Today’s Zippy:
Thing is, past pluperfect is redundant, since pluperfect in English grammar is a synonym of past perfect.. As a result, grammars of Engish don’t treat past pluperfect as a technical term at all.
past pluperfect
November 6, 2020Fantasy food
November 5, 2020For some time now, a suite of afflictions (I omit the very unpleasant details) has prevented me from handling any truly solid food. A couple days ago I prepared a standard comfort sickroom food, plain white rice. My first solid food in a long time. And it was good. I still have no taste for anything more complicated. So I look forward to Thanksgiving (just a few weeks from now), and my now-standard Thanksgiving meal — see below — and it just seems unimaginable to me now, like fantasy food, though I have dreams about it.
Stirling Silliphant
November 3, 2020Today’s morning name — a rather poetic one, but his real name: Stirling Silliphant.
A diversion at the beginning of election week
November 2, 2020This morning’s little entertainment from the Daily Jocks site:
(#1) A bit of word play on mask and masc(uline), underwear models being chosen for their projection of high masculinity (as here)
Can I get you a vole or two?
October 30, 2020On Facebook, Joelle Stepien Baillard posted an old cartoon (pubished 8/8/94) by New Yorker cartoonist Sam Gross:
(#1)
A cartoon with a translation from one world to another. There’s the world of cats, in which they go outside to hunt small animals; and then, simultaneously, the world of (human) household relationships, in which someone going out on an errand will often ask if they can get something for the others while they’re out.
That gives us a talking cat.
Halloween still lifes
October 30, 2020A pair of still lifes — digital compositions — by Stephanie Shih for Halloween, with the customary flowers in vases, prominently supplemented by Halloween candy: a large lollipop on the left, a candy stick on the right:
(#1) Stephanie: “ode to childhood memories of Halloween candy”
(You might want to enlarge the images to examine the details.)
Cruisy contemptolence
October 29, 2020(From my posting backlog. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)
The Daily Jocks ad (for the premium homowear firm Pump!) from May 29th, a little masterpiece of the hard-cruise soft-porn genre, the underwear model as steamy rentboy:
(#1) A hard cruise’s a-gonna make you crawl, my blue-eyed son, my darling young one
Piercingly cruisy insolent contempt, combined with a display of the goods available, in a pitsntits display, plus an oiled torso and legs spread so that his crotch can be thrust forward for his trick.
But the hard cruise is mostly conveyed with the face: direct gaze, narrowed eyes, and tight mouth.
Every picture tells a story
October 28, 2020(This posting starts with a homoerotic Daily Jocks ad — nothing close to the line visually or textually, but you might still want to exercise your judgment — moves through Doan’s pills and ends with musician Rod Stewart.)
… but what story? They’re just pictures, after all, subject to many interpretations. Even when the creator’s intentions are clear, there are often two (or more) intended stories for the same picture — typically, one literal and one allusive (consider still lifes with moral messages). In any case, other viewers are free to see stories the creator did not. And sometimes the pictures have no clear interpretation.
Which brings me to the Daily Jocks mailing of 10/26:
(#1) At the gym, two hunks eye each other’s crotches with facial expressions that would be heavy sexual cruises if exchanged face to face
Well, it’s a menswear ad, and comes with no explicit clues as to how it’s to be interpreted — maybe just as a generic homoerotic encounter (certainly homoerotic). But still you wonder: what’s their story? Are they an established couple, shown here appreciating each other’s bodies for the camera? Or did they just come across one another in the gym and are now setting up a trick? Or maybe merely complimenting each other through their gaze and facial expressions, each conveying that he thinks the other is really hot? (Nice body, buddy.)
Patio report 10/25/20
October 26, 2020Four photos (by Kim Darnell) from yesterday showing the current state of my patio, including a bird feeder pole system and its four stations for feeding birds of different sorts: two more hanging feeders (to add to the three feeders installed previously), a hummingbird feeder, and an open pan, a few feet off the ground, filled with seeds and nuts.
More comforting presents
October 26, 2020(About my life, though with a linguistic note along the way)
From Ann Burlingham in Pittsburgh, locally sourced gifts to comfort me in very tough times. In particular, cookies from Barlow Bakes in Ford City PA; and a flour sack tea towel (from the “love, Pittsburgh” site) with text on Pittsburghese.