As you know, scores of pulp and mid-century novels were set in circuses and carnivals, such as the examples here, here, and here, so we couldn’t pass this up. It’s an x-ray of a circus sword swallower billed as the Mighty Ajax, real name Joseph Milana, who was pretty famous in his day.
Ajax toured the U.S. and Europe, and performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, presenting himself variously as Mexican and Arabian, though he was in fact Italian. In the end his storied career earned him entry into the Sword Swallower’s Hall of Fame. Betcha didn’t know there was a such a thing. Neither did we—probably because it’s only online. But it still counts, we think.
Sometime in 1928 while in New York City, according to the info on the negative, he made time to pose for the above scan at the behest of photographer Edward J. Kelty, who took credit for the image. In case you doubt the veracity of the shot, we can tell you the original sold at auction some years back for big dollars. In the inset photo you see Ajax necking an entire set of swords. That’s just pure talent. PSGP once got conned into a banana eating contest and came in last place, so he really appreciates what this guy brought to the table. You should too, so if you want to see Ajax in action there’s a YouTube video here, while it lasts.
Recent news story of attempted New Zealand jewel theft is hard to swallow but absolutely true.
In Auckland, New Zealand, police have charged a man who several days ago attempted to steal a $19,000 Fabergé Egg locket commemorating the egg that appeared in the 1983 James Bond adventure Octopussy. The thief was no master criminal—he simply swallowed the locket and tried to walk out of the jewelry store. Cops responded within minutes of being called and arrested the thirty-two-year old thief, so far unidentified, while he was still on the premises. As of yesterday, when this report hit the wires, Auckland police inspector Grae Anderson had told media that the locket hadn’t yet been recovered. We thought three days was about the max something could remain in the digestive tract, but don’t quote us—we’re not doctors, we just pretend sometimes.
We can be pretty decisive when the occasion requires. If we owned the store we’d have simply punched the thief over and over in the gut until he vomited. Not something you want to see at a swanky jewel seller, and we’d probably have ended up hit with a personal injury lawsuit, but it still seems like an expeditious way to save the locket from a trip through someone’s filthy digestive tract. The item is made from eighteen karat yellow gold and green guilloché enamel, features sixty white diamonds and fifteen blue sapphires, and opens to reveal a small gold octopus set with two black diamond eyes. So with all its nooks and crevasses—plus the chain—the fact that it hasn’t shown up means it could be stuck. Worse, it might never be made completely shit free again without damaging it. But we’re not jewelry cleaners either.
Here’s what we do know, though. Rich collectors have paid out the wazoo for items as bizarre as Lee Harvey Oswald’s dirt encrusted coffin, Marilyn Monroe’s chest x-ray, artist Marc Quinn’s macabre cast of his own head made from frozen blood, and Eva Braun’s magical panties. Therefore, the high end collector’s market being what it is, we think that because it was swallowed by a hapless thief, the Octopussy locket will probably increase in value—permanently embedded fecal molecules and all.
Update: It finally showed up six days after being swallowed.
Texas authorities uncover a case of illegal emigration.
Because of our focus on men’s adventure magazines and the bold spirits in those pages who venture forth in search of recognition and riches, we couldn’t leave this news item uncommented upon. Plus it’s Sunday and we have free time. Yesterday two Texas men—Gavin Weisenburg and Tanner Thomas—were charged in court with plotting to invade the Haitian island of La Gonâve with plans to kill all the men and sexually enslave all the women and children. The actual grand jury indictment lists conspiracy to murder, maim, or kidnap in a foreign country, and production of child pornography among their alleged crimes. The two are also guilty of delusions of grandeur—with a population of 100,000 on La Gonâve to somehow subdue, they would have had their work cut out for them.
