Bran Castle, built in the 14th century as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks, was home to the Romanian royal family from the 1920s until the communist regime confiscated it in 1948. At the end of communist rule in the 1980's, Bran Castle was restored, dubbed "Dracula's Castle," and thus became a popular tourist attraction, with some 450,000 people visiting the castle each year.
While Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, aka "Vlad the Impaler", may or may not have ever stayed at Bran Castle, the Transylvanian castle did inspire Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel Dracula -- and apparently that is enough for millions of people.
Me? I'm not such a fan of horror & blood. But I am a lover of affairs of the heart & hearts themselves... beating with life they literally keep the beat of our lives, turning the rapid pulse of emotion into the racing hearts of passion and then the heated pumping of erotic acts... and how the heart stills with emotional too, be it the skip at romantic introduction or the pause when the heart is broken... I even love them long after they've stopped beating. So, I'd still go see the Bran Castle -- but not for Dracula; I'd go for Queen Marie of Romania.
While married to Ferdinand of Romania, Marie not only had an affair with Lieutenant Zixi Cantacuzene which produced a child "disappeared from history"; a longer affair with Barbu Ştirbey which produced at least one son, Prince Mircea, and possibly one daughter, Princess Ileana; but Princess Maria (called Mignon) might have been the daughter of Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia.
Certainly all of this had to have affected Marie's thinking regarding her son, King Carol II, and his relationship with Magda Lupescu -- first his mistress, and this his wife after his abdication -- but she publicly stated he had "sinned grievously". The irony seems to have been lost to Marie who only became further estranged from her son.
All such juicy things to further investigate...
And then there's this bit: Queen Marie made arrangements in her will for her heart to be kept in a cloister at the Balchik Palace -- her son Carol II dutifully carried out the request.
In 1940 her heart was transferred to the chapel at Bran Castle (the casket with Queen Marie's heart has since been moved to National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest).
Who doesn't want to pilgrimage to this woman's home?
If that's not enough to seduce you to, how about this quote from Queen Marie regarding a proselytizer:
I have met ..... I did not like him. He seemed to me to be a snob. He spoke of God as if He were the oldest title in the Almanach de Gotha. And all that business about telling one's sins in public -- He wanted me ... me ... to get up before my children and confess everything I had ever done! It is spiritual nudism! Ça se ne fait pas.
In 2005, the Romanian government passed a law allowing restitution claims on properties seized by the Communist government of Romania in 1948. It was due to this law that, in 2006, the Romanian government awarded ownership of Bran Castle to the son and heir of Princess Ileana, Archduke Dominic of Austria, Prince of Tuscany, known as Dominic von Habsburg -- then a 68-year-old New York architect.
Because of Princess Ileana's questionable lineage, among other things, the property distribution was challenged; but as Queen Marie herself named Ileana as the one to inherit Bran Castle, the Constitutional Court of Romania and an investigation commission of the Romanian government reaffirmed the validity & legality of the restitution procedures used and in December 2007 issued confirmation that the restitution to Ileana's son, von Habsburg, was made in full compliance with the law.
According to the contract signed when Bran castle was returned, the government pays rent to von Habsburg for the right to run the castle as a museum (including charging admission) for three years. That period ends in 2009 and full rights to the castle & property will then transfer to von Habsburg.
Having no experience with running a museum, von Habsburg and his family have put the castle up for sale to those "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."
I'm not sure my lusty love of history would meet approval; but as Bran Castle is expected to fetch over $135 million, I don't suppose I could afford it anyway.
Pickup on South Street (1953), starring Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, & Milburn Stone.
At the time, August 1952, the script was deemed unacceptable by the Production Code, for "excessive brutality and sadistic beatings, of both men and women." The revised script was accepted but required multiple takes including for a scene in which Jean Peters and Richard Kiley frisked each other for loot was considered too risqué.
The film went on to great success, including an Oscar nomination for Thelma Ritter for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1954.
The French release of the movie removed any reference to spies and microfilm in the translation. They called the movie Le Port de la Drogue (Port of Drugs). The managers of 20th Century Fox thought that the theme of communist spies was too controversial in a country where the Communist Party was still hugely influential.
Pickup was also a regular fixture on top ten lists of film noir before feminist intervention in that discussion made a femme fatale mandatory for the category. Seen now, it's Fuller sui generis, making films that are like no others. Nearly always working with tiny budgets, Fuller always spent up big on cinematographers, in this case Joe MacDonald. Fuller and MacDonald build the film on two extremes: tight closeups lit for sharp facial modelling; and free, sometimes flamboyant camera movement.
Pickup is assembled from standard pulp fiction components: situations, stock characters, conventions, cliches, attitudes, images, gestures, actions, and relationships. Unlike later practitioners described as neo- or post- , Fuller's work is at one with such material, not outside it. The film draws its energy from creating a world from within this pulp paradigm in all its crudity, brutality, sleaziness, and pure improbability (Fuller had a set built for Skip's home: an abandoned bait shack built on piles ten meters out in the East River, reached by a wooden gangplank. Its refrigerator is a crate lowered by a rope into the river. Its only amenity is a hammock. Fuller gets full value out of the set, using every inch of it across several scenes--wonderful filmmaking. Living there, how does he keep his suits so perfectly pressed? Where's the wardrobe? Does he cook? Why would a professional criminal choose a place with only one way in and out? Don't ask).
This film was remade as The Cape Town Affair (1967), directed by Robert D. Webb and starring Claire Trevor (in the Thelma Ritter role), James Brolin (in his first leading role), and Jacqueline Bisset.
Bodies all over the place, everywhere you looked, stumbling over each other trying to be next in line. Where do they all come from?
There was a while, back during the late 1960s and on into the '70s, when I was buying people by the ton. It sure seemed that way, at least. After Greenleaf Classics began buying magazines filled with photos of naked people packaged by outside contractors, I began growing annoyed with the types of people they were using as models. Somehow, they were doing things all wrong, I contended. They should be paying attention to what those people look like at least, and cleaning up some of them considerably ahead of time.
Naturally, I figured I could pick desirable people out as well as the next guy, and hopefully a little bit better while I was at it. I had no sooner begun contacting Los Angeles area modeling agencies when they started barraging me with telephone calls themselves. I had no idea there were so many modeling agencies in the entire state, much less in Hollywood alone. Each one of those agencies had loose leaf notebooks filled with Polaroid photos of naked people for me to look at…lots and lots of loose leaf notebooks. It was much easier that way, flipping the pages, looking at the naked people trying to smile up at me from within those loose leaves.
Earl Kemp also, literally, exposes himself...
And others too...
Occasionally, and just for fun, I would insert photographs of personal friends without their knowledge, in the nude, into some of our various publications. Then, after the publication appeared, give them copies of it and point them out inside the issue. Without exception, every one of them was pleased with the surprise and passed copies of them around among their friends.
In a similar jest, I would also insert close-up photos of myself without showing my face into those books or magazines. At one time, most of the black cork wall on one side of my office was pinned with tear sheets of just me, and not one person working there knew it was me. I recall taking my cue for this from Alfred Hitchcock, who always inserted himself into each of his productions. I figured I could easily outcock Hitchcock, and I did.
Continue reading this issue of Kemp's fanzine for more on Song of the Loon, the work "that started a mini revolution in sleaze book publishing," the film Adultery for Fun and Profit, and the film's aftermath too -- featuring lots of great old ephemera and lurking federal government guys.
Ethan claims to have found a long-lost Tijuana Bible, a "Lieberman Squeezer" from 1934, starring George W. Bush and John McCain. I don't know where he found it, but it certainly captures the modern relationship between the two men accurately, and I don't know that that's a good thing. Look at the link only if you are of strong mind and moral character, otherwise you put your very reason in jeopardy.
Yes, the comic really is ugly and distasteful, but honestly, it's nowhere near as ugly and distasteful as the face the country has worn for the last eight years. I'm tired of living in fear and hating the way my neighbors and family keep trying to twist the worst parts of America into the best. I can't think of any better way to respond to Republicans than obscenity.
This is the cover of the faux 1934 Tijuana Bible:
(That's one government teat I don't ever want to suck off of. :shudder:)
No, it's not a menstruation situation; it's a pre-cold war pulp to get your blood boiling. One presumes that once you've got your ire up, you'll be ready to take a whack at those Ivans.
