Actress Marian Martin in a Satan-themed burlesque cape. Martin actually played a dancer named ‘Pinky Lee’ in the 1943 film, ‘Lady of Burlesque’ which was based on the novel ‘The G-String Murders’ written by strip tease queen Gypsy Rose Lee. Martin was not a burlesque performer, but her costume is in the satanic burlesque spirit of this post.
 
Of the many fun things that comes along with being a part of the diverse compendium that is Dangerous Minds, those rare days when my feet hit the floor, and I have no idea what I’m going to write about that day, are not among them. Which is why I try to stockpile posts concerning the guy who should have built my hotrod, Satan, for those kinds of days. Because let’s face it—Satan is a big crowd pleaser among DM’s readership.
 

Burlesque performer Diane de Lys in a publicity photo for her show ‘The Devil and the Virgin,’ 1953.
 
I hate to admit it, but sadly I know very little about the world of burlesque despite having a few friends who actually work in the field professionally. So the discovery that dancers back in the 1920s and 1930s (and beyond) used an unusual prop—a costume that was split into two distinctly different styles that was used for a “1/2 and 1/2” style of dance performance was sort of new to me.

One side would feature a “normal” kind of stage dress, and the other could be anything from a man or a maybe a gorilla (apparently, after King Kong was released in 1933, the popularity of girl/gorilla acts skyrocketed. Go figure). Or in the case of the images in this post, Satan himself! That said, I’d personally love to see this trend return to the burlesque stage (if it hasn’t already). Many of the photos you are about to see also feature burlesque performers all dolled up like the devil dating as far back as the early 1930s. They are also slightly NSFW. YAY!
 
H/T: To the burlesque treasure trove that is Burly Q Nell.
 

 

Early 1930s.
 
More devilish dancers and their demonic debonair dance partner after the jump…

 
When I got to San Francisco, the Summer Of Love was in full effect and I was crashing at a pad on Waller street in the Haight. There were a couple dozen of us in a large multi-room apartment sleeping on the floor, on couches, wherever we could find a few unoccupied square feet. I had a nice setup in an oversized closet. I knew the guy who rented the apartment (we had gone to junior high together) and so I got some preferential treatment. Everyone in the place were pilgrims from all over the United States and we were all under twenty.  And, like I said, it was the Summer Of Love. So a lot of fucking was going on.

Everything you’ve read or heard about “free sex” in the Sixties is pretty much true. It was a love fest and the worst that might happen is that you got the clap or crabs. No one was dying. And for awhile no one that I knew was having babies, either. It was as if God had said “go for it.” And we did. I’d lie in the black light glow of my closet tripping on acid and listening to the zipping and unzipping of sleeping bags as young lovers migrated from one to the other, their giggles and moans mingling with the steady drone of KSAN radio playing the soundtrack to our lives.

In the world of commerce, far from Hippie Hill and Panhandle Park, the free sex “thing” was a great way for newspapers and magazines to sell product. There was an international explosion of hippie-themed publications that dealt with sex, politics, art, etc. Some were legit. Some were pure exploitation. Some were both. A lot of periodicals actually contained the writings of well-respected thinkers like Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary and were read by the counter-culturists they were intended for. Others were designed to appeal to the gawkers and the “raincoat crowd.” Hippie shit sold and there were a bunch of easy angles for marketing it: sex, drugs and rock and roll. If you didn’t have the balls to be a part of it you could always imagine. Burn some incense, put on some sitar music and pull your pud as you pictured yourself surrounded by a bunch of flower children wearing beads, headbands and patchouli. Your very own hippie oasis in a rec room tricked out in plywood and shag carpeting. Walter Mitty as imagined by R. Crumb.

Here’s a collection of covers that run the gamut from authentically cool alternative press publications to some really goofy softcore pulp. As I was compiling these it became quickly apparent that putting naked hairy dudes on the covers was never part of the marketing plan. The free love movement still had some old school hangovers from Playboy magazine.
 

