Archive for the ‘Language and the body’ Category
October 22, 2024
This remarkable image — In Love’s Garden: “The Peach Blossom” (from 1904) — appeared on my Pinterest feed this morning:
(#1) A peach blossom, with a bit of stem attached, and a female face, adored by a young man (the word sentimental comes to mind); to very modern eyes. just the combination of the word peach and the image of the flower will probably instead evoke buttocks (as the object of sexual desire), in the peach emoji 🍑 used in sexting — though this was obviously far from the artist’s intention 120 years ago
A bit of clicking from the Pinterest image led to the Prints with a Past site (“antique prints dating from the late 1700s through early 1900s”), where color prints of #1 are offered for sale. There the artist was identified as John Cecil Day (US). A search on this name got me nothing; well, illustrators are generally under-appreciated, and Day might have been a niche artist, of little note even in his own time.
But searches will turn up lots of things that aren’t what you asked for but have names similar to your search terms. And so my search for John Cecil Day brought me to an illustrator named John Cecil Clay, who looked an awful lot like my guy. I pulled up my copy of #1, got out my big magnifier, and looked at the signature. Yes, for sure, John Cecil Clay, famous enough to have a Wikipedia page. And the creator of a series of In Love’s Garden illustrations, of flowers that were also women. The Prints with a Past staff had misread the signature.
With the right name on hand, I could find more flowers from Clay’s garden. Two more of these, and then on to the fascinating story of Clay’s life; and a final note on sexting with emoji.
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Posted in Art, Books, Emoji, Language and plants, Language and the body, Signs and symbols, This blogging life | Leave a Comment »
October 21, 2024
A fallout from my 10/17 posting “An underwater Psychiatrist cartoon” (“all about the noun favorite: an implicit superlative, denoting a top-ranking element in some comparison set”), this e-mail from my old friend Benita Bendon Campbell this morning:
the word favoris in French, as you probably know, means ‘sideburns’ and I can’t imagine why
Bonnie, who’s had a long career as a teacher of French, tends to assume that my command of that language is vastly greater than it actually is — a kindly person would say that my knowledge of French is spotty — but in this case, yes, I had a dim recollection of this odd fact, mostly because favoris ‘sideburns’ got borrowed into (British) English, where it enjoyed a brief fashion in the 19th century. Summarized from OED (1972) under the noun favourite, with a colorful cite from Benjamin Disraeli (the British novelist and Prime Minister):
noun favori ‘sideburn’ (usually in plural); 3 19th-century British examples (Disraeli from 1831: His beard, his mustachios, his whiskers, his favoris.) Etymology: a borrowing from French.
So it’s into French that we must go.
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Posted in Art, French, Language and the body, Lexical semantics, Slang | 2 Comments »
October 15, 2024
From Tim Evanson, on Facebook this morning, his image for 16 days to Halloween:
(#1) Hunky Halloween Hamlet, let’s call him Hunklet, contemplating Peter Pumpkin (who really should have a grinning face carved in him) instead of Yorick’s grinning skull
The Shakespearean context (written as connected text rather than as poetic lines):
(#2) “Here hung those lips that I have kissed” — so Hamlet cries in iambs dread
(though I note that #1 could be read as God — or Zeus / Jupiter — surveying the Earth; everybody sing: “He’s got the whole world in His hands”)
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Posted in AI, Art, Holidays, Language and plants, Language and the body, Male art, Music, Plays, Poetic form, Poetry | Leave a Comment »
October 14, 2024
(About gay porn, with rapt attention to men’s bodies and sex between men, in street language, so entirely inappropriate for kids and the sexually modest)
Dirty Words is a new release from NakedSword Originals (in the Falcon family of gay porn studios). Not about dirty words ‘taboo vocabulary, offensive or indecent words’, but about dirty writing ‘sex writing’ (erotic fiction, sexual memoirs, sexual advice). The synopsis from the studio (divided into paragraphs for easier reading):
New York City has long been the playground of sex writer Zachary Zane, author of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto. Threesomes, anonymous hook-ups, and sex parties are all in a day’s research, not to mention questions from blog fans who happen to spot him out and about at his favorite Manhattan haunts.
Even power-bottom stud Michael Boston stops him on the street for some advice on his relationship with fuck buddy Alexander Müller before Zachary finally heads to Fire Island for a few days of rest and relaxation. Quickly, though, Zachary learns that the summer getaway hotspot is packed with inquisitive readers, all of whom want a piece of him – for counsel, of course. What started as an escape from writing deadlines quickly becomes a crash course in better sex for Oliver Hunt, Harold Lopez, Matty West, Beaux Banks, and Axel Rockham.
By the time Zachary returns to his NYC stomping grounds, he’s ready for a vacation from his vacation – but not before weighing in on a kinky threeway that new pal Michael Boston is planning to have with buddies Braxton Cruz and Travis Connor. Never one to say no to a friend, Zachary dispenses wisdom and encouragement in his signature no-nonsense style, proving that he’s always willing to provide more than just the tips.
