E-Mail This Article to a Friend BARE ESSENTIALS Robert Reich loses his shirt BY CHRIS WRIGHT

Fundraising via the sale of nude calendars is not a novel idea. The practice started a few years ago in England, and has since gone global. Animal activists, rugby teams, and even an Irish priest have done it. Last year, the film Calendar Girls gave the trend a further boost. Now, various locals — including former labor secretary Robert Reich — have stripped for "Cambridge Uncovered," the proceeds of which will benefit the public-access channel Cambridge Community Television. The calendar was shot by sometime Phoenix photographer Mark Ostow, who spoke with us from his car.

Q: The calendar has been described as "provocative." What’s the most provocative thing in it?

A: [The dancer] Rozann Kraus danced naked for me for two hours, no props, no covering. That was provocative.

Q: But there are no full-frontals, right?

A: Right.

Q: Not even a bum or a boob?

A: In Rozann’s interior photograph you can see her boob. Oh, wait, you can see it on the cover. You can see pubic hair on the cover.

Q: Was everyone nude when you shot them?

A: Not Robert Reich. He was wearing shorts. I tried talking him out of them, which is kind of an odd position to be in — "Is there any way you can take off your boxers?" He said, "Mark, that would be weird."

Q: Too bad. I was going to ask you about his penis.

A: I couldn’t tell you what anyone’s penis looked like.

Q: Why?

A: I didn’t want to stare. There was one guy, he had a piercing and he was playing with it.

Q: Just fiddling with his bauble?

A: Yes, yes.

Q: How did you go about hiding people’s naughty bits?

A: I wanted it to seem natural, not the predictable thing of having them stand behind books. Reich is holding a basket of food.

Q: He’s in a kitchen, right? Isn’t that unhygienic?

A: There was no contact with raw chicken.

Q: Aren’t there people here whom we wouldn’t want to see naked?

A: I honestly believe everyone looks beautiful. I have a habit of falling in love with people I photograph. When I look through the lens, everybody looks so beautiful, and not just with this shoot; it’s just this weird thing.

Q: Still, I don’t think I’d want to see Reich naked.

A: True. Totally naked, I wouldn’t either.

Q: Any stories that stand out?

A: Shooting [artists] Mags Harries and Lajos Héder at Porter Square station. They came in their bathrobes, naked underneath. Mags sees a man on the platform staring at her. She said, "That’s it, I’m done!" She’s going up the escalator and I’m shouting after her: "I’ve only done six shots! Come back! Please!"

Q: Did anyone seem to regret they’d agreed to do this?

A: There were people who were a little tense. So we’d have them get undressed gradually: take off your sweater, your shirt — this slow-motion striptease.

Q: You’re in the calendar, too. How was that?

A: I thought the shot would be small, way in the back, but it’s on page one, so that gave me a scare, you know, at night, falling asleep, that panicky feeling. Clients and friends will see it, and my children, and my children’s friends. What was I thinking?