Don't Get Too Comfortable Read Online Free PDF

consolingly, “My dear, here at
Vogue
we don't throw ourselves in front of trains. If we must, we take pills.”
    THE COURT OF Heian Japan, which existed a thousand years ago, was a society of exquisite indolence. Nobles might spend hours choosing the perfect shade of silk underrobe, barely an inch of which would be glimpsed from the gaping sleeve of a kimono
.
Days passed in splendid idleness playing arcane word games where one had to match the first half of an ancient Chinese epigram written on one clamshell with the second half written on another (yahoo!). Hours were taken up composing erudite mash notes to one's lover of the moment. Sei Shonagon, a lady of the court, kept a “pillow book,” a compendium of her rarefied observations and impressions. It is an amazing volume, covering a wide range of topics, about all of which she had very strong opinions. Although it was written a millennium ago, its frequent blazing triviality and tone of aphoristic certitude on matters aesthetic can make it seem eerily contemporary and magazine-ready: “These are the months that I like best: The First Month, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, The Seventh, the Eighth, The Ninth, The Eleventh, and the Twelfth.” “Oxen should have very small foreheads . . .” “Things That Should Be Large: Priests. Fruit. Houses.” And this entry from Unsuitable Things: “Snow on the houses of common people. This is especially regrettable when the moonlight shines down on it.” Simplicity, it seems, has always been wasted on those who simply cannot appreciate it.

SESIÓN PRIVADA
    C lose one eye and block out the stand of tattered palms with your thumb, and the tiny San Pedro airport, battered by horizontal sheets of rain, has some of the gray, hardscrabble charm of the Scottish coast. But unless you are featuring the gray, hardscrabble charms of the Girls of the Scottish Coast, this is about the last thing you want for a
Playboy
shoot. You certainly don't send a still photographer, videographer and crew, and three centerfolds to equatorial Belize looking for weather like this. And
Sesión Privada
, the Latin American Playboy TV program that is due to start shooting the next day, is at least partly about weather. In addition to featuring “the unrivaled beauty and sensuality of Latin and Brazilian women,” the show also highlights some of the prime tourist destinations of our neighbors to the south.
Sesión Privada
is a combination of lingering views of nude female flesh interspersed with slow pans of the Caribbean landscape. Apparently those shots of white sand, lapping waves, and swaying palm trees all provide some necessary downtime for the average viewer. According to the producer, men can look at naked women for just so long. This is news to me. I don't mean that snidely, it is simply news to me. I don't look at naked women.
    Past
Sesións
have been filmed in places like Fortaleza, Brazil, and Tobago. This episode will be shot on Cayo Espanto, an exclusive resort off the Belize barrier reef. Cayo Espanto is a private island with just five secluded villas, each of which goes for about $1,300 a night. Guests range from the merely filthy rich to the seriously affluent: sports-team owners, friends of the George and Barbara Bushes, and the like.
    Any unfettered display of hedonism is on hold until the stormy lowering skies clear up. So far, only the photographer and I have made it. The three lucky women who will be featured, the winner and two runners-up of a
Playboy
beauty contest held the previous night in Acapulco, have yet to arrive. The photographer is an almost ridiculously handsome Finn—tan skin, silver-blond hair, and ice-blue eyes. He resembles one of those cyborgs from the movies, developed in a secret mountain enclave laboratory who, as his wrappings are taken off, is introduced by the evil genius who created him with a portentous “Gentlemen, may I present, the Perfect Killing Machine!”
    We are escorted to the nearby San Pedro