The Seven Lady Godivas: Dr. Seuss’s Little-Known “Adult” Book of Nudes

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better-known as Dr. Seuss (March 2, 1904–September 24, 1991), was a legendary children’s book author, radical ideologist, and a lover of reading. Among his many creative feats is a fairly unknown, fairly scandalous one: In 1939, when Geisel left Vanguard for Random House, he had one condition for his new publisher, Bennett Cerf — that he would let Geisel do an “adult” book first. The result was The Seven Lady Godivas: The True Facts Concerning History’s Barest Family (public library), which tells the story of nudist sisters who, after their father’s death, pledge not to wed until each of them has “brought to the light of the world some new and worthy Horse Truth, of benefit to man.”

- The Marginalian

 

30 years of photographing sweltering summer days

In 'Remembrance of Summers Past', Charles H. Traub documents beachgoers around the world from Naples to Rio.

Charles H. Traub is not a beach person: he doesn’t like slugging all the gear, the umbrellas, beach towels and picnics; he thinks the sand gets everywhere. He’s also rather restless and doesn’t enjoy sitting still. The photographer does, however, find beaches fascinating places for the way they attract a diverse cross-section of the population, who gather together in close proximity. Beaches are pretty democratic spaces, he says, where class doesn’t really matter. No one cares who you are, what you do for a living or what your hobbies are: “On the beach, the mask comes off. It is a place where people basically let it all hang out, let their inhibitions go.”

- i-D

 

'Really weird tapes': How these friends turned an SF basement into a VHS museum

On the television screen, a woman named Adriana stands in the middle of a California desert, nothing behind her but sand and shrubs. Wearing a swimsuit and holding an automatic rifle, she aims the weapon at an unseen point in the distance and fires. Another woman appears, introduces herself, and fires a different gun — an Uzi, I think — at nothing in particular. This routine repeats for an hour.

We’re standing in a blacklit basement, watching 1987’s “Rock n’ Roll 3: Sexy Girls, Sexy Guns” on a VHS tape, which Mitsu Okubo has gingerly loaded into California’s hardest-working VCR. 

The tape is surreal, sleazy and completely tasteless. It’s also phenomenally rare. Of the “Rock n’ Roll” titles, “Rock n’ Roll 3” is the only tape that Okubo has been able to track down. The films are so notorious that Quentin Tarantino recreated his own version for the 1997 film “Jackie Brown” (his title: “Chicks Who Love Guns”). 

- SFGATE

 

A Brief Compendium of Vintage Opium Underworlds

I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, so if you’re reluctant to step inside the world of 19th century junkies, I suggest you close the door and choose something a little lighter and brighter from our menu. I’m not quite sure how I ended up here myself, stockpiling antique photographs that have survived from the Opium Age and ended up on the internet. In my years of hunting and gathering in the far corners of the web, I’ve always been stopped in my tracks by these images because they seem like such rare and almost unreal insights into late 19th century society.

- Messy Nessy Chic

 

Whose Nightmare Are We Living In: Orwell’s or Huxley’s?

Some books, with their seemingly timeless messages and warnings, never go out of fashion. During the COVID pandemic, for example, Albert Camus’s La Peste became so memetic that I had to ban my Keen On guests from talking about it in the recommended books feature at the end of the show. There are those twin pillars of 20th-century dystopianism, of course, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

And then there’s Neil Postman’s 1985 work, Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, which warns that we can’t have both our Huxley and our Orwell and requires us to choose between them.

- Lit Hub

 

Boozoo Bajou - Way Down feat. Ben Weaver

 

«Cinema Erotica»: faire corps avec l’esprit libre

« Vous pouvez faire absolument tout ce que vous voulez, et c’est assez rare de trouver ça dans les fêtes montréalaises », explique Ariana Molly, photographe, cinéaste et cofondatrice de Cinema Erotica lors d’une entrevue dans un bar confidentiel, où résonne la très symbolique chanson Blue Velvet, de Bobby Vinton.

Si certains peuvent être intimidés par le concept de ces soirées au cinéma L’Amour amalgamant projection d’un film érotique, sets de DJ et performances artistiques, l’artiste se veut rassurante, inclusive. « C’est un endroit accessible, où chacun, peu importe sa communauté, peut se sentir dans son élément tout en sortant de sa zone de confort.

- Le Devoir

 

The Montreal Mafia Murders: Blood, Gore, Cannolis, and Hockey Bags

A Fargo-esque tale of hapless hit men, Mob moles, and two naive pawns who were lured into their web.

On the morning they were arrested for allegedly burning bodies as part of a series of Mafia murders, Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion had already finished breakfast and packed their daughter off to elementary school. A hand-drawn Mother’s Day card hung on the fridge next to family photographs. Viau, 44, didn’t have to go to her shift at the roadside poutine restaurant until later that day, so she tried baking something new: blueberry phyllo puffs. The pastries were still on the stove top when police arrived at 9:56 a.m. on October 16, 2019.

- Vanity Fair

 

Consentir aux plaisirs libertins

C’est un vendredi soir glacial de février. Il est 19 h 30, et de nombreux clients se pressent déjà aux abords discrets du Club L pour venir découvrir les plaisirs libertins. Première règle, le cellulaire doit rester au vestiaire pour assurer la discrétion des clients, mais aussi pour faire des rencontres respectant le consentement de tous. 

C’est une soirée spéciale, où seuls les couples et les femmes seules de moins de 40 ans peuvent se présenter. Chaque premier vendredi du mois, Mateo Lapointe et Andrée Allard, copropriétaires du Club L, un resto et lounge libertin situé rue Jean-Talon, à Montréal, ouvrent leurs portes à la génération montante. 

- Le Devoir

 

The Stanhope Pig and Other Microscopic Victorian Erotica

This is story about how when you peer inside the butthole of a small early 20th Century gold-painted charm shaped like a pig, you can see pictures of naked women and people having sex.

In the mid-19th Century, not long after the invention of photography, John Benjamin Dancer (1812 – 1887) began printing tiny photographs onto glass slides at his studio in Liverpool, England. In Paris, René Dagron (1817 – 1900) wondered how to circumvent the need for an expensive microscope to view them. In 1859, Dagron patented the first Stanhope lens mounted with a mini-photograph.

- Flashbak

 

Cheer Up! The World Is Better Off Than You Think

Enough with the doom and gloom! Our planet may be in better shape than you think.

Human beings have a cognitive bias toward bad news (keeping us alert and alive), and we journalists reflect that: We report on planes that crash, not planes that land. We highlight disasters, setbacks, threats and deaths, so 2022 has kept us busy.

But a constant gush of despairing news can be paralyzing. So here’s my effort to remedy our cognitive biases. 

- NY Times

 

« The Endless Summer », deux surfeurs à la recherche de la vague parfaite

Tourné en 1966, le film-culte du documentariste américain Bruce Brown suit deux Californiens en Afrique, en Australie, en Nouvelle-Zélande, à Tahiti, puis à Hawaï… Toute la poésie du surf.

« Suivre l’été autour du monde » : c’est avec cette ambition poétique qu’un documentariste américain passionné de surf du nom de Bruce Brown partit, au milieu des années 1960, avec les surfeurs Mike Hynson et Robert August de la Californie jusqu’à Hawaï, en passant par l’Afrique, l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande, à la recherche des plus belles vagues.

- Le Monde