Vonnegut Month: The people on the edge

Nous allons a la lune! via.

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

“Big, undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first.”

(Player Piano. Scribner, 1952.)

I think this is more important now than I ever have before. I stayed comfortable in the past, I kept nervously to the middle and tried not to draw attention to myself even though I found it unfulfilling and dissatisfactory, purely because the idea of doing anything else and letting the real me out seemed far too iffy.

via.

And now I have been galvanized in to action, in to pursuing the things I want, and I can’t believe I ever kept away from the edge, kept myself boxed-in and low-key and up-and-up. I don’t regret the time I spent hiding and gathering courage to myself, because that’s no use, and I don’t disdain myself for my fears or insecurities, nor anyone else for feeling like they are not able to be a jumper just yet, but I’m just so glad I’ve begun.

The Girls of Summer: Kelly Burke, Miss July 1966

Photographed by William Figge.

Kelly prefers making most of her natatorial plunges in the neighbors’ back-yard pool. “Besides the pool, they own two darling dogs,” she explains. “One’s a $700 pedigreed toy poodle named Suzie; the other’s a mongrel puppy that they rescued from the local dog pound for only five dollars. He’s named Toy Tiger and, needless to say, I’m in love with the mutt.”

(“Freckle-Face.” Playboy, June 1966.)

Good choice!

I’m an across-the-board mutt guy from Way Back: dogs, cats — men. Actually, I think I’m genuinely allergic to so-called “well-bred” dudes without debt. I’ve tried to date them and their leather car coats and confident wine-awareness makes my skin crawl. On the other hand, if you got a busted grill and drive a ’92 Honda Prelude with one broken headlight that won’t raise, know the difference between a single- and a double-wide, and front a ZZ Top cover band? I’m all yours.

Actual example: my friend J-Mys once tried to set me up on a double date with her and her boyfriend and a mortgage broker Senor R knew from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Polly Wolly Doodle All Day. J-Mys and Senor R cut out early and I was stuck with the mortgage broker, who was clearly not in to me either but was still talking some kind of folklore about variable rates and baloney sauce that I was not at all listening to because I was watching Clue in my head due to my crushing boredom, when I got up to get another pint of beer.

At the bar, this guy in a very dated No Fear t-shirt and battered, unironic John Deere ballcap saw I had actual folding money and asked me for change for the jukebox. We picked out a couple songs — I believe we went with Tom Waits, the Beatles, and “Thriller,” for novelty shits and giggles — and I told the boring mortgage broker that I was planning on going to the bathroom and going home.

I insisted we split the bill because I felt a few compunctions of guilt for wasting the early part of his Friday evening, even if I had in no way lead him to think the night had any kind of sexytimes in its future. Then I made sure the broker actually left, slipped out of the bathroom, and bullshitted with the ballcap guy on the porch about Quantum Leap and camping ’til my beer was done. Went home much happier than I’d been an hour earlier. Sneaky I guess but so much better.

As for the rest of the purple prose in that excerpt, I got hung up on “natatorial.” Really? Natatorial? Come on. That is some rich fertilizer right there. Talk about a needless fifty dollar word.

natatorial: (adj.) of, characterized by, or adapted for swimming.

Aww. Seems that some low-paid Playboy scribbler had a crush on his thesaurus.

That shot is freaking awesome. Hats off to Mr. Figge. “Natatorial” photography at its best? The reflection, the symmetry, the attention to every tile of the composition (rule of thirds) having something interesting in it — awesome sauce. Bill Figge is the shit.

As a medical buyer for one of California’s largest pharmaceutical cooperatives, Miss June has spent the past three years helping to supervise the selection of drugs destined to become shelf stock in hospitals and pharmacies throughout the Greater Glendale area.

(Ibid.)

Another stunning composition. The light-play is brilliant.

“My job can be fairly cut and dried one minute,” says the 21-year-old brunette, “and then, in typical Ben Casey fashion, a nearby hospital phones in an emergency order and I’m suddenly off and running all over the place to find the required medicines.”

(Ibid.)

The Ben Casey to which Ms. Burke refers was a popular television series which ran from the early- to mid-1960’s. The Bing Crosby-produced medical drama was filmed at Desilu Studios and starred Vince Edwards (Space Raiders, Return to Horror High*) as the titular surgeon Dr. Benjamin Casey. The opening sequence is famous for its serious, ominous overtones: this deep voice says, “Man — woman — birth — death — infinity.” Heavy shit, right?

*Yes, I deliberately picked the cheesiest, schlockiest, campiest of Edwards’ many legitimate credits to use as his two paranthetical citations, like those obscure B flicks would somehow make you say, “Oh, him!” I wanted to be funny. Vince Edwards is actually a talented and well-recognized actor who was very popular in his time: I am just a goofy rake.

Kelly now sports her own 1965 Oldsmobile convertible, in which she commutes daily from her new bachelorette bungalow in suburban Sylmar.

(Ibid.)

Just five months after Ms. Burke’s gatefold appearance, the Loop Fire wiped out huge swaths of the boundary between her new hometown of Sylmar and the Angeles Forest. The fatally unpredictable Loop Fire is still covered in firefighting course textbooks today as an example of the necessity for developing strong communication strategy to contain a dry canyon fire affected by high winds.

The Loop Fire began on November 1, 1966, at 5:19 am, on the edge of the Angeles National Forest. The El Cariso Interregional Fire Crew, which consisted of city and county firefighters, along with the El Cariso “Hot Shots,” a USDA-Forest crew of firefighters, sprang in to action to contain the blaze.

Tragically, a flare-up jumped from the forest to a canyon at the outer edges of Sylmar and created a wall of flame around it. A group from the Hot Shots crew was trapped inside, cut off from the rest of the firemen in a narrow and dry canyon of steep rock walls which, despite having no natural accelerants to move the fire along, still increases the energy of the fire because it functions as a “natural chimney,” creating tremendous heat and pressure.

Ten firefighters burned to death on site within minutes, while twelve others were injured, one critically.

Helicopter Pilot Troy Cook began rescue operations within 10 minutes after the men were burned. The diamond shaped area was still surrounded by fire when Pilot Cook hovered and picked up the first survivor.

(THE LOOP FIRE DISASTER – ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST – CALIFORNIA REGION: “A BRIEF OF THE REPORT OF THE GROUP ASSIGNED TO ANALYZE THE LOOP FIRE ACCIDENT.” US. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service. 1967: Washington, D.C.)

