Post #162121 by Thomas on Sat, May 28, 2005 3:48 PM

I bought BOT from Taschen's website and the Men's Adventure Magazines book caught my eye, and I bought it too. I think it's fantastic, and find it very interesting how that little corner of pop culture history kind of dovetails with tiki/exotica. No doubt, the sexism, racism, and xenophobia of the mags is something I would very much like not to associate with tiki art and music (but let's face it, political correctness isn't tiki's strong point either). But I guess the sensationalism of the "exotic," the projection of sexual fantasy onto depictions non-western cultures, and the explosions of color that characterize the (often quite remarkable) illustrations do bring to mind tiki/exotica for me very much. And in terms of dates, one year keeps coming up: 1959. Something was going on in 1959! Anyway the heyday of these magazines, and their subsequent decline (as a variety of generational changes, including, frankly, the mainstreaming of pornography, made them passe) pretty much went hand in hand with the ascent and eventual decline of tiki and exotica. (Though the latter are having a resurgence as we well know!) I have the two books side-by-side, and they kind of seem like companions to each other.