Fakes, Forgers, Frauds, Folly, Quackery, Hoaxes, Swindlers, Charlatans, Cheats, Grifters, Grafters and Cons

My most current project having to do with Albert's many collections has been to make a list of his books about swindlers. I am looking for a buyer for the entire collection. If you know of someone who might be interested in it, please let me know! I can send the list to them. 

A Curious Collector, A Rare Collection

Albert Morse, my late husband and partner, was a suspicious and skeptical man, which befit a lawyer and student of human folly. His professional practice involved itself in copyright law. Albert represented many of the counter-culture cartoonists of the 60s who have become a significant part of our graphic heritage and even our cultural legacy, partly because their suspicious, doggedly persistant and willingly unpleasant lawyer pressed their rights. He was often a character in their strips, a large and bearded shyster talking loudly and non-stop. The cartoon Albert came close to the personality they portrayed . ( See Morses Funnies )

A barely hidden current of chicanery and flim-flam ran  beneath Albert's baleful expressions. Perhaps all true skeptics are closet charlatans! He was often found at the fringes of San Francisco's counter culture excesses in the 60s and 70s, more an observer than a participant, a prime voyeur. It's not surprising, then, that one of Albert's ( many) obsessions was the study of society's demimonde. Fakes, quacks, swindlers, and grifters fascinated him. 

Over at least 3 decades he assembled a widely embracing collection of books on crime and deception. Though most of these books are individually interesting, often rare, often valuable in antiquarian or bibliographical terms, the body of the collection is far more meaningful than single volumes. IN this collection we find a clinical examination of fraud and deceit. 

Who might benefit from such a case study of lies and trickery? Lawyers? Law enforcement officers? Mystery writers? Historians? Thoughtful or speculative grifters themselves?

These books gave great pleasure  and some sense of satisfaction to Albert. Whether they addressed his logical lawyer's mind or his darker inner demons is impossible to say. He was not in any sense a plain spoken or open hearted man. But , like this collection, his heart was of a darker hue and endlessly fascinating. 

I have catalogued these volumes with dates and comments in the belief that some bibliophile, organization, or practitioner will seize the opportunity the collection represents: to build even further on Albert Morse's obsession with the flawed nature of man. 

Visual Thinking in Real Time

This has been "The Year of Albert". Mostly working with his collections and moving his many many objects of fascination on to other people. Now I am focusing a bit more on my graphic facilitation work. For the last two months I have been coaching individuals in how to format the page when they are recording in real time on the large paper.

These images are of 4 x 8 foot "charts" that I created in real time as presentations and interactive presentations were going on. The 80 or so participants were executives from an international organization. Since it was a multicultural event, these charts helped the group have shared understanding of the proceedings. The charts were posted around the conference site and participants gathered around them during breaks to continue and further the conversation and learnings.

The examples you see here show common organizing formats. The journey, recording around a central image and recording a speaker in a word balloon.

Things are popping!

It's been a few weeks since I wrote and the universe has been abundant.

A few months ago I spoke with Bob Levin, who wrote "Disney VS The AirPirates", a book about the ground-breaking freedom of speech case between underground artists who had been drawing Minnie and Micky enjoying themselves at orgies and the like in their comics, and Disney who lived in a house with a white picket fence and twin beds in the "master" bedroom. Levin has always written such nice things about Albert, even though Albert never agreed to be interviewed by him or even returned his calls or letters.

I had just found letters from Crumb saying endearing things to Albert as he was letting him know that he was hiring another lawyer. I never have gotten the story completely clear, but to this day rumors abound, mostly very negative ones about Albert. And these letters put everything in a very different light . I asked Levin if he would like to see these letters and other things I was unearthing in Albert chaotic archives.

At the time he was in the middle of another project, but said that when he was through he would be very interested in seeing them.

Finally he made it over to the "room full of Albert's things", my studio. It turns out that he had always been fascinated by Albert, as someone who was highly intelligent, a bit ahead of trends, and got deeply into the things he pursued. He was curious why Albert would give up a very prestigious postition as a lawyer in Mike Stepanians Practice, to become a photographer and philosopher.

His interest was piqued even more during the visit ( which he made with his wife Adele who will co write the book with him), and they are now on schedule to write an article about Albert during his years as a copyright lawyer for the underground artists. The editor of Comic Journal, who is also the head of Fantagraphics, thinks that Albert would be a very interesting subject for a book.