Pilot Roland Barton and his helicopter soon joined him and rescue operations continued with great courage and skill until all of the injured men were evacuated to the Los Angeles County Command Post on the Pacoima. From there the injured men were taken by auto to the hospital.

(Ibid.)

One of these injured men died at the LA County General Hospital November 6, but the rest survived thanks to the rescue efforts of the rest of the interregional team. A committee was formed by the Forest Service in conjunction with firefighting officials to use the tragic Loop Fire to improve fire prediction and containment methods, along with task force recommendations for the strengthening of safety and communication regulations.

The highly localized decisions and actions which resulted in the tragedy points to the need of:

(1) more specific direction on safe practices in similar topography; (2) specific control of helicopter attack; (3) scheduling of more complete inter- and intra-crew communication; and (4) adequate scouting to keep sector bosses currently informed when working in critical and possibly critical situations.

(Ibid.)

[We need to] make crystal clear in firefighting training that a “chimney,” “narrow box canyon,” or similar topographic feature is a Hazard Area even if devoid of fuel.

(Ibid.)

The El Cariso Regional Park on Hubbard in Sylmar is a memorial to the aforementioned El Cariso “Hot Shots,” the local United States Department of Agriculture – Forestry boys who were killed during their battle to keep the flames from entering the town.

That was kind of bummer stuff, so sorry, but an interesting slice of history. Wildfires in California are far more devastating than the earthquakes with which the rest of the country generally associates the state, and as a result, fire science in California is often at the cutting edge of research and methods for saving lives in the future.

But back to sunny Ms. Burke.

“I’ve become a real flower bug,” she reports, “since Mom and Dad bought a retail nursery in Yucaipa last year. Each time I visit them, I load up the back seat of the Olds with so much greenery before heading home that it winds up looking just like some sort of window box on wheels.”

(Ibid.)

That’s cute.

Weekends, June’s bantam (5′) beauty heads for the sun-drenched beaches of Santa Monica, equipped with an over-sized straw hat and nylon sailing parka. “My freckles still show no matter what I try!”

a) Yay for little lookers! Rock on with your pocket rocket self.
b) Why do freckled people always desire to hide them? Freckles are so unbelievably cute. I don’t get it.
c) It looks like she is Thumbelina laying in an orange peel. What the what is that stuff?

PEOPLE I ADMIRE: Albert Einstein, Dr. John Rock and Dr. Francis Kelsey, beause of their outstanding medical contributions.

MY IDEAL EVENING: Have cocktails and dinner, take in a movie, and then have a pizza.

(Playmate data sheet.)

Right on to Einstein, pizza, mutts, and having a serious job while attending Cal Poly Pomona during her appearance as a Playmate. Ms. Burke is the exception and not the rule of pretentious brandy-snifter marlarkey we went over earlier this week. Fun final fact: her sister-in-law, Allison Parks, was the 1966 Playmate of the Year.

Oh, and I guess a really fun final fact is that Ms. Burke was pregnant during this shoot. BOMBSHELL! Maybe that is why she is so adorably radiant. As you probably noticed, it’s another Cowboy Kate-influenced cover, I assume to reflect the “Girls of Texas” story. R.I.P., Sam Haskins.

The Girls of Summer: Gale Olson, Miss August 1968

Adorable cuteness photographed by Ron Vogel. Brain-asplosions. See what I mean about the ’60’s being the Heyday?

Your Miss August 1968 was the lovely and talented Gale Olson, who as you can see didn’t need cheesecake poses and a strained, pageanty smile to turn in an adorable and upbeat photoshoot for this issue of Playboy.

It’s really interesting how some of the playmates are capable of keeping the material erotic instead of porny. I don’t know that I can pinpoint the exact difference … but I look at this shoot, and I look at something like the gatefold of Miss November 1995, Holly Witt, and I feel like Edwin Meese quoting Justice Potter Stewart about classing porn: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.

Kind of funny since he was describing the opposite; Meese made his referential remark in regard to the history in America of attempts at distinguishing sexually themed content from straight-up obscenity. I’m kind of talking about the reverse. Either way, it’s a dicey issue. Reagan appointed Meese in 1985 to head the Meese Commission, also called the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, who published their report in 1986 to lip-smackingly salacious public interest. Everyone loves a good witch hunt, am I right?

I mentioned all these shenanigans once back in November when we talked about the experiences of Miss November 1986, Donna Edmondson, the Virgin Playmate who got hit with a steamy little shitstorm of media criticism. As though it were her fault. The Meese Commission’s report on pornography had the moral majority howling for naked people’s blood and she got caught in the middle. And don’t get me started on what happened fifteen years later — as we still live in a nation of, if not puritans, then at least sweaty hypocrites — to sweet Lindsey Vuolo, Miss November 2001, with that publicity-seeking, accusatory, diminishing misogynist Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Ugh.

I almost didn’t include this shot because it wasn’t very sharp or high-quality, but then as I contemplated it, I decided I actually liked the hazy quality, and the visible wrinkles in the image became dear and touching to me. There is something incredibly personal and human about the almost sad little private story one must conclude has lead to its well-worn threadbareness. Someone scanned this one with love, having either held on to it themselves, or acquired it from someone who had, for a long time. That idea is interesting as hell to me. What would someone make of the objects — letters, pictures, cards, old shirts — that you have secretly packed along with you to every new home in which you live, all these years, because of an emotional value, an identity-establishing familiarity, that far exceeds those objects’ original costs?

Pyjama Jam!

I do not want to use the word sentimental, per se, because these can be things that you keep for the gut, visceral reaction they can still incite. These are things that are part of the rhythms of your mind and body that I’m talking about, things worth holding on to because they are become part of how you operate. A roadmap to the art of you being “You” is this small collection of things so beloved that calling them cherished diminishes their import. These objects which represent long-passed moments or ways of feeling are part and parcel of the entirety of your experiences, your past, your emotions and stomach acid and sweat.

Things that have lasted longer than the relationships from which they came or phases in your mode of dress and hairstyle. To everyone else, because these objects are mixed in with other items, there is no shine or particularity about them. Only you know.

It is so incredibly personal and private, but the plain fact is that it will be gone through and picked over, someday, that collection of your private, true “belongings.” Because you’ll be dead, and those things that mean so much to you, those talismans of purpose and associative emotional properties won’t mean anything to anyone anymore.

I apologize. That was really downbeat. I’m getting close to a hard-hitting deathiversary (if you will) and I get all fucked up over it. Still. No need to drag anyone along.

Whew! Hot cross buns, enough with the self-audit, and enough with the needless sex-in-America history lessons as I retread ground I have already indignantly covered. Sorry — let’s get on with Ms. Olson!

