I’d like to thank the glorious and intimidating party people of the internet for, as of this moment, 2,397 unique views of this blog today. Not totally clear where you are coming from, as, less predictably then I would’ve supposed, judging from your referring links, you seem to be only like 60% interested in boobs and bajangos. Either way. You guys are all wonderful! I will try to keep up to your standards.
As the Gentleman said earlier today, “Come for the porn: stay for the witty banter.” Do it! Thanks bunches and eskimo kisses to you all!
Your final Miss November is Playboy’s November 1991 Playmate of the Month, the lovely and talented Tonja Christensen. She is last because, next to Monica Tidwell and Bebe Buell, I think she is the prettiest of the girls of November. Someday I will examine my feminine beauty ideals, but not today because I’m busy. Anyway, I am afraid that, though I saved her for last because I thought she was beautiful, it is a mixed blessing; she bears the brunt of my boredom and busy-ness, because I’ve not got time nor inclination to say much about her. Going to let the interview with her do most of the talking.
Photographs by Stephen Wayda
Blonde, blue-eyed and gutsy Tonja Marie Christensen, who just turned 20, has come a long way in the past two years — 5800 miles, to be exact, the distance from West Valley City, Utah, a sleepy suburb of Salt Lake City, to cosmopolitan Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city. There, while the Catalan capital gears up for the 1992 Olympics, she’s diligently pursuing a dual career in modeling and acting. (“A Blonde in Barcelona,*” Playboy, November 1991)
Dang, I forgot there even was a Summer Olympics in Barcelona. There are new ones coming up, you know. Everyone hurry and get jingoistic about sports! Also, buy Doritos!!
*Gracious, that is just a damned ridiculous title. Barcelona is from where many a blonde Spaniard hails. Everyone knows that there are tons of hot (and not) fair people in Spain. With over 3 million people living in the city at the time of Tonja’s residency, I sincerely doubt she stood out because of her hair color in any way, shape, or form. You may just as well have said, “A two-legged person,” or even “A person from another country who lives” … “in Barcelona.” Jesus. What a stupid, Americanized view of what Spanish people look like to advance. Shame on you, Playboy: I expect you to be more international and dashing and man-of-foreign-knowledgey than that.
Our Miss November was one of nine children, an example she doesn’t plan to follow. “I believe families should be three or four children at most,” she says.
An intriguing viewpoint for a girl from Utah. Goodness knows, I know the playmates do not like it when assumptions are made about their religion (see last entry for a brave girl who was not embarassed to be of an identifiable faith and culture) … but … come on. Hint, hint, ya know?
Two things weird me out totally about the above shot.
Her arm hair has, like, its own set of dewy crystalline eye lights shining in it.
Her pubic hair has been either dyed or cell-painted to match her fake (though lovely!) head-hair color. In the previous shots it is dark.
See, I have a couple rules of thumb for gentlemen who want to imagine ladies sans clothing — I know you are few and far between because that is like, so gross, what with our widely-documented girl cooties and all, but bear with me for the sake of those perverse and unhappy freaks among you who actually picture women naked — and I am happy to share them. First, a lady’s pubic hair is nearly always the same shade as the coarse hair of her brows. So lay the drapes aside altogether, discard their color completely, and, unless you are pretty sure the gal you are gawking at has bleached or somehow cosmetically altered them, her eyebrows are your best bet as to the color of the carpet.
Similarly, the color of her lips without the aid of gloss, lipstick, rouge, permanent surgical lining assistance, or any other type of makeup is your leading predictor of the color of her nipples. Finally, a few shades darker but in the same family of hues as the lips and “nips” follow the labia (those can get rosier/darker brown depending on her arousal level and whether she is Northern European or has stronger Sapphardic Jew DNA — Caucus mountains and Eastern/Southern Europe are less pink and more browny-purple, and obviously your ladies from Africa and its subcontinent follow suit in deeper shades as well). Take those tips to the bank, y’all. You’re welcome!
Wow, I did not even realize there was a time when LaToya Jackson did not look like a total freak made of 90% post-consumer recyclable parts. She looks comparably human here. You’d think one of her psychic friends would have warned her of the Madamism syndrome of too much plastic surgery! Better luck in your next life, LaToya.
Your magnificent Miss November 2001 was the lovely and talented and unremittently marvelous, in this shiksa’s opinion, Lindsey Vuolo. Ms Vuolo’s interview with Playboy touched on her recent trip to Israel, included a picture from her bat mitzvah, and set off a shitstorm of reactionary crossfire about pornography, sex, and religion in the conservative Jewish community, from which she valiantly refused to back down. Preach it, garrl!
Photographed by Arny Freytag – for some reason in this picture she looks like Raquel Welch, which is nothing to sneeze at, but she is a beauty in her own right and the resemblance is not present in the other pictures.
Lindsey’s Italian father converted to Judaism to marry her Russian mother. “I traveled to Israel as part of an exchange program and it was an amazing trip,” she says. “Being in Jerusalem was so emotional for me — I broke down and cried.” (“Lindsey,” Playboy, November 2001)
Holy shit, if that did not apparently ruffle feathers for her to be naked emotionally as well as physically by describing what being Jewish meant to her in terms of her personal identity and emotions. (You can bare your breasts, and you can bare your bajango*, but you can’t bare those with your soul and be religious!)
*thank you, Tina Fey, for the term “bajango.” I’ll get to the Playboy interview where she first dropped that term for ladyparts another day.
