Philip Jose Farmer

Famous Biology Prof Recalls '70s Porn Stores and Sexy SciFi

MORRIS, Minn. —PZ Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, has a reputation some would envy and others fear: He's one of the country's best-known atheists, and runs a blog, Pharyngula, on scienceblogs.com that's devoted to exposing the insanity promulgated by the world's most prolific religions.

But besides his trademark cephalopods and a fondness for sampling strange brews in foreign pubs, Myers has other interests as well, as he revealed in an essay posted today, "My secret addiction, revealed!": Old porn, sexy science-fiction and browsing used book stores.

Specifically, Myers tells of the enjoyment he had in the 1970s, wandering around "the seedier parts" of Seattle, Washington—1st and 2nd Avenues, near the Farmers' Market—"which were not nice places for a quiet young man."

"But I had an obsession and a pocket full of change, and I was jonesing for a fix," Myers explains. "I'd go to the porn shops. Maybe you don't remember 70s-era porn shops. Maybe you weren't even born then. But the like of these beasts is something that we'll not see again. They were beautiful.

"The typical layout was to have walls covered with display racks, and displayed in all their blatant, lurid glory would be the covers of these glossy, over-sized magazines, and the covers would always be closeups of orgasmic women in hardcore action," he continues. "There was a kind of battle going on: each one was competing to be brighter, shinier, brassier, sexier than the next, so you'd walk in to these little shops and be radiated with pink. Squirming, pulsing pink. There'd be spots of contrast provided by silky mats of pubic hair—this was the 70s, when 'beaver' was the usual synonym, for good reason—and by the segregated strip on one wall of black women, usually entangled with pale pink men, set aside like some exotic perversion."

Myers elaborates, waxing lyrically about the 8 and 16mm films secreted behind the counter, which in later years would be replaced by VHS tapes (and now DVDs, not to mention full hardcore websites) displayed right out in the open, and about the expensive, thick-stock, full-color magazines imported from Europe, which he describes as "published as if they were museum-quality works of art."

But despite his florid descriptions of the merchandise, Myers says the porn wasn't his real goal in frequenting the shops.

"You see, the owners would always have a stash of cheap, entirely random books somewhere, usually unsorted and piled without care somewhere in the store: in the front window, on a low table, in a bin near the clerk," Myers recalls. "They looked totally out of place, with their faded covers and yellowing pages, like dusty, tattered insect carcasses beneath the feet of the lubricious mammalian sleekness prowling above them. I always imagined there must be some loophole in a law book somewhere, so that when the police walked in to harrass the owner with the obviously pornographic nature of his wares, he'd be able to grandly sweep a nicotine-stained hand around his emporium and announce, 'Nah, officer, see… this is a bookstore!', just by pointing out a few tatty, moldering piles.

Book Review: Riverworld, Omnibus by Philip Jose Farmer; To Your ...

A few months ago, I received three omnibus books collecting Philip José Farmer 's award winning Riverworld series from the nice folks at Tor books. Somehow, though Farmer's name has come up repeatedly during the last three plus decades I've been reading science fiction and fantasy, I managed to miss these books. Courtesy of these collections, I no longer have any excuse but to dive into the River with the rest of humanity.

If you've not heard of the Riverworld series, the basic concept is simple until you start considering the scope. Imagine if everybody who ever lived on Earth (emphasis on "ever") was resurrected on the banks of a seemingly endless river on some alien world. Though healthy and young again, each individual awakens naked with others. Each has a container tied to their wrist (called a "grail") that, when inserted into a strange mushroom-shaped stone, becomes populated with food, drink, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and other assorted items. It's up to each resurrectee to determine what to do with their new lives.

Like much of the science fiction literature of the era, there is a great deal of philosophy in the story. From the concept of being resurrected to the eventual creation of the "Church of the Second Chance," much is discussed as far as how much of our old self exists in the new body. Are you the same as before? Will you make the same mistakes or can you change given enough time, effort, and reason?

Tarzan Alive, A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke

Philip Jose Farmer, a working bibliography

The Magic Labyrinth

Riverworld, Including To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat

Dayworld