[some corrections from an earlier versiom]
From Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky on Sunday, some delightful small gifts for this difficult time: two face masks — a piece of op art turned into a mask, and a fanciful Emperor Penguin [Elizabeth insists it’s an Emperor, but I was convinced it was a King] with a crown — and a very large, very political tea towel.
Am I elected yet? Am I re-elected yet? Zippyclone examples from the US presidential elections in 1984 and 1988. The big campaign poster from 1984, with the former variant:
(#1) Taco sauce in hand, Ding Dongs at the ready, Zippy throws his topknot into the electoral ring, challenging President Ronald Reagan and former Vice President Walter Mondale (Hat tip: Tom Frenkel)
It looks like Zippy is a perpetual independent candidate, but most of the campaign literature is in comic books, calendars, and posters, rather than in the strips. I’ve found one strip on his presidential runs, from 2012 (in the mainstream: incumbent President Barack Obama vs. former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney):
NOTE: The beginning of this posting is perfectly fine, but it turns out to be about not Stanford’s Steph Shih, but instead about a New York-based ceramic artist Stephanie H. Shih. From her website:
STEPHANIE H. SHIH explores concepts of home —— not just as a physical place, but also as cultural, generational, and emotional spaces we inhabit —— through the lens of Asian-American identity. Her work has been shown at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, CA), Wieden+Kennedy (Portland, OR), and Hashimoto Contemporary (San Francisco, CA) and featured by NPR, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn.
(Rueful thanks to Patrick Callier for exposing my error to me.)
I will now attempt to reorganize the previous material to preserve the discussion of the ceramic art, which I find moving; and to preserve a celebration of Stanford graduate Steph Shih, for her multifarious academic and artistic talents
That was January and February and it was unpleasant. Then things got really bad (last day out of the house on 3/8, then two brushes with death, but that’s not my topic here).
So: the Auden poem; FPNs (faggot persecution nightmares), one set off by Torch Song Trilogy; and the astonishing devastation of Beethoven’s “Rage Over a Lost Penny”.
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro “Writer’s Block”, with a plumber coming to the rescue:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
The plumber’s explanation alerts us to the fact that this is about a pun (involving homonyms), but it doesn’t locate the responsible item. He’s holding out a shoe, indicating that this is the relevant object. Crucially, it’s not just any shoe, but a specific type of shoe, known as a … clog. Ah, and the plumber’s job was presumably to clear a clog in the toilet. (But ya gotta know your shoes.)
Further ah: the clog in the toilet was a clog.
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro (“Joust Desserts”) takes us to the restaurant Le Chevalier de Bon Goût, whose clientele is dragons:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s just one in this strip — see this Page.)
The dragons are wielding tools for cracking open knights in armor to get at the tasty meat inside: their versions of the wooden mallets and seafood crackers used for wrestling lobsters to submission. And they are wearing knight bibs: their version of the lobster bibs offered by seafood restaurants.
(Men’s bodies and mansex discussed in very plain language — not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
Bro Buddies, a recent gay porn flick from Falcon Studios, with three topics plucked from it: a bit of sexual slang; facial expressions communicating sexual messages and expressing emotions during sex; and detached body parts that take on a life of their own. Two images (way over the line for WordPress) are stashed away in a posting today on AZBlogX, “Cock run amok”; they’ll be described below.
No, not speech balloons in the comics, with quoted speech inside them (though those are of considerable interest), but quotations made up of inflated balloons mounted on a vertical surface (in a form of performance art), which are then photographed, to yield the enduring art works: balloon-quote photography. The artist is Michael James Schneider, using the name blcksmth. His recent work Hustle Memory:
(#1)
(Extremely minimally dressed men, with discussion of their bodies and of mansex in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)
Annals of men’s underwear, starting with some extremely minimal items, including one that claims to be anti-bacterial; notes on armpit and crotch sweat and its associated bacteria, with their characterstic smells and tastes; and (a surprise bonus) the advertised virtues of merino wool underwear and t-shirts.
Under the fold, I’ll start with two of the more remarkable minimalist items: the Echo Mesh jock pouch (and harness) from CellBlock13; and pro wrestler John Cena in a hot pink banana hammock.
Two recent Zippy strips on Maple Donuts in York PA:
(#1) From 5/11; note the sign “Drive Thru / God Bless / America”; Maple Donuts has 4 locations in the York PA area, and it’s not clear which one appears in any particular Zippy strip, or whether Bill Griffith has created cartoon amalgams of them; and note the title “Covfefe Break”
(#2) From 5/15, specifically on the noun toroid ‘geometric figure resembling a torus’
