(Lots about men’s bodies and mansex, in very plain language. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)
Poetry inspired by a recent event in my life and by one of my favorite Frank O’Hara poems, “Lana Turner has collapsed!”. That will lead ineluctably to the Persian-born bodybuilder, underwear model, and gay pornstar Arad Winwin. Everything below the fold.
Passed on by Jeff Bowles on FB today, this Pearls Before Swine cartoon from 2017:
By far the most outrageous elaborate pun I’ve seen from Pastis (others can be found in the Page on Pearls Before Swine on this blog). Set up bit by bit, accreting the components of the monstrously complex result. In a different order from the final result, of course, so you can’t appreciate where it’s going,
And then Pastis’s usual meta move in the last panel, in which the characters recognize that they’re in a cartoon. In this case, Rat produces Abraham Lincoln (and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) to berate Pastis for his word play.
(Consider the title: not for kids or the sexually modest.)
(#1) Josh Rider and his baking pan; his half-hard dick has been cropped for WordPress modesty, but can be viewed in my AZBlogX posting today, “Josh Rider bakes raw”
From two friends on Facebook (lightly edited) on Tuesday (US Memorial Day having been on Monday):
1: What is up with “Happy Memorial Day?” It’s a day to remember the dead … I feel like people have no idea what Memorial Day is!
2: I’ve seen a lot of “happy” Memorial Day comments too. Unfathomable.
For them, such well-wishings are akin to “Happy Yom Kippur” (the Day of Atonement in Judaism) or “Merry Good Friday” (Crucifixion Day in Christianity) as expressions of goodwill — deeply at odds with the solemnity of the occasions.
Their reactions have been shared by many others. There’s a simple response, which I gave on Facebook and repeat below. Then there’s a more complex, messy response. (The topic will eventually lead, given my inclinations, to discussions of homowear and gay porn for the holiday — definitely racy, but not, I think, quite over the line into Not Safe For Minors territory.)
[some corrections from an earlier versiom]
From Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky on Sunday, some delightful small gifts for this difficult time: two face masks — a piece of op art turned into a mask, and a fanciful Emperor Penguin [Elizabeth insists it’s an Emperor, but I was convinced it was a King] with a crown — and a very large, very political tea towel.
Am I elected yet? Am I re-elected yet? Zippyclone examples from the US presidential elections in 1984 and 1988. The big campaign poster from 1984, with the former variant:
(#1) Taco sauce in hand, Ding Dongs at the ready, Zippy throws his topknot into the electoral ring, challenging President Ronald Reagan and former Vice President Walter Mondale (Hat tip: Tom Frenkel)
It looks like Zippy is a perpetual independent candidate, but most of the campaign literature is in comic books, calendars, and posters, rather than in the strips. I’ve found one strip on his presidential runs, from 2012 (in the mainstream: incumbent President Barack Obama vs. former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney):
NOTE: The beginning of this posting is perfectly fine, but it turns out to be about not Stanford’s Steph Shih, but instead about a New York-based ceramic artist Stephanie H. Shih. From her website:
STEPHANIE H. SHIH explores concepts of home —— not just as a physical place, but also as cultural, generational, and emotional spaces we inhabit —— through the lens of Asian-American identity. Her work has been shown at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (Pomona, CA), Wieden+Kennedy (Portland, OR), and Hashimoto Contemporary (San Francisco, CA) and featured by NPR, Los Angeles Times, Vogue, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn.
(Rueful thanks to Patrick Callier for exposing my error to me.)
I will now attempt to reorganize the previous material to preserve the discussion of the ceramic art, which I find moving; and to preserve a celebration of Stanford graduate Steph Shih, for her multifarious academic and artistic talents
That was January and February and it was unpleasant. Then things got really bad (last day out of the house on 3/8, then two brushes with death, but that’s not my topic here).
So: the Auden poem; FPNs (faggot persecution nightmares), one set off by Torch Song Trilogy; and the astonishing devastation of Beethoven’s “Rage Over a Lost Penny”.
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro “Writer’s Block”, with a plumber coming to the rescue:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
The plumber’s explanation alerts us to the fact that this is about a pun (involving homonyms), but it doesn’t locate the responsible item. He’s holding out a shoe, indicating that this is the relevant object. Crucially, it’s not just any shoe, but a specific type of shoe, known as a … clog. Ah, and the plumber’s job was presumably to clear a clog in the toilet. (But ya gotta know your shoes.)
Further ah: the clog in the toilet was a clog.
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro (“Joust Desserts”) takes us to the restaurant Le Chevalier de Bon Goût, whose clientele is dragons:
(#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.)
The dragons are wielding tools for cracking open knights in armor to get at the tasty meat inside: their versions of the wooden mallets and seafood crackers used for wrestling lobsters to submission. And they are wearing knight bibs: their version of the lobster bibs offered by seafood restaurants.
