Playtime
Warning to women: If your man hocks his fly-fishing and golf gear and comes home with a $5,000 shotgun, take immediate action. It means he has fallen prey to what the April Connoisseur says will be the next big sport for young fogies: ''sporting clays.'' This British import involves roving over a specially designed course, shooting clay pigeons launched in ''field'' settings. Sounds fun. But the sport has nefarious money-vacuuming aspects built in. ''Next was the costume,'' Richard A. Wolters writes about his prep for a visit to the Mashomack course in Pine Plains, N.Y. (''the Pinehurst of sporting-clays courses''). ''I surely was not going. . .in blue jeans and a sports shirt. The Orvis catalogue had just the right thing, a British tweed shooting jacket with matching knickers.''. . .Playboy has a good interview with humorist Dave Barry in its May issue. Granted, one object of his wrath — Oprah Winfrey — is an even easier target than Jay McInerney, but you have to like this exchange: ''Playboy: I gather you don't care about Oprah's weight. Barry: I care deeply. The problem is, when Oprah lost all that weight, her head didn't get any smaller. And so she looks kind of like a person carrying a balloon.'' As long as you're snuffling in there anyway, don't overlook the forbidden pleasure of ''The Playboy Forum,'' where various writers push Hef's philosophy. The lead item, ''Sex and the Politics of Freedom,'' says the true driving force behind the Eastern European liberation movements — which the big media missed — was the People's desire to purchase skin magazines. ''As Hef is fond of saying, 'If you are not free in your body, you are not free.' ''
Oh, Shut Up
Ms. has been congratulating itself for its decision to forswear advertising starting this summer, when it becomes Ms.: The World of Women. In knee-jerk reaction, I bought a stack of women's consumption-glorifying slicks. Mirabella has the best reading — see Elizabeth Kaye's lament on the horror of writing celebrity profiles and the excerpt from the late Harold T. P. Hayes' upcoming book on Dian Fossey. New Woman has a nice sure-to-cause-trouble "service" article on relationships, "Don't Say a Word." First, it says that periods of extended silence are healthy in romance, then warns that such silence may also signal his unwillingness to commit. Finally, Glamour contains the strangest article I've seen this year: "We Had 5 Minutes to Evacuate Our Apartment." Michael Drinkard and Jill Eisenstadt, a married pair of novelists, were out of Manhattan when an underground Con Edison steam pipe blew up in front of their Gramercy Park building, resulting in "hazardous levels of asbestos." On their return, the couple was forced to clear out for several months. At first, the idea of roughing it seemed "particularly American. . .in the pioneer spirit." But Eisenstadt's fantasy of living in a hotel "died hard. No ice. Scratchy bedspread." The result for Eisenstadt was the urban equivalent of cabin fever, which only exposed her to more frontier hazards: "Jill felt the urge to wear a hat and polka dots. Cried in the street. Got knocked down by a bike messenger. Forgot her personal bank code. Had a nightmare she wasn't even in: a woman choking to pretty music." Tape this one to your fridge. It will put things in perspective the next time your tropical flavor La Yogurt goes around the curdling bend.
