Start with the Zippy strip of 6/29; focus on the second panel:
(#1) A generic diner setting, plus Nancy‘s cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller’s three rocks, unaccountably numbered for reference (see my 9/22/17 posting “Three rocks”)
Double dactyls for boys
Snarfity-barfity, Grossout and Slapstick, those
Champions of ick, masters of pow:
Boys by the age of six, nix on the feminine,
Slam with the Stooges, shout it out loud
đ đ đ Discouraged day yesterday, which I tried to find relief from by posting something small but entertaining, but every posting I started ballooned into a sizable project — including this one, but I’m going to ruthlessly cut out a big file on Lila that I assembled a couple of years ago, when she was still alive and I wanted to celebrate her, but then it just became one of hundreds of other similar merely nascent projects, so instead I’m going to ramble on about Lila and my life and Chuck Fillmore and probably my Aunt Marion, who like Lila was a sporty woman, direct and funny and tonic to be around.
The spur for this posting was Lane Greene’s Johnson column in the 8/21/21 issue of the Economist (which I finally got to yesterday; I’m hopelessly behind on my reading as well as my writing — though I got the bulletin about Lila’s dying — on 8/8, at the age of 91 — from Barbara Partee the day it happened).
To end a difficult week — ending high with a new water heater (thank you, cute and earnest plumber!), after four days without hot water; disconcerted by those same four days of failing to capture and expel the western fence lizard that has taken refuge in my house; and dispirited by those same four days without any voice to, um, speak of — I stumbled once again upon the peculiar practice of Rick-rolling (Facebook, unbidden, brings you all sorts of things, the way a cat will with not-quite-dead mice). And was impelled to some mildly scandalous free verse, which I will explain none of, because there’s just too much.
(Owlishly raunchy, but nevertheless quite raunchy, with male buttocks on display: not for everyone’s taste.)
A bit of free verse for Labor Day 2021, commandeering Falcon Studio’s holiday gay porn sale ad in the service of poetry:
(Plain-spoken appreciative references to penises and fellatio, plus an extended and explicit man-on-man sex scene, so not appropriate for kids or the sexually modest.)
Gastronomy, essays, calliphallicity, poetry. Starting with the New Yorker on 9/6/21 — “Food & Drink: An Archival Issue” — in a “Gastronomy Recalled” column there. From the print magazine, the head and subhead for the piece:
(#1) From the great gastronomic essayist M. F. K. Fisher
Then from the on-line magazine, this version, with the accompanying photo (by Carl Mydans / The LIFE Picture Collection / Shutterstock) and its caption:
(#2)
One does not need to be a king to indulge his senses with a dish.
But, with my imperfect aged eyes — I now misread things so often I’ve pretty much stopped cataloging my errors — and my penis-attuned brain — I am an unapologetic phallophile — Â what I read was:
One does not need to be a king to indulge his senses with a dick.
(Generally on the raunchy side, though not actually obscene — but too heavy with sex toys (including some truly alarming dildos) and anal talk for kids and the sexually modest, who should stay away.)
Very late for one of my favorite holidays, National Underwear Day (8/5), this Daily Jocks ad on 8/25:
(#1) [ad copy:] Get party ready with the DJX Trough Jockstrap. Featuring a dual-layered breathable pouch, which is as soft to the touch as it is enhancing. You won’t want to take these off. [oh honey, yes you will, yes you will]
First, some AMZ verse; then an olla podrida of neon pink jockstrap-related topics.
A hybrid beast with a portmanteau name: Triceratops + tiramisu, that is, Tricera (tops) + (tira) misu:
(#1) A fine portrait of the beast, artist as yet unknown (it’s one of those cartoons that has been passed around on the net through many hands, with the artist’s identity suppressed; Google Images has been of no help, because it detects the tiramisu and then disregards everything else)
A fantastical creature with the body of a tiramisu and the extremities (head, tail, and four legs) of a Triceratops, the Triceramisu feeds from pools of espresso, fortified wines, and liqueurs in the fields of cocoa that abound in its native land of Portmantopolis; the creature lounges drowsily in the evenings in plate-like nests. The Triceramisu is irenic, amiable, and delicious, and has been known to offer itself as sustenance to other creatures in need of food. Because it’s inclined to spoil and to crumble, the Triceramisu is unfortunately (though gloriously) short-lived.
(Or, Cheers: Does anybody know some work?)
A comment from me yesterday on my 8/7  posting “Melecio / Biaggi”, in which I noted the lifelong social stigma for sexworkers (Melecio / Biaggi being one such),
which I posted baffled comments on in my posting: thereâs a moral question here, lying in the nexus between matters of sexual morality and matters of economic morality. So I thought to appeal to a moral philosopher [Tim Scanlon of Harvard] to ask if the question had been considered in the literature in that field.
… I keep posing queries (arising from my postings) to academics who are old friends (Tim; the phonetician John Wells [at University College London] on âdifference illusionsâ, illusions that certain homophones are actually distinct in pronunciation [in my 8/9 posting “The khan con”]; and the [Stanford] linguist Paul Kiparsky on the metrics of chants [in my 7/18 posting “Between the glutes”])
Tim and John were intrigued by my queries, but had no literature to offer. Paul’s response was more complicated: over brunch, he and I together were able to recall a few items, so that I could write to their authors for assistance, and our conversation led me to realize that the topic was a great deal more complex than I had thought when I posed the query.
(Well, yes, jockstraps, depicted and described, with attention to their contents, so not to everyone’s taste.)
In a comment on my 8/15 posting “Jock Robin” (a posting about jockstraps in beautiful colors, masculinity, and sexuality), Mike McManus  noted the relevant novelty song “Harry’s Jockstrap” (a jock that’s pale blue, suggesting that Harry is a fairy),  a burlesque on the French nursery rhyme (and round) “Frère Jacques”. I had somehow missed “Harry’s Jockstrap”, but here it is, in all of its pale blue fairy glory:
Harry’s jockstrap, Harry’s jockstrap
It’s pale blue, it’s pale blue
They say that he’s a fairy. But Harry is so hairy
So are you, so are you
(Call this verse HJ.) The burlesque goes on and on through many more verses; I’ll give you a transcription and a recording of the whole thing — but first, some background. (more…)
(Jockstraps and plays on cock ‘male bird’ vs. ‘penis’, but no more than that.)
A note from the annals of (homo)masculinity, inspired by this Cellblock 13 Tight End jockstrap in robin’s egg blue, offered relentlessly on my FB page recently:
(#1) In design and material, an entirely conventional jockstrap, calling up your standard locker room, but in a very pretty color (robin’s egg blue), which seems to make it homowear, rather than than gymwear
Sometimes a guy just wants to look pretty, but apparently a robin jock — especially from Cellblock 13, which specifically designs for and markets to gay men — marks you as a fag. A tough, muscular, athletic fag, perhaps, but a fag nonetheless; in that case, you’re a butch fag. (I post fairly often on butch fagginess; frankly, I enjoy the mixed signals, which many read as dissonance.)
(Of course, you could also be a straight guy who likes pretty clothes and doesn’t mind being taken for queer, so you might well turn to Cellblock 13 for your jockstraps (and more).)
