CHAMPAGNE WISHES

And dreams of all that is good and wonderful.

Happy New Year! In honor of the yearly calendar turnover here you see four lovely 1977 shots of Swedish actress Anita Strindberg, one of the queens of ’70s European cinema, as well as of our website. We’ve watched Strindberg locked down in prison in Women in Cellblock 7, seen her redefine the meaning of untamed bush in The African Deal, get slithered on by Florinda Bolkan in Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, be mysteriously tormented in Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, gush tears down her perfect cheekbones in Who Saw Her Die?, and get voodoo freaky in Tropic of Cancer. She made more than twenty films. We shall not be tiring of her soon.

These photos were published in a few places. We grabbed one of ours from the Italian magazine Playmen, and the other three from the Spanish mag Interviu. The text at top says merely “Anita’s toast,” as in to make a toast. There’s another we didn’t include that describes her as the Swedish Grace Kelly. Well, in our book she’s better than Kelly, because she’s wet and naked. We love how she starts with a Champagne glass, but by the end has transitioned to guzzling from the bottle. At that point she’s the other kind of toast. Well, the text suggests it, claiming she actually got drunk. We’d call that PR, but if she got loaded, good for her, because upending the bottle for the last dregs is exactly how we’ll do it tonight. Here’s to 2025.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 18

1954—First Church of Scientology Established

The first Scientology church, based on the writings of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, is established in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the city has become home to the largest concentration of Scientologists in the world, and its ranks include high-profile adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

February 17

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

February 17

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.