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)
CK special for Pride Month:
(#1)
(#2) Pride Trunks
In five neon colors: pink, yellow, lime green, aquamarine, dark blue.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
