The Guardian in London reports that Chinese surgeons have performed the first successful transplant with a donor penis. But according to a 2003 news report, surgeons at Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College in Calcutta transplanted the penis of a 1-year-old who had been born with two to a 7-month-old born without one.

As the Guardian report mentions, there are a number of cases in the medical literature of men who have had their own penises reattached, the most spectacular of which involved the aborted repair of a lawn mower. The surgeons placed the man's organ into his forearm for 30 days while the attachment area healed. They concluded, "In penile amputation, replantation remains the treatment of choice."

There are more details (but not too many) in Dear Playboy Advisor, which includes the best penis questions we have been asked over the years.

“The Basement”, Jonathan Littman’s investigative feature in our October issue, focuses on an incident of college hazing at Chico State University in February 2005 that resulted in the death of 21 year old Matthew Carrington, a pledge of the school’s Chi Tau fraternity. Carrington was forced to perform brutally rigorous calisthenics in a frigid basement while drinking an estimated twenty-five gallons of water. The cause of death was water toxicity brought on by a swollen brain.

“The Basement” has recently received mention in regional outlets, like the Chico area CBS and NBC affiliates as well as the student paper The Orion, and Capitol Public Radio plans to discuss the story this week. What makes our story particularly timely, is that the California legislature has passed a bill that will make hazing a crime punishable with five years in prison. The bill, known as Matt’s Law, is currently on the desk of Governor (and January 1988 “Interview” subject) Arnold Schwarzenegger, awaiting his signature. We’ll keep you posted on his actions.

Does this qualify as showboating? Today at their annual games conference, Microsoft announced that they're partnering with Peter Jackson (pictured) to create two new games that will be exclusive to the PC and Xbox 360. One of them will be a new Halo game (separate from the already-in development Halo 3). The other will be an original property that Microsoft cryptically claims is "targeted at bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment." (We've got our fingers crossed for a Meet the Feebles game).

As icing on the cake, Microsoft says they're partnering with Jackson to create Wingnut Interactive, a games studio for Jackson to tool around in. This comes, of course, amid speculation about a rocky launch for the PS3 this fall due to its high price and Sony's manufacturing difficulties, questions about how cooked the launch titles are, some dire rumors and announcements about online play being dropped from PS3 games, and Sony's stable of third party exclusives (Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy) dwindling alarmingly. The 360 on the other hand is almost a year old. In that time, Microsoft has built up a handsome stable of high-quality games, worked out its supply issues and are enjoying the fruits of their killer online strategy.

To be fair, several PS3 titles, especially Lair look very impressive, but Sony's got no-one approaching Jackson's level of entertainment industry juice on board as yet. Come on, Microsoft, when the other guy's on the ropes, it's only sporting to let him stand up and catch his breath before you deliver the next haymaker. That said, we're ever so slightly ecstatic that Jackson is continuing to explore game development after last year's excellent King Kong game Tie-in.

A recent fad in marketing applies the guerrilla tactics of “street teams” to build “buzz” from the bottom up, thus in theory supplanting the top-down paternalism of Madison Avenue with the reckless energy of skatepunks and soi-disant rebels. Such marketing is contrived to appear artless and therefore authentic. It is supposed to be hip and cool but who over the age of nine is fooled by it?  

Nevertheless, guerrilla marketing has moved beyond the realms of athletic shoes and sports drinks to embrace more conventional enterprises. We’re not sure it’s at work in the book industry, but we’re beginning to have our suspicions.

Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, Against the Day, is due out in early December. Its publisher, Penguin Press, began spreading the word in early summer. (“We’re not releasing information about the subject matter at this point,” an associate publisher told The Los Angeles Times in June.) We’re big fans of Pynchon’s work and are always excited to see more of his writing. But getting a galley for purposes of review has been about as easy as getting an audience with Kim Jong-il.

We want to review Pynchon’s novel for our January issue. Playboy has a long lead time—meaning it takes us a while to print, bind and distribute copies of the magazine. We have to close our January issue—which hits the newsstands in December—before Halloween. If we get the 1120-page galley this coming week, as promised by the publisher, will we be able to read it in 48 hours? One doubts that even a cranked-out tag team of Edmund Wilson and Evelyn Woods could accomplish that. It takes a normal person months to read Gravity’s Rainbow or Mason & Dixon.

In Hollywood it used to be that studios would expend no energy marketing a film they knew would bomb. It made sense: why throw good money after bad? But lately this practice has extended to all films. Why bother screening films for critics? Who needs lame reviews?

