Archive for June, 2016

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Anatol Kovarsky

June 17, 2016

In the New York Times on the 14th, an obituary by William Grimes, “Anatol Kovarsky, New Yorker Cartoonist for Decades, Dies at 97”:

Anatol Kovarsky, an artist and illustrator whose sense of whimsy and the absurd made him a fixture at The New Yorker from the late 1940s through the 1960s as both a cartoonist and a cover artist, died on June 1 at his home in Manhattan. He was 97.

Mr. Kovarsky, a master of the wordless visual gag, produced nearly 300 cartoons for The New Yorker. His first, published on March 1, 1947, showed two museum visitors peering at each other in surprise as they looked through the hole in a large Henry Moore-like nude.

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Posted in Art, Death notices, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

Pleasures of patriotic penetration

June 17, 2016

(Well, dildos and vibrators, so not for everybody.)

Passed on by Jeff Shaumeyer on Facebook, a startling sex toy, from the BlogRebellen website yesterday:

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Fühl den Nationalstolz tief in dir mit dem Deutschland-Dildo ‘Feel national pride deep within you with the Deutschland Dildo’

Black, red, and gold (the colors of the German national flag, in order, here from the black Eichel, or dickhead,  to the gold Hoden, or balls), in silicone, with natural-looking veining and a suction-cup base. Be a penis patriot: fuck yourself the bold Teutonic way!

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Posted in Language and gender, Language of sex, Phallicity, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »

Two Thursday cartoons

June 16, 2016

Words words words. Ruthie in One Big Happy is confounded by sandy, and Mother Goose and Grimm gives us a howling pun on Transcendental Meditation:

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(#2)

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Posted in Language play, Linguistics in the comics | 1 Comment »

On the Harvey train

June 16, 2016

Yesterday’s Zippy takes us to Alfred Harvey’s comics and (via the strip’s title) to Fred Harvey’s railway depot restaurants:

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First, the allusions in the panels, to Casper, the Friendy Ghost; Little Lotta; Richie Rich; and Little Dot. Then the Harvey Girls.

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv | 1 Comment »

An offer (the first of several)

June 15, 2016

I’m in the midst of a gigantic divestment / divestiture of belongings, designed to reduce the contents of two highly packed condos (including a truly gigantic library) to one relatively uncluttered one, preserving the things I think I’ll want to use in the scholarly life left to me (I am an old man). More on this below.

But here, an offer of a collection of CDs with performances of musicals (about 50) and with movie soundtracks (about 15).  Get your show tunes and soundtracks!  Just pay for the shipping.

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Posted in Music, My life | 1 Comment »

Cross-commercial fertilization

June 15, 2016

Currently running the rounds on American television, a Progressive Insurance ad (featuring the company’s spokesperson Flo) into which a giant humanoid pitcher of some colored drink intrudes, by crashing through the wall:

This is funny as slapstick, but (like so many cartoons and comics) is much funnier if you recognize the characters involved and their backgrounds — especially, the humanoid pitcher.

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Posted in Language in advertising | Leave a Comment »

Crate labels

June 14, 2016

Continuing the story of commercial art forms in popular culture that started with tie art this morning (“Most unusual ties”, here): the art of crate labels, for shipping fruit, vegetables, and other foodstuffs in wooden crates, on the railroad, from where they were produced to where they are consumed. Along with the long-distance distribution system (with its major hub in Chicago) made possible by the railroads came schemes of brand-naming and long-distance advertising for the products. most notably in the colorful labels (designed largely by unknown artists) on the crates (the labels are now collectors’ items); the heyday of the labels was in the early 20th century.

Two satisfying products from Louisiana (in #2, you should focus on the left side, with the Tabasco sauce bottle and its flanking shrimp):

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(#2)

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Posted in Art, Phallicity, Pop culture | Leave a Comment »

Most unusual ties

June 14, 2016

Juan Gomez, surveying some of the penguiniana at Ramona St. (there is even more at Staunton Ct., where I’m trying to clear things out), noticed this very handsome silver and black tie on display in my living room:

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(The label says: “MUSEO Hand Made” — made in Korea, as it turns out.)

The tie was a gift from my friend Steven Levine, who has an enormous collection — hundreds — of ties, found in used clothing outlets, estate sales, flea markets, and the like. Funny, gorgeous, bizarre, all shedding some light on odd corners of popular culture and changes in artistic fashions over the years.

So Juan asked what the most unusual tie in Steven’s collection was. I asked Steven, he reflected for some time, and nominated six items. For your thoughtful pleasure, these ties, with Steven’s comments…

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Posted in Clothing, Penguins, Pop culture | 3 Comments »

The news for penises: wrap it in a bagpipe

June 13, 2016

Wrap it on your willy, or play it like a piper.

From Sim Aberson, a link to a condom bagpipe performance. Photo here:

You can watch and listen to it in action here, in a YouTube video uploaded on 10/28/09.

Two condoms are used (one inside the other) to create the bag for this bagpipe. The chanter and drone are aluminium tubes with a membrane reed at the top of each.

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Posted in Music, Phallicity | 1 Comment »

Rainbows and b8r bait

June 13, 2016

It’s Pride month, time for rainbow everything (as symbols of solidarity and resistance to oppression) and also time for defiant celebrations of same-sex desire, same-sex sexual acts, and social and personal motss-identification. All especially important in the face of explicit attempts to exterminate our community, like the monstrous wickedness in Orlando the night before last. As usual, I’ve sequestered the images of sexual body parts on AZBlogX (“The dick days of summer”, here, with three stirring photos for gay men), but I won’t be shy about talking about men’s bodies and the excellent sexual practice of masturbation, so this isn’t for kids or the sexually modest.

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Posted in Clipping, Gender and sexuality, Language of sex, Style and register | 1 Comment »

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