Everybody’s got a Fourth of July sale going. Here’s the Daily Jocks entry, with my caption:
Twinkdependence Day
Put the package in stars,
Wrap the rump in stripes,
Fly it all on a pole.
Archive for the ‘Holidays’ Category
Stuff your stuff in the flag
July 4, 2017From a child’s viewpoint
July 4, 2017Three recent cartoons: a Calvin and Hobbes for the 4th of July, and two One Big Happy strips in which Ruthie copes with the language she hears:
The patriotic fig leaf
July 2, 2017(About men’s bodies; some readers may want to exercise caution.)
The Michael Lucas (gay porn studio) Fourth of July sale for this year:
(#1)
They are covering their junk with the Stars and Stripes (and their hands): the flag as fig leaf, or modesty shield.
O Canada! Au Canada: le huard!
July 1, 2017Today is Canada Day, the 150th, and also the 30th anniversary of the Canadian dollar coin, the loonie (le huard):
(#1)
Put a sock on it in parade season
June 26, 2017(There will be discussions of men’s naughty bits and pictures of these barely covered. Sometimes celebratory, sometimes silly, but not at all (I think) arousing. Still, if that’s not you want to read or see, pass on to something else.)
It began with this arresting photo from Carson Link on the Stealthy Cam Men Facebook site on the 24th, dated “Yesterday New York, NY” [that is, on the 23rd]:
(#1)
Link’s text:
Caught him off guard they were getting ready for a parade from the E. Village [Tompkins Square Park] to the West Village
If Link has the dates right, then this was the annual NYC Drag March, from Tompkins Square Park to the Stonewall Inn (note the guy in heels on the left) — though the central figure in the photo looks like he came from the June 11th Body Pride Parade (also annual), from Tompkins Square Park to Washington Square Park, and everyone in the photo looks like they’d find a place in the big Pride Parade on the 25th (for which there are many sub-celebrations).
In any case, Sock Man on Parade is, um, remarkable, as a piece of living sculpture, if nothing else.
The feast day of Saint George of the Beverly Tearoom
June 25, 2017This is not only Pride day in many major cities, San Francisco included, but it’s also the birthday of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, known professionally as George Michael, born 6/25/63 — Saint George of the Beverly Tearoom, the patron saint of parks at night. Saint George of the BT (as he has become familiarly known) is also celebrated on his Day of Erection, April 7th, commemorating April 7th, 1998, when he was arrested and publicly shamed for his sexual activities in public places, but then, through his defiant music, rose from the dirt to become a King of the Queers.
Today we sing to Saint George, who went down on his knees for all of us and offered his body to all of us.
Three days in one
June 18, 2017Mostly this posting is about Fathers Day, but today is also Commencement Day at Stanford and World Music Day in Palo Alto (and other places; here, music of all sorts — including shapenote singing in the Sacred Harp tradition — is performed in locations all over downtown Palo Alto). Then tomorrow comes Juneteenth, recognizing the emancipation of the slaves in the American South. Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of Pride Month.
Fathers Day is at root a commercial and sentimental holiday, officially devoted to a celebration of fathers and fatherhood, but equally devoted to a celebration of conventional, in fact stereotyped, modern American masculinity — gently mocked in this Bob Eckstein cartoon:
(#1)
Father and grandfather
June 16, 2017… plus two grandmothers.
A bit more for Fathers Day, with photos from back in the day, more Alpen-Flora, and some reflections on social class. Starting with these photos:
(#1)
On the left (#1a): my dad, with his parents, Bertha and Melchior Zwicky, in April 1941 (on, I think, my grandparents’ farm in Sinking Spring PA, west of Reading). On the right, two photos from 1948, at my aunt Marian (Marian Rice Fries) and uncle Herb’s farm outside of New Smithville PA, west of Allentown. Top (#1b): Dad and his mother-in-law, Susannah Hershey Rice (called Sue). Bottom (#1c): Marian and Sue, her mother.
Anniversaries: 50, 55, and more
June 12, 2017Today, June 12th, is Loving Day (the anniversary — the 50th — of the court decision in Loving v. Virginia) and also Pulse Day (the anniversary — the first — of the murders at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando FL), plus the anniversary — the 55th — of my graduation from Princeton. In four days, more anniversaries: Bloomsday (the anniversary — the 113th — of the day during which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses unfolded and also my step-son Kit Transue’s birthday — a solid square number — and the anniversary — unbelievably, the 55th — of the day when Ann Daingerfield and I were married.
Pride Time #3: On the menswear watch
June 4, 2017(Photographs of men in very little, but otherwise not alarming.)
For a month that has both Pride events and Fathers Day in it, two extremes of clothing for men: (2) high-macho sexy bodywear and (3) adaptations of women’s casual clothes — which will take us to (4) the gay rapper Cazwell, a study in outrageous, minimal, and sportsfan dress.
First, as lead-in, (1) a visit to the 2017 International Mr. Leather competition in Chicago on March 25th – 30th.
