Tumblr favorite #288: Naughty vacuum

Original post here.

Sourced to Old Erotic Art. Original text was my comment “Household technology at work.”

Bonus Image Provenance: I commissioned Bacchus at ErosBlog to research this image further, and he has come up with the following additional details.

I recognized this artwork immediately from the style: It’s from a series of short (typically one or two page) comic erotic drawn stories called and starring “Carrie”. Your image comes from the 4th image on this page, which explains that the Carrie strips originally ran in the 1970s porn magazine Mayfair:

http://forum.oneclickchicks.com/showthread.php?t=8672

According to this page (old free host, images do not load), the title of the strip in question is “Carrie and The Vacuum Cleaner Demo” and the artist was Steve Kingston; the strip first appeared in Mayfair Vol. 19 No. 2 (February 1984):

http://www3.kinghost.com/teen/carrie/Kingstonintro.html

There’s more information about the history of the Carrie strip and the other artists who drew it here:

http://www3.kinghost.com/teen/carrie/welcome.html#top

I believe the large-size cropped scan of one panel that is your subject image probably comes from this website, which features several other nicely-extracted details from the “Vacuum Cleaner Demo”:

http://saskwash.blogspot.com/2011/03/laspirateur.html?zx=ed3331d298468ea9

Sadly, I could not readily locate a high-quality scan of the uncropped strip itself.

Bacchus is actively taking image research commissions, and if you have adult imagery you’re curious to learn more about, I encourage you to visit Bacchus’s introductory post for his image-searching service, where you can find details about how to commission him.

Mad scientist humorist!

After having a look at Hugo Araújo’s artwork, a wise old friend provided an amazing quote from the great American humorist S.J. Perelman:

Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.

And I thought, “Damn, this is just too good to be true. My friend must have just made it up.”

I mean, ve‘s good enough to pull something like that off, if he has a will to.

But what you know? The citation is genuine.

Amazing! One of the greatest of all American comic writers (did I mention that he also co-wrote the book for One Touch of Venus, thus providing a link to another Faustus-favored creator?) had his own thaumatophile leanings (albeit, possibly only in jest).

Reality often disappoints, but sometimes it really satisfies.

Department of unintended humor

The comment spammers, as always, have been keeping me busy throwing away their garbage. I have been trying to look on the bright side. The fact that they’re just bots that write comments that are effectively unresponsive to the posts or pages they’re trying to stick their comments onto means that sometimes the generate unintended humor.

Back in February I wrote a post with the title “I was inducted into a harem…,” inspired by a narration line of Bridget O’Brian, who in the course of Study Abroad had exactly that experience. The post was itself a brief foray into relevant orientalist art. The spambot attacking the post, however, had something different in mind. It attempted to post a comment asking

You have tested it and writing form your personal experience or you find some information online?

Personal experience? If only…

Update 2100 UCT: And later in the day, a spambot attempted to post on Progress in Research

This post is beyond awesome. I am always wondering what to do and what not to do so I will follow some of these tips.

And in the category of “what not to do” you include not leaving your sample of Apsinthion Protocol nanomachines in the laundry? Just askin…

Ooh look! My first clueless marketing email!

My blogfather Bacchus over at ErosBlog has a long and distinguished tradition of using his blog to make fun of clueless and otherwise problematical marketing emails he receives in his role of master of ErosBlog. So it gives me particular pleasure to be the recipient, just today, of one of the same.

Now I must confess that this one wasn’t particularly awful, at least by the hilariously-awful standards of some that Bacchus has written about, but still it left me wondering “do you folks ever look, for like five or ten seconds maybe, at the sites you’re sending mail to?”

After an introduction to “Dear EMS,” our intrepid publicity person — let’s call her Casting Lady — explains that she is the casting assistant for a new television series (guess that’s my punishment for putting up screenplays) and inquires:

Wondering if you might be able to help further broadcast our current casting search to your fans and subscriber base?

Well, I’m certainly not anti-commerce or anti-entertainment, and given how hard it is to get a break in acting, I suppose that if I knew of anyone in the EroticMadScience universe who I could help hook up with a job, I would certainly want to help out, but reading on I find out that

We’re looking for women who are struggling with an intimacy addiction and are trying to maintain their “perfect image” on a daily basis.

