Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium

Pennypacker on building an archive
My collection of magazines continues to grow. The more I acquire, the more I sense the need for preservation. How wonderful it would be if there were an archive, an exhaustive collection held in one location, and dedicated to the acquisition of all female muscle media past, present, and future. To think about: 1) How to fund such an archive, its upkeep and acquisitions? 2) Where to locate it? 3) How much digital storage space would be needed and how much physical space this would require?



Over the next couple of years, these questions would continue to drive Pennypacker, and were the seed out of which The Pectarium was to grow. Though not the 'British Library of Female Muscle' (as he began to refer to his idea), The Pectarium is, however, not only a unique and ingenious system of female muscle media presentation, but is also the tangible result of some of the solutions he devised to the problem of how to collect and collate such enormous amounts of digital material.

from Pennypacker's diary 19th January 2011
Have spent the last week and a half backing up. I would say I need an assistant, but employing a hard-up undergrad for such a purpose might be a little awkward. At least all digital media is now saved and stored on hard drives ranging from 350GB to 1TB. How much more will I need in the future? The files seem to be getting bigger and bigger and more and more hi-res.



from Pennypacker's diary 27th March 2011
Have decided to write my own cataloguing software. Tried several that are freely-available and the two most recommended, which were, of course, to be paid for. Some had commendable features, but none completely satisfactory. Need image recognition software integrated into the cataloguing to avoid duplicates. I recall Gerald was working on something like that at one time. Face recognition or some such. Might be a good first port of call. Will contact tomorrow.



The 'Gerald' who was contacted by the professor was Dr. Gerald MacKinnon, Professor of Electronic Science at Christchurch College, Oxford. Over the next six months, Dr. MacKinnon would help Pennypacker construct the software that allowed him to acquire, collate and catalogue millions of images and clips simply by running the program. After September 2011, the professor's computers were downloading and archiving female muscle material by themselves. This, however, created new problems. According to the professor's notebook in late 2011, 'It would take me to the age of 202 years and 7 months to actually view all the material that has now been gathered by my software.'



from Pennypacker's diary 27th May 2011
Left an image of Jo Stewart's magnificent chest on my screen when the doorbell rang. It was my niece and her husband paying me a 'surprise visit'. I kept them talking in the hall for long enough to let the screensaver hide those perfect muscles. The closest I have been to having to reveal my secret. How ludicrous that at the age of 66 I feel compelled to hide my passion. We lunched at the Pelican. Kathy's husband is tiresome with his tales of business conquest (one wonders what other conquests he doesn't speak about in the presence of his wife) and I increasingly daydreamed of returning home to privacy and the delectable Jo as the meal progressed. Got the impression they had been sent by the rest of the family to find out why I hadn't been more sociable since the first few months of retirement. If only they knew!



Kathy Winterbottom, Pennypacker's niece, along with her older brother, Tate Pennypacker, lost the most from the alterations the professor made to his will - amendments were registered with his solicitor on four separate occasions from late 2011 to spring 2012 - and were consequently the most vehement contestants during the legal battle that followed his death. For Tate, even more galling than the loss of inheritance the provision for the upkeep of The Pectarium entailed was the clause, inserted by the professor in his last alteration to his will, that his own inheritance would be dependent on his taking responsibility for the maintenance and operation of The Pectarium. In court, his nephew would refer to it as 'a monstrosity', 'disgusting' and 'perverted'. Obviously not a muscle women lover.

Pennypacker on Guimond
Of all the truly awesome sights I have come across through my new passion, the chest of Collette Guimond must rank as high as any. Frankly, I hold her responsible for my preference for this, no, these muscles over the many others that adorn the body of the muscular woman. I have travelled in my life. Seen many amazing things - Iguaçu Falls, the Grand Canyon, the morning mist over the Mull of Kintyre. There are also things I have never seen - the Nile, Ayers Rock, Everest rising above the peaks of the Himalayas. Honestly, I would rather travel to see Collette's chest with my own eyes than cross any of those other sights off my list right now.



