The Air at the Top of the Bottle

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Children’s Card Games (151)

October 27th, 2011 · 2 Comments

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This horror movie themed deck carries no date or publisher; a sticker identifies it, though, as distributed by “Oriental Trading Co.”  It’s a standard 52-card deck, but the suits are cartoony versions of Frankenstein, Dracula, a mummy, and a witch.  The unusual shape is dictated by the reverse, which shows a haunted house.  For good measure, the box is also molded into this shape.  What would Mary Shelley have thought of this?

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 2 CommentsTags: Card Games · Ephemera

New York City in Little Blue Books

October 26th, 2011 · 4 Comments

The “Little Blue Books” were published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, of Girard, Kansas, from about 1919 to 1947.  They were small, cheaply made, and sold for a nickel or dime.  The covers were originally blue, but other colors were pressed into service if the card stock was cheaper.  By the time the company crumbled, they had released over 2000 titles.

There were Little Blue Books on every possible subject: short stories, poetry, plays, literary essays, recipes, how-to books, biographies, histories.  Haldeman-Julius had a distinctly progressive agenda; and printed many titles on socialism, atheism, evolution, contraception, and civil rights.

I have a particular fondness for those about NYC.  Many sprang from the industrious Clement Wood, who also, in the course of his career, produced poetry, song lyrics, smutty stories, advice columns, a sequel to Tom Sawyer, and a rhyming dictionary.

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This title (1926) is a bit misleading: it’s mostly about the ethnic neighborhoods, with a particular emphasis on debunking ethnic stereotypes.  Among other things, we learn about wine-making in Little Italy during prohibition.

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This one (also from 1926), unfortunately, doesn’t stint on the stereotypes.  It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, with descriptions of shops and restaurants, light verse about Chinatown (a ditty in praise of chop suey, for example), and three pulpy short stories set in the area.

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Wood pulls out the stops on this one (1926, too), with seamy tales of scandals, swindles, seductions, prostitution, and other compelling subjects along Broadway.

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A miscellany of jokes and light verse, much of it spicy for 1927, some of it about New York, some of it about the theater, most of it jokebook boilerplate.  There is also some rather snarky mockery of rival poets Maxwell Bodenheim and Eli Siegel.

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And, of course, two dissertations on Wood’s own neighborhood, then in its full flower of Bohemia: the first from 1926, the second from 1929.  Free love!  Poetry!  Strip poker!  Bobby Edwards!  Anarchists!

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I believe this is the Samuel Marx who went on to a busy career in Hollywood.  There is much 1929 scandal here, including the antics of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Mae West, Fanny Brice, and several anonymous chorus girls.

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Wallace Thurman was a prominent (although short-lived) contributor to the Harlem Renaissance.  His pamphlet is a fascinating look at Harlem in 1927: the clientele at different churches and theaters, the ownership of businesses, the tension with the West Indian community, and much more.

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In 1929, Straton was the outspoken minister at Calvary Baptist Church; and is here ridiculed for his pulpit-thumping against social dancing, evolution, coffee, tobacco, ice cream, theater, and other Baptist bugaboos.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 4 CommentsTags: Books · Places

Children’s Card Games (150)

October 15th, 2011 · 2 Comments

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Here’s another “Old Maid”: our 25th, if you’re counting (I just did).  It was published in 1985, by Hoyle Products.  I’m presenting Artie here, suspecting he may be a self-portrait by the anonymous artiste.  And here’s the Old Maid.

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 2 CommentsTags: Card Games · Ephemera

Strange Paperbacks

October 6th, 2011 · 2 Comments

People like strange things; and publishers in the ’50s and ’60s were happy to provide an apparently endless string of strange paperbacks.  Some of the following are reprints from Fate magazine; some are from Ace Books’ “Strange Facts” series.  Many seem to have had the same cover design (please click for enlargements).  For less than a dollar, you could feast upon strangeness.

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 2 CommentsTags: Books · Education · Forteana · Literature

To Remember George Kuchar

September 26th, 2011 · Comments Off on To Remember George Kuchar

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The Jalopy Theater has kindly given us the space to watch a few of George Kuchar’s videos, and to remember him.  We’re doing this without much notice, and quite informally, and without charging admission.  We’ll be there, at 315 Columbia Street, in Brooklyn, this Sunday, October 2, at 2 pm.  Join us if you can.  Instructions to Jalopy are here.

