Hefner's Heifers

George Kuchar just received a tape of himself on the Dog and His Friends from the Dog House television show, but he must first track down a VHS player to watch it. After arriving at a friend’s home, Kuchar draws attention to the number of animals present in the kitchen, noting that it reminded him of the Playboy Mansion in Chicago, Illinois. Flashing back to Chicago, Kuchar takes a tour of the abandoned ‘pleasure palace’ by flashlight, exploring the dark recesses of the basement bowling alley and underwater bar. As he rummages around in the darkness, Kuchar recalls that his own Hold Me Wild and his brother Mike Kuchar’s Sins of the Fleshapoids had both been included in the ‘History of Sex in Film’ issue of Playboy in years past. Back in his home, Kuchar further explores this relationship between sex, the body and time as he obsesses over a new clock modeled after a three-dimensional nude woman.

Continuing this discussion of sexual/temporal sensation being mediated through objects, Hefner’s Heifers concludes with Kuchar appearing as a guest on Madeleine’s Variety Television: The Show Without a Purpose, where he meets Crystal, the bionic woman. Having been burned in a fire, she now wears a mask and speaks with a digitized robot voice. Even as Crystal surrounds herself with technology meant to facilitate normal interactions, her robot voice is distorted and the subtitles accompanying her are garbled and lead only to miscommunication. --Kyle Riley