Intl. Notebook

August 17 2020

FEEL THE GLOW

Pulp Intl. takes a long day's journey into the night of Spain.

It’s intermission time. But wait—didn’t we just have an intermission? Indeed we did, but this next one can’t be avoided, because we’re moving. We mean physically, not online. This is going to be a long, tricky journey that delivers us to our new home—Cádiz, Spain, which you see above, and below, night and day. Once we arrive there we’ll have to contend with getting internet set up. The provider (who we’ve only spoken to by phone) has been comically overconfident, but we’re experienced in these matters, and we know—even if they don’t—that they’ll botch it somehow or other.

We’re looking forward to this move. Cadiz is an intimate, active place, with an excellent nightlife and a world famous carnival, which we hope to enjoy if the killer virus is somehow vanquished. But even if that takes a long time or forever, Cadiz is still a nice city to walk around in, a visually inspiring place with numerous old buildings, a maze of streets, and at least a hundred outdoor terrace bars. This outdoor lifestyle is what attracted us—if the virus lingers and we can never go indoors again, we’ll still be in good shape.

We know what you’re thinking. Isn’t undertaking a major move during a pandemic imprudent? Well, we’re impulsive like that, and hope to pull it off without contracting anything. Assuming all goes according to plan, we’ll be back online with new inspiration, new material, and—crucially—a new scanner to help us get back into the swing of posting old tabloids. Figure seven to ten days, end-to-end. Wish us luck. Meantime, we have some fun posts to help build the anticipation for our glorious return. Look below the photo.

Assorted covers of Luchadores de Espacio.

Desperate embraces on vintage book covers.

Our amazingly extensive tabloid index.

Voyeuristic paperback cover art.

Everything we’ve ever posted about Japanese pinku icon Reiko Ike (warning: nakedness).

A whole lotta love from the vintage French nudie mag Folies de Paris et de Hollywood (warning: nakedness).

Everything we’ve ever posted related to sci-fi (warning: nakedness—just kidding).

Femmes fatales in red.

Have suitcase, will travel.

Some of the most beautiful magazine covers we’ve ever seen.

Film noir, in all its variations.

Laura Gemser, in all her glory.

The unique art of French illustrator Jef de Wulf.

Spain, Cadiz, intermission

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 22

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

April 22

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.

April 21

1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down

German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is “Kaputt.” The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes.

April 21

1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity

An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.

April 20

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

April 19

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.

April 19

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.