The Circus

Neat Stuff Blog has some choice circus shots from the 40's and 50's from the The Circus Book: 1870-1950


 



 

Edward Gorey - The Recently Deflowered Girl

As you relax to "Songs The Virgins Love", perhaps you will take a moment to reflect upon the rules of etiquette concerning a young lady in your unfortunate predicament.

Guys & Dolls

Reading from the Weekend ...

Eat, drink, and be slender

Eat, drink, and be slender
Originally uploaded by ☞Uh … Bob☜

Bring on the pigs in a blanket and Flaming Blue Hawaiis, I'm starting a new diet!

On a personal note, back in my college days, I worked summers at a methadone clinic. (oh, the stories!) The director used to talk about how he was going to write a diet manual called "Spit and Stay Slim". You could chew up as much food as you wanted, but you just couldn't swallow it. I imagine you were to carry a bucket around with you for disposal purposes, or perhaps just a large pocketbook or backpack.

I don't know the number of people who actually kicked the heroin habit under his watch, but I suspect it was probably as many as who would have been helped by his diet plan idea.

Pandemonium!

Ok, PCL has once again, been invaded.
Right now we've got a crazy gorilla man lose in the building. And, he's not only crazy, he needs - as the always very sharp observer Lex 10 (he's got a great eye for details!) points out - a haircut. And quite possibly some clothes. Fortunatley the other new member Bella Bliss, probably can fix him up. A vintage suit and a very big hat would be nice. Untill we get everything under control here at The PCL Headquarters we blame Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles, as always!!!

It has been said but its about time we communicate this seriously important message once more: "Throw your Beatle and rock and roll records in the city dump. We have been unashamed of being labeled a Christian nation; let’s make sure four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks don’t destroy our children’s emotional and mental stability and ultimately destroy our nation as Plato warned in his Republic. "

Yes, sirs! Head on over to Conelrad and get your facts right! 'Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles' is probably the only document you'll ever need (except your Bible and ... ahem ... the stash of mags under your bed ..).

Whitney Darrow, Jr's 'Sex and the Single Child'

Cartoons by Whitney Darrow, Jr. illustrating Sam Levenson's 'Sex and the Single Child', 1969. Uploaded and shared by GoofButton.

The PCL Cookbook

From P-E Fronning of Martin Klasch

"The Guys Cookbook", Swedish, 1975

Cut up prose from pulp paperback covers

"... For ten years or more I collected sleaze/trash/pulp paperbacks published in the 1950s to '70s, mainly for the lurid cover art and cover blurbs. I ended up with almost a thousand, a few of the covers can be seen on flickr . The bulk of the collection went when I moved on to the boat, but one day late last century I had the idea to work the cover blurbs into some form of text piece. "Bonnie", my second attempt, came from the covers of various publishers' books, and I juggled them around until I was happy, keeping the individual quotes intact.

Thirty Books - Except Their Secrets... This was the first attempt at building prose/poetry from trashy paperback cover blurb. These all came from the same publisher, Softcover Library. The distinguishing traits of their books seemed to be a colour photo of a topless woman on the front cover but no sexual content in the actual text. I sat at the pc with all my Softcover Library copies in a box, pulling them out one by one and keying in the cover text, with the intention of shaping them into something later. There was no need. "Thirty Books" is the text in exactly the order the books came out of the box. I saw it made poetic sense with no intervention from me. It was thrilling. ..."

Scorzonera / Words

Note: I am forwarding this message from Scorzonera to this site's visitors:
"It would be fun if someone with the skills and material could knock up a Flash movie marrying the text with images of book covers, don't you think?"

Jayne Mansfield for President !!

Much more here.

All About Radiation

"This book’s title,"All About Radiation", is a bit misleading because in addition to a lot of spurious text on "radiation," the author devotes a fair amount of space to trumpeting the wonders of Scientology. But since the author in question is L. Ron Hubbard, a healthy dose of Scientological proselytizing is to be expected. And, to be fair, Hubbard’s misguided ramblings about radiation are about as coherent as his bizarre assertions on the powers of Scientology, so the book is fairly well balanced in its incoherence. ..."
...
On pages 91 through 93 Hubbard boasts that Scientology is "leading" in the development of a chemical to deal with the harmful effects of radiation. The formula for this "wonder" drug dubbed "Dianazene" is as follows and should be taken, Hubbard advises, daily with milk and chocolate:

200 mg. of Nictonic Acid

10 grains of Iron Ferrous Gluconate

25 mg. of Vitamin B

150 mg. of Vitamin B2-Riboflavin

200 to 500 mg. of Vitamin C-Ascorbic Acid

25 to 35 grains of Dicalcium Phosphate

Not only does Dianazene "run out" radiation, Hubbard states, “it also proofs a person up against radiation to a degree.” And if that weren’t enough, Hubbard adds, "it also turns on and runs out incipient cancer." Wow. ..."