In hip-hop, the practice of offering advance music to critics has pretty much stopped, under the pretence of security. Even though people will tell you that leaks of music come from studios and labels, not from press, advances of the new Jay-Z or DMX are next to impossible to obtain. In place of review copies, the record companies use viral marketing, and leak tracks to DJs for mix tapes. The labels think they are better off building interest at the street level. Again, who needs critics?

Pynchon inspires suspicion. In fact, he thrives on it. Given the passionate nature of his readers, people would line up outside a soup kitchen in the dead of night to buy copies of his work. But why all the mystery? Why all the melodrama? Are we being manipulated by marketers?  

News services are reporting that Paul Haggis, the Oscar winning writer-director of Crash and screenwriter behind Million Dollar Baby, is in talks to direct two other Oscar winners, Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron, in The Garden of Elah, about a career soldier whose son returns from the Iraq War and suddenly disappears. The story is based on an article by Mark Boal called "Death and Dishonor," which appeared in our May 2004 issue, that tells of an army veteran who discovers his serviceman son was killed by members of his own platoon following a violent tour of duty in Iraq. Haggis has already written the screenplay.

George Converse of Detroit writes: "I was assigned to do a painting on a nonconventional surface as part of my coursework at the College for Creative Studies. After racking my brain, I decided to take a break and flip through the March 2006 issue. Inside I found photos of models at the Mansion in full body paint. So I found a willing canvas and on her belly painted the artwork that accompanies Tim Flannery’s article on global warming in the same issue. I’m happy to report I got an A+ and lots of positive feedback from my classmates. Thanks for inspiring the homework of my dreams." Without further ado, here is the result of George's creative energy:

 

Jose Garcia from Madrid, in Espana: 

 

Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith has so far turned the race for the Heisman Trophy into a one-man show. The Buckeyes have tons of talent on both sides of the ball but it is Smith’s poise under pressure and field-generalship that has coach Jim Tressel’s charges at the top of every poll.

I was even more convinced that Smith was the real deal when, during the OSU/Texas game, I spotted him handing the ball to tailback Antonio Pittman and then sprinting 10 yards downfield to throw a block for his teammate.

Smith and OSU receiver/kick returner Ted Ginn, Jr. were on this year’s preseason All-America team and took part in our All-America Weekend last May. These guys are not only great football players but terrific young men as well. My 11- and 13-year-old sons were along for the fun and were immediately befriended by both Smith and Ginn.

Ohio State takes on Iowa this Saturday. I like Hawkeye coach Kirk Ferentz and quarterback Drew Tate. However, I think the Buckeyes will shuck their corn this year.

In the photo below, OSU’s Troy Smith (#10 in front) put on his game face for us at the Playboy All-America Weekend. The other players in the photo from left to right are Dwayne Jarrett (USC), Justin Blalock (Texas), Garrett Wolfe (Northern Illinois), Frank Okam, Jr. (Texas), Patrick Willis (Mississippi), Adrian Peterson (Oklahoma), Brandon Meriweather (Miami) and H.B. Blades (Pitt). And, oh yes, that’s Troy’s teammate, Ted Ginn, Jr., in back.

Five more things to know about our October Babe of the Month Kasie Head, holder of briefcase #16 on Deal or No Deal:

*Attended Oklahoma University on scholarship because of her American Indian heritage—she's got Cherokee and Choctaw genes. Previous to that she attended Oklahoma City University on a cheerleading scholarship.

*Won the Miss Oklahoma USA evening gown category in a dress-length cashmere sweater she bought off of eBay.

*Told us Oklahoma University football coach Bob Stoops is "a good friend", and that she hits him up for tickets to games when she's in state during football season. She and Stoops got to know each other when the two of them worked events and autograph signings in the early 2000s, she as Miss Oklahoma USA, he as coach of the NCAA champion Sooners.

*Studied film production in college and would eventually like to produce and direct, rather than act.

*Appeared, in animated form, in the video game Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge, and is also the babe on the cover.

Catch another glimpse of Kasie in this fantastic video. Other familiar faces include Miss August 2004 Pilar Lastra and July 2002 Cybergirl of the Month Aubrie Lemon.

