 She shot an arrow into the air, it fell to Earth— Well, nobody knows where because they weren't watching the arrow. 
Japanese actress Maria Mari poses with a fancy Nishizawa recurved archery bow, which like the arrow she shot nobody is bothering to pay an iota of attention to. It's understandable. Mari looks quite beautiful and slender here in this photo from 1980. The image is part of a series of seven published in Weekly Playboy featuring different actresses posed with sports and recreation gear. You'll be seeing the other shots as the months roll onward. In the meantime you can see a bit more Mari here and here.
 Petroleum reserves discovered deep in the jungle. 
No wonder the world can't get off petroleum. Photos of slippery actresses keep the addiction going. Above you see Maria Mari, who has starred in some of the most interestingly titled films you can imagine. Nympho Diver: G-String Festival may be her crowning achievement, but she also appeared in Lusty Transparent Man, Apartment Wife: Lust for Orgasm, and Do It Again: Like an Animal. All of those sound like much-watch flicks, and we did indeed watch and write about a couple, here and here. Mari appeared in five other films in a busy three-year career before moving onward to parts unknown. You can see another shot of her here, and more shiny actresses here, here, here, here, and here. Try not to become hopelessly depedent on oil.
 Whatever she asks the answer is yes. 
Maria Mari starred in such films as the 1978 roman porno Lusty Transparent Man and the 1981 ama flick Nympho Diver: G-String Festival, and you see her above in a beautiful promo photo from around 1978. Mari didn't make many movies—the Japanese Movie Database lists six, while IMDB has her in eight. All in all, it was a three-year run. Well, once you've had sex with an invisible man there's really nowhere else to go career-wise.
 This dog goes Harf Harf. 
We like the work of French illustrator F. Harf, but he can be hit and miss and above you see one of his less successful covers, for Le bonheur difficile. What seems to have been difficile here was painting a dog. This is surely the world’s least convincing pooch. If it’s a dog at all. It could be a naked, neutered, armless old man. If you want to see a prettier Harf cover check here. Le bonheur difficile was published by Éditions de la Mode Nationale S.E.P.I.A. as part of their Collection Fama, and it was written by Lidone, who was in reality Marie-Madeleine Lavergne. She wrote quite a few books as Lidone, Magda Contino, Maria Mario, and Jean Namur during her thirty-year career, primarily in the romance genre. This one, also a romance, but hopefully not involving the dog faced man, is from 1956.
 Lovely day for a swim, don’t you think? 
Above is a poster for the Japanese comedy Shikijô ama: Fundoshi matsuri, which in English is known as Nympho Diver: G-String Festival. Yes, that’s right—Nympho Diver: G-String Festival. With a title that descriptive, it would be a disappointment if there weren’t nympho divers and a g-string festival, but the movie actually delivers what it preposterously seems to promise. It all comes about when the men of a backwater fishing village recruit five young women to serve as “amas,” which are basically topless divers that forage for pearls or abalone. The main goal is to attract tourists to the village, but if the locals’ bland sex lives receive a boost, well, that’s fine too. The girls dutifully arrive    and commence their diving chores, but the expected hordes of tourists fail to materialize, whereupon one diver reads about an ancient g-string festival. The village fathers decide that such an event is just what’s needed to get the word out, and so there you have it—nympho divers and a g-string festival. Shikijô ama: Fundoshi matsuri is packed with sex, albeit of the clumsy, boob groping, simulated type, but of course Japanese movies couldn’t show pubic hair back then, so everything had to be achieved with camera angles and physical acting. The script actually takes a moment to acknowledge this during a scene in which one diver cavorts about nude except for her hand covering her privates. As she bounces around the room, her panicked minder cries, “Stop! They haven’t lifted the ban on pubic hair yet!” Nicely done, that. The film has other, similarly clever moments, but its comic aspects derive primarily from the fact that nearly all the men of the village are goofy, middle-aged schlubs, which gives the sexual proceedings a slapstick air. We’re not big fans of badly      simulated sex or slapstick comedy, but that doesn’t mean Nympho Diver doesn’t work. It’s good-natured, moves fast, has an interesting romantic subplot, and what can’t be disputed is that lovely star Eri Anzai goes about her role with wit, vivacity and very little clothing, as you see in the below promo shots of her and co-stars Maria Mari and Kazuyo Ezaki. So, is the g-string festival a success? Does it draw those coveted tourists and their yen? You’ll just have to watch and find out for yourself. Shikijô ama: Fundoshi matsuri premiered today in 1981. Today also seems like a good opportunity to mention that we have another little sabbatical coming up here up at Pulp Intl. as we head to the Greek Isles for about ten days. We don’t know if Greece will look anything like the g-string festival, but if it does, that won’t be bad, right? The Pulp girlfriends are coming too, since after Morocco they vowed never to let us out of their sight again. Can’t really blame them. Usually, when we go traveling we hope to find some pulp—this time we’re not even going to promise to search. However, rather than let the website go idle, we’ve pre-written a few things, so keep dropping by to see some great cover collections and a rare surprise involving Bettie Page.   
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate
In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy's career. 1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's African-American population were the bulk of the system's ridership. 1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire
In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.
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