That Face

Photography / PotD

That Face

November 8, 2015

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Amanda (2006)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]That face. Let the clichès begin. There are dozens of them, well-known sayings such as the line from Groucho Marx, “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll gladly make an exception.” Then, there are multiple versions of the inspirational instruction that keeping one’s face toward the sun keeps shadows behind them. Of course, no one ever mentions that such a habit ages one’s skin much more rapidly, requiring tremendous amounts of care to avoid melanoma, but that just doesn’t sound anywhere nearly as inspiring, does it?

I am a huge fan of the Mel Brooks musical The Producers, so when the topic of faces comes up my mind immediately races to the closest thing that production has to a love song:

That face, that face, that dangerous face
I mustn’t be unwise
Those lips, that nose, those eyes
Could lead to my demise

That face, that face, that marvelous face
I never should begin
Those cheeks, that neck, that chin
Will surely do me in

…

That face, that face, that fabulous face
It’s clear I must beware
I’m certain if I fall in love, I’m lost without a trace
But it’s worth it for that face

Faces are special if for no other reason than our face holds our public identity; it is the association by which most people know us and no relationship, business or personal, has any depth without that recognition factor. The face may be the most important thing we photograph.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Not all faces are created equal, though. The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield delighted in making fun of his own face. One of his favorites was:

I had plenty of pimples as a kid. One day I fell asleep in the library. When I woke up, a blind man was reading my face.

Similarly, comedienne Phyllis Diller had some issues with some of the pictures taken of her:

My photographs don’t do me justice – they just look like me.

and also:

Our dog died from licking our wedding picture.

Regardless of whether one considers their face attractive, however, the face remains that one body part that is inescapably you. Some people opt for surgery in an effort to “improve” their face, or at least prevent it from looking its age, but rarely is such an exercise genuinely beneficial. Not to mention the fact that I see little benefit in trying to improve anything external when the person inside is still just as rotten as ever.

So, here we go with a week of faces. Sure, it may kill my weekly hit count given the fact that, as we’ve proven before, some people only visit when there’s a naked person in the picture, but I really don’t care. Just be glad that I chose pretty faces and not my own; I’m saving those for next week.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

Losing The Girl Next Door

October 24, 2015

charles i. letbetter - not the girl next door

After Horst (2009)

Everybody always says that I’m the girl next door, which makes me think that y’all must have a lot of weird next-door neighbours.—Kelly Clarkson

When Hugh Hefner started Playboy® magazine in 1953, part of his concept was to represent the “girl next door;” someone whose sensuality was a bit understated, who had a good-girl reputation but secretly couldn’t wait to get out of her sweater. At the same time, though, there has always been a bit of glamor, with popular starlets and celebrities frequently gracing the pages over the years. The blend worked. The celebrities might not be approachable, but perhaps, just maybe, the girl in the gatefold would be. With each issue came the possibility that maybe, just maybe, that spindly-legged girl who was your neighbor might be worth a second look or more.

Over the years, that combination allowed some of those girls next door to become celebrities in their own right. Anna Nichole Smith, Pam Anderson, Holly Madison, Barbie Benton, Carmen Electra, and Jenny McCarthy come immediately to mind, but there have been several others. As the stigma of being nude faded with the sexual revolution, more girls dreamed of being on of Hef’s girls next door. Then, in 1981, the J. Geils Band captured the hopes and fears of every young man in America:

Does she walk? Does she talk?
Does she come complete?
My homeroom homeroom angel
Always pulled me from my seat

She was pure like snowflakes
No one could ever stain
The memory of my angel
Could never cause me pain

Years go by I’m lookin’ through a girly magazine
And there’s my homeroom angel on the pages in-between

The song Centerfold jumped to the top of the charts not because of its musical qualities but because it so accurately captured how we felt about the girl next door. There was no one who, if they were totally honest, didn’t at least once think about opening the pages of Playboy and finding their high school crush on the pages, whether that objective was realistic or not. The ever-elusive girl next door was the heart and soul of Playboy, the thing that made the magazine stand out more than anything else. We loved every one of those girls and wouldn’t have minded one bit had one moved in next door.[/one_half]

So, what happens to the girl next door if Playboy drops nudes? Does the gatefold go completely away? Probably. What about the centerfold questionnaire, you know, that part where the model says she likes long walks on the beach, quiet nights in front of the fireplace, and other likely fictional things that fueled are fantasies? Those are likely gone as well. If Cory Jones’ work at maxim.com is any indication, and there’s no reason it wouldn’t be, what we’re more likely to see are overly-airbrushed swimsuit models who look about as realistic as a Picasso. The entire concept of the girl next door is likely gone.

I dropped over to playboy.com this morning, just to see what Jones has constructed there. He removed nudes from the website, making it safe for work, back in 2014 and their numbers jumped. Why? Did men actually prefer a website with no nudity? Not likely. The reality there is that without nudity on its pages the URL was allowed past corporate filters that previously blocked it. More people were accessing the pages because most people still do the majority of their online browsing from work (though, that is changing rapidly as more people use their smart phones). So, what’s at the top of playboy.com this morning? An article on Indian-spiced cocktails. Below that, an article on overcoats, then one about Transformer toys, then pieces on viral videos, boxing, and remembering loved ones. If you want to even see a female, you’re going to have to scroll. So much for the girl next door. There’s hardly even a girl on the front page at all!

I found it hilarious that, when clicking “girls” on the playboy.com menu, the piece at the top of the page is a video of Miranda Kerr jumping around. Clothed. Yawn. Want to see Miranda Kerr naked? You’ll have to pick up a fashion magazine. W magazine, August 2015, is the latest of a long line of fashion nudes Ms. Kerr has done. You can find the editorial online here. But not in Playboy.

By dropping nudes, Playboy is abandoning the girl next door, one of the most basic underpinnings of the magazine. One has to seriously ask what Playboy has left to offer that one can’t find thousands of other places both on the Internet and in print. Cocktails? Seriously? The whole fucking Bartender’s Guide is available. Fashion? Please, every title imaginable sits in front of Playboy on the shelves, and is probably cheaper. What Playboy has always had was the girl next door, naked. Without that, there’s just no reason to pick up a copy of the magazine ever again.

Art / Photography / PotD

A Heart For Sex

October 23, 2015

Curved (2011)

Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.—Hugh Hefner

“Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex.”

I have always chuckled a little bit at that line from an ad for a major erectile dysfunction medication. I’ve also heard apocryphal stories about Hef keeping a bowl of the little blue pills by his bed. I rather doubt that story is completely true, but the man is now 89. I think we can give him a bit of a break on the subject. I still find it humorous that an amorous individual might need to check with their physician, calling the poor guy in the middle of dinner, with, “Hey Doc, the wife didn’t burn the roast tonight. Ya’ think it’s safe for me to hump her?”

Realistically, though, sex can take a lot of heart, especially when it’s more than a physical act but rather a primary driver of one’s business. Publishing a magazine where sex is the primary motivator is far from being a romp in the park, despite the fact that Hef managed to make it look that way. Playboy® was never about page after page of increasingly raunchy photos, but about a lifestyle in which sex wasn’t something hidden or repressed as it seemed to be in other publications. Hef once said:

I have very strong theories about magazine publishing. And I think that it is the most personal form of journalism. And I think that a magazine is an old friend.

Hugh Hefner, when he started the magazine in 1953, had a heart for sex that wasn’t all that different from some of his contemporaries in the research fields, such as Masters and Johnson or Alfred Kinsey. The post-war period of the late 1940s and 50s took the cover off sex and sexuality that led to the sexual revolution of the 60s. There was a desire to understand and appreciate and experience sex in ways that extended far beyond the physical act. For all the criticism he received, the content mix Hef brought to his magazine perfectly reflected a heart for sex that fueled a revolution.

If Playboy continues to stumble, it may well be because its current leadership fails to have that heart for sex that Hef has. Current CEO Scott Flanders, who interestingly enough is an Indianapolis native, His academic studies at the University of Colorado were in economics, not journalism, and from there he went on to law school. Prior to coming to Playboy, Flanders took a beleaguered Freedom Communications Company and managed it straight into bankruptcy in 2009, whereupon he left. He sees Playboy Enterprises, which he joined in 2011, as a brand management company, not a publisher.

Playboy’s chief content officer, Cory Jones, who had the unpleasant task of telling Hef the magazine was dropping nudes, is a digital strategist who is successful in generating high hit counts and unique views. While he does have some experience working with men’s titles, such as Maxim.com and mandatory.com, he has no relevant experience in print, which, as titles such as the New York Times and Vogue are discovering, cannot be managed in the same fashion as online publications. Jone’s attention is strictly on the numbers, using whatever form of pandering necessary to get there, as is evidenced at mandatory.com.

The people at the top of Playboy’s org chart simply do not have the heart for sex that Hef had when he founded the magazine and through the years that made it great. Without that emphasis, Playboy is set up to fail. Not everyone was meant to be a magazine publisher. Publishing what was once the nation’s leading men’s magazine reminds me of the Richard Adler and Jerry Ross song from the musical “Damn Yankees:” Ya’ gotta’ have heart, lots and lots and lots of heart.

Unfortunately, the people at the top of Playboy seem to be lacking that heart for sex. Perhaps the magazine could use a little blue pill of its own.