My interest in this is
1. To tell the story of a true bohemian who was always in the thick of things.
And 2. to add a layer of new truth to the rumor mill in the comic world.
After that , I told him he can interview anyone he likes and write whatever he finds!

Should be interesting!


So, I have been going though boxes of photos and journals ( which he kept from 1957 until he died) and putting the journals in chronological order. There is no way that Levin will want to read all of it, but I found the ones where he talked about his relationship with Crumb while they were working together. And another one that had a page beginning with "We lost the case with Disney."

Some times I feel like I am in a little bubble with Albert, like we are so tied together. Of course he is around a lot now that I'm actively selling his things. It's also near his birthday. Only a week away. When reading his journals or going through files and photos, I feel like I am in his head and that I've been talking with him all day. It's a bit unsettling at times, but never dull.

I mentioned to Levin that I really don't like to read the journals. I'll read about women he slept with that he said he hadn't , and that he was having a lot more phone sex, and sexual encounters than I knew about , especially when we were living separately. But I can also see, from how he has written about other people over the years, that he really loved me deeply. We were very connected, and I think that is why it seems like he is still around a lot .

At the same time there is a lot of interest in the collection of vintage tattoo flash that Albert accrued when he was researching "The Tattooists". It looks like Last Gasp or Schiffer Press may publish a book of all the collection, not just what was in "The Tattooists".

Tilt, a young tattooist from Illinois, is coming out here at the end of August to help me scan and photo everything.

So that leads to the photo at the top of this blog. These are some of the items I have for sale on
http://www.cafepress.com/vintagetattoo .Some people I know make a good passive second income from their "store" on Cafe Press. I am trying to put interesting old designs from Albert's collection on things that people might actually want. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I was kind of anxious to sell the tattoo stuff this year, but there is so much energy around it that I thought I would do something with it first. I am intrigued with tattoos. Its the artist in me. One should decorate their body! When I was a child I would draw all over my dolls.

When I was 5 my father told me to NEVER get a tattoo, because my husband would hate it. Hmmmmmm? Well I got a tattoo when I was 23 after I saw Albert's tattoo photography show at the Oakland Museum. For some reason I was there at the opening, and don't remember seeing him
And sure enough, the thing he hated hearing the most was, ( especially from people with tattooed flame eyebrows) " I saw your show and ran right out and started to get completely tattooed!"

There is some activity in the comic book art world as well, but I'll stop writing for now .
I have a busy week ahead, six days living and doing visual synthesis for a group of Sisters at a convent in the Los Altos Hills.

Jack Dracula and Diane Arbus

May 2008

This is the first piece of tattoo flash from Albert's collection that I sold on eBay. A self proclaimed know it all expert in the tattoo collector world told me that it was not worth much, maybe, $300.00.  Albert had it priced at $700.00. It just sold this morning for $750.00.
( Listen to Albert, Listen to Albert.)

This is the only piece by Jack Dracula in the collection. It is really a fine little piece of art. Well done, well drawn, and well constructed as a display.

According to Chuck Eldridge of the Tattoo Archives, Jack Dracula began to get tattooed in 1940 by Brooklyn Blackie at Coney Island and ended up with over 405 tattoos. At times he was a sideshow attraction and he also operated his own tattoo shops.

Yesterday I discovered that he was an occasional attraction at Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus in Times Square where Diane Arbus began to experiment with photography. From the mid 1920s until 1965 Hubert's  was a living cabinet of curiosities, and home to many sideshow freaks.

I have never been particularly interested in Diane Arbus photos, because, well, there are plenty of disenfranchised  and freaky folks in my life. But a few weeks ago I saw a great little film called "Fur" (2006) about Diane's tentative and bold initial explorations as a photographer. It was really touching and reminded me of when I first met Albert and he opened me up to seeing the world through new eyes. Nicole Kidman was surprisingly sensitive in her role, and played well off the eccentric nature of her neighbor, played by the amazing Robert Downey Jr.

 Funny how things are so connected. Never heard of Hubert's before and now it's everywhere.

Click here to see a video of Jack talking about his life during the time that Arbus was photographing him. 

It's surprising where cultural considerations show up.

April 2008 at The Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin

This is a common request... and I have never seen it done really well .

