why.. hello there

Jayne Mansfield, Serious Photographer

swingin' krampus

glass case

Adolphe Willette - Pierrot tickles Columbine to death

photobooth love

Genesis and Lady Jaye

this is so astounding

cagey

Enrico Caruso as Pagliacci

(aka Love Suffocato)

curative throat massage

user operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks

from the U.S. Patent Office

Camille Claudel posing for Rodin

insane asylum

Witchcraft through the ages

Tarot: the Lovers

painting of Jack Parsons by Marjorie Cameron

li'l fella

a tree? Ingenious!

girl in pearls

serious scientist

"birching"

"He was not exaggerating when he called himself an admirer of the fair sex, and if I learn that you have yielded to his advances I will beat you.”
“I will take care that you don’t catch me, never fear.”

Artists/lovers part 2: Nobuyoshi and Yoki Araki

Araki's first published photography book was Sentimental Journey, a document of the honeymoon with his wife, Yoko.

She sold it to her co-workers.

kissing you red

Woe to you, my Princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are froward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.
-letter from Sigmund Freud to his fiancee, Martha Bernays

Parsons & Cameron

Jack Parsons & Marjorie Cameron

oskar kokoschka & alma mahler

Yesterday I sent a life-size drawing of my beloved and I ask you to copy this most carefully and to transform it into reality. Pay special attention to the dimensions of the head and neck, to the ribcage, the rump and the limbs. And take to heart the contours of body, e.g., the line of the neck to the back, the curve of the belly. Please permit my sense of touch to take pleasure in those places where layers of fat or muscle suddenly give way to a sinewy covering of skin. For the first layer (inside) please use fine, curly horsehair; you must buy an old sofa or something similar; have the horsehair disinfected. Then, over that, a layer of pouches stuffed with down, cottonwool for the seat and breasts. The point of all this for me is an experience which I must be able to embrace! Can the mouth be opened? Are there teeth and a tongue inside? I hope so!
-letter to Hermine Moos (dollmaker) from Oskar Kokoschka (painter)

Alma Mahler

Hermine Moos with the completed Alma doll



a more complete story is available here

ain't nobody's business

proper dictation

a LOT more on the Chicago Spanking Review (no, really)

another serious photographer

August 1957

indeed

1944

serious photographer #2

Nympho Librarian

the book in his hand is a nice detail.

secretaries are for chasin'

more Bill Ward magic

budding romance

comic by Bill Ward

the new secretary

rik meets krampus

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

around this time, their bodies merged together

kodak fiends

from the commercial scrapbook School Friendship Book, copyright 1911

"Book of Harlem," by Zora Neale Hurston

"Mandolin journeyed on to Harlem...and each evening stood he before the Lafayette theatre and a-hemmed at the knees that passed."

the Cowardly Lion of Oz

serious photographer

Alfred Cheney Johnston

patented - and how!

Crowley's altar

read Crowley's altar instructions here

Artists/lovers part 1: Paul Eluard and Gala, 1912/13

"in fancy dress"