Find out more about this book over at Conelrad Read Alert.

Red Rape

"Red Rape is that rare sleazy pulp novel that actually lives up to its lurid cover illustration and alarmist subtitle (IT CAN HAPPEN HERE!) within the first two pages. It was a canny choice on the part of the publisher to use the popular - and in this case suggestive - civil defense rallying cry for the book's jacket slogan because it no doubt appealed to the patriotic and prurient interests of the anti-Communist pervs who purchased the book back in 1960. Indeed, the prolific author Connie Sellers* (who is a man) seems to have taken the subtitle as something of an editorial mandate and produced an "anything goes" Soviet invasion fantasy that eclipses anything in John Milius's wildest RED DAWN wet dreams. ..."

Read the full story of this sleazy anti-commie pulp novel over at Conelrad.

au carrefour etrange / french book covers

I URGE you to check these blogs , full of beautiful high-resolution scans, books, magazines, photos, posters, postcards, illustrations ... pin-up, gangsters, monsters, hippies, sex maniacs (mainly from french materials). A wonderful collection graciously shared by Losfeld from Au Carrefour Etrange blog (in french) - note that the blog is not active anymore since few months - You can also check Losfeld's NEW blog: French Book Covers blog (in english).


Merci!

50´s spanish sci fi paperbacks

'El experimento del Dr. Kellman' & '¡¡Entropía!!'
Click images for enlargement.

50´s spanish sci-fi novels, a nice set at flickr. (via Coudal Partners)

Penguin Book Covers

'The Penguin Book of American Folk Songs' by Alan Lomax.
Click guitar for better view at source.

Penguin Book Covers uploaded and shared to Flickr by letslookupandsmile.

Yoo Hoo, Paperbacks!

I'm Learning To Share! shares some of his friends' paperbacks. A very nice and and imaginative collection.
Some vintage paperpacks.

The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Air Force Nurses

GoofButton presents scans from "Tender Loving Care - The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Air Force Nurses", 1969, Illustrated by Bill Wenzel.





You'll find some more pinup art by Bill here.

Sci-Fi cover art

'Homunkulus 2072', by Richard Cowper - 'Utopia 2300', by Robert A. Heinlein - 'Cloned Lives' , by Pamela Sargent.

Houdini Nation's collection of science-fiction book covers printed in germany. (via RaShOmoN)

Literary Yuma Part One

Despite my penchant for all things immediate and my severe Attention Deficit Disorder affliction, I do always have a book in hand. Nahhh...not the Sporting News or Wrestling Weekly (although, they are convenient tools during the morning constitutional) but real books! Pickup your jaws and read on as I present the first in a series of my favorite finds and reads.

Ringolevio: A Life Played For Keeps


"Ringolevio" is the memorable tale of Emmett Grogan and the Diggers, the irreverent urban guerrillas anti masters and masters of street theater who made San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury a home, putting on Grateful Dead dances in Golden Gate Park, ladling out free stew to all comers in the park's Panhandle, and keeping the peace with the cops. While Kesey's Merry Prankster's were off tripping the light fantastic, the Diggers were transforming the Haight from a seedy district of abandoned Victorian houses into an evanescent paradise on earth.

My first reading stemmed from the memories of playing the intensively violent kids game in my youth.

"It's a game. A game played on the streets of New York, for as long as anyone can remember. It's called Ringolevio, and the rules are simple. There are two sides, each with an equal number of players. There are no time limits, no substitutions and no weapons allowed. There are two jails. There is one objective......"

That objective varied from borough to borough but basically involved doing everything humanly possible to catch opponents and keep them in "jail" until opposing teams dispatched early day Rambo's to beat the living crap out of the protectors of the jail and free their comrades. Sounds like a blast, huh?

I suspect that this youthful urban guerilla warfare was a major factor in our protaganist's life and eventual tie in with the infamous and decorated Diggers of SF in the 1960's.


Additional Resources: Ringolevio: The Game
Ringolevio - Full Text
Digger Archives
Peter Coyote's Intro

You Asked For It

An early repackaging of Ian Fleming's "Casino Royale."