Archive for the ‘Language and the body’ Category
August 25, 2026
This morning, I went to get a bunch of lab tests done at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (for a nephrologist consultation tomorrow) and discovered that a lot of the phlebotomists recognized me, greeted me enthusiastically by name, and asked about my life since they had last seen me. The thing is, I’m really visible (well, I also remember them, and facts about their lives too; they’re interesting people, and the question “How did you end up working here?”, while they are drawing my blood, elicits some extraordinary stories). Almost always wearing stunningly gay clothes (today, rainbow-flag track shorts and a honking big rainbow-colored DEI t-shirt).
(#1) The DEI shirt
The PAMF staff find these clothes cheering, which is indeed one of the things they’re for.
This makes me happy.
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Posted in Clothing, Connotation, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Lexical semantics, Moral worlds, My life, Rainbow clothing, Social life, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »
August 25, 2026
(men’s bodies and tons of man-on-man sex, in crude street talk, so thoroughly unsuitable for kids and the sexually modest)
About a single collage of mine, call it DNMe (‘Dick And Me’). One of my XXX-rated comic homoerotic collages, eventually featured in the first of my artwork exhibitions, “They All Laughed When the Hot-Hot Man-Man Sex Started” of 2003. It is, by accident, associated with another current theme of my postings, dying and lamentation, since the exhibition came very soon after my man Jacques’s death. So I came to see the exhibition as a slap of vibrant life in the face of death: we display our dicks, we fuck, we laugh, death shrivels.
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Posted in Art, Collages, Death and dying, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Lives, Marriage, Memory, My life, Names, Phallicity, Slogans | 1 Comment »
August 23, 2026
The ultimate topic here is my sleep patterns, which I will post about more systematically in a while. Here I’m trying to take some of the burden of background material off that posting by stashing it for easy reference later. Picking an item — the revival by Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre of Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros — that I also view, in desperation, as carrying an urgent message about today’s sociopolitical climate.
It will start with odd everyday routines of no consequence, but will end with contemplating literal dehumanization, staring evil in the face. I’m touchy on the point, having never fully recovered from the shock of seeing the Nazi death camps exposed when I was a child. And understanding that that could happen to me. (No, I don’t think children should be protected from such knowledge. They should be treasured and supported, as I was, but they should also see the dangers clearly, so that they can arm themselves against them.)
But first, the routines. (If you think I’m just a nutter or a pathetic neurotic in need of professional care, fuck off; it’s none of your business. I’m doing stuff that works for me; why should you care?)
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Posted in Education, Language and politics, Language and the body, Movies and tv, Music, My life, Play, Plays, Pop culture, Princeton, Sleep, Surrealism, Writing | Leave a Comment »
August 23, 2026
From my deodorant history, in my 8/19 posting “Two favorite movies”:
I cut the dosage, found less aggressive deodorants, discovered that sandalwood suits my body chemistry. Most important, I stopped pumping out pheromones like a stag in rut. It got better. Ever since, I’ve been giving off essence of locker room, with (currently) a very light coconut and vanilla deodorant to moderate it some; you can now say fairly that my armpits smell delicious. )
Specifically, Native brand coconut and vanilla deodorant, in a tube that has just come to the end of its life and been replaced by the cucumber and mint flavor. And I have reordered a trio of three flavors — these two plus lavender and rose. They’re all subtle, non-irritant, and long-lasting. I’m a fan.
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Posted in Death and dying, Language and food, Language and the body, My life, Smell, Taste | Leave a Comment »
August 20, 2026
(Lots about bodily fluids, up close and personal, and the male body, a lot of it in street talk, so inadvisable for kids and the sexually modest)
Another little posting that might — like “Struggling Actor” earlier today — go far. But it starts with recollections of pomanders from my childhood, sparking my interest in getting some for my Avant apartment. Why should I want to do this? (aside from sentimentality), you ask; I will explain. It’s all about the whizz.
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Posted in Death and dying, Language and food, Language and medicine, Language and plants, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life | Leave a Comment »
August 18, 2026
(Raunchy content, which some will prefer to avoid)
From WIRED on-line, “The Gooner Music Video Boom Is Here”, by Jason Parham on 6/26/26, in summary:
Porn music videos have circulated on the fringes of the internet for years. Featuring everything from narrative-driven stories to hypnosis, they are proliferating across X as “bate fuel” for gooners.
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Posted in Language and the body, Language of sex, Movies and tv, Music, Pornography, Slang, Taboo language and slurs | 2 Comments »
August 18, 2026
About the moment. From my 8/17 posting “Cool nights”, on my greatly increased prednisone dosage:
it seems to me that my already unusually keen senses of smell and taste have heightened; all my food is fabulous, especially if jazzed up to be even more bitter, more sour, more aggressively fermented, or more spicy than before, and I’m now getting stronger sniff bulletins from my environment
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Posted in Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life, Smell, Social class, Taste | Leave a Comment »
August 17, 2026
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).
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Posted in Chemistry, Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and medicine, Language and the body, My life, Smell, Taste | 1 Comment »
August 17, 2026
From the New Yorker issue of July 6 & 3, 2026, under the heading “A critic at large” (on-line, 6/29/26, “What happened to your face: How the human countenance become something to study, edit, optimize, and scan”; in print, 7/6/26, “Regression to the mien: How mirrors, selfies, and surveillance have changed what we make of our faces”) by Cal Revely-Calder (with some subheads added by me):
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Posted in Facial expressions, It's Just Stuff, Language and the body, Psycholinguistics, Signs and symbols, Sociolinguistics, Switzerland and Swiss things, Symbols | Leave a Comment »
