Intl. Notebook

August 26 2018

A LOOK BACK

The past comes alive in vintage pop culture mag.

You have to admit—Pulp Intl. is one of the great time burning websites around. We’re going to incinerate yet more of it today. Above is a cover from Look magazine, a chief competitor of the iconic Life. At the time this August 1937 issue appeared Look was headquartered far from the publishing hotbeds on the coasts, choosing to set up shop in Des Moines, Iowa. The editors claim 1.25 million in newsstands sales every issue. We don’t know if that’s true, but it was a high quality magazine, and this is a high quality example.

Inside you get Benito Mussolini, a ranking of Hollywood box office earning power, a special murder mystery for readers to solve, several pages of Gary Cooper, and a small photo feature on a German town that baptized every visitor, which is an interesting historical curiosity considering that in a devoutly religious country Hitler was successfully fanning the flames of hate against Jews. But “others” never seem to be included in any religion’s definition of people deserving good treatment.

Elsewhere inside you get Mexican painter Diego Rivera with Frida Kahlo. Kahlo is referred to by Look editors merely as Rivera’s third wife, “seeing to it that he is fed every few hours.” That may have been true, but today she’s known throughout the world, recognized as an artist in her own right, which is a reminder that re-examining the past with an emphasis on those who were overlooked—a process some call “revisionism”—is a useful tool for getting things right. Numerous scans below.

Iowa, Des Moines, Look Magazine, Benito Mussolini, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, fascism

Intl. Notebook

July 6 2017

FULL SIZED SEDAN

Just the thing for a cross-country trip.

This photo shows the crater made by the Sedan nuclear test, also known as the Storax Sedan test, which happened today in 1962 as part of Operation Storax. The crater is the result of an explosion that displaced twelve million tons of earth, and at 320 feet deep and 1280 feet in diameter is the largest man-made crater in the United States. It’s also—bizarrely we think—listed on the National Register of Historic Places, especially weird when you consider that it sent two radioactive plumes wafting northeast from the Nevada explosion site, cross country from state to unsuspecting state, to settle especially heavily upon Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Illinois. Of all the nuclear tests conducted in the United States, Sedan ranked highest in overall activity of radionuclides in fallout, distributing nearly 7% of the total amount of radiation which fell on the U.S. population during all of the nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. Historic indeed. You see the explosion that caused all that below.

Nevada Test Site, Nevada, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, nukes

Femmes Fatales

July 12 2016

LYON EYES

Look who's all grown up.

Above, a promotional photo of Iowa born actress Sue Lyon, who played Dolores Haze in the film version of Lolita. In Vladimir Nabokov’s shocking but excellent book Haze was a pre-teen, but for Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 adaptation the character was made into a teen. Lyon was fourteen at the time of shooting, but this nice shot was made when she was twenty-one in 1967. She went on to good parts in Night of the Iguana and Tony Rome, but managed only about a dozen cinematic roles before leaving movies behind for good in 1980.

Iowa, Lolita, Night of the Iguana, Tony Rome, Sue Lyon, Stanley Kubrick, Vladimir Nabokov, cinema, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 30 2013

SLUMBER PARTY OF FIVE

So, let me show you what I meant when I said I wanted us all to come early tonight.

Above is a cover for 1963’s Pajama Party, a book written by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard E. Geis. Interesting fellow, Geis—he specialized in beatnik and counterculture sleaze, churning out lightweight novels like Bongo Bum, Beat Nymph, and Like Crazy, Man, and was indicted for obscenity over a novel called Three-Way Apartment. This was in 1964. Geis went to trial twice, first in California, then in federal court in Iowa. He was convicted but the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court where the panel overturned the verdict, thus making Geis’s Three-Way Apartment one of those forgotten but important books that helped free publishing from the grip of reactionary prudes.

After Geis’s close call with the feds he must have felt artistically liberated, because his writing promptly went to the far ends, so to speak, of taste. Some titles: Anal Husbands and Deviant Wives, The Endless Orgy, Women and Bestiality, and, our two favorites—Orality ’69 and its sequel Orality ’70. Pajama Party was not so notable a book as those—five co-eds have a sleepover that involves a pillow fight, skinny-dipping, a striptease contest and a game of dares, before finally getting down to a little Sapphic lust—but we really like the Paul Rader cover, so there you go.

On a different subject, we got a couple of reader pulp submissions with no art, which tells us our little uploader (located in the righthand sidebar, for those who don’t know) is probably malfunctioning. This may have had something to do with the several hours of down time we had a couple of weeks ago that cost us several posts (since restored). But don’t worry. The Black Bomber will have it working properly again in a jiff, because that’s what he does, at which point we’ll let you know and hopefully get resubmissions of those reader offerings. Thanks as always for your patience.

U.S. Supreme Court, Iowa, California, Peggy Swenson, Richard E. Geis, Paul Rader, trial, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 15

1920—League of Nations Holds First Session

The first assembly of the League of Nations, the multi-governmental organization formed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The League begins to fall apart less than fifteen years later when Germany withdraws. By the onset of World War II it is clear that the League has failed completely.

November 15

1959—Clutter Murders Take Place

Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith. The events would be used by author Truman Capote for his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, which is considered a pioneering work of true crime writing. The book is later adapted into a film starring Robert Blake.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.