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            All contents (c) copyright Chip Rowe or individual authors.
            E-mail: chip@playboy.com (faster) or chiprowe@reach.com

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            The latest issue of CHIP'S CLOSET CLEANER -- 28 pages of 
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                       Unseen Spinal Tap! 
                          Zine and Book Reviews 
                               Why I Love Swear Words
                                   My Girlfriend Wears My Favorite T-Shirts 
                                           Catalog from Hell
                                                 50 Ways To Say You Masturbate 
                                                       and Much More!

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                   Normal People Who Collect Odd Stuff
                         Dentists on Film
                               Weekly World News Index
                                   World's Largest Musical Fountain
                                             TV Mantras
                                                   Zine Reviews
                                                          Walter Cronkite's Favorite Color 
                                                                  $2 plus $1 postage

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                Is Sex Necessary? or Why You Feel the Way You Do 
                by James Thurber and E.B. White (1929) 

                I picked this book up for 50 cents a while 
                back and finally got around to reading it. 
                It can only be described as brilliant, and 
                funny. I read entire chapters aloud to my 
                favorite girl. Here, for instance, is just 
                a smidgen from one chapter entitled "The 
                Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete 
                Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene": 
                
                   The sexual revolution began with 
                   Man's discovery that he was not 
                   attractive to Woman.... His mas-
                   culine appearance not only failed 
                   to excite Woman, but in many cases 
                   it only served to bore her. The 
                   result was that man found it 
                   necessary to develop attractive 
                   personal traits to offset his dull 
                   appearance. He learned to say 
                   funny things. He learned to smoke, 
                   and blow smoke rings. He learned to 
                   earn money. This would have been 
                   a solution to his difficulty, but 
                   in the course of making himself 
                   attractive to Woman by developing 
                   himself mentally, he inadvertently 
                   became so intelligent an animal that 
                   he saw how comical the whole situation 
                   was.
                   
                Charlotte's Web has nothing on this. Thurber 
                did the illustrations throughout. They make no 
                sense whatsoever but neither does sex, I suppose.


                The Oxford Book of Ages 
                chosen by Anthony and Sally Sampson 
                (Oxford University Press, 1985) 
                
                This is a nifty volume I found at a used 
                book store. Why would anyone sell it, unless 
                you were going to die? It chronicles quotes 
                about each year of life from birth to 100. 
                As Schopenhauer noted, "The character of 
                almost every man seems to be pre-eminently 
                adapted to one stage of life; so that in this 
                stage he appears to the greatest advantage. 
                Some are loveable youths, and that is all; 
                others are active and energetic men, but 
                age robs them of all worth; many appear most 
                advantageously in old age." The book begins 
                with Edward Young: "Our birth is nothing but 
                our death begun" and ends with Henry Miller's 
                "Who wants to live to be 100? What's the 
                point of it?" The ones in between aren't 
                all so dreary.


                The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex 
                by Dr. A. Willy, Dr. L. Vander, and Dr. O. Fisher 
                (Cadillac Publishing, 1967) 
                
                The best parts of this book -- and the ones 
                the publishers brag about in the intro -- are 
                the 176 illustrations, many in color. One 
                connects "a dinner of exciting foods" with a 
                man later having "erotic dreams in which 
                unsatisfied desires are fulfilled"; I've 
                added beef stroganoff to my menu lately with 
                no especially stimulating results to report. 
                There is also an unappetizing cross section 
                of the penis, with various red and blue veins.
                Ouch. The text itself is academic and dry, so 
                you know Cadillac Publishing was like, this book 
                needs pictures!


                The X-Rated Bible 
                by Ben Edward Akerley 
                (American Atheist Press, 1989) 
                
                A former college professor, Akerley starts out 
                by noting the irony of fundamentalist Christians 
                who want the rest of us to follow the Good 
                Book literally. "They hold to a narrow moral 
                code," he writes, "yet they stand on shaky 
                ground indeed, since by their [own] standards, 
                much of the Bible might be considered obscene." 
                Akerley proceeds to pick out and describe the 
                juicy parts for us, offering a rather dry 
                chronicle of every act of incest, venereal 
                disease, homosexuality, rape, adultery, group 
                sex, indecent exposure, nudity, prostitution, 
                abortion, husband swapping, sexism, bestiality 
                and witchcraft he could find. Most of his 
                conclusions could be described as a stretch, 
                however, on closer examination: He calls Abraham 
                and Isaac "pimps," argues that King David was 
                revived with that sin of sins, "female body 
                friction," and labels Paul "the compulsive 
                celibate" (a guy can't win). Lo and behold, 
                you quickly realize that Akerley is also taking 
                the Bible literally, the same way fundamentalists 
                justify their hatred of gays and push to shove 
                creationism down our throats. Takes one to know 
                one, Ben.


                Confessions of a Dangerous Man 
                by Chuck Barris 
                (St. Martin's Press, 1984) 
                
                Despite what you might think, this 
                "unauthorized autobiography" of the game 
                show king was a great read. Barris, who 
                created "The Dating Game," "The Newlywed Game" 
                and "The Gong Show," weaves his television 
                reminiscences in with a nearly believable 
                account of his work for the CIA as a trained 
                assassin codenamed "Sunny Sixkiller." At 
                one point, he explains that he had the 
                perfect cover, being a game show host, 
                because no one suspected that when he 
                "scouted" vacation spots overseas for Dating 
                Game prizes, he was actually executing hits 
                for the Company. He also describes how the 
                Dating Game almost never got off the ground 
                because the early contestants were so raunchy. 
                Later inventions such as the Newlywed Game 
                thrived on sexual double entendre, but the 
                Dating contestants weren't nearly as tactful. 
                Exasperated as he filmed and scrapped pilot 
                after pilot because of the adult humor, Barris 
                finally had to hire an actor to portray an FCC 
                official and warn contestants that foul 
                language could lead to a one-year prison 
                sentence or $10,000 fine. That was complete 
                bull...uh, it was complete fiction, but it 
                saved TV viewers from exchanges such as these, 
                which never aired for apparent reasons:

                Pretty Cheerleader: "Bachelor Number One, 
                one of my biggest difficulties is spelling. How do 
                you spell relief?
                Bachelor: "F-A-R-T."