The testosterone-bursting speculative adventure begins – literally – with a Russian gang rape and submachine gun fire from the capitalist hero and rescuer of women, Danny Fare. Sellers' immediately exposes the reader to the grim near-future realities of an America under the occupation of the "Reds" or, as they are frequently referred to, "Ivans." The protagonist (Fare) spirits the damsel-in-distress, Fran Wilson, from the scene of her defilement to safety, but not before finding time to disfigure his own treasonous wife, Marta, for sleeping with an "Ivan." Fare brands Marta's pretty face – the tradition of the new American resistance – with the same knife blade that he has just used to kill her Soviet sugar daddy (for good measure, he slits the Russian's throat while the thug is in mid boot-knocking coitus with Marta).
I am rather obsessed with watching the old What's My Line? & I've Got A Secret episodes. The shows' charms lay as much in the panelists themselves as it does with the guests (including "famous" folks I've never heard of) and, of course, the numerous delights that such vintage television provides. I've mentioned my delight in calling panelists names, simply because of what I'm continually discovering about them, but sometimes I'm just darn cruel.
For example, I'm so rigorous in my negative comments about panelist Dorothy Kilgallen's chin, saying things like, "I must Google to see if there's record of the incident with a horse that must have stepped on her face," that hubby was starting to become immune to them.
But now I feel badly about that... And not because hubby rolls his eyes at me with silent judgement for my rudeness or with boredom.
In deciding to investigate Kilgallen's chin, I discovered that Frank Sinatra and I held the same views on it. Performing in Vegas, Old Blue Eyes called her "the chinless wonder", and at the Copa, he said, "everyone in New York is here tonight except for Dorothy Kilgallen... she's out looking for her chin." Just more to love, or hate, about Sinatra, depending your personal views on the man.
But in discovery of such statements, I learned more about Dorothy Kilgallen, history, culture -- and myself -- than I ever could have imagined.
Kilgallen was more deeply entrenched in the romantic, mysterious, fascinating world of the late 50's and 60's that I prefer to live in, at least research wise.
Kilgallen left a small Hollywood career for that of a journalist. She was not only a gossip columnist, but a crime journalist -- which makes her more than the stereotypical female press person you think of, but a woman ahead of her times pursuing a profession deemed unsuitable for females. She also became the first woman to fly around the world.
But more than this, she was a woman. A woman who, lonely in her marriage to a cheating husband, turned to singer Johnnie Ray, a man 14 years younger than she, for what would be not only a passionate love affair, but a long-term one as well. This is where the feud with Sinatra is said to be at least partially rooted:
Sinatra had loathed Johnnie Ray from the moment the young musical upstart hit the scene. Ray's conquest of the pop charts in '51 (the top three spots all at once occupied by the same artist) had come at a time when the once (and soon to be again) successful Sinatra couldn't draw headlines unless it was for indulging in his penchant for punching paparazzi. So in '51, Frank was outraged to see that his place in pop music's upper echelon had been replaced by a skinny, half-deaf, androgynous cry-baby who all the scandal sheets proclaimed as a raging homosexual, and he was further incensed by the fact that the love of his life Ava Gardner had a star-struck obsession with the singer. Frank harbored a lifelong grudge.
Dorothy Kilgallen had been less than flattering to Sinatra in her popular opinion columns, citing his violent behavior and brooding public persona.
All of this melted my cold negative commenting heart a bit, but there is more.
On Aug. 3, 1962, Kilgallen became the first journalist to refer publicly to Marilyn Monroe's relationship with a Kennedy. Within 48 hours, Marilyn was found dead of a drug overdose at her Los Angeles residence. The inquiry into her death was marred by numerous unanswered questions and contradictions in the medical findings.* Dorothy publicly challenged the authorities with tough questions. For instance, she wrote, "If the woman described as Marilyn's 'housekeeper' [Eunice Murray] was really a housekeeper, why was her bedroom such a mess? It was a small house and should have been easy to keep tidy." Kilgallen also wanted to know "why was Marilyn's door locked that night, when she didn't usually lock it? If she were just trying to get to sleep, and took the overdose of pills accidentally, why was the light on? Usually people sleep better in the dark." And she asked, "Why did the first doctor [to arrive on the scene] have to call the second doctor before calling the police? Any doctor, even a psychiatrist, knows a dead person when he sees one, especially when rigor mortis has set in and there are marks of lividity on the surface of the face and body. Why the consultation? Why the big time gap in such a small town? Mrs. Murray gets worried at about 3 a.m., and it's almost 6 a.m. before the police get to the scene."
Kilgallen wrote that "the real story hasn't been told, not by a long shot." Such bold reporting was not common in American journalism at that time.
In a case of what can now surely be called foreshadowing, this is eerily similar to the death of Kilgallen herself, just a few years later.
On November 8, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead in her own home. A death with equally strange details, powerful connections, and a poor investigation of its very own.
She was found by her hairstylist, Marc Sinclaire, who after discovering her, told friend Charles Simpson, "When I tell you the bed she was found in, and how I found her, you're going to know she was murdered."
Things amiss include:
Kilgallen not sleeping in that room or bed.
A woman who was normally cold, putting the air conditioning on when it was cold outside.
Kilgallen routinely slept in pajamas and old socks, no make up etc., yet she was found not only wearing a peignoir set, but with hair and makeup in place as if she were going out.
Kilgallen had a book, The Honey Badger, by Robert Ruark, laid out on the bed next to her, but not only was it not in the proper position for her if she was reading it, it was a book she'd already finished reading & discussed with friends -- and while Dorothy needed glasses to read, they weren't found in the room.
There was a drink on the nightstand by the bed, but where Kilgallen sat, it was out of reach.
Oh, and while we're at it, those first at the scene say there was a piece of paper by the door, eluded to by some as a suicide note, but it was never produced and no one claims to have read it.
While there are many other curious things about the way cause of death was noted (and by whom), the story officially touted is that Kilgallen, like Monroe, had over-dosed, either as a suicide or more likely by accident.
As Kilgallen wrote about Monroe, why would a woman seeking to sleep, wear an outfit she never wore, put herself in a room so cold as to be uncomfortable, not remove her eyelashes -- or at least the very uncomfortable to lean upon hair pieces, get a book she's not only already read but then not bring along her glasses, and put a drink (medicated or not) on a table near the bed but then place herself such that she would not be able to reach it easily? And all this in a room she didn't sleep in?
Curiosity only grows when one discovers what Kilgallen had been doing in the years between Monroe's death and Kilgallen's own.
Just months after Monroe's death, on November 22, 1963, JFK was assassinated and Kilgallen was not only upset by the event, but was investigating it. She didn't believe the Oswald story at all, and when Jack Ruby shot Oswald, she arranged to have a private interview with Ruby.
No one is certain what was said in that interview, but Kilgallen often said she had something big, which would crack the JFK investigation wide -- and then some. She continued not only to investigate, but pen columns about it too, and it was said that the Ruby interview and other details would be published in her forthcoming book, Murder One, which was contracted to write for fellow What's My Line? panelist, Bennett Cerf, & Random House -- published without any such chapter(s) after her death. Kilgallen's file of notes on all this, seen by a number of persons, has yet to surface. Both the known and unknown details are fascinating -- and the stuff for conspiracy theorists, such as this article, Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen? by Robert Morningstar.
As easily drawn into such things as I can be, I'm leaving the threads here for you to follow-up as you choose, while I continue a different path.
What strikes me, shames me too, are other thoughts....
I don't like to reduce people, especially women, to such symbolic status that their humanity is removed, but in this case, Marilyn and Dorothy represent far more than just themselves.
While not complete mirror opposites, it's clear they each offer moments upon which to reflect upon their differences. Marilyn Monroe's wish for the sort of respect and admiration Dorothy Kilgallen had is widely documented. And Dorothy, who loved opulent surroundings and personal glamour, likely wished, at least from time to time, for some of Marilyn's beauty and to be seen and coveted in such terms. Neither was granted their wishes, of course, but such personal and private dreams are larger than just these two women.
If the woman of beauty, a man's plaything, is understood to matter less in this world, her afterlife continues to grow her legend. Monroe's beauty & status as sex icon only gathers more strength, even if she herself is batted about and accepted as a pawn at the whims of men and society.
