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SPECIAL SWIMSUIT ISSUE! Oh, what can we say about swimsuit issues? Everybody's got one. (We're talking magazine publishers, here, not psychological hang-ups.) Perhaps we should trot out all those trite-and-true opinions about how mass-marketed beauty is boring and wrong; how retro will just keep getting more and more retro until we arrive at pre-history and give up clothes all together and run naked back into the trees; and why, oh why, do men's swimsuits always get short shrift? But really, we don't have anything particularly for or against swimsuit issues. Editorially speaking, we're all for stripping down to the bare essentials. Skin is a-okay, as far as we're concerned. You might even say we're the thong-bikini wedged in the crack of local journalism: a brightly colored package that's sometimes sexy and sometimes distasteful, and always uncomfortable to have on your ass. In fact, we considered doing our own swimsuit issue. ...Until we realized that would require seeing far more of each other than anyone was prepared to imagine. Like in mind and spirit we may be, but when it comes to bodies, we'll leave it to the pros. ("It's kinda late to get my body sexy for summer," one staffer quipped after looking at our stack of mags.) So whether you're in it for the flesh or actually interested in the fashions, here are a few offerings to inspire summer shopping.
Far more inspiring is the May issue of Women's Fitness International ($4), which features plenty of scantily clad ladies pumped, cut (these refer to weight lifting, not plastic surgery), and looking fine. Rather than loll on beaches with sand stuck in every photogenic crevice, this mag glorifies the female physique mid-workout, on the ropes and in competitive sport. And they have plenty of articles telling you how they got there. This cover features Baywatch babe Gena Lee Nolin, who enthuses inside about working out and being a new mom. Moving on, Q San Francisco ($5) features the first unisex spread we encountered, with a colorful homage to swim briefs (with a few bikinis thrown in for good measure). Not a lot of variety here in terms of fashion, but the models are interesting (one of the men may possess the longest nipple in the West) and the photographs are more artistic than your average bodyslam-dunk.
Oh yeah, and don't forget to read the articles. (In particular, Out features "Ms. Smith Goes to Washington," an article on three out-lesbians on the congressional campaign trail to make voters see them as candidates rather than novelty items.) 'ZILLA VANILLA: Even as members of the media elite, we've been forced to wait along with the rest of you for a glimpse of the goods with regards to the big, scaly summer blockbuster Godzilla. Here a giant footprint, there a roaring CD-ROM press kit, but nowhere a revealing shot of the beast himself. So imagine our dismay--nay, disbelief--as we glimpsed a borrowed copy of last Tuesday's U.S.A. Today. There in the digitally enhanced mayhem of a New York street was not the towering visage of a gumdrop-shaped, fire-breathing monster with a glowing, spiked tail...the rubbery, reptilian creature universally recognized as The atomic lizard of yore...Oh, no.
We know that in the original story, Godzilla is in fact a dinosaur, freed from the Arctic ice by an atomic blast. But for all these years, from the Japanese shores of the Pacific to the icy waters of the Atlantic, from sequel to sequel, his atomic breath has spewed from the hellspawn of primordial DNA and the Grimace (yes, the McDonaldland character). Has the mighty lizard now fallen, reduced to a cheap (okay, expensive) Jurassic generic?
All we could think was that maybe we'd be lucky, and that crummy
asteroid would get us first. INK SPOT: The booksigning event of the week is slated for Friday, May 22, at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave., where award-winning author and syndicated humor columnist Michael Thomas Ford reads from and signs copies of his new book, Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me & Other Trials From My Queer Life. The free event begins at 7 p.m. For more information, call 792-3715.
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Of the dozen magazines surveyed, Harper's Bazaar had
the most complete spread of this season's designer swimwear (bikinis
and tanks), ranging from $60 to $365. Start here and work your
way back to reality: None of us expects to look like Kate Moss
(who's on the cover), and none of us is going to pay as much for
a swimsuit as we spent for the annual health club membership we
never use. But for $3, you can't ask for a better glimpse into
the most unaffordable colors and styles of the stars. Yawn.
And finally, the only all-male swimsuit spread we could find
was suitably provided by Out magazine. This sweat-drenched,
eight-page pictorial offers plenty to gawk at, and shows that
for the men as well, the emphasis this season is on the fashions
of the '50s.
What glared back at us from a crouched position entirely incompatible
with the real Godzilla's center of gravity was something
far more terrible (in all the wrong ways): A computer-animated
extra from Jurassic Park. My companion, a Godzilla
purist, sat frozen in horror, his cries for mercy muffled by the
shock.
