Tuesday, August 28, 2012

More Nudes from Arundel Holmes Nicholls


Here are two more of the six eight-by-tens I found Saturday.
Is she the same woman from Saturday's post, the one picking up a starfish?
This one seems to have been taken somewhat later, guessing by the bobbed hair.

Monday, August 27, 2012

The Lady and the Cake, Part 2

Here are more scans of the lovely lady, clad only in a diaphonous wisp of a garment, cavorting with a birthday cake. Scans 4 through eight follow!

Cycling through the spectrum of human emotions, here in #4 she's carefree!
In #5 she's thoughtful, lighting a candle and reflecting on something deep and wonderful--
#6 finds her having a happy thought, perhaps of a far-off loved one.
But in #7 she's reminded of something sad--though her right nipple seems to have perked up between shots.
And in #8 she's practically mournful. Sorry she's still dressed! For the next and last installment she will be partially disrobed, I promise.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Pretty Cityscapes

Some of you probably think this blog is turning into a mere outlet for vintage cheesecake. Not so! Just to prove otherwise, here are two colorful views of famous cities: (CLICK TO ENLARGE!)
This is Paris, France, photographed from (I think) the top of the Montparnasse Tower.
And this is a street scene from Brussels, Belgium in 1984.

Next time: more vintage gals!

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Nudes in Nature: Arundel Holmes Nicholls

I got lucky today at an estate sale: a set of six old eight by ten black and white nudes.

They're by Arundel Holmes Nicholls, who was active from the teens through the thirties.

Good stuff!

Friday, August 24, 2012

A Scantily-Clad Beauty and a Birthday Cake in stereo, 1927

I posted one of these a while back and now I'm going to post the whole set, a few at a time. Just like a strip tease!
Which this kind of is.
She looks like she's really enjoying the lighting process! I wish I could get that enthusiastic about things.
Sorry these are a little out of focus. The cards are quite curved. She's still a pretty thing, though, and we'll be seeing a lot more of her later.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Dubonnet Ghost Sign and the Magic of the Digital Darkroom

Here's a picture I shot on Ektachrome in the summer of 1983 of one of the last Dubonnet wall paintings. The slide itself is disgustingly moldy, the mold attracting dust, but I was able through the magic of the digital darkroom to get this lovely image:



Here's what it looked like when I scanned it:

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Chimp-on-Dolphin Violence

Longtime readers (obsessive, detail oriented, OCD ones anyway) will remember this post from May of 2009, featuring a photo of a sculpture in Paris's Muséum de l'Histoire Naturelle of an orangutan (or as I like to spell it, "orang-outang") strangling a man while its offspring cheers it on:

http://pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/2009/05/attack-of-great-apes.html

It includes a link to a photo of a chimp attacking a dolphin from the Parc de l'Orangerie in Strasbourg, and my lament that I will never find my own photo of said statue. But find it I did!
Click to enlarge! I'm generally pretty displeased with the quality of my photos from those long ago days (1982 in this case) but this one came out pretty well.  And of course you can never have enough pics of chimps attacking dolphins!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Hungry gargoyle

Paris, Tour St. Jacques, mid-eighties. I've always liked this picture because it either looks like the gargoyle is guarding the tots on the carousel or preparing to devour them one by one.
That's all I got today!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Hipsters and Hammett in Redbook, 1933

I picked this up a few years ago in Wichita, the issue of Redbook featuring the first appearance of "The Thin Man." It's a full-length novel, although I don't know if the text is precisely the same as the finished book.

It's right purty, though, ain't it? Sorry about the bottom of the scan, the mag was just too big for the scanner. And here's the back cover:
 PBR! That's all it took to be a Hipster back in '33, just frameless glasses and a white moustache and a three-piece suit and a meat fork! Look at the posers in the mirror, trying to out-hip this guy! They look so self-conscious and defeated!

Friday, August 17, 2012

Oh Boy! Vintage Sleaze!