As far as we know, Pennypacker never did get to see Collette's chest first-hand, or indeed any other female bodybuilders' chests. Nothing in his diaries records a visit to a female bodybuilding contest or any other kind of meeting. During 2011, he seems to have come to the conclusion that unless he devoted all time he had left to the construction of The Pectarium, it would never be finished. In the end, he preferred not to indulge himself in personal experiences, but instead chose to leave his archive and his creation as a legacy to the world of female muscle fandom.



from Pennypacker's diary 4th December 2011
The work has begun. This week the old barn has been gutted and by Christmas the structure will have been made sound. In the New Year renovation work will begin. If everything goes according to schedule, I will have my haven by Easter.

More selections from Prof. Pennypacker's archive tomorrow. Enjoy!

gifs by Shirtrippers2.0, The Ankle and 'the street fighter'.

Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium

from Pennypacker's diary 20th October 2010
Recorded webcam with Alina. She has changed her hair and is, to my delight, now brunette. She bounced for me for over half an hour. Her ever-growing pectorals filled the screen. Heavenly. I spent the rest of the evening filing caps. I wonder if I would have had any career at all if I had discovered muscle women at a younger age.



Though the professor came to female muscle late in life, his archives, as far as we can tell, encompass the entire history of the sport of female bodybuilding as well as the strong women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.



Pennypacker on pecs
With their rejection of the breast tissue that to a large extent defines the female body as distinct from that of the male, female bodybuilders declare their independence from the established 'rules' of womanhood. They are utterly unique in adopting this position. No other group of women so vehemently rejects the roles and conventions assigned to them. They stand alone but united in a sisterhood of which the badge of belonging are the muscles where their breasts 'should' be.

from Pennypacker's diary 14th May 2010
Jennings is as masculine as any current female bodybuilder. The size and mass of her pectorals are intoxicating. In the past if you had told me a woman was called Rosemary I would have imagined a cake baker from the WI, all Laura Ashley, walks with the dog and church on Sunday. Now when I hear the name I see this wonderful beast of a woman in my mind's eye. How times have changed!





'Pec Purists' should not celebrate Pennypacker as one of them. Though it is obvious from what has emerged from his archives at this early stage that the professor enjoyed what you might call the unadulterated chest above all others, he was certainly not averse to some artificial enhancement, or, to use the parlance of our times, 'bolt-ons'. Having said that, women who have chosen to have more extreme levels of breast enhancement, like Yvette Bova or Lynn McCrossin, for example, are conspicuous in their absence from the archive the professor installed into The Pectarium.

from Pennypacker's diary 3rd March 2009

Kresila is utterly beguiling. I fantasise about showing colleagues a picture of her. I'd wait for them to say, as they surely would, that she is a rare beauty, and then, and only then, would I reveal an image of her magnificent body. As she was on cam this evening. Topless and 100% muscle-chested. Their incomprehension would be something to cherish, and surely the two images would haunt them.

We leave you today with a couple of the prof's faves. Images and clips of Nikki Fuller (above) and Oana Hreapca (below) are among the most numerous in the professor's collection. More from the archive contained within The Pectarium tomorrow.













Enjoy!

gifs by Muscular Girls in Motion and The Ankle

Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium

The passing of Prof. Philpott Pennypacker, who died, according to his obituary in the New Scientist, ‘peacefully, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues at his Berkshire home’ on October 28th 2012, was of little apparent interest to all female muscle fans (excepting those who study or work in the field of applied mathematics). However, the ensuing legal battle over the fate of the late Prof. Pennypacker’s estate, and yesterday’s High Court ruling that brought an end to that battle, is quite a different matter, revealing as it does, the nature of the professor’s final project.

The challenge to the will, brought by members of his immediate family, focused on one clause Professor Pennypacker had inserted into the will in 2010. The clause made provision for a fund to maintain, in the state in which he left it, a converted out-building on his property, and for members of the public to be allowed access to it. Initially, his executors had assumed the professor had used the building as a study/workshop, and his wish was to allow future applied mathematicians a glimpse of his working processes. Only after entering the building did they realise he had designed it for a purpose they could never had imagined.

