Gentlemen of a Certain Age….rides again!

 

The whole idea behind this series of blog posts is that in the good old days, sexy didn’t have to be explicit…and certainly not to the gynecological lengths they go to today. And let’s face it: a bare back was “safer” than a bare front…hence the 2 different approaches to the same basic motif, above…

“Sexy Fraud”…that didn’t mean she was one of those transamacallits? No, not back when paperbacks cost 60¢ it sure didn’t.  Whereas “Nude in the Mirror” was actually a magic mirror…it made you look vaguely like Marilyn…plus it put a guy in there looking out when there wasn’t one looking in…neat trick.

These next 2 above are fakes…they were on the front of a Sixties men’s magazine called Man’s Daring…the idea was that each month they’d print part of a paperback novel…except the story was written just for the mag…there was no real paperback…the title and book cover were complete fabrications…sneaky…but nifty, no? 

These above are fakes as well…but of a different kind…they are actually movie props. The plot of the 2005 comedy-mystery “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” involved a movie being made based on an imaginary pulp hero.  But for a real look of authenticity, they got the legendary Richard McGinnis, illustrator of over 1200 paperbacks and some of the most iconic movie posters of the Sixties, including Barbarella, Casino Royale, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Live and Let Die, and many others…sweet.

Reruns? On paperback covers? Say it isn’t so…except obviously it is so, as you can see…I believe this or these are McGinnis again…

Then again, I’m not sure I’d squawk if every paperback ever published had this cover…yeah, even Chess in a Nutshell…

From a Gentleman of a Certain Age’s LP Shelf…

  

A sexy lady on the cover of a cheap paperback book suggests sexy goings-on between the covers. On the other hand, a cute dame on an album cover promises what? It’s just music….I mean, what’s really sexy about Martin Denny, Ray Conniff, or Percy Faith, in the final analysis? Still, it was a universal trope from the 1950s thru the 1970s, and I for one have no complaints. 

 

And it was all in how you presented it. Above left, remember butterfly chairs? I’ve reversed the image of the Blue Strings cover so the models are facing each other…and even tho one is “showing something” and the other demurely covering up…which is sexier? To me, David Rose wins hands down…the smile, the hair…wow. 

 

Of course collectors avidly snap up such “cheesecake” covers, and the one above left is a must-have…the word “paroxysm” springs to mind…sure looks like something’s about to pop. On the right, another lady losing her mind, with just a hint of bosom at the bottom. Were you sufficiently distracted to have missed that there’s something definitely wrong with that stethoscope? Well, it is stereo after all…

 

The Tijuana Brass’ “A Taste of Honey” from 1965 is a classic of the genre…learn more here and here. Everybody seems to remember where they were when they first saw it. But am I the only one to have noticed that every compositional element is lifted from George Shearing’s cover from 1961? Front, back, right, left, it’s the same thing only different. And yeah, I guess I’m definitely a “back man”…

 

But also a “leg man” and proud of it…aye chihuahua…time to walk the um, what were we talking about?…

 

For Gentlemen of a Certain Age, Part III

Not surprisingly, there are people who collect and study sleazy packerbacks. And they’ve discovered that Orrie Hitt was a real person. He lived in Orange County, NY, down by the border with Pennsylvania, and died in 1975 at age 59. He wrote over 150 “adult” paperbacks, enough to put 4 children thru college. What distinguished him from the average hack was his research and attention to detail. In fact, one commentator claimed, incorrectly of course, that only one of the many Lesbian paperbacks of the period was written by a real Lesbian, who used “Orrie Hitt” as an alias! The book above right is one of his most sought after, because of the goofy cover…the curled foot…the volley-ball bosom.

It calls to mind the equally daffy album cover above left…Julio Cesar Bovea was a Colombian musician, and on the right is one of his American releases. The pose is what I called “fake-ed”…rhymes with “naked”…arms and legs positioned so that it looks like she’s got nothing on, but you really can’t be sure. In this case, it appears they had cold feet and airbrushed in parts that suggest clothing.

Now the inspiration for these “Gentlemen”  posts is something that happened to me what I was 10 or 11 years old, an incident seared into my memory with fearsome clarity.  The family had just entered a drugstore, and I came face to face with a paperback book rack…and a cover illustration of a seated lady, naked, from the back. My mother grabbed me by the shoulders and quickly steered me in a safer direction…but, well, “damage done” as they say! Would I recognize that same cover if I saw it again these 50 years later? I’d like to think so…the Orrie Hitt below left comes close, but I don’t believe that’s it, not that I’m complaining or anything.

Needless to say, my parents were also able to keep me completely in the dark about the existence of Vikki Dougan, a model and actress known as “The Back.” The photo above right shows you why…one of her signature outfits. Yes, she went around in public like that. Her story was: “I’m not busty, so what’s a girl to do?” Oddly enough, she doesn’t appear to have had many imitators.  Still, her fame was such that the Limeliters folk group released a song about her…”Vikki Dougan, Please Turn Your Back on Me”…

I leave you for now with a thought: and it has something to do with short shorts…and the wisdom of recycling old calendars…

More For Gentlemen of a Certain Age

 

 

The paperback on the left came out in 1960…new decade, same livid illustrations. Anybody’s? Well, 4 years later, and now costing 60¢, they decided to drive the point home…on the right. Guess I’m old-fashioned, but I still think a little “man-woman love” goes a long way…but it lead to…

…the read on the left…from the “Don’t You Just Hate When That Happens?” Collection.  Please try not to notice that the blonde looks disturbingly like one of your sister’s mod paper-dolls. Heck, maybe the same guy drew both. Anyhow, got anything left over from the 1950s? Maybe from the “My Name Really Is Orrie Hitt” Collection? Yes? Bless you…here’s 40¢…keep the change.