The Olsons, who now live in Costa Mesa, are a large, closely knit family. “Having six brothers and three sisters really teaches you a lot about sharing things, materially and emotionally,” Gale says. Our August Playmate hopes one day to raise a family almost as large, but that won’t come about until she first fully satisfies her penchant for adventure.

(“Star-Spangled and Starry-Eyed.” Playboy, August 1968.)

“Last year I decided to become an astronaut, so I called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Houston to find out qualification requirements.” Gale spent enough time being briefed on the phone by NASA officials to acquire four pages of notes. “So far, things are turning out fine for me,” she reports.

(Ibid.)

A model (36-22-35) of American femininity, Gale (who delivered talks on girl scouting over German television) stays in shape by practicing ballet and exercising, and plans to study Tahitian dancing next year.

(Ibid.)

I have said before that we superfly Girl Scouts are a bombass bunch. Take it to the bank.

“I think every girl who has the figure for it wishes she could be a Playmate, and I’m no exception,” [Gale] observes. “All I can say is that I was lucky!”

Lucky Gale, lucky readers.

(Ibid.)

Photographed by by Stephen Wayda and Barry Fontenot. Very close to the same pose!
And thirty-one years later, the readers were lucky again when Ms. Olson’s daughter, the lovely and talented Crystal McCahill, above, was Playmate of the Month for Playboy’s May 2009 issue.

It’s a different kind of Darwin Award: the Playmate gene, passed from mother to daughter, ensuring survival of the fittest and constant attention from males of the species. Examine the evidence before you in the curvy form of Crystal McCahill, the 25-year-old daughter of Miss August 1968 Gale Olson.

(“It’s Crystal Clear.” Playboy, May 2009.)

\

“I think every girl who has the figure for it wishes she could be a Playmate, and I’m no exception,” said Gale in her Playmate interview. “All I can say is, I am lucky!” Yet when luck strikes twice, it seems less like luck than destiny. It has happened just once before, when Miss December 1960 Carol Eden saw her daughter Simone grace the Centerfold in February 1989.

Says the Illinois-born Crystal, “I remember telling my brothers and sisters, ‘I’m going to do that one day. I’m going to do the exact same pose.'”

(Ibid.)

A fun-loving, positive, and thoroughly modern gal, you may follow Ms. Olson’s present doings on the twitter.

This picture is one of my favorites from the shoot. From a strictly aesthetic point of view it may possibly eclipse for me even the swan-butt ones. I love the movement and the colors in this composition. The impact of the yellow in all those little flowers around her is joyful and riotous, and her closed eyes imply a savoring of the moment. There is nothing forced or deliberate in this picture. It’s excellent.

The cover was photographed by Mario Casilli and Caroll Baker. The pose and styling of the model, Aino Korva — Miss Universe Denmark 1963, and first-runner-up in the 1963 Miss Universe pageant (in which Peter “Dr. Strangelove/The Pink Panther” Sellers was one of the judges!!), making her bid the closest a Dane has ever come to winning the title — are strikingly similar to the centerfold of Miss July 1967, Heather Ryan. I’m saving the lovely and talented Ms. Ryan for later this month. But you’ll see what I mean then.

As with the post on the lovely and talented Miss March 1967, Fran Gerard, I must throw up huge thanks to Fabrizio, an awesome and generous moderator over at the vintage erotica forums, which are free, well-moderated, full of fun, and they won’t give your computer any wack infections or the hantavirus. Grazie, bello♥!, and, to the rest of you, run — don’t walk — to the site. Enjoy!

Flashback Friday: NSFW November — Rita Lee, Miss November 1977

Flashback Friday! Originally posted Nov 22, 2009 @ 12:38 pm.


Heads-up, Scorpios! (I’m looking at you, Cappy) — the lovely and talented Rita Lee, Miss November 1977, lists your sign as one of her turn-ons.

Photographed by Richard Fegley

A certain almost unstable level of insecurity and uncertainty comes across in her interview that I think translates in to these photographs. Check out her general lack of eye contact, her sidewise glances, her closed mouth, the way her hands have to be doing something. The wiki says that the photographer, Fegley, had her pose for his portfolio and even put her in a book. I guess maybe that nervous energy, that vulnerability, made her an interesting subject for more serious photography.

“I was very naïve and men took advantage of that. I always worried about what other people thought of me.” …

She says she would never have considered posing for “some of those other magazines” and that she was surprised that the Playboy people were so professional. “I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard all sorts of things, like they photograph your body and put another girl’s head on it, and that none of the information on the girls is real. I was afraid that maybe after all the preliminary shootings they would decide my breasts weren’t big enough or something and ask me to have plastic surgery.” (“Growing Up,” Playboy, November 1977.)

She also talks in the interview about moving out and living on her own at 17, and how it was a mistake and her parents were right about her conservative upbringing. The below shot proves that Fegley got a smile out of her eventually. But it looks like it was a battle. Judging from what she said about her past and herself in her interview, I think she may have been pretty down and vulnerable during this period.

“I used to read about Marilyn Monroe. I felt as though I could identify with her. I learned something from her. Her suicide was like a warning for me.”

Shit-oh-dear, someone needs a hug and a Xanax! I am only comfortable making that joke because she is still alive and not dead like some of these other ladies. It’s actually terrible to read the interview and see the pictures because what emerges is a glimpse at this seemingly depressed, insecure woman with valid, sad anxietes about appearance and relationships, overly sensitive to the falseness inherent to human interaction, the whole ball of wax. I kind of do wish I could give her a hug. Some souls are born lost.

GOALS:
As I get older, to develop a better understanding of myself and others. To always have a fulfilling relationship with someone.

TURN-ONS:
Scorpio men, candlelit intimate dinners, swimming nude, genuine affection and trust.

TURNOFFS:
Phony people, particularly men who are attracted to women only because of looks.

Her repeated emphasis in both her data sheet and her interview on trust and wanting a relationship with someone who will look past her looks is heartrending to me. She must have really been burned in her past. I hope that she did find that fulfilling and ideal relationship, and that she married someone she really trusted, who deserved it, and lived happily ever after.

addendum June 4, 2010: This flashback is by way of introducing the Girls of Summer project, special Misses June, July, and August who I have picked out and researched and will begin posting up hopefully daily, probably starting on Sunday. (Got dogs in the fire tomorrow.)

