SO....what's a PorPor Book ?
'PorPor' is a derogatory term my brother used, to refer to the SF and Fantasy paperbacks and comic books I eagerly read from the late 60s to the late 80s.
This blog is devoted to those paperbacks and comics you can find on the shelves of second-hand bookstores...from the New Wave era and 'Dangerous Visions', to the advent of the cyberpunks and 'Neuromancer'. And with a leavening of pop culture detritus, too !
Showing posts with label Playboy August 1971. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playboy August 1971. Show all posts
August, 1971. Atop the Top 40 chart are the newly reunited Bee Gees, with their single 'How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.'
Looking at the cover of the August issue of Playboy magazine, we see an emphasis on 'hot pants,' a fashion sported by many young women in those halcyon days of '71. They arguably are the progenitor of the 'booty shorts' that are popular here and now, in 2026.
This August issue has fiction contributions from two well-known science fiction and fantasy authors. Robert Sheckley provides 'Three Sinners in the Green Jade Moon,' about a British man regularly dining at a restaurant sited on one of the Balearic Islands. There are allusions to jazz music, which didn't do all that much for me.
For his part, Ray Bradbury, in 'My Perfect Murder,' presents a 48 year-old man named Doug Spaulding who decides it's time to revenge himself on his childhood bully. It's a Bradbury story, not a Harlan Ellison story, so it ends on a predictable - lame - note of humanism.
A 'humor' piece, titled 'The Mole People Battle the Forces of Darkness,' comes from Jean Shepard (1921 - 1999), who probably is best known to modern-day audiences as the writer and narrator of the perennial TV movie A Christmas Story. I found 'Mole People' dull and uncomical, but it does feature that staple of Playboy in its glory days: a brilliant illustration (whose artist is, unfortunately, uncredited).
Another short story in this issue is 'Also Known as Cassius,' by Hal Bennett (1936 - 2004). Bennett was one of a number of black / minority authors who found a home in the pages of Playboy in the 1960s and 1970s. My review of Bennett's 1970 novel 'Lord of Dark Places' is here.
'Cassius' is about a twelve year-old black boy's discovery of the how and why he and his mother live in the tony neighborhood of Glen Oaks, and not Niggertown. It's a great little story, one with unsettling overtones, and markedly superior to 'Lord of Dark Places.'
In the late 60s and early 70s awareness was growing of high-end, sophisticated bicycles that went by the name 'English Racers' and were aimed at adults. 'The Bike Boom,' an article in this August issue, highlights a number of 'sleek machines' which range in price from $88 to $440, a lot of money back in those days. Note that back in '71, no one wore a helmet except those guys who were in bike races...........
The magazine offers a generous ten pages of 'Bunnies of 1971,' and I've no doubt that these ladies - whether blonde, brunette, short-haired or long-haired, well deserved that exalted status.
And that's what you got for your one dollar, 55 years ago in those days of 1971.
In the late 60s and early 70s awareness was growing of high-end, sophisticated bicycles that went by the name 'English Racers' and were aimed at adults. 'The Bike Boom,' an article in this August issue, highlights a number of 'sleek machines' which range in price from $88 to $440, a lot of money back in those days. Note that back in '71, no one wore a helmet except those guys who were in bike races...........
_0000.jpg)
.jpg)