I picked this up on eBay a few years ago. It may or may not be the work of the same photographer who shot a whole box's worth of very similar stereo brothel views in France sometime around the 1930s. That box is somewhere in storage in the basement beneath my former office and I'm in the process of looking for it. In the meantime, here's a lovely lounging inhabitant of a long-gone maison close:

(Click to enlarge, seriously. And if you have some sort of stereo viewer, use it!)


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Ventriloquism


Did you know that the adjective relating to ventriloquism is "ventriloquial?" Which as a child I mispronounced adorably as "ven-tril-o-quo-yal." I had the notion at one point that I wanted to be a ventriloquist. My parents wouldn't let me have a dummy, though, and no one really wants to see a ventriloquist talking with his empty hand.  So here's a Jerry Mahoney dummy I found:
 
Here's something I bet you didn't know: Paul Winchell, Jerry Mahoney's creator and manipulator and vocal source, also co-invented one of the first artificial hearts with Dr. Henry Heimlich, of Maneuvering fame.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Jake's Wake/Kirby's Reunion!

Last weekend in Wichita some friends organized a reunion of the grizzled sots and wised-up former grifters who hung around in Kirby's back in the 8-0s and early 90s. Unfortunately the thing turned into a wake for uber-regular and comic genius Jake Euker, who died earlier in the week. Nonetheless a good time was had, as they say, by all, and in the best tradition of wakes many Jake stories were told and many glasses lifted.
Without naming names:
 Standing outside in the grand parking lot tradition.
 Who is this sultry, leering temptress?
 Someone looks surprised! Perhaps an "off color" remark?
Music! Featuring on vocals a young lady whose parents were regulars before she was even born. Proud papa is on sax at left.
This guy's laughing because he doesn't own the place any more.

For a view of the place in those long-gone, halcyon days, see: http://pocketfulofginch.blogspot.com/2010/03/kirbys-88.html
More to come!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Used Thrift-Store Underwear for the Discerning Woman

Today was supposed to be the day I thrilled you with some vintage erotica from the 1930s. Unfortunately, the lab I used only scanned one-half of the stereoscopic glass slide , thereby robbing you, my loyal readers, of the full 3-D experience! And so while I return to the lab to explain to them the concept of stereoscopic photography, I present a slightly less exotic but still titillating spectacle:
 Yes, somewhere in eastern Kansas is a flea market selling used underwear! And cheap used underwear at that.
 In case the fifty-cent bras don't meet with your standards of excellence, here are some fancier ones hanging on the wall.
 The lady who runs the place is very sweet so I'm not going to name the town here. But boy howdy, ladies, if you're ever traveling through the Sunflower State and you run out of underwear, you could do worse than hitting the thrift stores.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

More Pepsi--for the Road!

 I'm still traveling, so here are a few more scans from the fantastic Pepsi brochure to tide you over until my triumphant return:

First, the Crown Lithographing Department!
The Label Printing Department! 
One Million  Case Storage Capacity! That's a lot of sugar water!

 Here's a spectacular view of the Bottle Fillers and Labelers!
 More giant tanks!
 And finally, the Great Battery of Pepsi-Cola Carbonic Gas Tubes!
See you soon!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Church Sign

 Near Benton Harbor, Michigan, a Seventh-Day Adventist church with a cool mid-century sign.
 That's all for today and maybe for the weekend as I'm heading out on the road.
More pics when I return!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Another Film Noir Poster from Belgium


This one's for another "White Slavery" picture. Both titles translate as "Slaves for Rio."
The English title is "They Were So Young," and the story centers on a Rio modeling agency that's a front for a call-girl ring. And it's got Raymond Burr! He plays "Jaime Coltos."

Monday, August 6, 2012

Pepsi Beats the Others Cold

 Here's a beautifully painted and reproduced Pepsi-Cola 39th Anniversary brochure from 1939. Click to enlarge! This is some nice four-color printing, here.
 The Romance of Pepsi-Cola!
 The labs and the cola-nut department!
 These storage tanks look like something by Bruce McCall.
 Raw sugar!
How many men drowned in those giant syrup vats?

MORE TO COME!