Spring Fever!: Inaugural Edition feat. Gwen Wong, Miss April 1967

I’ve fallen down completely on the job of keeping up the journal, mainly because I’ve got so many dogs in the fire that I don’t know where to begin to express my feelings about them. Besides being an outlet for emotions, this so-called thought experiment was supposed to be a project that would force me to write something every day, and I have not been doing so. I’ve let feeling Ways About Things totally overwhelm me and paralyze my writing. That changes today.

The one thing that can always get some creative and otherwise positive juices flowing for me is writing about the Playmates, so welcome to Spring Fever! They say April is the cruellest month, but I am going to do my best to make it the kindest every ding-dong day. Starting ……. now.

Venus in argyle.

Photographed by Mario Casilli and Gene Trindl.

This adorable cardigan and knee-socks sporting model is Miss April 1967, the lovely and talented Gwen Wong. I think her photoshoot was really a great one.

Just well-lit, and done so with a striking ambience, not with a lot of artificial lighting, with makeup and styling that is kicky but not overly fetishistic, just a very fun and natural shoot — and, most admirably to my mind, I think it is delightfully and matter-of-factly progressive given the time and place (Cold War America at the end of the Korean War, heightening of the conflict in Vietnam, pitch of the Red Scare, a time when there was still a lot of “otherization” of the unfamiliar, etc) in which it appeared. I wish I could say the same for the text which accompanied the shoot, but overall it is not so bad that Edward Said is calling out hits or anything.

The credit of first Asian-American Playmate of the Month is sometimes erroneously given to Gwen Wong. While Ms. Wong has many awesome merits of her own, she is not, in fact, the first Asian-American gatefold model.

That honor belongs to Margaret “China (rhymes with Tina)” Lee, who was Miss August 1964 and performs the memorable striptease which runs over the credits for Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily?. As further old school and timeless comedy cred goes, China was married to the great Mort Sahl from 1967 to 1991. She also dated Robert Plant.

I think this is as “typical” as the photoshoot got. That’s pretty cool in my book, all appropriate due given to the temporal setting.

But enough about Ms. Lee. I should give her her own entry one of these days, and we’ll cover that then. Don’t let me forget. Back to Gwen Wong, who justly deserves the attention.

Born in Manila during the latter part of World War Two … Miss Wong is, in fact, a startlingly beautiful blend of six nationalities: Chinese, Scottish, Spanish, Australian, Filipino and Irish.

(“Spice From the Orient,” (groan) Playboy, April 1967.)

As you can see, Ms. Wong lists Filipino among the handful of her ethnic identities and it’s clearly stated she was born in Manila, which dramatically undermines the claim to the title of first Filpino-American Playmate made by Playboy in the lovely and talented PR (Miss November 1988, name removed at model’s request)’s write up some twenty-one years later.

If you followed NSFW November, you may remember [model’s name removed at request] as the lovely lady whose entire entry I accidentally spent describing the Thrilla in Manila fight (aka Frazier-Ali III) instead of talking a single bit about the naked girl in the pictures around the text.

I promised then, after I was done gushing about the greatest boxing match in history, that I would try and mention the other another day. That day is now and once again, this is probably not how she’d have hoped that to go — citing someone else as the real titleholder of her one noteworthy (at that time) characteristic. Sorry, kiddo, but who can deny the awesomeness of Ms. Wong?

So when I’m done with this entry on completely radical Gwen, I’ll try and work up some brief copy on the other’s bummer choices in dudes with which I can totally emapthize to appear later in the week because it turns out she’s all kinds of a quite interesting in a glass-ceiling-busting, con-man-choosing kind of way (we ladies must trailblaze). Yet again, most likely not the way anyone would’ve like to be immortalized in google’s search returns, but what can you do!

An expert cook, Miss April is equally adept at whipping up wor shew opp, scungilli or boeuf Bourguignonne. “Cooking has almost become a mania with me,” she says. “I collect cookbooks the same way people collect LPs.” Before becoming a Bunny, Gwen studied painting and ceramics at California’s El Camino Junior College. (Ibid.)

“Frankly,” she says, “most modern art confuses me, although I wouldn’t classify myself as a traditionalist. I try not to be swayed by other people’s opinions when visiting a gallery, but that’s not always easy. I like to think if a canvas is good I’ll know it — because, well, I’ll feel it.” (Ibid.)

So true.

Special K and I were at her Humboldt orientation this weekend and it happened to be the Arts! Arcata night on Friday, so while she was attending a mixer for incoming freshmen, I slipped from the campus downtown to the Arts! events so as not to be That Guy hanging around outside waiting for the kid they are chaperoning and embarassing the crap out of said kid.

The work being shown at various galleries and makeshift exhibitions inside boutiques and bars was a real mix of media as far as form, but the content and thrust of the work was generally what I think can be termed “modern” art. Some of what I saw really resonated with me, while there was other work to which I felt zero connection. But I don’t think subjectivity alone can explain why some people buy certain modern art.

I’d like to think that everyone who buys a piece buys it because they love it, but I doubt that’s so. I think there is a combination of snobbery and peer pressure, too, from other collectors and from people in the business. I hope to never buy something because I’m told it’s cool. So what I’m saying is, I understand where Ms. Wong is coming from with her statement.

Miss Wong is also a jazznik and prefers the singing of Morgana King and Ella Fitzgerald among at least a score of recording artists she admires. (Ibid.)

“Jazznik.” That is somehow quaint. Besides being a textbook great in jazz history, Mo King would also go on to feature in the Godfather movies as Carmella Corleone, second wife of Don Vito Corleone and mother to Fredo, Connie, and Michael (and I guess kind of, you know, a foster mom or whatever to Tom Hagen), positively double-cementing her perpetual place in my heart. Well-called, Ms. Wong!

According to the wiki, Ms. Wong is an artist these days. She specializes in body-casting. The wiki entry on her calls it that, but I’m more familiar with the term Lifecasting. Body casting makes me think of, like, broken hips and stuff. Bad scene.

Anyway, this has been your inaugural edition of Spring Fever! and I hope you enjoyed it.

March Madness: Priscilla Wright, Miss March 1966

Dig those tanlines. Miss March 1966 was the lovely and talented Priscilla Wright, who preferred to go by Pat and was one helluva golfer.

Photographed by Mario Casilli.

This is a great, breezy shoot that emphasizes Ms. Wright’s love of the outdoors and brisk, sporty style. I really dig it.

