sarasota, Florida and Spokane, Washington, Robert Harris, a negro and leader of a religious order with a membership of “about 100 negroes in Detroit” confessed to the brutal murder of James Smith, also a negro. Harris admitted that “he crushed Smith’s head with the rear axle of an automobile, then stabbed him through the heart.” Robert Harris apparently dragged Smith to “an improvised altar” in his home to finished him off.


Detroit in the late 1920s and early 1930s had a problem with religious cults.

Three years earlier, on a July 4th weekend, not far from where Harris killed Smith, Paul “Benny” Evangelista, known as a “Divine Prophet” was murdered along with his wife and four children. With an axe. Few axe murders are not gruesome, but this one was particularly so. The entire Evangelista family was hacked to pieces. The bodies in bedclothes. The divine prophet’s head was severed from his torso and placed on a chair in the family living room.

Also “cruelly hacked” was Santina, the prophet’s wife and Jeanne (eight years old) Angelia (nine) Margaret (ten) and the three-year old son Mario. One account puts Mario’s age at eighteen months. In addition to the prophet’s head, one of the girl’s arms was severed. Police suspected that wound was the result of a “miscalculated blow” intended for Santina’s neck, as it too had been hacked but the head was left hanging by a thread. Leaving the house on St. Aubin avenue, in the Italian district of depression era Detroit, the fiend and pervert left a bloody trail for police which went nowhere.

Benny was downstairs in pieces when found by a neighbor, real estate broker Vincent Elias. A friend of the family, just a day earlier Elias had completed arrangements for the purchase of a farm near Marine City, MI for the Evangelistas. Elias opened the unlocked door, saw the head and without looking further ran for the police. The children and wife were found by authorities upstairs.

In an understatement, Wayne county coroner James Burgess called the murder “an unusual case.”

A week later the entire family was wheeled down rain-slicked Woodward Avenue, parade-style, each in a coffin of appropriate size. The public funeral was an opportunity for police to look for the killer in the crowd, but to no avail.

A relative of the Evangelista family living in Coraopolis told police they must have been murdered by members of a “Black Hand” organization.

Benny was Benjamino Evangelista, a Neapolitan immigrant who claimed to be an herb doctor and faith healer. In other words, a criminal and fraud using religious superstition and jargon to steal. Like all “faith healers” he bilked rubes out of savings like a carnival barker, but his tools were voodoo, false claims of health, black magic and superstition rather than sideshow swindles. He overcharged desperate people for “love potions” and promises of cures. He provided “readings” for ten dollars. For these things, it appears, he and his entire family were sent to a violent and blood-sticky end. Benny pissed off a client with an axe.

Prior to being murdered, Evangelista wrote an enormous, self-published book of religious ravings based loosely on the bible. It took him 20 years. “The Oldest History of the World: Discovered by Occult Science” It is unreadable, useless and no one bought it. In the fictional account three prophets travel to “Afra” in order to “see what the colored people were doing…” but all they were doing was eating their food uncooked.

The book has been hand-typed from one of the few existing copies and digitally reproduced by the extraordinary Jarett Kobek. http://kobek.com/

Kobek is a brilliant scholar and is most certainly, despite the extraordinary story of Divine Prophet, himself a better story than the people and events he writes about. He also provides the most complete bibliography of period articles about the crime, and details such as the characters in the book existed also as puppets in a shrine in the Evangelista basement.

The gruesome crime was still unsolved three years later when the “rear axle murderer” above, Robert Harris confessed. Briefly, The police thought the crime solved. So did the press. “Confession by King of Weird Cult clears up Detroit Murder” read one headline, but it was not to be. Harris didn’t do it.

Neither did Angelo Depoli, arrested the day of the murder with a blood covered curved knife used for chopping bananas in his barn. A year later the family dog was still being sought as a witness. Detroit police were so desperate to solve the crime they tried to pin it on a man who escaped from a lunatic asylum and was presumed killed by a freight train two years BEFORE the crime. They didn’t have much, but they did have a pair of bloody fingerprints from the door latch. They were figured prominently in the bulletin from Superintendent of Police James Sprott along with the reward of one thousand dollars which was distributed far and wide to no avail.