Art / Photography / PotD

Relevant Culture

October 22, 2015

String of Pearls (2010)

It’s much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won’t keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don’t know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we’ve got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, ‘Is this it? Are we still relevant?’—Bono

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Marilyn Monroe. Jane Mansfield. Elizabeth Taylor. Ursula Andress. Kim Basinger. Linda Evans. Joan Collins. Drew Barrymore. Belinda Carlyle. Bo Derek. Tara Reid. Jamie Pressley. Denise Richads. Dita Van Teese. Tori Wilson. Nancy Sinatra. These are just a few of the celebrities who not only posed nude for Playboy®, but did so at a time that made their presence in the magazine culturally relevant. From the very first issue in 1953, Hef used celebrities as a way of making sure the magazine mattered, that what appeared in the magazine would be conversation fodder for water coolors and bar rooms everywhere.

Having content that was socially relevant took the magazine from something one hid under the bed or in a closet, to one that was regularly discussed at dinner tables. It didn’t matter whether one approved of the content, it was the fact that people were talking about Playboy and its nudes that made the magazine relevant. For a celebrity, being in Playboy was an instant invite to the late-night talk shows, a career booster like no other. In fact, for a set of celebrities such as Pam Anderson, Carmen Electra, and Anna Nicole Smith, their careers would not have existed without their appearance in the magazine; it was just that relevant.

Playboy has long held a very unique and even peculiar place in American society. As hard as the mainstream media tried to demonize the men’s magazine, Hef continually produced content so incredibly relevant that people had to pay attention. The magazine’s interview with Georgia governor Jimmy Carter in 1976 was one of the factors that propelled Carter into the White House. Nancy Sinatra’s spread in 1995 helped rejuvinate a career that had been dormant for two decades but was about to explode again with the Kill Bill movies. Drew Barrymore and other former child stars took to the pages of Playboy to let the industry know they were ready for more adult roles. Granted, the spreads worked out better for some than it did others, but the point is that the nudes, as well as most all the content, were relevant.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Now, ask yourself the last time you rushed to pick up a Playboy because of who was going to be in its pages? When was the last time that anyone actually cared about who was doing a spread in the magazine. While management’s decision to completely abandon nudes happened only a week ago, they’ve quietly been moving away from that format for the past three years with an increasing number of pictorals not going any further than implied nudity and several non-gatefold sets not even getting close to anyone being naked. With the base reason for picking up the magazine dwindling, the rest of the content, such as the interviews and fiction, have been largely ignored. Playboy is no longer as relevant as it once was.

Over the past few years, Playboy has stepped away from the controversy that once surrounded their nude spreads. As the quality of the photorgaphy diminished, so too did their choice of celebrities and models. One of the challenges they now face is that international fashion magazines, such as Vogue Italia, not only have more nudity than does Playboy, but they are more culturally relevant (because of the relationship to fashion) and the level of photography is arguably light years above anything Playboy is producing. Photographers such as Steven Meisel and Nick Knight are shooting the new celebrities, fashion models such as Cara Delevigne, Joan Smalls, and Karlie Kloss in nude editorials that render the mediocre nudes in Playboy almost boring.

Playboy could still come back to a position of being dominantly relevant, but it is not likely to do so by dropping nudes. The success of fashion magazines publishing creative nude spreads demonstrates that the right style of nude photography is still amazingly relevant and capable of selling print issues. Change has to happen, but dropping nudes isn’t the answer now and won’t be the answer in the future.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

A Shadow of Former Glory

October 21, 2015

The Smallest Light (2008)

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.—William Wordsworth

The November 1972 issue of Playboy® sold over seven million copies. This month, they will be lucky to see 500,000 copies leave store shelves. What made that 1972 issue so popular? Was there a special interview? Were the articles particularly on point? Where the editorial cartoons especially biting? No, it was the gatefold of Lena Söderberg, shot by Dwight Hooker, that made the issue leap off shelves. In fact, it remains one of the most sought after collectors’ editions to this day. For years, a cropped version of that picture of Lena has been used as the ultimate test for dithering in color computer imaging. The gatefold is also a topic of conversation in the 1973 Woody Allen film Sleeper. Ah, the glory days.

Much of the glory, however, is gone and the reasons have nothing to do with the magazine’s iconic nudes. There isn’t a printed periodical in the country that hasn’t been severely challenged by the Internet, for starters, and more than a few great titles have completely folded as a result. Online “magazines”, not unlike online shopping, took traditional publishers completely by surprise and even those who attempted to adapt early often did so in ways that were not sustainable. Only a few titles, such as the New York Times and Condé Nast’s Vogue have recently figured out how to make their print and online presence work symbiotically. For Playboy’s circulation numbers to have fallen dramatically isn’t surprising for that reason alone.

Playboy’s circulation problems didn’t begin with the Internet, though. Numbers had been declining long before online publishing was even a thing. Circulation in the 80s was lower than the 70s, and the 90s numbers were dramatically lower than the 80s. Blaming the Internet for the magazine’s decline ignores the fact that the glory that was once Playboy was long gone before live streaming and pervasive free porn ever became a factor. Playboy was already standing on the edge of a publishing cliff. All the Internet did was push it over.

If the Internet isn’t the cause of Playboy’s troubles, though, what is? Where is the luster and glory that made the name so well known? The list of reasons could be long, but overall they can be summarized into two primary categories: 1. Hugh Hefner left the magazine, and 2. the emphasis changed. One of the most seismic declines in circulation came when Hef turned control of the magazine over to his daughter, Christie. There were already some challenges even before than happened, but, inevitably, Christie’s vision for the magazine wasn’t the same as her father’s and it had been Hef’s view of how life should be lived that had driven the magazine since its inception. Sure, his name has always been on the masthead as editor in chief, but once his voice was no longer dominant, the magazine faltered.

More critically, though, Playboy the company became the primary competitor to Playboy the magazine. Special Editions introduced in the 80s were much heavier on photographs and contained extended set not shown in the magazines. Those who were primarily interested in the pictures picked up titles such as “Girls of the Big Ten” rather than the full magazine. The introduction of videos in the 80s also distracted some magazine buyers. Over the years, Playboy the company has become more dependent upon revenue from licensing than publishing, and that distraction has stolen glory from the magazine.

Playboy dropping nudes from its magazine is a reactive strategy that is likely to only hasten its demise. While Playboy’s management is quick to tout the five-fold increase in unique views the website had when it dropped nudes, expecting print readers to respond the same way is foolish and naive. Playboy dropping nudes is like the New York Times eliminating investigative journalism or Vogue deciding to drop fashion editorials. Gutting their primary source of glory is likely to have the opposite effect and may well find its editorial staff looking for new jobs.

Art / Photography / PotD

Abandoning The Revolution

October 20, 2015

String of Souls (2010)

Sexuality surrounds us like a dangerous aura. The same reverence that is given to the spirit is not given to the flesh. We have had a sexual revolution, but the sexual revolution only has made sex more pervasive. It hasn’t granted the level of reverence and respect that it should have.—Gioconda Belli

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]When Playboy® chief executive Scott Flanders defended the magazine ‘s move toward non-nude images last week, he said, “The battle has been fought and won.” Mr. Flanders, the magazine’s first CEO outside the Hefner family, was referring, of course, to the battle that was the sexual revolution. Without question, a lot has changed in our attitudes towards sex and sexuality since Hef started the magazine in 1953. However, to abandon the very thing that has brought the magazine this far is rather like General George Washington defeating Cornwallis then, instead of becoming President, Washington moves back to Britain. Was all that effort for naught?

There is absolutely no question that Playboy® was a major contributing factor in changing the landscape of American sexuality. The magazine’s participation in that movement wasn’t always welcome, either. Those of us who are old enough remember know feminist stalwart Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny in an attempt to discredit the magazine. Others have criticized the fact that, while the country was struggling with the matter of civil rights, Playboy diverted the attention of white men by shoving the sexual revolution in their face. In the magazine’s defense, their interviews with both Malcom X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were exemplary examples of Playboy’s continual contribution to contemporary issues conversation.

Yet, for all the talk, it was always the pictures that stood out. Sure, the articles were important and timely and informative, but without that famous gatefold, would anyone have bothered reading them? Probably not. Looking at the progression of styles and poses in the photography across the years is almost like a visual encyclopedia of America’s changing attitudes toward both sex and beauty. Hair styles, grooming choices, accessories, backgrounds, and changes in body types are all indicative of the effect Playboy has had on the sexual revolution.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]But is the revolution really over?®® Is there nothing else that should be explored through conceptual nude imagery?

Whether one liked the magazine or not, one of the things I’ve always admired about the magazine is that they didn’t back down in the face of criticism. At first, Hef was demonized for the nudity. People screamed, ranted and raved when Jennifer Jackson became the first black Playmate of the Month in 1965. Mouths frothed when Marina Baker, Miss March 1987, talked about being bisexual and even more when Stephanie Adams, June 2006, came out as the magazine’s first lesbian centerfold. Playboy didn’t back down or apologize.

What’s important to our current conversation, though, is without the pictures none of those women’s contributions would have been relevant or recognizable. They all would have just been one of the millions of women battling against a status quo that shut them out. Photography can do a lot about bringing attention to issues and creative, conceptual, nude imagery is critical to that effort because of its ability to direct our attention when other methods fail. Issues of equality, such as #freethenipple, still remain. Imagine a gatefold who’s had a mastectomy; that would be leadership that Playboy is uniquely positioned to provide.