What happened next was, this guy Rabbi Shmuley Boteach caught wind of her appearance –especially her emphasis on her religion and what it meant to her identity– and publicly took Lindsey to task for posing for Playboy (though he had himself appeared in the magazine promoting his book, Kosher Sex).
Feminists and porn-purveyors alike took Lindsey’s side, and soon everyone from rabbis to radical social theorists was weighing in with their opinions on faith and sex. These are two topics that everyone has touch them in some personal way, so I’m not surprised that people felt personally authorized to comment on the issue. I remember noting in college classes that the discussions during lecture in which everyone was the most engaged usually involved universal human issues like religion, sex, or love. Everyone experiences these things, so everyone has an opinion!
Taking advantage of the publicity which resulted from the itty-bitty-titty holy war, Boteach enticed her to come to a recorded and Extremely Accusatory “discussion” with him of the issue of pornography and Judaism vis-a-vis what the religion’s teachings were and how pornography impacts marriage, traditional ideals of femininity, and sexuality. She had the balls to show up, and not only that, defend herself. Reading the interview, I felt ashamed. I could have never made it through to the end the way she does. I’m easily humiliated by disapproving men. Not so Ms. Vuolo. She has an admirable self-awareness and a respectful but strong spine of steel. Check some of these excerpts, which I’ve thoughtfully and even thought-provokingly interwoven with the quotes from the “interview”:
Shmuley Boteach: So tell me what you think about the following ideas, okay? Number one: Pornography or Playboy ultimately, far from being sexy and titillating, is actually boring and monotonous because the moment you see someone’s body in its entirety, the first few minutes, sure, it’s very exciting but after that nothing is left to the imagination. It loses its erotic allure. I mean, all studies show that when women go to bed with guys too early, it almost always destroys the relationship because the thrill of the chase is gone, the mystery is gone. The human body requires mystique in order to retain its attractiveness. There also has to be the involvement of the mind in order for there to be fantasy, and nudity and sexual over-explicitness actually hinders fantasy.
For example, as a marriage counselor, I always say to wives, don’t ever walk around the bedroom naked unless it’s time for sex and he has to earn the right to see your body naked because–
Lindsey Vuolo: I disagree with that.
SB: You disagree with that?
LV: Yeah. Because you know, my husband–well, I don’t have a husband but if I had a husband, and we share everything together and I’m his, I’ll run around naked for him. That’s for him, I mean, then he doesn’t need to see anyone else naked.
SB: I wish what you were saying was true but according to the Hite report the fact that 75% of husbands are unfaithful and the fact that half of marriages end in divorce shows that unfortunately men need variety when they feel they get bored. Many men who cheat on their wives claim to love their wives. They do it only because they need something new. So clearly, it is very possible to get bored of your wife’s body, no matter how much she runs around for you.
LV: Well, I think for all time men will always look at women whether it’s their wives or someone else. And I don’t think that they get bored, you know, they look–
RS: No, no, we know they look at women’s bodies. The question is, will they look at the same woman’s body. You’re Miss November. They’re not going to make you Miss December under any circumstances. The reason is the guys have seen you and they’ve just seen you. They want someone new now. Doesn’t that alone prove to you that pornography gets boring?
Playboy has used you and you’ll never be a playmate again.
LV: I posed for this for me. So if I’m degrading anyone, I’m just degrading myself. What other women do–
SB: But the biggest sins in life are where we hurt ourselves even more than other people.
LV: But I don’t feel like I’m hurting myself.
Holy fuckballs, what a passel of ice-cold punches to the gut. If you have sex or display yourself as sexual, you have used up your ace in the hole, blown your wad of feminine mystique, as it were, and will forever forth be undervalued. Um … is this so? I don’t even know! I just want to go shower and cry! Bitch magazine, help a Catholic girl with deep-seated Daddy Issues out:
Unwilling to cow to the rabbi, (who, it should be noted, promoted his own book in Playboy) Lindsey stood her ground, explaining that she had done nothing wrong. According to Lindsey, Playboy doesn’t even count as pornography because to her the word conjures up images of “penetration, urination, and things like that.” (“My Meidel is a Centerfold,” Bitch Magazine, Deborah Kolben, May 2002.)
Okay, well, at least I know other women will give me a hug and a “it’s okay, honey,” whether or not we are any of us sure about anything after the tirade about how men will grow tired of us and we must not be naked in front of even our husbands.
So. Quick word about this shoot: okay, obviously I have a majah girl-brain-crush on Lindsey Vuolo, but, strictly from an unbiased perspective, from the artistic standpoint, I strongly believe that this photoshoot stands head and shoulders above most of the others from the 2000’s.
It has a clear unity of vision: the story is, this super-super-cute, vintage-lingerie-loving, wholesome, upbeat gal works at an old-fashioned pie-and-coffee kind of diner as a pastry chef or baker of some kind, and it's after-hours.
If this does not melt your heart with its brain-asplodin’ cuteness, you are made of STONE and we have nothing to offer each other.
First she’s with you in the dinette, then she’s showing you around at home. It’s cut and dry and adorable as shit. Love it. Okay! Back to the hot button side of the story. Final thought, for clarification and prompting of to-be-determined further discussion:
Some have incorrectly claimed that Vuolo is the first Jewish Playmate. Vuolo herself has agreed it is more likely that she merely is the first openly Jewish Playmate. (the wiki)
This has been certainly a long enough entry already, all apologies, so perhaps we ought to save the important and striking issue of why a beautiful woman looking to be famous in America might consider her Judaism a liability rather than an asset and choose to downplay this important aspect of her heritage and womanhood (*cough, cough* Holly Madison) for another day.
