Archive for the ‘Switzerland and Swiss things’ Category

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Sexy Dark Swiss

August 22, 2019

Specifically “pinksalt floyd rocks” Sexy Dark Swiss. Oh, it’s chocolate and it’s really trendy, because it’s prebiotic, and it’s whimsical too (the name Gutsii playing on gutsy and alluding to the gut, the playful allusion to the rock band Pink Floyd), plus it parades itself as dark and sexy, like a forbidden lover who steals into your bed in the dark of night. It came to me from the snack drawer at LiveJournal, brought by Kim Darnell, who works there.

From the Food Navigator site, the piece “Prebiotic chocolate? Gutsii enters US market on a mission to make gut health simple” by Mary Ellen Shoup on 2/11/19:

(#1)

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Posted in Language and food, Language and medicine, Language and plants, Language play, Metaphor, Semantics of compounds, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

Tall Tree TeleSwissies

July 15, 2019

Swissies are everywhere (AMZ posting of 5/19/17, “Marco, Marco, Marco”). Even in Palo Alto, Tall Tree City, where the Swiss flag flies proudly — Einer für alle, alle für einen; Un pour tous, tous pour un; Uno per tutti, tutti per uno; In per tuts, tuts per in — a mere five blocks from the Swiss Mammoth Center on Ramona Street:


(#1) The Swissies are coming, the Swissies are coming! 675 Forest Ave. in Palo Alto, the long arm of Swiss telecom in Santa Clara County

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Posted in Palo Alto, Switzerland and Swiss things, Technology, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »

News for Fenis

May 15, 2019

(Reference to penises, plus some penis art and garments for penises, so not to everyone’s taste.)

From Kyle Wohlmut on Facebook today, items from the gift shop at Castello di Fénis, in the Italian Alps:


(#1) Models of the castle, the castle in snowglobes, but featuring a bag with Fenis (easily read as Penis) in a red heart, conveying ‘I love Fenis’

First: on the castle, the town, and its location (so close to Switzerland — on this blog, many roads lead to Switzerland; or Homoland; or both). Then the red meat: on readings of Fenis; on penis bags (bags with penises on them); on penis bags (bags with penis on them); and on the intimate men’s garment the penis bag (aka penis pouch or cock sock).

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Posted in Clothing, Compounds, Language play, Phallicity, Rainbow, Signs and symbols, Switzerland and Swiss things, Underwear | 2 Comments »

The hand that cradles the tree

May 3, 2019

… and the monster that guides the elderly. Both pieces of outdoor art in Switzerland, the first in the town of Glarus (in my ancestral canton of Glarus), the second in the city of Zürich.


(#1) The Caring Hand in Glarus

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Posted in Art, German, Language and politics, Language play, Nonsense, Poetry, Portmanteaus, Switzerland and Swiss things, Translation | 7 Comments »

Picturesque Mollis, with helicopters

January 16, 2019

(After three weeks in the grip of infections, both viral and bacterial, some potentially life-threatening, I’m limping back to life and my blog, with a return, both sentimental and high-tech, to the ancestral home of the Zwickys, the village of Mollis, Canton Glarus, Switzerland.)

I’ll lead with a photo of impossibly picturesque Mollis in the summertime, when it’s green:

(#1)

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Posted in Switzerland and Swiss things, Zwickys | 1 Comment »

Yet another Switzerland

December 28, 2018

In Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown S11 E4 “Armenia” (first aired 4/20/18), he travels from the capital, Yerevan, to Lake Sevan, which he characterizes as “the Switzerland of Armenia”. Ah, yet another (metaphorical) Switzerland, indeed yet another (snowclonic) Switzerland of X.

In general, wherever you have alpine terrain, especially with snow, forests, lakes, and quaint villages, you have another Switzerland.

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Posted in Metaphor, Movies and tv, Snowclones, Switzerland and Swiss things | 3 Comments »

On the international waffle patrol

December 19, 2018

Better together: Belgian waffles and Israeli falafel. From several Facebook friends, a pointer to Tablet magazine ‘s “The Belgian Falafel Waffle: An edible miracle of modern science takes off in Rishon LeZion” by Flora Tsapovsky on 12/18/18:

(#1)

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Posted in Etymology, Language and food, Names, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

Nationality: the case of Albert Einstein

December 18, 2018

Einstein was born in Germany and lived there as a child. By the time he died, he’d renounced his German citizenship and acquired two other citizenships, first Swiss and then American, which he kept throughout his life. So it’s not at all easy to describe his nationality. (I’m on this case because of the Swiss part of the story, of course.)

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Posted in Ethnonyms and demonyms, Names, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

The Swiss diaspora: Steinlen in Montmartre

December 18, 2018

From Wikipedia:


(#1) Steinlen poster of 1896 advertising the Montmartre cabaret Le Chat Noir

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (November 10, 1859 – December 13, 1923), was a Swiss-born French Art Nouveau painter and printmaker. Born in Lausanne [in Canton Vaud in Francophone Switzerland], Steinlen studied at the University of Lausanne before taking a job as a designer trainee at a textile mill in Mulhouse in eastern France.

He then found his spot, the place that suited him in life: the Montmartre district of Paris.

And became Swiss French (in the narrow sense): a French person who emigrated from Switzerland. Narrowly Swiss French, in the way that distinguished 19th-century scientist Louis Agassiz was narrowly Swiss American: from my 2/7/13 posting “Swiss American”:

Agassiz was Swiss American in the narrow sense; he emigrated from Neuchâtel (in Francophone Switzerland) to Boston and took American citizenship.

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Posted in Art, Books, Ethnonyms and demonyms, Lexical semantics, Movies and tv, Names, Semantics, Switzerland and Swiss things | 2 Comments »

Four Swiss rolls

December 17, 2018

My pursuit of Swiss X, for various nouns X, continues with four Swiss roll chapters, starting with a cake roulade and going on to a rolled hair style; roll short for bread roll; and roll short for roll-up (referring to a bread roulade).

Bonus: the cake roulade is appropriate to the season, since a Yule log or bûche de Noël is one, just dressed up for Christmas.

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Posted in Clothing, Compounds, Language and food, Names, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

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