Archive for the ‘Rainbow’ Category

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Piñata under the gun

October 15, 2018

(Bonus content: a news bulletin for penises, with two items.)

Today’s Wayno/Piraro combo:


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.)

Simultaneously a boy about to bash a rainbow donkey piñata with a bat — a baseball bat, rather than the usual  piñata-specific stick or bat (illustrated below) — and a military officer about to execute a prisoner by firing squad. So both in the everyday world and in a metaphorical world systematically mapped onto the everyday world.

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Posted in Comic conventions, Humor, Idioms, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Phallicity, Rainbow, Toys and games | 1 Comment »

P-alliterative and tetrametric lines

August 11, 2018

…  front-accented (especially trochaic) tetrametric, in fact. Separately and in concert.  Notably combined in

purple rainbow puppy pen (SW SW SW S)

which is the household name for this object, recently acquired by Kim Darnell at a local vet’s office and now added to my cabinet of curiosities display:

(#1)

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Posted in Alliteration, Ambiguity, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Names, Poetic form, Pseudonyms, Rainbow | Leave a Comment »

Dix-huit nuances de gai

August 9, 2018

One more visit to the Gay Village of Montreal, after yesterday’s posting “The Gay Village, Swiss Chalet, poutine”, in which #1 provided an aerial view “of Rue Ste-Catherine E. in the Gay Village, with its overhead rainbow-colored balls”. The reference is to a huge public art installation on Ste-Catherine (which has, inevitably, spawned lots of “We’ve got balls!” joking). The installation as experienced on the ground (as intended by the artist):

(#1)

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Posted in Art, Color, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Rainbow | 1 Comment »

The Gay Village, Swiss Chalet, poutine

August 8, 2018

Further notes on the 31st motss.con in Montréal (which came to an end with a stragglers’ breakfast on Monday); background in my 8/3 posting “The rainbow pillars of Montréal”. And further explorations of things Swiss, or at least things called Swiss, in particular that Canadian institution, the Swiss Chalet restaurant chain. Motssers on holiday in Québec, food: that means poutine, (by report) consumed often and by many during the con.

Brief visual background on the con’s location, the Gay Village of the city:


(#1) Aerial view of Rue Ste-Catherine E. in the Gay Village, with its overhead rainbow-colored balls (from Chris Ambidge)

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Posted in Architecture, Dialects, French, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language and society, Rainbow, Switzerland and Swiss things, Variation | 1 Comment »

Ruthie and the language of doughnuts

August 3, 2018

The One Big Happy from July 5th, in which Ruthie and Joe get some dubious advice from their father:

(#1)

Their dad’s advice will no doubt warm the hearts of language teachers and multiculturalists, but it’s dubious as practical advice for everyday life.

Meanwhile, Ruthie wrestles with the question of how to get a language name from the noun doughnut / donut. Donuttish (with an all-purpose adjective-forming suffix, –ish) would certainly be possible, but, probably on the model of Dutch, Ruthie goes for Donutch, that is, Donut-ch (this is spoken, rather than written, by Ruthie, so it could have been spelled Donutsh, like Welsh).

(It tickles me to think of the language name as Dutchnut, a portmanteau of Dutch and doughnut. Or maybe that should be the name of the food.)

In any event, Ruthie has stumbled slant-wise onto the idea that doughnuts are of Dutch origin — an idea that confuses words and things, labels and the categories they label, but nevertheless incorporates a genuine bit of history.

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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Derivation, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Morphology, Portmanteaus, Rainbow, Words and things | 2 Comments »

The rainbow pillars of Montréal

August 3, 2018

A photo from Arthur Prokosch yesterday:


(#1) “I have arrived at queer station. — in Gay Village, Montreal.”

The occasion was/is the 31st motss.con — annual gathering of folks from the net group soc.motss (lgbt-folk and friends) — in Montréal. (Con Central is the Hotel Le Saint Andre, 1285 Rue Saint-André, a half-block from Rue Ste-Catherine E, at the edge of the Gay Village.)

One notable thing in the photo is the colors of the six rainbow pillars at the station: not the usual saturated bright colors of the rainbow flag, but less saturated and lighter — elegant, fashion colors. We’re here, we’re gay, and we’re stylish.

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Posted in Color, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language of sex, Rainbow, Style and register | 1 Comment »

Rainbow pasta

July 28, 2018

From Kim Darnell, links to the work of Seattle pasta artist Linda Miller Nicholson (@saltyseattle on Instagram), in particular her rainbow pasta:


(#1) Screen shot from the video “How to Make Rainbow Pasta” by Salty Seattle, which you can watch here

Beautiful, and colored with only natural ingredients.

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Posted in Language and food, Rainbow | 1 Comment »

The multi-speed rainbow buttlight penguin (in blue)

July 5, 2018

Resting indoors:

(#1)

Found by Elizabeth (Daingerfield Zwicky) and Opal (Armstrong Zwicky) at the Monterey Aquarium on the 4th: a Flashing Friend (“Press Me for Colorful Flashing Lights”). Press its rubber butt, and it flashes rainbow colors, in two speeds. A wonderful, remarkable little object.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and plants, Penguins, Rainbow | Leave a Comment »

Four things for Pride

June 23, 2018

Pride Saturday in SF today (including some events that my grand-daughter will take part in); then the parade tomorrow (which I will watch via the miracle of live streaming by KPIX); then on Monday the 25th, the birthday of Saint George Michael of the Beverly Tearoom, the patron saint of parks at night; and finally on Thursday the 28th, actual Stonewall Day (recalling the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969).

For today: two kinds of rainbow food (rainbow cupcakes and rainbow roll sushi);    Pride underwear, including two lines of rainbow underwear; and an entertaining accessory (a pink triangle pin, another creation in a long tradition of slogan buttons, stickers, patches, banners, etc. as well as nonverbal designs: the various Pride flags, the plain pink triangle, lavender-colored objects, etc., including my Forever Gay pin).

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and food, Rainbow, Rainbow clothing, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

The wands, magic wands, and fairy wands of Pride

June 19, 2018

In yesterday’s posting “Fried eggs and fairy wands”, there were plants called fairy wands and wandflowers. How to get from (fairy) wands to the plants?

It’s another metaphorical trip. Wands are just rods or sticks (so a great many plants with spire-like flowers would qualify), but magic/fairy wands in particular frequently have a showy element (very often a star, 5-pointed, or sometimes 6-pointed) at its tip — so plants with showy flowers at the end of thin stems (like Dierama pulcherrimum and Sparaxis tricolor) can be seen as similar to such tipped wands.

Having noted that, for Pride month I’ll go on to look at simple wands and showily tipped wands done in rainbow colors: truly fairy wands.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and plants, Metaphor, Phallicity, Rainbow, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

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