But Don’t Think I’m Forgetting. I got a memory like Babar — but a figure like Bettie Page. Ow! Call me!
Avert your husband’s eyes (pull them out if necessary) — it’s everybody’s favorite frustratingly irresistible, Ayn Rand-reading man-poacher: Angelina Jolie!
“When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire.”
Do not confuse Miss November 2007, Lindsay Wagner, with the 1970’s-era Bionic Woman star and mattress spokesmodel of the same name. This one hails from Nebraska and was a ring girl for the Omaha Fight Club (she’s not in it, so it’s okay for her to talk about it, I guess).
Photographed by Stephen Wayda
I think this may be the first Miss November we’ve seen with a total and complete lack of hair, you know, Down There. Gosh. Pubic alopecia in one so young (barely legal at the time of this shoot) is a tragic thing to see. Breaks the heart. Maybe next time you get a haircut, you could sweep it up and send her a little merkin? Just to keep her warm. Hardwood floors get cold in the winter, y’all.
This Lindsay can’t bend steel, but she’s got a straight right that will have you seeing stars. “We have an Omaha Fight Club,” she says, “and I’m a ring girl when my brothers compete. I don’t fight, but I train in self-defense and practice with a lot of guys.” (“Nebraksa Knockout,” Playboy, November 2007)
“I thought I’d never make Playboy in a million years,” Lindsay says. “I’m confident in the way I look, but you know how girls sometimes have the feeling they’re not good enough to accomplish something?”
I think a shade of that concern shows, but only a shade. I don’t know what these girls think that Playboy is, that they get so nervous. Unless it’s the money that freaks them out — I mean it is a big shot at some pretty good cash if you don’t blow it. I guess that could be spooky. Still, it’s not like a firing squad: it’s just a camera.
The only shot that I think in this spread has any merit, composition-wise, is the centerfold up top. It’s pretty hackneyed at this point to have the girl in men’s clothing like she has just come from raiding your closet, but it’s still cute. And she manages to make it look fresh. The best thing about all these pictures is that she has a nice smile and good eye contact. She doesn’t look frozen or fearful or dramatic. Just friendly and fun-loving. That’s appropriate for her age and how she’s been styled and sold in the interview. Good stuff all around, just not, like “great,” which is totally outside of her control. Her end of the quality is solid. And that is me being really strong and not crazy, because the truth is, she looks to me like my dear friendoh the Cappy’s ex, who you need to know is a no-good slack-cunted slagwhore cumdumpster, and I am battling to keep the strong association I have with her appearance out of my opinion of this nice girl, here, and be fair and not let my head get hot and melt my brain. (I get really, really protective of my friends, to the point that if I find someone has injured them in some way I can turn on that person on a dime *snap* and try to set them on fire with my thoughts.)
You can hit Ms. Wagner up on the myspace (current mood: “sad :(” — that is no good at all, maybe you could send her a glittery graphic or something, okay?), but I cannot, as she breaks my Movie Dating Rule: she was born after the release of Mannequin (1987). She can throw me a wink in a couple years, when I’ve once more lowered my standards! I’m thinking next stop, The Sandlot (1993).
Ugh, thanks Playboy cover, for reminding me that, besides being a cheating fuckface in his sporting life, Barry Bonds is also a cheating fuckface off the diamond. He even bought That Woman a house in Scottsdale so he could boff her during spring training while his wife was home with their daughter. Meanwhile, he drug his first wife through a humiliating series of court battles to keep her from getting his earnings, which she wanted to continue to sock away in savings for the education of their two sons. Gar, what a dishonorable goddamned waste of a human being all around he is. Such potential, so many opportunities handed to him, and such terrible choices he has made. Terrible choices. That is so weak. Ugh! Now I’m in a bad mood.
Bump a fat rail because foot-traffic at the mall was a fist-raping, soul-tarring clusterfuck, but by gum, Jesus would’ve wanted you to get that doorbuster deal, so you done all right, sunshine.
Leeds, England
I did not engage in Black Friday/weekend holiday sales. I’m really happy with that decision. I’m sorry if you chose otherwise.
The lovely and talented Swedish-born Ulrika Ericsson was in America working hard as a swimsuit model and looking for acting gigs when she posed for Playboy as Miss November 1996.
Photographed by Arny Freytag
Get it? She is done up like the newsboy, at the newsstand in front of the display of Playboys. “Wuxtree, wuxtree!” Super-cute. Great theme, well-executed, and she has a very sweet innocence that makes it playfully tease-y instead of costumey and skankeriffic.
However, the acting thing must not have panned out, because other than Playboy credits, the imdb lists her most recent work in front of the camera as being a host for a Swedish show called “Nyehtsmorgon.”