My favorite shot.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer interdum ultricies nisl in ultrices. Quisque vestibulum fermentum tincidunt. Fusce id lectus vitae massa mattis tempus eget et ante. Nulla facilisi. Sed rutrum dui eget augue varius sodales varius orci aliquet. Etiam adipiscing accumsan mauris. Proin condimentum sollicitudin purus eget gravida. Nunc eget lacus ac nulla blandit mattis sit amet fringilla nisl. Aliquam ipsum felis, ornare vitae rutrum ut, tempus a nisl. Aenean in elit nec purus dictum facilisis at volutpat libero. Vestibulum in urna tellus. Aliquam in ipsum justo, mollis euismod felis. Aenean accumsan dapibus risus, vel dignissim tellus facilisis vestibulum. Mauris quis ligula nec turpis elementum facilisis non ut sem. Integer quis mauris vitae tortor sollicitudin blandit. Vivamus vel est turpis. Fusce ut odio quam. Morbi vulputate ipsum vel nisl scelerisque sit amet interdum velit iaculis. Duis eget sapien vel purus lacinia tristique id vehicula erat.

Integer lobortis lectus lectus, id rutrum justo. Aliquam vitae mauris in nulla sodales tempor. Quisque quis sapien metus, nec dignissim est. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nulla adipiscing lobortis orci vitae faucibus. Integer magna magna, facilisis id iaculis non, dictum quis massa. Phasellus vestibulum tincidunt tincidunt. Mauris eros erat, mattis sed sagittis aliquet, facilisis ut leo. Curabitur imperdiet tincidunt aliquet. Sed nibh magna, elementum porttitor cursus non, laoreet eu tortor. Donec in justo et mauris ornare interdum. Nam at pharetra velit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Morbi non elit sit amet orci interdum luctus non quis lorem. Pellentesque nisi lectus, consequat et malesuada mollis, mollis vel felis. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vivamus placerat dictum diam vel interdum. Ut nec sem lacus.

Quisque vitae nisl id ante ultricies semper sit amet at enim. Sed odio mi, vulputate ac iaculis sit amet, sollicitudin nec felis. Vestibulum imperdiet lectus ut ipsum facilisis fringilla eu non purus. Vivamus porta euismod tortor, quis malesuada velit elementum in. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla at eros nulla, at vulputate odio. Cras in purus dolor. Duis fringilla lacinia sem, ut tempus augue venenatis pretium. Quisque ac metus a ligula vehicula faucibus eget nec nibh. Nunc sed arcu quis diam convallis dictum non in odio. Donec et placerat eros. Nunc congue gravida neque, sed vehicula nulla bibendum at. Vestibulum suscipit pellentesque lacus, ac faucibus est dapibus id. Etiam fringilla nisi sit amet neque ultricies eget laoreet nisi tincidunt. Maecenas at velit augue, in scelerisque felis. Curabitur dapibus, magna et tempus elementum, nunc libero commodo sapien, vel vehicula metus mi id quam. Praesent volutpat dui ac est feugiat egestas. Vivamus ligula diam, suscipit tempor dictum eget, aliquet id metus.

Donec ultrices pulvinar mi ac porta. Ut eu dolor sapien, in semper lectus. Quisque porttitor pharetra fringilla. Aliquam erat libero, blandit sed mollis ut, tincidunt eget elit. In ut ligula urna. Pellentesque ultricies luctus velit sed iaculis. Donec ut libero risus. Pellentesque pharetra condimentum dui ut ultrices. Morbi ac hendrerit lacus. Donec accumsan lobortis velit eget dictum.

Fusce leo tortor, accumsan at pulvinar vel, dapibus quis justo. Donec tortor leo, vehicula quis venenatis nec, viverra ac mi. Fusce nec arcu enim, id rhoncus nisl. Morbi elit nibh, egestas ut lacinia at, scelerisque id ante. Vestibulum quis turpis id ligula laoreet dapibus. Proin blandit augue vitae enim consequat et euismod justo sodales. Mauris sagittis hendrerit purus a tempor.

Vestibulum orci est, gravida sed vestibulum non, posuere nec elit. In dapibus, velit eget gravida auctor, est quam accumsan quam, ut aliquet felis dui vel metus. Morbi sed est nec risus aliquet aliquam et blandit erat. Integer semper dolor vitae felis semper vel congue nibh iaculis. Donec mattis convallis magna et accumsan. Praesent magna justo, malesuada vehicula elementum quis, mattis ac velit. Duis venenatis convallis eleifend. Proin ultricies adipiscing dui, nec interdum nulla malesuada non. Sed varius rutrum lectus ac rutrum. Pellentesque sit amet diam sed justo sagittis consequat nec a dolor. Curabitur auctor magna quis libero vehicula eleifend in ac lectus. Quisque gravida purus nec augue scelerisque vel imperdiet mi pharetra. Sed in dignissim enim. Phasellus bibendum blandit leo, at adipiscing sapien rutrum vitae. Etiam ornare varius dolor, id venenatis dolor varius ultricies. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer ut egestas enim.

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Nunc quis orci dui. Vestibulum sit amet tincidunt lectus. Maecenas ac diam quam. Nam placerat libero tincidunt ligula volutpat sollicitudin. Nunc urna metus, laoreet sed lobortis eget, lobortis sit amet dui. Aliquam sagittis luctus ultricies. Maecenas velit turpis, tristique vel posuere nec, auctor in ipsum. Nulla id nulla nisi. Morbi iaculis, diam eu faucibus auctor, lectus turpis luctus felis, ac scelerisque ligula sapien vel felis. Donec luctus tempus fringilla. Praesent aliquet leo non massa vehicula ullamcorper a at nibh. Quisque dolor purus, commodo at suscipit at, fermentum vitae orci.

Pellentesque ut pretium tellus. Mauris vitae velit ut neque sollicitudin eleifend ut a leo. Donec sollicitudin accumsan urna vitae aliquam. Etiam et elit id neque tempus molestie ut at ipsum. Pellentesque vitae libero nulla. Integer nec nunc augue, non imperdiet massa. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Proin feugiat laoreet sem, a hendrerit leo iaculis sit amet. Etiam eget est lacus. Fusce sed ligula ac nisi laoreet laoreet. Aenean vel tellus ante. Proin odio dui, tincidunt quis viverra ut, fringilla et risus. Ut nec sem scelerisque justo mollis consectetur.

