Today’s morning name: South Cackalacky, mildly derogatory slang for South Carolina (suggesting crudeness, rusticity, and remoteness: the boondocks). And Cackalacky, for the Carolinas taken together, with the same associations. (Sorry, Charleston, Charlotte, and Research Triangle.)
Then, of course, such associations can be inverted, to connote local pride, down-hominess, and the like. As has happened in this case.
(This posting is light-hearted, to entertain in terrible times, but there’s no denying that it’s substantially about men’s bodies and mansex in very plain language, plus images that are right up against the line, so it’s not for kids or the sexually modest.)
We’re into Pride Month, so everybody who sells things for lgbtq people has stuff on sale. Especially the gay porn studios, flogging videos. That presents an occasion for reflecting on (among other things) how gay personas are projected in this material, how emotional and sexual relationships between men are presented, and how gay men communicate via facial expressions during mansex and in cruising for it.
Exhibit 1: this Pride Month ad for Next Door Studios, a nicely posed composition featuring Justin Matthews (proprietary top) and Nic Sahara (enthusiastically receptive bottom), flashing two different sorts of buddy smiles (using both their mouths and their eyes):
So I’ve got a rock musician, a drummer, and his name is Urs. What else can you say about him? Well, he’s almost surely Swiss German, or of Swiss German descent; almost every guy named Urs is. If I tell you that his full name is Urs Zwicky, well, it’s pretty much a sure thing. And here he is, drumstick in hand, in a photo of the Swiss band he’s been in for years, Daytona (now, that’s a surprise):
(#1) A Zwicky who can rock you
Now in the music news because of a new mix of their old standard “We Stand Together” (apparently from 1993), reviewed a few days ago in World Front News.
A new tv commercial for Naväge (sometimes just Navage) touts it as just the thing for current times:
Now is the time to make good nasal hygiene the new normal.
The commercial doesn’t seem to be available on-line yet, but here’s an earlier print ad:
“uses powered suction to relieve nasal congestion” (with a saline solution)
Background: MSNBC now has a regular feature with a report from Dr. Calvin Sun, a native New Yorker who works as an ER doc in NYC, going to a different hospital each day, filling in wherever he’s needed; on MSNBC, he describes the situation at the ER of the day.
Dr. Sun on tv: earnest, passionate, compassionate, and terribly, terribly weary
Above, I used the familiar, everyday English job title for Dr. Sun: he’s an ER / E.R. doctor, ER doc for short. The formal job title is emergency physician (who practices emergency medicine, in an emergency department).
Meanwhile, I didn’t know any AmE name for a physician who filled in for other doctors as needed.
As we all muddle through in these tough times, an old friend writes from Prince Edward Island (yes, that’s important), “Tasty as it is, I’m a little tired of eating my own cooking, I ordered a pizza and garlic fingers.” And those garlic fingers take us into the annals of regional food, in this case Atlantic Canada.
(#1) A pie of garlic fingers
Today, my calendar tells me, is the 141st anniversary of the birth of my Swiss grandfather, Melchior Arnold Zwicky (I am Arnold Melchior Zwicky, Jr.). Born 4/9 in 1879 (and died in 1965 at the age of 86, an age I’m unlikely to achieve). So I muse on 1879, first on others who were born that year, and after that on two notable wars that were waged then.
(A guest posting from Vadim Temkin, reproducing (without editing, so I can hear Vadim’s actual voice in all of this) a note in his Facebook notes yesterday about a section in my posting “Mourning Son” on that same day)
Portrait of a thoughtful Vadim, by Sergey Zhupanov
… or Social Distancing. More art of the pandemic: a CGI homage to Edward Hopper’s Morning Sun (1952) by Vadim Temkin:
(#1)
The news from gay Switzerland, in headline form: ‘Swinger [Swiss swing wrestler] outs himself as gay’. From the Outsports site: “Swiss wrestler Curdin Orlik comes out as gay, first out active male athlete in nation: The Swiss wrestler competes in an [un]usual version of the sport, but his coming out as gay is universal”, by Jim Buzinski on 3/10/20:
(#1) Orlik in ceremonial regalia, wearing a victor’s wreath and a jacket with edelweiss embroidered on the lapels