But they had a blueprint how to carry out that work. Allegedly, for nearly a year leading up their arrest, Weisenburg and Thomas created operational and logistical plans, schemed to recruit a mercenary force of largely homeless people from the Washington, D.C. area, purchase a boat, firearms, and ammunition, and learned to speak Haitian Creole in
order to smooth local relations. Thomas even allegedly enlisted in the U.S. military to learn a little about weapons, strategy, and of course efficient killing. Yes, it reads like comedy, especially pinning their success on homeless assistance, but these two wouldn’t be the first individual Americans to stage a seemingly doomed invasion of a neighboring tropical country.
During the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War various parties attempted to destabilize Mexico, Cuba, and South America. This all stemmed from longstanding discussion in the American South, from political circles to wealthy parlors to editorial pages, about subjugating parts of Latin America and exporting the unwholesome institution of slavery there. When the Confederacy came into being, written into its constitution was the right to expand to—i.e. invade—other countries. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, was dedicated to the idea, as was his inner circle.
Probably the most notorious slavery expansionist was a man named William Walker, who in 1855 invaded Nicaragua with a band of mercenaries, thieves, and soldiers. He had previously tried to invade Mexico and failed. In Nicaragua he actually set up a puppet president and installed himself as the country’s behind-the-scenes ruler. U.S. President Franklin Pierce, who was pro-slavery, diplomatically recognized this regime.
Later Walker staged a rigged election and was named Nicaragua’s official president. He lasted about year before being chased out. He fled to New York City, where he was welcomed as a hero, but never one to say enough is enough, he fooled around in Central America once more and this time was executed for his meddling.
Of course, Weisenburg and Thomas are two unlit candles compared to Walker or other slavery expansionists such as Matthew Fontaine Maury and many others, but the basic instinct certainly doesn’t sound much different. The sexual slavery part may seem outrageous, but it’s important to remember that legal slavery was sexual slavery, so they aren’t so different from those old Confederates who had their eyes aimed southward. We just wonder whether, like Walker and Maury, they’ll be feted as brave heroes in some circles. The way things are going in the U.S., we really wouldn’t be surprised.
Nuclear weapons made safer and prettier than reality thanks to generative AI.
We never post viral content, but because of our focus on nukes this one caught our attention. This photo popped up in one of our social media feeds yesterday, forwarded by a friend, and purports to show a 5:30 a.m. July 17, 1955 nuclear test that was part of Operation Teapot, observed at a distance of sixty-five miles by swimmers at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. This obviously fake AI image managed to trick numerous people, who, when the deception was pointed out to them, resorted to pitched battle to avoid admitting the truth. Depending on which major social media platform you’re talking about, up to thirty-five percent of users can be under age twenty-four, but that still leaves a lot of adults that should know better. The comments in our feed were a sort of nuclear microcosm of what’s happening everywhere all at once these days, which is people losing not only science literacy, but their damn minds.
We probably have to tell none of you this, but for the record let’s go through it: debris clouds from nuclear explosions aren’t perfectly symmetrical; people don’t swim en masse at 5:30 a.m. even in Vegas; the sun rose at 5:38 that day, so the sky would still be mostly dark; the date is wrong because Operation Teapot ran from February to May, so no tests occurred in July; at sixty-five miles observers would see a flash and possibly a far-off dust cloud, not a massive soufflé; the relative distance of this AI blast from the hotel, at the scale depicted, would do serious harm to these unprotected vacationers and possibly blow out windows all over north Las Vegas; and the majority of people aren’t even looking in the direction of the explosion, which you’d think would command all of their attention. Generative AI is like a bad liar that people believe anyway. We’re in trouble, folks.
It’s another one of those situations where we ask ourselves: “How could we not have known about this?” Above you see a fantasy coffin, which in the Accra region of Ghana has become a farewell tradition for those able to pay for skilled artisans to construct them. They’ve been around for about thirty years, having evolved from palanquins—a decorative conveyance mounted on two horizontal poles that someone important sits upon while several people carry it. These coffins take that idea to its logical conclusion, extending the get-around-in-style idea all the way to the grave. They also fit into the tradition seen in many cultures of funerals being a joyful celebration of a person’s life.