Nyhetsmorgon är TV4:s morgonprogram i TV. Programmet var vid starten 1992 det första dagliga morgonprogrammet i svensk tv. Nyhetsmorgon har hämtat inspiration från amerikanska NBCs The Today Show, som var världens första morgonprogram på TV när det började sändas i januari 1952. Nyhetsmorgon är Sveriges största morgonprogram med över fem miljoner tittare i veckan och 1300 timmar sändningstid om året.[1] Konkurrenter i genren är Gomorron Sverige i SVT1 och Vakna med The Voice i Kanal 5. (the wiki)
Ran that through a handy-dandy translator and got much less hilarious results than I was hoping for (sometimes translation software spews wonderfully broken interpretations of the original text) but here they are:
Nyhetsmorgon is TV4’s morgonprogram* in television. The programme was at the start 1992 the first daily morgonprogrammet on Swedish television. Nyhetsmorgon have drawn inspiration from the American NBCs The Today Show, which was the world’s first morgonprogram on the television when it started sent in January 1952. Nyhetsmorgon is Sweden’s largest morgonprogram with more than 5 million viewers in the week and 1300 hours transmission time of year. Competitors in the genre are Gomorron Sweden in SVT1 and wake up with the Voice of Channel 5.
*let’s all agree that means “morning program;” I mean, I know we must beware of false cognates and such when attempting translation but I’m going to make the leap.
That picture is adorable. I am going to assume Ms. Ericsson is okay with what life has handed her, career-wise, over the years, because of this quote from her Playmate interview
“The Vikings understood that good looks don’t last forever. Their idea of success was to die young, go to Valhalla and fight with the gods against the giants.” (“How Swede It Is,” Reg Potterton. Playboy, November 1996)
And this picture is super-triple-dog adorable. Also, enormous. It’s wallpaper sized. You’re welcome!
Because I am a spectacularly great friend, I used that same software program to give you an opening line to lay on Ulrika should you ever get the opportunity: “I am an agent for Hollywood. I have a very big part for you.” “Jag är en agent för Hollywood. Jag har en mycket stor roll för er.”
I was going through old folders I’ve managed to restore and realized I’d not yet shared any pictures of Brigitte Bardot, which is a scandal because I find her very interesting and entertaining. She is not a patron saint, but there is something about her that I found refreshingly real, albeit crazy and sometimes even racist. This is probably not fair because she’s outlived her famous beauty and the fame she enjoyed while societally-standard beautiful I think sort of warped her. But in her day …
A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you.
I absolutely loathe luxury. It is the one thing I cannot stand.
Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it.
Those are all quite beautiful quotes, actually, and each one is provoking thoughts in me. I will have to reconsider her patroness status.
The Eyes of Laura Mars is a brilliant and appropriately grody American entry in to the wonderful giallo genre, with all the campy-but-seductive hallmarks and tricks of that trade — ice picks to the eye, topless models in front of burning cars, erotic obsession and guns — you might expect. I feel that the cinematography helps it to transcend any of the sillier stumbling blocks it faces with script and story.
This is actually the cover of Laura’s book, not the movie poster
The John Carpenter-penned flick (he has sole story credit and shares co-writing duties with David Zelag Goodman and some half-dozen others) stars Faye Dunaway as the titular character. Barbra Streisand turned the part down, although she does perform the main song on the soundtrack, “Prisoner (Love Theme from The Eyes of Laura Mars),” which had modest chart success with its release in ’78.
The photographs seen on Laura’s walls, in her book, and in her gallery showing are all actually done by world-reknowned photographer Helmut Newton. Kick ass!
Laura Mars is a risque photographer of violent erotica who begins to have visions of brutal murders. Tommy Lee Jones has an early and steamy turn as brash young turk Detective John Neville, an art aficionado and lead investigator on the case of the serial killer whose crimes Laura is seeing. At first, Laura only sees the victims when she looks through her camera lens, but soon, she is having the visions all kinds of inconvenient places, including behind the wheel of her car.
This scene is modestly famous and has been imitated in fashion shoots and on America’s Next Top Model.
We see Laura first struck by a vision when she is photographing for an advertising client in the first part of the movie, doing a shoot with burning cars and lingerie-clad models Lulu and Michele, who later wind up murdered in various states of undress, fighting each other. Here are some more of her models, with whom she is depicted as having a very friendly but I think rather condescending relationship, topless because why not? I’ll tell you why not:
Nude girls who die. It’s giallo and all, but it wanted to be taken more seriously, so I’m going to give it a serious talkin’-to real quick.
I realize models get demeaned a lot but when you’ve got a film which treats the topics of violence, sex, and imagery as interrelated in a logical thread, then you run the risk of implying the girls deserve it when you have them parade about naked and additionally get patronized by the better-than-them, wryly maternal heroine, the “smart girl” with the camera who is superior and holds some kind of moral ace so may not be as likely to die, does that make sense? Just sayin’.
“Let’s look hella g in 3,2,1 — GO.” “Were we going on 1, or on GO?” “Forget it, Laura, I’m already hella g’er than you.”
Also featured are baby Rene Auberjonois and baby Raul Julia as Laura’s best friend and ex-husband, respectively; always great to see either of them in a cast. Rounding out the suspect/victim list is this handsome fellow, Brad Dourif, who plays Laura’s chauffeur Tommy. Tommy has a checkered criminal past, but, as you can see, he has cleverly thrown everyone off the trail by styling himself like Charlie Manson.
Brad Dourif as driver Tommy Ludlow, another red-herring suspect who ends up in the victim body-pile. They’re dropping like flies, Laura! Flies with mutilated eyes, that you could have saved.
Neville seems to suspect her initially but, already an admirer of her photography and with an inarguable chemistry between them — hard-working detectives go to gallery shows on their off-nights, happens all the time — they grow to trust one another and he becomes her lover. Raise your hand if you agree with this decision. SPOILERS FROM HERE ON: IF YOU SOMEHOW HAVE NOT ALREADY GUESSED THE INEVITABLE AND DO NOT WISH TO KNOW THE ENDING OF THIS FABULOUSLY RIDICULOUS BUT SOMEHOW TOUCHING AND MEMORABLE FILM, READ NO FURTHER!!