They found the building is divided into six rectangular rooms of roughly equal size. In each room there are six large screens, two on each of the longer walls, and one on each of the shorter sides. [There has some speculation as to the significance of the 6 rooms and the 6 screens in each. In his 1972 work It’s Magic: How Anybody Can Prove Anything with Selective Statistics, Pennypacker noted that ‘If 3 is, indeed, as is claimed, a “magic number”, then surely it follows that multiples of three should possess that “magic” incrementally.’ However, it may simply be that the building lent itself or was previously divided along similar lines and that the size of the screens Pennypacker chose to adorn the walls were simply large enough to allow no more than six of them to fit comfortably along each wall.]

In the centre of each room sits a reclining swivel chair, apparently specially designed for the professor according to his specifications. From the chair, the screens can be operated by means of a touch screen control panel which is fixed to the left arm of the chair and can be lowered across the lap of the sitter. And it was once the executors had sat down in the chairs and used the control panels to turn on the screens that the true purpose of the building, the rooms and the screens was revealed.



Images of female bodybuilders, specifically, the pectoral muscles of female bodybuilders, started to appear on the screens. In some rooms, there would be six different images, one on each screen, followed by six different ones again, then six more and so on. In another room a single image travelled from screen 1 to 2 to 3 and so on around all six, followed by another image, and another. In yet another room the six screens all displayed a looped clip of a female bodybuilder performing cable flyes. Another room had combinations of each of the above, and it was soon established that the user/viewer could control the images exactly as they wished.



And on they went, images, loops, clips both long and short, some speeded up, some slo-mo. There was contest footage, even some artwork, and what they all had in common was the pecs of female bodybuilders and other muscular women.



The executors were, quite understandably, stunned. The final project of Professor Philpott Pennypacker had been nothing to do with the work he had made his career. Rather, it had been the result of his secret passion, kept private from all who knew him until after his death. His final project had been to construct his own personal temple of female muscle, a place where he could privately enjoy and worship his favourite part of his favourite type of women. He called it ‘The Pectarium’.




The fund he put in place to pay for the upkeep of The Pectarium naturally put a considerable hole into the inheritance of his beneficiaries, and consequently the will was challenged, ultimately unsuccessfully. In his summing up yesterday, Lord Justice Laws explained that ‘While a feeling of incomprehension at the curious uses to which an estate may be put is, in this case, quite understandable, there is no basis in law for revoking a will on those grounds.’ Fortunately, the FMS legal department is on hand to simplify that to ‘Just because you don’t understand why he wants his money used in this way, it doesn’t mean you can change it.’ And as a result, you, me, and anyone else who wishes to do so will, as soon as all the legal bureaucracy has been cleaned up, be able to arrange their own personal visit to Professor Philpott’s Pectarium.



If you can’t wait, FMS will this week be giving you a taste of what you might find there in the rough and ready way we can. And even more exciting perhaps, is the fact that we have also been granted access to Professor Pennypacker’s private diaries. In these diaries, he put down his thoughts on female bodybuilders, being a female muscle worshipper, and the place of female muscle and those who follow it in society as a whole. We are both honoured and delighted to be able to bring you some extracts to accompany a selection of items from within The Pectarium.



Enjoy!

Candids: Marthe

And we finish our week of candids with the magnificent example of muscular womanhood that is Marthe Sundby, out in public and seemingly wearing nothing but a smile, a T-shirt, and a tan. Quite apart from the sheer sex appeal of Norway's number 1 muscle goddess arrogantly parading her bare legs and glutes, FMS digs how it's been taken from behind what looks like a tree, as if the photographer were one of us, consumed by The Madness, compelled to preserve the moment. Of course, she doesn't mind that you're following her and snapping away, she knows the power she has over you. In fact, she even turns and flashes you a smile... Yes!

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is FMS' Candid of the Year (so far).



Enjoy!

Candids: Drink Up!

left: Kris Murrell working her way through her own personal pitcher.

right: Megan Abshire prepares to drink you under the table. Cheers!

below left: It wasn't until the office Christmas party that I finally got to see that the girl from accounts who had told me she'd started lifting really was starting to show some definition in her arms... centre: Only a woman with muscle looks this good in a backless dress (and it may be virtually frontless for all I know). Ridiculously sexy. And somehow the glass of wine just makes it even better. Click on the picture and see if you can keep them above the table... right: Not a million miles away from my idea of what heaven looks like. I feel I should know who these beauties are. ID anyone?



