Mostly an accumulation of unblogged material from the past — on, however, a topic that’s immediately relevant to my current medical treatments (stemming from two doctor’s appointments on 11/21), which I’ll get to eventually. But one thing at a time: start with the background.
My 11/17/23 posting “My in-law news from a month ago” opened with this photo:
(#1) My husband-equivalent Jacques Henry Transue, his mother Monique Serpette Transue, and his older brother Bill (William R.R. Transue) from about 50 years ago
I got the photo in e-mail on the birthday of Virginia Bobbitt Transue (Bill’s wife, and so my sister-in-law-in-law) on 10/12 — the day after Jacques’s and my wedding-equivalent anniversary, celebrated on National Coming Out Day, 10/11. I wrote then:
VT’s birthday took the family’s e-mail messages afield in a different direction, about, of all things, planetary mnemonics … In postings to come, I’ll use that birthday to introduce more about my in-law family, then later get into the planetary mnemonics.
This is those postings to come, in one big package.
(On VT’s being my husband(-equivalent)’s brother’s wife, hence technically my sister-in-law-in-law, see my 8/20/23 posting “Double in-laws”.)
A sweet and cheering gift from my old friend Kathryn Burlingham in the mail yesterday: two waxed amaryllis bulbs from Holland Bulb Farms in Milwaukee WI, plants that should bloom in the later winter here, promising spring and Easter.
(#1) The solid-white variety Grateful Heart; you can see the wax coating on the bulb and the attached metal ring on which the plant sits
(#2) The variety Gingerbread, white with red stripesWaxed amaryllises are a new thing for me, but apparently they’ve been around for some time (an invention of Dutch bulb growers, though I haven’t found any sources about the history of wax coating for flower bulbs).
A common joke form exploits an ambiguous expression E. Prior likelihood or the preceding context in the joke favors one understanding for E, but then fresh context (in the joke) brings out another, more surprising one. The effect is that the sense of E has shifted as the joke proceeds. It’s a pun, son. Used in a sense-shifting pun joke. (Puns get used in all sorts of jokes: knock-knock jokes, one type of riddle joke, and more.)
I now offer two examples that especially tickled me, to show how such ((phonologically) perfect) puns work. Then some comments on a different joke form, formula pun jokes, which can turn on imperfect puns and involve a different kind of set-up / pay-off from sense-shifting pun jokes.
It’s December, and as the Christmas elves appear, there comes a startling elfshelfism joke (in abbreviated form), on Facebook today. I got it from Ryan Tamares, who got it from Britannic Xen Osiris Zane, who got it from someone else, and who knows where such memic material originated.
(#1) Yes, Spock on a cock: the science officer of the starship USS Enterprise, riding a monstrously large rooster (across a bleak alien landscape)
To get to the punchline Spock on a cock, you have to recognize the figure of Spock (from popular-culture tv and movie fiction) and also recall that cock — most commonly used for raunchy reference to the penis — is also a somewhat antique or specialist word for a rooster. (As a result, #1 is not only a joke, but also a slightly dirty joke.)
As described in my 12/22/22 posting “Elfshelfisms”, the elfshelfism is a riddle form presented visually, and depends on rhyme (perfect rhyme or half-rhyme), with example punchlines: lemur on a femur, Dolly [Parton] on a tamale, and sonorants on cormorants.
(Hey, it’s Tom of Finland, what do you expect? — it’s dripping with raunchy suggestiveness; not to everyone’s taste)
🐇 🐇 🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to inaugurate December, and time for some seasonal sexy silliness. Meanwhile, it’s World AIDS Day, a moment of retrospective grieving and prospective hope.
For the month of December in my 2023 Tom of Finland calendar, this b&w vintage Santa (from 1982):
(#1) A pleasant smile, admirable pecs and abs, and a gigantic ToF erection
And now, three more ToF Santas, in vivid color.