What Mr. Flanders and others at Playboy seem to miss is the fact that “winning” the revolution is only the beginning. We need a magazine that takes us from the revolutionary aspects of photographic nudity to using that imagery to teach respect for sexuality, especially in the face of overwhelming amounts of porn. Who is better positioned to lead that movement toward reverence and respect than the magazine that helped get us to this position? Now is not the time to abandon nudity, Mr. Flanders. The work has just begun.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

Lighting Matters

October 19, 2015

A Little Light Through A Window (2011)

The great photographers of life – like Diane Arbus and Walker Evans and Robert Frank – all must have had some special quality: a personality of nurturing and non-judgment that frees the subjects to reveal their most intimate reality. It really is what makes a great photographer, every bit as much as understanding composition and lighting.—Caleb Deschanel

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]If Playboy® magazine’s chief content officer Cory Jones thinks that nudes have become passé, perhaps one of the reasons might be that the magazine has dropped their emphasis on creatively and seductively lit images. Back when the magazine started in 1953, the gatefolds were pinups in the classic style, with a careful attention to maintaining a sense of illusion. Lighting was critical. The photographs from the first few years, the ones that caught your grandfather’s or great-grandfather’s attention, look to us now almost like a set of realist paintings. They were carefully shot and carefully processed to portray a specific image that implied luxury and refinement. They were classy, not slutty.

During the 1960s and 70s, Helmut Newton came to the magazine and set the world on fire with his black and white images that were naturally lit. While the concept sounds easy, just show up someplace with decent indirect lighting and shoot where there are no shadows, photography for Helmut was never that simple. He would scout locations and check for the perfect time of day when the lighting was going to be precisely the way he wanted. Then, he was picky as hell about things such as reflection and making sure that poses put shadows precisely where he wanted them. There was never anything accidental or surprising about Helmut’s photos; what you saw was exactly what he intended.

Then, starting in 1976, Arny Freytag pretty much took over Playboy’s® gatefold and did so with highly-specialized lighting schemes that sometimes used as many as fifty flash heads to create just exactly the precise amount of light he wanted across every inch of the photograph. Arney didn’t just make sure the lighting for the model was correct, but he cared about the background as well, whether it was a complicated room full of furniture, or something seemingly as simple as a rumpled sheet. Arny would fuss endlessly over the precise placement of lights, taking endless Polaroids® until the lighting was to his critical satisfaction. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Such were the years of Playboy® at its heyday. As Arny got older, he didn’t shoot for the magazine as often and the difference was dramatic. Lighting was terribly inconsistent from one photographer to another. Some insisted on blowing out the highlights and the background. Others, especially once the magazine moved to using digital cameras, created images that were as flat as the paper on which they were printed. Shadows showed up in awkward places. Sunlight glared down on models with no filter or any form of diffusing. Editors and photographers alike seemed to rely more on Photoshop® to fix the errors rather shooting good pictures to begin with. With those attitudes, anything would quickly become passé.

When Hugh Hefner started the magazine, there was an inherent emphasis on quality because he wanted a men’s magazine that would stand out with class and not be like the low-class smut being produced at the time. He knew that was the only way to win over the large-scale acceptance of the men’s magazines necessary to make it profitable. There was no room in Hef’s magazine for bad lighting or poor photography. Even non-nude photographs, such as those accompanying the famous interview portion, were by photographers who knew how to light a portrait correctly.

Playboy® faces a tough battle ahead if it plans to go up against men’s giant such as GQ and Esquire with the bad lighting some of their photography has shown the past 20 years or so. There simply is no substitute, now or in the future, for a photograph that is lit properly from the very beginning. If an editor wants to capture readers attention, good lighting is an absolute necessity, even if readers don’t recognize it. Sometimes it’s the details that keep a magazine from being passé.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / pop culture / PotD

Anything But Passé

October 18, 2015

An Insufferable Desire (2008)

I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.—Camille Paglia

Passé. Nudes are passé. At least, that’s the story according to Playboy® magazine’s recently-appointed chief content officer Cory Jones. The magazine announced that this past week that it is initiating a complete re-design and re-branding, beginning with the March 2016 issue. Jones said, as part of the announcement, “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.” And with that, every male, and more than a few females, around the world sighed the deepest of sighs. There’s no arguing with the prevalence of nudity and porn on the Internet. And yes, it does make the current content of the magazine passé. Such wasn’t always the case, though, and that it is now is partly Playboy’s own fault.

Before I totally give in to ranting and raving, which I have a whole week to do, let’s be very clear about a few facts surrounding the magazine’s decision. First, what you see on the newsstands today is not Hugh Hefner’s magazine and hasn’t been for quite some time. Hef turned control of the magazine over to his daughter, Christie, in 1988 after he suffered a stroke in 1985. So, if you didn’t turn 18 until sometime after that date, you’ve not seen the magazine as it appeared under Hef’s control. Christie started making changes immediately and continued trying to keep the general content of the magazine moving forward until she stepped down in 2008, but even under her, the quality of the nudes suffered.

The magazine has been totally out of family control since earlier this year, and while Hef ostensibly has “approved” the change, his physical and mental condition has deteriorated to the point that one can legitimately question whether he really has a true concept of what’s taking place. The magazine’s website eliminated nudes over a year ago, which may be more understandable given the online competition, but then, the web version never has been anything more than a shadow of what the magazine was under Hef. One might even go back to Christie’s decision to move into video as the beginning of the decline.

Here’s the rub: poor quality nudes, such as what have appeared in the magazine for the past twenty years, have always been passé. Part of what made Playboy® the magazine it was under Hef’s control was the quality of its nudes. Not just anyone could shoot for the magazine and get their work published. Consider the list of photographers who once shot for the magazine. Arny Freytag, Pompeo Posar, Suze Randall, Mario Casilli, Herb Ritts, and most notably, Helmut Newton. The people who were behind the camera for the magazine during its heyday, who were responsible for its definitive look, were not hacks, but well-respected photographers with significant careers outside the magazine.

What happened? Expediency took the place of quality. Video was new and flashy and those early VHS tapes didn’t have to be good to sell well. Before long, the quality that had built the empire was completely gone. Never mind that attitudes about nudes and sexuality were changing, the photography by the mid-1990s came nowhere near the artistry that had existed before. Photoshop® and post-editing took over, lighting and creative posing and staging, which can be expensive, took a back seat. Models began looking more and more plastic.

So yes, the nudes that have appeared in Playboy® magazine the past 20 years are incredibly passé and changing that is a good thing. However, eliminating nudes completely is the easy way out. By going with a more glamour-oriented photography style, the magazine puts itself more in competition with titles such as GQ and Esquire. There, too, they will struggle if the quality of their photography doesn’t improve, and there’s no indication that it will.

Great nude photography will never be passé. However, mediocre magazines always will, and that’s exactly where Playboy® has landed, a fact that makes us all very sad.

PotD

Bath Time Memories

October 7, 2015

Pure Innocence

There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.—Sylvia Plath

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the most interesting experiences is bathing a baby. I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but it was quite possibly the most fun ever had in our kitchen. The little infant tub fit nicely across the kitchen sink and we’d carefully make sure the water was all nice and warm before getting the baby wet. Of course, he’d immediately pee all over the place once his skin touched water, so we’d pick him up, sanitize everything again, and then put him back down in the tub. This was quite possibly the most perfect ending to any day. Their little laughs and splashes not only got them clean, but momentarily wash away all those parental anxieties that plague your mind when you have a little one.

I think one of the main reasons babies like baths so much is that the warm water reminds them of being in the womb, except that now they actually have room to squirm and move around. They aren’t quite sure what to do the first time or two; it takes a while to get accustomed to having all that space. I think it was our second one that took nearly two weeks to adjust. Being unswaddled was an anxious moment for him. We learned to strip him down to his diaper and give him a few moments to get used to the air meeting his bare skin before putting him in the bath. Once they adjust, though, they love every minute in the water. They love the warmth, the liquid, and the attention.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The down-side is that babies are slippery when wet. Did you ever try taking a shower while holding a baby? It sounded like a good idea: have some bonding time with the little guy, save some water and time. Babies become the most slippery objects on the planet once they’re wet, though, and holding on to them is practically impossible. He loved the spray of the water and would start kicking and laughing as babies are prone to do when excited. I had to call for backup before I dropped the little bugger. Baths in a tub are much safer when sitting down anyway. We quickly abandoned that idea.

Of course, once they’re big enough to sit up a bit on their own, the kitchen sink is the perfect size for a little one’s bath. Just toss them in like a load of dishes, except leave out the dishes; that’s another one of those things that isn’t quite as good an idea in practice as it may sound. Every baby tries to nurse the kitchen faucet while sitting in the sink, which makes for awkward pictures to show their first, second, eighteenth girlfriend. Who knows, should one of them ever get married, maybe we’ll pull out those pictures for the reception.

Bath time was some of the best memories ever. I rather miss that. They grow up too soon, you leave them alone in the bath, and next thing you know they’re moving out on their own.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Babies, Then More Babies

October 4, 2015

A Moment With C-Ma (2013)

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.—Jerry Seinfeld

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Babies. Why? Because you need a break from al the nudes and I need a break from trying to pander to you. These pictures may not be as popular, though they should be, but they make me happy, sort of. I love the wonder with which they come into the world, all fresh, curious, frightened but ready to explore. I enjoy watching them try new things, and the excitement on their faces when they do something for the first time. I love capturing the expressions on a baby’s face because they don’t know to hold back or hide their feelings yet.

