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The Saga of Cactus Mac (!) Rare Photographs of Canadian Hillbilly with Cactus! Hillbilly History

Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman

Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman


Cactus Mac Collection Jim Linderman
Cactus Mac tends his dusty garden!

Not all guitar players take their monikers seriously, but I have the scarce photographic proof that Cactus Mac walked the walk and grew the cactus!

Cactus Mac was an obscure performer on the CKNX Barn Dance (called "Canada's Largest Traveling Barn Dance" in an equally obscure book.  It was a radio program which broadcast out of Wingham, Ontario on Saturday nights from 1937 to 1963.  According to the North Huron Museum in Wingham, Cactus Mac was a beloved performer…and though he was on the radio, he mugged like a TV Star in the photograph they own.  Could be as Cactus Mac was a comic as well.  

The website Hillbilly Music is seeking more information on Cactus Mac…well, if they are looking, now they'll know he was a botanist!  

At least one recording is known, but since the show ran so long I am sure there are many.  The CD Saturday Night Barn Dance volume 1 contains Mac's version of Little Brown Jug.

Three original snapshot photographs of Cactus Mac circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

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Original Salmon Paint Antique Weathervane




Original Salmon Paint.  Three of the finest words one can put in a row if you collect folk art or primitive Americana. An early "full-bodied" rooster weathervane.  It is a full body, but not too full.  Two pieces welded together atop a directional.  Found in Michigan  Collection Jim Linderman

Linderman books and ebook catalog HERE

World's Biggest Ice Cream Cone fights Midwestern Heat!!


I gotta say, this summer of 100 degree plus days and apocalyptic, biblical quality drought is starting to bother me...but then I moved to the mitten after reading the day would come when water would be more expensive than gasoline.  I can go dip it out of the lake with no problem, but as it has been sullied by mankind, I hate to think of all the wood I'll have to chop to boil it first.  

Oh well, junior here isn't worried about the heat.  

Real Photo Postcard, circa 1890? Collection Jim Linderman

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Announcing HOOFERS AND SWEETHEARTS : THE LITTLE WOMEN OF FRANK WENDT





Announcing Hoofers and Sweethearts : The Little Women of Frank Wendt.  The newest photography book by Jim Linderman from Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books.

Sideshow and circus freak photographer Frank Wendt had another line of work.  He made hundreds of cabinet card photographs of early vaudeville child actresses to be sold by the performers as souvenirs.  Collected for the first time, these turn-of-the-century photographs have never been shown together and come from the collection of Jim Linderman.  Young women "earners" from the tawdry and tainted early days of American show business when child labor laws did not apply.

Available in paperback OR as an Ebook download for only $5.99.  Preview and Purchase HERE

(COMPLETE LIST OF DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS AND EBOOKS HERE)

Asa "Ace" Moore African-American artist from Ohio Black Folk Art Circa 1935 Collection Jim Linderman



 







A group of the recently discovered erotic fantasy comic illustrations by Asa "Ace" Moore, African-American from Ohio, circa 1935.  First time ever shown!  Share them around the joint, Comic-Con Folks!
All Original Drawings collection Jim Linderman

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House of David House Band ! RPPC

The Women's band at Eden Springs, the House of David commune at Benton Harbor, MI.  To see Dan and Debbi Geib's wonderful "virtual tour" of the House of David site and history visit HERE.  The site is created with vintage photographs, real photo postcards and even films.  Much recommended! 

Real Photo Postcard collection Jim Linderman

Slave Made African American Folk Art Figure ? Civil War Jekyll Island Georgia Collection Jim Linderman




A little Civil War man from Jekyll Island, Georgia.  Circa 1865, made as a whimsey from lead, I believe, and I assume the same lead used to make bullets.  That is a guess.  When I obtained the little fellow, he was in two parts, which is not surprising as lead is soft and he was buried a long time.  I have rejoined him temporarily for the photo.  You can see what he was found with below…relics.  Relics of a war we have still not come to grips with. How can we?  African American Slave Made Folk Art Figure? Or Mere Whimsey.


When I purchased this fellow, I had not mere whimsey in mind.  I was thinking of the famous slave-made iron figure also unearthed, but from a blacksmith's shop and slave quarters in Virginia, not a Civil War resting place.  The figure which has been written about by scholar John Michael Vlach is frequently used to illustrate African craft, sculptural traditions and skills which were transmitted across the Atlantic…setting the stage for a war fought over freedom and commerce just before the industrial revolution.



The similar stance, diminutive size and presence was evident immediately.  Were there slaves (or African-American freedmen) around the campfire in Jekyll Island when this fellow was melted in a spoon and shaped in the sand?  Or was this simply a way for a bored soldier, of either side, to spend some time.

