(Largely about men’s bodies — not crudely, but the topic will be uncomfortable for some readers, so be warned that skin and bulges are on the agenda.)
From Romania, through the fabled sensuality of Greek islands in the Aegean, to you: men’s swimwear that embraces playful pinkness while pushing enhancements of male genitals forward. The Elia swimwear company, in a series of ads on the Daily Jocks site.
Starting with the DJ ad from 6/8, for the Kos Titan Swim Short in the Beach Unicorn pattern:
(#1) Real men flaunt their stuff in pink, with little ducks
(A lot about jockstraps and their contents, so not to everyone’s taste.)
Following on my postings about butch fagginess in men’s underwear, more intersections of styles of masculinity with styles of homosexuality, still with men’s underwear as signs of these styles.
(#1) A (candy) pink jock in PUMP!’s playful Space Candy line, with my note: “a pink jockstrap nicely combines max-macho in the underwear world with high-faggy in color symbolism”
Pink jockstraps (which deserve a separate posting [this is it]) generally take us off the end of the pier at the butch-faggy boardwalk: what we’ve got there is usually a stone-solid muscle queen, a guy with the best of male musculature, in a way-high homo presentation of self.
(Highly sexualized men’s underwear, leading to blunt talk of men’s bodies and mansex. Lots of other content, but this is enough to put it out of bounds for kids and the sexually modest.)
Today’s Daily Jocks ad, for a new line of underwear for the PUMP! company — the image is meant to be outrageous, fey, macho, and funny, all at once — with their ad copy:
(#1) The all new Space Candy Collection from PUMP! has launched. A new take on PUMP’s classic shape, available in Space Candy Pink & Purple. [available as a boxer (boxer brief), (low-rise) brief, and jock]
An image crammed with content — incuding those little candy-themed patches on the front (on the hip or pouch) and the back (on one cheek) of the garments.
In anticipation of a visit to Palo Alto’s Gamble Garden with motss.conners on Saturday, two items from my last visit to the garden (on 7/31): blue flax-lilies, which are neither flax nor lily plants, but do have bright blue berries; and dark purple, almost black, hollyhocks.
Following up on my posting yesterday, “Flirting with magenta” (about three plants with magenta flowers), Randy McDonald has sent me a piece from the site Speed River Journal: An urban naturalist’s progress: “Magenta spreen, a worthy spring green” on 5/29/19 by Van Waffle — about the plant often known as tree spinach:
(#1) Close-up of Chenopodium giganteum leaves (from Wikipedia)
Yesterday, the flowers of the season were still yellow — les jaunes d’Avril — but today they are white — les muguets pour le premier Mai — also (on the plus side) delicately pretty and highly scented but (on the minus side) both poisonous and rampant, while conveying beginnings, affectionate respect, and the power of unions marching in the streets. Hey, they’re just colors, and just plants — It’s Just Stuff, as I say every so often — each capable of symbolizing pretty much anything, in some sociocultural context or another.
The (Christian) liturgical colors for the season: white for Easter Sunday, red for today, Good Friday, the day of crucifixion (and for some churches, red for all of Holy Week). White the color of purity and perfection, and so of Jesus as Christ. Red the color of blood and sacrifice, and so of the crucifixion.
As it happens, yesterday’s events included a visit to the Gamble Garden in Palo Alto, where I encountered two especially notable flowers, one white, one deep red. First, the flowers, not (at first) identified:
Today’s ad from Daily Jocks, with a sale on men’s high-end underwear from Australian firms, in recognition of Australia Day (tomorrow, the 26th):
(#1) The 2eros Midnight Rose pattern (blue roses on a deep purple background), in a swim slip (Speedo-style swimsuit, but Speedo is a trade name) on the left and swimshorts on the right
Ad copy:
Celebrate Australia Day with DailyJocks and get 15% off your favourite Australian brands including; 2eros, Teamm8, Marcuse, Supawear & many more!
My parody caption:
Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth?
Blue roses are my place on earth
Look what Facebook showed me as an ad. They are leather and 50% off … I know they are meant to be “Pride boots” but I like them because they seem like something from a Dr. Seuss illustration.
Three candy bulletins from the last month: the news (which came to me from Scott Schwenter on Facebook, reporting exultantly from Pickerington OH) that Trix Fruity Shapes (from General Mills) are back on the shelves; today’s Wayno & Piraro Bizarro cartoon with cotton gin ‘gin(-flavored) cotton candy’; and the Sunday 10/28 NYTMagazine Candy Issue.
