Archive for the ‘Literature’ Category

Contra mundum

October 19, 2023

Glimpsed on Pinterest a little while back, this MMS (male-male sex) painting, Contra Mundum by Fyodor Pavlov: a pair of young men kissing, seductive male buttocks highlighted, their Edwardian-picnic amour unfolding beneath the point of a potent abstract phallic design, the down-pointing triangular shape of the male genitals (often given physical form as a hanging bunch of grapes, here as a cluster of leaves on the tree that shades the young men’s secret tryst):


(#1) Packed with further details worthy of comment, among them: the dark-light (paired with dominant-submissive) contrast of the two men, the overarching U of the tree’s branches complementing the cupped U of the submissive man’s body, the red of the strawberries against a mostly b&w composition, the stuffed bear, the vibrant green of the men’s sweaters, the neck of the wine bottle poking out from the confines of the picnic hamper, the phallic reeds on the far shore of the lake

Things to comment on: picnics; contra mundum; and the artist. This turns out to be quite a lot.

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Posted in Art, Books, Homosexuality, Language and religion, Language and the body, Language of sex, Literature, Logos, Male art, Phallicity, Signs and symbols | 3 Comments »

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Peanut

April 17, 2023

— a Wayno  / Piraro Bizarro cartoon from 10/20/21, “Written by Goober Louis Stevenson”, according to Wayno’s title:


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

A wonderfully goofy cross between two items of popular culture:

— the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, originally told as a literary tale, a caution about the dark duality of human nature and the danger of aspiring to divine power, but quickly folded into the popular consciousness in many forms

— and the figure of Mr. Peanut, the anthropomorphic mascot of the Planter’s Peanut Company

with the amiable and elegant commercial legume standing in for the evil and murderous Edward Hyde.

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Posted in Books, History, Language and ethnicity, Language and food, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics, Literature, Mascots, Movies and tv, Race and ethnicity, Stereotyping | 1 Comment »

Escape from the lab!

April 13, 2023

From a comic book of my childhood, Weird Science #8 (July 1951):


(#1) In the story “Seeds of Jupiter” (Bill Gaines, writer; Al Feldstein, inks and pencils) — posted on 4/12 by Tim Evanson on Facebook

The panel evokes (at least) two themes from philosophy, literature, and popular culture:

— the  Ungodly Knowledge theme — there are things we were not meant to know — the products of which are then inadvertently released onto the world; the prototype is the story of the monster created by Victor Frankenstein

— the Beast Within theme — we are both good and evil, a beast lurks within us — related to the larger theme of transformation into a monster (a werewolf, a vampire, whatever); the prototype is the story of the monstrous Mr. Hyde, released in the lab from within Dr. Jekyll and then onto the world

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Posted in Art, Books, Linguistics in the comics, Literature, Movies and tv, Philosophy, Pop culture | Leave a Comment »

Armen Zakharyan

October 1, 2022

🐇 🐇 🐇 welcome, October (even though we know it ends in a celebration of death)

This posting is a report on an amazing body of work by Armen Zakharyan, about Russian literature in relation to world literatures, providing literary analysis both subtle and surprising, probing the range of lives as revealed in literary works, and directly and passonately engaging with hard questions about how to live a moral life and negotiate through a world of evil. Until a few days ago, I had no idea that such a thing existed, but then Vadim Temkin posted a “Wow” notice on Facebook about a Zakharyan video, with this image and a link to the video:


(#1) The link to the YouTube video is here

The wisps of Russian I recalled from 1960 Princeton classes carried me far enough to recognize the slogan MAN WAR ART, but no further. I appealed to Vadim to explain his “Wow”. And got the wonderful response below, which I reproduce with only slight editing as a guest posting (Vadim is multilingual and multicultural in a way I could not imagine being, so it would have been insane for me to try to paraphrase or interpret his take on Zakharyan).

From here on this is Vadim, with occasional back-commentary from me in square brackets.

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Posted in Literature, Russian, Ukrainian | Leave a Comment »

2/2/22

February 2, 2022

(Jam-packed with male bodies and man-man sex discussed in street language — admittedly, along with a lot of other stuff, but there’s no denying the high raunch content — so not even remotely suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

2/2/22 Happy Twoday! The Groundhog Day that won’t come again for a century. This morning the groundhog emerged from its burrow and was immediately devoured by a day-old tiger, who growled lewdly, “Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side”, while some colored girls sang about kissing the cross.

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Posted in Books, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Language and the body, Language of sex, Literature, Music, Poetry, Professional names | 2 Comments »

Books and their covers

April 30, 2018

Today’s Zits:

  (#1)

Kids these days! Did Pierce never think to look at the Wikipedia entry for the book? I thought that’s what kids do first when assigned a book report.

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Posted in Books, Labels Are Not Definitions, Linguistics in the comics, Literature, Movies and tv, Names, Quotations | 1 Comment »

Trademark literary forms

May 10, 2014

From Lee Siegel’s “Pure Evil”, on “Jo Nesbø and the rise of Scandinavian crime fiction”, in the latest (May 12th) New Yorker:

about a hundred Scandinavian crime writers have been translated into English, including Anne Holt, who is a former minister of justice in Norway. The crime tale has become to Scandinavia what the sonnet was to Elizabethan England: its trademark literary form.

It’s entertaining to consider what might count as the trademark literary form in other places, at other times, and in other sociocultural contexts.

(Note: the New Yorker piece is behind a paywall; the beginning is available here.)

Posted in Literature | Leave a Comment »