PRIME LOCATION

That isn't the place where kisses make me go crazy. Think lower. A lot lower.

In The Place protagonist Bill Martin is a novelist whose sexual adventures have earned him the nicknames the Goat of Gotham and the Monster of Manhattan. He’s separated from his wife Betty, but they’re happy to get together for sex. Enter Rika Balsemis, founder of STAIS, which stands for the Society to Abolish Instant Sex. Bill sees her as another conquest, but try as he might he can’t get in her pants. He even resorts to force at one point and gets judoed for his efforts. Rika explains, “I realized that in certain situations our members might encounter violence such as yours, so I took a course in judo. It’s admirably suited for female use. Karate is too violent. I might have kicked you and ruined you for life. I know how.”

At this point thought we had Rika Aoki on our hands. We thought we had a character that was going to unleash martial arts madness across the storyline. We were looking forward to it. But there are no more ass whippings. Rika instead gives in to Bill, but sex is just a prelude to hypnotizing him into being totally unresponsive to further sexual stimuli. Yes—she eunuchs him with the power of her mind. It’s hilarious, though not to Bill. You know this state of affairs won’t last, and indeed Rika can cancel the spell when she wants to make use of Bill’s goatly talents. But the point of the wider narrative becomes getting him back together with his wife Betty. Written in 1966, The Place is a middling effort by Arthur Adlon, aka Keith Ayling, written with some style but virtually no sex. With sleaze, we recommend you prioritize the latter over the former.

Softcover Library, Arthur Adlon, Keith Ayling, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.

March 21

1963—Alcatraz Closes

The federal penitentiary located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes. The island had been home to a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison over the years. In 1972, it would become a national recreation area open to tourists, and it would receive national landmark designations in 1976 and 1986.

March 20

1916—Einstein Publishes General Relativity

German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. Among the effects of the theory are phenomena such as the curvature of space-time, the bending of rays of light in gravitational fields, faster than light universe expansion, and the warping of space time around a rotating body.