Etiam in neque id nisl venenatis luctus non eu elit. Duis egestas suscipit diam consectetur iaculis. Curabitur feugiat, nisl eget adipiscing posuere, ipsum purus pretium massa, aliquet congue nibh augue et risus. In lacus lorem, ullamcorper et malesuada ut, rhoncus eget turpis. Curabitur eu ante quis libero consequat varius suscipit eget leo. Aenean porta fermentum dapibus. Pellentesque in ante ligula, sit amet sagittis lacus. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Pellentesque aliquam ante sit amet augue malesuada ac vestibulum neque laoreet. Aenean semper rhoncus risus, vel vestibulum erat laoreet nec. Integer quis nisl aliquet metus venenatis ornare. Pellentesque mollis, felis a suscipit congue, metus justo consequat libero, vitae consequat nisi velit quis nisl. Proin neque ante, pulvinar id elementum eget, congue non elit. Pellentesque vitae eros dui. Praesent id cursus neque. Aenean interdum dictum mi nec congue.

Praesent vitae sem tortor, quis imperdiet lacus. Nullam lectus diam, feugiat at varius in, sagittis eget sem. Vivamus ut ipsum quam. Duis gravida iaculis purus, quis tincidunt diam lacinia vitae. Nunc imperdiet, metus vel cursus ultrices, libero neque fringilla eros, ut vestibulum massa lacus et tortor. Sed eu tortor lorem, pharetra tempus eros. Ut ornare mauris quis orci molestie mattis. Vestibulum justo magna, posuere sed ullamcorper id, blandit nec orci. Donec luctus, mauris ut luctus scelerisque, dolor elit sagittis turpis, vel posuere libero lacus ut sem. Aenean nec velit urna. Quisque rutrum consectetur turpis vitae interdum. Etiam condimentum tristique neque a mattis. Aliquam commodo, enim at convallis sagittis, nibh quam sodales dolor, vitae bibendum lorem nisl eu magna. Phasellus tempor lectus venenatis augue consequat laoreet. Morbi eleifend lorem quis felis porttitor eget elementum nulla sodales. Donec id mollis eros. Integer pretium posuere nulla ut aliquet. Vestibulum arcu lorem, malesuada sit amet elementum quis, commodo sed urna. Pellentesque quis nisl eget augue vehicula aliquet vel nec velit. Maecenas pharetra dictum cursus.

Etiam ac velit lobortis dui accumsan posuere condimentum et justo. Vestibulum eu metus placerat sem faucibus tempus sit amet ut nulla. Proin posuere, turpis vitae aliquet tempus, mauris metus fringilla tellus, eget fringilla ipsum tellus vel lectus. Etiam eu pharetra arcu. Phasellus eget condimentum leo. Maecenas ligula elit, molestie eget laoreet id, mollis at ipsum. Cras in tristique sem. Curabitur consectetur sodales nibh sit amet eleifend. Integer ut sapien in enim iaculis euismod. Aliquam non malesuada erat. Aenean ac adipiscing purus. Phasellus sodales, arcu in ultrices tempus, ante ante commodo dui, pulvinar dictum magna ante non ipsum.

Lorem Ipsum-ing it up ’til I have time to get back in here and add all my actual text: my grandmother was having a really great day and we’d been having fun, but the mail still hasn’t come with a new box of checks for her and she’s beginning to get pretty nervous. I’m going to suggest we make smoothies (she loves the blender because the container is clear and she gets a kick out of watching it whir — the Osterizer she has had since the 50’s has a silver cup and she likes ours better). I could’ve just left no text in between, but I’m too cool and Old School. So old school I drive a yellow bus with gothic arched windows!, to quote Achewood. Catch you on the flip, ASAP.

edit: We made dyed-green mousse instead.

Special thanks to marxz on the v-e forums.

Valentine Vixen — Cherie Witter, Miss February 1985

The lovely and talented Cherie Witter was a seasoned model by the time she posed for Playboy as Miss February 1985, and I’m happy to report she was born in the same neck of the deep dark crick gypsy needleleaf rainforest as myself!

Photographed by Richard Fegley and Arny Freytag.

Modeling takes, as Cherie would say, “a major amount” of dedication. Especially in an area that’s somewhat off the beaten track for the fashion industry. The towns where Cherie grew up — Marysville, Everett, Edmonds, Bellevue — appear only on fairly detailed maps of the hilly farm and forest land, lakes and seashores surrounding Seattle. (“Cherie On Top,” Playboy, February 1985.)

Although it’s a picturesque area, it hasn’t been a center of fashion since the boom days of the Klondike gold rush. Of course, few people today wear miners’ boots. And with the gold all but played out, people in Seattle have been forced to build ships and planes, catch fish and harvest timber. (Ibid.)

Erm, that’s a fairly inaccurate depiction of the history of the Pacific Northwest (did they seriously leave out Lewis and Clark? and how on earth was any part of the Klondike Gold Rush to do with fashion? it was dudes in flannel and gumboots, my friend, and whores in eight layers of clothes against the cold — read Call of the Wild, dumbasses), but I’ll take it.

The rest of my family being born where our deep roots lay, in Northeastern Washington and the very far north woods of Idaho, makes me very smug and proprietary about the Puget Sound — I believe only my cousin Richie shares the coast of Washington as our birthplace, among the, like seventy of us cousins and our kids. Rich was born in Marysville and I was born in Bremerton.

I found a very dicey and suspicious fan tribute page to Ms. Witter on the myspace which looked too scammy for me to link to, but I found her legit facebook and will share only that she now lives in a really gorgeous town further up the Puget Sound called Mukilteo. I’ve been through it only once in my grown-up memory, but it’s beautiful country — a lot of the landscape cinematography and ferry scene stuff for the American film version of The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2003) was shot around the area.

Knowing the proximity of Mukilteo to Bremerton, up in that there ol’ Sound, I decided to test Google’s ability to use the ferry system in its directions. The Sound consists of dozens and dozens of peninsulas and islands connected by a spotty system of bridges which span the “narrows” —our colloquial term for straits of water slim enough across so you can see one another’s buildings but deep and riptidey enough that if you drove you’d sink and if you swum you’d drown— but it’s often quicker to shoot around on the reasonably efficient ferry transit system.

Also, you can see orca whales. I’m not kidding. It’s amazing. They come right around either side of the boat in good-sized pods and circle and flip and do all kinds of shit. They are kind of show-offs. They scared the heck out of me when I was a kid because of their teeth, though.

So I typed in a query for directions from Mukilteo to Bremerton in Google and … FAIL. Google maps and driving directions, on the first shot out of the gate, told me to drive a crazy-stupid-lengthy route around I-5S to 16-W, the lonnnng way, from Mukilteo to Bremerton. This is extra stupid, because anyone who lives in the area will tell you Mukilteo is a pretty popular transport hub for the ferries.

If Ms. Witter weren’t so beautiful, this would hecka just look like one of those cheap Glamourshots from the mall, yes?

