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Looked Into
In honor of Joan Acocella's Playboy meditation, I give you my hastily constructed but sincere CanoScan homage to Nancy Jo Sales' 2001 Vanity Fair profile of Hef and his harem, an article I found so mesmerizing I not only clipped and kept it but have actually reread it several times. I mean—a bevy of blondes having a pillow fight! A "wrigging, giggling mass of matching pink-pajama-clad girlfriends," what's more! I love the twinkie blandness of the American sexual imagination that isn't quite the same as the American sexual imagination that counted down till the Olsen twins were legal or the one furiously bittorrenting Japanese mind-bogglement. No, this particular imagination gets off on this stuff, pinup cuteness that's predicated on the girls being dumb as feather pillow and so happy—because Hef (think of him as Hugh for a second and it's all the more ridiculous) is their dad, they're all taken care of, and seven "girlfriends" or not, even with Viagra you've got to be kidding. I applaud him!
And roll my eyes, and feel a little bad for the silly centerfolds. Still, I love wholesome American porn. Getting back to Acocella, I was happily reading along till I reached this: "This whole 'bachelor' world, with the brandy snifters and the attractive guest arriving for the night: did it ever exist? Yes, as a fantasy. Now, however, it is the property of homosexuals." Eh? I'm pretty sure she's just being dry, but it's a little creepy, especially in an issue that insists on calling David Furnish Elton John's "companion." Shall we ease into the new century with a little all-around sophistication, o Style Issue? Also a surprise not to see any mention of Gloria Steinem's glorious Bunny experiment, subject of the very fine '80s TV movie A Bunny's Tale. Anyway, if you find yourself unsated after gawping at the ladies on p. 3, I mean 145, take Richard Brody's advice and buy the Busby Berkeley boxed set:
The sexual allusions in Berkeley’s choreography are startling even today. He transformed the costumed bodies and shining faces of his chorus girls into suggestively biomorphic shapes: slits that open and close, undulating canals, and expanding and contracting holes. He frequently organized his dancing girls into enormous V-shaped phalanxes, one of which, in “Don’t Say Goodnight,” from “Wonder Bar,” is besieged by huge moving pillars. “By a Waterfall,” from “Footlight Parade,” suggests a fertility rite, as water nymphs stand with their legs spread on wedding-cake-like turntables while jets of water spurt around them.
Busby was great, for sure. Makes little Elizabeth look like an amateur.
Speaking of sex, "Well, that was abominable" is one of the funniest captions in ages, contest or no contest. Give Carl Gable your vote or I'll sic Tobias Meyer on your entire collection. You know which one I mean.
Who we?
Emdashes, founded December 2004, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments about The New Yorker past and present, plus related events, links, typeface sightings, &c. To contact the magazine or send a submission, click here.
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This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.
A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
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Comments
What I find fascinating about Heff is the fact that way back when when he was just a young lad and before he discovered his pipe and bathrobe he actually wanted to be a cartoonist! I've seen samples of his work from that time, and he was pretty good.