Title: The Day Khrushchev Panicked
Author: George B. Mair
Cover artist: Stan Borack
Yours for: $13
Best things about this cover:
- Unless she is about to devour his man parts with razor-sharp teeth, this might be the widest gap I've seen between text and picture. Unless half-naked, chair-averse redheads were used for calming agents during the Cold War. "Ah, a cigarette and a subservient redhead ... I feel refreshed and ready to battle Communism once again!"
- Text says "As Exciting as 'Fail-Safe'," but the downward-facing red arrow subliminally suggests otherwise.
- Has anyone seen my bejabbers? They were here a minute ago...
- The U.S. eventually won the Cold War, due in no small part to the fact that they had Jabbers Christ on their side.
- I insist that everyone reading this post use "bejabbers" at least once today. Let me know how it goes.
Best things about this back cover:
- Well that's the last time I make my hammer-and-sickle insignia out of pie pastry.
- It's true, you know: you cannot deny the terrifying *possibility* of its truth. This book essentially anticipates 95% of 21st-century journalism.
Page 123~
"Perhaps after all," said Trudie thoughtfully, "we only feel self-conscious because we are amateurs."
~RP
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]
12 comments:
I thought it was "bejeebers."
The back really reads, there, like the terrifying truth we should be unable to deny the possibility of is Khruschev's superweapon NOT working...
I did a "bejabbers" tweet this morning in your honor, Rex. You can find it at http://twitter.com/#!/SeanBrodrick
The punctuation in that last sentence is stressing me out.
Also, the woman is wearing the biggest underpants ever.
Correction: the woman is wearing some kind of skirt and no underpants whatsoever. At least that's how I see it, and I don't want to change my opinion...
rp
I think there really was a failed Soviet launch about this time. But it's generally thought to have been a failed effort to put a man in orbit, not a weapons platform as the copy here seems to imply. According to this book, Khrushchev was on his way to New York in order to start WW III. While he would have been in one of the primary targets. Terrific planning.
Hey, everytime I have a 'failure to launch', I just get dressed and have a cigarette, then try to convince the naked woman that yes, you're just not sexy enough for me. Sorry to hear that Khruschev had the same issue.
Rex: "the woman is wearing some kind of skirt and no underpants whatsoever."
Of course you're right, Rexie, it's what we Brits call an underskirt, (...I must, in passing, commend the artist's ability to depict a female arse with just the right gravitic mass to make you almost want to take a bite out of it...); but the chivalrous part of me feels obliged to observe surely even a man who'd never heard of Dirk Bogarde's heard of the infamous giant bloomers of Bridget Jones Ms Avery's alluding too?
My own reading of the semiology of the cover is the red head, (...my god, even the back, the shoulder blades, the boob, the hair, the profile, the arm, the hand, the fingers, the neck're all exquisitely rendered...and the feet're so good you can almost smell their biscuity riestiness!), 's supposed to be the archetypal Russian woman dreamily gazing at the archetypal American man and thinking, "Oh, Gregory Peck, here in Mother Russia, Communism's made us all so poor we can only dream of owning a packet of cigarettes, so treat me like a queen by breathing your mountain air smelling tobaccoey smoke all over me, sprinkling their hot leafy goodness in my hair, my face, and yes, of course, all over my tits!"
I am stuck on that "plodding across the Atlantic" line. Plodding seems like an odd word for water-related travel.
Bejabbers! Oh, I need to name a pet this. That's a delightful gift that keeps on giving.
Down south we pronounce it as "bejeebers" when we pronounce it at all.
She looks like she is 25% bigger than the guy, as if this was some intermediate stop on the road to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.
I'll see your panties and skirt but will raise my half slip as the way to go.
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