Archive for the ‘Social life’ Category

Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar

May 12, 2018

(On the social and sexual lives of gay men, with photos, so not to everyone’s taste. Almost surely not to Facebook’s taste.)

Recent Facebook conversation, initiated by poster J1:

First time being called “Daddy” while playing with a guy at a bar. Bittersweet!

With a response from J2:

Yeah, I can see the bittersweet part, for sure. Heh. I remember you as a total twink.

And from me:

Ah, those days. For me, it was papacito from a cute server at a Mexican restaurant. I was charmed.

daddy here is the name of a social identity, a gay “type” (like twink, bear, muscle-hunk, or leatherman); and by extension, of a subculture of men of this type; and by a different extension, of a role or relationship between men, between an older and a younger man. Such identities, subcultures, and roles can intersect and combine, as here:

(more…)

Dad’s tall tales

April 28, 2018

Two Calvin and Hobbes cartoons that came past me recently, showing Calvin’s dad spouting misinformation about birth and infant development:

(#1)

(#2)

A form of parental kidding, almost always performed by a father rather than a mother, and most commonly directed at a boy — here a deliberate scheme of messing with the kid’s mind.

(more…)

Perfectionist in pink sequin

March 20, 2018

(Underwear guys, gay male culture, lots of pink, but nothing pointedly carnal. Use your judgment.)

The spur is yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad, for a Marco Marco pink sequin jock-thong, here in two views, with my caption poem:

(#1) Perfectionist in pink sequin
(#2) Patrick’s pouch

Patrick dreamed he
Pranced at the Pansy Party in
Nothing but his
Pink sequin ballcap, his
Pink leather harness, and his
Pink sequin jock-thong

Still shopping for the
Perfect
Pink sequin pumps

(more…)

The Jargon Matrix

April 12, 2017

Yesterday’s Dilbert takes us into a dark world of language, the Jargon Matrix:

(#1)

The Matrix, but with jargon from the world of technology businesses.

(more…)

Lauren la flâneuse

March 15, 2017

In the NYT Book Review on 3/5/1 7, under the heading “Walk on By” — subtitle (in print) “A tribute to the pleasures of aimless urban exploration, female style”, (on-line) “A Celebration of Women’s Pleasure in Wandering a City” — a review by Diane Johnson of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016).

(#1)

The cover art captures well Elkin’s reconfiguring the identity of the flâneur, for nearly 200 years the exclusive property of men, as a female identity, the flâneuse. Still urban and modern and primarily European in outlook, but now available to women (of independent spirit).

(more…)

Is it all in the framing?

November 20, 2016

Today’s Doonesbury, with Helmet GrabPussy (GP) consulting with the Gröpenführer (GF) about their mutual female-assault travails:

(more…)

If you see something,…

November 6, 2016

Today’s Bizarro, with a play on the slogan “If you see something, say something”, plus the opposition of PRS see and PST saw, plus the homophony of PST saw (of SEE) and BSE/PRS saw (of SAW), plus the idiomatic name see-saw / seesaw (aka teeter-totter):

(#1)

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)

From Piraro on his site:

Sometime after 9/11 (the infamously tragic one, not the one two months ago) the New York City Metropolitan Transit Agency (the folks that run the buses and subways) started a public safety campaign urging citizens to report suspicious behavior with the slogan, “If you see something, say something”. The campaign was later adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and used nationally. A longtime Bizarro Jazz Pickle [presumably Imad Libbus] suggested turning the phrase to what is displayed on the sign above. It made me chuckle, so I turned it into this cartoon. As a tip of the hat to the contributor, I named the sawmill after him.

(more…)

Emoji days

October 28, 2016

Emoji(s) are hot news these days. In the NYT yesterday, “Look Who’s Smiley Now: MoMA Acquires Original Emoji” by Amanda Hess. And just a bit earlier, two cartoons linking emoji to hieroglyphics, one by Cameron Harvey, the other by a cartoonist I haven’t identified. And before that, an article about emoji scholars, including our local specialist, Tyler Schnoebelen.

(more…)

Halloween exposure

October 28, 2016

Today’s Bizarro, with a low form of trick-or-treating:

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)

But what’s going on here? Quite a lot.

(more…)

From a Maine diner to Southern squirrel stew

March 29, 2016

Today’s Zippy takes place in the Brunswick Diner in Brunswick ME, with a side trip to bowling balls; meanwhile, the Pinheads and the Roundheads each regard the other (somewhat surreptitiously) as exotic creatures:

(#1)

Lots of stuff about names to come, taking us from Brunswick ME to Brunswick stew with a lot of stops in between.

(more…)