HIRE LEARNING

Entry-level position available for hard worker. Dictation, shorthand, longhand, and other duties as required.

Yes, that’s right, we’ve done it again. After going through the longform cockteasing that is Ted Mark’s sex(less) romp The Nude Who Never, we’re back with the second non-entry in the Llona Mayper series This Nude for Hire. What can we say? We acquired them together, so we had to read both, right? Like the earlier book, this one has Stanley Borack cover art, and also like the first book, the story is derptacular from start to finish. Mark’s franchise nymph Llona is now unhappily married, and accepts a job as a receptionist at a Playboy-like magazine, only to find that she’s supposed to do the job naked. Her co-workers create an office pool to see who can lay her first, but each attempt at seduction fails in silly, slapsticky ways—for example she accidentally snatches off her boss’s toupée. It continues in this mode, a Buster Keaton serial with blue balls, with all potential cummers failing (though one guy gets a blowjob before his mom interrupts). Mark takes this tale all kinds of idiotic places, and as with the earlier book, you just have to give in. It’s not legitimately erotic, but it’s funny in a few parts. Overall we think it’s better than This Nude for Hire—but that’s not an endorsement. Repeat: not an endorsement.

Berkley Books, Ted Mark, Stanley Borack, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

June 16 2022

NEVER SAY NEVER

Just because she's nude doesn't mean she's easy.

Do you have a friend who always complains, maybe even to the extent that it seems like nobody can please them? We don’t mean complaints that need to be aired, like about the environment or racism, but little things. Basically insignificant things. Like it’s cruel to throw lobsters in boiling water. And you’re like, “Yeah, probably, but who the fuck cares? They’re lobsters. They eat their own kind.” Anyway, we had a friend who complained in this way often, and one evening our group had gotten together and had done something he thought needed to be complained about, and he proceeded to do that, but another one of our friends turned to him and went, “Shhh… let people have fun.”

Ted Mark’s farcical novel The Nude Who Never made us feel like that complaining friend. The book is moronic from start to finish, the tale of a virgin runaway named Llona Mayper who becomes a high priced call girl, but has her first liaison interrupted in comedic fashion, then finds herself stuck in a fancy hotel without her clothes. Pursued throughout the night by the hotel detective, she sneaks from room to room, through halls and up stairwells, getting stuck in a bass drum, having a new—though always abortive—sexual adventure at each stop. We could complain about the book’s sheer ridiculousness, but it’s probably better to just let people have fun. Copyright 1967, with Stanley Borack on the cover chores.

Lancer Books, Ted Mark, Stanley Borack, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.

October 2

1968—Massacre in Mexico

Ten days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, a peaceful student demonstration ends in the Tlatelolco Massacre. 200 to 300 students are gunned down, and to this day there is no consensus about how or why the shooting began.