Intl. Notebook

November 13 2024

AN AIR THAT KILLS

It was impossible to see the city for the smog.

Above: four photos of Los Angeles made in 1948 showing the poor quality of air in the city at that time. Bad air is only occasionally mentioned in period fiction, and of course old movies created a clean air illusion by striving to shoot at a distance only on clear days, but low visibility due to smog was a common occurrence. And L.A. wasn’t the only metro area with such problems—it was general around the U.S.

The same year these photos were made, smog covered a swath of rural Pennsylvania south of Pittsburgh for five days, killing twenty people and sickening thousands. Smog was also a problem globally. In London in 1952 during an extended bad air event, an estimated 12,000 people died. It probably comes as no surprise to know that pollution tends to concentrate around industrial areas and transit hubs, which are nearly always where low income residents live.

In the U.S., when the 1970 Clean Air Act passed over opposition from conservative and business interests, air quality improved, but pollution still kills seven to eight million people a year globally. U.S. mortality numbers rose significantly between 2016 and 2020 because the Clean Air Act was weakened then, with thirty-plus portions of the legislation abolished. Even so, more deregulation is coming.

Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, London

Vintage Pulp

August 1 2022

FISHWATER BLONDE

Whatever floats your corpse.

Art by Paul Rader fronts this copy of Samuel A. Krasney’s A Mania for Blondes, a police proceedural dealing with two women drowned in Philadelphia’s Delaware River, and the investigation to bring a killer to justice. The protagonist here is vice detective Ben Krahmer, who learns that both victims appeared in nudie reels. The clues lead down the rabbit hole of illicit porn and toward a mysterious suspect witnesses think looks like Zorro—but who Krahmer soon realizes may be a member of Pennsylvania’s traditionally garbed Dutch community. Procedurals sometimes—as is the case here—fail to provide deep characterizations, but the mechanics of the investigation are interesting. Krasney constantly refers to his protagonist as “the Morals man”—capital M—which we found weird, but we thought this outing was solid overall and we liked the Zorro imagery. Even so, we probably won’t go looking for more from Krasney unless we run across him cheap. There are, after all, so many paperbacks, and so little time.

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Ace Books, Samuel A. Krasney, Paul Rader, cover art, literature

The Naked City

May 7 2019

TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE WE GO

She always said his biggest problem was that he was pig-headed. Turns out she was right.

When you achieve something rare you want others to know. Usually these are minor things, like breaking 200 on bowling night or perfectly poaching an egg, and the subsequent boasts are basically harmless. But even people who do terrible things—and really should keep their mouths shut for the sake of self-preservation—will still at the very least hint at their accomplishments. Such was the case with 67-year-old Virginia Hayden, above, who regaled her grandson with tales of how useful pigs can be. Just like in those mafia movies, she explained how pigs will eat every part of a human body, except the cranium.

Visits to gran’s house must have been heartwarming affairs. Picture her possibly baking chocolate chip cookies and making pleasant smalltalk, dispensing ageless wisdom like, “Did you know that if a woman were to kill her husband and feed his body to pigs, they would eat every part of that fat, hairy body, apart from the

exceptionally hard cranium, which never seemed capable of letting through the things his wife told him, for example to pick up his damn socks and wash a fuckin’ dish once in a while? Did you know that, my sweet?”

*ding*

“Oh, good. The cookies are done.”

Rewind a bit from that cozy scene. In 2011 Hayden’s third husband Thomas flew to Mexico for medical treatment and never came back. In early 2012 an unidentified cranium, with scalp and hair attached, was found near a rural Pennsylvania road. Nobody put cranium and hubby together until 2017, when Thomas Hayden’s daughter, who had been estranged from her dad for more than a decade, contacted police with suspicions that his supposed one-way trip to Mexico was something other than it seemed.

Long story short, Virginia Hayden was arrested last week on suspicion of murder.

The lesson here may be that talking about heinous crimes will sometimes indicate how informed one is in esoteric areas of knowledge, but other times will indicate that one has, in fact, committed heinous crimes. Now some of Hayden’s other wise utterances take on a darker tone. For example, she used to mention how stabbing a corpse before sinking it in water would keep it from floating, and how giving a person a heavy snootful of nitroglycerine spray could trigger a heart attack. Hayden’s second husband died of a heart attack. And her first? He was a suicide. At the moment there’s no indication foul play was involved in either death, but we’ll bet you a batch of chocolate chip cookies the police are looking into it.

Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia L. Hayden, Thomas Hayden, murder, mugshots

Intl. Notebook

August 27 2013

GABY CHIC

There's only one way to tan—the Gaby way.

Gaby Suntan Lotion was a popular sunscreen manufactured during the 1940s by Gaby, Inc. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and above is a stand-up cardboard counter display touting its famed greaseless composition. Other versions of the ad informed consumers that the lotion was also alcohol free. Of course, what drew us to this is the pin-up style art painted by an unknown, not its SPF qualities. But it does it inspire us work on our tans a bit. After all, summer’s almost over.

Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Gaby Suntan Lotion

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 25

1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs

On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.

March 25

1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

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.