 

 
More groovy hippie shit after the jump…

 
Any woman (or man, for that matter) who has ever walked into an auto garage and rolled their eyes at the ridiculous pinups on the wall featuring scantily clad woman draped on top of Ford Torinos or holding Valvoline motor oil, will probably appreciate these bawdy pics.

This fantastic photo shoot was done to help a nonprofit called Books To The Rescue Yavapai County, which seeks “to help first responders limit the emotional impact of adverse childhood experiences” by providing comfort packages with books and toys.

The nonprofit was founded by Jasmine Castigliano, who had the idea of enlisting her photographer husband Chad for an, erm, “provocative” photo shoot that, in addition to being hilarious, also does achieves something important by lampooning some outdated gender images.

All we know about the hirsute firefighter in the pics is that his name is Tim—although he now goes by the moniker “the whimsical woodsman.”

You can buy your “Whimsical Woodman” calendar here—a portion of the proceeds does go to Books To The Rescue Yavapai County.
 

 

 
More hilarious and sexxxy pics after the jump…...

Handmade, leather Cthulhu mask.
 
I recently stumbled on these fantastic looking leather “Cthulhu” masks while hard at “work” and man, they really are something to behold.

Although the various masks in this post are not specifically heralded as being the latest in far out “fetish” attire, I’d hedge a bet that a fair number of them have been purchased for just that very purpose. Created by Wasteland Artisan in Montreal, Canada, the description for these handmade, steampunk-style masks does note that you should not get your Cthulhu mask wet, but that “a little sweat” is okay (although of course may cause you to stink with the “stench as of a thousand opened graves.”) As far as I can tell, there are unsurprisingly no Cthulhu masks available at the moment (so I have no idea how much they cost), but Wasteland Artisan does do custom orders so I’m guessing if you just gotta have one of these things, it’s at least an option. I also found a “Hello Kitty” version of a Cthulhu mask that you can have custom made if that’s the way you like to play, because I don’t judge and neither should you.

Is “fhtagn victim” a pun?

 

 

 
More images of these cosmic and creepy Cthulhu masks follow after the jump…

 
The amazing 2103 movie Hentai Kamen: Forbidden Super Hero presents the exploits of a superhero with righteous abs and some frilly panties draped demurely over his face—indeed, it’s the panties that grant him his super powers.

Hentai is the Japanese word for “pervert,” and Americans generally use it as an all-encompassing term for Japanese porn, especially if it has a kinky element.

Hentai Kamen: Forbidden Super Hero is the movie adaptation of a comedy manga series written and illustrated by Keishū Ando that first appeared in 1992. Ando’s series was called Kyūkyoku!! Hentai Kamen, which translates as “Ultimate!! Pervert Mask.”
 

 
You might be tempted to imagine that the movie isn’t real, just the trailer is. Nope, it had a screening at the Japan Society in New York City in July 2013—it sold out—and it’s available on Amazon. Hell, a sequel came out earlier this year.

“You are a Hentai of Justice!” If there’s any, er, justice, that will be the next bit of bedroom palaver to sweep the world….
 

 
I Modi or The Ways was a book of engravings depicting sixteen sexual positions. Think of it as The Joy of Sex for Renaissance times. The book, also known as The Sixteen Pleasures, was published by the engraver Marcantonio Raimondi in 1524. Raimondi based his explicit illustrations on a series of erotic privately owned paintings by Giulio Romano. The book was widely circulated. It led to the first prosecution for pornography by the Catholic church. Raimondi was imprisoned by Pope Clement VII. All copies of the book were destroyed.

Our story doesn’t end there, as the poet and satirist Pietro Aretino heard of the book and wished to see Romano’s original paintings. Interestingly, Romano was not prosecuted by the Pope as his paintings (unlike Raimondi’s book) were not meant for public consumption. Aretino decided to write a series of erotic sonnets to accompany the paintings. He also successfully campaigned to have Raimondi released from prison.