Look at him absolutely pimping: open shirt, check. Sideburns, check. Gun and sexy lady? check and double-check! Too great.
Has she never seen a giallo film??? Laura! He is clearly hella the killer. You always sleep with the killer, innocently making him breakfast and smiling to yourself as you watch him walk down the steps, calling him to cry later when you find your friends dead. You’re falling in love with him as he mercilessly murders everyone else in your life who matters to you, coming closer and closer to the real objective of killing you, circling in a lazy loop like a hawk who is picking off mice in your orbit in whom he has less interest, merely maiming them and dropping them in your path, just to see you scamper faster!
Laura gets in a car wreck because her eyes are busy envisioning her best friend being murdered, and naturally runs straight to Neville for some scotch and sexytimes. Dig the tartan blanket on her and the red scarf on him!
Whoa, that analogy got completely out of control. All apologies. Giallo movies are just so fun to yell at. Anyway, I loved the story that the following series of screencaps told so much that I took a cap of it myself to demonstrate the strength of the cinematography in this film, the discourse between camera and viewer which itself points up the voyeuristic relationship between the observer and the observed and sex and death in the movie.
In this scene, Det. Neville has just finished a rambling, disjointed story to Laura about how Tommy the now-dead driver’s mother was a prostitute, and how Tommy’s father came home one day, and “outraged by the condition of the child,” he slashed her throat, but as he tells the story and Laura has shades of doubt (she knows Tommy and knows he didn’t grow up the way it’s being described), Neville slowly and chillingly begins to transpose the pronoun “I” for “he.” He winds down the story with the totally creepy line,
“I sat and watched the blood dry on her face, until it was just about … well, the color of your hair.”
The series of caps themselves tell a story; reminds me of the work of Martin Arnold (Life Wastes Andy Hardy).
He throws this shocking revelation down and then just flashes her the g’est look ever, waiting for her to piece it together. And that’s the story this series of screencaps tells. How awesome, am I right? Continuing in that vein, note how the mirror in the below shot continues to toy with ideas about perception, reality, objectification, and physical verisimilitude.
Laura has finally caught on and has in her hand the gun Neville gave her when he was being a pimp several screencaps back. I will not give away the final twist of who kills who or how. See how honorable I am?
Now you see what I mean about the cinematography in this movie? Victor Kemper did a top-notch job with what is essentially a very campy and “b” quality script, almost singlehandedly raising the level of quality to the movie. It’s that and the acting (mainly) that I think have made The Eyes of Laura Mars the giallo cult classic that it is.
This may be the longest Movie Moment yet. It was more like a Movie Half Hour, huh? Sorry. To wind things down, I need to throw a major thank you out to Screenmusings.org, from where I originally got all these grand screencaps. (Any reduction in quality they have suffered in my crops and resizes has been entirely my doing — these are, like, enormous, gorgeous HD quality original screencaps on screenmusings, take my word for it.) Check it out, tons of great movies, screencapped and beautiful.
Damn that Nan and her grooviness! Trina, you are just a doormat. Of course, it is possible to go too far in the other direction…
Whoa, Twink — how ’bout you crawl out of Jill’s butt about this? What a lady does behind closed bedroom/car/McDonalds’ restroom doors is her business.
So. Which one would you choose? And remember that things are not always what they seem; Trina could be a doormat because she has been raised according to a view of fundamentally-Biblical, sublimated femininity that also extends to keeping it on clampdown ’til after marriage, and even then, just every third Saturday and only if neither one of you enjoys it! Do you really want a lifetime of hot meals but frigid nights?
Still from Blue Velvet (1986), l to r: Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, and unbelievably gorgeous slice of ’80s man meat Kyle MacLachlan — three guesses who the next Hot Man Bein’ Hot of the Day is going to be.
Meanwhile, that alleged whore Jill might actually be acting out because she has been abused, and, like a kicked cat who has not been loved well enough, will just as easily cut you with a broken bottle as blow you.* She may even be one of those chicks who downs a bottle of bourbon and sleeps with your dad so you’ll beat her up, just so she can feel anything.
Ups and downs, blondes and brunettes, femmes fatales and ingenues –and which is which??– deconstruction of assumed codifications. Oh! Such a Lynchian conundrum!
The lovely and talented Divini Rae had already come a long way and traveled the world before posing for the centerfold as Playboy’s Miss November, 2003.
Photographed by Arny Freytag
Growing up in a home with no running water or electricity, Divini became an avid reader and graduated early from high school. … A vacation to Sydney, Australia led to modeling and voice-over work. (“Divini Inspiration,” Playboy, November 2003)
ITEMS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT:
A bottle of water at all times, a notepad & pen, dental floss, Chapstick, mango butter lotion & antibacterial hand sanitizer.
FIVE PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO INTERVIEW:
Baz Luhrmann, J.D. Salinger, Marlon Brando, Diane Sawyer & Hugh Hefner, again. (data sheet)
These days, you can catch Ms. Rae on her official site or on the myspace. She is still active in modeling and is pursuing acting and writing as well.