I’m sure you have a ton of questions

A few maybe, such as

When it comes to intimacy issues, are you interested only in women who are into intimacy only with other human beings, or do passionate relationships with with alien tentacle beasts count as well? and;
What about women who effortlessly maintain their “perfect images” on a really permanent basis?

Unfortunately the website to which the Casting Lady directed me (sorry, I won’t link because I don’t believe in encouraging marketing cluelessness) wasn’t terribly enlightening. There I was cheekily asked

Do you have a secret addiction or obsession that’s forcing you to live a double life? We want to know your stories.

Wow! Do I ever have a manifesto for you guys to read! Oh, wait…guess you couldn’t be bothered the first time.

Imagine living your picture-perfect life. By day, you are a beautiful, talented and ambitious 20-something. But at night, everything changes— you give in to temptation, to the dark side of yourself. You keep your secret from co-workers, family and friends. You enjoy the duality and the excitement that accompanies your obsession but you do know, it’s a dangerous game.

From context I think they mean beautiful, talented, etc. 20-something women, although perhaps I’m wrong about this. I don’t think so, though, because that’s all that seems to be depicted in the pictures on their page.

Well ladies and gentlemen, I think you can pretty well infer than I’m not a 20-something woman. Intelligent and sensitive people in command of all the relevant facts can disagree in good faith about how beautiful, talented, and ambitious I am. (That I am obsessive we can all agree, yes?) But unless Vinnie Tesla manages to get that ol’ Ontological Engine all cranked up, I don’t have much prospect of becoming a 20-something Ultra Babe with a Dark Secret, not that that might not be fun.

Seriously, marketers. Have a look at the damn site before you email. Or I really will have to mock you openly…

Your favorite singer in liquid form

John Cleese remarked on an early influence: “We all loved The Goon Show in the Monty Python Team: it ignited some energy in us. It was more a spirit that was passed on, rather than any particular technique. The point is that once somebody has crossed a barrier and done something that has never been done before, it is terribly easy for everybody else to cross it.”

It sure crossed my barriers, and early on and in a way that ended up impinging on my own erotic consciousness decades later — showing up in the Apsinthion Protocol.

As it happens, The Goon Show (BBC show site here, U.S. fan site here, UK fan site here) was something which, by there merest chance, I had the good luck (?) to encounter in my own early adolescence. For no obvious reason, this 1950s absurdist British radio comedy was rebroadcast every week on a public radio station that I could just…barely…pick up, and I was hooked by it from the first time I heard an episode. Written by Spike Milligan, and acted largely by him, Peter Sellars, and Harry Secombe, it conjured up a fictional universe from which logic was ejected with such vigor that it made the Marx Brothers look like Betrand Russell.

Needless to say, they really were a central influence. I remember quite a lot of scenes, but the one that seems most apropos here was one right in the theme of “person in liquid form.”

A little quick background: the most common plot of a Goon Show involved some plan by a pair of impoverished aristocratic grifters named Hercules Grytpype-Thinne (voiced by Sellars) and Count Jim Moriarty (voiced by Milligan) to take advantage of the good-natured but surpassingly naive Neddie Seagoon (voiced by Secombe). In the episode “The Childe Harolde Rewarde,” which first aired on December 8, 1958, 37 year-old Neddie escapes from his decrepit and infantilizing parents Henry Crun and Minnie Bannister. Henry and Minnie offer a reward for his return, priced a 4 shillings a pound for their 16-stone child (!). Hearing this, Grytpype-Thinne and Moriarity engage in a convoluted scheme that involves stuffing Neddie with vast amounts of food (paging Molly Ren!) in order to claim a larger reward.

Things don’t work out quite as planned, as the transcript (mine is a hybrid of this one and this other one) shows.

Grytpype-Thynne

Here, Auntie Min, your child Harold. 613 stone at 4 shillings a pound equals, ah, skeltonfrunderklee pounds reward.

Bannister

He’s a fake, my boy only weighs 16 stone.

Grytpype-Thynne

Well, we shall reduce him. Into the steam bath with him, Moriarty!

Moriarty

Ah!

Seagoon

Oh, please, stop [screams]

Grytpype-Thynne

Get the steam on his knees, Moriarty! [laughs] That’s it. Look at that stomach vanish, Moriarty!