In 1527, a second edition of I Modi was published with Aretino’s sonnets. Once again the Pope banned the book and all copies were destroyed—only a few small fragments of I Modi or Aretino’s Postures survive which are held at the British Museum.

In 1798 a completely new version of I Modi was published in France under the title L’Arétin d’Augustin Carrache ou Recueil de Postures Érotiques, d’Après les Gravures à l’Eau-Forte par cet Artiste Célèbre, Avec le Texte Explicatif des Sujets (The ‘Aretino’ of Agostino Carracci, or a collection of erotic poses, after Carracci’s engravings, by this famous artist, with the explicit texts on the subject) based on engravings by Baroque painter Agostini Carracci was published.

These 18th century engravings mixed classical myth and history within a contemporary setting—though their intention is still the same—to arouse and “educate” users to the joys of sex.
 

The frontispiece to the book the goddess of love, sex, beauty and fertility Venus descending on a chariot.
 

Husband and wife Paris and Oenone try out penetration side-by-side.
 

Angelique and Medor—two characters from the opera ‘Roland’—perform the ‘reverse cowgirl,’ although they probably had a different name for it back then.
 
More sex positions of the 18th century, after the jump…

A look inside the decaying adult theater, the Park, in Detroit.
 
Detroit’s Park Theater (also known as the “Lincoln Park Theater”) has had a rather long and diverse history. When it originally opened in 1925 in Lincoln City, Detroit, it was an elegant Art Deco style movie theater. In the late 1960s it was briefly converted into a live music venue where Lincoln Park natives the MC5 often played for next to nothing to large crowds. Then, sometime in the early 1980s, it became an adult theater that operated (much to the displeasure of many Lincoln Park residents) for nearly 30 years.

When the theater closed in 2008, the owners (who wanted to develop the building as a part of a multi-million-dollar strip club operation), donated the Park as part of a settlement agreement. The Park has since been converted into high-end lofts and retail space. However, before it was restored, the once opulent theater fell victim to decay and vandalism. The images that follow are perhaps not for the faint of heart, especially since the intrepid photographer used an infrared camera to pick up some of the “sticky mess” that was left behind after the Park closed its smutty doors. Hopefully he or she was up to date on their tetanus shot. That said, I still feel like it’s necessary to say that the photos you are about to see are NSFW.

If these walls could talk, eh? They’d be screaming “WASH ME!”
 
UPDATE: A kind commenter has corrected my error noting that this adult theater was not located in Detroit, but in Vancouver. Photo credit: Michael Mann
 

The once beautiful Park Theater back in its heyday, sometime in the late 1930s.
 

The projector room at the Park Theater.
 

 
More after the jump, including those ‘sticky’ infrared film shots…

A miniature version of the infamous ‘Peep World’  porn shop, shown with a one-dollar-bill—how appropriate—to show scale.
 
Brooklyn native, artist Alan Wolfson was riding the subway into his beloved city by the time he was only ten-years-old and has strong recollections of what the city that never sleeps looked like back in the 1950s and 1960s. Although Wolfson says he never started out wanting to be an artist, in 1979 he moved to Los Angeles with the hope of cutting his teeth designing miniature effects for films. There, thanks to a bit of luck and good timing, a friend of Wolfson’s introduced him to an art dealer. A year later, Wolfson would showcase ten of his remarkably detailed 1/2-scale replicas that would launch his nearly 40-year career.
 

Take a peek inside ‘Peep World’ and their “Private Fantasy Booths.”
 
So painstakingly detailed are Wolfson’s tiny structures that it almost appears that they had once been inhabited by small sleazeballs or strippers. Many of Wolfson’s works are creative fictional mashups that he dreamed up—however some are modeled after real, seedy New York landmarks. Such as “Peep World,” the long-running porn theater and shop (near Madison Square Garden) that finally closed its doors in 2012. Thanks to Wolfson, we can still take a peek inside “Peep World” where the racks are still lined with filthy magazines, or leer inside one of the joint’s “Private Fantasy Booths.” You can practically smell the Pine Sol.
 

