Thursday, October 21, 2010

If You Misread It Slightly, It's Even Better

Looking around the NYT's site for more on Wan, I noticed that another of their articles on his firing is number one on the Most Emailed List. For the business section, at least. Number four? Number four is the obituary for Bob Guccione, who died yesterday, of cancer, at age 79.

Oh, shut up. You did so know he was the founder of Penthouse.

Sadly, the only pictures in the sidebar are of him, about which I will only say that he was never any threat to Jim Morrison in the wearing of blousy blouses and leather pants department, but I did love this bit:

His empire began in London in 1965 with a bank loan, an idea and an accident. The loan was for $1,170. The idea was a new magazine with nude photos to outdo Hugh Hefner’s Playboy. And the accident was an old mailing list, so that promotional brochures with pornographic samples went out to clergymen, schoolgirls, old-age pensioners and wives of members of Parliament.

In memoriam, I propose that we each compose a letter beginning as follows.

Dear Penthouse Forum,

I am a student at a large Midwestern university. I always used to think these letters were fake, but now …

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