Enjoy!

Candids: Streets of Female Muscle

A few more examples of candids, this time from the streets, which, like the ones we saw on Monday, might leave the female muscle fan shaking his head and wondering WHERE? WHEN? and WHY NOT ME? At least, that's what I'm wondering.



I first saw her walking towards her car, writes a reader. Rather unnecessarily, I asked if she needed any help with her bags. 'Are you f***ing joking?' she said. 'Do I look like I need help?' With that, she flexed her arm, revealing the definition in her shoulder and tricep. It was all a bit too much for me to handle. The next thing I remember was coming to with my elderly neighbour, Mrs Mountshaft, standing over me and asking if she should call an ambulance. I'd passed out on the spot. Never seen her again, though it's not for want of hanging around the car park in front of my building.



Another reader recounts a not dissimilar experience. I'd just finished loading up the car with the shopping when the femuscle radar went truly ballistic. She was wearing just a bikini top and jeans. I tried my hardest not to stare but found it impossible to look away. As she walked, a huge pack of water effortlessly slung over her shoulder, her abs mesmerised me. She was going to come right past me, I felt an uncontrollable urge to say something to her, then blurted out 'Can I help you with that?' She didn't even break stride. She lifted the water up in a sort of one-handed shoulder press, all the while looking straight at me in mock surprise, no doubt making fun of the dumb expression on my face. She kept on doing that all the way to her car, giving me a show. As she drove out, she gave me a wink. I think an hour later I still hadn't moved. Without doubt it was the single hottest thing I have ever witnessed.



Of course, those stories are just that. Fictions from the imagination of the author. The images above, though, look as if they were taken by one of us. One of us who was in the right place at the right time and was able to ignore any qualms they might have had about snapping a muscular woman without her permission. Whoever is responsible for the image of sexy Sophie Arvebrink (right) (yep, I still can't type her name without typing 'sexy' first) deserves, in my opinion, a medal for holding the camera still. Good work fella! Yours truly would have probably ended up hailing a taxi and following her, cop movie style, until I came to my senses or ran out of money. Probably.



And still I'm wondering, wondering more than ever, where exactly these magical streets are where such visions of muscular female beauty walk. WHERE?

Enjoy!

Candids: Life with Amanda

We might dream that life with a female bodybuilder consists of her hanging around the house in her underwear while we keep her in steamed chicken breasts and make sure there's always plenty of massage oil in the house. Ok, ok, this is what I dream about, I don't want to be putting words into your mouth. You might after all, dream of something else entirely. Anyway, while I might dream the underwear-chicken breast-massage oil scenario, the reality of life with a female bodybuilder is, without doubt, much more interesting. Take life with Amanda Folstad (full name: Amanda Michelle Folstad-Ptak). Amanda doesn't lounge around her house in her underwear. Or if she does, she doesn't tell the world about it on her Facebook page. But she does share a lot of other things. And here's a taste. A taste of life with Amanda.



On top of preparing for this year's NPC USAs, where she competed in Physique, the last twelve months have been pretty exciting for Amanda (and her husband) as they went into business. In July they opened a One Stop Nutrition franchise in Mesa, Arizona, where they are based. Don't say you don't know where to find her if you're in the area.



Amanda loves new clothes, shoes and trainers, and tends to model them for her followers more often than not, although not always as flexibly as here. And Amanda really loves dogs, confessing to being a boxer and bulldog girl.



Another of her loves is 'Home Decoration' (DIY to us Brits), and it certainly looks like she knows what she's doing. And despite my dreams it doesn't look like she's going to need my (or anyone's) help 'Grillin up the foooood' as she puts it.



It should be clear to you by now just from this little selection that life with Amanda is infinitely more varied and interesting than I had dreamt. And I'm not surprised. Female bodybuilders are, out of necessity, the kind of women who grab life with both hands, living it to the full, and very much on their own terms. It's not just their bodies that are exceptional. And Amanda's is no exception.

Enjoy!