The thing about babies is they grow up much too quickly. One day they’re tiny and sweet and the next they’re up on top of the refrigerator sneaking the cookies you thought you’d hidden so well. Some grow up into wonderful little humans. Others grow up to be just as bratty as their parents; at least, one of their parents. How many exasperated mothers have I met whose unruly and difficult children took after the other parent, the one who wasn’t there? More than a few, to be sure. Not that mothers don’t hold their share of influence, mind you. You know when your child is behaving just like you.

Fortunately, not all of one’s personality is shaped by nature. Every child has the chance to be better than its parents. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]My favorite pictures are newborns, especially within that first 24 hours of a new life. There is something about that freshness, the look in their eyes, the absolute innocence, that makes for great pictures. They don’t need to be posed, and personally I rather resent those who take little ones and try to be all cutsie and artsy by putting them in pots or baskets for their first pictures. Newborns simply need to be held, to be loved, to be given little kisses and friendly smiles. Even when we unswaddle a newborn for pictures, we don’t leave them that way long. They need comfort and care more than we need 300 shots of an increasingly frustrated and frightened infant.

So, this week we’re looking at babies, all under a year old. Each of these little ones have grown a lot and are becoming amazing little people. While it’s fun to see who they become, it never fails to make me smile to look back and see how their lives began. Babies give me hope that maybe, just maybe, the world won’t always be as full of assholes as it is now. Babies give me hope that the world can learn to love.

As long as their parents don’t blow it.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Love, Everyone

October 3, 2015

Welcome Home (2013)

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What’s wrong with people? I look through the news this morning and all I see is hate. Republicans hate democrats. This religion hates that religion and both hate anyone who disagrees with them. White hates black, black hates white, and they both hate brown. If I were to do a quick, informal estimation, which is exactly what I’m doing right this moment, I would say that roughly 80% of what has been tossed at me this morning ultimately contains a hateful message. Where is the love? Where is the empathy? Where is any attempt at actually wanting to get along with other people.

Here’s the great paradox of the 21st century: we’re willing to spend billions of dollars (collectively) looking for love, trying to find love, improving ourselves so that we’re more lovable, but we don’t do a damn thing toward actually loving other people. We are as selfish about love as we are everything else in our lives. We want it all to come to us, knock on our door, overwhelm us with emotional goodies, and reaffirm our sense of how valuable we are to the world. We define love not as something we feel toward other people, but by the quantity of warm fuzzies other people give to us.

In other words: we don’t have a fucking clue. For all the talk about love, we fail to realize that love is an act of giving, not an act of receiving. Love is not something that happens to you, but something you distribute to others. Love is not doing something based on what you feel, but what you feel based on what you’ve done. Love is active, not passive. Love is not something to be found, but something we create, from the center of our being, so that we might give it to someone else. Love is not narrowly limited to a familial relationship, but an over-arching sense of inclusiveness and responsibility to the greater good of humanity.

Love holds no bias, nor fear, but includes everyone.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]So, we are, and have been for a while, at this point in the United States where we have had more mass shootings (where more than four people are shot), than there have been days in the year. We foolishly ask why this keeps happening. Some want bans on weapons. Some want tighter control on those with diagnosed mental disorders. Some want everything locked down and stored in a box where no one can get to it. None of those are solutions. We cannot solve with legislation what was not caused by government in the first place. There is only one reason we keep shooting ourselves: we’ve forgotten how to love.

It was a mere 45-50 years ago that we, my generation and those just older than us, were all about peace, and love, and happiness. We were sure that we could change the world with love, and ultimately we were correct, but we didn’t see it in the way we thought we would see it. We thought love would give us things, take away responsibility, make life more relaxed. What we failed to realize is that love creates responsibility and when we fail that responsibility, we fail love. Love doesn’t just chug along like a toy train circling the Christmas tree. Love requires maintenance, effort, and a completely selfless attitude.

Where is the American society failing? Don’t blame government, Republican orDemocrat. Don’t blame religions, present or absent. Don’t blame race or economics. Blame the total and complete absence of love. We’ve stopped loving, we’ve stopped teaching our children to love, and we’ve stopped letting love be the guide by which we live our lives. In a world where we’ve all but thrown love out the window, is it any wonder that society has gone to hell in a handbasket?

Love, everyone. You won’t learn how until you try.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD / Social Commentary

Shame, No Shame

October 1, 2015

All Wash(er)ed Up (2010)

In the face of patriarchy, it is a brave act indeed for both men and women to embrace, rather than shame or attempt to eradicate, the feminine.—Alanis Morissette

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I grew up being taught that everyone had a responsibility to work hard. Both my parents worked long hours. I had my first paycheck at 14. Sitting around idly isn’t something I do well. I fail to understand this act of binge-watching television series because after about an hour everything in my body tells me I need to be up being productive. We were taught that it didn’t matter what you did, that all jobs contributed to the greater good and deserved people’s respect. Looking down on, or shaming someone, just because of their occupation was about as rude and ignorant a thing one could do.

So, as I’ve grown up and gotten a taste for how the world actually is, I am continually disappointed when this particular sin of shaming other people shows up, typically denigrating a friend for something they’ve done to feed themselves and/or their family, complete with name-calling and harassment. As this has happened within my circle of friends three times in the past five days, I’m calling bullshit on the shame patrol. There is no shame in working hard, no shame in getting one’s hands (and body) dirty, no shame in sweating hard, and certainly no shame in doing jobs you don’t especially like just to keep the lights on and food on the table.

One of the earliest impacts on my sense of work ethic was a WWII veteran named Warren Hartsocks. A short, stocky man who never lost his buzz cut, Hartsocks had dropped out of school to join the military. The US Army taught him to be a mechanic and that’s what he proceeded to do the rest of his life. If you came across Hartsocks during the day, he was likely wearing a well-stained wife-beater t-shirt and baggy grey pants, equally stained. He was missing most his teeth, eternally had an unlit stogie in the corner of his mouth, had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, and in the summer his body odor could get pretty strong. People called him a dirty, foul-mouthed mechanic and tried to avoid him, but he worked hard for every dime he made, was a gentle soul, and took the time to teach me how to fish. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The list of occupations society often shames is too long, but here’s a list of the ones that I see most often:

Retail workers, because, you know, those clothes at the mall just jump on the rack by themselves.
Construction laborers; that house you live in just built itself.
Mechanics, like you can change a fucking tire by yourself.
Strippers, cam girls, etc., one of the truest forms of capitalism’s supply and demand.
Grocery baggers, who carry your chips and ice cream so you won’t snag a nail.
Janitors, because lord knows you’re too busy to empty the damn trash yourself.
Farm workers, laboring sunup to sundown because you just have to have strawberries in December.
Meat packers, constantly covered in blood.
Food service employees, because minimum wage would make them too rich.
Truck drivers, on the road too long to get you those damn strawberries.

I can only think of one occupation that deserves shame: Politicians. Our country’s founders envisioned elected office to be one of public service, not privilege or power, and certainly not one that led to wealth. The concept was that a person would give a period of time to serve the people from their elected districts, not pander to ridiculous ideologues and corporations with deep pockets. Politicians inherently serve only their own interests at the expense of the rest of us. They have taken us from being a democracy to an oligarchy. Public office was never designed to be a position of profit, but one of giving to one’s country.

Too many days I go to bed totally disappointed in the human race. We shame those who work the hardest and praise those who contribute to our demise. Perhaps the real shame is on us all.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Lies, Lies, & More Lies

September 30, 2015

charles i. letbetter - lies, lies, and more lies

charles i. letbetter - lies, lies, & more lies

Bathed in White (2010)

Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.—Tim Allen

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Once upon a time, in murky-memoried days of my youth when I really didn’t know what was going on, my father used to refer to that month before an election as lying season. He would be disturbed to find that the season is pretty much continual now, with neither a start nor end point. There’s no truth coming out after an election, politicians just spread the lies on that much thicker and because they’re fed through a media machine in the form of soundbites, we swallow the greater percentage of those lies, hook, line, and sinker.

Gullible is what we are. We want so desperately to believe our leaders that we’ll believe them when they say something so enormously stupid such as, “Planned Parenthood only exists to perform abortions.” That’s nonsense and we know it, but apparently we’re not doing a good enough job calling them on it. We just let them lie.

Of course, we’re pretty good at that lying thing, too. The biggest lie we tell is, “I’m fine.” No, we’re not. We’re depressed, concerned, hurting like hell both physically and emotionally, tired of having to suck it up day in and day out to just keep things around us from falling apart, and we’re sick as fuck of all the lies. We’re done with people telling us they have a solution when they don’t even have a firm grasp of the problem. We’re upset. We’re pissed off. We’re worn out. This is the real reason so many people support marijuana legalization: we’re looking for an escape from all the bullshit.

That last line is probably a lie. I have absolutely no facts to back it up, but hey, it sounds good and fits my political opinion. If I repeat it enough times you’ll believe it, maybe. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I am amused that we have to have truth-telling websites such as Snopes.com and Politifact.com to help us determine what’s a lie and what isn’t. To demonstrate how bad it is, I’ll post some recent lies, and then the link to the truth. You decide whether you want to click the link or believe the lie.