Jekyll Island is called "an affordable Georgia Beach family vacation spot" today.  As with much of the low-country along Georgia and South Carolina, what was once plantation is now golf course.  Fifty years AFTER the importation of slaves to the United States became illegal, they were still coming to Jekyll Island.  The second to last shipment of slaves imported to the states arrived there in 1858…some 450 men torn from their homes and made to work.  I do not know how many men were on the boat when it left Africa, but one source says the ship Wanderer arrived with 409 slaves.  The mortality rate for passage was 12 percent, so that would be about right.

The people who arranged the illegal shipment knew what they were doing and knew the rewards.  They choose to profit. 

The Union Army arrived on St. Jekyll Island in 1862.  By that time the plantation was deserted, but after the war the man who owned the island returned and split it up among his sons.

So is my mere whimsey a more profound object now?  It is to me.  Did it just happen to be found during the same dig, but made earlier by an African-American man who lost his home but retained his esthetics?


"Relic" man  Metal (lead?) circa 1860  Height 4"  Collection Jim Linderman



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Skippy, Scrappy and Colortone American Toy Works Art Education Vintage Paint Set






Skippy, Scrappy and Colortone American Toy Works.  A lovely art set from the 1930s, and an excuse for me to plug one of my favorite books!

Colortone was but one of the product names for the American Toy Company, child's toy and game manufacturer active from around the 1920s to the 1940s in Long Island City.  They are not well-documented, but what is shown on the web displays a particularly beautiful graphic quality to their boxes.  Many of their products were art-orientated, including this huge and impressive set.  American Toy Company had their own line of crayons which were sold separately under the "Skippy" brand, and also "Scrappy" though I am not sure how many works of art like to be called scrappy.
 
Normally price stickers and such on original boxes don't add to the value, but in this case a "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS" pair of stickers from Grandma to Donald at least adds some charm.  Donald was not artistically inclined, the set is virtually untouched though funky with age…but the enclosed stencils to allow a child to cheat were well-used.


The book I love is a modest little thing I have mentioned before.  The beautiful "Objects of American Art Education"  by Diana Korzenik, which contains numerous items such as this from her own collection.  The catalog was published in 2004 but it still shows what a dedicated collector can do with persistence and vision.  I see a few copies on Amazon.  I rate it a BUY. 

American Toy Works  Colortone Paint Set, circa 1930  Collection Jim Linderman

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Viva VEA Jim Linderman on Mexico Pin-up Glamour of the 1950s Caliente Vintage Sleaze and Niuglo






VEA is a pretty hard magazine to find copies of these days.   Vea ran in the 1940s and 1950s, and when you figure in acid-based paper, climate and censorship, you’ll know why they don’t turn up often. Do not confuse it with Vea the Puerto Rican gossip magazine, or Vea which came from Chile.  Search hard and you will see a few issues on Fred Seibert’s flickr stream, but that’s about it.  I found a handful  to purchase recently, and I wish I had them all.  If I were opening a Mexican restaurant, I’d cover the walls with them.  Under glass.

VEA was a weekly pulp periodical which ran for years but was apparently often in trouble with the law, largely due to Niuglo’s spicy muchachas.  The magazine was a menudo of news, bullfighting reports, pulp fiction (with illustrations that look like Charles Burns on peyote) and breasts, which is where Nuiglo comes in.  There is really nothing to compare the magazine to in the states then or now, but it was similar to the Folies De Paris et de Holllywood magazine from France which was running the same time.  Some of the Harrison mags like Whisper maybe.  Large format, large on style and striking today.

Flipping through them makes me think it is time for a 1950s Mexican revival.  The best reason to find some VEA is the pioneer Mexican fashion and glamour photographer known only (but not known WELL) as NIUGLO.  Niuglo’s photos were so good they often graced front and back cover simultaneous in vibrant candy colors, but the ones inside were printed in burnt sienna brown.  There was frontal nudity, a considerable amount…but nothing below the waist.
Scarce and forgotten, but someone is paying attention.

Bright scholar Ageeth Sluis recently wrote “Projecting Pornography and Mapping Modernity in Mexico City” for the Journal of Urban History which drew upon the images in VEA.   A portion of the abstract reads:  By analyzing depictions of female nudity as conversant with urban landscapes in the banned magazine Vea, the author argues that pornography connected Mexico City to transnational ideas of the early twentieth century that held that sexually liberated women were part and parcel of cosmopolitan modernity. Vea exemplified and fueled concerns over “public women” and helps scholars understand larger debates on the gendered effects of revolution, urbanization, and transnational currents of global modernity.  NICE!

