Dear Penthouse,
Yo, so check this out! [See the cover of the April 28 Phoenix.] I was totally chillin’ on my rockin’ oriental rug, looking studly in my sports coat and button-down shirt (collar up, of course), but you know it was unbuttoned so you can see my suh-weet SuicideGirls T-shirt.
All of a sudden two hot naked chicks walked in!
But they weren’t regular babes, they were “alternative”! Don’t get freaked out: they weren’t black or fat or anything weird like that. They were skinny young white girls just like they always are. But they had tattoos! How freaky is that? I think one of them might have even dyed her hair. Whoa, dude!
Here’s the craziest part: I ended up on the cover of a newspaper. No, not the Herald, but an “alt-weekly.” Yeah, I thought those type of newspapers were all women’s libbers and tree huggers too, but apparently, this one is different. They were more than happy to print a photo of a fully clothed man leering at two naked women with no sense of irony or criticism or self-awareness of what they were doing. It was the cover story for yet another bland article about women who take off their clothes for money. They publish a lot of those these days.
And this newspaper, when they rarely decide to put a woman of color on the cover, they depict her as a man-eating bikini-clad giantess! Oh, I forgot: it’s a parody of an old movie poster. I guess that makes it A-OK.
KICK-ASS GENDER POLITICS, MY DUDEZZZ!!!!!
Jef Czekaj
Somerville
Unless I missed it, I didn’t find any reference to the homage your April 28 cover photo makes to the recent Tom Ford Vanity Fair cover. Both images are stunning, but I doubt it’s just a coincidence that they’re exactly the same pose, and it might have been nice to give credit to Vanity Fair.
Glenn Klein
Boston
Good eye, Glenn. — The editors
A moonie writes ...
I would just like to extend my sincere thanks to Symboline Dai for bringing authentic, in-depth astrology to people like myself. I live in Boston and read your Moon Signs column in the Phoenix religiously. I consider myself somewhat of an astrologer now, thanks to astrologers like yourself who have committed themselves to broadening people’s understanding of astrology beyond the common one-dimensional sun-sign understanding that most people have. (And believe me, as a Sag with Pisces rising and moon in Taurus, I was very confused for a long time!) I have been doing birth charts for myself and friends and family for some time now, and I have recently moved to tracking planetary movements. I have a question for you, if you would be so kind as to answer, although I realize that you are a fee-for-service astrologer, and I understand if you are unable to. I know that if the moon is in your sun sign, you start a new 28-day emotional cycle, and that if it is in your polar-opposite sun sign, then there will be some shaky business going on. My question is, what’s going on if the moon is in your moon sign? For example, if your moon is Aries, what’s happening if the moon is in Aries? Thank you so much again for your time and inspiration.
Makeda Weaver
Boston
Symboline Dai replies: When the moon is in the same sign as your moon sign — well, remember that melodic old song “Feelings”? (The one that everyone mistakenly attributes to Barry Manilow?) Remind yourself of its profundity. In short, anything goes. Thanks for writing.