“When I left Washington, we had a $5 trillion surplus.” Uhm, wrong.
You can get a free Tiffany diamond ring by commenting on a video on Facebook. You know better.
Obamacare doesn’t require members of Congress “to abide by the same rules that all of the other Americans do.” Bullshit.
A video depicts Muslim refugees in the Netherlands beating a teenaged girl because they don’t approve of her Western attire. Not even close.
Mexico doesn’t have birthright citizenship, and Americans are the “only ones” to have it. So says the Oompaloompa candidate with the hair. He’s just ignorant.
Muslim refugees are demanding that the city of Munich, Germany, ban Oktoberfest. Do you smell pants burning?

Lies are all around us and a big part of the reason there are so many of them is that we don’t stop sharing the damn things. We need to realize that we can’t trust cable news outlets (any of them). We can’t trust anything posted as a meme on social media. We can’t trust pretend news sources on the Internet. Everyone is lying to us.

Except the dog. Dogs don’t know how to lie.[/one_half_last]

Mythology / PotD

Moon? What Moon?

September 28, 2015

If We Had A Beach (2010)

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.—George Carlin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]My newsfeed this morning is filled with pictures of the fucking moon. Yeah, okay, I get it; last night’s moon was super special awesome sauce with its larger appearance (it didn’t actually change size), lunar eclipse with a blood red ending that was both a full and harvest moon. Hell, for all I know, the man in the moon may have shot lasers from its eyes. I stayed up for a while, caught the first two-thirds of the eclipse, and then clouds set in. I’m not going to stay up hoping for a hole in the clouds. I have better things to do. I went to bed.

Now, what would really interest me would be if there were some really unusual occurrences that took place during all this moon fuss. I saw one person relate that their dog had been acting weird all day, but considering the source their dog probably has good reason to act weird on any given day simply because it’s their dog. Same goes for Republicans who have been acting especially stupid the past ten years; can’t blame that one on the moon. The Tipster, who is five, woke up early complaining of bad dreams, and perhaps the metaphysically-inclined person might blame that on the funky moon, but she’s five, she’s going to have the occasional bad dream. Perhaps the horn fell off her unicorn.

What I’m looking for are those really weird, unexplainable stories, like an old man walking into a convenience store at 11:59 and not buying a lottery ticket. Or an old woman crossing a busy street without the aid of a boy scout and still arriving on the other side alive and intact. That kind of weirdness has, so far, been elusive. Perhaps it just takes some time for the stories to filter down through the media. I mean, with some predicting that the moon would bring about the apocalypse, I think we have a right to expect something strange and unholy to have happened. Oh wait, the Pope returned to Italy last night, didn’t he? Maybe that’s the big event. The Pope left and now the anti-christ can appear. Don’t hold your breath on that one.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Nonetheless, the moon thing happened and over seven billion of us survived just as insane this morning as we were twenty-four hours ago. Life will go on this morning. Giorgio Armani presents his spring/summer 2016 collection just a few minutes from when I’m typing this, and that will effectively end Milan Fashion Week. Not that there aren’t additional fashion shows after his; there are four listed on the official calendar, and there are probably some other small presentations as well. It’s just that after the Armani shows no one that matters gives a fuck. Paris Fashion Week starts early in the morning. There’s a rush to the airport for that six-hour flight to Paris.

What did the moon look like in Paris? I’ve no idea. The few friends I have in Paris were sleeping, not up taking pictures of the moon. They have other things to worry about, such as the flood of wanna-be street photographers flooding the city, taking pictures of every reasonably attractive person on the street. This is a challenging time to be Parisian. Fashion Week in Paris means one has to actually stop and think about what they’re wearing before they go out to snag a baguette. Be sure, if you’re not totally put together, with hair and makeup done, someone will take your picture and splatter it all over the Internet. Then, when your mother sees it, and she will, she’ll call and ask if you’re feeling well because the picture made you look pale and have you been eating anything other than baguettes?

Fact is, moons happen. Occurences like last night have happened before. The planet survived then, it will survive now, and it will survive when it happens again in 33 years. Maybe you’ll still be around to see that one. Maybe it won’t be so damn cloudy next time. Or maybe we just won’t care. Maybe we’ll be focusing more on helping other people, making lives better, and less worried about the apocalypse. Although, I did see a picture of a baby alpaca yesterday. He had lips. I wonder what he thought of the moon?[/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

A Poverty Of Life

September 24, 2015

Leave A Simple Photo Alone (2015)

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.—Frederick Douglass

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]What did you have for breakfast this morning, anything at all? As adults, the meal is perhaps the easiest to skip. A cup of coffee and we’re out the door. We don’t have time, we’re not in the mood to prepare anything, and many people just don’t have breakfast food in the house. Maybe we could make toast, but that’s about it. I’ve heard mothers complain that they just can’t get their children to eat breakfast. My mother would be appalled. Breakfast wasn’t an option, it was a mandate.

Life really wasn’t all that different when I was growing up, but there was one thing about which my mother was adamant: you’re eating breakfast. It didn’t matter how early it meant we had to get up, we weren’t leaving the house without having food. Where we lived in rural Oklahoma, there was no catching something on the way, or stopping at the convenience store down the street because there was nothing there! I think school breakfast might have been an option, but I never knew anyone who actually ate it. There were some Saturday mornings in high school where the band bus left for a trip at some ungodly hour that required us to leave home at something like 5:00 AM. Guess what, we sat down and had breakfast first. Every morning. Not just something slapped together, either. Eggs. Bacon or sausage. Hot cereal during the winter. Toast. Fruit in season, when we could afford it. Breakfast was a big deal.

Today, there are more options. It actually makes sense for Kat’s kids to eat their breakfast at school; it’s built into their schedule along with lunch. We know they’re getting nutritionally appropriate meals and we don’t have the added fuss at home of trying to convince them to finish their food before the bus comes at 6:30. People who have to commute to work also have more options now than were available forty years ago. There’s a fast food option on every other corner. Seated service restaurants are in greater abundance. Grocery stores are open earlier. We’ve got it made, right?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No, we don’t have it made. Having it “made” means that everything is balanced and healthy and that we’re making the right choices. None of those things are accurate. Our lives and our diets are anything but balanced or healthy and we’re notorious for making bad choices. We create poverty within our own lives by eliminating the things we need most while being excessive in the things we need the least. Children get the worst of it, too. We place them in food poverty by failing to make sure they’re actually eating fruit. Globally, a lack of food in the diet kills 3.4 million people a year, and the great majority of those are children. They don’t only have impoverished diets, they have impoverished lives.

More than a financial state, poverty is a life condition. Even people whose incomes are well above what is considered the poverty line can still have impoverished lives because of the choices they make in how they spend what they have. One of the biggest areas of poverty, strangely enough, comes in having too few fruits and we replace that with an excess of sodium, which in turn kills yet another 3.5 million people. And no, grabbing a bottle of juice isn’t the same, especially for children. Juice doesn’t contain the fiber and other nutrients available in whole fruit. What’s sad is grocery stores and markets dump tons of wasted fruit every day. Global economies keep prices out of reach for people who need fruit the most, and those who can afford fruit look at it more as a dessert item, not a dietary necessity.

We like to think we’re rich, and comparatively we are, but look in your shopping cart the next time you buy food. If you have three different kinds of chips, packaged foods, and/or soda, and less than three different kinds of fresh fruit, you are creating a poverty of life for you and your family. We should all be appalled. [/one_half_last]

pop culture / PotD

The Real Skinny

September 22, 2015

Doesn’t Matter (2014)

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‘Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?’ I said: ‘Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.’—Lou Holtz

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For the first forty years of my life, I was thin, at times disturbingly so. It wasn’t that I wanted to be thin, nor that I was trying to be thin. Quite the opposite, actually. I would have loved to have had enough mass to actually develop muscles and such, but that never happened. I delighted in over-eating to excess at buffets but never could gain weight. At 30 I was still able to wear the same pair of Levi’s 501 jeans that I bought when I was 18. Now, for women, that kind of tale isn’t unusual, but for men it’s practically unheard of. I had no muscle mass. If I ate too much and was bloated, I looked like Bloom County’s Bill the Cat (well, maybe not as orange). There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, no matter how hard I tried, and believe me, I tried.

Then, I hit 40. Boom. Like flipping a switch, I started gaining weight and suddenly staying off the 200-pound mark became an issue. Actually, with my body frame and size, I didn’t need to be above 170, and even that was frighteningly larger than I’d ever been. I started having to buy larger clothes, replace suits, and spend money that I really hadn’t planned on spending. What, when, and how I ate suddenly became an issue, as did the amount of exercise and stress. My health changed. I was sick more often. I had to watch my blood sugar. High blood pressure, which runs in our family anyway, was suddenly a much more important issue. That skinny teenager is gone and is never going to come back. Instead, like almost every other American and a large number of people around the world, I have to fight with obesity.