But I will give the site credit for eventually recommending the way I would’ve instinctively gone, which is to drive down to Lynnwood and Edmonds, take the Kingston-Edmonds ferry, get to the Kitsap Peninsula, then drive 104 to 3 into Bremerton. Duh. (Sarcasm.) Look, I don’t get to be “smarter” than google very often, so give me my moment! Speaking of smart, Ms. Witter had this to say about people’s perceptions of her intelligence based on her looks, an important lesson in not judging, no matter whether the subject of your judgment is, in your estimation “a dork,” or a beautiful idiot:

Oh my saltines, so dang adorable.

“I feel as if, at times in my life, I’ve been fighting what I have on the outside. I feel that, when people meet me, I don’t really have a chance to let them know what I’m about, or to prove that I’m worth knowning. And I don’t like having to prove that to people.

“But a lot of people who meet me are surprised. And they tell me they’re surprised; that’s what’s funny about it — they’re honest. They say, ‘I’m surprised, really surprised that you have not only your looks but you have something upstairs too.’ I like that.” (Ibid.)

What? She has a slicker on. Get off her back. Totally de rigeur apple picking attire. Perfectly normal.

In one of those great little coincidences that somehow abound in the small world of Playboy (the more you investigate the playmates, the more fun connections pop up), here’s a brief cross-pollenation note about the cover of Ms. Witter’s centerfold issue:

Also, please note the interview with then-29-year-old Steve Jobs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “the articles are interesting” is more than just a timeworn excuse for ogling titties.

The brain-asplodin’ly cute model posing in the chaps and spurs is the lovely and talented Julie Michelle McCullough, who appeared in the “Girls of Texas” spread in this issue of Playboy and returned a year later to headline her own spread as Miss February 1986. And guess who was on her cover that February issue one year later?

(you have already seen this picture but I’m posting it again for comparison’s sake)

Cherie Witter! I guess they have each other “covered”? Cherry pop tarts, I sure hope for all our sakes that’s the worst pun I make today. But no promises. Anyway, how about that? Pretty great. Stand-up comic and good-time gal Julie is one of my all time faves, so here’s another link to the feisty “funny bunny,” who, just like Ms. Witter and so many of the great playmates I’ve gotten to highlight this month, is walking and talking proof that beauty and brains aren’t mutually exclusive.

NSFW November: Kaya Christian, Miss November 1967

Kaya Christian, Miss November 1967, was previously a diving and backstroke champ, then a water ballerina, and finally was certified as a SCUBA instructor just before this issue of Playboy went to print. I guess what I’m saying is, she’s in to watersports.

Photographed by Bill Figge and Ed DeLong

You know what I’ve noticed? It seems like the more vintage the playmate, the more the chance you will find a few butt shots. I don’t just mean shots where there is a naked hind end in the picture, I mean ones where the whole composition is framed around it; where it is solely the focal point, like you don’t even see boobs or anything else, practically.

It just seems like if a playmate is from the mid-60’s to late 70’s, you are practically guaranteed at least one photograph of the model looking over her shoulder or in profile with her ass aimed at the camera. Playboy has really went the boob-focused route since the 80’s and 90’s, all the way to the early 2000’s, and it seems it has been done at the price of the derriere. Sometimes the back side can be the best side, guys. It is now retro to have just-buns-pics in nudie spreads. Write that down.

A California native who spent her childhood in Georgia, Kaya enjoyed painting and music (so far, so good), late nights/early mornings (still solid), and listed as her idea of a good meal “shellfish and milkshakes.” Screeeee. What the unholy fuck?! Get out of the car, Ms. Christian. You’re walking. That’s easily the grossest thing I’ve heard all week, and most of my countrymen cooked a bird carcass in the last two days (the nasty phrases and descriptions that get bandied about when the subject is poultry roasting truly revolt me).

One of her turn-offs was “draft-card burners.” Oh, my. Sounds like the little swimming, naked girl has her some political opinions, enough so to list that in Playboy. Why don’t you go hoark down a bucket of oysters and a strawberry shake, sister, and save the sanctimonious shit for a rag that ain’t built on skin? Nobody cares if you uphold traditional family values (not to mention that the issue of the appropriateness of a draft for the Vietnam War was never, ever, except in the cheapest of rhetoric, about patriotism and being a good or a bad person).

This is what I was trying to point out in the last post, when I talked about Donna Edmondson and what she went through after admitting to being a virgin. The whole socio-religious-politics and porn thing just don’t mix. They don’t have to. I just think that if you try, you’re missing the point. It’s Playboy, honey. It’s not a pageant.

This is an example of a legit super-clever cover. See how her hips and ass form the bunny’s head and the straps that snake around the open back make his ears? Very nicely done. Another Beth Hyatt/Pompeo Posar pairing.

Weirdly, they talk about her work as

…laboring in the catacombish darkness of one of the West Coast’s largest photo-processing labs.

Thoughts on that? She talks about going to Catalina, so she’s in So-Cal. What’s down in the LA area in the way of Kodak-Eastman, etc? Because I could not at all place that reference.

NSFW November: Pat Russo, Miss November 1965

Another playmate who began as a bunny, 1965’s Miss November was the lovely and talented Pat Russo, a Connecticut girl who modeled briefly in Manhattan for the famous Barbizon Agency(kind of scammy in my opinion but some real careers have started there, so I’m not going to hate too hard). She hated the cold, relocated to Florida not too much later, and said in her interview that, after one winter in Florida, “‘Autumn in New York’ was just another pretty song as far as I was concerned!” She was scouted for the centerfold while working at the Miami club (“Pat Pending,” Playboy, November 1965).

Photographed by Pompeo Posar

This is kind of a weird one. I believe that Playboy did two different photoshoots (very common), but the stylists communicated poorly … if they communicated at all. Here’s what I think happened with this shoot.

Maybe the people in charge of hair and makeup on the different days this shoot was done were in a fight and not speaking, or maybe they had a conversation about ideas for Ms. Russo’s “look” but came away without a unity of vision, or even maybe some other type of accident or act of God intervened vis-a-vis the two different colored hairpieces, styling, etc. I mean, the girl is blonde one time and solidly ash brunette the next; she doesn’t even look like the pictures were taken in the same year, let alone afternoon.

Whatever happened here, too much time has passed to tell. But the end result is that it appears from some of the pictures, when you take the spread as a whole, as though Ms. Russo could be two almost totally different women.

