Archive for the ‘Flags’ Category

Swiss National Day! (with a query)

August 1, 2018

Today, August 1st, is the National Day of Switzerland, a day to fly the big square flag:

  (#1)

On the flag and on the holiday, to come. But first, a query to readers. I ask that you respond only to this e-mail address: arnold.zwicky@gmail.com (so that I don’t have to try to collate responses sent to seven or eight different places). And I ask that you read the query and guve your immediate reaction to it (without looking things up or consulting other people or musing about what the “right” answer would be). Below the fold:

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Posted in Flags, Holidays, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

Pride space flags

June 13, 2018

More Pride flags, all transformed versions of existing X Pride flags, for various values of X having to do with gender or sexuality. Transformed by Laurie Raye by superimposing images of the starry sky on them. So the now-standard six-stripe Pride flag becomes:

(#1)

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Posted in Flags, Gender and sexuality, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »

The Calvin Klein pentachromatic neon rainbow

June 13, 2018

CK special for Pride Month:

(#1)


(#2) Pride Trunks

In five neon colors: pink, yellow, lime green, aquamarine, dark blue.

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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Color, Flags, Homosexuality, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Waving the flag

December 1, 2017

Earlier today, in “Maple Donuts, coffee shops, and unapologetic identities”, besides those three things I looked at the American flag and what it might mean to those who fly it: for some, it’s a symbol of reflexive patriotism, tied to “pro-gun, pro-life, pro-military, pro-God, and pro-conservative” stances; for some, it represents a history of racial oppression and exclusion; for some, it evokes the sacrifices of those who have fought on the American side in wars; for some, it’s the visual equivalent of the slogan E pluribus unum; for some, it suggests the threats of a police state; and on and on. There’s a physical form (the stars and stripes, in particular colors, arranged in a particular way), and then there are many meanings, sometimes combined, sometimes in contention.

That’s the way of symbols. What a symbol means to someone depends on their experience with it, their experience of how it has been used.

Just so with the lgbt pride flag.

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Posted in Classification and labeling, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »

Maple Donuts, coffee shops, and unapologetic identities

December 1, 2017

It starts with a Zippy strip from July 1st, featuring the Maple Donuts shop on Historic Lincoln Highway in York PA (and, incredibly, it will end with singings of the Negro National Anthem; in between, there will be firearms):


(#1) Maple Donuts, featured a number of times in Zippy strips

It might not be an accident that the strip appeared a few days before America’s great patriotic holiday, Independence Day / the Fourth of July. To see why, we need to look at the actual Maple Donuts store.

That will take us, on the one hand, to the adjoining coffee shop; and, on the other hand, to proud, unapologetic assertions of identities.

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Posted in Apologies, Categorization and Labeling, Diners, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Language and food, Music, Names, Race and ethnicity, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Bear chairs

September 23, 2017

Today’s Zippy lumbers through some plays on bear, in a bear chair:

(#1) The bear figure as both comforting and threatening

Bear chairs, gay bears, flags, and more.

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Posted in Catchphrases, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Names, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Stuff your stuff in the flag

July 4, 2017

Everybody’s got a Fourth of July sale going. Here’s the Daily Jocks entry, with my caption:

Twinkdependence Day

Put the package in stars,
Wrap the rump in stripes,
Fly it all on a pole.

(more…)

Posted in Captions, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Pride Time #2: the rainbow flag doodle

June 2, 2017

The Google Doodle for today, viewable here, with this screenshot of the endpoint of an animation in which a gay flag is assembled from strips of material:

(#1)

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Posted in Clothing, Flags, Rainbow clothing, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Red, white, and blue

May 30, 2017

In my previous posting, a swimsuit exploiting the U.S. Stars and Stripes. Meanwhile, on the way back from today’s senior exercise hour, Kim Darnell and I encountered, in midtown Palo Alto, a gigantic red, white, and blue flag flying in front of a house. It hadn’t been there on Saturday, so I figured it must have some connection with a holiday.

What came first to my mind was Puerto Rican Day (June 11th this year). I thought that the flag might be some variant of the red, white, and blue Puerto Rican flag that I hadn’t encountered before. The PR flag:

(#1)

But no. There is a holiday involved, but it’s Chinese, and this year it’s today.

(more…)

Posted in Flags, Holidays, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Flagging America

May 30, 2017

A recent Daily Jocks ad, with a N2N speedo-style Stars and Stripes swimsuit for Memorial Day, yesterday, also looking forward to Flag Day on June 14th and Independence Day on July 4th (with my caption):

Young, hung, lean, pale,
Patriot through and through,
Peter swims in the
Stars and Stripes.

Peter can be purchased at fine men’s stores throughout Southern California.

Posted in Captions, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Underwear | Leave a Comment »