On Mastodon (as I had done on Twitter), I follow various pulp accounts that post old books and magazines (and less frequently, albums) that have covers of some interest, often grouped together in a theme. Vintage computer ads, Harlequin romance, ridiculous robots from 50s sci-fi, pin-ups, magazine illustration from mid-century, etc. Site’s like Pulp Covers and Pulp Artists are also good sources for such wonderful nonsense and from those I found the cover artists for many of the pulp sci-fi books I’ve read. The Mastodon accounts are a good way to break up your feed with something visually interesting, kindof like a pop culture museum exhibit.
Continue reading The availability of a vintage pulp magazineTag: Cultural artifacts
The magazines on display during a scene from the 1970 action movie Airport
Watching old movies, I often latch onto a scene that pulls me back to the year that the film was made with both a realization that the artifacts contained within the scene were of-the-time, and an amazement that they are easily find-able now with the Internet. I’d had almost-success finding a dive bar called The Moonfire Inn from MST3K’s riff on The Hellcats (1968), and even if the abandoned old building I found on Google Street View wasn’t it, I learned a lot about the the place’s cultural proximity to both a Paul Newman movie and the Manson Family. Since movies aren’t real, this fascination with old movie artifacts as historical documents can be a bit of a degraded version of the (more understandable) fascination with long-distant history as we walk through ancient ruins. Here though, as with the Hellcats biker bar, the artifacts are real and are not, say, the prop of a Maltese falcon.
Hotwax Trax, Asian exploitation cinema soundtracks
I ordered a copy of the movie Bad Girl Mako (Furyô shôjô Mako) (1971) [ IMDB ] from eBay and it came (as expected) as a DVD-R with a color printer cover using a low-res jpg of the movie poster. I’ve sourced most of the legit copies of pinky violence films I can find and just recently discovered fringe sites that sell copies of unavailable films ripped from who-knows-where. I’ve ordered several from a site called DVDLady which, considering the 30-45 day shipping estimate, seems to be non-US. The images from the site all look pretty pixellated too, so I’m expecting DVD-Rs when they arrive.
Lucky Starr
The Hellcats (1968), MST3K, The Moonfire Inn
Early in the movie, the Army Sergeant hero going undercover ends up at The Moonfire Inn to infiltrate those rapscalious (?), brother-killing bikers in their local haunt. When watching bad 70s movies and I see a named restaurant or bar, or a phone number, I get obsessed with a search for any remnants of it that may still exist. Either to see a record that it once-had-been or to see it manifest in its current form. When I was reading S.T.A.R. Flight (1969), there was an insert for the DeVry Institute (yes, that one) that was to be mailed back to 4141 Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60641 and I had to screen cap the current street view. (When my dad no longer was, one artifact left behind that fascinated me was a jar of matchbooks from various restaurants and hotels he ate and stayed at as a salesman throughout the 70s and 80s. Since then, I wanted to create a blog with an entry for each matchbook and what could be discovered of its origin. Still a good idea (and TBD) but probably a manifestation rather than source of my obsession.)
Continue reading The Hellcats (1968), MST3K, The Moonfire Inn