Seagoon screams.

Moriarty

That’s got him down, bring him down.

Seagoon

Oh, please, stop! I’m vaporizing with the heat! You can’t do this to me, I’m, I’m the King of 23 Pond Street! I’ll have you arrested by the royal policeman! [speeds up to inaudibility] My mother keeps a duck-farm in Kent! [screams, winds down]

Moriarty

Ah, he’s vaporized now, into this bottle with him. There!

Pop!

moriarty

Now, to the Palladium!

The scene: Harry Secombe’s dressing room.

Dance hall music, knock on door.

Agent

You want an autograph?

Eccles

Yeah, autographs.

Agent

In that cue over there, sonny.

Cash register

(arriving from a distance)

…dressing room

It’s hot in here.

Eccles

Yeah, like a drink from my bottle of water?

Bluebottle

No, thanks, Eccles. I’m training to be a desert.

Eccles

Oh.

Moriarty

Hands up, everybody! Drop everything!

Grytpype-Thynne

Yes! Now, listen, Secombe fans, this bottle contains your favorite singer in liquid form!

Secombe

(muffled through rest of show)

Hello, folks, don’t let me down!

Grytpype-Thynne

(aside)

Put a cork on it, Moriarty!

Pop!

Secombe

Oh!

Grytpype-Thynne

Now, we want 1,000 pounds, or we drink him!

Secombe

Don’t let him drink me, folks, I shall hate traveling by tube!

Agent

All right, all right, I’ll pay!

Clatter of money falling.

Agent

There, 1,000 pounds in big NAAFI spoon.

Two escaping whooshes

Agent

Harry! Harry! Speak to me! Say something, Harry!

Secombe

Help!

Agent

Hold this bottle while I get a doctor.

Eccles

Okay. [hums]

Bluebottle

Eccles, don’t get them bottles mixed up, Eccles.

Eccles

Oh?

Secombe

Can you see what’s coming, folks? If so, well, don’t spoil it for me!

Bagpipes and singing Scotsmen.

Eccles

Hello, doctor

Doc

Have no fear. This is the patient here, is it, aye?

pouring sound, more Scottish noises, bagpipes.

Doc

Aye, this is a genuine vintage Secombe and it tastes very ill.

Eccles laughs

Doc

What are you laughing at, what are you laughing at there?

Eccles

Well, I was just ready to in case anybody said something funny.

The Doc mumbles.

Secombe

Hurry up, I’m catching me death of cold in here. Me shiverings have gone to the bottom!

Eccles

Oh!

Doc

We’ve got no time to waste. The only way to restore Mr. Secombe to his normal self is to bring this to the boil, add a pound of leeks…

Water boiling.

Doc

Goats milk, a touch of sospan fach, my doons a spoon a world and…

Secombe

What about some brandy?

Doc

Steady Secombe, steady Secombe, I’m just going to add this bust of Sabrina to bring you to the boil.

(I cannot resist an editorial interruption at this point, since this last joke might be a little bit obscure to anyone not a Gooniac. Sabrina (Norma Ann Sykes) was an actress and model often referenced on the Goons.

The concepts both of “bust” and “bringing to a boil” seem readily applicable here. For those of you who like this sort of thing, there’s a whole site dedicated to Sabrina here.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled transcript. Thank you.)

Doc

That’s strange, nothing’s happening.

Eccles

Oh, I, I gave you the wrong bottle!

Doc

What, what, what? The other one then, hurry, it’s the payoff! Hurry.

Eccles

I… I drank it.

Doc

Say `ah’.

Eccles

Ah.

Secombe

(screams)

He’s had onions for tea!

Doc

Bring the stomach pump.

Eccles:

Oh no! [inaudible]

Greenslade

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the interests of hygiene, we end this show. Good night, all.

Eccles

Aoooh!

We’re supposed, of course, to be laughing at all the absurdity of it all, but I confess at the time the concept of being turned into a liquid — by a deliberate and even industrial-sounding process, set off a twinge of erotic feeling. I mean, maybe it was the proximity of the “bust of Sabrina” to the concept that did it, except that I don’t think I knew back then who Sabrina was. In any event, there’s a line of influence here to what I would write decades later, I feel sure…