From Kim Darnell today, a Christmas tree, which she then decorated to suit my household:
(#1) O rosemary, my rosemary
I’d admired these little rosemary bushes at Whole Foods: pretty, wonderfully scented, useful in cooking, and an excellent evergreen container plant for my patio garden (rosemary shrubs are widely used as border and filler plants locally).
Today is Saint Barbara’s feast day. Draw near and sit with me, for today’s telling of the lives of the saints. There will be miracles.
(#1) St. Barbara as envisioned by sculptor Corrado Parducci at St. Barbara’s Church in Dearborn MI
(There will be frank discussions of men’s bodies and accounts in street language of mansex, so probably not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
Among the many reflections, exhortations, reminiscences, elegies, and tributes for World AIDS Day, today, one from Mike Thomas about three people who died of complications of AIDS who had been important in his life: among them a mutual friend, Howard Faye, who I wrote about in a 12/30/16 posting “Howard at 57”; and Bobby Pyron, someone I didn’t know personally but appreciated as the porn star Lee Ryder.
I’ve written twice about Ryder on AZBlogX — details below — and knew only a little about Pyron (his passion in life was flower arranging, and he was said to be self-composed, unassuming, and a really nice guy), but Mike pointed me to an obit for him (preserved on the AIDS Memorial Facebook page) that filled in many details.
A terrible Xmas pun committed by Scott Hilburn in a 12/23/13 cartoon (hat tip to Mike Reaser):
(No ‘L’ – Noel)
I figure this is fair game, since tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent, putting us into the religious Christmas season broadly understood. (Then Wednesday is Krampusnacht, and Thursday is St. Nicholas Day).
From Ned Deily on Facebook:
Today’s Revisionist Word Fail (as seen in another FB group): “today marks the 40th anniversary of the assignation of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.”
A form-based, rather than meaning-based error, but possibly prompted by spelling rather than pronunciation; the error was in writing, after all.
A Roz Chast New Yorker cartoon from 11/22/10, “The Last Thanksgiving” — how could I possibly please them all? — and now her cover for the latest (11/26/18) New Yorker, “Thankfulness”, for the Technology Issue of the magazine.
On Facebook today, Anneli Meyer Korn posted this Bizarro cartoon from 11/17/14:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
I was moved to declare November 17th Teddy Bear Picnic Day, in honor of Anneli and her husband Peter, but it turns out that (by whatever obscure mechanism these things happen) July 10th is already taken for this occasion, according to the Days of the Year site.
Well, of course, if you don’t know the song, you won’t find the cartoon particularly funny. (Suppose that the teddy bear’s message were “I’m sorry, the teddy bears are conferencing at Davos today”. That would be absurd, and so to some degree humorous, but nowhere near as funny as “I’m sorry, today is the day the teddy bears have their picnic”.)
A bulletin from Coral Gables FL, with penis pepper mills in gorgeous hand-turned wood; and a patriotic phallic (salt/pepper) shaker, standing tall for US Veterans Day (today). Photos under the fold (so the phallically averse among you can avoid engaging with these simulacra)…
A bit late for the train, a recent snack treat from mccormick.com — McCormick & Co., the spice, seasonings, and condiments firm — that appeared on a Pinterest board for Halloween:
(#1)
Combining two pop-cultural items: zombies and nasal mucus, especially in the form of green boogers. Plus popcorn, of course.