Oh, man. I am so glad I saw this cover of Daryl Hannah. It is hella going to be Daryl Hannah day around here soon. I think about her all the time. Fun facts I randomly can access in my memory banks about Daryl Hannah: 1) She slept with a teddy bear and sucked her thumb well past the age of high school. 2) She and JFK, Jr. had an intricate and complicated nearly-lifelong relationship that spanned the gamut from friends to first sexual relationship to occasional engagement to an eventual bond like brother and sister. His death drove her in to private mourning for several years. 3) She’s never been officially diagnosed, but agrees she is probably borderline autistic, most likely being a rare female with Asperger’s (usually it’s the guys who have that). Wow, I am a huge Daryl Hannah fan. Maybe it’s best we live far apart. ‘Scuse me while I freak out over my freakishness … I just made myself uneasy …
“In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and ‘get’ everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don’t understand each atom of the potato!” (Interview with David Sherritt, The Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/94)
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. (Critique called “What Is Cinema?” for Les Amis du Cinéma , 10/1/52, a work which advanced the auteur theory but also kind of ripped off Bazin, which is weird cause Bazin would’ve read it and was a big influence on Godard but this was done contemporaneously of Bazin himself working on something titled this, about this, so maybe the quote is misattributed? … or maybe there is more to it than I know with my tiny ken of French movie guys, maybe it was a done thing to borrow titles from one another, or perhaps it was a continuation of a dialogue they were already having both in person and via publications, or, finally, it could even have been an “understood” question which anyone might use as the title of a book or article … I am probably over-reading it.)
Hands down my favorite picture of Anna Karina
Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion. (“Defense and Illustration of Classical Construction,” Cahiers du Cinéma, 9/15/52)
Cover or liner art for her album, a collaboration with the dread Serge G
The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea. (“Strangers on a Train,” Cahiers du Cinéma 3/10/52 — Godard wrote extensively and insightfully in his early career about the movies of Hitchcock, one of my favorite and I think misunderstood directors; I’ll try to share some good nuggets from time to time)
Anna cahorts about topless as Anne in 1968’s The Magus, also starring Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek), Michael Caine, and Candace Bergen (Murphy Brown) — no one seems to like this movie but me. That’s okay, because I like it a lot.
Cover art from Batman Reborn, “Gotham City: Sirens” Issue No. 4, November 2009. (actual release date: 30 Sept 09) Written by Paul Dini, art and cover by Guillem March. (go buy it go buy it go buy it — I know I am hopefully going to just as soon as I submit and am paid for the project on The Godfather I’ve been working on.) I guess the Joker shows up in this one (he’s been MIA since Batman RIP, according to the divine comicvine), and I somehow only just heard about this after Halloween!
From the look of things, he is none too pleased that his shrink and erstwhile girlfriend Dr. Harleen Quinzel has been palling around with that guy Hush. (You always knew he’d kill her.) So last week, finally having some free time, I hit up Bonanza Books and Comics looking for this and they said they had sold whatever copies they had to begin with, but assured me they’d get some more. Booyakasha: air heel click!
I actually really like Raquel Gibson, Miss November 2005. She seems to be a fun, family-oriented girl, but also a serious multitasker with plans for taking on even more, so it resulted in a surprisingly entertaining Playboy interview.
Photographs by Stephen Wayda and Arny Freytag
Plus she has a stunning pair of eyebrows. Seriously, those things are wicked-great.
Raquel–who already has a culinary school degree
[from Chef Jean Pierre Cooking School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida] and a real estate license–plans to go back to school to become a pediatrician someday, with a practice someplace warm. “I can’t stand the cold,” she says. “I can’t see myself dressed like an Eskimo walking down the streets of New York, and I’d miss going to the beach and playing football.” (“Raquel’s World Party,” Playboy, November 2005.)
Just don’t ask Miss November to go into the water–there are too many sharks. “The news will show a helicopter flying over with 200 sharks in the water and people just swimming and playing around them. I think, Are you guys dumb?”
Yes! Finally! Someone agrees with me. What the hell is the matter with you people who are all in to sharks? I believe I have the most logical phobia on the planet in my fear of sharks. I acknowledge it’s a little nuts to open my eyes in the shower every 30 seconds to check and make sure none have swum up the drain and are preparing to sink their zillion rows of teeth in to my foot, but still!
If you cannot at least muster enough care for your life not to place it in peril by descending in to the depths of the ocean (which is another planet to begin with; you cannot even breathe through your mouth under there and live), then show some fear and respect of God and his creations, both yourself and the shark. Just ugh all around and a heartfelt shudder to boot.
Raquel did not end up pursuing her degree in pediatrics, remaining busy in the spokesmodel and entertainment worlds instead. She often models these days with her older sister C.J. (one of her five siblings, of which she is the baby). They bill themselves as the Gibson Sisters.
CJ Gibson. Yes, I found and used the one picture of her in a Yankees jersey probably in existence. It’s my blog!
If you are interested in some lengthy flash presentations and embedded music that you have to scour the creatively font-faced page to turn off, give Raquel’s official site a spin. She asks that you please not contact her to attempt to book anything pornograhpic or TFP.
Oh my god, how dare you imply she would do pornographic modeling with her sister, what is the matter with you?!
TFP = Trade for Prints, a handy piece of largely-chicanerous-publicity practice in which neither party — photographer nor model — gets any money out of the transaction; it’s purely to boost notoriety for both and is generally a very bum deal for the model, as the photog pads his portfolio and can use the pics forever in gallery shows, etc, while the model just has one more nudie photoshoot out of probably a dozen jammed in her little notebook. It’s a move that a lot of amateurs fall for; glad to see she is too wise to go for it!
