Archive for the ‘Puns’ Category

Nosferatutu II

March 17, 2025

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ three shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day

On the WaynoBlog for 3/15/25, W commented on the Bizarro cartoon of his that I reported on in my posting yesterday, “Nosferatu en pointe”:

I recently saw another vampire cartoon with the caption NOSFERATUTU. Worse, it was done by a good friend, Teresa Roberts Logan, who has an excellent cartoon feature called Laughing Redhead. Worse still, she did her comic in 2021! At least the two aren’t precisely the same…

Fortunately, she was very understanding about this type of occurrence, which happens to all of us from both directions. It’s still embarrassing, though!

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Nosferatu en pointe

March 16, 2025

After six days of foolishness, back on 1/19, in my posting “Hats off to vampires!”, Bizarro produced what I supposed to be the last of the Waynoratu Nosferamanteaus. But yesterday (3/15), two months later, the vampire arose once more, dancing across the stage of our imagination:


I suppose this was irresistible, but the TU of Nosferatu beckons far too seductively (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page)

We might now get

Nosferatuber, Nosferatumor, Nosferatush, Nosferatutor, Nosferatutti-fruitti, …

NosferaTurin, NosferaTuring, NosferaTurkey, NosferaTuscany, NosferaTutsi, …

And endless more, streaming out the door and flying bat-like towards the moon.

 

Slices of pi(e)

March 15, 2025

π 🥧 π 🥧 π 🥧 for yesterday (mammoths lumber along majestically, and they are often regrettably late for appointments), 3/14, which was Pi Day in my country, and for some years now, also — delicious pun — Pie Day in many places (so inviting a cascade of formulaic word play: pie in the sky, a piece of the pie, easy as pie, even pie chart)

I’ll jump right into things with a charming and heartfelt Facebook message yesterday from my old friend Paula Stout, who many years ago lived in Palo Alto, but has since moved to the great American Southwest — on a ranch outside Greenville TX, east of Dallas-Fort Worth:

Happy Ecstatic Friday on Pi Day (3.14)

We were in town today, where every store treated the day as a celebration. They were giving away apple pies, chicken pot pies, [pizza pies,] and even eskimo pies. With big smiles, balloons and jubilation.

And it struck me that we are seeing history unfold.

1988 was the first “Pi Day” for a marketing campaign in SF, iirc. Before that, only we geeks and friends of the wonderful Kevin McHargue (who was born on this day) partied it up

And now, here we are. A national holiday of pies!

As David Mamet, renowned playwright, once noted, “We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”

There’s enough stress brewing in the world, y’all, let us pray he is right and there is pie enough to combat it.

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What is figure, what is ground?

February 5, 2025

A remarkable John O’Brien cartoon in the 2/3/25 New Yorker, in which a cowboy whips his lariat in pursuit of a cow, with a stark desert landscape of mesas and buttes outlined behind them:


(#1) But wait! That line in the cartoon is both the lariat — the figure — and the outline of the landscape — the (back)ground — so that looking at the cartoon, you perceive the one, then the other, shifting from one to another: what is figure, what s ground?

It’s a percept-shifting visual illusion, exploiting an ambiguous image, in particular a figure-ground ambiguity. Here done as a joke in a cartoon, a visual parallel to what I’ve called sense-shifting pun jokes.

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The culinary artmanteau

February 1, 2025

🐇 🐇 🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to welcome the month of February, the month of Lincoln Darwin Day and of Valentine’s Day (this year, Mardi Gras doesn’t come until early in March)

It’s Rabbit Day, and what happens to be at the top of my posting queue has nothing to do with rabbits; it’s a Bizarro cartoon (from yesterday, 1/31) with a tasty culinary artmanteau:


(#1) The portmanteau Michelancho = Michelangelo (the 16th-century Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarotti, painter of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome) + ancho (the dried poblano chili / chile pepper) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)

(an alternative culinary artmanteau: (Michelangelo) Anchorotti  = ancho + Buonarotti)

(plus, I note that #1 is about Michelangelo the Ancho Honcho, the Man of La Mancho, also one of the lesser-known film Manchowiczes, etc.)

Now some brief notes on anchos, and then a surprise finale in which today’s rabbits get cooked with anchos, in the triumph of culinary artistry conejo en adobo with red chiles, which you can think of as Rabbit Michelancho.

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Hats off to the vampires!

January 19, 2025

For yesterday, 1/18, in Bizarro, the 6th and I suppose last Waynoratu Nosferamanteau:


The male nosferatu (holding a wineglass of what is presumably blood, and chatting with his young female companion at some sort of vampiric meet-and-greet) seems to be wearing a Canadian toque (= tuque), with pom-pom, to warm his head during the cold dark nights in his coffin (yes, it’s very silly) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)

The nosferamanteau is Nosferatoque = Nosferatu + toque. As for the hat, from NOAD:

noun toque: [a] a woman’s small hat, typically having a narrow, closely turned-up brim. [b] historical a small cap or bonnet having a narrow brim or no brim. [c] Canadian a close-fitting knitted hat, often with a tassel or pom-pom on the crown. [variant of tuque] [d] a tall white hat with a full pouched crown, worn by chefs.

(The heart tattoo with A B O in it, for the blood types A B AB and O, is a nice touch.)

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Fangs for the memories

January 17, 2025

Very briefly: in entry 5 in the Waynoratu Nosferamanteau marathon, today, two anti-establishment vampires greet one another:


A 1960s-style hippie on the right (peace symbol, long hair, headband, etc.), a 1970s-style Johnny Rotten punk rocker on the left (anarchist symbol, spiky hair, studded collar. etc.)

Meanwhile, the punmanteau is a complex one: Johnny Rotten wrapped around nosfer– (representing Nosferatu)

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Bite my punmanteau!

January 16, 2025

Continuing Bizarro‘s theme from Monday through Wednesday, today’s Waynoratu Nosferamanteau — a Wayno punmanteau based on the film title Nosferatu — examines Transylvanian dentitions:


(#1) In the tradition of Nosferattoo, Nosferachoo, and Nosferatoon, a Nosferatooth X-ray; I must say that that’s a truly splendid vampiric X-ray (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page)

(I was going to wait to see what Friday and Saturday would bring us on Bizarro before posting this strip, but it brings up an issue in visual symbolism, manifested in Wayno’s adaptation of the two-serpent caduceus (surmounting a tooth) to serve as a symbol of dentistry.)

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Doctor The Who

December 18, 2024

For today’s Bizarro, a portmanteau title — Doctor Who + The Who = Doctor The Who [with the overlapping material underlined] — for a hybrid cartoon character, who is simultaneously Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor Who and also the leaping, jumping Pete Townshend of the rock band The Who:


(#1) Wayno’s character is, in appearance and dress, Baker’s Doctor Who; but this character is also, in action, Townshend’s hyperactive guitarist in The Who (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)

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Today’s truly terrible pun

November 28, 2024

(Not suitable for kids or the sexually modest)

Ok, one more little posting before I tackle writing about the last week in my life, parts of which were spectacularly awful, but through most of which I coped admirably and in good spirits, I don’t know why or how. This simultaneously disastrous and miraculous week ended with my delicious Thanksgiving dinner, of Korean soy and black vinegar chicken on japchae, a last-minute replacement for the long-planned Mexican homestyle pozole, which had to be shelved when the cook was incapacitated. Details to come.

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