                Pretty Cheerleader: Bachelor Number Two, what 
                nationality are you?
                Bachelor: Well, my father is Welsh, and my mother 
                is Hungarian, so I guess I'm Well-Hung!

                Good one, Bubba! (Hic) That's what you get 
                when you let frat boys in the studio.


                Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut: 
                Misadventures in the Counter Culture 
                by Paul Krassner 
                (Simon & Schuster, 1993) 
                
                Paul edits the Realist, a newsletter of satire 
                and political commentary. During the '60s he 
                was one of the yippies (he claims to have coined 
                the term), causing a lot of problems for Nixon 
                and the gang. This is a highly entertaining account 
                of those years and his relationship with his 
                daughter Holly. A prodigy violinist, he turned 
                sour and got into drugs and politics and 
                generally pissing people off. I saw Paul do some 
                stand-up in Greenwich Village soon after 
                "Confessions" came out, and he read some passages. 
                One of my favorites is when he describes being 
                tailed with Abbie Hoffman by two Chicago cops 
                during the '68 Democratic convention. As soon 
                as he and Abbie realized they were being followed, 
                they returned to a restaurant where they had 
                been refused service the previous day and made 
                a point of shaking the manager's hand (no hard 
                feelings) so he'd have a spot on the cops' 
                suspect list. Later, they stopped their car 
                and walked back to talk to the tails.
                
                     We introduced ourselves and shook 
                     hands. Their names were Herbie and 
                     Mac. We offered them official Yippie 
                     lapel buttons, but they said, "No 
                     thanks, we're on duty." I explained 
                     that if we happened to lose them in 
                     a crowd, we'd be able to spot them 
                     more easily if they were wearing 
                     Yippie buttons, so they accepted 
                     and pinned them on their jackets. 
                     
                Soon after, the cops asked if Abbie and Paul 
                were going to eat soon. The cops recommended the 
                Pickle Barrel, and the two Yippies followed them 
                to the restaurant.
                
                     This was indeed a rare and precious 
                     moment. We obediently got back into our 
                     car and followed the cops. I thought they 
                     were going to try and shake us, but we 
                     managed never to lose sight of them....
                     We sat at separate tables."


                Drunken Goldfish & Other Irrelevant Scientific Research 
                by William Hartston 
                (Sterling Publishing, 1988) 
                
                I picked up this book at a museum bargain bin. 
                It wasn't a surprise to find it there, considering 
                it mocks the lame scientific research that forms 
                the basis for many an exhibit. The title comes from 
                a research paper Hartston stumbled upon that 
                described the effects of alcohol on goldfish 
                memory (about what you'd expect). Hartston 
                didn't want to burn any bridges with his fellow 
                scientists, so he states up front that "on the one 
                hand I have great admiration and love of research 
                for its own sake; on the other I cannot help 
                feeling there is far too much of it going on." 
                Among the findings he cites from studies completed 
                by bona fide researchers (sometimes with taxpayer 
                money -- isn't that always the case?): alcohol 
                makes dogs drunk; animals held under water 
                never die in exactly the same length of time; 
                pigeons can be taught to distinguish between 
                Bach flute music and Hindemath viola music; 
                squeezing a cat's testicles causes it pain; 
                the ideal height for a toilet seat is 0.4 meters; 
                chickens prefer to eat off blue triangles rather 
                than red circles; jokes you've heard already seem 
                less funny; and young orangutans like colored 
                foods better than older ones but older ones 
                eat faster.


                The Dictionary of Sexual Slang 
                compiled by Alan Richter, PhD 
                (John Wiley & Sons, 1992) 
                
                You gotta love a prof who would write a book 
                like this, but nowadays, can he talk about his 
                research without being charged with sexual 
                harassment? Richter, a two-time United Kingdom 
                Scrabble champion (I wonder why), writes in the 
                introduction: "Many languages could probably 
                support a whole book about their sexual terms 
                and phrases. But no other language can rival 
                the variety, color, or sheer number of sexual 
                terms to be found in English." Ah, yes, something 
                we can all be proud of. This is a dictionary 
                where looking up dirty words like "fuck" or 
                "shit" is about as exciting as turning to "the" 
                or "and" in Webster's. Who cares when you've got 
                "kwela," the African Nguni tribe's term meaning 
                "to mount," or "patha-patha," the South African 
                equivalent? Why bother when you can choose between 
                "sugar stick," a 19th century British term for 
                penis, or Shakespeare's reference to the vagina 
                as a "peculiar river"? And finally, who knew 
                that gism (semen) is the preferred form of jism? 
                All these years I've been spelling it wrong.


                The Illustrated Texas Dictionary of the English Language 
                by Jim Everhart 
                (Creative Books of Houston, two volumes, 1968) 
                
                I was going to send these to my Texan friend Dawn, 
                but they're so entertaining I done kept 'em. 
                Jim's buggy mug appears on each page as he 
                clowns for the camera to illustrate Southern 
                gems such as tarred ("Boy, am ah tarred"), lahr 
                ("Who you calling a lahr?"), barley ("Ah can jes 
                barley open my eyes"), heidi ("Heidi, neighbor") 
                tom ("How come you ain't ever on tom?"), sep 
                ("Everyone can go in sep yew!") and are ("Ah'll 
                meet you there in about an are").

                                 -end-