This isn’t the first time we’ve dipped into Ghanian art. Some may remember the vintage poster made for the movie Videodrome that showcased the interesting aesthetic of that country. We always meant to get back to the subject because we have an entire folder of movie posters from Ghana. But we forgot, and were reminded today in the strangest way. We love the idea of these coffins. You might as well go out like a champ—even if you’re buried in a chicken. We don’t don’t plan to be buried, though, so here’s a million dollar idea. Ready? Fantasy urns. “Erm… why do you have that ridiculous carved chicken on your mantel?”
Midnight has a track record of interesting front page art, but sometimes a headline does all the work needed. We didn’t feel like spending thirty dollars on this issue published today in 1965, but we can give you the gist. In Mexico, a fifteen-year old girl named Rosa Gonzalez, wanted to harm her abusive father but knew he was impervious, so she targeted the only thing he loved—his wife. Rosa faked spiritual powers, gradually gaining her mother’s trust, then pretended she’d received a command “from above” to take mom to Tijuana to become a prostitute.
Clever, if sociopathic. Needless to say, Rosa didn’t just hurt her dad—she broke him. No word on what it did to her mom, which is a major gap in the reporting. Let’s assume she was totally fine. For sure. In all, it’s a pretty strange story, even if it’s almost certainly fiction. But on the other hand, what if Rosa really did receive instructions from above to turn her mom into a Tijuana prostie? We lived in L.A. for some years, which means we know plenty of people who think they received instructions from above to go to Tijuana and fuck prostitutes, so, there you go. Anything is possible. More Midnight at the tabloid index.
GM finally solves the issue of blind spots by utilizing unusual automotive design.
The above mix of photos from various sources show a partly Plexiglass automobile built by U.S. car manufacturer General Motors for the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair. It was dubbed the Ghost Car, and though we don’t think it was ever driven on streets, any safety gains in terms of vision would certainly have been offset by the fact that in a crash you’d be shredded by fractured plastic. We assume it moved from place to place on the back of a flatbed. After the Fair it was sent around for various events and promotions, and GM later built a second model for the 1940 Golden Gate Exposition. The design was based on the Pontiac De Luxe Touring Sedan and cost about $25,000 to put together—well over half a million dollars in today’s money. It sold for $308,000 at auction about fifteen years ago, but as part of American automotive history, we think it’s priceless.
It's no hallucination—that's Marilyn Monroe on a pink elephant.
This colorized shot that’s made the rounds online shows Marilyn Monroe yesterday in 1955 riding a pink elephant at a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus charity event at Madison Square Garden. It was a season opening show before the circus went on its national tour, and was a benefit for the Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation. While the expression “seeing pink elephants” has a gone out of vogue, back then it was a euphemism for alcoholic hallucinations or delirium tremens. These days, most would wonder if DTs were the reason people thought of painting an entire elephant, but it was a different time in terms of animal rights. There are many photos from this event made by photographers ranging from Arthur Fellig to Erika Stone. We have a few below, and they all show Monroe doing what she did better than anyone—looking like she’s having a ball.
Above: a colorized photo from 1960 of a two-piece lunar exploration suit worn by a scientist from the Republic Aviation Corporation’s Life Sciences Laboratory, based in Farmingdale, New York. The suit includes a tripod and built-in seat in case the one-sixth gravity on the moon is too exhausting. No, actually, we’re guessing it was so the occupant could be stable while performing whatever duties a moon mission might require. In this case he has a couple of cheap wrenches for hands, so he’s probably about to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture. Trivia question: Which is older, Ikea or NASA? Simply by asking, you already know the answer. Anyway, moon suit designs advanced rapidly during the 1960s until reaching the point that they could actually keep astronauts’ blood and saliva from boiling in the vacuum of space, then of course they were never used because the moon landings were faked. And these older suits? They became garbage cans outside the Life Sciences Laboratory cafeteria.
Google Street View camera records man moving a carpet—er, we mean a corpse.
