Observed on the (regrettably short-lived) tv show Martial Law in recent reruns, the hard-working actor Louis Mandylor, playing a Los Angeles police detective Louis Malone, paired with the title character Sammo Law, a Chinese detective and martial artist (played by Sammo Hung). Notable as a prime member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps and also as an exemplar of amiable high masculinity.
Mandylor in a stock p.r. photo:
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Yesterday’s morning name, which (in my mind) came unavoidably with the Andrews Sisters’ 1944 version of the song in English (a feature of my childhood), in which tico tico represents the tick tock of a cuckoo clock.
(#1) The Andrews Sisters’ 1944 recording
You can listen to this recording here.
Then it turned out that it has a much more complex history.
From reader BJP on 10/22, from The Cut website “There’s Drama in the Queer Penguin Community” by Amanda Arnold on 10/22/20:
Drama is afoot in the Dutch queer penguin community after two gay lovers with a reputation for trouble stole an entire nest of eggs from a neighboring lesbian couple at the same zoo.
Within the queer penguin community at large, fostering eggs is relatively common: On multiple occasions, zoos and aquariums have gifted unhatched eggs to gay and lesbian couples exhibiting behavior that suggests they’re desperate for a chick, like building mock nests out of pebbles. But rather than demanding the same of their caretakers, one pair of African penguins at the DierenPark zoo in Amersfoort instead took the matter into their own claws by snatching eggs from two mothers-to-be, according to DutchNews.nl. The conniving boys have since been sharing caregiving duties, taking turns keeping the eggs warm and foraging for fish.
I know, I know, guys just take whatever they want.
The cover of the latest (10/26/20) New Yorker, which I post here only because it’s sweet and coronavirus-relevant:
(Largely about men’s genitals and sex between men, in very direct street language, so entirely inappropriate for kids or the sexually modest.)
On AZBlogX, a 10/7 posting “Humongous Cocks”, with two images from a porn video ad. I’ll quote that posting at length, but shift the visual focus on this blog to the facial expressions and body types in those images.
In very difficult times — my list of physical afflictions has expanded considerably (you don’t really want to hear the details), leaving me little time in the day to write postings on my blog — friends and family have given me presents to comfort me. Three recently (with an advance notice of a fourth to come in the mail in a surprise package).
Caught on a Facebook site that posts reproductions of artworks, Chaïm Soutine’s Still Life with Rayfish (ca. 1924):
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The accompanying note:
In this unsettling adaptation of Jean-Siméon Chardin’s The Rayfish (ca. 1725–26), Soutine paired the fish’s bloody entrails with a smiling, almost humanlike mouth. He reanimated the dead ray by concentrating on its vibrant underbelly and used thick, fluid brushstrokes to suggest slick flesh.
The Wayno/Piraro Bizarro of 10/19, with yet another variant of the Desert Island cartoon meme:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.)
The allusion is (ultimately) to the BBC 4 radio program(me) Desert Island Discs.
