A follow-up to yesterday’s posting “Certified queer”, a riff on a t-shirt that I posted about in 2022; the message on it is the playful 100% Certified Queer, and it has the the label QUEER in it.
Today’s posting focuses on four tees recently acquired or on their way to me soon: three with labels on them — GAY, PANSY, FAIRY — and one with gorgeous pansy flowers, the label being merely implicit. The gang of four.
Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Clothing, Shirts, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
I am late for the Rosh Hashanah / New Year train; my life is overfull, but I press on, with brevity to the max:
5787 Shana Tovah!
Posted in Events and occasions, Greetings, Language and religion, Movies and tv, Names | 2 Comments »
The first of two postings about message-bearing t-shirts. This one is a riff on a tee that I posted about in 2022; its message is the playful 100% Certified Queer, and the label QUEER in it turns out to be a many-layered thing.
The posting to come later focuses on four tees recently acquired or on their way to me soon: three with labels on them — GAY, FAIRY, PANSY — and one with gorgeous pansy flowers, the label being merely implicit.
Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Identities, Language and politics, Moral worlds, My life, Signs and symbols, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
Arriving a bit after the day itself (9/6), a big (two 8 x 12 panels) greeting attached to the handle to the front door of my apartment. Signed by many of the other residents at Avant. None of whom I have met by name (though we might have exchanged friendly hellos in the elevator). But a sweet gesture towards someone who sticks out as wildly different from the rest — gay spice, as one of the staff calls it.
I’ve mounted it temporarily with artist’s tape on the open door of the linen closet, so I can see it from the worktable where I labor with computer.
Posted in Clothing, Events and occasions, Language and food, My life | Leave a Comment »
Well, yeah, a spoiler. But the title should make you wonder how Stephan Pastis manages to weave together the whole setup / payoff formula pun in today’s (9/13) Pearls Before Swine strip. Here it comes:
Posted in Humor, Jokes, Linguistics in the comics, Parodies, Puns, Stories | Leave a Comment »
A while back I lamented to Sacred Harp singers Leigh Cooper and Mark Godfrey (wife and husband; some of us come in couples) over no longer being able to sing face to face, in one another’s company (instead, having to sing along alone at home via Zoom). Leigh took my lament to Paul Kostka, who acts as arranger for our twice-monthly singings in Palo Alto, and they picked a day (9/10) and time (11 am). That turned out to be the exact time I was scheduled to get flu and covid vaccinations, and Mark’s schedule that day precluded his taking part at all. (Juggling schedules is hellish).
But the plan eventually came together, with many singers invited to take part, but only four actually able to turn up on 9/10 : Leigh, Paul, Lorraine Sohlberg Kostka (yes, another couple), and me. Four is the magic number — SH is 4-part a cappella music — and together the four of us could cover the treble, alto, tenor, and bass lines. I’m a male treble; in the world of ordinary vocal music, I’m a natural baritone (roughly corresponding to SH tenor), but astonishingly I can do this other stuff too and love the lines I get. And when I have a voice (various degrees of laryngitis have dogged me in recent weeks), I am wildly, fiercely shake-the-windows loud.
But what is so touching is that the whole event was a gift to me. Causing me to spill over with joy at being back in the community — SH is communitarian, elaborately egalitarian, and comfortable with difference (I am often adorned in way-gay apparel) — with these wonderful people.
Posted in Conversation, Homosexuality, Language and religion, Music, My life, Social interactions, Social life | Leave a Comment »
A little work of postcard art sent to me by Ann Burlingham as sexy, juicy fruit!:
Bright blackberry juice, crushed in the fingers, runs down the palm of the hand and then the arm
Posted in Art, Language and animals, Language and food, Language and the body | Leave a Comment »
[I started this posting a few days ago, but was balked from moving ahead by bad juju in both Facebook and WordPress. The curses magically lifted on 9/9. So I’m back on task now, but it’s 9/11 (25th anniversary) and apparently I’m going to be weeping non-stop all day, while I plug away at my work. Life lurches on]
Yet another birthday present for me, small but touching: two small enamel lapel pins: one in the form of a flag, one a plain rectangle (both are just an inch across):
(#1) The flag pin
(#2) The rectangle pin
Both of them from the program director Manalee Shukla here at Avant (a friend I’ve posted about several times, because we share a pleasure in the culture of her native land, India, and because she appreciates my injecting a note of gay spice into the Avant experience (meanwhile, I’ve warned her that her two bicultural kids are about to finish a transformation into entirely American boys; I have plenty of sociolinguistic stories from personal experience as well as the literature — all that professional preparation turns out to be genuinely useful in daily life).
Posted in Clothing, Events and occasions, Flags, Gifts, Homosexuality, Logos, Moral worlds, My life, Penguins, Quotations, Rainbow clothing, Signs and symbols, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
🎶 🎶 It’s 9/8, Anton Dvořák’s birthday (1841), which will serve as a lead-in to a fabulous performance of music (by Purcell, not Dvořák) that Ellen Kaisse e-mailed to me as a (9/6) birthday present, stroking one of the passions — for music — that animate my life (two others I have recently posted about: the multiplicity of languages, cultures, subcultures, and life histories; and moral purpose — yeah, that one sounds like swaggering, but I really mean it)
Before I leave AD, a note on him from my 1/27/24 posting “Spillville”:
let me recommend the Wikipedia article on Dvořák, for its detailed telling of a remarkable life, of great talent, a lot of pluck, a fair amount of luck, generous humanity, and the benefit of champions, advocates on your behalf (in this case, primarily Johannes Brahms)
Posted in Dancers, Events and occasions, Language and the body, Music, Teaching, Writing | 1 Comment »
You say it’s your birthday / We’re gonna have a good time
— the Beatles, Birthday (1968, from The White Album)
[evoked for me in e-mail by Brian Joseph]
💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 for (US) Labor Day, the flexed biceps of a manual worker (like my two grandfathers: Bethlehem Steel (maternal), Textile Machine Works (paternal); Melchior Zwicky doubled as a small-farmer as well). I’m two generations down and have ascended, as a professor and writer, to the status of scholar and artist rather than worker and peasant — socioculturally if not financially in the upper middle class. With a thick veneer of high culture, but also fiercely egalitarian. It’s a balancing act.
Birthday greetings. I now veer onto something completely different (but hang on; things will come together): amidst the great avalanche of well-wishing for my birthday, #86, yesterday, an especially charming pair that came as a package. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Academic life, Bilingualism, Events and occasions, Language and culture, Languages, Linguists, Music, My life, Names, Ohio State, Social class, Social life, Teaching and learning | Leave a Comment »
