Tiffany Thayer, aka Elmer Ellsworth, founder of the Fortean Society, publisher of Doubt, writer of memorably sleazy fiction, was in Hollywood throughout much of the ’30s.  Several of his novels were made into reasonably successful movies (particularly Call Her Savage, tailored for Clara Bow).  He had less luck writing screenplays; only a few scenes and scraps of dialogue made it to the screen.

He did, however, act in one movie: The Devil on Horseback, in 1936.  In it, he plays a press agent named Wilbur Hitchcock; and provides comic relief by pretending to be saddle sore and hungover.

I can’t tell you if it’s a good movie or not, since I have little affinity for the medium.  Like other movies, it features recordings of actors playing make believe and reciting dialogue that they’ve memorized.  If that appeals to you, maybe you’ll like it.  At any rate, it also contains the only footage of the curious Mr. Thayer.  And it’s now on YouTube, so you can see for yourself.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Whitman’s “Zodiac Circle Playing Card Game” dates from 1931.  There were Zodiac Cards, which were to be laid out in a circle, and the other cards were to be correlated to your sun sign.  I haven’t tried it.  I like those colors.

(Posted by Doug Skinner.)

Tiffany Thayer had his own, rather idiosyncratic, ideas about what topics were suitable for the Fortean Society.  In the 56th issue of Doubt (sometime in 1957), he published a list of categories that members were urged to investigate.  The list differs in many ways from contemporary Forteana, particularly in Thayer’s customary mix of social and political issues with scientific anomalies.  Interesting topics all, though, I think.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Ben Hecht declared himself “the first disciple of Charles Fort” in a review of The Book of the Damned,  and used the opportunity to coin the word “Fortean.”  Tiffany Thayer said the took Hecht as a model when he started writing fiction; and Thirteen Men, in particular, seems to aim for Hecht’s distinctive flash.

Like the other Founders of the Fortean Society, Hecht was more interested in Fort than in what is now commonly called Forteana.  His own prolific output of columns, books, short stories, plays, and screenplays is marked mostly by an unerring sense of the commercial.  But a fondness for Fort seems to have persisted in his family: my own copy of The Books of Charles Fort was a gift to Lilli Palmer from Hecht’s daughter Edwina.

Hecht published seven collections of his short stories as Little Blue Books.

698: Tales of Chicago Streets
699: Broken Necks and Other Stories
1163: The Policewoman’s Love-Hungry Daughter, and Other Stories of Chicago Life
1164: The Unlovely Sin, and Other Stories of Desire’s Pawns
1165: Jazz, and Other Stories of Young Love
1166: Infatuation, and Other Stories of Love’s Misfits
1167: The Sinister Sex, and Other Stories of Marriage

The first two were printed in 1925, the rest in 1927: a few years before the FS.

“The Policewoman’s Love-Hungry Daughter” (and what a splendid title that is) contains my favorite, “The Movie Maniac,” in which a man’s life goes haywire when he starts adapting the mannerisms of movie actors: “I could ask him no question without bringing upon me the entire business of surprise, intelligence, doubt, hesitation, fear, and even anguish.  His gestures were the ludicrous exaggerations of the movies.  He had, it was evident, stepped out of the colorless routine of his copy reading days into some magnificent limbo.”

Unfortunately, such contempt for the cinema has not become a Fortean principle.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The “Little Blue Books” were published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius from about 1919 to 1947.  They were small, cheaply produced, and sold for around a nickel.  There were over 2000 of them; the exact number, despite diligent scholars, is unknown, since the books were often retitled, assigned new numbers, or replaced by other books.

Haldeman-Julius started the series explicitly to promote socialism, atheism, science, the theory of evolution, sex education, and other progressive causes.  He soon added joke books, recipes, short stories, how-to guides, language instruction, and other more commercial material.

Neither Charles Fort nor Tiffany Thayer contributed to the catalog; but several of the Founders did, as well as many later members, some more active than others.  It’s worth pointing out that many of the Founders lent their names to help Fort sell books, and had no interest in Thayer’s antics.  (There’s an interesting cache of letters in the University of Virginia, in which a number of the hapless Founders make this explicit.)

Theodore Dreiser was one of Fort’s oldest friends and staunchest supporters, and one of the first to flee when Thayer got frisky.  Haldeman-Julius published three Dreiser titles in 1924, each containing two short pieces: 659 was taken from Free, and Other Stories; 660 from Twelve Men; and 661 from Hey Rub-A-Dub-Dub. (W. L. S., by the way, was the illustrator William Lewis Sonntag, Jr.)  In 1931, “How the Great Corporations Rule the United States” was released as part of a collection of articles by various writers, including pieces on black civil rights, the labor movement, and other topics.  Dreiser, the most famous name, was the only one credited on the cover.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Of course, if you have any gumption, you’ll design your own fortune telling cards. Above is one of the cards from a Tarot deck by the remarkable Argentine artist Xul Solar (1887-1963). His deck includes curious personalities such as this (Gemini?), as well as more traditional trumps.