If a woman's intelligence, however threatening, is supposed to matter more than earthy beauty, why is Kilgallen the less known? Her valor and strength are not reported and commented upon, even upon the anniversaries of her death. She is not revered -- in fact, she's nearly lost to history already.
We may never know what happened to each of these women. Their stories may or may not be tied to such grand crimes and cover-ups as the conspiracy theorists argue. But the really horrific facts are the if, how, and why these women are remembered. Conspiracy cover-ups aside, our collective societal values have been uncovered, and I do not like what I see.
Or what I myself have said and done with comments about Dorothy's chin.
If you can hear me now, Dorothy, you have my most sincere apologies.
Earl: Being totally surveillied by law-enforcement for an unbearable ten years before they figured out how to arrange my "downfall." You can't imagine what it feels like to not be able to use a telephone or to receive an unopened and preread letter...to have numbers of people following your every step anywhere in the world. Millions of dollars of public funds spent for...personal amusement of a political few. From Nixon to Mitchell to Rhenquist...criminals all...me no. Much like the Presidential Medal of Honor.
SPS: Was the arrest & time served a relief after all of that?
Earl: Absolutely. Being in prison was extremely rewarding because of the closeup view of what it was really like as opposed to all the myths. Very bad officials doing very bad things for enormous personal profits. Very much like those wonderful people in DC running the world at the expense and lives of others and again only for personal corporate profits and even that for multi nationals...not for the US at all.
Everyone should have the opportunity of gaining such enlightenment.
SPS: Did it continue afterwards too?
Earl: For a while. I can still remember when it stopped because there was such sudden silence and everything felt remarkably as if I had moved to another country permanently, so unlike living under a microscope.
The most difficult part of it all to accommodate was the knowledge that it had taken them ten full years of totally illegal intensely close observation to finally frame a downfall. And all that time I thought they were my best protectors, knowing absolutely every minute thing about me and not being able to find anything actionable. Mindblowing!
SPS: Do you think you are still on lists?
Earl: Isn't everyone? What do you think the Patriot Act is? Homeland Security? Do you follow the news of all the illegal FBI wiretaps nationwide? Do you not know that all email is monitored?
However, my paranoia is no longer in charge but I can still spot an undercover Fed by odor, long before they come into sight.
I lived cross-border US/Mexico and witnessed time and time again Federales handing over drugs to Feds for distribution and mutual profit. Big massive shipments...not your dime bag common prisoner.
SPS: Ever consider moving to another country?
Earl: I lived in Mexico for over 20 years. It was indescribably wonderful.
SPS: If it was so wonderful, why leave?
Earl: A horrible thing called NAFTA screwed it up unbelievably. Forcing it, in just a few short years, to mirror image everything that is bad/wrong with the USA. Gone instantly were most of the local products, customs, including even the cuisine. Now nothing that was good about it remains, all having been replaced overnight with Wal-Marts, CostCos, MacDonalds (they all sell individual bottles of beer through the drive through windows), Starbucks and everything one normally goes on vacation to avoid.
And an incredible amount of red tape, forms to fill out, documents, and finally passports for all US citizens wanting to pass beyond that incredibly ugly, fortresslike wall. "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!" The Federales replaced by US Feds, spying on innocent tourists...
I could go on and on but my Mexico no longer exists. It looks like suburban NYC and smells worse.
Not an edible taco in sight.
Every poisonous, forbidden to sell in the US food item, long stored in warehouses just waiting for an excuse to ship them across the border and flood the Mexican market and drive away all those delightful things most people won't remember five years from now.
Reason enough?
It works for me.
SPS: Anything you'd like a do-over on?
Earl: Yes, most of it. I'd be noticeably more aggressive....
SPS: That's most intriguing.
Earl: I was Wimp #1. Naive. Trusting. Commonplace. Patriot.
SPS: On paper, or in this digital age with sites like Wikipedia, "Earl Kemp" begins with science fiction. We hear the 'worked as a graphics artist' and then it's the fanzines, editing, etc.. How do you remember this transition?
Earl: As moving into adulthood and into the real world. Being born again with a view into reality.
SPS: What was it about science fiction which made you so passionate about the genre?
Earl: Just got hooked completely. Still am. Can't escape it.
SPS: Don't play coy; tell me what it was that hooked you. I want to hear about 'the golden age' or 'new wave' from someone who experienced it then -- both in terms of stories and the community.
Earl: I'm not ready to rethink backward for more than half a century. Too much trouble. Too little reward.
SPS: Whatever it was that grabbed you, did so by the heart if not the throat because you've been so passionate about the genre... Surely it deserves an ode, if not a few lines of description, yes?
Earl: Of course it does. But it was mostly the people involved at the time. Vastly different than the people involved today. To begin with, they cared. They involved themselves with each other. There was no distinction between fans and pros. It was family.
It hasn't been family now for...what...40 years. These days it's mostly media hype pushing for profits for total crap. But big profits and even bigger crap. Pros now are isolated from their fans, too aloof even to wipe their own asses. And most of them are in desperate need of talent, editors, and especially proofreaders....
SPS: Does any of what hooked you remain for you in the science fiction of today?
Earl: Good heavens NO. Pale shadow of its former self. For me, little or no adventure. People like Dean Koontz and Stephen King have totally destroyed both writing and sf. Crap abounds.
Earl: No, that was strictly the failure of periodical distributors crashing under their own weight. Had nothing to do with Sputnik.
SPS: There is quite a resurgence in sf -- you must be aware of that with all the hands reaching for you. Are there writers/works today you are fond of or at least feel capture some of that whateveritwas which first hooked you?
Earl: Contemporary sf escapes me totally. At the same time I find myself doing far too much reading. I had to give that up as a professional editor because there was no time for me, just for work.
Now I'm rereading lots of old favorites and running the whole gamut of contemporary bestselling fiction. I find most of it to be very formulaic...following largely the formula we created for Greenleaf Classic, as strange as it seems. And with a heavy tilt toward female readers who just have to have a go at that incredibly handsome but somewhat naive hunk, hung like a donkey...who will be totally their's before the last chapter closes.
SPS: What would it take for you to return to editing? Anthologies maybe? You've been writing your memoirs, online; any plans for a book -- a print book?
Earl: Always plans. Just waiting for the right person/thing/happening.
SPS: What would the right thing be? Would it have more to do with feeling part of a community, concern/caring for the work and the genre, or money?
Earl: None of these would be motivational except perhaps money. As prices go up, I have to buy/use less. Plus, at my age I'm much too cynical about my abilities to generate enough energy for any occupation. Only hedonistic motives could push me beyond current resting.
SPS: Do you think there is hope for such a sf community again? The Internet and blogging certainly can help with this, right? Or do you feel that ego/money/personality are still in the way preventing such a thing from happening again?
Earl: All media is different these days. Sort of like corporations running the country. Nothing is ever for the benefit of the writers or the readers any more. Unreadable books, banal television, unwatchable films...all selling like crazy.
SPS: So you don't really see anything positive about the Internet -- offering individuals less expensive voices, & ease in connection? Maybe you just feel that way because it allows any ID hiding slob with an email address to contact you.
Earl: You're mistaken. I think the Internet is one of the best things that's come along in ages. I couldn't live without it. Especially the less expensive part, although where I live, with NO option except dial-up that costs too damned much, really makes me miss big city living with competition and facilities that work occasionally.
I don't like subterfuge of any sort. Even usernames are insulting.
SPS: Personally, I too dislike the dishonesty of usernames. I hide behind mine because of the implications for family. Talking with you makes me feel more than a bit ashamed. Not just your finger waggin' but the life you lived. You didn't buckle or run away; you faced things. But I've tired, already, of being the tallest nail. Like you, I too hum Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose -- only I know that I still have something to lose and I'm not willing to pay that price.
Oh, I know I am on lists. Have been prior to W. My battles were smaller, more personal; yours were larger, more public. I hope someday to appear valiant in attempt if not victorious in action in my own history, a family legend; but you already are a legend.
This is part of The Collective Adoration Of Earl Kemp. Those who reach out to you want to rub the Buddha's belly, hoping some of that moxy will rub off. You don't describe yourself with much aggression and valor, but we see it.
As for the other reasons to from an Earl Kemp Mutual Admiration Society, I think they all lead back to passion. Certainly there was a passion behind standing up for Big Beliefs -- 10 years of government stalking gave you plenty of time to reconsider the personal cost. But there also is a passion for writing, the sf genre and the community. No one can describe Earl Kemp as apathetic. Even while you mock & paint yourself as the tired man of so many years, here you are.
