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

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

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.