And deities from other traditions, such as Bes and Ganesha.

I was fortunate enough to visit the Museo Xul Solar in Buenos Aires earlier this year. His first New York exhibit is now up at the Americas Society in Manhattan; it’s well worth a visit.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The activities of the Fortean Society, apart from Tiffany Thayer’s magazine Doubt, are somewhat unclear.  Perhaps that was intentional; as Thayer said, with his usual bravura, “Many details of Fortean endeavor are necessarily surreptitious, because any activity with the avowed intention of causing men to think for themselves and to cherish self-respect is opposed in this world by very powerful interests.”

But we have here an excerpt from a brochure, published to promote the society in 1956 or 1957, that gives a few details on the membership structure, and specifies some of the people in it.  The organization is rather complicated, including Corresponding Members, Life Members, Accepted Fellows, Honorary Founders, Founders, and Non-Member Named Fellows.

Many famous and intriguing names appear on the rolls, but it’s always been equally unclear how many actually joined, and how many were drafted.  The Non-Member Named Fellows seem to fall into the latter camp: people whose work Thayer simply stamped with his seal of approval.  H. G. Wells and H. L. Mencken were probably listed against their will; Dreiser sent them both copies of Fort’s books, and they wrote back to protest.

But here it is, a peek into the Society in the late ’50s.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The next Ullage Group event is in the works.  We’re planning something tasty, and will meet again when Anthony gets back to town.

I direct your attention to an interview with Norman Conquest, the distinguished Président-Fondateur of Black Scat Books, which has published several of my translations, some with my illustrations.

And, speaking of Black Scat Books, my Alphonse Allais campaign continues.  Captain Cap Volumes 3 and 4 are due in July and August, respectively; and the next issue of the Black Scat Review will include my translation of Allais’s story “Absinthes” (one of my favorites, parenthetically), and of short texts about Allais by Jules Renard and François Caradec.

There’s more good news in the publishing world: Anomalist Books has republished John Keel’s game-changing study of UFOs, Operation Trojan Horse.  And you are, of course, invited to visit the site I maintain in John’s memory.  The last series of posts documented the book that he almost wrote with the equally colorful Ivan T. Sanderson.

I’m currently recording my next album, Maybe Those Hornets Would Like These Posies,  with David Gold on viola and Doug Roesch on guitar and bass.  Several songs are done already, and this week I added keyboard and interesting noises to several of them.

Meanwhile, I’ve learned that one of my students, Tom Huang, has posted part of my birthday show from this year, with some visuals of his own devising.

And my next show, by the way, will be at the Jalopy Theatre on July 13, where I will be joined by Doug Roesch on guitar and Ralph Hamperian on tuba.

Lastly, there is apparently a book of Wikipedia articles about me, offered by some enterprising character.  I don’t suggest that you buy the thing, but I do encourage you to review it.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

The Palm Beach Post, September 26, 1937, published a review of the first issue of the Fortean Society Magazine. The reviewer, E. C. K. (and I have no clue who that is), was impressed by the roster of founders, intrigued by Fort, and puzzled by Thayer. He or she had also never heard of Fort, leading to these verses. I don’t know of any other poetry about Fort; maybe there’s some out there.

Incidentally, the interesting verb “debunk” has changed over the years. Now, it mostly means “disprove”; in the ’30s it usually meant “remove the bunk from”: Clarence Darrow was described by an admirer as debunked, meaning that he’d freed himself of silly ideas. Fort, it should be pointed out, debunked science in that earlier sense of the word.

I never heard of Charlie Fort —
How dumb a person I must be —
For judging by his partisans,
His was a great mentality.

I never heard of Charlie Fort
Who spent his time debunking science,
Who never feared to say “‘Tain’t so!”
Who hurled at sacred cows defiance.

I never heard of Charlie Fort
Until the press enlightened me;
But from the shameful depths I ask:
Did you yourself, now honestly?

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

“The Military Fortune Tellers” was published by H. V. Loring, in Chicago, in 1917.  The deck is 52 cards; but the four suits are stars, hearts, bells, and doves, and the face cards are Jack, Nurse, and Soldier.  The instructions are curiously garbled: “This is a Military Sectional Fortune Telling Chart forming a square when laid out.  (See Diagram) and is made card-form for the purpose of shuffling or mixing so as to obtain a different meaning each time laid out…  The cards forming a direct course circularly, horizontally, vertically and diagonally have particular significance only.”

The box has a pleasing severity:

(Posted by Doug Skinner)