In an age of apathy, what's not to admire about Earl Kemp.
And no, dear editor, I am not missing a question mark.
Recently I was 'talking' with Earl Kemp. The Earl Kemp. (If you're an ignoramus, check Wiki.)
I had exchanged a few emails with him before, confirming and posting a call he'd made, for example; but this time I became bolder...
SPS: Earl, I'm particularly fascinated by the concept of your status as an icon. As a creator of collectibles and as one who knew/knows so many other legends who did the same, I imagine the annoying folks who want copies, contacts, signatures, questions answered... It's a foreign concept for a girl hiding behind an online ID, living in terror of being attached to 'smut' because of the havoc it's already played in my life. Not that I've served any time for my beliefs -- yet.
I won't proclaim to be your biggest fan -- a pop quiz would prove that a lie lol. But your name & works come up again and again in my research of The Big Picture, and I must admit a bit of crush along with some envy... Not that batting lashes ought to sway anyone; nor gushing like an idiot. It's especially lacking in charm when typed. ;)
It really would be a treat to ask a few questions & share your answers -- so much so that I don't mind exposing myself as an idiot in terms of all that is (at least the public life of) Earl Kemp.
I realize it's a bit of a contradiction, me spouting that I imagine the annoyance of people asking you for things while asking for an interview; but I'm only human and have more than a few such pesky problems ;)
Earl: It is a problem. You wouldn't believe what some people ask for and, apparently expect to get, for free, including people who won't even sign their messages or have real IDs.
Not to worry. These days even I envy whoever it was people seem to think I used to be. What a time I must have had once upon a.
SPS: As I said, I'm very interested in your experiences and perceptions, so let's start there... What do most people want from you?
Earl: Hands-on sexual advice. How can I become normal? Invite me to your next regularly scheduled orgy. Send me nude photos of yourself.
SPS: Here I thought you were besieged with hands grabbing at your papers & publications, your (little black) address book, and, like me, digging in your brain for stories... And here you are, with the folks whose hands are out not for stuff, but to get in your pants. Not that I'm surprised, actually; it's what I'm here after. But I had at least hoped I had a more subtle approach.
Earl: Not exactly. After all, I'm pretty much past that kind of stuff these days, knocking on 80 and tired enough to prove it.
SPS: What (aside from this interview, perhaps) is the most obnoxious request?
Earl: Letters from clergymen on church letterheads asking to be fixed up with teenage or preteen boys. Letters from law-enforcement on letterheads asking for fuck flicks...in each case they were referred to the FBI for handling.
SPS: This is one thing people I speak with are surprised to hear about you. Most of them know of you from the sci-fi pages and they seem surprised to hear of ...For Nothing Left To Lose...Personally, I want to join your cult just for those points of view. (Then again, I'm under the impression that your cult has many other benefits.)
Earl: Sure does. Keeps me off the streets and clean and honest.
SPS: When I show folks For Nothing Left To Lose, a few say something such as, "Oh, yeah, well, I guess three months in the clink for obscenity would do that..." but I'm of the impression that it was just these opinions which led you to your work, which led to the nasty time. Am I right, or are those other folks?
Earl: You are right. I don't have to feel like I'm fighting the whole world, at least the fucked up professional politicians who sold our country out to the highest bidders. I can go along with the flow and play total idiot just like the majority of C-average US citizens, especially the ones in charge in D.C.
SPS: I certainly will share my thoughts on this, but I wonder what you think it is that continues to draw people to you?
Earl: Audacity. Admitting to the human condition and denying religious superstitions and myths as life motivations.
To be continued...
All images from Earl Kemp, used with written permission.
According to the AP, director and playwright Paul Walker's prize-winning play, Ladies & Gents, is a noir thriller performed entirely in the covered men's and women's bathrooms in Central Park's Bethesda Terrace.
The action takes place near the sinks and urinals; the audience stands, clustered in front of the row of stalls. Each of the two pieces that comprise the play runs simultaneously in both bathrooms, and it doesn't matter the order in which they are seen; the audience splits in half and switches facilities at intermission.
Set entirely in a bathroom, the show portrays the seedy underside of 1950s Dublin, when double-talking politicians professed piety but entertained prostitutes on the side.
"So, pretty much like the state of New York right now," Walker said in an interview this week, referring to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal. "These themes are always relevant."
Walker and Karl Shiels, the artistic director of the experimental Dublin theater troop Semper Fi, decided an actual bathroom was the best place _ no, the only place _ to stage the play.
This isn’t the first time Monroe has been on the obverse of a coin, although the first time around he had to share the honor with a friend: in 1923, the Mint commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine with a special half-dollar, with the heads of Monroe and his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (who will appear on a dollar himself May 15th). It wasn’t actually the Mint’s idea for the commemorative dollar: the commemorative coin was part of an elaborate plan to clean up and improve the public image of the California film industry. 300,000 of the coins were minted at the San Francisco mint and distributed in California — they are relatively uncommon, but not unobtainably rare. Several have sold on eBay from $20 to $80, depending on condition.
From that link, regarding Monroe's first coin, I am reminded of jokes about the Monroe Doctrine. They've been the pun-ery and titular fodder for Hollywood-esque headlines involving Marilyn Monroe -- and as scathing comment on US politics. But before Marilyn, there was another Hollywood connection to James Monroe. Again from the coin article link, a bit of Hollywood history:
Scandals were beginning to severely tarnish the reputation of the studios’ stars and directors. Within only a few months director William Desmond Taylor was murdered under mysterious circumstances, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was indicted for the murder of a minor actress, and actor Wallace Reid died from a drug overdose. The studios responded by launching a public relations campaign that they hoped would help restore public confidence in the movie industry. Two committees were formed. One, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, developed over the next decade into a self-regulating censorship board. The other, the American Historical Revue and Motion Picture Historical Exposition, was a civic-minded organization whose public relations staff found it had little to promote.
Searching for a way to raise funds, the Historical Exposition decided that a commemorative coin would do the trick, and in the process would generate much-needed goodwill for the film industry. The only problem was there were no convenient centennial or jubilee celebrations that California could legitimately claim in 1923. The most obvious historic event correlating with 1923 was the 150th anniversary of the 1773 Boston Tea Party. But in 1773, California was a largely unpopulated province in the Spanish Empire with no connection to New England. This dilemma was finally resolved by Congressman Walter Lineberger. Introducing a bill to authorize the Monroe Doctrine Centennial half dollar, Lineberger reasoned that Monroe Doctrine prevented England, Spain, and Russia from claiming and occupying California. While this was nothing more than historical fiction, apparently Lineberger and his fellow representatives had little concern for such details. On January 24, 1923, legislation was passed authorizing the minting of no more than 300,000 Monroe Doctrine Centennial halves: the coins were to be struck at the San Francisco Mint and distributed by the studio’s Historical Exposition committee.
The front of the coin featured Monroe and his Secretary of State in 1823, John Quincy Adams; the back "in its final form is unquestionably one of the most unusual and daring design motifs ever placed on a U.S. coin.
In place of the relief maps of the continents, Beach substituted two female figures which were contorted into a rough approximation of the shape of each land mass. The North American figure holds a branch in her left hand in the area of northern Canada while extending a twig to South America through Central America with her right hand. The South American figure holds a cornucopia with her right arm. The major ocean currents of the Atlantic and Pacific are also included, and apparently represent the flow of goods between the two continents, unimpeded by the European powers. In the lower left reverse field the centennial dates 1823-1923 flank both sides of a scroll and quill, symbols clearly intended to suggest the Monroe Doctrine. Chester Beach’s initials are found near the reverse rim at the four o’clock position and the inscriptions MONROE DOCTRINE CENTENNIAL and LOS ANGELES encircle the border. Struck in low relief, the design overall is uninspiring. The reverse motifs are novel and would indicate a certain creativity on the part of Beach were it not for the fact that the draped female figures shaped as two continents were actually copyrighted in 1899 by artist Ralph Beck and used by Beach for the seal of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901.
In other words, the deal with the first Monroe coin was to promote a more pure Hollywood -- with a completely fabricated story & a coin with appropriated art. Nice new image, Hollywood.
High-Five Fridays provide the chance to not only be nice, but for me to catch-up on missed posts I should have made during the week. Here's what you almost missed this week...
