Penthouse September 1986

Penthouse

September 1986 

September, 1986, and on FM radio I remember listening to the single 'Captain of Her Heart,' by the Swiss group Double. There were American DJs who pronounced the band name as 'dubble,' not knowing the accent was on the second syllable, i.e. 'doo-BLAY'.........
 

Elsewhere in the FM radio lineup, the top 10 featured the first real chart presence for a rap act, 'Walk This Way,' by Run DMC and Aerosmith.

 

The September 1986 issue of Penthouse features model and actress Lauren Hutton (b. 1943) on the cover. Apparently, Bob Guccione had purchased a collection of photos taken of Hutton in the 1960s (?) in '...the Long Island studio of Norman Nathan.' Even in low-res black and white, they make clear Lauren was someone special.

There's a sci-fi presence in this issue, albeit a rather mediocre one. First, there's a two-page advertisement from Doubleday's Science Fiction Book Club. Many of the newer titles are duds, featuring Product churned out by the bigger names in the field. But take hope ! William Gibson's sequel to 'Neuromancer,' 'Count Zero,' is a selection !

Isaac Asimov's novel 'Foundation and Earth' gets an excerpt, and an illustration by Gerard Di-Macchio. 

 

I've already ranted about Asimov's 1980s output, so what I'll do here is just put in an excerpt from the excerpt, as it were, and let it speak for itself...........note the split infinitive, and the use of the adverb 'merely,' twice in one para. And in the sentence beginning "To you," what does the pronoun 'it' refer to ?

 

     Bander continued, "There is, however, at least this. You death will be painless. I will merely heat your brains, mildly and drive them into inactivation. You will experience no pain. Life will merely cease. Eventually, when dissection and study are over, I will convert you to ashes in an intense flash of heat and all will be over."

 

    Trevize said, "If we  must die, then I cannot argue against having a quick and painless death, but why must we die at all, having committed no offense ?"

 

    "Your arrival was an offense."

 

    "Not on any rational ground, since we could not know it was an offense."

 

    "Society defines what constitutes an offense. To you, it my seem irrational and arbitrary, but to us it is not, and this is our world, - on which we have the full right  to say that in this and that, you have done wrong and deserve to die." 

 

Arthur C. Clark contributes the essay, 'Sex in the Year 2019.' He predicts 'male pregnancy,' which is somewhat accurate; self-stimulation devices that can be remotely controlled; drugs like Viagra; penile implants; and, sociologically speaking, further advancement of women's rights.

Showing up in a decidedly awkward way is 'Passage Through India,' a photoessay about 'championship windsurfer' Jacques Sotty, who decided to windsurf down the Ganges river, an 800-mile expedition. 

 

En route, Sotty experiences the sublime and the grotesque. In one stretch of the river he encounters rotting corpses; Hindus are supposed to cremate their dead and spread the ashes into the river, but sometimes, well..........relatives of the deceased are too poor to procure sufficient tinder, and the Dear Departed only partially are consumed. 

 

 

However, the essay takes a positive note, remarking that:

 

Ironically, these grotesque, dismembered limbs [i.e., the corpses] attract a beautiful species of dolphin, unknown in other regions of the world. According to Sotty, "Iridescent-pink dolphins travel hundreds of miles from the sea to feed on the cadavers. These are the only dolphins that eat human flesh."

I had to Google this, and in fact, yes, there are pink 'Ganges dolphins,' which are adapted to live in the silty waters of the river and are opportunistic feeders of animal / human flesh ! Let's go, dolphins !!!!!!!

 

Only in Penthouse in 1986 could you get the juxtaposition of a color photo of bloated, rotting Hindu corpse with abundant photos of tits and ass.......!!!!!!!!!! 

 

And then you have a profile article on Howard Stern, who in '86 was a DJ for New York City radio station WXRX. The quintessential 'Shock Jock' in those days, Stern was riding high in the era of peak FM radio.

 

This month Stern, accompanied by wife Beth, attended a function in Amagansett, New York.

photo from the NY Post

And that's a good way to close out our look at the men's literature, from 40 years ago..........