A look at Peep World’s dirty magazine and DVD racks.
 
Many more of Wolfson’s tiny, sometimes fictional homages to a lost New York, after the jump…

The Naked i Cabaret in Boston’s old “Combat Zone.”
 
I grew up in a small town just outside of Boston called Somerville. And like pretty much like any other teenager, I worked quite hard at the craft of getting into trouble as often as possible. I ran with a crowd that was comprised of teenage losers that enjoyed passing the time stealing beer from delivery trucks. As far as you (and my parents) know, I (mostly) never did anything more than drink said stolen beer under train track bridges while underage.
 

Combat Zone, 1974.
 
But when it came to a right of passage in Boston, if you were a late teen or mostly of legal drinking age in the late 80s, you hit up Boston’s Chinatown after last call to eat food full of MSG and drink “cold tea.” In Boston, (and perhaps where you grew up, too), “cold tea” was code for “beer” (usually flat) that you could order slightly before or after closing time that was served up in white teapots in certain restaurants in Chinatown. Of course, after a night of youthful boozing, we would occasionally have enough “beer balls” to walk through the red light district of Boston that bordered Chinatown known as the Combat Zone. I remember one particular night when, after a couple of pots of cold tea, someone dared me to sprint through the Zone alone as fast as I could, which I did. Because what could go wrong when a blond teenage girl decides to run through the seediest part of town full of peep shows, dirty book stores, prostitutes and pimps?

Although widely considered a place of ill-repute, the Combat Zone’s history is important to Boston for many reasons. Specifically, thanks to its “relaxed” approach to adult oriented pursuits, the Combat Zone was also home to a wide variety of drag clubs and gay bars frequented by Boston’s LGBT community. Which is in part why in 1976 The Wall Street Journal dubbed the area a “sexual Disneyland.” In other words, there was something for everyone in the Combat Zone. And that wasn’t always a bad thing. In 2010, an art exhibit at the Howard Yezerski Gallery showcased photos taken in the Combat Zone from 1969 - 1978. Many of the images from the show as well as others taken during the Zone’s heyday, follow.
 

 

1978
 
More Beantown sleaze, after the jump…

Parkway Tavern, St. Paul, Minn.
 
Matchbook covers were the internet of the 1930s through the 1950s. Think about it: Matchbooks were a freely distributed medium available to all classes of society that enabled the end user to find such goods and services as “ice cream,” “package goods,” laundromats, “de luxe cottages,” and “real Cuban rhumba.” Furthermore, matchbook covers used images of sex to entice end users into consuming alcohol and other addictive narcotic agents (nicotine).

Okay, so maybe that argument is a stretch. But clearly, matchbook covers were a very visible part of society during that time, and that isn’t the case today. Smoking rates are surely down since World War II, and people probably spend less time in bars and more time in their smoke-free homes (and hey, bars are smoke-free nowadays too).

I quit smoking a couple years ago, but even when I was smoking I didn’t rely on matchbooks very much, I used lighters and sometimes wooden matches in matchboxes. My dad used to collect matchbooks, but this was in the 1980s or so and they were fancier than these ones pictured here.

James Lileks features this amusing gallery of “Cheesecake Matchbooks” on his expansive website brimming with vintage nonsense. Lileks has published a few books, of which two of the best-known are The Gallery of Regrettable Food and Mommy Knows Worst: Highlights from the Golden Age of Bad Parenting Advice.

I like the text advertisements almost as much as the sexy ladies. I want to know more about Grant Mullinax and Delbert H. Arbuckle and Al Fussner!

Click on any image to see a larger version.
 

Ace Club, Mattoon, Ill. 
 

Star Lite Club, Key West, Fla. 
 
More vintage cheesecake matchbooks after the jump…......