Your Y2K Miss November was Buffy Tyler, who posed for her Playboy centerfold and soon joined Hef’s at that time very large posse of girlfriends, coming and going at the mansion in Holmby Hills as she pleased, because what’s a 70-something old man with a business to run and seven other girlfriends going to say about it?
Photographed by Stephen Wayda
Eventually, somebody had something to say about it, of course. Buffy got the boot when everyone else did, which is to say around February, 2002 when (until recently) brilliant Holly Madison dug her french-manicured fingertips deep enough in to Hugh Hefner’s inner circle to become his number one gal and, with Kevin Burns, select two other distinct women — Bridget Marquhardt, the sweet, quiet one, and Kendra Wilkinson, the sporty, brash one, both of whom were clearly coached to play second fiddle to Holly’s alpha status as brains and beauty of the operation — and sell him on the idea of the highly marketable “Girls Next Door.”
Thus began a very clever publicity juggernaut, including well-covered frequent trips to Disneyland and the Bajas, film crew coverage of which eventually got them all on cable television and has essentially revived the then-flagging company. The Girls Next Door and its spinoffs and specials have established a firm and even semi-legitimate toehold for Playboy television projects on more channels than merely their own, opening a wide door for expansion of their corporation. Unfortunately, the recent dips in the market across the board have meant that, despite their being more famous and popular than ever, proportionally, Playboy has suffered some losses and seen their stocks drop.
The Gentleman even mentioned to me over soosh bombasticos not long back that he’d heard it was rumored that Hef, who is a 70% shareholder, was finally looking to sell. This does not mean that he is trying to totally get out from under Playboy like it is some lead balloon that is falling fast, do not mistake the feelers for that, but rather that he recognizes they are presently holding on to an unfortunately precaroius top in a notoriously difficult business (its ups and downs mirror the economy and, as a businessman, you are constantly threatened by cheap and abundant competition; think about it).
With their recent highly-public successes, despite their shaky numbers in the last year, now’s still the time to finally start taking some of the bids from media mega-conglomerates like Hearst and Conde-Nast, who have approached Hef time and again over the years hoping to acquire his empire under other names and start reaping the benefits while still appearing not to have their hands soiled by the skin-rag trade. (Don’t be fooled by articles that have other corporations listed as the top bidders — media peoples is veddy tricksy, okay.)
Again — *sigh* — I am so disappointed in Holly Madison for abandoning her project right when she was on top. This could have all been hers to share! This is partly her victory! What a time to develop short-sighted integrity, over a sleazy scumbag magician, no less. I thought she was flintier and more patient than this. I mean, I empathize: I have loved me some rotten, rangy, skeevy, drug-addled assholes in my day. But they totally ruined me, so, it’s like, what is she thinking. Whoa. Maybe that’s part of my disappointment. I’ll have to think about that.
Back to Ms. Tyler. Hit her up on the myspace (current mood: “flirty!”) or gawk at pics of her with sometimes-girlfriend and present roommate Suzanne Stokes (Miss February 2000). And may I add that, when it comes to sexual behaviors, one of the few things I hate more than overly-slowly-paced foreplay — get a move on and let’s do this!, is how I see it — is chicks who only lez out when there’s boys around. I’m not surprised, given the dates of their Playboy appearances, that they’re trotting out this tired gimmick, though. Remember in the early 2000’s when faux lesbianism in front of men was all the rage? Girls all half-heartedly tonguing at every barstool, not even closing their eyes. Lame. If you’re not going to do it in the dressing room, then don’t dry hump on the mainstage, you know what I mean? False advertising: I decry it!
I like to do really outrageous things – I jump headfirst instead of feetfirst. I cannot sit still.” Oh really? “I was dating this guy and had his name tattooed on my rear,” she confesses. “The next morning I said to myself, ‘Oh, Buffy, what did you do?’ Now that I’m no longer with him, I’m going to have to get and arrow drawn through it or something.” (“She’s So Buffy,” Playboy, November 2000.)
As much as I just bashed Ms. Tyler (sorry, chitlin!), I do think that’s a cute and a fun story right there. I’m not an illustrated lady, myself, but if I can say I admire a thing about those with tattoos, I guess it’s that they feel things passionately, and that is always a sweet and endearing quality in a person.
I note that Chyna is the cover model. As much as I admire an all-around kickass lady and good-time-gal, I have to say that these days I would more likely pay her to stay dressed than to take it off. Sorry, Chyna. Please don’t come and squash me.
Miss November 1985 was the lovely and talented Pamela Saunders. Despite claiming to hate public speaking when she was younger, the Texan bartender spilled a lot of personal refried beans to Playboy during her disarmingly candid and rueful, charming interview.
Photographed by Kerry Morris
“I love men to death,” she declares. “But, you know, they aggravate me. I let men get to me, and I’ve got a nervous stomach. I don’t think I want to get married.” (“Dealing With Dallas,” Playboy, November 1985)
“I guess working in a bar ruined me — you know, watching the way some of these married men act.” Pam medicates her nervous stomach with a steady diet of beer and junk food.
That is totally the way to do it! See, what did I tell you?? Funyuns and Newcastle and a gypsy curse — it’s a three-step weight loss program and it could be right for you!
“I suppose [men] think girls, especially blondes, are stupid. Well, you know,” she says, laughing, “I’m not a true blonde. … I am a klutz. I fall down stairs, spill things. I have to watch myself out on a date.”