The case is as cold as wind from Windsor blowing across the Detroit River in December.

by Jim Linderman

Jim Linderman uses photographs and ephemera from his personal collection to tell true stories. He is author of the Grammy-nominated book / CD Take Me to the Water and the forthcoming Heroes of Vintage Sleaze. His daily blogs are DULL TOOL DIM BULB, VINTAGE SLEAZE, and old-time-religion. He has also self-published a number of books which are available from Blurb.com.




Original Press Photograph Wide World Photos 7/5/29 Collection Jim Linderman

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Jim Linderman Interview in The Bund Chinese Lifestyle, Art, Fashion Magazine





The Bund is a beautiful (TRULY beautiful) High-fashion / style / art / lifestyle weekly magazine published in Shanghai, China, and you will most certainly be surprised if you take the time to browse the current online edition HERE. The Jim Linderman interview is HERE in the issue of March 15, 2012. The circulation of The Bund has grown to 450,000 paid subscribers, and a flip though the online edition will show why. Lovely!

Niea Gu, Senior Fashion Editor did the with interview considerable grace and style.


Some of the introductory material was adapted from the recent New York Times article of 2/12/02, and the interview portion follows along with samples of things I have discussed in the blogs over the years. The Article translation (which is simply charming...what can I say?) follows based on the Google translate service. I have discovered some striking phrases from the translation I could not have created on my own but love, and believe me, this is one of the greatest honors of my life.

This is also a true experiment for me. I have no idea how many citizens will read this or have access to it. But it is lovely, fascinating and splendid. That I am able to play even this very, very small part of bringing together two great lands is an honor I never thought would be possible. Thank You The Bund. I am truly honored.


POP CULTURE MINER (Introductory Text based in NYT article)


Jim Linderman, may be the world's coolest book file administrator. Although he has retired, but looking for something, and his ability to still no one can, and still bored. His collection of all the bits and pieces of American folk art and popular culture, they are popular enough, but also interesting enough. Tens of thousands of his collections, as large as sculpture, as small as a postcard, all cheap. As he himself puts it: "I have no money to buy Andy Warhol, so I'm always looking for the poor 'Warhol,'.


Jim Linderman, accustomed to get up early every day, give yourself a cup of coffee, then turn on the computer to update the blog. He wrote not a morning news current affairs reporting or celebrity gossip, but those old, forgotten the wonderful things. Mr. 58-year-old Linderman is an art collector, most recently, his achievements even by the attention and coverage of the New York Times. He was living the small town of Lake Michigan, Grand Haven, when the lifetime of the Book File Manager. Identity mix sounds a little strange, and his collection: a variety of interesting bits and pieces of American folk art and popular culture. "I always collect a number of unusual, strange things do not fly." He said.


In 2008, he has set up three blog - Dull, Tool Dim Bulb, the Old Time Religion and the Vintage Sleaze - used to display and describe their favorites. As an all-encompassing network flea market is full of novelty is convulsed amazed found. On the blog, he will dig out the story behind every piece of the collection, and his right, as if a magical secret passageway leading to the past for the reader to open.

 Mr. Linderman, the blog is always an unexpected manner makes an eye-opener, for example, you know the pianist in the 1930s Baldy Wetzel, a record 48.5 hours of uninterrupted play record? Have you ever heard advertised himself as "hated woman world champion in the 1940s folk artists Albion, Clough,? Have you ever seen American porn comic Tijuana, Bibles "(Tijuana Bible).? As a senior File Manager, he loves books and writing in the past three years, he not only write a blog every day, also published a book of 14 content, the majority of their own money to publication. His latest book is called "the mysterious old photos (Vintage Photographs in of arcane Americana), a collection of his collection" the most bizarre photos ", such as the ventriloquism strippers. While his most famous publication was undoubtedly the 2009 Grammy Best Historical Album "nomination" take me to go in the water "(Take Me to the Water), although the book is only a thin 95, but a collection of 75 old photos of Christian water baptism scene, but also comes with an old gospel song LP.

Linderman Mr. lived in Manhattan for 28 years until 2008, was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) before deciding to move out of New York with his wife, Jenna, back to his hometown of Grand Haven breath of fresh air. Since then, he started writing a blog, in his words, "In order to give myself a bunch of digital footprint."