Fuck. I like fried chicken, chicken fried steak smothered in pepper gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans cooked with bacon grease, cornbread dripping with butter and corn on the cob far too much to have a weight issue. And don’t even get me started on the importance of chocolate, especially this time of year when the fashion shows are one right after the other and I’m not getting nearly enough sleep. I’ve been able to eat as much as I want whenever I want my entire life. What the hell does my body think it’s doing gaining all this weight all of a sudden? I don’t have time for an interpersonal rebellion like this. Pass the pie. Not, not a piece of pie, give me the whole damn pie. And more coffee, damnit. I have work to do. This is just a temporary, thing.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No, it’s not. I’m well past 40 now and the problem isn’t going away. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that much of society’s view of what’s “skinny,” and our subsequent jealous loathing of that condition, is based almost entirely upon the skewed perspective born of one basic fact: we’re all too fucking fat. What’s more, is that we know we’re fat, we know it’s killing us, and we just don’t fucking care. We’ve thrown caution to the wind and ordered another triple burger with quadruple cheese, bacon, and onion rings. And should anyone actually challenge our obesity, we fight back with something stupid like, “You’re fat shaming me. I can’t help it, I was born large.”

Bullshit. Even if you were a ten-pound baby you were not born obese. Obesity, for the vast majority of Americans, is something we have chosen for ourselves and then proceeded to surround ourselves with a variety of excuses for our slovenliness. Let’s be clear: there’s a difference between being overweight and being obese. There can be many contributors to being overweight, including, but not limited to, water retention, bone mass, and muscle buildup. Being obese comes down to just one thing, though: FAT. The National Institues of Health calculate obesity according to Body Mass Index. If yours is over 30, you’re overweight. If it’s over 40, you’re obese. Want to see what yours is? Click here and don’t fucking lie. This morning, mine is 24.3, which is on the upper end of normal for my height. I need to be careful and exercise more.

Sure, there are people who are too skinny and that’s a problem, but shaming thin people just because they’re not so incredibly fucking fat like you just emphasises that your brain is as fat as your body. Well over two of three Americans are overweight or obese and Indiana is currently ranked number eight as one of the ten most obese states in the country. Try and justify it any way you want, we’re not healthy. Obesity is the third most common cause of death on this planet and it is totally preventable. Even our kids, our babies, are too fucking fat and it’s our fault. Put down the fucking fork. Park a few extra spaces from the door. Walk. Exercise. And stop making fucking excuses. You’re fat. You can either change or die. Your call.[/one_half_last]

Fashion / PotD

Because It Feels Natural

September 3, 2015

Just My Jeans (2012)

A friend sat next to a nun on a plane. He asked her what she missed most. “Wearing blue jeans,” she replied. —Amy Krouse Rosenthal

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Why do we love our blue jeans so much? There would be many reasons, of course, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that a good pair of jeans just feels natural—almost like a second skin on our body. The more we wear them the more they adapt themselves to our curves and bulges, the way we sit, and the things we carry in our pockets. Our jeans become such a natural part of who we are that it is possible to forget we even have them on, and being without them can be a discomfort that leads to anxiety.

Blame the natural cotton fibers for most of that. There have been some jeans manufacturers who attempt to blend other materials with the cotton, but it never works long term. Natural cotton grows softer the more it is worn and washed. Sure, if one buys a traditional pair of blue jeans there’s a breaking in period where the dye causes them to be a bit stiff and maybe even itchy, but that matter is solved easily enough. All one has to do is wash them a couple of times, then wear them while doing something physical such as playing softball or riding bulls (the real ones, not those mechanical toys). The jeans fashion themselves to our bodies quickly and we don’t want to take them off.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]One of the sad aspects of the move toward pre-warshed denim is that the jeans don’t get that initial opportunity to fit themselves to one’s body. Sure, the cotton feels softer than traditional jeans, but when people complain about having difficulty finding a pair of jeans that fit, what they don’t realize is that jeans never really fit well until you’ve worn them four or five times. Pre-washing and distressing may soften the fibers, but that doesn’t replace the natural evolution that comes from actually wearing the jeans.

There are few things in life that we can really call our own: our toothbrush, our underwear, our dental implants, and our jeans. The first two make the list because of sanitary reasons. The last two, though, become part of us. Sure, you theoretically could share a pair of jeans with a friend, but they’re not going to feel natural on them the way they do on you. They conform to your body and just don’t feel the same on anyone else. A good pair of jeans even has wash marks on the pocket where you keep your keys or your cell phone. Our jeans are part of our person; it’s just natural.[/one_half_last]

Advertising / Fashion / PotD

Those Sexy Ads

September 2, 2015

HOT DENIM (2011)

Anyone who is secure about herself shouldn’t be threatened by the ads I do. What we’re doing is fun—if you have any sense of humor at all! —Calvin Klein

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Ads are designed to get your attention, but just because one has an ad doesn’t mean anything is going to sell. To actually sell anything, the ad has to be sexy, has to give the appearance that the product makes you more attractive, even if it’s something as simple as a toaster. Nowhere has sex been a more successful sales agent than in fashion, and there are a handful of brands, such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Balmain, Saint Laurent, and most notably Calvin Klein, that have convinced us that jeans are sexy.

When Calvin Klein hired a largely unknown fifteen-year-old model to utter the words, “You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing,” the entire Western world screamed. Brooke Shields became an instant household name and the sales of not only Calvin Klein jeans, but all denim jeans skyrocketed. The war for who makes the sexiest jean was on and has yet to end. Styles have changed from skinny to loose to flared to straight-legged with at least a hundred different variations of each. Stone washed, pre-shrunk, pre-stressed, pre-torn, cut, embellished, and studded styles have all come, gone, and returned again.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Ultimately, what the ads are trying to say is that the jeans displayed are so sexy, will make you look so incredibly attractive, that someone will want to help you out of them. Notice how many of the ads now involve two people with posing implying that they might be a couple. Want a new boy/girlfriend? It all comes down to wearing the right jeans. Add the celebrity factor that has taken over and the ads also deliver the message that the right jeans will make you cool.

Of course, deep down inside, somewhere, you know the ads are lying. Just this year, one of the sexiest advertisers, Abercrombie & Fitch, has backed off their nearly hardcore ads because they weren’t working with a target age group that isn’t so impressed by the overt sexuality. Still, look at the ads, and even though the tone is softer, there remains an understated sensuality that pulls one in and makes them want a new pair of jeans. Even millennials eschewing materialism still buy jeans. You know you want them even now. We’ll see you at the mall.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Anonymously Naked

August 22, 2015

Hold That Pose

There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never actually done an official survey, but I’m relatively sure that the majority of nudes in my archives were done anonymously. It’s a thing. People want to participate in art, or want to remember their bodies before children, or how they looked when they were young adults, but they are very much afraid of the backlash of criticism that comes with taking nude pictures, especially if they’re going to be posted on the Internet. Comments, not just from Internet trolls but from family and alleged friends can be hurtful, cruel, and disheartening.

Artistically, there is also the reasonable argument that nudes done anonymously are open to greater personal interpretation. Without the identity that comes with a face, one is free to extend their imagination beyond a single personality, possibly even imagining themselves in place of the model. Where there’s a face there is someone else’s identity, a personhood inherently attached to the body. For a great number of people, that identity prevents them from being able to fairly and artistically respond to the rest of the body. All they see is “that person” nude. When “that person” happens to be a celebrity or someone of note, the work becomes all about the person and any artistic valuation flies out the window.

Shooting nudes anonymously has its purpose. When nudes are anonymous, one doesn’t have to worry that one’s children might accidentally find them in Internet search results one day. Anonymous nudes don’t require any effort toward hairstyles or makeup; one can literally crawl out of bed and straight in front of the camera. Working anonymously gives one more freedom to be expressive with their bodies than they might otherwise. Without identity issues, one can usurp the norms of a given society and use their body to make any number of statements they might not otherwise make.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]At the same time, however, working anonymously in art has many of the same drawbacks as other forms of anonymity. At the top of that list is taking responsibility for the statements that one makes. Being nude in front of a camera or for a painter makes a statement which one should, in ideal circumstances, own. Anonymously, one might poke at society, or a segment of people within a given group, without having to deal with any actual harm that may result from making the statement. We enjoy the freedom of being expressive, but fail to realize that, at times, being anonymous in exercising that freedom holds the potential for being abusive.

There is also the argument that working anonymously does nothing to help change public attitudes about nude art and being nude. If anything, anonymous works might reinforce the argument that being nude is somehow wrong. After all, if there’s nothing wrong with it, why wouldn’t one want to own the work? If we want to make nude work more accessible and publicly palatable, hiding the identity of those who participate does not necessarily help to achieve those goals. Progress comes in standing up, proudly, for the work that we do and not allowing anyone to shame us for it.

Still, reality forces us often into a position where anonymity is required. You’ll notice that we no longer list the names of models who pose for nudes. We made that decision because of the frequent stalking and other safety issues that come with a society whose attitude toward nudity remain warped and at time dangerous. For all the progress we’ve made the past thirty years in terms of accepting ourselves and our bodies as they are, our society still is too often incapable of handling nude photographs responsibly. Until those matters improve, some pictures will remain anonymously nude.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Naked In The Sunlight

August 21, 2015

A Moment To Myself (2010)

The breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind. ― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Of all the creatures attracted to sunlight, none seem to enjoy it quite as much as do cats. We have three of the critters that Kat has rescued and all three know exactly where the sunlight is going to hit in each room at any given moment of the day. They have their preferences, of course. Our bedroom gets more light than anywhere else and each one has a favorite spot staked out. They will be underfoot all morning until the sun is up, at which point they disappear to their appointed places in the sunlight and there they happily nap until mid-afternoon when the light begins to fade. Rather makes one jealous of being a cat, doesn’t it?