#2Vintage Pulchritude has lovely vintage erotica. My only complaint is that of the typical collector -- where's the information on the object/photo? But if you just like to look, never mind my collecting concerns and enjoy the antique art nudes.
#3 I'm not just a smut collector -- or even just a collector; I'm many things. But another area of collecting I'm into is religious items; I think any smut collector has to note, but not necessarily like, the connections between sexuality and spirituality, especially when it comes to organized religion. It's like the other side of the coin, I guess. So this anti-Christianity antique postcard is very interesting.
In my best Monty Python imitation I say, "And now for something completely different..."
The purpose of this meme is to give high-fives to 5 people, posts, blogs and/or websites you've admired during the week. I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 5 high-fives on Friday. Trackbacks, pings, linky widgets, comment links accepted!
Visiting fellow High-Fivers is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your High-Fives in others comments (please note if NWS).
Marianna Beck's series, The Roots of Western Pornography, is being published at Libido Film's blog. As they put it, "porn is not merely about sex. It also has a social and political context." Amen.
So far, there are three parts:
Part One: an introduction and Italy in the 16th-century in Italy (titled: I modi -- the birth of the stroke book)
Part Two: French Enlightenment in the 17th-century
But the big news today is that Burke has put together a calendar, just in time for Christmas gift-giving: The Lovely Mistresses of George W. Bush. What a unique gift and devilishly grand idea. I know quite a few people who would get a kick out of this. One will be my staunchly republican brother, who I like to zing for his political leanings every chance I get.
Featuring thirteen pin-up lovelies with names like Miss Appropriation and Miss Representation, the calendar is very tastefully done and office safe. Burke is donating a portion of the proceeds to Watchdog Organizations fighting corporate influence over our American government.
Turn of the century (1900's) postcard featuring one man between two women, his arms about the waists of each. Text reads: Cultivating the "Waist" Places.--
Theochrom Serie 1230-56, printed in the U.S.
A humorous play on waste lands, those lands which have not yet been made property but which may be reduced to that condition, be it the desire of an individual or a group (a country or politician in the name of colonization, for example, or a religious group in the name of God). All of which fall under the category of sheer greed.
The issues of waste lands, conquest, emigration, war, and dominion as ordained by God were quite fascinating to folks in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
For more, see The Rights of War and Peace, including the Law of Nature and of Nations, translated from the Original Latin of Grotius, with Notes and illustrations from Political and Legal Writers, by A.C. Campbell, A.M. with an Introduction by David J. Hill (New York: M. Walter Dunne, 1901).
This book is raw. Limited edition book. Donny Miller did this one because it’s important that people read The Constitution and more than that so why not make it fun and full of naked girls that you can color?
HARRY ORLANDO, SWING, SINNER, MILLIONAIRE, CROONER
HELL ON WOMEN, KING OF THE DOLLS
"STRONG MEAT" HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"SUPER-SATURATED WITH 100 PROOF SEX" GALVESTON NEWS
BOOZE, BRAWLS, SEX, SCANDAL
"SHOULD BE PRINTED ON ASBESTOS PAPER"
THE KING -- out sexes VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
The back of the paperback:
He's the Bit-Time pop-singer whose sexy saga has "SET TONGUES WAGGING FROM COAST TO COAST." Detroit News
"IF IT'S SEXCAPE YOU WANT, THIS IS IT." Cleveland Armory
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS sizzled the move queens - now it's Harry Orlando's turn; THE KING
"A BLOCKBUSTER" Library Journal "GRAPHIC AND GUTSY" Worcester Telegram
What's the best about The King is probably what also makes this book the worst. I've not (yet) read Valley Of The Dolls (though I will; I'm such a huge fan of Beyond), so I can't make any comparisons to that work; but it's safe to assume that The King falls into the genre of trashy books. Books, like those by Sidney Sheldon and Jackie Collins, that I salaciously read years ago. Books which once would have been qualified as great beach reads, with saucy romps and glamorous settings; pure escapism. Books which have now been supplanted by chick lit.
However, what's rather unique about The King is that the main character is male, and we see the world through his eyes as well as several other male leads as supporting cast. While women abound (several even with key or pivotal roles) we see little through their eyes; these characters begin and end as female rolls, if you catch my meaning.
I can't say this is a rare peep into the male psyche -- and truth be told, there are little surprises when you read so many trashy books-- but it is more than a bit refreshing to have the bull-shit set aside in terms of pretense. Heck, it was illuminating -- I thought I had heard all the slang &/or derogatory terms for women, but there were a few revelations, like quiff. Apparently this word predates the current use of the word for 'vaginal fart', drawing from the original definition of the word, a prominent forelock, which certainly makes sense. I am not misinterpreting the multiple and near exhaustive (despite a plethora of other words such as quim, snatch, twitch, and gash) use of the word. Take this passage, taken from page 371, where Orlando admires his notches but realizes the emptiness of such conquests: "You've had the Louvre of lovers, the queen of quiffs, and what have you got in your pocket to take home with you?"
And before you feminists get all pissy, it may soothe (or further upset you) to know that Italian-Americans are Wops, blacks are Niggers and well, you get the idea. The 60's, for all the stuff you read about racial equality, weren't the most racially kind times; and this book doesn't even pretend to be. Enjoy a slice of racial stereo-types with your hair pie (though, I'm not certain that 'hair pie' was actually used in this book -- you get the idea, tho, right?)
But now I'm getting ahead of both myself and Orlando.
The King is filled with sex, yes, but it's not the sex we are used to reading about today. Or is it? I don't know what you've been reading, but when I read a 'graphic' and 'sexy' book, both tab A and slot B are described, usually in detail, along with every step of the action. But in The King, well, it's (nearly) everything right up to those parts. It could be the time, or it could be further evidence that it's all about the thrill of the chase. But in any case, if you expect to find your panties wet from all this action, you'll be disappointed.
If, however, you enjoy a sordid tale of celebrity scandal, well, then, The King should fit the bill. Even if most of the celebs it outs are no longer filling our tabloids, or are dead even, this is fun.
Reading The King doesn't require the use of Google to discover that the lead character, Harry Orlando, 'is' Frank Sinatra (who was really unhappy with this book). Nor will you miss the other celebrities of the 60's hiding behind clear plastic retro bubble umbrellas.
Orlando's be-friended political candidate, the one whose campaign he helps at the request of the candidate's powerful father, is the ill-fated President Kennedy, and so covers the connections between entertainers and politicians. Bland actor turned presidential hopeful, Grant Campbell, is clearly Ronald Reagan. There are assorted smaller characters resembling 'a rat pack' if not the Rat Pack. (Interestingly enough, the black comedian on the late night talk show seems to be Nipsey Russell.) And the respected reporter, Bill Temple, could be very loosely based on James Bacon, but the main pivot points of this character focus on the personal & bitter swing Sinatra -- err, Orlando, makes from Camelot to the Republican party.
Since the babes aren't too fleshed-out, or, rather, aren't much more than flesh, it's hard to point to the not-so-cleverly disguised female celebs from that time period -- other than one who clearly, to me, seems to be Monroe. (She would have to appear in a Sinatra tale somewhere; and I bet the softer approach was due to her death just years before Cooper began writing The King. Then again, the women just don't matter here.)
In this work of fiction politics and social change are clearly characters -- as well masked as Sinatra supposedly is. The role of communism is actually played by communism, but the fictitious Friends of Victor Wade plays the Christian Right/Moral Majority or the friends of Falwell, as shown in this passage:
It was Temple, following up on a tip, who discovered that Wade and his friends were more than simply braying anachronisms. It was Temple who tracked down the proof that the executive level of the group was riddled with racists and boobs who were dangerous in their boobism. "Our sole function," announced Victor Wade, "is to educate every loyal, red-blooded American citizen on his inalienable right to speak out against all enemies of freedom. We have no other design." In truth, factions of the group, quietly but definitely directed from the top, had been successful in wrecking mental-health programs in many small communities, had infiltrated PTA chapters with members who persuaded passive majorities that this history book would have to be dropped because its interpretations of American history weren't patriotic enough or that the teacher with the funny-sounding foreign name would have to be bounced because of vaguely dangerous ideas he held. Pressure had been successfully put on librarians and bookstore owners to drop from stock books which, because of their political, ethnic, or moral slants, furthered the subversive cause. An astonishing number of men running for local political offices as liberals or moderates had been defeated, thanks to red-herring attacks by Wade Friends--attacks dealing not with the candidates' liberal or moderate views but with rumors about the candidates' sexual preferences or long-forgotten adolescent rebellions.