1980 the beginning of the year to Manhattan, Mr. Linderman, the first job is an international The discography finishing rock punk kind of music, and later worked in CBS's "60 Minutes" program and the evening news, as well as the BBDO advertising agency as file tidying up. Spare time, he launched an extraordinary collection of career. He has hundreds of Bob Dylan's private system of records, a few thousand copies of the book of John - John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. Dylan's fans, President Kennedy, he fell does not care who is assassinated. "I just love the books of such print-out in her garage. Those guys interested in UFOs, will also discuss the JFK incident but then no one will go to collect their masterpiece." He said.


In particular, he favored the self-taught artists, especially in the mostly South American artists and African artists. He gave the South African artist Howard Finster, write to discuss the painting, the other replied, "OK, ah, please send sheets check over." So he sent a check for $ 10, then really received a painting. He went to the southern United States Travel, met a lot of crazy and interesting painter, they put in front of his house to sell the painting, he was almost accept. "I have no money to buy Andy Warhol, so I'm always looking for the poor 'Warhol,'". He said.

Comical collectors 
 Mr. Linderman three blog "Vintage Sleaze" is the most popular. This blog is mainly a poster girl on his collecting research on the 1950s and 1960s male publications. Camera Club Girl "(Camera Club, Girls), a book, he tells the Harlem jazz singer Cass Carr anecdotes - in the early 1950s, she has organized a bold outdoor photo tour, participating members, including designed to beat the legendary crime scene photographer Weegee, and the wound has not yet been made a star of "Playboy" magazine sexy stunner of Bettie Page. Later, this group of people caught in a farm in suburban New York when shooting is to photograph the nude was illegal.


These little-known variety of baby from where? Mr. Linderman said that he usually drove to the not too far away from home more than a dozen antique market, see the story of stuff "will be shot. He also frequents eBay, looking for photos and prints, especially useful. Old photos of the Christian water baptism mentioned previously, almost all from eBay Go to flea markets to find a photo, you have to turn one year old shoebox. "He said on eBay may be a month will be able to procure. He collected all kinds of strange objects: "Diddley Bow" (a structure like stringed guitar, West African homemade blues musical instruments), hand-made slingshots, toy bulldozers, antique kimonos, Indian raw leather small bag ... once fell in love with a things, he will be blown out, until one day are tired, it sold, traded or donated out, and then find a new target. Before you move out of New York, Mr. Linderman, his collection of religious baptism photo, left Manhattan International Center of Photography last year, the latter on this theme organized an exhibition. He donated a Victorian-style slide is also the center included in the exhibition program. Center for Brian Wallis' praise in visual culture, "he has done is unprecedented, he excavated treasures at the edge of the popular culture, which requires a collect talent, but he is the world's greatest collection. always pay attention to strange things, and constantly come up with fun new ideas. "

 When asked about favorite era", Mr. Linderman, said, "This is really a strange question to me and everyone else can not do without the Internet. "Today, his blog click-through rate has been close to 2 million, which was unimaginable before the arrival of the digital age. "Of course, I miss the past years are sincere and reliable," he then said, "We always appreciate losing before, so we really should take the time to appreciate those around simple small things, because one day, they will disappear. technology is very beautiful, but a child, my night to listen to the radio very happy, and now the same child is afraid I do not think so, they have much choice ... However, I still think radio great. "

Whew! Interview follows:


B = "Bund" 
 J.L = Jim Linderman
B: You also wrote three blog, why? JL: I first began to write Dull, Tool, Dim Bulb, used to share my collection of strange photos and articles, this blog open for four years, has been updated over 1000. I will be regarded as the main blog, even though the other two seem to be more popular. Then I opened the Old-Time Religion, every Saturday night, I would choose a religion class from Dull, Tool, Dim Bulb, strange pictures posted up. Because over the weekend in the United States, some people are used to "crazy one", then go to church on Sunday morning repentance some. So I started on Saturday night posted one and church-related photos, so those guys wake up the next morning you can see, gradually developed into a new blog, a book. Dull, Tool, Dim Bulb original intention is to demonstrate to those who have been forgotten art form, unusual creation and the United States in the past some odd figure. Every now and then, I will introduce some of my respected artists and photographers, almost every one will be coupled with after years of a strange collection of articles or photos. I think, to write something it is necessary to its familiar enough with the job, is to personally in his hand playing experience. This is also my blog and other blog differences, I wrote every thing can be found shoebox yard behind me. Vintage Sleaze is a late start, but it is the highest page views. I found his collection there are many old photos of the "immoral", similar to the 1950s, men to buy sexy magazine. This is a category of popular culture rarely documented mention of everyone's basement can be dug out a few, but very few talk about. So I think the Vintage Sleaze to show their comical, although sexy, but also harmless, but also reveals some silly. Subscribe to this blog's women less than men, which made me very proud. 50 years ago "dirty pictures" very cute, and do this trip - those models, illustrators, writers, publishers - also very interesting, they walk the edge of the law, doing challenging and the sense of accomplishment. Every time I write their stories, laugh at least once. I like the challenge.