Cats aren’t the only creatures who enjoy sunlight, though. This summer has been an unusual one in that the persistent rain has kept skies more grey than usual; there hasn’t been as much sunlight to go around and I ‘m pretty sure that has affected people’s attitudes. Folks in Northern states, especially, endure the harsh winters with the full expectation that spring will come along and bring a sufficient amount of sunlight to compensate for all those cold, dreary days of November through February. When that doesn’t happen we feel cheated. Sure, one can always lie in a tanning bed in hopes of coaxing the melatonin to the surface of your skin, but that’s really no replacement for being in the actual sunlight.

We enjoy those warm days of standing or sitting in the sun for they are all too fleeting. As I forced my body out from under the covers this morning, I felt an ominous nip in the air. The morning’s temperature is below 60° for the first time since May and looking across the forecast for the next week, that trend only seems to move lower down the thermometer. Autumn is most surely on its way and it won’t be long before sunlight alone won’t be enough to keep us warm and comfortable. We’ll be looking for sweaters and coats and hoodies and blankets that won’t hardly leave our bodies for the next six to eight months.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Nothing feels much better than lying naked in the sunlight. Even with autumn rapidly approaching, we can follow the habit of the cats in finding those places inside where sunlight regularly appears and make our winter homes there; those precious rays of sunlight warming as they pass through the glass. There’s a scientific explanation for why sunlight feels warmer after passing through glass, but we’re not nearly as interested in that as we are with how we feel sitting or lying in the sunlight. Of course, if you have windows with tempered or tinted glass, then you’re just screwed.

One of the things I like about today’s picture is the precise lines the sunlight creates across her body. The borders of the window are clearly evident, to the point that it almost seems as though the sunlight is drawing a line between her breasts. The narrow patch of sunlight creates a strong visual contrast that our minds automatically translate as warmth even when the picture is captured in black and white. We feel the increased temperature of the sunlight, and the coolness of the shadows as they deepen. Lying in the sunlight like this, naked, comfortable, alone, is one of the rare joys that life does not often accommodate. These moments can hold great meaning, or provide much-needed respite from otherwise ugly days.

Oh, if we could only be more like cats and spend our days curled up in the sunlight, naked, on the bed. I’m sure we would all be much more pleasant creatures if basking in the sunlight were a regular part of our day. Sure, there’s the whole thing about being responsible and productive members of society; I suppose we need to attend to those matters as well. Still, when we see that splash of open sunlight, just sitting there in the middle of the floor, for just a moment, wouldn’t it be nice to be a cat?[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Sleeping Naked

August 20, 2015

A Spot in the Sun (2010)

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying the darkness and we know no death. —Tom Wolfe

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’m sitting here this morning wondering if I can survive writing about sleeping. I’m too close to having just awakened to feel very objective about the subject. I like sleep far too much, get far too little of it, and rarely anymore do I risk doing it naked. This is where being an adult and pretending to be responsible really becomes a drain on one’s spirit. I would have much rather stayed in bed this morning. Kat is still there, sleeping soundly, and the cats are still snuggled at her feet. The bed is inviting. Why the hell am I up typing at this hour? Oh yeah, this is the only time I have for things like this. Life, you know.

Do a quick search on sleeping naked and you’ll inevitably find all kinds of advice columns about the health benefits of tossing your pajamas to the side before you slip under the covers. Some of those articles even invoke science and medicine, which makes me sad that I wasn’t invited to be part of those studies. I would happily volunteer for someone to pay me to sleep. I wouldn’t even charge that much; maybe ten dollars so I could buy a decent breakfast when I woke up. Such is the story of my life, though. No one ever invites me to participate in the really fun experiments.

Sleeping naked is something into which one gradually becomes comfortable. I don’t think anyone can make the claim that it’s natural. Even babies liked to be diapered and swaddled tightly. Sleeping naked requires the right combination of comfortable accommodations and safe environment. The room temperature has to be just right. The sheets have to be clean and soft. Any companion not only has to also be naked, but they have to be totally non-judgmental; not merely about your body, but about your sleeping style as well. This sleeping naked thing gets complicated.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Sleeping naked comes with some challenges, as well. The last thing anyone wants to do is wake up to an embarrassing situation. Risks have to be eliminated as much as possible. No going to bed with candles still burning. Make sure you’re not sleeping next door to a meth lab that’s about to be raided. Don’t sleep naked during a tornado watch. When sleeping naked, we must realize that we are not going to wake up looking as sexy as when we went to bed, not even close. We don’t need strangers seeing us in such a disheveled state, especially if those strangers might be attractive.

Then, there’s the matter of children. There’s no sleeping naked when there are children in the house who are old enough to come wandering in to talk to mommy in the middle of the night, and it’s always mommy they want. The sounds daddies make when they sleep are frightening to small children, so they always choose the quieter parent; the one they mistakenly assume to be more sympathetic and comforting. Having absolutely no concept of spatial boundaries, children will attempt to crawl right into the bed with you and when you are sleeping naked things immediately become awkward, if not downright embarrassing.

Sure, sleeping naked is wonderful, good for your health and good for relationships, but it sure is a lot of trouble as well. By the time one has mitigated the risk factors, changed the sheets, put out the candles, locked the doors, changed the batteries in the smoke detectors, and duct taped the children to their beds, you might just be too exhausted to care. And there’s no rest for the wicked, so I’ve heard, so I might as well make another pot of coffee.[/one_half_last]

Art / pop culture / PotD

Naked Ink

August 19, 2015

Posture, Please (2010)

There is something vulnerable about showing your tattoos to people, even while it gives you a feeling that you are wearing a sleeve when you are naked. —Lena Dunham

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I like tattoos. I like the artistry of ink on skin. I don’t have any, mind you, and at my age I rather doubt I ever will. At this stage of my life, it seems rather pointless to be making any kind of permanent statement on a body in such rapid decay. If they had been as popular and socially acceptable thirty years ago as they are now, I might have considered it. I grew up in an age that looked at ink suspiciously, though. Tattoo parlors had the bad reputation of being dirty places run by people of questionable morals and intent. The reputation was undeserved, of course, but it was there and was enough to make anyone who had a tattoo worthy of sideways glances and cautious observation.

Actually, as I was growing up, there were only two kinds of people who had tattoos: World War II veterans and carnival/circus workers. The WWII veterans with ink were mostly, interestingly enough, those who had served in the Pacific theatre, primarily in the Navy. Their ink was almost always high up on an arm where it would be easily covered by a shirt. Many of those pieces came with stories that I wasn’t allowed to hear when I was little. Unfortunately, most of those men were gone by the time I would have understood the stories.

I didn’t actually know any carnival/circus workers. We’d see them at a distance, though, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, their ink shamelessly visible as they typically wore sleeveless t-shirts. We were warned to stay away from them, which was unfortunate. I’m sure most of those people had interesting stories to tell, too. They certainly tended to have a lot more ink, even the women. My mother would reach over and shut my mouth as I stood gaping at the sight of someone whose body art was expansive and colorful. These people were outliers, though. Rumors always swirled that they were convicts on the run. The here-today, gone-tomorrow nature of the carnivals didn’t help. They could commit a crime and disappear.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Amazing how much society can change in just a few years, isn’t it? Anecdotally, it seems that almost everyone has a piece of ink hiding somewhere, even preachers and the little old ladies praying fervently in the pews. As a photographer, I’ve come to expect that aspiring and amateur models are probably going to have at least one tattoo, even if it’s small and out of the way. When I come across someone who is completely bare I’m rather caught by surprise. We are more likely to ask someone why they don’t have any ink rather than why they do.

The cool thing about ink is that it allows one to be naked and still appear somewhat dressed. When one has a tattoo, especially a larger piece such as a sleeve, one is never really bare. From a fashion perspective, that permanent decoration can be a problem. Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld has famously said:

I think tattoos are horrible. It’s like living in a Pucci dress full-time.

By contrast, Christian Louboutin counters:

People are proud of their tattoos. It’s like a modern coat of arms.

All of this leads to the question: is one ever really naked when they’re covered in ink? Since I have none, I cannot relate to how it must feel to have one’s body permanently adorned. There are times I see a well-done and artistic piece and feel a twinge of jealousy. Other times, I see a mess of poorly done and ill-considered pieces scattered across a body and think how tragic. I don’t have a good answer to the question. One thing for certain, though, is that it certainly makes taking off one’s clothes a lot more interesting.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Casually Naked

August 18, 2015

Life Upside Down (2009)

I always say: To be well dressed you must be well naked. —Oscar de la Renta

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Being casually naked is wonderful, but rare. One of the reasons I enjoy getting up so atrociously early is that it affords me the ability to sit here and work without having to put on pants. I’m not naked, mind you. There are still small children in the house and one never knows when one of the little buggers will wake up and need some encouragement to return to bed. Still, just the simple condition of not having to be fully dressed the instant I wake up each morning is pleasant, and a luxury I’ve not always had. In fact, for many people, being casually naked is not so much about comfort as it is opportunity. Our lives don’t give us much of a chance to even sit naked in our own home.

For most of us, we get up in the morning, get dressed, perhaps dress children, down some coffee, maybe some food, and try to make it to work on time. After work, there’s some combination of dinner, child care, social events and obligations, and by the time it is all over we’re more likely to pass out fully clothed on the couch than spending any time in our bare form. Casually naked? Sorry, I just don’t have the time.

