Tura Satana at the Spiderpool

Pictures NSFW. A more detailed version is here at my other blog, though most of the pictures of Tura Satana are here.

This is such a long story, but I'll try to tell the short version: John McDermott, writer and director of silent films, cobbled together a crazy house in the 1920s. It was made of underground tunnels, tile samples and pilfered film sets, films such as "Song of Love," "Phantom of the Opera" and "Thief of Baghdad". The house held a lot of sexy Hollywood parties in the 1920s, not just because of its odd nature and slightly out of the way location -- way up in the hills of Hollywood -- but also because of the sexy sexy outdoor pool known now as the Spiderpool. Lots of gorgeous columns, a set or 2 of arches, a large round temple/hut, cement scallops, beautiful tile surrounded what must have been a featured area: A large tile spider (with a little wasp on its side "caught" in the web) which acted as a waterfall to the pool. No one knows where the spider tile came from, but it has been speculated it was a set piece for "The Spider and the Rose" which McDermott directed. (The plot of movie here.)

McDermott didn't make it after talkies came in. He died, some say from suicide, in the house in 1946. It was occupied by a friend of his until fire burned some of it in 1947, at which point McDermott's nephew inherited the estate. He never lived there but others did, mainly as caretakers. In 1950, almost as soon as McDermott died, the Spiderpool began to be used for nude photography. Harold Lloyd -- who probably knew of the McDermott estate back when it was a Hollywood party place in the 1920s -- is known to have taken the iconic photo of Tura at the Spiderpool below as well as other 3D cheesecake photos. I'm not sure if he took the other pictures I have below, but I assume he did and these are all from the same photo shoot.

In 1958, the house was bought and vandals who had been frequenting the place chased away, but the city building services essentially condemned the place and, as far as anyone knew, the entire house was torn town. The lots around it were divided in such a way that you cannot get to the McDermott estate without trespassing. The place was considered lost.

I've been reading about the Spiderpool for years, first on Usenet on alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.vintage, then from silent movie bloggers and colleagues. Several years ago, people who collect vintage nudes started to ask about the location they eventually called the Spiderpool. The columns, edges, and pool made the place easily recognizable even if you couldn't see the spider waterfall in the photos. These collectors pieced together the rough location from geographic clues in these old nudie pictures, and someone in 2004 found the location; pictures and notes from finding it here. While they found the pool, they couldn't find the house. In 2008, someone else found it and discovered some of the house is still standing.

More: Wiki and history here, archive.org capture of the old Spiderpool blog (defunct since 2006) here, and discussion of the original finding here.

And now, the pictures:

















 

Comments turned off as of 7/22/10 due to spammers. 2/26/13: The photos went missing when I changed hosting accounts. They have been restored, though are the victims of Blogger's new "improved" photo hosting issues.

Kwan Yin

This is an 11th or 12th century Chinese statue of Kwan-Yin, the Bodhisattva of the water and the moon, in the Kansas City Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Kwan-Yin is in a room that is my favorite place in the world, thus far at least. The entire room is filled with Asian artifacts, but the very far end of the room where Kwan-Yin sits is special. There is a large temple gateway that leads to a cold, quiet room where Kwan-Yin sits at the far end, in the center, with smaller statues to either side. (Those other statues seem to be gone in this photo; as the room was being renovated a few months ago, it has perhaps been re-lit and reorganized since I was last there.)

Behind Kwan-Yin is a painted mural wall from another temple, the mural known as Paradise of Tejraprabha Buddha (or Tejaprabha Buddha) and dates about 1279-1368. A similar mural is at the University of Pennsylvania. You can see the wall was cut into large chunks and reassembled later. It's so dark when you visit this part of the museum that you can't see the wall very well, which is what struck me about this photo. I hope this means the restoration is complete and the gallery is now open again.

However, I do have an old postcard, which always hangs on my wall because of my love of Kwan-Yin and of this room, and I scanned the postcard so you could see the detail in the painting:


But even if you're there in person, you can't see this detail well.

It's so beautiful, but it's also so sad, because I believe the wall and statue(s) were taken through some of the fabulously egocentric Western appropriation techniques that archaeology is so famous for.

Update 06/11/10 -- Comments turned off because of spammers. Sheesh.

everybody's doin' it

I can't really be online while I'm working, so I miss out on all the cool stuff. Like today when I missed Twitter exploding about the John Mayer interview. For the first several questions I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Finally, I decided he was a moron. You'd think a big name songwriter could express himself more clearly, and his choice of words was beyond unfortunate. My husband said Mayer sounded like an megalomaniacal introvert, and I agree, but the more I read of the interview, the more Mayer sounded like an immature train wreck. He hit all the high notes: Racism, sexism, homophobia. It's a bigotry buffet. (That's a phrase I used tonight on the LA Times article linked below. No idea if my reply will even get approved, though.)

All that said, Playboy interviewer Rob Tannenbaum wins at life for his response to this exchange:

PLAYBOY: Do you do something different in bed than other guys?

MAYER: It’s all about geometry. I’m sort of a scientist; it’s about being obtuse with an angle. It’s sort of this weird up-and-over thing. You gotta think “up and over.”

PLAYBOY: Maybe that’s easier at your height.