(Fiction or not, you didn't think I'd pass up an opportunity to remind everyone how important it is to not remain passive majorities puppeted by the right-restricting political right -- did you?)
Now that you've got the cast of characters, I see no reason to ruin the possibility of you actually reading this book by giving away too much of the plot. Most of it centers on the 'boys will be boys' stuff of babes, friendships and relationships among men, how men get their power, booze & more babes (or how they perhaps waste their power), all set in the swingin' 60's.
For the most part the juicy-joy of this book isn't about the plot; it's about the retro romp. Highly recommended -- and the cheap thrills can be found cheap at thrift stores, at Amazon, and on eBay.
Searching for additional photos for the Mahu post I ran into this cover of Le Crapouillot. Found here, along with several other issues of the old magazine, I struggled with the ambiguous table of contents in French and even if Tahiti, the cover photo, and the issue's theme of sexuality strongly suggest that a feature of the Mahu, it wasn't clearly stated enough for me to feel comfortable to use it then.
But (too) like many things, the cover & possible contents intrigued me.
High school French suddenly seems more important, and my deepest apologies to Mademoiselles Pfieffer & Glass who both did their best to instill a love of the language.
Jean Galtier-Boissière founded Crapouillot (name of a small trench cannon) in 1915, at first distributed it only to his fellow soldiers. After the War he branched out, took a partner, began to make journalistic history with a brand of fearless muckraking which caused French citizens' eyes to pop, French officials' hair to rise. With stark facts and photographs Crapouillot took out such disagreeable subjects as the origins and secret causes of the War; French mutinies of 1917; Wartime homosexuality and prostitution in the Army; false Wartime propaganda. It sandwiched learned, readable issues on automobiles, cinema, wines, books between explosive exposures of "The Truth About the Saar," ''Mysterious Deaths," "The Masters of the Wrorld." Greatest Crapouillot beats were on Wartime censorship, on munitions makers in general and sales of French munitions to Germany in particular.
OK, so the few issues I had seen were perhaps a bit less typical, with post war years seeing a deviation from the original intents and purposes -- broadening and growth, if you will. Or it could just be my salacious-sweet-tooth.
This article explores the origins of late twentieth-century reactionary political culture through an analysis of Jean Galtier-Boissière and his magazine Le Crapouillot, founded in 1915, which finally ceased publication in 1996. Deriving from both the avant-garde of the belle époque and libertarian politics, the magazine, re-launched in 1919, played a major role in the shaping and expression of political and artistic `non-conformism' in the inter-war years. However, this `non-conformism' began to present certain reactionary characteristics which were accentuated in the immediate post-Liberation period by Le Crapouillot 's fellow-feeling with dissident right-wing political and artistic currents, with which it shared a particular tone, `insolence'. Throughout the Fourth and early Fifth Republics, until Galtier-Boissière's death in 1966, Le Crapouillot presented increasingly recognizable reactionary characteristics, culminating logically in the final phase of the magazine, when it had an explicitly right-wing, and even extreme right-wing, management. An exploration of the history of the journal, together with a discussion of the role of its founding editor, provides a useful insight into the long-term origins, both political and cultural, of late twentieth-century reactionary culture.
With this article, it's not the ability to read French I am lacking, but a membership to the site. :sigh: Well, there's two things to work on: French lessons and a higher income bracket.
But find out more I must because nearly any publication featuring the Profumo Scandal is my kind of publication. Well, that and anti-censorship sentiments, of course.
Its themes were more seriously, intensely, and disturbingly frank. Very dark but very realistic. And it explores fetishes filmmakers still shirk from.
I had no idea that the 'very dark' (and perhaps 'fetishes') referred to yet another Nazi theme... I am not trying to beat a dead horse here, and even toyed with not posting this (at least for awhile), but this is from a slightly different angle than my recent posts (1, 2)...
The story line revolves around Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), a concentration camp survivor, who runs into her former captor and lover, SS officer Max (Dirk Bogarde), who is now a night porter at the Vienna hotel she is staying at with her husband.
The film has been considered everything from tasteless to arousing, from blaming the victims to missing its potential, and, of course, as anything but feminist.
The film is aging well. Now people are seeing more than the 'potential' but seeing that perhaps it has realized them.
Where once Robert Ebert said, "I can imagine a serious film on this theme—on the psychological implications of shared guilt and the identification of the slave with the master—but "The Night Porter" isn't such a film," now others are suggesting that the film has in fact done so.
Perhaps this is still a case of 'too soon' and as the years pass and taboo of showing Nazis as anything other than evil (and therefore incapable of having any real emotion, or sex we can imagine as pleasurable for another) the film will grow in it's credibility.
We like to imagine that the stars of our erotic dreams, as they pose with such poise and promise, are, if not blissfully happy, then some sort of underground rebels, pushing past the limits and norms to just do what comes naturally.
This phenomenon, wherein we view the act of creating porn as escapist as our viewing it, is a normal part of porn purveyance. And it's one that often finds us under attack.
Such frivolous behavior is bad enough, but when involving erotic images and ideas it is even far more dangerous. It's as if, somehow, that imagining her photographed gaze is just for us, and that envisioning she is as equally pleased 'seeing us' as she is delighted knowing why we gaze back at her, that all of this is somehow at once both dissimilar and more dangerously out of touch with reality than it is with any interaction with mainstream media.
(If I were to begin to undertake the pro-porn argument today, I would surely remind women of soap operas, both daytime and prime time version; girls of boy bands, boys of comic book & anime characters; and men -- those heterosexual men who deny use of female imagery -- of their lopsided obsession with sports figures -- any of which is equally as warped in its idolisation and fantasy... Yet somehow still deemed less offensive and risky than porn. But I won't get into all of that argument today.)
While porn in general presents these potential problems, at least in theory, porn from the past has additional pitfalls. For example, we have a tendency to romanticize the past.
We like to remember the past as those less complicated times "when a man was a man, and a woman was a woman," and no place is this more true than with our vintage erotica. But I'm here to tell ya, porn, even vintage porn, is not always pretty.
Sure, there is porn that's less-than attractive (down-right weird, even); and yup, like in any business, organization or group of people, there are always a few bad apples which make things scary. But I'm talking more about what the adult industry reveals about the rest of our culture...
Flip through the pages of any "man's publication" and you'll find not just nude photos, but there, in those printed pages, a stripped down picture of the culture & the times in which it was produced.
Like a portable men's room, the 'talk' that occurs in men's magazines is as au natural as the status of the models. It's not that these publications are necessarily less than literate; it's not that their minds are simply in the gutter. But most of these magazines shoot from the hip. They are direct, frank, and don't pussy-foot about. It makes sense, for how can you expect pages of naked broads not to be surrounded by equally revealing stories?
The term 'explicit' is normally reserved for erotic stories (and directions, we hope), but this matter of leaving nothing to be implied or hinted at is a common tone in sex magazines. Sure, there's playful innuendo, dirty puns, and other word play for nimble tongues, but the mere fact that all this sex talk can go on means the publication is censor-free. Every day matters, like the politics of the times, cannot be forbidden in a place (publication) which wishes to convey to its members (subscribers) that there are no holds barred here. How can they invite -- nay, propel -- readers to undress the models and caress themselves if there are indeed taboos? If free liquor cannot be sent along with the publication to loosen inhibitions, then the articles and other content must convey, "Speak freely, brother; it's OK here. Anything goes!"
Case in point, this copy of Hollywood Follies (Greenwich Feature Syndicate, NY, Wayne Sabbath, Managing Editor), scans of which have been placed throughout this post.
From 1943, this issue clearly embraces the wartime mentality with the images of sailors and females with sailor caps, sending a military message. But it's the cover tag lines, "Follies for Victory" and "Jokes to Jerk the Japs," which really announces it supports our American troops.
I don't post the racist, sexist and dehumanising bits here to proclaim them 'good' or to condone them; nor to embarrass or dirty the image of our troops today. But the (supposed) humor in this old publication provides much insight into our American culture at that time. The jokes and tone may be are in bad taste, but this was 1943 and we were at war. Something more than mom, apple pie and the flag were needed to rally and replenish the troops, so gash and trash-talk it was.