This picture is adorable. And finally, in addition to being a klutz who likes beer and junk food, Ms. Saunders doesn’t give a shit about your social niceties when it comes to spic-n-span eat-off-the-kitchen-floor nest-feathering either:
“No, I’m a klutz; a slob, too.”
It’s love. Call me!
Final thought — Seth Godin was interviewed in this issue, just after the MENSA spread, about his work with then-employers Spinnaker Software, though he is better known now as the co-founder of Yoyodyne and for coining business terms like Purple Cows and permission marketing. You should check Playboy out, because that old saw about the articles being really good is actually the god’s own truth, y’all.
Now-defunct Charlottesville, VA rockers Clare Quilty have a cool, industrial-cum-punk, girl-fronted sound like Garbage or Snake River Conspiracy. They took their name from the character in the Nabokov novel and subsequent film adapations (in which his part was considerably beefed up) of Lolita. It seems that they parted ways after just a couple albums. I’ll come back to them another day because they had a cool sound and I’m not totally clear on what happened with their breakup (it was news to me when I went to grab their official site link and it was down … then when I cruised the wiki, it said they’d split).
This track, “Snow White,” comes from their second LP, Strong, and at first seems to be about getting murdered during rape, but I think if you listen carefully there’s a case to be made that it’s actually about a twisted relationship, or just some good old-fashioned masochistic consensual sex.
How can I get away from you?
Why must I watch the things you do?
What does it mean that you want a piece,
to my shattered skull and my broken knees?
How can you say that you want the truth
when the words in which I’ve spoken are far from you?
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Let’s beat Jack with a candlestick
How can I be all the things you want me to
with my twisted neck and my fingers blue
Your voice in my throat, your rage in my pants
my movements suggest an obedient dance
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Oh, oh,
Snow White
Snow White
by Courtney Brims
Either way. Love: sometimes it is a poisoned apple.
“Now, Mr. Torrance, one thing you must know is that the hotel is haunted. Horribly, horribly haunted. That’s cool, right?”
Uh-oh, he’s not going for it. Sell it, sell it!
“But the good news is, the ghosts keep a full bar, and your tab is on the house!”
Jack is sold.
The actual lines go like this:
ULLMAN: My predecessor in this job hired a man named Charles Grady as the winter caretaker. He came up with his wife and little girls. And from what l’ve been told, he seemed ike a completely normal individual. But at some point during the winter he must have suffered some kind of a complete mental breakdown. He ran amuck and killed his family with an ax. Stacked them neatly in a room in the west wing, and then … he put both barrels of his shotgun in his mouth.
JACK: That is … quite a story.
ULLMAN: Yeah, it is. l think you can appreciate why l wanted to tell you about it.
JACK: l certainly can. l also understand why your people in Denver left it for you to tell me.
ULLMAN: Obviously, some people can be put off from staying in a place where something like that happened.
JACK: You can rest assured that’s not going to happen with me. And as far as my wife is concerned l’m sure she’ll be absolutely fascinated when l tell her.
Oh, of course. Yes, ol’ Wendy just loves a good scare. It is the most overriding facet of her personality, in my opinion: her ability to handle a frightening situation with a steady mind and plucky aplomb, and not descend into horror or panic and despair.
Oh, wait … I guess her most overriding characteristic is that she comes completely fucking unglued at the drop of a hat.
I am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. This is the last Playmate post for today. Then four tomorrow, four Monday, the really fun final post for Tuesday in which I’m planning to crunch some of the gals’ numbers and do some trendspotting, and then I’m going to be forever done with the Miss Novembers. Whew!
The lovely and talented Cara Wakelin was Playboy’s Miss November 1999.
Photograph by Richard Fegley
That centerfold picture is largely garbage, poorly lit and ill-conceived, story-wise, just overall not as strong a composition as this project has lead me to expect from Fegley. Predictable and lacking a certain joy or playfulness. But this picture harkens back to vintage pin-up style, a great composition that is also freaking adorable!
When Cara’s mom read that the Playboy 2000 Playmate search bus was coming to their hometown of Toronto looking for new Playmates, she urged her hesitant daughter to go for a photo test. Thank goodness she did.” (“Catch of the Day,” Playboy, November 1999)
Q : This is your first modeling gig. How did your mother persuade you to try out for Playboy?
A : When she saw the newspaper article about the Playmate 2000 search, she started jumping up and down, saying, “You have to do this. You can do it.” I’ve never been very confident about my appearance. As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw ten beautiful blondes waiting in line. I said, “Mom, take me home. What am I doing here?” She said, “Cara, if you don’t get out of this car right now, I’m dragging you in there.”
Golf claps for Mrs. Wakelin, please, everyone? If you want to send her a fruit basket thanking her for her maternal powers of persuasion, airmail that shit to Canadialand, and mind you wrap it up nicely so it doesn’t get frostbitten. Do you all have even postal service up there in the icy North, or do you guys just tape your mail to a moose’s antlers, point him South, slap his ass, and hope for the best?
Besides making a cameo as the Princess in Death to Smoochy, one of my favorite movies, Ms. Wakelin also wins my love for appearing on an episode of the short-lived talk show of one of my all-time favorite athletes and a man who has always been in my top five list of People I Would Like to Be Stuck In An Elevator With: John McEnroe!! She was a guest on his show for one of the last episodes and appeared alongside wonderfully creepy gap-toothed comedian Paul Scheer.
The Thought Experiment 