I’ve put in a note to Ms Sluis, and if additional information results I’ll be glad to add it.

Even better,  an outstanding set of original negatives of erotic images which have been attributed to Niuglo were discovered in 1996 and recently exhibited (in 2002) by photographer Merrick Morton at the Fototeka Gallery in Los Angeles.  Attributed might be too strong a word, as it was speculation, and there were several other “house” photographers doing the pinup photography for VEA.  Selected images of this cache were printed in editons and sold.  The certainly have the look, and they look wonderful.

I am afraid that is all I can provide here about VEA.  As I learn more, it will appear.  A future post will include some striking images from inside the magazine.  There are considerable pinup layouts, cartoons, and even, believe it or now, a Bill Wenzel gag cartoon on the inside back cover!  I swear…was there NOT a publication he sold work to?

Jim Linderman Books and Affordable Ebooks are available HERE

Original Issues Vea Magazine 1954 – 1955 Collection Jim Linderman 
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Kodak Blue RIP




Since it seems Kodak gave it up for good yesterday, it's a good time to show my Blue Hawk-Eye Junior in the original box.  I wish Kodak had managed their future a little better, don't you?


Hawk-Eye Junior Number 2 (BLUE) Made in the USA in Rochester, New York Collection 
Jim Linderman

Banga


One of the greatest concerts I ever attended was one of the then annual gigs Patti Smith did at the Village Underground, a small, one hundred seater off Bleecker street in Manhattan.  Though no one sat and they could load the place far more than one hundred.

The Village Underground is actually Gerdes...yes, that place babyface Dylan played with John Lee Hooker and passed his cap.  She played there regularly for the sound, the size of the one room and the history as much as for anything else.  It was a gift.    

It was the night Patti spat on me.  She meant no intent, it is just her way of using her body as a messenger.  A tool.  A brief break from delivery which serves as well to make an impact, and Patti Smith intends to make an impact when she wants to.  Patti spits to clear her thoughts, clear her mouth, clear her chest and create a space around her she controls, even as she chooses to make that impact. 

But not always.

She moved to my home state for a few years, before the Wave time...to live with one of the MC-5, a revolutionary group who in retrospect sound better every damn year, though when I was a boy they sounded fine. When I count myself lucky, I count the times I saw the MC-5.   Iggy sounds better every year too...another Michigander, and one particularly good at playing dumb when he is in fact brilliant.  He was so good at playing dumb the MC-5 called him their younger retarded brother.

Patti lived with Freddy.  In Detroit, she proved more than capable of family life and practiced clarinet.  She visited Schoolkids records in Ann Arbor.  Schoolkids drew their name from the some 40,000 students who live there.  For a while, marijuana was virtually legal in Ann Arbor, the community being largely composed of seeking potheads who voted to make it a traffic ticket, and one could wander the student ghetto and see it sprouting near fences and next to gravel parking lots.

No one doubts Patti Smith is brilliant. 

Her new album, yes album, as it comes in a small book with photographs, which is actually the true definition of album...in disc form.

It contains the greatest song ever written about a dog.  It is "Old Shep" from a far more literate Elvis and Elvis is no saint.  Patti Smith is the only saint I have seen perform.  Patti spat on me several times.

It also contains, as far as I know, the greatest song ever written about Maria Schneider, who passed on a year or so ago, unfortunately.  She had a somewhat troubled life and the most beautiful breasts I have ever seen on the big screen. 

Much was made of Patti Smith's breasts back when she was considered a punk-rocker, since the journalists who were looking for words to describe a female poet reverted to that, or those, as they were hormonal kids writing for Cream Magazine, another great Michigan thing.

The album is her best album in a while.  So what. They are all good.  One could do worse than to be a fan of Patti Smith.  Take this review and remember it when you listen.  The recommendation is thus:  Read the lyrics when you listen, and the back catalog is available.

Jim Linderman Books and Ebooks are available HERE

Folk Art Ventriloquist Head collection Jim Linderman




Vintage Folk Art Ventriloquist Dummy Head Wood, cork and paint.  Circa 1940 Collection Jim Linderman

Of related interest is I'M WITH DUMMY: Vent Figures and Blockheads  Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection (Book and Ebook $5.99 download for Ipad HERE)


What Does YOUR Swimsuit Reveal?



I believe it is time for the 5th anniversary installment of "WHAT DOES YOUR SWIMMING SUIT REVEAL?" here on Dull Tool Dim Bulb.  For the sizzling summer of 2012, we present not quite extraordinary illustrator M. Miller, who used virtually the same gag twice on the cover of Screwball Digest!  Enjoy the long weekend!

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