Playboy After Hours

While scouting for the snazzy holiday gift items that appear elsewhere in this issue, we ran into a few grand giveables which, while not ideal for the urban young man or his playmate, would obviously gladden the heart of someone, somewhere. Like so: for the busy man who totes his lunch on busy days, a lunch kit and matching vacuum bottle with attractive Zorro drawings (full-color action scenes) on the side. From Toujours Manure, two pounds of vitamin-packed cow manure, loaded with CD (chlorophyll derivatives) and packed in attractive Christmas wrapping. A Rust Map of the United States (suitable for framing) showing the different rates at which rust eats through an uncoated steel test panel – in all cities over 10,000 population. For the handy man, a standard-and-Phillips reversible screwdriver that comes with matching tie clasp and cuff links set with miniature replicas. For the happy home owner, a Rain-Vert Downspout Diverter for – uh – diverting downspouts. And the ne plus ultra: a single-control, clutchless, hydraulic No. 904 Hog Dehairer that dehairs up to 125 hogs an hour. Should you be at a loss for hairy hogs, they're yours at $195 per porker or $155 in larger quantities, the perfect companion for the dehairing machine. Joyeux Noël.

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Satirist Harry Purvis swears that, according to his research, today's so-called movie villain isn't really a villain at all. Fact is, says Harry, he's kind of a loveable guy, all abrim with virtue. As support for his oddball thesis, our friend offers the following chunks of dialog, more or less culled from memorable moments on the silver screen.

Sensitive: "Blackmail is an ugly word, Senator Goodliver. That last insult will cost you just ten thousand more."

Sympathetic: "You say the boy is dead? I am most sorry to hear this. In experimenting, I must have taken too much blood."

Generous: "I am prepared to pay handsomely for your country's atomic secrets, Captain Mannering."

Considerate: "Turn up the radio, Monk. We wouldn't want the young lady's screams to disturb the neighbors."

Fun-Loving: "What say we get some of the boys together and run the new preacher out of town?"

Religious: "Take the foreign intruders to the Temple of Pappi! They will serve well as sacrifices to the Great God Moola!"

Popular: "To run away is quite useless, my dear. I have friends everywhere."

Straightforward: "You realize, of course, that I cannot possibly permit you to live."

Fastidious: "Out of my way, pig of a peasant! I do not wish to stain my blade with the blood of one such as you."

Fatherly: "These simple natives are like children. All they need is a little disciplining. Lassiter – bring the whips!"

Sporting: "That wall cannot be more than five kilometers, Mr. Nolan. You are a free man if you reach it before my mastiffs reach you."

Thoughtful: "Do not kill the girl! She will provide a pleasant diversion for our officers."

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A Hatful of Rain, which was parodied as A Canful of Trash in a revue, is called A Handful of Snow in France, we understand, and Ten North Frederick is known as A Fistful of Dust in Italy. We are further apprised that a play entitled A Handful of Fire may open on Broadway with Roddy MacDowell. Got all that? Existing now only in our imagination but someday to blossom into reality, we feel, are projects named A Shoeful of Sand, A Snootful of Booze, A Bedful of Bugs, A Tireful of Nails, An Eyeful of Cinders, A Fishful of Bones, A Headful of Lint, and biographies of Demosthenes and Socrates called, respectively, A Mouthful of Pebbles and A Cupful of Hemlock.

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Sign in an office of the health department in a California city:

Notice While in this office

Speak in a Low, Soothing Voice

And Do not disagree with me in any way

Please be informed that when one has reached "my age"

Noise and non-concurrence Cause gastric hyper-peristalsis, hyper-secretion of the hydro-chloric acid and rubus of the gastric mucosa.and I become most unpleasant

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A buddy of ours with nothing much else to do was browsing through a copy of the Standard Advertising Register the other day and came up with the following fascinating data: the space buyer for Schaefer Beer is a chap named Austin Brew. The President of Bond Brook Whiskey is a guy called R. L. Buse. Assistant Treasurer of the General Shoe Corporation is T. Douglas Oxford. General Manager in charge of the livestock at Armour & Co. is named J.R. Herd. And the advertising for Dazor Lighting Fixtures is in the capable hands of (who else?) the Watts Agency.

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A new stereo LP put out by Warner Brothers (in Vitaphonic High Fidelity) carries the engaging title Have Organ, Will Swing. It features, of course, Buddy Cole on the Hammond.

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Sick note: One of the mailboxes in the foyer of an apartment building at 23 E. Bellevue on Chicago's Near North Side carries the simple inscription:

Loeb - Leopold

Turns out that Loeb and Leopold really do live there – Henry S. and Thomas M., respectively. They've another roommate living with them, too, but they won't let him put up his name and spoil the effect.

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Nature lovers who have taken to skin-diving to get away from the commercialism all about us should shun the waters off Spain's lovely Lloret de Mar beach. Ninety feet from shore and 15 feet straight down, sits a luminous advertising billboard in the sand.

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We were reading a collection of science-fiction yarns – Away and Beyond, by A.E. van Vogt – the other day, and did a double-take at a couple of spots in his story Heir Unapparent. On page 142, we read: "It wasn't so much, Parker realized bleakly for the hundredth time, that Medgerow's ugliness by itself was so jarring. A thousand males picked up at random from the streets outside would have yielded a dozen whose physical characteristics were less prepossessing. Medgerow differed in that he exuded a curious, terrible aura of misshapen strength. His personality had the concreteness of the hump of a hunchback."

And then, nine pages later: "Medgerow stood before them. He looked abnormal. It wasn't so much, Arthur Clagg decided bleakly, that Medgerow's ugliness was jarring in itself. A thousand males picked at random would have yielded a dozen whose physical characteristics were less prepossessing. Perhaps it was the triumphant smile on his face, with its frank and unashamed arrogance. It was hard to tell. The man exuded a curious, terrible aura of misshapen strength. His personality protruded with the concreteness of the hump of a hunchback."

Two minds, we told ourself, with but a single bleak thought.

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Friend of ours who wanted to entertain a guy and his girl visiting from out of town asked them to drop by his place for a cocktail around seven. Around eight the host poured "one for the road" – and then a mutual interest in hi-fi and cool jazz was discovered. Around midnight, the rig was turned down, at a neighbor's request, and slow blues were broken out. Around three A.M. (the visitor had an eight o'clock plane to catch) fond farewells were murmured. The next day our friend got the following missive:

Preliminary report on stolen world

It was 7:15 P.M. I and my associate walked into an apartment. After a few hours of getting both the internal and external facts from the apartment's occupants, we walked back out and found someone had stolen the world. We searched blindly for about an hour. Exhausted from our search, we fell into a deep sleep. Some four hours later we were rudely awakened by a loud ringing bell. To our amazement, the world had been replaced! Now we're searching for the dirty guy who put it back!!!

(Signed) Bloodshot Pupil and Iris Pink, Private Eyes.