Archive for the ‘Events and occasions’ Category

Fathers Day, the survey

June 21, 2026

(about the holiday, and masculinity, and enough man-on-man sex to make this posting out of bounds for kids and the sexually modest)

First take: the long pan. From my 6/16/19 posting “On this day in 2019”:

(US) Fathers Day. For some of us, this is a day to remember our fathers with affection. I’m one of the lucky ones; I’ve written about mine several times, most extensively in my 1/30/11 posting “It Gets Better / Wonderful dad”.

It’s also an American commercial holiday that might better be labeled Masculinity Day, aimed at selling things stereotypically associated with high masculinity in either the upper middle class or the working class; elaboration on this point in my 6/10/18  posting “Gearing up for Fathers Day”. [AZ: I am largely alienated from American normative masculinity, have been as long as I can remember, so have gone my own way, on a path of homomasculinity, where both my sociocultural affiliations and my sexual desires take me off the broad highway and into the steamy jungle underbrush]

And then through its role as Masculinity Day and through complex associations involving gay men and fathers, Fathers Day is also a high holiday for gay porn, with at least three different themes: sex between father and son; Daddy-Boy relationships; and sex involving older men — called daddies — especially, very muscular ones. [AZ: of the three themes, only Daddy / Boy works for me, and that’s a recent discovery: in this world of sexual fantasy, despite my advanced age, I turn out to be, as we say there, a very good Boy; there is, apparently, always space for pleasant surprises]

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Happy Birthday, Mr. President

June 17, 2026

(Significant amounts of sexual crudity, so not for the eyes and ears of kids or the sexually modest)

Niall Maher’s New Yorker daily cartoon for 6/15/26:


(#1) To make any sense of this wonderful cartoon, you need to have detailed knowledge of two different events: from 5/19/1962 (I was just a month away from graduating from Princeton); and from 6/14/2026 (essentially, now), with a glance forward to 7/4 — events celebrating the birthdays of two different US Presidents (John F. Kennedy then, our overlord Grabpussy now), through two different renditions of the song “Happy Birthday”: in 1962, in a potent haze of female sexual desire and sexual desirability (by Marilyn Monroe, in as close to naked as she should get while being in principle fully and elaborately clothed), but in this week’s cartoon, by a muscular machine of male aggression (who doesn’t look at all ready to deliver an adoring serenade to this particular President)

And now: backstory, tons of backstory.

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Another mishearing

May 31, 2026

🐅 🐅 🐅 tiger tier tiger for ultimate May, the gateway to the sultry rabbits of summer, those promiscuous creatures of the great queen, Juno (is it hot in here?)

A follow-up to my 5/29 posting “Three mishearings”, with  yet another surprising slip of the ear, eco-terrorist heard as ego-terrorist: model utterance with /k/, variant with /g/, differing minimally, in voicing — setting up a relationship that can be exploited in an imperfect pun, a possibility that’s been ostentatiously realized in writing by Wayne Bradshaw

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On the AZ watch at Stanford linguistics

May 27, 2026

The Stanford linguistics AZ community — adjunct faculty Annie Zaenen and Arnold M. Zwicky, graduate student Anissa Zaitsu — is pleased to announce the PhD dissertation oral presentation of one of its little band:

The Landscape of Polarity-Sensitivity in African American English: Meaning and Structure by Anissa Rei Zaitsu: PhD dissertation oral presentation (Monday, June 8, 2026, 1:00-2:15pm). Committee: Vera Gribanova (co-chair), Cleo Condoravdi (co-chair), Boris Harizanov, Nandi Sims, and Gabriella Safran (Slavic Languages and Literatures, university chair).  

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African iris

May 9, 2026

(To the memory of Ann Daingerfield Zwicky, who was born Ann Walcutt Daingerfield on 5/9/1937. Her favorite flower was the Japanese iris and her least favorite holiday was (US) Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May.)

Found almost everywhere in today’s walk with my helper Isaac around a few blocks south of my house: a pretty plant growing in clumps, with narrow leaves, and at the tips of stalks, modest yellow (occasionally white) iris-like (but flat) flowers, with three petals and three sepals:


(#1) The flower of the month

Some digging around got it identified as the (yellow) African iris, Dietes bicolor. An excellent plant.

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How’m I doin’?

May 4, 2026

A calendrical reminder, from my 5/4/24 posting on this blog:

today is (at least) three holidays, one deadly serious, two entertaining. … Four Dead in Ohio Day (remembering the 1970 Kent State shootings), Star Wars Day [May the Force be with you], and (in the US, where May 4th is 5/4) Dave Brubeck Day (for the 5/4 time signature in music [celebrated in Brubeck’s album Take Five])

Whassup? Every so often, a friend who, inexplicably, has not been following my postings attentively on a daily basis decides to catch up on things by e-mailing me to ask how I am, how I’ve been doing, what’s up with me, am I ok, or something else along these lines. Most recently, How are you? from a friend on 4/23; I told them more than they probably wanted to know, when something terse in between Not dead yet and Fabulous would have been enough.

If they wrote today, I’d be ready with a reply: fabulous. Well, as fabulous as it gets for a seriously disabled 85-year-old with (among other things) advanced kidney disease. This morning’s I’m still kickin’ e-mail to my daughter (somewhat edited and expanded):

Slept 6 pm to 4:12 am — 10 hours beginning to end, but only 8 hrs. of actual sleep, because of a long break for half-dozing sexual fantasies that crowded my mind and hi-jacked my body, culminating in a fabulous cataclysmic orgasm (a sign of robust general health). And then my first morning vitals (at 5:17 am) had blood pressure in my target zone (123/73) and pulse (at 64) as well.

Figuratively, I danced my happy happy joy joy dance. In actuality I methodically exchanged my soggy underwear for fresh, a morning ritual I’ve performed for 75 years now. But even the messiness of real life can be a delight. I’ve been given, all my life, to nearly dying from one thing or another, so it was inconceivable that I would live to old age; but here I am, with many of my gifts and pleasures either intact or transformed into others that are also valuable or satisfying. That’s just wonderful.

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Mayday!

May 1, 2026

🐇 🐇 🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to inaugurate the month of May — Mayday celebrating labor, spring (new growth, rebirth, fertility), and romance, in a variety of ways (parades, dancing, maypoles, bonfires, public displays of affection)

From Hana Filip on Facebook this morning:

May 1: Workers’ Labo(u)r Day (international) and the day of (romantic) love celebration (a kind of Valentine Day on May 1 in the Czech Republic). Two seemingly incompatible ideas. Karel Čapek sees a connection between the two: “It is love that wreaked / inflicted on us life and all its travails … and so, dear friends, on Workers’ Labour Day we must talk about (romantic) love.”  [AZ: Čapek coined robot ‘humanoid machine’ from Czech robota ‘forced labor’]

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On this day in history

April 29, 2026

On this day (penultimate April) in history, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train arrived in Cleveland OH, following his assassination on 4/14/1865. As described by Tim Evanson on FB today:

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The pleasures of Pittsburgh

April 12, 2026

From the Visit Pittsburgh site, for 4/12’s occasion, “How to Celebrate 412 Day in Pittsburgh”:

We love celebrating Pittsburgh every day, but 412 Day is an extra excuse to honor all things Steel City.

Whether you live in the 412 or outside of it (maybe the 724 or 814?), people far and wide come to Pittsburgh to celebrate 412 Day every April 12th. The city comes alive in fun festivities and Pittsburgh pride

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Easter cressheads

April 6, 2026

A Jacquie Lawson digital greeting card from my old friend Benita Bendon Campbell (who appears frequently on this blog) for Easter, featuring garden flowers, cresshead eggs (eggshells with human faces drawn on them and with green plants — cresses especially — sprouting from them, like hair), and, eventually, large amiable rabbits (not shown below). A penultimate shot of the developing scene:


(#1) A festival of spring flowers and cressheads

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