Now this deal on the left…what an image! The boss said, no ass-cracks…just following orders. On the right, a poster from a 1957 movie that supposedly featured the silver screen’s first interracial kiss. It’s a soap opera with political overtones, set on a Caribbean island where the most popular physical activity is writhing…after a while, you apparently get pretty good at it.

And what was I reading at the time? Don’t ask…guess I was no gentleman…

For Gentlemen of a Certain Age Only

…you might be a Baby Boomer…well, male anyway…if…

…you appreciated that “dirty pictures” really didn’t have to be that “dirty,” now did they? Oops….just remembered something I was supposed to do…

Next, the original on the left seemed a bit, how you say, elongated?…sort of like those impossibly slinky illustrations in car ads. On the right, I tried to fiddle with the proportions…dunno, now maybe she’s too squished. I do know that she’s too muscly…sort of a Tarzan/James Bond 1960s vibe.

Now this is more like it…same book (“Dell paperbacks are good paperbacks”) but from the 1950s…can’t beat a dimple for shucks. Get out your 35¢…

stolf’s blog 593: rectangles ?!?!?

You did the SQUARES…now how many RECTANGLES?

…bearing in mind that a square counts as a rectangle. At first this seemed like a daunting task, but once I got around to organizing a plan of attack, it wasn’t hard at all. Took me under 5 minutes. Really? Sure…let’s take it step by step…

And that plan of attack was to classify rectangles by their size, based on the unit square, seen below in red. Rectangles would be AxB…that is, A is the length down and B is the length across. Below for example we have 1×2 in purple and 3×4 in green…

Next, we list all the possibilities, remembering that we’ve already done AxA…those were the squares…

That’s 12 types of rectangles in all…but there’s a short-cut…we only have to count 6 types, then double that total. You can see why demonstrated below with 1×4…flip the puzzle on its side by rotating it 90 degrees, and you have the same number for 4×1 as you had for 1×4.

That’s pretty much all there is to it…take the rectangles type by type…count carefully and keep a running total.

Now add in the mini-rectangles…plus the 40 squares from the last puzzle…and we’re done…grand total = 118.

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Copyright © 2012 Mark John, All Rights Reserved

shameless plugs…be there or be round…

Other  Blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podBean.com  and   http://thewholething.podBean.com

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com

Updated Resume at   http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/2011/02/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podBean.com

stolf’s blog 592: How Many Squares?

The answer is: 40 squares…and seeing is believing!

Chart A…Where to begin? Well, apart from the mini-squares in the center, the smallest building block in the puzzle is what we might call a “unit square.” One of them is outlined in Chart A.

Chart B…And since the entire puzzle is a block of 4 unit squares horizontally and 4 unit squares vertically, that’s a total of 4 x 4 = 16 unit squares. We can call these 1×1 squares…that is, 1 square on each side. I know, since there’s only one unit square in a 1×1 configuration, how can you refer to “sides” plural, as implied by the phrase “each side”? It’s because of the curious but very useful mathematical fact that 1 x 1 = 1, that’s why.

Chart C…We then count the 2 unit squares in the center…

Chart D…And each of those is divided into 4 mini-squares…running total is now 26.

Chart E…We next move on to the 2×2 squares, made up of 2 unit squares to a side. Chart E shows there are 9 of them. What a lot of people do is consider just the corner 2×2′s…the ones labeled 27, 29, 33, and 35. But as you can see, there are 2 more “centered” horizontally, 28 and 34…2 more “centered” vertically, 30 and 32…and a final 2×2 completely centered, 31. Running total is now 35.

Chart F…With the 3×3 squares, there really are only “corner” ones, the 4 shown in Chart F. That’s because the total puzzle is made up of 4×4 unit squares, and 4 is an even number…and with the 3×3 squares, 3 is an odd number. If the total puzzle had been 5×5, then there would be room for additional “centered” 3×3′s, you see? But here there is not. Move the corner square 36 over one unit square to “center” it, and you now have another corner, 37. So the running total is up to 39.

Chart G… And finally, don’t forget the total puzzle itself, a 4×4 square…grand total = 40. Done and done!

PS: With 40 the definitive answer, some of you may be disappointed that there’s nothing left to argue about…but have I got good news for you! I read one comment that said the answer depended on the “rules”…and I thought: What rules? A square’s a square…4 equal straight sides, 4 interior right angles…pretty straightforward to me. Well, and you have to follow the lines given in the puzzle…nothing like this, for example:

But you know what? You should never underestimate the scope of people’s imaginations, however misguided. An earnest noodnik… whose website I will not dignify with a link, sorry…suggests there are 7 more “squares,” as follows…

The arguments pro and con are obvious, so I won’t go into them…except to say I’m sticking with 40. OK, I will say this: It reminds me of when I worked at a radio station and we broadcast a scavenger hunt…one of the items was a unicycle. A lady brought in a Christmas tree ornament of Santa riding a unicycle…she didn’t get credit. This was maybe 25 years ago and I’ll bet she’s still sore.

______________________________________________________

Copyright © 2012 Mark John, All Rights Reserved

shameless plugs…be there or be…you know…

Other  Blog at http://stolf.wordpress.com  (the legendary Stolf’s Blog)

Podcasts at http://stolfpod.podBean.com  and   http://thewholething.podBean.com

More bloggage at  http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com

Updated Resume at   http://travelingcyst.blogspot.com/2011/02/resume.html

Audio samples at  http://stolfspots.podBean.com