A very illuminating article by Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times today gives us an idea of what to expect from the Republicans as we move through the campaign season: sticking words in other people’s mouths. For example, Rutenberg quotes President Bush saying “Most people want us to win,’’ leaving the impression that the Democrats and anybody else who opposes the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime of incompetence wants America to lose. Rutenberg has Bush saying later on “I need members of Congress who understand that you can’t negotiate with these folks,” as though Democrats have been clamoring for peace talks with al-qaeda. He quotes Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as asking “Can folks really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?” Obviously Democrats aren’t advocating negotiations with terrorists and surely do not want terrorists to win. But as the National Intelligence Estimate that was released over the weekend shows, Bush’s strategy is leading to defeat. Bush and his claque don’t want to talk about that; perhaps they think that by sticking words in other people’s mouths, they won’t have to speak for themselves.

I am a golfer of much more enthusiasm than skill. I don’t get to play very often. When I do, I slice.

This was my story when I visited the Callaway Performance Center in Carlsbad, California, two months ago. I was going there to be fitted for a set of clubs that would correct the flaws in my game. I spent an afternoon hitting balls at a screen while cameras and computers tracked my performance. It wasn’t pretty. The computer showed that, with a driver, I have such a consistent slice that my game would probably improve if (like Jackie Mason at the end of Caddyshack 2) I simply turned 45 degrees to my left and aimed for the trees every time I went to tee off.

Callaway’s solution is different: Make me a set of clubs with heads weighted to cause a natural draw. At first, I worried that this might not be a good idea. Wouldn’t such clubs be encouraging the flaws in my swing? Shouldn’t I strive to perfect my swing instead of buying my way to straightness?

Not necessarily. I play three to six times a year—it might be unrealistic to think that I will actually change my swing much when I am going weeks or months between golf outings. Any adjustments I make, on friendly advice from fellow players, are likely to evaporate over the weeks I don’t play, and when I do get back to the course I’ll be starting, to a certain extent, from scratch.

Yeah, yeah—so Callaway made me these clubs, and on Friday I finally got to play an actual round of golf with them, and damned if I wasn’t hitting it straighter. The driver, always a fickle tool for me, was suddenly my favorite club in the bag. There’s no worse feeling for a novice golfer than jacking a drive way the hell out there, envisioning, as the ball continues to float upwards, a par or perhaps birdie, only to see it swerve violently into the bulrushes as it descends. But my new Callaway woods greatly improved my chances of hitting the fairway.

This is not to say that I didn’t still slice a couple drives. And I was hitting my irons about the same. And I haven’t figured out the hybrids yet. But overall, I think these clubs will improve my play. I recommend them if you’re a casual golfer who’d just like to hit it straighter.

You can learn more about custom fitting, including locations that will fit you, here.

As a book review editor, I can confirm what any casual reader of books must know by now: that the book industry has given itself over almost entirely to the pursuit of the smoking gun, that is, to investigative journalism, exposés, editorials, and polemics. It is the age of Seymour Hersh, Ron Suskind, Frank Rich and Lawrence Wright, of acute analysts and, some would argue, agents of current affairs. Whether you agree with these authors’ theses or not, their interpretation of facts or not, these works are valuable correctives to cultural and political imbalances created since 9/11; they remind the reader how crucial it is to have access to more than one story or more than one version of a story. You see these authors appear as Jon Stewart’s guests – providing the material on which and with which satire (the other great corrective to troubling times) riffs and colludes. Our laughter is proportional to our disbelief or trauma (I mean, whether you’re on the right or the left, war is traumatizing or should be).  

But all this hard news is wearying – as it also should be: Who to believe? And once you’ve decided whose voice to champion, whose book to send to your friends and associates, what next? How to live with frightening revelations and move through the everyday with your portion of disgust or fear? How to sleep soundly?  

I found one answer in a manuscript sent to me by W.W. Norton & Co late this spring. It was Riding with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books by Ted Bishop. By any publicist’s standards, it’s a small book, hard to categorize and harder to sell in this current climate. But its effect on me was enormous. Simply put, it reminded me of the restorative powers of pleasure and passion. In our studied observation of our own woes, our helplessness, both are easy to forget.

Bishop is a Canadian literary scholar who’s written extensively about James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence, but for the purposes of his new book he’s a guy who loves motorcycles and rides one from Edmonton to the Ransom Research Center in Austin, Texas. He writes about the trip with all of him, with the sensual and the physical beautifully complemented by his range of expertise — that is, from the literary to the automotive. Reading his account, I came as close as I ever might to what it is to ride a Ducati Monster cross country (evidently these United States are still beautiful) and came that much closer to the lives and idiosyncrasies of some of my literary heroes (I never fully understood what a motorcycle fanatic Lawrence was). I’ve included a brief excerpt below to acquaint you with Bishop’s felicitous prose and, more, with his knowing, controlled rapture that helped renew my contact with living. His decision to take the trip and to write about it was a boy’s and a man’s, an adventurer’s and a professor’s. Surely he has not forgotten Abu Ghraib or why we couldn’t (until today) carry liquids on a plane, but he has not forgotten himself either. The book’s in stores now. Lord knows where they’ve shelved it, but it’s a sure bet, and perhaps a shame, that you won’t find in the current affairs section.  


