What first caught my eye about this photo, as posted in the Facebook paperback/pulp/related discussion forum by Kevin Brubaker some weeks back, were the Winter 1965 issues of the digest-sized fiction magazines...as I noted there, aside from CORONET (an inoffensively bland general-interest magazine, as I recall it in the 1970s), these digests were all major sources of joy and influence for me at some point in my life, and the surviving magazines, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, remain so (a few issues I had of CHILDREN'S DIGEST and its younger-skewing companion HUMPTY DUMPTY when I was about four or five probably predisposed me permanently toward digest-sized fiction magazines).
My guess is that with the open display of Midwood porn novels of the mid '60s amid Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming paperbacks, and Macfadden-Bartell low-budget items mixed in, and the fact that the Men's Sweat magazines are getting more prominent placement, packed on the upper magazine rack while THE SATURDAY EVENING POST and SEVENTEEN issues are on the lower rack (along with a German "film revue" magazine, not altogether unlikely to have been of the Kind Men Like...or at least to have some photos that wouldn't appear in a US film magazine of the era), that this newsstand was in a tobacco shop or a truck stop in or around Detroit; the slide's purchaser/Facebook poster Kevin Brubaker thought it was shot in February 1965, but it was probably taken, as The Saturday Evening Post on the stand is the 12 December issue, in the first week of December 1964 (see last photo below).
This issue of SEP's contents:
My guess is that with the open display of Midwood porn novels of the mid '60s amid Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming paperbacks, and Macfadden-Bartell low-budget items mixed in, and the fact that the Men's Sweat magazines are getting more prominent placement, packed on the upper magazine rack while THE SATURDAY EVENING POST and SEVENTEEN issues are on the lower rack (along with a German "film revue" magazine, not altogether unlikely to have been of the Kind Men Like...or at least to have some photos that wouldn't appear in a US film magazine of the era), that this newsstand was in a tobacco shop or a truck stop in or around Detroit; the slide's purchaser/Facebook poster Kevin Brubaker thought it was shot in February 1965, but it was probably taken, as The Saturday Evening Post on the stand is the 12 December issue, in the first week of December 1964 (see last photo below).
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| All the 1964 issues...December at bottom right... |
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| Well...so much for inoffensive, as late as 1964, when Negro was beginning to give way to Black as the value-neutral/non-pejorative term for African-Americans... |
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| Oddly enough, I call Margolin Early Media Crush of Mine (she's not the cover model... who also has a coterie following still...) |
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| Turns out this, the 12 December 1964 issue, of SEP was the issue on sale here... so, probably, the photo was taken in the first week of December... |
This issue of SEP's contents:
- The Saturday Evening Post [v237 #44, December 12, 1964] (84pp, 10" x 13", cover by Neil Leifer)
- 8 · Speaking Out: Women Don’t Run the Country · J. B. Priestley · cl
- 14 · Affairs of State: The Interesting Mr. Wilson · Stewart Alsop · cl
- 17 · The Big, Bold Plans of Lyndon the Lucky · Ben H. Bagdikian · ar
- 20 · The Ho-Ho-Ho Busters · Alan Levy · ar
- 22 · After Twenty Years, This GI’s War Fades Away · W. C. Heinz · ar
- 44 · Treats · Mack Thomas · ss
- 58 · Going Ahead · Joan Williams · ss
- 66 · Spanish Gold Two Fathoms Deep · James Atwater · ar
- 72 · Barbie Is a Two-Million-Dollar Doll · William K. Zinsser · ar
- 74 · Ann Love: Society’s Best Kept Secret · Thomas B. Congdon, Jr. · ar
- 79 · The Runaway Colts · Edward Linn · ar
Details supplied by Martin Wooster.
...almost a pity it wasn't the next issue, which featured a short story by Gina Berriault, previously blogged about here...then again, J. B. Priestley has gotten some attention here...








