Reflections on Playboy

February 19, 2008

AskMen tells five things you didn’t know about Playboy (though I already knew two of them)

Last month, Johnny Testa of AskMen.com informed me of an article about Playboy France at his site. Yesterday, he emailed me about another Playboy-themed article there: five things you probably didn’t know about Playboy. (With pride, I can say that I already knew items 1 and 3 on the list.)

A 1999 article at Salon.com credits Hugh Hefner with “a Dickensian grasp of archetypes.” With this gift, he has imbued himself and his enterprise with an enduring sense of wonder and mystery. I like to think of myself as a skeptical guy, but I can’t help being as starry-eyed as the final paragraph of the AskMen piece:

Hefner is in his twilight years and, although plenty has been written about him, his true legacy and an untold number of secrets that are just aching to see print have yet to be fully explored.

Labels: He, RI

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 12:00 PM

January 4, 2008

The year before I was born, in a city thousands of miles away: the Jedi Bunny of my dreams

I was 16 when the 35th-anniversary issue of Playboy (January 1989) came out. Thanks to the Playboy Cyber Club retrospective on the 35-anniversary Playmate hunt that appeared the other day, I felt that age again. However, I want to be sure not to overlook an accidental juxtaposition of two mythic pop-cultural elements that I noticed in the other “magazine classic” that has just been released: “Bunnies of New York” (May 1971).

Emily Brown, at the Club’s Living Room buffet above, is a stay-at-home who writes fairy tales.
Photography by Pompeo Posar

At least once on That ’70s Show, Donna scolds Eric about his habit of making gratuitous Star Wars analogies. I refuse to take the hint. Sorry. Those analogies are too useful and too much fun. The photography team, the model, and the caption writer generate a mood of such noble, tranquil, dreamy solitude that, despite the anachronism, it’s easier for me to believe that the shiny cylinder at the Bunny’s hip is a lightsaber than a coin dispenser. As enticingly beautiful as Emily Brown is, a man who disturbed her fairy-tale reverie by making a crude pass would be as doomed as Actaeon after his transgression against Artemis.

Artemis and Aphrodite save me from Playboy Enterprises’ copyright lawyers in 2008!

Labels: CC, Cintv, Lit, RI, RS, TaoGlam, Theme

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 10:01 AM

December 10, 2007

Lord Ganesha save the mouse that looks like a rabbit!

I ask sincerely, since I believe I have cause to thank that deity anyway.

I’ll admit that this is species lookism on my part, but don’t judge me before viewing the CNN video. Beavis and Butt-head never jumped the proverbial shark by turning nice, and even they would have said, “Awww.”

Hypothetical date of a lifetime (in a good way) Katherine Mangu-Ward will eat anything—except for these cuties.

In related news, an endangered wild rabbit of Florida, Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, was named after you-know-who.

Labels: Cintv, ForPo, He, Lib, NPH, OnVi, OthBlo, Ph, RI, Rom, RS, Sc

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 11:22 AM

December 1, 2007

Are you a Playmate at heart? This song is for you.

Labels: Celeb, He, Mus, OnVi, OthBlo, PM, RI

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 8:09 AM

October 25, 2007

The return of the Bunny (and, in all likelihood, the Playmate Bunny)

Let’s all admit it: one of the greatest joys of every hobby and every profession is the chance to intimidate the squares with pedantic distinctions in language. Strictly speaking, a Playmate is one of the monthly foldout models, while a Bunny is a waitress or croupier in a distinct costume. (To avoid another common misunderstanding, the Playmate of any given month is almost never that month’s cover girl.)

One upshot of this distinction is that some women have earned two feathers in their caps as Playmate Bunnies. Las Vegas now has the first Playboy Club in the United States since the mid-1980s. From the pictures that Playboy Enterprises’ lawyers will allow me to copy here, I think we can all see some Playmate potential:

Update, 4:11 p.m.: This happens to be the 200th post at Reflections on Playboy. Hooray!

Labels: Mil, PM, RI, Theme

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 3:55 PM

July 22, 2007

Nude men as women’s entertainment: their lips say yes, but their wallets say no

As a kind of disciple of a kind of rabbit totem, I’m especially delighted to share this satire with you:

I reported on Jessica Alba back in ye olden days of March 2006. Before that, I had explained why a relatively small market for male nudity is not prima facie evidence of patriarchal oppression. Hugh Hefner has since formally apologized to Alba. I don’t believe he was morally obligated to do that. But it may have shown class, nonetheless.

Researching this post today, I’ve rediscovered leftist feminist blogger Amanda Marcotte’s complicated relationship to reality. But that’s a subject for a future post.

Update, July 23, 2007, 9:38 a.m.: Better late than never, I credit Rabbit Bites with creating the video and Salon.com’s Video Dog for making me aware of it.

Labels: BlaSla, Femi, He, NPH, OnVi, OthBlo, RI

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 6:51 PM

January 18, 2006

A male Playboy bunny? Heaven help us!

At Scary Personals, R. U. Serious has great fun at the expense of the desperately lonely, writing fake captions for real personal ad photos. Naturally, I found this one particularly amusing.

Labels: OthBlo, RI

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 10:54 AM