I love you, Mr. Tannenbaum, and would post your picture here if one was available. No, a picture of Mayer won't do. Instead, here's an interview of the interviewer talking about the interview. Seriously.

vintage mug shots

May Russell, mug shot from Sydney, Australia, 1922.



Tons more of these fabulous mug shots and discussion about them can be found at Tracery here and SCAN Journal of Media Arts Culture here. These links are highly recommended, as is the Australian forensic photography website From The Loft.

hoot, man

It's an owl in flight. NEAT. From slothunleashed.

1970s foods: it's my party and I'll die if I want to

Once -- and only once -- Mom tried to host a birthday party for me. One of those "real" birthday parties with invitations, a theme, special games, the works.

A girl whose mom thought we should be best friends was invited, which was unfortunate for all because she was older than us by a few years, and I don't think she had a second of fun at the party.


Yeah, you totally can't tell which girl I'm talking about or anything.

This is the pre-party "I just spent 2 hours getting this together and I want to document it before those damn kids come over and ruin everything" photo by mom:


Check out that awesome paneling! Too bad that tablecloth is there, you're missing the lovely 1960s goldenrod kitchen set we had. Flecked formica, chrome details, matching goldenrod padded chairs. All of dad's 1960s bachelor furniture became our family furniture, and he had a thing for goldenrod, I guess. Everything was goldenrod. That's how dad decorated, he kept everything one color. It all matches! Yaaaay!

The theme for this wild 1978 1977 blowout was trains, courtesy this recipe card from our beloved box of My Great Recipes:


Now, Mom did go to significant effort for the party. She bought a set of clown-themed invites, hats, plates, and games -- "Pin the Nose on the Clown" was the hit of the afternoon, even with the older girl -- and some special small loaf pans to make individual train cars with. The cake in all its Polaroid glory:


The problem was that Mom had no patience for kids. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I tell you that Mom bitched for years about this party, as well as a few other occasions when I was allowed to have friends over. And those special pans she bought for this train cake? Oh lord. Every time she saw those pans over the years she would loudly sigh about what a waste of money they were and what a terrible party this was. Basically, I have no positive memories of this party.

Speaking of memories, my memory is apparently faulty about this bunny cake:

Pink knives for ears and angry red jellybeans for eyes! Evil bunny!

This is the photo that has been in the family album since about 1976, and my memory has always been that a neighbor gave me this cake for Easter one year.


Note that I didn't get knives for ears. Dammit.

Now that I've found this recipe card, though, I wonder if Mom made it? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing she would do. But I love how, once again, this card doesn't have a recipe, just an idea about inviting kids over to dye Easter eggs. The tips on shaping a cake into a bunny are kind of handy, though.

I hope you've enjoyed this little slice of the 70s in action! Me, I'm a little horrified by all the brown and brown-based yellows of the 1970s. Even the blues look brown.

Interested in all the scans I did of weird recipe cards? Click the tab on the sidebar labeled "the 70s beat up my grandma and pantsed my dad" to see 'em all.

1970s foods: putting the duh in dessert

If these cards are any indication, dessert recipes were the most popular recipes to have. That's probably true; my mom's recipe collections are filled with desserts while the salad, soup, and vegetable sections are sometimes completely empty. While Mom was fond of whipping up dessert on a moment's notice, I've never been good at baking and steer clear from it when possible. I'm pretty good at eating dessert, though, and consider myself an excellent judge of tastiness by sight alone.

This loaf looks like a nice little cake, right?

Decent decorations on top, pretty layers, looks perfectly fine, right? Wrong. You're not looking at layers of cake, it's "unsliced sandwich bread" covered with butter. That's not frosting, that's cheese with salmon, chicken, and olives ground into it. The cake really is a lie. WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW, HEATHENS?



Do you know how long I stared at this picture...

...before I realized that those circles on the side of the cake formed a parrot and a pig? Weeks. I am completely serious, I had this in my pile of stuff to scan for weeks, glanced at it almost every day, and only yesterday did I see the piggy's face. That's when I started concentrating on the picture, yet that freaky parrot was still almost impossible to discern. Is that an olive for the eye? There is no recipe, again -- a lot of these recipe cards are nothing more than idea cards -- but there is a "fun" scrambled word game included.



HOLY SHIT THEY CUT A BIRD IN HALF AND STUFFED IT WITH

oh wait, that's just a pineapple.

This disgusting pile of once-edible fruits is called "Fonduloha", which was quite upsetting at first, since I thought the word meant "fondue" plus "aloha." However, it turns out just to be chicken and fruit salad. It contains bananas, so it is an abomination unto the heavens, but at least there is no cheese involved. The presentation could use a lot of work, though.




Another cake "recipe card" without a recipe:

WHAT.

The back of the card suggests, for a child's party: "Ask a friend to dress up as a gypsy and tell fortunes." Oh, dear.


This card...

...was just posted here because it's adorable as hell. TAKE ME TO YOUR GELATIN-BASED DESSERTS, BEEP BOP BOOP. Recipe for the "fat little space visitors" here.



And here are 2 more amazing desserts:

HOLY HELL.



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA hey, I wonder why there's a recipe for Sloppy Joes on the back of a dessert card AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAggggghhhhhhhhhhh

Tomorrow, the exciting finale to our food-based tour de force concludes with rare, compelling, real-world documentation of these recipes as seen in the wild. Don't miss Part IV: It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To.