The surveillance state scored a major propaganda win this week in the northern Spanish village of Tajueco when a Google Street View camera recorded a man arranging a suspicious parcel in the trunk of his car. The recording led to his arrest for murder, as the parcel turned out to be the body of Jorge Luis Pérez Ochandarena, who had dropped off the radar a year ago. Police had managed no progress in what was considered a missing persons case, though suspicions of foul play had been raised back then by Ochandarena’s cousin, who said he received text messages supposedly from Ochandarena saying he was leaving Spain and would not return.
He didn’t return, right enough. At least not in whole. Allegedly, Ochandarena’s ex-wife conspired with her new lover Manuel Isla Gallardo to murder Ochandarena, dismember him, and bury him in the cemetery of an adjacent village. Our first thought was that Gallardo should have looked both ways before moving a corpse from house to car, but then we figured, well, human bodies can be awkward to move, so once you break cover with it you’re probably committed no matter what happens next. Gallardo doubtless heard a car coming and we imagine he did two things: first, crap himself copiously; and second: continue to casually load his grisly cargo.
Actually, he probably did a third thing, which was double-take at the Street View car, which we bet he’d never seen the like of before. If you haven’t seen one, they look like this:
As a pulp site we first have to see this from the murderer’s perspective. What a fucking bummer. Whether or not Gallardo had seen a Street View car before, there would be no mistaking what it was doing. He had to know he was screwed. His best hope was that whatever photos or video had been taken ended up in the digital equivalent of the artifact warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark, forgotten forever. Next best hope: the data is uploaded without actual human supervision, and his cadaver-loading star turn sits in Google’s Street View interface unremarked upon by users. No such luck.
In a vintage crime novel Gallardo might have been fine, but in our locked-down digital reality he was toast with jamón iberico. It took a year, but he was done the moment that car turned down the street. We could go into the usual surveillance warnings after a tale like this, but that horse bolted from the barn and disappeared over a distant hill ages ago. New York City has 124,000 surveillance cameras. London has 627,000. Shenzhen has two million. And everybody with a front stoop has a doorbell cam. They’re Orwell’s three-hundred million people all with the same face. But Tajueco, we’re willing to bet, had virtually no cameras. Yet on that day,
on that dusty backstreet, at that precise moment—boom. The driver reported nothing; the camera saw all. And to add irony to insult, Google hadn’t photographed the streets of tiny Tajueco—full time population fifty-six—since 2009.
Since surveillance is pervasive, we guess an argument could be made that it’s really no big deal to be recorded outdoors, indoors, every time you ring a doorbell, every time you go online, and even—many times—when you use your appliances. And sometimes, yes, unambiguously good things happen. Like when a killer is caught, and victims are avenged. Big Brother is here to help you. So is Big Mother, Little Sister, Casual Acquaintance, and Nosy Neighbor. Don’t do anything wrong, and you’ll be fine—usually. Just remember to keep a fully updated, officially vetted, notarized list of what qualifies as wrong, and don’t be surprised how expansive and mundane the index of violations eventually becomes.
In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.
1925—Great Gatsby Is Published
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.
1968—Martin Luther King Buried
American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
1953—Jomo Kenyatta Convicted
In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation’s British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya’s first prime minister, and still later its first president.
1974—Hank Aaron Becomes Home Run King
Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
1922—Teapot Dome Scandal Begins
In the U.S., Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leases the Teapot Dome petroleum reserves in Wyoming to an oil company. When Fall’s standard of living suddenly improves, it becomes clear he has accepted bribes in exchange for the lease. The subsequent investigation leads to his imprisonment, making him the first member of a presidential cabinet to serve jail time.
Edições de Ouro and Editora Tecnoprint published U.S. crime novels for the Brazilian market, with excellent reworked cover art to appeal to local sensibilities. We have a small collection worth seeing.
There have been some serious injuries on pulp covers. This one is probably the most severe—at least in our imagination. It was painted for Stanley Morton's 1952 novel Yankee Trader.
