Archive for July, 2019

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4th of July displays

July 6, 2019

(Much about men’s bodies and mansex, in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest; also about military displays for Independence Day, but that comes after the raunchy stuff — Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.)

So we have the 4th of July as a celebration of commercial mansex (every holday is a sales opportunity): selling premium men’s underwear by hawking men’s bodies; and offering gay porn sales, usually with a holiday-themed image (naked bodies wrapped in the flag are a conventional presentation, but there are many other possibilities). From this year’s rich crop of ads, I’ve chosen one of each type: a holiday ad for DJX homowear in the Trough line; and an ad for the political-satire gayporn film Cauke for President from TitanMen.

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Posted in Facial expressions, Flags, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, History, Holidays, Language and politics, Phonology, Poetry, Signs and symbols, Underwear | 2 Comments »

A building guide for the perplexed

July 5, 2019

A Dave Coverly Speed Bump cartoon (from 10/17/17) that appeared in a Facebook posting in this form:


(#1) The philosopher’s eternal question, en français

I wasn’t aware that the strip came in a French version, but evidently it does; I still don’t know where and how it’s distributed (and I now wonder if there’s a Spanish version too, though I haven’t found one).

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Posted in Books, Catchphrases, Formulaic language, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Philosophy | Leave a Comment »

Death, first as tragedy, then as farce

July 5, 2019

Today’s  Zippy brings us a Grim Reaper incarnated as a Twee Creeper:


(#1) Death Boy, who can still kill with cuteness

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Posted in Comic conventions, History, Language and politics, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

Am I a bird?

July 4, 2019

The 7/3 Rhymes With Orange takes us to the Home for Aged Superheroes, where Superman is unsure of the volant creature he sees in the mirror and fears he’s going blind, or slipping into dementia (an unusually poignant theme for a cartoon):


(#1) In the land of the caped superheroes

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Posted in Art, Categorization and Labeling, Gender and sexuality, Language and animals, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Myths, Nouning, Poetry, Semantics | 3 Comments »

Numerology

July 3, 2019

On Facebook this morning, from Lisa Cohen in Chicago, this query (lightly edited):

Shapenote friends, am I the only weirdo who does this? When I see a bus with a number from a new to me route, I try to see if I can recall the corresponding tune in the Denson book. This confession brought to you by my pride in recalling that 49B is “Mear” without needing to look it up.

I replied:

In my current life, I don’t see many buses. But dates, dates do it for me. Yesterday (7/2) was Bellevue (72b), today (7/3) is Cusseta (73t) and Arlington (73b). D-Day (6/6) is the wonderful Jordan (First) (66). In the reverse direction, St. Thomas (34b), the standard first warm-up song in Palo Alto, is my grand-daughter Opal’s birthday (3/4, March 4th).

I will explain some of the inside-shapenote stuff.

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Posted in Language and religion, Music, Numbers | 1 Comment »

The fiberglass men of Skylunchland

July 2, 2019

A few days back, I presented a little art quiz: to identify the source of a piece of conceptual art I called Skylunch III (mounted on a pickup truck passing through Columbus Circle in NYC)


(#1) The Columbus Circle Skylunch III of 6/28/19 (photo by Bob Eckstein) — hereafter, Skylunch IIIA, or just IIIA for short

This was clearly a version of a similarly mounted Sergio Furnari sculpture I called Skylunch II (in mixed media, with metallic finish), which in turn was a three-dimensional homage to a famous 1932 photograph Lunch atop a Skyscraper (New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam).

It turns out that IIIA is just Furnari again, but Furnari overseeing a much stranger world than the one of Skylunch II: a land of fiberglass men, demi-clones of the ones in Skylunch I and II, with features varied in many ways, large and small. There’s a whole universe of potential Skylunch IIIs, populated by the fiberglass men of Skylunchland. Apparently, each day a truck goes out — or, maybe, several trucks, it’s hard to know — with a different selection of men on it, in different numbers, arranged in different ways.

I have clear evidence of two different ones currently on the streets of NYC, but of course any number could be created at any time.

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Posted in Art, Parody | Leave a Comment »

Oh Canada baby, ripple my maple leaves!

July 1, 2019

Today is Canada Day, Canada’s national day, celebrated in many ways, perhaps most remarkably in this display of national pride — “hot shirtless muscle jocks in Canadian themed pants”, according to one of the many Pinterest sites on which it’s reproduced — which came to me from Tim Evanson, who thought that they might be a Canadian sports team of some kind (they certainly are fit):


(#1) The Canadian Thunder team: Bobby Ryan, Carlo Spina, Michael Scratch, Daniel Bennato, Vince Johansson and Malcolm Foster

Yes, a team, and yes, certified Canadians (I’d feared they’d turn out to be American male models hired for the photo, but, gratifyingly, not), and the men are no doubt accomplished athletes, but they aren’t a sports team.

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Posted in Dance, Language and the body, Movies and tv, Shirtlessness, Signs and symbols | 2 Comments »

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