… Wayno’s title for yesterday’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, with its excellent POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) laissez-fairy godmother:
(#1) laissez-faire + fairy godmother yields a hands-off mentor and guide, of not much use to the disgruntled Cinderella, who will now have to do her own prince-finding (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page)
(It’s the morning of Groundhog Day 2023. American families: do you know where your marmots are?)
The late Angela Lansbury, starring in a glitzy television production as the introduction to the 1973 Academy Awards show: a 7-minute extravagant celebration (in three parts) of show business glamor.
Now, the Academy Awards shows are already spectacles of Hollywood’s rapturous self-congratulation, always teetering on the edge of self-parody, but for a while in the 1970s and 1980s, the brakes on spectacle were off, and we got Oscar openers that could, just barely, be read as fabulously glamorous, but were always open to being interpreted as camp — earnest, usually unintended, but definitely camp.
Sometimes, as in 1973, surely intended.
In any case, the star vehicle for the 1973 opener was Angela Lansbury.
(#1) AL’s 1973 Oscars apotheosis: Star Descending a Staircase, packing into a few moments a whole fabulous universe of allusions to stage musicals, extravagant choreography, movies, stylized glamor, carnival, and flagrant camp
I’ll start with a brief 2016 review of the show, go on to some chat between Aaron Broadwell and me last October on the show as profoundly gay, and take it from there, with a special tribute to AL as one of the great character actors of all time.
From Benita Bendon Campbell yesterday, a delightful plant, new to her, that had just come into her life. Her photo:
(#1) A white Scaevola aemula cultivar, in a hanging pot; the plant grows as a garden shrub, but hangs or drapes quite satisfyingly, as here
The scaevola plant was new to me as well; it was hard to believe that I’d never come across a plant whose common name is fairy fan-flower and has cultivars that are intensely purplish-blue:
(Naked male bodies — genitals concealed — and references to man-on-man sex, but nothing flat-out raunchy, so use your judgment)
Midsummer Night (6/24, with fairies reveling in the woods) broke onto the feast day of St. George Michael of the Beverley Tearoom (b. 6/25/63), the patron saint of parks at night and of fellatio by men in public places — a racy lead-up to Stonewall Day (6/28) — and then the Falcon / Naked Sword Store greeted me with e-mail exhorting me to “Get your Pride on” with its $9.97 DVD sale:
(Some male body parts, depicted and discussed in plain, but not raunchy, terms. So not squarely in the Sex Zone, but not tasteful either. Caution advised for kids and the sexually modest.)
For me, it all started with a recent ad on Facebook for suit sets (sleeveless tank tops with bikini underpants) from the Fabmens company in a variety of intriguing patterns, including a (more or less) rainbow “color block” pattern seen here from the rear:
(#1) The design of the underpants strikingly accentuates the wearer’s ass / butt / bum cleft / crack / cleavage, in a way that in my queer fashion I (at least) find decidedly hot
Two One Big Happy cartoons recently in my comics feed. Originally from 1/29, a strip in which Ruthie misunderstands “Randi with an “I””, taking it to be “Randi with an eye”. And originally from 1/25, a Sunday strip in which Ruthie misunderstands “pole dance”, taking it to be “Pole dance”.
(This posting — with its depictions of and street-language descriptions of, sex between men — is totally unsuitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
An ad, both very carefully and pleasingly composed and also goofily absurd, for the HUNT eZine gay porn sale for Valentine’s Day 2021, plays on movie clichés of tango or flamenco dancing, in which a red rose (symbolizing sexual passion) is held between the teeth of one of the dancers in a couple, most commonly the woman, but sometimes the man. (Note: roses, of whatever color, between the teeth play no role whatsoever in actual tango and flamenco.)
The ad shows two men who are fucking, not dancing, but the top (exhibiting a fiercely ecstatic facial expression) has a red rose clenched between his teeth, as a symbol of his overwhelming desire for the bottom (whose eyes are closed and whose mouth is half open, in receptive ecstasy):
Today is Canada Day, Canada’s national day, celebrated in many ways, perhaps most remarkably in this display of national pride — “hot shirtless muscle jocks in Canadian themed pants”, according to one of the many Pinterest sites on which it’s reproduced — which came to me from Tim Evanson, who thought that they might be a Canadian sports team of some kind (they certainly are fit):
(#1) The Canadian Thunder team: Bobby Ryan, Carlo Spina, Michael Scratch, Daniel Bennato, Vince Johansson and Malcolm Foster
Yes, a team, and yes, certified Canadians (I’d feared they’d turn out to be American male models hired for the photo, but, gratifyingly, not), and the men are no doubt accomplished athletes, but they aren’t a sports team.
(Mango Meshman shows off his body, to the accompaniment of mansexually suggestive lyrics. Not for everyone.)
(#1)
The beauty of his buttocks
And the juicy sweetness
Of his secret parts
As I noted in yesterday’s posting “Das Wappen”, over the years, Zwickys have moved from Canton Glarus not only to all parts of Switzerland, and from Switzerland north and west in Europe (and then further west to the Americas), but also to the east, all the way to the Slavic lands — specifically, to what is now Ukraine and Russia. And also to what is now Belarus. Where we find the Tsviki — Цвики — family.
Two Belarusian Tsvikis, about 60 years apart in age. One, Leonid, back in Vitebsk, Belarus; the other, Julia (who came to the US a few years ago), in Hallandale Beach FL.