A "graffiti" wall for input from participants during large-scale ongoing multi-day conferences. Generally the purpose is either to have people share what they are learning, or for participants to give input relevant to the process. 

In any case, these are the basic guidelines for assuring participation/ input:

1.Be sure to make it very clear to the participants what the wall  is for, what you hope to have happen on it, and why you are asking them to create it. You will need to mention it several times each day. It needs to be purposeful and part of the event to be successful.

2. You might have a participant "seed" it with the first comments. Or have someone standing by the board asking for input.

3. It needs to be in a place where everyone will walk by it.

4. There needs to be plenty of wide tip markers there, easy to find and reach,  at all times.

For this particular project the request was for a real looking wall, so that was what I designed. Bricks and graffiti-ish looking letters.

What was uletimately put on the board was pretty radical and not particularly useful to the group. It seemed that it had touched a miltant chord for those that did write on it, like they were really doing graffiti on a wall somewhere! The comments were more theoretical that what was going on at the conference as well.

It was actually great in a Jeckel and Hyde sort of way, allowing another side of the group  to show through. But that had not been  the intent of it.

I think the reasons for this were:

1. The environment and culture. The meeting was held near Amsterdam where people take their personal expression , art and graffiti seriously. In the future, in an environment and culture like this , I would have a simple page with a bold, clear, descriptive title.

2. The wall was not in a convenient space for posting, and there were no pens handy.

3. Instructions to use the board were only mentioned to the whole group one time, at the beginning of the conference, when things were overwhelming already.

The photos above were taken on my 2007 trip to Amsterdam.

Binky Brown goes to Vancouver

May 2008

Last October I got a call from Art Speigleman while I was working in Switzerland. He was interested in borrowing the original art of Binky Brown Meets the Virgin Mary by Justin Green for a show in Vancouver this spring.

This comic book influenced many other cartoonists of the 70s to explore their own personal histories. Art said that it made his Pulitzer prize winning graphic novel Maus possible.

Albert had acquired this artwork  along with the original art of other underground artists back in the 70s when he was the copyright lawyer for most of the underground comic artists of the time. You can see what other art he had collected here.

One of the benefits of Albert having kept this art for all these years is that it is still in one collection and not spread out in the vaults of collectors all over the world.

I stopped in New York to meet Art on the way home. What a sweet man. We visited in his studio for a few hours. And left with an agreement to have the work in the show. This is a 40 page comic, making quite a large exhibit by itself. So it is great that the curators saw the importance including of Binky  in "Krazy; The Delirious World of Anime and Comics and Video Games".

Thus began a little interlude in my life that includes Art, Justin Green the artist, and the Vancouver Art Gallery staff. Over the next few months the pieces had to be readied for shipping.  Page threee was missing for several months. I had no idea where it could be, since all this comic art was Albert's domain and I hadn't really looked into it all. Contracts had to be signed. The work needed to be appraised. And the shippers had to come and pack it up for the long journey by truck.

Over the months I had a chance to get to know Art, who is hoping to publish a hymnal inspired coffee table book of the artwork , full color black and white, in all its glory, fingerprints/ whiteout/ zipatone /etc.

And Justin, as I am looking for a buyer for the artwork and hope to give him a lions share of the proceeds. It's a karmic thing. Its his art after all.  Albert and I just kept it in one piece all these years.

Although I had hoped to attend the opening, I wasn't able to, but Justin and Art assured me that the artwork was displayed well. I'll post photos of the exhibit when I get them. 

It goes on into October, if you have a chance to see it! 

 

Spring Arrives on Main Dock

April 2008

This is my houseboat, "The Ark Pickleweed". It was built around 1900 as a home for railroad workers. There were hundreds of them on the bay at that time. Many of them became homes for the displaced after the Big Quake of 1906. Then they were used as summer cabins and sportsmans clubs.

In the late 60s many of them were destroyed for other developments. Now there are just a few of them left. The Pickleweed was one of the first houseboats moored at Main Dock.

Albert bought this sweet little boat in the early 70s and lived here until he passed away in 2006. He loved this boat more than anything ( except me, or so he said!).

Now Nelamina the Blue-eyed Cat, and I live here, visited daily by Mr. Bird.

Spring arrived mid April with all the little dock gardens bursting into bloom.