All pictures are of her, though — I verified it with her Yahoo! groups fan club leader (last post on their bulletin board was in December of 2006, but the moderator still checks his email, bless his vintage-pin-up-lovin’ heart; thanks again for the lightning-fast response time, buddy!).

Speaking of styling, the cover is a blatant and (I checked the table of contents) totally unattributed rip off of the magnificent, incredible, erotic work of photographer and personal patron saint Sam Haskins, specifically his picture book/mystery/western short story Cowboy Kate (1964). I guess imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I am so genuinely bummed and perturbed by the fact that you might mistake the originality and brilliance of this composition —

Totally uncredited rip-off photographed by Pompeo Posar. (Model’s name is Beth Hyatt.) Pompeo, I am hella disappointed in you.

— the parted lips which echo the round opening of the gun barrel, the swinging curtain of blonde hair beneath the rounded black cowboy hat, the always-a-great-idea toplessness — as belonging to some cover designer at Playboy (all respect to their often-clever work) and not to the living god that is Sam Haskins that I do believe, holy shit, you guys, December is going to have to be Official Sam Haskins Month! I will do my best daily throughout December to scrounge up some of my saved photos from his enormous and thought-provoking body of work that are either permissible or I can reasonably say are ads and therefore in the public domain.

Boy, oh boy! Let’s see if I can continue my streak of not getting sued before the year is up!

It’s nice to have goals.

NSFW November: Miss November 1993, Julianna Young

Okay, the possibility of that last girl being so drastically underaged in my opinion skeeved me out bad. So I looked for my oldest Miss November and here she is, a Kentucky girl who was living in Florida at the time of her appearance in Playboy.

No photo credit that I can find so far.

When the lovely and talented Julianna Young appeared for Playboy as Miss November in 1993, she was 33, tying Miss April 1985, Cindy Brooks, as the oldest Playmate to pose for a centerfold up until that time (please note that Playmates of the Month are different from the bunnies, the models featured on the cover, the girls in the tearsheets, and whatever actress or model is in the celebrity spreads who appear in any particular issue of the magazine).

For the record, they were both beaten out for the all-time most vine-ripened Playmate title when Rebecca Ramos posed at 35 in the January 2003 issue — and Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World, Jury Duty), 36 at the time, was the celebrity model in that issue, no less. Nice hustle on the dirty thirties, dudes! Chronologically enhanced ladies need love, too. But please be aware, that is the only thing Ms. Young says is enhanced about her.

Sorry, again, I do not know even at all who took the pictures for this spread. But 38 DD, to answer the other question.

“My large breasts are actually a blessing. They’ll get me through the door, and my brains can keep me there.”

TURNOFFS:
I am too liberal-minded to have any, nor is it my place to preach.

LAST GOOD CRY:
The hour and a half I spent watching the movie Free Willy. Also, seeing the devastation from Hurricane Andrew.

WHERE I LIVE:
I come from south Florida, a sunny place for shady characters.

That’s a great line. I mock Floridians all the time. I like to pretend it’s like a crazy colony for convicts, but I’m only kidding. It’s not like it’s as bad as Australia or anything. (left-field sick burn comin’ atcha, Oz!) Girl, you’re okay.

The Brazilian triplets cover story is thought-provoking, jes? I may go investigate that.

NSFW November – Rita Lee, Miss November 1977

Heads-up, Scorpios! (I’m looking at you, Cappy) — the lovely and talented Rita Lee, Miss November 1977, lists your sign as one of her turn-ons.

Photographed by Richard Fegley

A certain almost unstable level of insecurity and uncertainty comes across in her interview that I think translates in to these photographs. Check out her general lack of eye contact, her sidewise glances, her closed mouth, the way her hands have to be doing something. The wiki says that the photographer, Fegley, had her pose for his portfolio and even put her in a book. I guess maybe that nervous energy, that vulnerability, made her an interesting subject for more serious photography.

“I was very naïve and men took advantage of that. I always worried about what other people thought of me.” …

She says she would never have considered posing for “some of those other magazines” and that she was surprised that the Playboy people were so professional. “I didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard all sorts of things, like they photograph your body and put another girl’s head on it, and that none of the information on the girls is real. I was afraid that maybe after all the preliminary shootings they would decide my breasts weren’t big enough or something and ask me to have plastic surgery.” (“Growing Up,” Playboy, November 1977.)

She also talks in the interview about moving out and living on her own at 17, and how it was a mistake and her parents were right about her conservative upbringing. The below shot proves that Fegley got a smile out of her eventually. But it looks like it was a battle. Judging from what she said about her past and herself in her interview, I think she may have been pretty down and vulnerable during this period.

“I used to read about Marilyn Monroe. I felt as though I could identify with her. I learned something from her. Her suicide was like a warning for me.”

Shit-oh-dear, someone needs a hug and a Xanax! I am only comfortable making that joke because she is still alive and not dead like some of these other ladies. It’s actually terrible to read the interview and see the pictures because what emerges is a glimpse at this seemingly depressed, insecure woman with valid, sad anxietes about appearance and relationships, overly sensitive to the falseness inherent to human interaction, the whole ball of wax. I kind of do wish I could give her a hug. Some souls are born lost.

GOALS:
As I get older, to develop a better understanding of myself and others. To always have a fulfilling relationship with someone.

TURN-ONS:
Scorpio men, candlelit intimate dinners, swimming nude, genuine affection and trust.

TURNOFFS:
Phony people, particularly men who are attracted to women only because of looks.

Her repeated emphasis in both her data sheet and her interview on trust and wanting a relationship with someone who will look past her looks is heartrending to me. She must have really been burned in her past. I hope that she did find that fulfilling and ideal relationship, and that she married someone she really trusted, who deserved it, and lived happily ever after.

NSFW November: Kai Brendlinger, Miss November 1964

I’m going to go ahead and let the Playboy interview with Miss November 1964, the lovely and talented Kai Bredlinger, almost totally speak for itself.

Photographed by Pompeo Posar

AMBITIONS:
Modeling.

TURN-ONS:
Men. (data sheet).

Ms. Brendlinger did get slightly more specific about that wacky “men” fetish of hers in the more detailed article that accompanied her pictorial:

She eschews the possibility of ever becoming a career woman and anxiously looks toward the day when she can move to the wide-open spaces with her special brand of male, who will be “tall, fair, and smart enough to know he doesn’t have to prove he’s brighter than I.” (“Hallelujah, the Hills,” Playboy, November 1964)

TURNOFFS:
Dirt — I can’t stand anything dirty.

FAVORITE BOOKS:
Only the Bible and I still don’t understand it.

No kiddin’.