Thanks; following is my reply to your reply (also posted there—I dislike ‘Comments’ threads after articles, since they effectively bury thought). Though on rereading your comment I see that perhaps you were confused not by my words but by my meaning. At any rate, I always regret using language that derails an attempt at communication into the ever-brimming sewer of cheap sensation.
+ + + Thanks for your comments. ‘The Playboy Philosophy’ was a well-publicized series of editorials by Hefner that ran through the sixties (at least). I once had the experience of leafing through a bound set of Playboy from 1957-70 (deaccessioned from an academic library) and the experience, while stultifying on the whole, gave a more precise contour to that publishing phenomenon. For my money the original concept reached its peak in 1961, was noticeably reactionary by 1965, then regained some life a few years later after Wilson, his collaborator Shea and others were taken aboard. I was using ‘flog’ in its (perhaps now obsolete) British slang sense of ‘to promote’, rather than ‘to flagellate’. So the sense was intended to be basically opposite to what you construed. My intention was not to be arcane; this usage was certainly I think more common than the sexual one, at least in printed discourse, prior to the sixties. Perhaps your meaning is more suitable for Taki’s bottom drawer… + + +
You might find this Crowley piece on Chesterton interesting if you haven’t seen it before: http://www.billheidrick.com/tlc2001/tlc1201.htm#cc
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branchandroot
Re: Here’s a comment I posted at your Taki article
Date: 2007-09-29 12:58 am (UTC)+ + +
Thanks for your comments. ‘The Playboy Philosophy’ was a well-publicized series of editorials by Hefner that ran through the sixties (at least). I once had the experience of leafing through a bound set of Playboy from 1957-70 (deaccessioned from an academic library) and the experience, while stultifying on the whole, gave a more precise contour to that publishing phenomenon. For my money the original concept reached its peak in 1961, was noticeably reactionary by 1965, then regained some life a few years later after Wilson, his collaborator Shea and others were taken aboard.
I was using ‘flog’ in its (perhaps now obsolete) British slang sense of ‘to promote’, rather than ‘to flagellate’. So the sense was intended to be basically opposite to what you construed. My intention was not to be arcane; this usage was certainly I think more common than the sexual one, at least in printed discourse, prior to the sixties. Perhaps your meaning is more suitable for Taki’s bottom drawer…
+ + +
You might find this Crowley piece on Chesterton interesting if you haven’t seen it before:
http://www.billheidrick.com/tlc2001/tlc1201.htm#cc