… on New Year’s Penultimateve (term from Stephanie Shih), yesterday: 2 penguin bulletins, 3 penis items (including two seasonal gay porn ads viewable in full on AZBlogX), and Totoro Linzer cookies for the holidays.
Nakamura penguins and their mechanical paper animal friends. Link from Michael Palmer on Facebook to a brief video on Haruki Nakamura’s interactive paper toys, some of which are penguins:
(#1)
This is a still shot, so it doesn’t give the sense of wonder and surprise that the toys evoke; for that, you need to watch a video showing the toys in action — the short one here, or the longer one here.
The riverside penguins of Prague. Stumbled upon in a search for something entirely different: the marvels of public art in Prague (which deserve a posting of their own), in particular at the Museum Kampa, and among these the riverside penguins of Kampa. I’ll lead with the march of the penguins:
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From a Travel Photo Discovery site on Prague’s public and street art:
Kampa park and museum: A close walk along the shoreline of the Vltava takes you directly to the Kampa museum courtyard, which is filled with large scale animated sculptures in red, blue and black figures, animals and abstract sculpture. It’s a beautiful space and I wished that I had more time to explore the inside of the museum, but there is a lot of public art to see on the grounds outside and facing the Vltava River including the marching penguins [above].
Panoramic view of the museum site, from the river:
(#3)
Marcing penguins on the right side of the photo. Yes, that’s a giant red lizard on the side of the building, and a huge red bulldog on the left. Courtyard sculptures:
(#4) A red rider, amongst other statuary
(#5) Two red rabbits
From Wikipedia:
Museum Kampa is a modern art gallery in Prague, Czech Republic, showing Central European, and in particular Czech work. The pieces are from the private collection of Meda Mládek, wife of Jan V. Mládek. The museum opened in 2003 and is housed in the Sova’s Mills on the eastern bank of the Kampa Island on the River Vltava.
There is a large sculpture of a chair by Magdalena Jetelová outside the museum, which is a prominent landmark visible from across the Vltava.
The DIY crotch bulge. On from penguins to penises. First, a Facebook find by Kim Darnell, a do-it-yourself (and edible!) crotch stuffing for men: a banana in your pocket — yes! that is a banana in my pocket — to create an instant moose-knuckle. The finished product illustrated here:
(#6)
Instructions in a peppy video available on both Facebook and Twitter, and on Reddit here. You trace around the banana on a piece of cloth, cut out the tracing, glue it to your underwear, insert banana, and Bob’s your uncle.
Seasonal gay porn ads. These ads are never subtle. Yesterday, two appealing to specific tastes in man-man sex. First, from the Dirk Yates studio, which specializes in videos framed as straight military men (Marines, especially) having sex with one another (typically, for the first time). The ad is further specialized: it shows a young man serving as the focus of a gangsuck (in this case, taking on three men at once). Photo on AZBlogX, header here:
(#7) Marines tasting each other’s cocks for the first time!
Two previous postings on the Dirk Yates genre:
on 1/28/16 on AZBlog, “Dean Phoenix, Dirk Yates, and curvature”
on 5/30/16 on AZBlogX, “Memorial Day military porn”
Then after Yates came the latest ad from the Kink company’s Men on Edge division, offering edging videos. Ad on AZBlogX, caption here:
(#8)
On this blog, on 3/8/13, “Edging”, about the BDSM practice in question.
Totoro Linzer cookies. From Kim Darnell, a link to a 12/14/17 posting (by anita) on the Dessert First site: “christmastime is here: totoro linzer cookies”:
(#9) Austro-Japanese holiday delights: almonds in the dough, raspberry jam filling (with redcurrant jelly as an alternative)
Two things: Linzer cookies; and Totoro.
Start with Linzertorte. From Wikipedia:
(#10) A Linzertorte
The Linzer Torte (or Linzertorte) is an Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the pastry. It is named after the city of Linz, Austria.
Linzer Torte is a very short, crumbly pastry made of flour, unsalted butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, cinnamon and lemon juice, and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts, but … walnuts or almonds are used, covered with a filling of redcurrant jam or, alternatively, plum butter, thick raspberry, or apricot jam. It is covered by a lattice of dough strips. The dough is rolled out in very thin strips of pastry and arranged to form a criss-cross design on top of the preserves. The pastry is brushed with lightly beaten egg whites, baked, and sometimes decorated with sliced almonds.
Linzer Torte is a holiday classic in the Austrian, Hungarian, Swiss, German, and Tirolean traditions, often eaten at Christmas. Linzer Torte is often made like small tarts or cookies in North American bakeries.
The Linzer cookies of my childhood (drawing on both German Swiss and Pennsylvania German traditions) always had almond dough and raspberry jam filling.
As for Totoro, see the section on the character in my 1/11/17 posting “Characters”, about “My Neighbor Totoro … a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki”:
(#11)
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