B: How often updated blog? JL: I as far as possible every day at least update a blog, sometimes three will be updated. Write an article or photo, I want to investigate for several days. I tried to proceed from each photo or article, write a thesis on the history. I work with a humorous tone to write. I like the ease and the pursuit of serious and precise at the same time, entertainment is also very important. I try to like reporters to remain objective, but occasionally melt into his own point of view. I always hope that your article can become a starting point of the in-depth study of other scholars. All these years I dig out the thousands of stories, I think every one deserves to be written in a book. Someday, the scholars will be curious about who this guy write Dull, Tool, Dim Bulb! Than a writer, I also see themselves as a visual artist, of course, have to depend on the readers' opinions.
B: Your collection must be very considerable, they account for where it is? JL: they just seem more than is good, because most of them are photos and paper, not of space. My house has not been large, but in good order. The collection is concentrated in a small room, one of the few big-ticket items (such as sculpture and handmade furniture) are placed into the garage or basement, all these years, many of the big guy has been I sold, replaced, or otherwise share out. I used to put a few special things in their own front, I like to see them at any time. The thing is not necessarily the bigger the better, little things often a vast reservoir of energy.
B: your collection is to spend money? JL: my life is a book file manager, no money. My favorites is the sense of smell, not like a child is eight by collectors as no money, but also buy the "excellent" work of art. I want to prove that everyone can gather to wonderful things, many small stones, and many nest, or transistor radios. Anything, as long as you allow them to became a scale through a lot, organize and share, they allow others to see their beauty, this is the collection. Although the whole process very time-consuming, but it does not cost money.

B: You grew like to collect things? JL: Yes, like any little boy, I also collect stamps and baseball cards, but then I made a solemn decision: a collection of things that others do not collection! It makes me feel different, I once again received attention for those who have been forgotten and ignored.
B: Do you think the librarian how the job? JL: I like the librarian job is that it allows me to be made now, this is one of the most remarkable career. A good librarian can equally help to anyone, regardless of the guests what to look for books, he can provide the services without the subjective judgment, encountered the controversial subject matter, he would know how to take into account, always harbor respected. Librarian every day to learn new knowledge, and ability to use their knowledge to help others people great satisfaction.
B: Do you collect things related to American popular culture, in this field who idolized? JL: I love Bob Dylan, because he was well received by the image of American culture. I also appreciate the southern United States, a painter named David Bates, depicting rural America a huge work, bright colors, humorous, and full of respect. However, the majority of my collection are anonymous works, the author has long been time to annihilation. I especially like the amateur for, like all mortal beings. From one work to dig out a piece of history or an artist is a great sense of accomplishment.


Weegee the Technical Assistant 1956 Photographers Showplace Magazine




The Weegee show "Murder is my Business" at the International Center of Photography in New York is certainly a must see, and I thought I would post a little Weegee curiosity to celebrate it. While Weegee is often thought of and portrayed as something of a lone wolf prowling the streets at night with his camera, which is certainly true, he was also a social creature active and involved with the photographic community. He participated in social camera club shoots and had friends who did the same. In addition to the crime and nightlife scenes in the ICP show, he had a successful active and creative role in the places you might not think...including this unusual gig as "technical assistant" to a most unusual photo layout in Photographers Showplace magazine in the December 1956 issue.

Photographer's Showplace was by far one of the most interesting periodicals for the photographic community at the time, it had models and nudes, but was actually serious about it, unlike the large number of "under the counter" publications claiming to be "figure studies" but which were little more than soft-core pornography skirting the law. It was also entertaining without being too technical...serious about the emerging art and craft of modern photography, but light on the jargon.


