News for vitreous penises, in two parts, this one, and (in a following posting) “They might be herons”, mostly about the artist Dale Chihuly exhibiting in botanical gardens. Penis simulacra in glass (occasionally, plastic or ceramics) here, merely suggestively phallic art there, but frangible male members will be thick on the ground, so if that makes you uncomfortable, move on to something else.
The text for part 1, from the Brittles’ trippy surrealist “Glass Penis”:
Looking through the bent-backed lovers
To see how the gay boys live
Looking through a glass penis
I pass over the many glass penis bongs and — some unease here — glass peniform dildos that you can find on the net, and move right to an Ali Express site (from China) offering
Creativo Universal TRANSPARENTE vidrio de alta boro pene Martini cóctel partido
(presenting this to me first in Spanish, for some reason); that is,
Creative Universal TRANSPARENT high boron glass penis Martini cocktail cup [or, possibly, shot glass, depending on how you think about it]
According to the ad, especially suited for bachelorette parties and hen parties. An illustration showing the cocktail cups, how to fill them, and how to drink from them:
(#1) Yes, not even remotely serious as drinkware, though the colors are pretty
Digression on the song “Glass Penis”, which the Beatles did a cheap rip-off of in “Glass Onion”:
I told you about strawberry fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well here’s another place you can go
Where everything flows.Looking through the bent-backed tulips
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion.I told you about the walrus and me, man
You know we’re as close as can be, man
Well here’s another clue for you all
The walrus was Paul.Standing on the cast iron shore, yeah
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah
Looking through the glass onionOh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Looking through…
In the Brittles original, the walrus couplet is of course a bow to Chihuly:
Well here’s another clue on the trail
The walrus was Dale
End of digression. And I move right on to some usable penis drinkware, in rainbow colors even. They’re plastic, but you can’t have everything:
(#2) Penis shot glasses by Kheper Games (found on Amazon)
Ok, they’re gags too. Then to some glass art.
There are a surprising number of stylized stained glass representations of penises, like this one:
(#3) A penis door panel (on a Reddit site)
Then back in three dimensions, this visually complex, tactilely satisying ceramic abstract by Italian artist Katia Fogliaro:
(#4) Multicolor penis sculpture (9.4 h x 5.5 w x 3.5 in)
Finally, to Chihuly, who seems to have crafted only one explicit penis simulacrum:
(#5) Glass phallus, executed at RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design, in 1967-68 (9 1/2″ x 4 1/2″)
On this blog, in my 12/12/18 posting “Three artists”, a note on Chihuly, the third of the artists.
Next up: the ease with which blown glass takes on symbolic meanings.
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