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Posted in Books, Color, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Language play, Rhyme, Signs and symbols, Taboo language and slurs, Writers | Leave a Comment »
October 13, 2024
(Definitely faggy content, which will not suit everyone, but nothing I’m obliged to keep kids away from)
On Pinterest this morning, this arresting cover of the magazine The Young Physique (men’s fitness and muscle-building for a gay male audience), from 50 or 60 years ago:
(#1) A symphony in fluffy pinkness, showing the model’s callipygian charms (glutes are good)
The Young Physique was a large-format color magazine founded in 1958 by Joe Weider; it featured drawings by gay artist George Quaintance, and creative sets designed by the gay photographer James Bidgood, sometimes (as here) magazine covers photographed by him
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Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Male art, Masculinity, Movies and tv, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »
October 10, 2024
Max Vasilatos had warned me they were coming, but I didn’t know when. But today was their day, and they were a cheering relief from the deep dysfunction that a week of extravagant heat has visited upon me: from the Play Visions company in Woodlinville WA (but, yes, made in China), the Club Earth Penguin Parade — 6 nesting penguins (the biggest only 5 inches tall, so they fit in easily with almost any home decor):
(#1) An ad display of Les Six Antarctiques; can you tell which of the six is the Swiss penguin (known professionally as Arthur Honegger)? What gives him away as a Swissie and not a Frenchie like all the others?
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Posted in French, Language and the body, Music, My life, Penguins, Play, Toys | Leave a Comment »
October 7, 2024
From yesterday’s posting “Hot autumn morning”:
The torrid unpleasantness continues. Back on 10/2 the local temperature reached a brutal 102F; since then, it’s dropped into the 90s, but not by a whole lot. 96 yesterday, 96 today, 96 tomorrow, then maybe actual autumn.
In fact, yesterday in Palo Alto was 102 again, and today’s high is predicted to be 93, but relief is still predicted for tomorrow. Meanwhile, there’s a counteractive chill in today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, showing Tarzan and Cheeta(h) at the intensely cold summit of Mt. Everest, claiming the peak, the apex of the mountain, for the (see the flag) Banana Republic, the chimpanzee’s native land:
(#1) A pun on “Tarzan of the Apes” (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page)
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Posted in Actors, Language and animals, Language and the body, Movies and tv, My life, Puns | Leave a Comment »
September 23, 2024
It started with a Pinterest item this morning, a 17th-century engraving of a Hellenistic Roman statue of the god Hermes (Roman Mercury), a statue said to be one of the earliest representations of the god as a beautiful youth:
(#1) An engraving by the French artist Claude Randon (1674 – 1704), about whom I’ve not been able to find anything, beyond reproductions of his engravings on Classical subjects (I’ll show you his Belvedere Apollo in a little while)
This work probably appeared in my Pinterest mailing because of my 9/15/24 posting “Speeding into the 20th century”, about a J.C. Leyendecker homoerotic portrayal of Mercury (Greek Hermes) in a 1907 magazine cover.
Now to look at the actual sculpture.
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Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body | Leave a Comment »
September 19, 2024
Two days ago on this blog, David Tanner, a representational painter who works in a variety of forms (portraiture, still lifes, landscapes, nudes), but with special attention to men and male bodies. Now, also encountered through Pinterest, Cornelius McCarthy (1935 – 2009), nonrepresentational but definitely figurative: intensely focused on the male body (single men, couples, groups — often with matter-of-fact penises in the compositions, but no sexual acts, or even bodily contact), in a series of styles, most notably in a cubist-influenced period that then developed into the late style of the painting that caught my eye on Pinterest:
(#1) Moonlit Park (2008); exposing the body is a recurrent theme in the late paintings, as is the Catholic church in the background
More art to follow. Then some information about McCarthy from the ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon website of an anonymous artist I’ll call Ultrawolf, who supplies basic information (from Wikipedia), plus some awkward commentary on the art. And finally, a bit about Ultrawolf and some about the artist Keith Vaughan, who was an influence on McCarthy.
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Posted in Art, Language and the body, Male art | Leave a Comment »
September 18, 2024
In recognition of Wednesday as Hump Day, I offer you (from today’s Pinterest mailing) a brief notice of some hump-worthy (verb hump: … 3 [with object] vulgar slang have sex with (NOAD)) young men in a vintage ad by J.C. Leyendecker (who appeared most recently on this blog in my 9/2 posting “Leyendecker Labor Day”):
A JCL ad for Ivory Soap, set in an athletic homosocial space, the locker room showers (note the male buttocks, a recurrent object of JCL’s artistic — and presumably also personal — engagement).
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of checking-out going on in that shower room. No doubt dwelling on those “muscles … in perfect trim” and the “sweating skin” that has been cleansed “under the rushing water”.
Posted in Art, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Male art, Masculinity, Slang | Leave a Comment »