Perhaps the most shocking thing I found flipping through the pages of this rather small bi-monthly vintage magazine was this cartoon of what appears to be officers at a cocktail party talking about a woman. She is wearing a near backless black dress which reveals number on her back and the caption reads, "Darn subtle, these Nazis."
How shocking and horrific to see the Nazi practice of ID numbers tattooed on Jews and forced prostitution made into a sex joke. It's enough to make bile rise in my throat, make me want to rip the publication to shreds.
But as a collector, an amateur historian, this dreadful comic is one link to the past. And while I too would much rather prefer to think of days gone by as more simple and pure, this copy of Hollywood Follies makes it clear that the good old days were neither simple nor pure.
There were good times, good days, but there were also bad things and bad ways. Just like today. So perhaps it's better to think of them just as the old days. Or at least force a reality check on ourselves now and then by reading the trash-talking articles as well as looking at the gash photos.
Does This Film Come With A Vibrator? I Sure Need One...
Thom at Fabulon has posted this lovely video for me, so I'm sharing it here -- but don't just watch it and run away, please stay for the notes at the end! (I wish you could hear me narrating as I view it, but since you can't, notes at the end will have to do.)
And do watch all the way to the end -- the way it's been edited, the narrator's face is priceless!
SPS commentary:
Why block the eyes of the wanton fleshpots? Oh, the added mystery only makes me want them more!
This whole piece makes me want to fuck! Seriously, you should have heard me begging for more photos, larger photos, color photos -- especially with the small b/w bdsm images.
Georgey-boy is right; seeing these images, I've never been the same...
Oh, lordy, he mentions the images on slick pages -- oh, the love lust I have for slick pages. (Surely he makes this remark because he knows that novices will use the pages -- but I beg of thee, please don't! This will ruin your magazine!)
Good old George Putnam is horrified that the nudist publications have, dare I say it?! -- Oh, yes, I will! -- "paid professional models!" (Can you see me sitting here, hand wrist at my forehead in shock and horror?!)
Redundancy aside, George, what of your own "paid professional" status as anti-smut monger? If the models have been paid to pose and spread, is getting paid to pose as a narrator and spread your propaganda somehow more moral?
Think I'm being a bit harsh on ol' Georgy? Here's his bio as a paid "reporter, broadcaster and commentator" (at "92 years young" -- insert chuckle here). Note how Georgey has "had more than a passing relationship with the four great silver screen vamps - Theda Bera, Clara Bow, Tallulah Bankhead and Mae West."
Yeah, that's a man who is anti "Perversion for Profit". I bet those ladies have or would have hit him upside the head.
I know I want to.
Double the irony points: Putnam is from Breckenridge, Minnesota -- as in Myra Breckenridge, the fabulous and controversial film which starred Mae West.
PS This 1965 propaganda film was financed by Charles Keating, the felon.
What they did, while possibly distasteful on many levels, not to mention unethical, is not unusual among men in power and the women who pursue them. To make my point, I bring you a brief contemporary history of illicit sex on a higher level.
Beginning with the World War II era, which many of you may recall, two prominent figures were said to be doing, well, **it** with their female assistants while married to others. That would be then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower with driver Kay Summersby while married to Mamie, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt with secretary Lucy Mercer while married to Eleanor.
Due to a more protective stance back then in the days preceding mad-dog journalism, the public knew nothing of those affairs, involved as we were with whopping the Germans and the Japanese, not to mention their little brothers, the Italians.
Since then, we've had a succession of presidents, some of whom have managed to work in a little on the side while running the country. Prominent among them was John F. Kennedy. He dallied with Marilyn Monroe, who sang happy birthday to him at Madison Square Garden as if it were a mating call, and Judith Campbell Exner, who, it was said, had gangland connections.
Martinez naturally gets around to Clinton. Which reminded me of Gracie's post, It's Lonely At The Top; It's Lonely Everywhere, which focuses not only on Bill himself, but on the TV's Boston Legal and the relationships men have with each other.
Perhaps 'that uncertain feeling' is a more poignant loneliness which too many men mistake for lust. After all, men are raised to be problem solvers -- men of action. And seduction and sex are a filled with action. It's also more culturally acceptable for a man to approach a woman than another man. Of course, she's more likely to empathize than another male and this sharing makes her more willing to have sex...
So there's the math.
Perhaps if John Lewis had befriended Ieuan, or some other chap, he would have found himself less interested in Liz. Then again, he could have turned more to his wife who no doubt would have welcomed the connection herself... But first, John would have needed to identify that uncertain feeling as a loneliness not of the flesh.
It's not that the wives of these men, powerful or impotent feeling, don't understand them -- it's that the men do not really understand themselves. (Maybe they need to at least watch the clips in Gracie's post?)
But now I am getting into psychology, and I'm only admitting to being an amateur historian. *wink*
I registered (finally) at CQ's community. Since this is for mainstream folks, I kept it rather tame and so far have just posted some of my feminist buttons and bumper stickers. I'm too tired to do any more than that, but will get to my books as soon as I can.
In the U.S., by contrast, the government still tries to draw a line between mere sexual explicitness, which is protected by the First Amendment, and obscenity, which is not. Because this distinction is based on “community standards,” which are influenced by what publishers manage to get away with, the line is constantly moving. By running pictures of topless women along with serious articles by well-known writers, Hugh Hefner inspired a horde of imitators (including Duke, a short-lived Playboy for black men with a button-eyed mannequin instead of a rabbit as a mascot) and helped make sexual content acceptable, if not respectable. By 1970, 17 years after Playboy’s premiere issue featuring a nude but discreetly posed Marilyn Monroe, community standards were accommodating enough to allow what Hanson identifies as “the very first pubic hair to appear on the American newsstand.” It belonged to a snorkeler photographed on a beach for Penthouse, a publication that embodied Bob Guccione’s vision of a magazine for men who thought Playboy was too hoity-toity (which makes his title choice a little puzzling).
All who opened their legs in Japan were not Geisha, or impetuous lovers, or just plain lusty -- many Japanese women in WWII were forced into prostitution in military brothels.
Comfort women were sexual slaves many of whom were taken by the Japanese Army during invasions of their Asian neighbors -- before and during the World War II. As you can imagine, they weren't well cared for or even buried properly.
Venus Ramey was the first red haired Miss America, winning in 1944 as the representative from the District of Columbia, and at 82 she's still proving redheads are fiesty: Venus Ramey, 82, shoots tire, stops intruders.
The first Miss America to be photographed in color, she went on to perform in vaudeville, on Broadway in "School for Brides" and in the movie "My Girl Tisa" but she quickly left Hollywood for the farm.
Back home, she married and began raising her two sons. Passionate about Kentucky educational issues and a "burning desire to see the word 'illegitimate' eradicated from the birth certificates of innocent children" Venus ran for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives -- making her the first Miss America to run for public office.
One impressive broad with a history worthy of taking the 'bimbo' out of the image of the woman whose picture was on the "Flying Fortress," a B-17 that flew 68 missions over Nazi Germany in World War II without ever losing a man.
"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.
This old novelty pin features bloomers or panties promoting WWII anti-Japanese sentiments. Small, 3 by 3.5 inches, but with a large emotional wallop, the pin is made of paper and cardboard and a red ribbon attached to a pin. Slogan reads, "Shoot the pants of the Japs."
For more modern panty propaganda, Slip of a Girl has the following goods:
I just got back from a day at an out of town auction and I had to post this right away!
I know it's a day after my anti-suffrage post, but damn if I can help the luck of the find -- and I think I am darn lucky to find this:
I Hate To See A Woman Do A Man's Work
Another thrust at male fears -- the dreaded lesbian! If she votes, she'll become one!
Even the elderly woman in more Victorian garb will turn lezzie if women get that right to vote.
No mark for maker, just 125 on the right side near the bottom (click to see a larger image and you should see it). No date, but is there really a question as to the time period? lol
Anti-suffrage propaganda warned of the dangers -- tampering with men and women's 'natural' gender roles would lead to the breakdown of society. Here are some selected images...
In What, Dinner Not Ready Yet! What Have You Been Doing? the poor husband is left with screaming babies, burning dinner, cats in the milk jug, and utter chaos. He is additionally feminized with his attire, including a frilly apron. The wife returns home to find him inept, apparently denigrates him, and is literally shown wearing the pants.
Here's a lovely bit to send to your Valentine -- you know how I love these -- a postcard just making me feel worn all over:
If you will only marry me you can have all woman's rights Such as staying up on evenings when I'm out late at nights And should such things not satisfy the longings of your soul You can wash up all the dishes and carry all the coal As a really model husband I feel I'm bound to shine So say that you take me to be Your Valentine
In the Suffragette "I told you so" postcard, (Copyright 1909, by Walter Wellman), a man and woman read a poser which reads:
"The Morning Suffragette Bulletin. A New Era of Prosperity at Hand. With the news that a suffragette has been elected as our next Presidentess, several flatiron and rolling pin factories have resumed on full time. It is stated that 10,000,000 faltirons have been ordered by the new War Department alone."
Ah, yes, one of my favorites... Because male voters viewed their ability to pull a lever for a candidate akin to having their own levers pulled...
"Which Do You Prefer? The Home of Street Corner For Woman: Vote NO on Woman Suffrage"
Even women thought it was bad for women to vote. Every era has it's Phyllis Schlafly.
The image above is from this blogger, who writes that "Schlafly and others were able to exploit fears about the larger meaning of women’s equality, and a lot of those fears have faded." I don't see it that way. The ERA still isn't an amendment.
As with suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment is all tied to the scary notion that women are equals. If women are more than or at least not limited to care taking roles for those with more rights, what will happen?
I'm so glad you asked, because here's a sampling... Well, I certainly don't want the government, let alone this administration, in charge of anyone's children... But this is ridiculous. Women in football?! The horror! (Notice hos she doesn't get any chest protection lol) This one is not funny at all. Using the fear of unisex bathrooms as a 'progression' to rape. (Click to enlarge the image and see that the artist included a bit of newspaper clipping to authenticate his stance.) Disgusting fear mongering.
We also have Irving to thank for Watergate. Nixon, paranoid about what Irving's book might reveal, ordered the second Watergate break-in to discover what Irving might have told the Democrats about Nixon's financial and political dealings with the reclusive billionaire.
Oooooooh scary and fun. The 70's were so.... what's the word? Wacked?
Irving himself gave an interview in the Village Voice in which he said, "I was talking to Richard Gere the other day and we kind of honed in on something that not many people have talked about thus far, which is that the climate of the late 1960s and early '70s was a climate of happening and events. And where I lived, on the island of Ibiza, that was a community of anything goes. It was sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. It wasn't the real world. And that was a very important part of what happened that, unfortunately, is not included at all in the movie."
Does that mean there's no sex in the movie -- not even a fade-to-black thingy? I find that hard to believe.
Well, even if Gere isn't acting out Irving's adultery here, we know lots of folks were screwed in 'the great literary fib.'
I just missed this pretty photo of a young Gene Tierney -- and when I say 'missed' I don't mean time wise (there are a few hours left) but rather that I am $95 shy.
(In a world where collectibles are worth what folks will pay for them, I'm betting this sells -- the seller sold another for $95 and that wasn't anywhere as pretty or sexy.)
Tierney is most famous for her role as Laura Hunt in the 1944 film noir classic Laura (at least to me). Others might remember her most for her role as the femme fatale Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven. (And why not? This performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in 1945.)
Tierney had two husbands, costume and fashion designer Oleg Cassini (they divorced) and Texas oilman W. Howard Lee (former husband of Hedy Lamarr), but was romantically linked with Prince Aly Khan (former husband of Rita Hayworth) and Tyrone Power.
During the filming of Dragonwyck, she met John F. Kennedy, who was visiting the set. They began an affair that ended the following year when Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions. It is said that after the election in 1960, Tierney sent him a note of congratulations on his victory — although she later admitted that she had actually voted for Richard Nixon because she thought that he would make a better president.
Ralph Ginzburg passed away in 2006 -- I don't know why I didn't know this earlier... He was quite a character, calling himself a "brandied fruitcake of a publisher," and a legend.
As the Washington Post points out he didn't always win his battles regarding free speech, but he sure tried.
The Queen's Closet: What Marie Antoinette really wore
As Queen of France, Marie Antoinette attracted enough public loathing to ensure the French monarchy's downfall. That loathing, as Caroline Weber points out in Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, was largely focused on the queen's clothes.
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I've been interviewed on Radio Blowfish (direct link to the specific podcast download here).
Peter of
Jane's Guide says, "This blog site is perfectly charming. What an enjoyable time I had here. Your hostess, and the site, is named Silent Porn Star - with no doubt interesting and untold stories behind the name. The focus here is in curating - and celebrating - sexual iconography. I browsed the site's last couple of years of archives, hip hopping over such delights as old pulp fiction cover art, black & white vintage photography, occasional contemporary censorship issues, and even - to my delight - a link to a YouTube clip of Cher and Raquel Welch, all glitter-glamoured up in their prime and glory, singing Peggy Lee's "I'm A Woman". If that isn't as iconic as you could ask for, you're not looking. The commentary is smart, positive, and insightful. This is just the sort of unique site we love to encourage." (Silent Porn Star even made Peter's list of favorite sites!)
Cinema Retro says, "[A] gem of a site that will appeal to any libertines among our readers. Silent Porn Star is an addictive, often hilarious look at how sex and pornography has presented in pop culture over the last century. There are vintage postcards of topless Polynesian dancers, tasteful nude starlets of yesteryear and some delightfully distasteful photos and stories of more recent vintage. We don't expect too many contributors to Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign to patronize the site, but those of us who are proud to be less pure can have a field day looking through those old ads for movies about promiscuous teenagers as well as reveling in other forbidden delights. There's plenty to gawk at whether you're straight, gay or in between - fun for the entire family!"
"Required reading," and "When it comes to sex and collecting, there is no better blog to read because it is always about the sex and the collecting," says Shon Richards.
Blowfish Blog says, "Although the writing is warm and friendly, an aura Sphinx-like and cool surrounds Silent Porn Star. Written by a female collector of historical erotica and risque objects, in it we find out a great deal about a great many things, although not much about the author. But that is part of its charm; like an expert strip-tease, you think you see everything, and then realize that you only saw what you were permitted to. If you are a lover of historical smut, this site is simply mana from heaven, of course. But for everyone, the commentary is learned and witty, intellectual without being snobbish. And we learned so much about the mafia, too."
Starla of The Naughty Guide says: "The writing is elegant and flows off the screen with ease and the site is packed full of information. Some humorous, and some thought provoking. I am sure you will find something to tease your taste buds on this site."
Engaging in "rampant presentism," says anonymous. (Ha!)
Erotic Mandy of Sexy Blog Reviews says, "This is a sex blog of a more 'cerebral nature'," and gives Silent Porn Star 3/5 Orgasms because I'm, "interested in vintage sexuality and is probably quite smart."
Terra at The Naughty Guide gushes, "Silent Porn Star was a joy of a find for me, due to my fetish for vintage erotica. LOVE IT!! This is a blog that is a collection Vintage Erotica bringing it to us in one spot. It is a must visit for those of us that are curious or enthralled with the history of erotica. ...Content is slick, almost as if it was a commercially produced site. I usually read personal blogs, but this interest blog is one that I am adding to my daily read list."
Bran Castle, built in the 14th century as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks, was home to the Romanian royal family from the 1920s until the communist regime confiscated it in 1948. At the end of communist rule in the 1980's, Bran Castle was restored, dubbed "Dracula's Castle," and thus became a popular tourist attraction, with some 450,000 people visiting the castle each year.
Me? I'm not such a fan of horror & blood. But I am a lover of affairs of the heart & hearts themselves... beating with life they literally keep the beat of our lives, turning the rapid pulse of emotion into the racing hearts of passion and then the heated pumping of erotic acts... and how the heart stills with emotional too, be it the skip at romantic introduction or the pause when the heart is broken... I even love them long after they've stopped beating. So, I'd still go see the Bran Castle -- but not for Dracula; I'd go for Queen Marie of Romania.
If that's not enough to seduce you to, how about this quote from Queen Marie regarding a proselytizer:
According to the contract signed when Bran castle was returned, the government pays rent to von Habsburg for the right to run the castle as a museum (including charging admission) for three years. That period ends in 2009 and full rights to the castle & property will then transfer to von Habsburg.
