Joys of Fantasy

 Celebrating Valentine's Day 2024 !

Joys of Fantasy: The Book for Loving Couples

by Siv Cedering Fox

Stein and Day, 1977

Here at the PorPor Books Blog, we like to celebrate Valentine's Day by showcasing a book (fiction or nonfiction) that deals with love. For Valentine's Day 2024, we're looking at a quintessential work of 1970s 'erotica'.

In the Summer of 1976, film producer and editor Ed Rothkowitz and photographer Joseph Del Valle arranged for some of New York City's best-known porno actors and actresses to pose for a series of photographs, taken in the studio of 'adult film' film director Toby Ross.

Rothkowitz combined the photos, which epitomized the soft-focus 'erotica' of the 70s, with various 'sensual' poems and prose pieces, most of which were authored by a woman named Civ Cedering Fox. 

Cedering Fox (1939 - 2007) was born in Sweden and later moved to San Francisco, where she grew up. She gained notice as a poet, novelist, children's book author, artist, and songwriter during the 1970s and 1980s.

The photo and poem combination, titled Joys of Fantasy to channel the runaway success of The Joy of Sex, was published by Stein and Day in 1977 in both hardcover and softcover editions.

There are products of the 70s that are so cheesy and kitschy, or so sublime and transcendent, at the same time and point in space that any attempt to analyze them is futile; so it is with Joys of Fantasy. I'll simply present selected, carefully cropped photos from the book and let readers come to their own conclusions.

Of note is the fact that one of the male models used in the portfolio is none other than Dennis Posa, aka 'Dennis Parker', whose 1979 LP 'Like An Eagle' is one of the touchstone records of the disco era ! Can you get any more Seventies than that ?!

Although it's long out of print, copies of the paperback edition of Joys of Fantasy can be had for affordable prices. I recommend perusing it accompanied by a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill, incense, an Emerson Lake and Palmer record, and shag carpeting........in an Earth Tone.

National Lampoon February 1975

National Lampoon

February 1975

February, 1975. On the Billboard Hot 100, the top-selling single in the USA as of February 15 is 'You're No Good' by Linda Ronstadt.

Let's open up the latest issue of the National Lampoon, which has a 'Love and Romance' theme. This is one of the better mid-70s issues of the magazine.

The letters column offends with faux missives from bigoted rednecks, and serial killer Juan Corona (!).

The advertising in this issue includes Earth Shoes (very 70s), and a new Yes album, which is accompanied by bad poetry. 

Other album advertisements include an LP from Kenny Rankin (a YouTube video of Silver Morning is here). I can't say Rankin's album is all that impressive - rather tame 70s singer-songwriter stuff (folies should not scat-sing, and what folkie didn't, at some point in his / her career, do a cover of Paul McCartney's 'Blackbird' ?!). 

There's also an album from George Carlin, whose brand of comedy was thriving in the mid-70s. I can't say that the Carlin catalogue has aged well, but then, not much from the mid-70s really has, when you think about it...........

An ad for something called the 'Great American Song Festival' features the late, great, Suzanne Somers, adorned with some strategically placed sheet music !

The color comic in this issue is a satire of romance comics, featuring.....Nazis ?! Yep, this sort of thing probably would not be allowed nowadays..........

One of the funniest features in this February issue is a parody of Modern Bride magazine. 

This 'Lake Innuendo' spoof of the advertisements for the Poconos honeymoon suites (like the Birchwood) that were common in the 70s, is spot-on:

The comics section has the usual strips. Because this section of the magazine was printed on newsprint rather than 'slick' paper, even at 300 dpi, the scans are not crisp and require much fiddling in order to be legible.

And there you go with Lampoon humor, as it was early in '75............

High Times February 1986

High Times

February 1986

February, 1986. The single at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 is 'How Will I Know' by Whitney Houston.

Let's sit down with the latest issue of High Times magazine !

This issue has some genuine highbrow content: an interview with French film director Jean-Luc Godard, and a feature on the UK author and philosopher Colin Wilson.

There's a music article on up-and-coming folkie, and geek girl icon, Suzanne Vega. Her song 'Luka' would be a breakout hit in 1987.

Indicating the editorial board's greater emphasis on promoting not just marijuana-related issues, but all left-of-center political causes, there's a lengthy article on anti-abortion politics.

The magazine does stay true to its roots with the traditional columns and features from botanical guru Ed Rosenthal. Kids, can you believe that back in 1986, it was a big deal to send in photos to High Times of you and your plants, all in a clandestine fashion ? Quite a change from how it is nowadays, where you can stroll into your fave dispensary and select from an impressive array of legitimate 'product' !

The advertisements showcase a 'dope' board game, various formulations of 'food supplements' (gotta cut that coke with something !) and pot growing paraphernalia. 

I never bought any of those mushroom growing 'kits', as my understanding was that even if you were able to grow the Psilocybe spp. mushrooms in the first place, the yield was so tiny that you weren't going to catch a buzz.

Harkening back to the days of yore, we get a reminiscence of how it was in the early 1980s to make dope-buying trips down into Mexico. But in the mid-80s, things were becoming very dangerous..........

And on the pop culture front, well, the High Times editorial staff aren't all that happy with those Death Wish films and their glorification of vigilante violence.

That's how it was, folks, 38 years ago, in the pages of High Times. Truth be told, I read this issue with some disappointment. The goofy, hippie / Cheech and Chong / counterculture vibe that made the magazine resonate so well with the stoner culture during the 1970s and early 1980s, was by the mid-80s replaced by editorial concepts and directions that considerably were more 'corporate' in attitude. Admittedly, this editorial strategy was increasing circulation, but at the same time, it felt like something of the original soul of the publication was leaching away............