I would like to suggest, though, that the best friends, not just intimate relationships but the kind of always-reliable friends who would either bail you out or be in the jail cell with you, are those around whom one can be casually naked. Granted, those friendships are rare, especially if one is male. For some, male nudity is seen as being inherently aggressive, so finding someone with whom one can just “hang out,” so-to-speak, can be challenging. When those relationships happen they are priceless.

To the degree we’ve created a society where we fear being naked around each other, we’ve done both ourselves and our friends a disservice because we’re afraid to let our friends see us as we truly are. Yet, that is exactly what we’ve done. Being honest, letting our real selves show, is considered bad form, even taboo. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Socially, I’ve known a lot of people who talk about enjoying being casually naked, but one would never actually catch them in that state. For all the tales of pizza delivery people being greeted at the door by someone naked, modesty tends to overtake most of us. Actually, I’m no so sure whether it’s modesty or a fear of being judged that forces us to put on that robe. The late comedian Rodney Dangerfield famously joked:

My wife was afraid of the dark… then she saw me naked and now she’s afraid of the light.

We worry so much about what other people think of our bodies that we tend to want to hide them rather than enjoying the natural state into which we were born. Fashion and popular culture doesn’t help, either. There’s a double standard between men and women that perpetuates old habits and stereotypes. Designer Christian Louboutin has said:

A naked woman in heels is a beautiful thing. A naked man in shoes looks like a fool.

What amazes me is that some people find being casually naked threatening, as though it might bring about the end of civilization as we know it. One of the most laughable objections I’ve heard is that to allow casual nudity in public would be to encourage an increase in crime. Think about that. You’re naked. Dude, you have no pockets and you’re barefoot. The only thing close to a crime one might commit while naked would be a random walk-by mooning.

Being casually naked is elusive, especially this morning. I hear children rustling around in their room. That means it’s time to put on pants. Perhaps we’ll find time to be naked later.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Naked Ambition

August 17, 2015

No One’s Looking (2010)

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. —Bill Bradley

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Erg. Monday. Time to find the ambition for getting up, again, and doing more of the same things we did last week in an effort to achieve a goal that may or may not make us happy. I’m not a particular fan of hip-hop, but in the back of my mind I can hear Rick Ross in a continual loop, “Every day I’m hustlin’, hustlin’, hustlin’.” Motivation often needs to be kickstarted on a Monday morning and some weeks it’s everything we can do just to put on pants. That’s when we have to stop and ask ourselves, “Why? Why must we put on pants? Why can’t our ambition, and our bodies, be naked?”

Well, okay, there is that whole legal thing about indecent exposure. Starting the week off in jail might do more to kill one’s ambition than fuel it, but at least it would make the Monday interesting. Naked ambition, though, is a different matter. Strip away the pretense and excuses that make our ambition socially acceptable and admit that what we really want first and foremost is to make enough money so that we don’t have to be so damn ambitious. Yeah, sure, save the world, feed the children, house the homeless, etc. That all sounds good, but that all requires funding so isn’t it better to tackle the money issue first by making as much of it as possible?

Yes, I know, there’s more to life than money. That’s a lesson learned long ago. However, to pretend that our pursuits are not, at least in part, financially motivated is to gut any altruism attached to our ambition. By all means, do good things! Yes! Be generous and kind and loving to all! But let’s be honest: doing good from a position of penury has its limits. By bettering our own condition, we put ourselves in a place where we can make a difference on a much larger scale. There’s nothing wrong with naked ambition, and sometimes being naked is just the thing to get us where we want to go.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Let us take, for example, supermodel Karlie Kloss. Ambition? Not only does she maintain one of the busiest runway schedules on the planet, she poses for multiple designer campaigns a month, appears most months in no fewer than three magazine editorials, operates her own charity, bakes her own vegan chocolate chip cookies, and still somehow finds time to hang out with BFF Taylor Swift.

Arguably, one of the most defining moments in Kloss’ career was a 2011 editorial in Vogue Italia shot by Steven Meisel. While this wasn’t the first time Karlie appeared naked in an editorial, it was certainly the one that garnered the greatest amount of attention. Unflinching, at least publicly, the model said:

“I think they’re beautiful photos and I’m very proud of all of them. I’m happy with the results … I think that they’re photos that are hopefully going to become iconic.”

Karlie’s not the only one to take such ambitious steps. Amber Rice, the model in today’s picture, is one of many I’ve watched pull up roots from the Midwest and move to Los Angeles on her own driven by a desire to succeed in ways that simply are not possible in Indianapolis. Some make it, some don’t, but at least they had the ambition to shed themselves of the excuses that hold the rest of us back. Blame it on youth if you want, but they set a strong example.

So, let’s kick this Monday in the backside and get something done, shall we? There’s really no excuse and pants (and tops) are totally optional.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Random Naked People

August 16, 2015

charles i. letbetter - random naked people

Nothing To Hide (2010)

To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength. ― Criss Jami

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Last week’s project was incredibly time-intensive, taking up several hours of my day, every day, in order to have the videos ready for the next morning. After all that, I’m ready for a week where I don’t have to think quite so hard or worry about doing everything wrong. My first thought for this week was to make it totally random, to just open up a folder, close my eyes, and click on a picture. However, when I opened an archive folder I discovered that the first several, from 2009-2010, all contained naked people and, with one exception, none had appeared in any other #POTD series before now. In fact, most are not even in my art portfolio. They’re not bad shots, just unused. So, what we have this week, through the process of semi-blind selection, is random (sort of) naked people.

The next question was what to write. I’ve talked about the virtues of posing nude so many times before I’m not sure I have another seven days worth of words to talk about the subject. Would I find something different to write about?

Thank you, Sharon Stone. The 57-year-old actress, who has a new television series starting this fall, appears nude in front of Mark Abrahams’ camera for the September issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. I didn’t request permission to show any of the pictures here, but you can see them and read the article online on their website. There’s a lot in this article that is important regarding who we are, our self-esteem, and being honest about ourselves regardless of our age or what we’re doing with our lives. For everyone who thinks that posing nude isn’t classy or demeans one’s femininity, please take a moment to read what Ms. Stone has to say. Not only is her perspective unique, she looks much better saying it than I would. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Sharon has earned the right to be rather frank, though I don’t think we ever thought of her as being shrinking violet. The actress suffered an aneurysm resulting in a nine-day cerebral hemorrhage. This is the type of thing that kills most people, and those who do survive often have difficulty walking and/or talking ever again. Talk about clawing your way back up from the absolute bottom, Sharon Stone has done just that and now that she’s back in the limelight she doesn’t mind talking about the reality of being naked.

“I’m aware that my ass looks like a bag of flapjacks, but I’m not trying to be the best-looking broad in the world. At a certain point you start asking yourself, ‘What really is sexy?’ It’s not just the elevation of your boobs. It’s being present and having fun and liking yourself enough to like the person that’s with you.”

Had she said something like that in 1992 when Basic Instinct came out, we probably would have dismissed it as being self-serving. Now, though, it’s a statement of triumph over a set of circumstances that would have left most people relegated to a treatment center for the rest of their lives. Not Sharon Stone, though. She’s re-gathered, despite permanent brain damage, and moved forward. Naked.

I will always applaud those strong enough to be naked, whether literally in front of a camera, or figuratively in how they live their lives. Naked people are the strong ones, the wise ones, the ones who endure. Perhaps the rest of you should step up and get with the plan.[/one_half_last]

black and white

Without wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a special face for each friend.—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Share this:

Like this:

Everybody always says that I’m the girl next door, which makes me think that y’all must have a lot of weird next-door neighbours.—Kelly Clarkson

Share this:

Like this:

Sex is the driving force on the planet. We should embrace it, not see it as the enemy.—Hugh Hefner

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.—William Wordsworth

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.—Camille Paglia

Share this:

Like this:

There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.—Sylvia Plath

Share this:

Like this:

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.—Jerry Seinfeld

Share this:

Like this:

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.—Buddha

Share this:

Like this:

In the face of patriarchy, it is a brave act indeed for both men and women to embrace, rather than shame or attempt to eradicate, the feminine.—Alanis Morissette

Share this:

Like this:

Men are liars. We’ll lie about lying if we have to. I’m an algebra liar. I figure two good lies make a positive.—Tim Allen

Share this:

Like this:

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.—George Carlin

Share this:

Like this:

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.—Frederick Douglass

Share this:

Like this:

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‘Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?’ I said: ‘Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.’—Lou Holtz

Share this:

Like this:

A friend sat next to a nun on a plane. He asked her what she missed most. “Wearing blue jeans,” she replied. —Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Share this:

Like this:

Anyone who is secure about herself shouldn’t be threatened by the ads I do. What we’re doing is fun—if you have any sense of humor at all! —Calvin Klein

Share this:

Like this:

There is something very freeing about being anonymous because nothing is expected of you; nothing is getting back to anyone, and no one cares. —Dolly Wells

Share this:

Like this:

The breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind. ― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Share this:

Like this:

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying the darkness and we know no death. —Tom Wolfe

Share this:

Like this:

There is something vulnerable about showing your tattoos to people, even while it gives you a feeling that you are wearing a sleeve when you are naked. —Lena Dunham

Share this:

Like this:

I always say: To be well dressed you must be well naked. —Oscar de la Renta

Share this:

Like this:

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. —Bill Bradley

Share this:

Like this:

To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength. ― Criss Jami

Share this:

Like this:

Login

Follow Us