A soft moist shapeless mass of matter.
The soft moist part of fruit.
A mass of pressed vegetable matter: apple pulp.
The soft pith forming the contents of the stem of a plant.
A mixture of cellulose material, such as wood, paper, and rags, ground up and moistened to make paper.
The soft tissue forming the inner structure of a tooth and containing nerves and blood vessels.
A mixture of crushed ore and water.
A publication, such as a magazine or book, containing lurid subject matter.
oh btw, beware of random linking...
I can't seem to get enough of pulp. Course I never really considered what it was other than vintage or you don't belong here. Actually most of it takes me back to the memory of walking into the Monkey's Retreat on the OSU campus area and just seeing all these off the wall magazines. Tons of them, racks and racks of vintage pulp. I love covers, the corny titles and hilarious one liners... "she was made for love.. he was made for crime.." Cheesecake comes to mind. Like anything for me really, once i get a taste and I like it I try to get as much of it as possible. And then things start happening, I start seeing it everywhere or I start seeing it in other peoples lives, and i find common threads from others on the subject, material etc. I randomily suck down some music online, its lounge but could be anything, just turns out to be PERFECT pulp material. Haha.. It's been a good morning.
Part of me thinks what's the attraction here, saucy vintage pinups? some, i like the aged feel of it, a hopeless romantic in me maybe for the vintage production of a pulp mag? That's kinda it really. Someone sat around and thought of making this mag/book etc.. and made it. At the time, it fit, today, it just makes me laugh and it resonates in me as a place to go to or look at to get a fresh view. So much of pulp/lurid theme these days is like a shotgun wedding, there is more innuendo, its in yer face, there is no more suggestion or provocation, its right here right now, there is no more question, the answers are given to you. I like how these mag and really all it is just cover art, but like any cover, you only get one chance to get that customer and that rule still stands today as far as a product on the shelf. If someone doesnt know it, yer cover image and your title text etc is your first attack in getting to come closer and consider. So i like these covers for that draw they have. It was a time were you werent supposed to be revealing or staright to the point, yet they tried to push it a bit as far as they could go and still reach the customer.
Part of the draw is that these are mags and books that were on the coffee tables of the rat pack. The only real icon or group of people that comes off the top of my head when looking at these covers. I think who was the customer, who bought these things. I see Sammy Davis Junior and the rat pack members or folks of that kind of nature. Lurid isn't bad by any means in my book, its just fringe to me.
What is lurid? the thesaurus tells me: "ashen, bloody, blue, deep, dirty, disgusting, distinct, exaggerated, extreme, fiery, ghastly, gory, graphic, grim, grisly, gross, gruesome, hideous, horrible, horrid, horrifying, livid, low-down, macabre, melodramatic, obscene, off-color, offensive, purple, racy, raunchy, revolting, rough, salty, sanguine, savage, sensational, sinister, startling, terrible, terrifying, violent, vivid, yellow"
Now I think its interesting that blue, purple and yellow are lurid. Thinking about a scene that would unfold before you. Could I really take a step back and say to someone "that was sooo yellow...". or "get this purple crap off the stage!" haha. There's alot of negative words there I just never attached to pulp. Course again I never called it pulp, I always called it retro or vintage. My good friend Jeff has what I'd consider probably the largest collection of tiki/vintage album covers I've ever seen in one collection. The basement of his house is a Tiki Bar / Shine to the sounds and vintage looks and feels of Tiki. Alot of pulp gets tossed into that bin as well I think. Tiki is like the hawaiin groove version of pulp.
So what's the fuss over pulp today eh dan? No reason really, just something i've been seeing in the http:// gateway lately. Part of it brings back a memory I had last fall while working on a project in Montana. First of all Montana is gorgeous. I always thought, Vegas, I belong in Vegas. Heh.. thats for another time, but ya I didn't really have any one particular part of the nation that really attracted me, ok.. that's not true Portland was awesome. But anyways when I was in Montana it was quiet, totally unlike me yet felt really good. BIG SKY is right, massive sky, its hard to explain, but vast areas of nothing, it was so nice to see..no mall, no cars, no buildings etc.. it wasnt like that in all areas.. just most hahah. Anyways the work we had to occured in this really REALLY REALLY small town, population 600. Yer basic cattle ranch folk, which is who we were talkin to ranchers about ranchin and what not. So while we're there, we stayed at this bed and breakfast that was like a scene in the movies.. ya take the main road this way and turn off to yer left into the field / dirt road and go thataway for a long time. Its just you, your car and dust, gravel and old brokendown fencing around you. Looking over to the left while yer in this seemingly endless straightaway you see nothing be fields, cattle land, and oh ya that big ass mountain over there. Eventually you pull up to this old house, and your host is a 98 year old lady with a dog the size of a yugo. She's the got the old barn out back, all kinds of gizmos that spin in the wind, lotta wind... maybe thats why i liked it so much. Tons of wind, a good strong wind to remind you yer not alone. As the sun began to set and I sat on the porch and witnessed probably the greast singlemost amazing sunset i've ever seen. Clouds gleaming, sky darkening, purple, yellow, blue.. (oh so lurid.. haha!) It was just awesome. After getting settled I ventured downstairs to see how our host was doing. She was shuffling her feet around the kitchen, everything in her house was classic vintage, stove, furnace, chairs, fridge.. it was great I loved it. As the evening winded down I scoped out the living room and found a ton of pulp mags, not the adult kind, and the adult kind dont really appeal to me, I was looking thier day version of todays maxium or details mag. Sure enough she had a bunch. It was great I wish I had a scanner. She didnt really take care of them, they were just mags she had, old mags... really really really old mags. She didn't recall anything really special out of them, some of them she said could bring back a memory of how it used to be, and she liked that.
I don't have that memory but maybe I can imagine a bit.
So i've been chatting it up with folks lately over the MIT Serendipity thing, if yer wondering what the heck that is, it's a few days back go read it. Basically it sorta ties into this new "proximity dating" thing. Where by your phone will be aware of other phones/users near you and match up personal profile information. Ok simple concept and so far I've had four discussions on it.. good ones. The other night, the day of discovery I recorded a nice rant in the car on the way home using the musty4000! Listen if you like: