Arnold Zwicky's Blog

(warning: packed with allusions to, and sculptures of, playful cherubic penises, so subject to both the Art and the Infant exemptions from the X-rating of human penises (even those — or, maybe, especially those — that are in the midst of relieving themselves), but, still, not to everyone’s tastes)

It starts with the Peruvian Ernesto Cuba being touristic in Toronto, where, at the Prenup Pub (191 College St.), he encountered this whizzard in white, which he dubbed mojando la garganta ‘drenching the throat’:

(#1) From the Beer Advocate site: Tripel Karmeliet [‘Tripel Carmelite’] is a Tripel style beer [a strong pale ale; the origin of the name is unknown] brewed by Brouwerij Bosteels in Buggenhout, Belgium

Now, the pissing boy is a replica of the famous Manneken Pis statue in Brussels, Belgium, and the Prenup Pub specializes in Belgian and German beers and food, so the statue fits right in at the pub, even though the pub’s in Toronto (ca. 6100 km or 3800 mi from Brussels, across the Atlantic).

(#2) The Brussels model

In fact, the pub has two Manneken Pis replicas, one white, one black (the original is of course bronze). Whizz City.

Meanwhile, the Prenup in the pub name has nothing whatsoever to do with Belgium, beer, sculpture, cherubs, or micturition; it’s all about prenuptial agreements. (I know, all those P-words so easily take your thoughts down the primrose path to pee.)

Ok, there’s a lot of ground to cover here. I’ll start with Ernesto Cuba, since he brought me the photo in #1, and then just ramble on through the rest.

Ernesto Cuba. My 8/28/20 posting “Hola Queridx” has a section on EC: passionate LGBTQ activist, linguistics teacher, and scholar of ingüistica marica (crudely, ‘faggot linguistics’), now in Lima, Peru. He and I are long-time correspondents, and friends.

Manneken Pis. From Wikipedia:

Manneken Pis (Dutch for ‘Little Pissing Man’) is a landmark 55.5 cm (21.9 in) bronze fountain sculpture in central Brussels, Belgium, depicting a puer mingens; a naked little boy urinating into the fountain’s basin. Though its existence is attested as early as the mid-15th century, it was redesigned by the Brabantine sculptor Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder and put in place in 1618 or 1619. Its stone niche in rocaille style dates from 1770.

Manneken Pis has been repeatedly stolen or damaged throughout its history. Since 1965, a replica has been displayed with the original stored in the Brussels City Museum. It is one of the best-known symbols of Brussels and Belgium, inspiring many imitations and similar statues. The figure is regularly dressed up and its wardrobe consists of around one thousand different costumes. Due to its self-derisive nature, it is also an example of belgitude (French; lit. ’Belgianness’), as well as of folk humour (zwanze) popular in Brussels.

It’s cute, it’s adorable, it’s (excusably) dirty, it’s self-mockingly humorous in its crudeness (you bad bad boy, pissing right out in the street like that!), and it’s a celebrated symbol of Brussels and of Belgium.

Replicas. From my 1/15/15 posting “Shed your inhibitions”:

Part of the latest ad campaign for Equinox Fitness, a guy wielding a Manneken Pis:

(#3)

… Th guy … is confidently hefting a reproduction of Manneken Pis (various firms sell such reproductions, for your garden or living room or wherever) — [see #1 above]

More replicas. From the Prenup Pub, in photographs on the pub’s site, showing the replicas in situ:

(#4) In black

(#5) In white: EC’s Manneken

Yes, they’re not very good replicas.

And, finally…

Why Prenup? From the pub’s site, an evasive answer, but at least it tells you it’s supposed to be about prenuptial agreements and not any of the other topics I’ve been talking about:

Prenup opened its doors in 2014!

Now why is the name Prenup? Let’s just say that maybe we should all consider getting a prenup perhaps.

Such a stigma surrounding “prenuptial agreements” and how offensive they can be.

But we believe that you can come to Prenup Pub and sign your prenuptial agreement in good spirits.

What better way to sign a prenup over some great beer and food?

With 70 beers on tap and a focus on German and Belgian cuisine you cannot possibly go wrong.

This entry was posted on May 27, 2023 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Art, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language and the body, Language and the law, Linguists, Phallicity, Pop culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.