“Even if you ride without a helmet, you ride in a cocoon of white noise.  You get the smells from the roadside, and you feel the coolness in the dips and the heat off a rock face, but you don’t get sound. On a bike you feel both exposed and insulated. Try putting in earplugs the world changes, you feel like a spacewalker. What I like best about motorcycle touring is that even if you have companions you can’t talk to them until the rest stop, when you’ll compare highlights of the ride. You may be right beside them, but you’re alone. It is an inward experience. Like reading. In the archive there might be ten other readers, each at a solitary table, yet if you intersect at all it is only at lunch breaks. You may spend two weeks or more together, in silence.

“The classical pianist Alfred Brendel once told a New Yorker interviewer, ‘I like the fact that “listen” is an anagram of “silent.” Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops. It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all. It’s wonderful when the audience is part of the productive silence.’ He was speaking of classical piano concerts, but he could have been talking of the highway. Some of the best moments on a bike come when you are not moving: roadside moments. You stop, kill the engine, and take off your helmet, and all is still.”

Ring, ring. 

“Editorial,” I answer.

“’Ello, mate, this Arno, the guitarist from the Venus Casino,” comes the voice, in a heavy London accent. “Just wanted to introduce myself.”

Welcome to the 21st century music business. The DIY ideal—long paid lip service in indie circles—has become the only basis for success in the looming era of electronic distribution. In the old days, with record labels holding the keys to the distribution system, bands had to impress A&R execs. Now they have to find fans right from the start. And, as the voice on my phone indicates, one way to expand your fan base is to let music writers in another country know what you're up to.

It’s clear now that the only part of the traditional big music business that will survive is its publicity function.

With physical distribution no longer a barrier, the only thing standing between a band and mass consumption is exposure. Indie PR agencies will be the big winners—companies like Nasty Little Man (the Beasties PR reps, and the inspiration for the title of their “Hello Nasty” LP, which is how employees at Nasty Little Man answer the phone), Girlie Action, and Plus One. Because unless you're U2, you need help alerting your fans there’s new stuff out and attracting new fans.

[The other winners will be independent labels with a strong musical identity. Because while you may not know about every new band, you will still know you like the music issued by, say, Warp or Kompakt or Modular, and you’ll trust them to sort through new bands for those worthy of your attention. Such indies will become taste makers. They will fill the role once played by your trusted record dealer, except that you’ll now have several trusted record dealers based on the various labels you follow.]

But in the short run, bands are doing it all themselves. And it’s working. Just ask the Arctic Monkeys (pictured), Tapes n’ Tapes or Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Or ask Venus Casino. Arno called to tell me about a few white labels making noise in UK clubs, to point me to the band’s MySpace page, and to shoot the shit. Venus Casino doesn’t have a US record deal yet, but he figures there’s no time like the present to keep us posted over here about what’s going on over there. Cheers, mate.

Bill Clinton may have looked like he lost his cool in his interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace this weekend. He even got a little personal, sniping at Wallace, "You have that little smirk on your face, you think you’re so clever." Surely this was overkill; Wallace is among the least partisan of Fox’s newshounds, and whatever expression he betrayed when he asked Clinton about how much his administration had done to kill Osama bin Laden, it was hardly a smirk (and as somebody who attended an all-boy Catholic high school, I feel I know smirks.)

More likely, Wallace was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, the unfortunate foil present at the moment Clinton, who is supposed to be ex-presidentially above the partisan fray, felt like reminding his fellow Democrats how they’re supposed to behave during a campaign season. Clinton always lived by the dictum from The Untouchables—"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue"—and as much as anything, that taste for the rough and tumble helped him win terms in the Oval Office that eluded the less-than-scrappy Gore and Kerry. The Democrats have a chance to win both the House and Senate this fall, but that won’t happen unless they show some killer’s instinct (which Bush and Rove have in abundance) and go for the throat. Indeed, maybe Clinton’s criticism of Wallace’s smirk was all a smoke screen, a way of taking a slap at the smirkingest man in America (sorry, Dennis Miller; sorry, David Spade), namely George W. Bush.