 Wherever she's headed you can be sure it's not good. 
Well, we survived. We didn't mention it earlier, but our recent trip took us deep into the heart of covid. It was too late to back out because we had committed to something important, so away we went even as omicron began peaking and virus cases in general rose. While there, someone we spent an evening with messaged two days later that he was positive and feeling quite sick. We tested and came up negative. We wrote in early December about the virus killing one of PI-1's friends. Weeks later her entire close family caught it. Her elderly parents, her brother, her brother's four-year-old, her brother's girlfriend, and her two kids. All of them. All were physically ill. Even the four-year-old had symptoms, but everyone survived. Seven for seven, which is bucking the odds when two of the seven are over sixty-five. For this reason, as well as the omicron spread, the virus was on our minds more than usual. We were lucky, but we can't celebrate, because we found out that someone we know went through true hell. We have this acquaintance, who we'll call Nikolai. Russian. Stereotypical. Big, broad, physically imposing, but a very nice, very jovial guy. He has a factory in Kazakhstan, lives here in Spain. His wife, who we'll call Yara, went to Kazakhstan, where covid is a particular problem. While Yara was there she had severe stomach pains, went to a doctor, and learned that she had a large, possibly cancerous mass growing right in her core. Kazakhstan, while having skilled doctors, doesn't have top notch facilities. The doctors told Yara they immediately needed to cut her stomach out. The whole thing.
Nikolai heard this and rushed to Kazakhstan to get Yara the hell out of there. Against doctors' wishes he shipped her back to Spain, where Spanish medicos told her they needed to take only a small part of her stomach. Not bad by comparison. Relief. But Nikolai stayed in Kazakhstan to deal with some factory business and immediately caught covid. He was on a ventilator after a week, and dead a week after that. Yara was scheduled for surgery and couldn't see her husband buried, though common sense prevented a return to covidy Kazakhstan anyway. Two kids lost their dad and Yara's situation remains dire. That's about as fast as things can go south.
The point of the story is simply to remind you that this virus ain't no joke. But moving along, above we have for you an Italian poster for the Diana Dors movie Passport to Shame, which we wrote about a little while ago. In Italy it was called Passaporto per l'inferno—“passport to hell.” Films that played there were scrutinized by authorities for themes considered offensive to Catholic values, and prostitution pretty much topped the list, so it's no surprise Dors received a punishment upgrade from mere shame to fiery hell. The movie is worth seeing, and you can read about it at this link. We have some amazing books, photos, and general pulp fun coming for you in 2022, but for the moment here's wishing for the most amazing thing of all—a world that works better than it did this last year.
 Giovanni Simonelli was a virtual one-man industry in Italian cinema. 
It’s been too long, so today we’re back to the incomprable Benedetto Caroselli, with a cover he painted for L’incubo scarlatto, aka “The Scarlet Nightmare,” by Simon O’Neil for EPI’s I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore, 1970. O’Neil would have been an Italian writer working under a pseudonym, and in this case it was Giovanni Simonelli, who wrote about seventy-five screenplays between 1958 and 1998. Some of those gems include L’uomo dalla pistola d’oro, released in English as Doc Hands of Steel, Dos pistolas gemelas, aka Sharp Shooting Twin Sisters, and Agente 3S3: Passaporto per l’inferno. L’incubo scarlatto is set in London and involves a woman who thinks she might be a vampire because men around her keep turning up violently killed. Considering one was her potential rapist and another was a sadistic drug lord, they both deserved it, but she needs to know the truth and pairs up with a psychiatrist to get to the bottom of the mystery. Simonelli did more than write macabre books and scripts. He also directed, composed music, and even acted in two movies, appearing in 1966’s Kommissar X - Jagd auf Unbekannt, aka Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill, under the name Sim O’Neill. Quite a career. We wouldn’t be surprised to run across his work again. Meantime, you can see plenty more art from Benedetto Caroselli here.
 The guy who kicked the hornet’s nest. 
On the cover of this National Police Gazette from December 1965 is a once-infamous Swedish spy named Stig Wennerström. Wennerström was an Air Force colonel who passed Swedish, U.S., and NATO secrets to the Soviets. He’s labeled a red by the Gazette, but that’s a stretch—he served the U.S.S.R. for fifteen years, true, but before that he may have spied for Nazi Germany, who as fascists were as near the opposite end of the political spectrum as it was possible to be. The obvious motivation, then, must have been money, but no, Wennerström didn’t spy for profit any more than he did for political ideology. He came from a moneyed Swedish family and as a colonel was well paid. Nor did fear of blackmail seem to drive him, as there was nothing seriously embarrassing in his past. The answers wouldn’t come until after he was caught. The Swedish state police—SAPO—had directed Wennerström’s maid to snoop around his home. She eventually found incriminating film negatives that resulted in his arrest, and he was convicted of four counts of treason and sentenced to twenty years in prison. During those years he finally answered some questions about his motivation. He claimed that at some point during his time in the military he came to believe that peace could only be maintained through balance, and the secrets he passed helped maintain that balance. The answer was unsatisfactory to most observers, but that was the only one Wennerström would ever furnish. Stig Wennerström served ten years of his sentence and secured parole at age 77. Twenty years later in 2004 while living in a seniors' home, the 97-year-old ex-spy was interviewed by the magazine Aret Runt. It was clear this would probably be his last interview, and he was asked if he had any regrets. His answer: “If I could live my life over again, I am stupid enough to let it be exactly the way it has been so far.” He died two years later at age 99, the questions surrounding his spying mostly unanswered, the crimes he committed mostly fading into history, and the secrets he passed entirely obsolete.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008. 1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
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