TRUE BURLESQUE: True Story of Weldon Kees, Poet and Painter, and Loarli Lily Ayers, Burlesque Stripper

True Story of Weldon Kees, Poet and Painter, and Loarli Lily Ayers, Burlesque Stripper

Lily Ayers was really Icel Condon. What kind of name is Icel? Who cares. She was also the famous Lorali, as shown here, and The Princess of Peel. Nice!

More? Just plain Rochelle in piece of crap film called "Everybody's Girl" and just plain Lily in "B-Girl Rhapsody" which no one really lined up for either. So much for Hollywood. By the way, in both films, Icel plays….wait for it..a stripper!

Lorali was one of Lillian's girls. You can read more about Lillian Hunt, AKA Mrs. Devoe HERE on True Burlesque.

Was Icel pretty. HELL yes. Talented? Eye of the burlesque beholder. In 1955 the New York Times called her a "curvy blonde stripper" and if she was good enough for the paper of record, she was good enough for me. Why would the esteemed paper review a stripper?

Additionally, Harper's magazine, in a profile of poet and artist Weldon Kees in 2004 called Lily "the most famous stripper in Oakland" and I think she was.

Who was Weldon Kees? Influential critics have been asking that far longer than I have been wondering who is Icel Condon. Wendell created a burlesque review in 1955 which featured a stripper reading poetry…ICEL! Cool! Unfortunately Weldon died (by suicide) shortly before he could become a really cool beatnik, but he sure could paint. I mean GREAT paintings. I mean, let me look up the prices and suffer for one great.

Author James Reidel has written a book about Mr. Kees, and he is also fortunate to own the astoundingly beautiful painting above. I cribbed it from Wiki

As Icel is the unknown stripper, Wendel is the unknown painter…and poet…and filmmaker…and jazz musician…and MORE. I am seriously humbled. This guy was REALLY the king of all media.

Plus, he picked the hottest stripper on the PLANET (ok…in the Bay area) to perform for him.

BROWSE BOOKS AND AFFORDABLE EBOOKS by JIM LINDERMAN HERE at Blurb.

Top photograph taken by Keith Bernard and manipulated by Hollywood Confidential 1955 (quite possibly without the photographer's permission) Collection Jim Linderman

Painting by Weldon Kees property of James Reidel, from Wikipedia.

"…disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time." NEW YORK TIMES

"We’ve all got a sleazy side, haven’t we?"
Design Blog It's Nice That.

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"...Jim Linderman’s blog Vintage Sleaze – a treasure chest (sorry) of adult gags, disreputable imagery and sordid stories featuring some of America’s best-loved sexy artists. Vintage Sleaze is “the true and untold history of smut in America,” Linderman reveals in the site’s opening statement – now if that’s a line that doesn’t tickle your fancy, I don’t know what will."
Alex Moshakis It's Nice That

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath