The first of two postings about message-bearing t-shirts. This one is a riff on a tee that I posted about in 2022; its message is the playful 100% Certified Queer, and the label QUEER in it turns out to be a many-layered thing.
The posting to come later focuses on four tees recently acquired or on their way to me soon: three with labels on them — GAY, FAIRY, PANSY — and one with gorgeous pansy flowers, the label being merely implicit.
(images that aren’t actually XXX-rated, but get as close to the line as possible while serving WordPress modesty — so some readers may choose to avert their eyes)
Briefly noted. For charging up the senses — big jolts for someone of my inclinations — on a quiet Sunday, Daily Jocks has sent out a mailer ad for thongs this morning (8/30) celebrating the male body as sexual object, close up, fore and aft:
My right hip joint is now a metallic wonder, a titanium replacement in 2012 for the joint nature gave me, which had excruciatingly degenerated from osteoarthritis. I love the name titanium: it trips off the tongue, and as a proud gay man and an enthusiast of MND (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) in several of its incarnations, I choose to understand the name as a reference to Titania, Queen of the Fairies — silly faggot, titanium is for ur-deities.
Now to unpack all of this.
Having just done two little postings on brief subjects this morning, I’m now going to wade into a few somewhat meatier subjects that have the potential to explode into larger matters of some weight.
The first of these came to me in tv commercials for the Liberty Mutual insurance company, featuring a Struggling Actor character — all of which delighted me and made me laugh out loud. One of my favorites, “Biberty Bungle” (the one with the bubbles), you can view here.
In the last few days, I’ve returned to two movies from long ago that gave me great pleasure then and have just brought me fresh joy. From 1953 (when I was in high school, in Pennsylvania), Roman Holiday, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck (which came up on a free classic movie channel on my cable service). And from 1963 (when I was in grad school, in Massachusetts), Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney and a cast of wonderful character actors (which I had just gotten the DVD of in the mail).
(Crude, but not actually X-rated; but the title is HOT PANTS HOMO, so it won’t be to everyone’s taste)
From Chris Ambidge on the Facebook group soc-motss on 8/10:
[CA:] I must have done something wrong — I’ve never seen a book like this on a bookstore shelf. Maybe I didn’t have enough Ovaltine™?
CA alludes to vintage ads for Ovaltine, notable (these days) for their use of the adjective gay ‘light-hearted, carefree’, e.g. “To Wake Up GAY in the Morning! Just Try this at Bedtime Tonight!” (see my 7/20/17 posting “Ovaltine mornings”).
It’s mid-August, and still hot summer in Palo Alto, but the nights are now cool (quilt time is upon me) and it’s cool when I get up (around 3 am), moving me to put on a thick flannel shirt and gelling the coconut oil I use to treat my body (it becomes a thin clear liquid in the heat of the day, but the gel is what you want if you’re using it for skin and hair).
(frank discussion of sex, of various kinds, some of it in street language — so not for kids or the sexually modest)
1 is about the Bloomsbury artists Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell; 2 is about affectionate relationships between gay men and straight women; 3 is about me and my wife, Ann.
