Paperback 389: Yoga For Physical Fitness / Richard L. Hittleman (Warner 91-281)

Paperback 389: Warner Books 91-281 (14th ptg??? 1974)

Title: Yoga For Physical Fitness
Author: Richard L. Hittleman
Cover artist: photo

Yours for: not for sale


Best things about this cover:

• There is only one word I can think of when I look at this. Junk. JUNKJUNKJUNKJUNKJUNK. Dorothy Hamill's crotch isn't faring much better, frankly.
• "First, lay your junk on the head of a seated young woman..."
• God bless the people who invented non-obscene yoga clothing. I could not / would not practice in whatever that guy's got on.
• I had no idea there were "famous yoga instructors" in the U.S. in 1974.
• I guess they're forming the letter "Y." I'm really glad I don't have to see them do the "MCA" part.

Best things about this back cover:

• Hey, that crotch looks familiar ...
• "Tied to the kitchen sink?" That's either kinky or cruel.

Page 123~

This firming exercise is self-explanatory.

~RP

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P.S. thanks to Jami for the book...

Paperback 388: Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, August, 1955

Paperback 388

Title: Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy (August, 1955)
Authors: Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Anthony Boucher, and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller

Yours for: SOLD!


Best things about this cover:

• Farmer Ted Goes to Planet Blortron
• If Norman Rockwell did paintings about interstellar, interspecies sexual confusion, they might look something like this: "Wheeeere are youuuuuu goinnnng!? Youuuuu sed youuuuu luvved meeeeee... Take this hellllmet off riiight nowwww..."
• I love the highly underrated Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, and I'm pretty sure I bought this magazine ONLY because she had a story in it (she's more an eerie thriller writer than a scifi writer, normally)

Best things about this back cover:

• Well if Eva Gabor and Guy Lombardo say so, who am I to disagree?
• Love the font on "IMAGINATION."
• "Better newsstands" ... ??? "Man, this is one classy newsstand! ... it's got an awning and everything!"

Page 123~

from "The Tiddlywink Warriors" by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

Too late, Alex remembered that he had left Toka without a supply of the potent liquor which was so much a part of everyday Hoka life. Whether known as wine, red-eye, rum, grog, uisgebeatha or Old Spaceman, it was always present in wholesale quantities. Now, for the first time, Alex found himself with a bunch who had it not.

When I am a very elderly man, living on some lunar outpost because of nuclear war / End Times, I will drink "Old Spaceman." Proudly.

~RP

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Paperback 387: The Great Houdini / Beryl Williams and Samuel Epstein (SBS T 76)

Paperback 387: Scholastic Book Services T 76 (12th ptg, 1970)

Title: The Great Houdini
Authors: Beryl Williams and Samuel Epstein
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: not for sale


Best things about this cover:

• Houdini simply would not let Run-DMC show him up, chain-wise.
• Access to Houdini's junk was so highly prized that he had to lock that shit down. For real.
• Houdini used a wormhole to travel through time. He ended up in the year 2024. Unfortunately, his clothes ended up in 1863.

Best things about this back cover:

• Worst back cover ever. I got nothin'.

Page 123~

Whenever he entered a new city he went straight to the police headquarters, to challenge the authorities to lock him in their strongest fetters and their safest prison cell.

I'm surprised this did not get him severely beaten on a regular basis, especially if he showed up dressed like he is on the front cover. Cops have real work to do, jackwad.

~RP

Thanks to Jami for sending this book my way. And I repromise to be more prolific.

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Paperback 386: Again, Dangerous Visions Vol. 1 / ed. Harlan Ellison (Signet E7580)

Paperback 386: Signet E7580 (5th ptg, 1972)

Title: Again, Dangerous Visions, Vol. 1
Editor: Harlan Ellison
Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller (illustrations throughout)

Yours for: $8


Best things about this cover:

• Honestly, the cover does nothing for me, but this is a really important collection of so-called "speculative fiction," and Ellison's introduction alone is worth the price of admission. He writes with an elegance, ease, humor, and speed that I covet something awful.
• OK I kind of like the dude with legs of very different lengths. Psychedelia was clearly still the dominant visual style of the day. I just wish the art were more central (throughout), less decorative.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think this book was designed by and/or for someone on mind-altering substances. The promise of an expanded consciousness is a nice touch. Consciousness-raising = political. Consciousness-expanding = acid.

Page 123~

from "The Word for World is Forest" by Ursula K. Le Guin

But when the great ship returned, and he went to Eshsen, Lyubov met him there. He was silent and tenuous, very sad, so that the old carking grief awoke in Selver.

I don't understand any of that, but I want to incorporate "carking" into my vocabulary right away. Is it a real word? Ha, it is—CARK, tr. and intr. v., "To burden or be burdened with trouble; worry."

~RP

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Paperback 385: Rage to Love / Frank Tilsley (Popular Giant G143)

Paperback 385: Popular Giant G143 (1st ptg, 1954)

Title: Rage to Love
Author: Frank Tilsley
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• That tagline does not match this picture, but I guess "He Waited Patiently For The Mailman" isn't quite as exciting.
• I suppose there are sluttier poses than that one, but ... not many, I'd guess.
• I'm gonna downgrade that pose rating from "slutty" to "slatternly," with a dose of "wasted"
• The question isn't really "why that pose?" but "why that pose *there*, with her elbows on the sink basin??" "You like this, huh baby? Dirty dishes, dirty girl, right, baby? ... Baby? ... oh for chrissake it's Sunday, the mailman's not coming!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "I can hear your liver!"
• "And I love origami!"

Page 123~

He closed his eyes, opened them again. Stall after stall, with beans, and trucks behind them, unloading: box after box—of beans. There must be as many beans in East Row here alone as Jimmy had bought in the rest of the market!

I submit that this book should be retitled "He Dreams Of Beans." That would explain her expression of contempt on the front cover.

~RP

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