Here are bits from a painterly picture set. As you see Weegee is credited as "Technical Assistant" although his precise role is not described. Certainly he checked his light meter! Maybe he found the model (identified as Rae Chandler) The artist (the one with the brush) is Ralph Therrien, and the photographer is James Pappas. An unusual collaboration of painting and photography from a time when both arts were experimenting. The layout is extensive, no less than 12 photos are presented, several full-page and in color.


Interestingly, the same issue has a full page spread which claims to be the first published example of Weegee's unusual photographic experiments, abstractions which are referred to as the "Weegeerama Kaleidescope" which is a post for another day.

Though a big fan, I have posted only once here about Weegee, but had fun putting it together. Revisit my piece on the relationship between the photographer and the pin up girl Bettie Page HERE which I am still grateful for being allowed by the ICP to use images from their collection to illustrate.


Images from Photographers Showplace Magazine December 1956, Creative Publications. Collection Jim Linderman


Startling Detective Work for Genealogists! A Genius Tool from Patterson Smith











A group of Startling Detective Magazines I keep in a library periodical box behind me, just like in a real library! No, I do not keep them in date order. So that these were all published in the 1950s by Fawcett publications, a company founded by Wiliford "Captain Billy" Fawcett in 1919 is a good story, but I wanted a better one. So I fished around.


My definition of genius is putting something old to a new use. Patterson Smith qualifies. Why? He uses his enormous database of True Crime magazines to help family members, genealogists and collectors find grisly tidbits from the tons of pulp produced from the 1930s to the 1990s. Now personally, If I were doing some family research I would selectively NOT include this source. Some of the goobers in these tales don't belong in any family, certainly not mine. But there you go. An enormous resource, as just one issue here includes 14 lengthy stories, all true, and each has dozens of names, though I am going to guess Mr. Smith doesn't index the names with an asterisk. You know...the names changed to protect the innocent. Check THIS out.

Group of Startling Detective Magazines, 1956-1957 Collection Jim Linderman
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Mark Schneider Master Artist of the Pulp Sir! Neglected Hero of Magazine Illustration Sir! Mark Schneider Sir!















As something of a researcher, I am reminded daily the inadequacies of the internet. If you kids out there think you're writing a good paper based on what is available at your fingertips, you have more learning to do. A case in point is Mark Schneider.

Go ahead, look him up.


Lots of fake Mark Schneiders trying to cash in on the master artist's name, right?
Pfft!. Let's remedy that right now. Henceforth, when one searches for Mark, hopefully they will find this small tribute to the strange painter of pulp who has eluded webdom until now.

God Bless Taschen books, for they at least gave Schneider his brief brush with fame for his paint brushes instead of the brush-off. A paragraph in their colorful tome True Crime Detective Magazines 1924-1969. Okay, so they besmirch by calling him "...a marginal talent at best" and practically blaming him for the demise of painted covers on magazines...in this case saying SOMETHING is still better than saying nothing at all.


Schneider was the house artist at Volitant Publications, AKA Histrionic Publications, AKA Mr. Magazine Inc. See why I like "true" crime? You can't make it up! When Mr. Magazine Inc. needed the lurid, they turned to Mark. He must have been working on a short deadline too...just look at his work. Let's say the editor needed..oh...I dunno...a freaking atom bomb going off while a couple prepares for coitus or a pondering Yeti considering his cold, lonely plight. Not an easy photo shoot. Call Schneider!


Now in full disclosure, regular followers of this blog know virtually everything I post comes out of a shoe box behind me. In this case, having come to the appreciation of Schneider, it should be confessed I had to crib these images from the very web I chastise. The owners might not know what fine pieces they have, but they do now.



I have a bone to pick here with Pulp Magazine collectors. (A bone to pick not unlike the vultures hope for from the fellow lacking Vitamin E above) For some reason, Pulp collectors seem to like GOOD art. A big mistake. Folks might like and might appreciate your collection, but a LAUGH is worth a thousand "good" covers. I got one at each and every Schneider cover I found here. Now you guys start doing some real work and load the Mark Schneider archives up on here. My neck hurts.


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