Archive for December, 2019

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More pin-up boys

December 16, 2019

Superhero pin-up boys, specifically, by David Talaski-Brown (DTB from now on), from a POPSUGAR piece “This Artist Smashes Stereotypes by Giving Male Superheroes a Sexy, Pinup-Style Makeover” by Victoria Messina on 7/5/19:


(#1) DTB’s Captain America and his panties

In David Talaski-Brown’s mind, Thor doesn’t wear a red cape and full-body armor — he rocks a pink polka-dotted robe, green Hulk slippers, and, well, that’s about it. A 29-year-old artist from Portland, OR, David is flipping the script with male superheroes, giving them a sexy makeover as a nod to the way scantily clad female superheroes are traditionally depicted.

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Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics | 2 Comments »

The images quilt

December 15, 2019

The last in a set of four; the linguistics quilt, from the 19th, is its predecessor. As before, a 12-panel composition (roughly 6 x 3 ft) made of old t-shirts of mine, assembled into a quilt by Janet Salsman, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky and Kim Darnell (and photos by Kim).  This time, t-shirts with images that have pleased or entertained me:

(#1)

Now the 12 panels individually, by row (R) and column (C).

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Posted in Academic life, Art, Language and food, Language and plants, Linguistics in the comics, Logos, Mammoths, Movies and tv, My life, Poetry, Puns, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Xmas beefcake for a good cause

December 14, 2019

From Tim Evanson on Facebook, this image of (literally) horny guys in nothing but pouch-thrusting underwear, sucking suggestively on spicy sticks for Christmas:

(#1)

From Tim, I learn that this entertaining photo — a still from a Xmas beefcake video — was created by the Sellers Dorsey Foundation in 2013 as part of a Full Frontal Freedom / Out2Enroll campaign encouraging gay men to enroll in Obamacare. The full video can be viewed on the OUT Magazine site.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Music, Parody, Phallicity, Underwear, Vaginality | Leave a Comment »

Revisiting 39: penis fish on California beaches

December 13, 2019

A 12/12 story in the Guardian, “Thousands of ‘penis fish’ appear on California beach: Fat innkeeper worms typically burrow under the sand but recent storms have swept away layers, leaving them exposed” by Vivian Ho, beginning:


(#1) A beachgoer holds a fat inkeeper worm – otherwise known as a ‘penis fish’ – in Bodega Bay in June 2019 (photograph: Kate Montana / iNaturalist Creative Commons)

I’m not sure this is what the Weather Girls meant when they sang, “It’s raining men.”

Following a bout of winter storms in northern California, “thousands” of pink, throbbing, phallic creatures wound up pulsating along a beach about 50 miles north of San Francisco, Bay Nature reported.

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Posted in Language and animals, Language and food, Phallicity | Leave a Comment »

Two actor POP days

December 13, 2019

It’s Eva Marie Saint Lucy’s Day and, in today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro combo, a Kurt Russell terrier bounds in:


(#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.)

First, Kurt Russell and the Russell terrier. Then Eva Marie Saint and St. Lucy’s Day. In both cases, a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps (see the Page on this blog), with a name in a POP (a phrasal overlap portmanteau; see the Page on this blog).

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Posted in Actors, Holidays, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Shirtlessness, Understanding comics | 2 Comments »

The linguistics quilt

December 11, 2019

The third in a set of four; the university quilt, from yesterday, is its predecessor. As before, a 12-panel composition (roughly 6 x 3 ft) made of old t-shirts of mine, assembled into a quilt by Janet Salsman, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky and Kim Darnell (and photos by Kim).  This time, t-shirts for linguistics programs or linguistics events. Some of the shirts have small or subtle images on them, impossible to appreciate in a display like this one:


(#1) The pansy background is an especially nice touch, in a gift to me

So I’ll look at the 12 panels individually, close up, by row (R) and column (C).
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Posted in Academic life, My life | 1 Comment »

The university quilt

December 10, 2019

#2 in a set of 4, the first having been my 7/30/17 posting “The queer quilt”. To come: the linguistics quilt and the images quilt. Each one, a 12-panel composition (roughly 6 x 3 ft) made of old t-shirts of mine, assembled into a quilt by Janet Salsman, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky and Kim Darnell.

#1 re-used old queer t-shirts, some political, some playful, some artistic. #2 is university t-shirts (from roughly 20 to 40 years ago), from institutions where I’ve talked, either teaching a class there, speaking at a conference there, or giving an invited talk there.


(#1) names, abbreviated names, nicknames, logos, and seals: Northwestern Univ., Univ. of New Mexico, Brigham Young Univ.; Georgetown Univ., Univ. of Kentucky, American Univ.; Harvard Univ., banana slugs (the mascot of the Univ. of Calif. at Santa Cruz (UCSC)), Univ. of Pennsylvania; Univ. of Calif. at Davis, UCSC, Univ. of North Dakota

Still to come: a linguistics quilt, with lx-related t-shirts; and an image quilt, with amusing or arresting images of several kinds.
(more…)

Posted in Academic life, Logos, Memory, My life, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

A syncretic religious holiday

December 8, 2019

Recently posted on Facebook, this melding of the traditions of Judaism with the traditions of Jedi-ism for the holiday season, in French:


(#1) ‘May the light be with you’: the Jedi Master Yoda wields a lightsword menorah for Hanukkah (Fr. Hanoucca) — Happy Hanukkah! (Joyeuse fête de Hanoucca!)

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Posted in Arabic, French, Greetings, Hebrew, Holidays, Language and religion, Movies and tv, Pop culture, Rainbow | 3 Comments »

The signs of speechlessness

December 7, 2019

What do you say to convey that you can’t find any words to describe your state of mind? What’s the verbal equivalent of the speechlessness emoji 😶 ? (Which literally has no mouth, indicating an inability to speak.)

Some people have conventional expressions for this purpose. Here’s one of them, homina, in today’s Mother Goose and Grimm:

(#1)

As a cartoon bonus, we get the (metonymic) conversion of an expression evincing some state of mind — homina evincing bewilderment, surprise, or shock to the point of speechlessness —  to a measure noun denoting a degree of the evinced state of mind — homina as a unit of bewilderment etc. A special sort of nouning, generally available for interjections:

I give that experience three eeks / ughs / ewws / ouches / …

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Posted in Conversion, Emoji, Interjections, Linguistics in the comics, Metonymy, Movies and tv, Nouning, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

NO PENGUINS

December 4, 2019

A generic penguin ban sign (sold on Amazon, a CD Visionary no-penguins button):


(#1) What’s banned? Spheniscid birds. Why? Who knows. (They smell. They steal fish. They get underfoot. Whatever.)

and a ban — in a list of prohibitions against public vice or indecency — on the door of Loretta’s Authentic Pralines on N. Rampart St. in New Orleans (photo from the TripAdvisor South Africa site):


(#2) What’s banned? Who knows. Why? Because they’re a vice (like drinking or smoking) or are indecent (like profanity or nudity), presumably the latter.

(more…)

Posted in Clothing, Context, Language and food, Metaphor, Penguins, Race and ethnicity, Relevance, Semantics, Slang, Sociocultural conventions | 4 Comments »

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