New findings in the Old World

Though I currently am far from Tiki-fornia , my search for items relating to Tiki culture does not cease. Shooting a TV movie in my hometown of Hamburg, I sometimes get to visit sites of my youth:

We are using the library of the Hamburg Museum of Anthropology as a location for an “archeologist’s office”. In my youth I used to visit the Museum regularily because my elementary school was only two blocks away, and recently I did research for the BOT at it’s library, which off course now has a copy of the BOT on it’s shelves.

We are also shooting in the Hamburg Music Hall, which has a gilded Baroque stage with two balconies on each side. I remember sitting in the left one as a kid, with my dad’s sound engineer, watching them record for Miller International’s “Europa” label, an offspring of M. I.’s successful “101 Strings” series. The classic 101 Strings orchestra photo on the back of most of their albums was taken on that stage, the balconies are visible in it. (Miller International also did some Exotica albums in Hollywood, most notably with the Surfmen, another studio musician outfit).

Also, last Monday the port of Hamburg (where my apartment is) was full of sightseers to welcome the Queen Mary 2, the largest Cruise ship in the world. Quite an impressive sight, like a whole city block moving by.

Now to the real finds: I was thrilled to unearth a 1936 collectable color picture album (the kind that had to be collected from cigarette packs) about the “German Colonies” in Africa and the South Seas:
For a brief period from around 1884 to 1914 Germany “owned” part of New Guinea, Palau, the Marianas, the Caroline and the Marshall Islands, and the two largest islands of Samoa. Under German “protectorate” the Sepik River became “Empress Augusta River”, next to it was the “Bismarck Archipelago”, “Neu Pommern”, “Neu Hannover” and so on. The ground work for this had been layed in the mid 1800s by Hamburg Trader Johan Godeffroy, whose trading company once owned 45 stations around these islands. Sadly (for me as Oceanic Art lover) but rightfully the whole lot was lost with Germany’s defeat in the 1st World War. But since this book was written in ‘36, it is full of “Our new land was stolen from us!” ideology, in line with Hitler’s nationalistic “A people without land” motto. A very interesting time document.

Even more exciting was running into an exhibit of John Hinde’s BUTLIN’S photographs, “OUR INTENT IS ALL FOR YOUR DELIGHT”, right near my apartment building (Tiki finds me!). British photographer Martin Parr curated this show with amazing poster size color prints that are unmatched in crispness and color saturation, thanks to the use of large format negatives exposed with multiple flash lights.

http://www.recirca.com/reviews/johnhinde/johnhinde.shtml

Billy Butlin’s Holiday Camps used to have (among other themed environments) it’s own Beachcomber Bars. My favorite is the Butlin’s Bognor Regis Beachcomber photo (#3 on above website). In the exhibit it feels like you are standing IN it, and you can look over the customer’s shoulder and see every drink on the illustrated cocktail menu he is holding.

I off course bought the book with the same title as the show. It's excellent:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0954281306/playland7-20/104-5669338-1279153
In it, the picture of Butlin’s Skegness Beachcomber Bar is another piece of mind bending eye candy, the Butlin’s Minehead Beachcomber is okay (waitress is not in Hula skirt!), while the Butlin’s Clacton South Seas Bar is quite far off the mark with giant colorful American Indian totems dominating the decor!

It is interesting that of the 3 photographers working for John Hinde’s postcard company, two were German. The 3rd, David Noble, reminisces:

“...those Pig and Whistle and Beachcomber Bars were amazingly tough...the wiring alone for the PF 100 and 60 flashbulbs would take hours to prepare...the worst part was that all the drinkers in the Beachcomber Bars were so boozed up they were tripping over your wire and pulling them out...what doesn’t come over in the photographs is how these places were covered with dust and swimming in beer...we didn’t do much to make them look better, but when you whack all that flash on the plastic foliage, orchids and trees and Easter Island statues, you realise the colour is actually there.”

Boy what a Rush running itno this stuff Right where you grew up. seeing this now means so much more than it would have as a younger Sven. That #3 picture is really fantastic. I read about the Photographer having to deal with Drunken tourists who "Stumbled all over the place yanking out the flash cables" and continued to "The place was Swimming in beer and Dust and dirt covered everything and yet the flash brought out the color....." I Imagine that crew shooting those scenes were very frustrated. Think how much the color would Pop out if they had just cleaned the place up first. That book is a super treasure. It's about time some Tiki "came to you" you have done enough searching, it's about time things went right for a change.
Now about the History books you were reading ..I'll answer a page about that later. FUN happy happyhappy

And more fun

I have the book, I love it too.

Yeah, great show! I saw it at the 'Photographer's Gallery' in London a while back. Not that many photos of the Beachcombers but the rest of the holiday camp's bars, pools, and amusement areas were so weird it's difficult even for us Brits to understand their allure. These photographs manage to accentuate the other-worldliness of the 60's Butlins.

The 2nd Wild Weekend was held in such a place (not Butlin's but a bitter rival), so it was a pleasure to see the up-to-date Tiki carvings and decor of Josh Collins alongside the cheesy original holiday camp decor.

Trader Woody