The above photo was taken by John Keel when George was shooting Secrets of the Shadow World.  Below is another Keel photo: that’s George, me, and Dr. Mamie Caton.

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

Comments Off on To Remember George KucharTags: Uncategorizable · Uncategorized

Bobby Edwards, the Troubadour of Greenwich Village (16)

September 21st, 2011 · 3 Comments

A sad and surprising piece of news was reported in the Kokomo Daily Tribune, October 21, 1926.  Bobby Edwards, the avatar of Bohemia, got a job.  I only hope it didn’t last.

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 3 CommentsTags: Bobby Edwards · Symbols · Ukulele

Children’s Card Games (149)

September 18th, 2011 · 5 Comments

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“The House That Jack Built” has long been a dependable bit of children’s entertainment. It’s also been the basis for a number of games, including this one. There’s no date to be found, but it looks to be from sometime around 1900. I like the cat’s quizzical expression and dignified posture: somewhat cartoony, but not too anthropomorphized. And the colors are dashing.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 5 CommentsTags: Card Games · Ephemera

More George Kuchar

September 10th, 2011 · 11 Comments

I’ll post here a few more mementos from George Kuchar.  If nothing else, I hope you enjoy his distinctive penmanship.

The Exiled Files of Eddie Gray was a sort of return to his old film, Corruption of the Damned.  In the first part, Larry Leibowitz and Floraine Conners attempt to remake their love scenes from an earlier decade; in the third part, George interviews John Keel in his apartment (John shows up at a party in Corruption of the Damned).  In the middle section, I portray a Keel expert, informing two students (Bryan Hiott and Debbie Rice) about the Keelian corpus, assisted by my dummy, Eddie Gray.  We shot the scene in my old studio in the meat packing district, and a picturesque studio it was.  George had great fun working with Eddie.  And the interview with Keel is one of the best I’ve seen.

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The Passion Pot was one of George’s class projects, done with his students at the San Francisco Art Institute.  They were usually chaotic, overheated productions, and this was no exception.  He was apparently inspired by a talk on Richard Shaver that I had given at the Christine Burgin Gallery.  George’s vision of rocks dissolving into hallucinatory visions of the underworld was truly splendid.  This tape is only labeled on the side; I think the other label fell off from repeated viewings.

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And I cherish his note!

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Most of the obituaries I’ve seen have stressed George’s earlier work, his kitschy homages to Hollywood melodrama.  But he made other kinds of “pictures” too; here are some he gave me along the way.

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Melody for Marla set a record by UFO contactee Harold Menger to video feedback patterns.

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Route 666 was one of George’s weather diaries, in which he rented a hotel room in Oklahoma and waited for tornadoes.  In Nirvana of the Nebbishites, his cat Blackie and a marionette named Pepe wander through George’s magic marker landscapes.

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Please don’t ask me to describe this one.  It’s very funny, though.  John Keel remembered this one as “Humanoids with Hemorrhoids,” I’m afraid.

Rest in peace, George.  Thanks for everything.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 11 CommentsTags: Uncategorizable · Uncategorized

George Kuchar

September 8th, 2011 · 5 Comments

George Kuchar died a couple of days ago.  He was one of my favorite artists; I’ll miss him.

I had the pleasure of appearing in a couple of his “pictures” (he always called them “pictures”).  George always had so much fun when he was shooting; it was a delight just to see him work, improvising, laughing, getting excited about the next shot.

It’s hard to believe I won’t hear that remarkable Bronx voice on the answering machine anymore.

Here’s a typical hand-lettered Kuchar VHS, for one of the ones I was in.  “Tales of the Twilight Typist” featured his visits with sculptor Mimi Gross, novelist and UFO writer Whitley Strieber, and me.  For my section, he and John Keel visited my studio, and met my two ventriloquist’s dummies.

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And the accompanying note:

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And a typical Kuchar Christmas card…

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(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 5 CommentsTags: Uncategorizable · Uncategorized

Bobby Edwards, the Troubadour of Greenwich Village (15)

September 7th, 2011 · 1 Comment

I’ve found another picture of Bobby Edwards online; we can add it to the archive. There he is in the back, to the left, cigar box uke in hand. This was at the Garrick Club, sometime in the ‘teens.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)

→ 1 CommentTags: Bobby Edwards · Music · Ukulele