An ad that has been running in the NYT Magazine for several weeks:

  (#1)

Despite having a caption in French, the ad is clearly American: the adjectival idiom big-ass ‘really big’ in the company name Big Ass Solutions is distinctly American. As for the caption Ceci n’est pas un ventilateur ‘This is not a fan’, that’s an allusion to René Magritte’s The Betrayal of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), which is at the very least “about” the image not being the thing depicted. This is not (just) a fan, this is not your father’s fan, this is a super-fan, big-ass and (in several senses) cool.

On the company, from its website:

Founded in 1999, Big Ass Solutions is the preeminent designer, engineer and manufacturer of industrial and commercial fans and lights worldwide.

The fans are BIG, 8 to 14 feet in diameter, incorporating what ads refer to as “aerodynamic principles” (making them super-fans). They are suited for large commencial and residential spaces, as here (their Isis model):

  (#2)

As for the Betrayal of Images, on this blog:

from 7/19/12 “Magritte”: the original and three parodies of Ceci n’est pas une pipe

from 3/11/15 “Magritte goes on”: Zippy riff on Ceci n’est pas une pipe

(Not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad, offering 2eros Black Label items (with my caption):

(#1)

The Insolent Brothers
Offer themselves
On the altar of Eros to
Needy faggots

Buddy White more
Welcoming, Bro Black more
Contemptuous; off work they’re
Tight with one another but
Certain they’d never ever
Switch teams to join

The Ecstatic Sisters, the way those
Queers Mikey Bono and
Lennie Vance did

Mikey Bono, also in 2eros Black Label, his head thrown back in ecstasy (and offering an armpit) — call the head thing the Ecstatic Pose:

(#2)

And Lennie Vance, in a Timoteo “84” model jockstrap that DJ featured on the 13th, even more ecstatic:

(#3)

An earlier posting about 2eros underwear (as in #1): from 3/5/16, “Tinging the scalene triangle”

And the Timoteo ad copy for #3:

Our newest favourite from Timoteo studio, this the new Timoteo “84” collection. It will provide you with the ultimate level of both support and style. Perfect for everyday-wear in and out of the bedroom. Made with high-quality cotton/spandex for fit and comfort.

But let’s get back to Eros / Cupid (on one account, the son of Aphrodite / Venus). Though the two names Eros and Cupid refer to the “same” ancient deity — the winged god of love, with his bow and his arrow that inspires love (or desire) —  they tend to be pictured differently: Cupid as a cute infant, Eros as a (sexy) young man.

Here’s a paimting of the latter Eros by David Ligare, Landscape with Eros and Endymion:

(#4)

In Greek myth, Endymion was a handsome Aeolian shepherd, hunter, or king, the beloved of the moon goddess Silene; he spent much of his life in (eternal) sleep. I’m not sure how Eros gets into the story, but #2 shows Endymion sleeping alongside one of Eros’s arrows — possibly shot to ensure that Endymion will return Silene’s love.

On the artist, from Wikipedia:

David Ligare is an American contemporary realist painter. Contemporary Realism is an approach that uses straightforward representation but is different from photorealism in that it does not exaggerate and is non-ironic in nature… Ligare was born in 1945 in Oak Park, Illinois. He received his formal artistic training at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

… Since 1978, he has focused on painting still lifes, landscapes, and figures that are influenced by Greco-Roman antiquity. Chief among his stated influences are the aesthetic and philosophical theories of the Greek sculptor Polykleitos and the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as well as the work of the 17th-century classical painter Nicolas Poussin. A resident of Salinas, California, his paintings often depict the terrain of the central Californian coast in the background.

Winged men. As I’ve noted before on this blog, I have something of a thing for winged men. Eros is another winged man.

The earlier discussion: on 4/17/16, in “Another winged man”. First of all, on

Ganymede (always a beautiful youth) and Zeus (in art, sometimes an eagle, sometimes a winged man, sometimes just a powerful male figure):

on AZBlogX: “Ganymede’s tale” (where I note my long-time fantasy of sex-in-the-air with a winged man)

on this blog: “Ganymede on the fly” (a work of photographic art in which the Ganymede figure realizes this fantasy, magnificently and joyously)

And then, in that posting, a discussion (with illustrations) of the Fallen Angel films from TitanMen.

Now, two more winged images, both from mythology. First, Hermes / Merciry, in an illustration in which his winged cap, winged sandals, and winged staff together enable him to fly:

(#5)

(I haven’t been able to track down the source of this work. I’ve been able to find a fair number of copies, all unattributed, all on astrological sites having to do with the planet Mercury.)

Somewhat less mysterious, but still rather puzzling, is this image, which I recalled having seen several times, attributing it (almost surely correctly) to art photographer Richard de Chazal (see a 5/14/11 posting on AZBlogX on the artist):

(#6)

(Initially, I didn’t find the image on de Chazal’s site; but see below. It’s on a fair number of Pinterest boards, always, so far as I can tell, unattributed, and usually labeled as an image of Apollo.)

A winged Apollo was news to me, but this is cerainly a god-like figure with wings on his shoulder blades. I don’t follow all the iconography of the image, but the heart suggests that this is Eros again.

On the other hand, he has the aureole of the sun god Helios. And Apollo is the god of sun and light.

But wait! An exhaustive, image by image, search of de Chazal’s website reveals that this figure is his conception of the zodiac sign Virgo — my sign! — which de Chazal has chosen to visualize as a sun god, akin to Helios and Apollo: he is both male (like Helios and Apollo, but unlike Virgo) and winged (rather than riding the chariot of the sun, he flies on his own power). So he’s the Eros Apollo of the Zodiac, and like his precursor gods, he’s happy with male consorts. A fine astrological deity: he flies! he fucks guys!

(de Chazal is admirably, often outrageously, queer.)

Bonus linguistic point: virgo ‘virgin’ is a 3rd-declension noun in Latin (fem-gender, in accordance with the meaning; the idea of male virgins is a recent invention), but nothing in its declension tells you it’s fem-gender. So a specifically male name Virgo would be declined just like virgo ‘virgin’, which means that a zodiacal deity Virgo could perfectly well be male, and that the name Virgo could be masc-gender.

So Eros Apollo could have the epithet Virgo Alatus ‘winged Virgo’ — in contrast to virgo alata ‘a winged virgin, winged Virgin Mary’.

Explanatory note: the title of this posting, “The Insolence and the Ecstasy” is a play on the book and movie title “The Agony and the Ecstasy”, which is about Michaelangelo Buonarotti (who appears in my caption as Mickey Bono, artistic counterpart to Leonardo da Vinci, aka Lennie Vance). On the movie:

(#7)

From Wikipedia:

The Agony and the Ecstasy is a 1965 American film directed by Carol Reed, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II. The film was partly based on Irving Stone’s biographical novel of the same name. This film deals with the conflicts of Michelangelo and Pope Julius II during the painting of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

Yes, more gay interest.

Today’s One Big Happy, with the kids’ grandparents at breakfast, contemplating the cereals on offer, with some dismay:

(#1)

It’s a tribute to the saturation of television advertising that a great many Americans could identify the five breakfast cereals alluded to via their commercial mascots here:

the jolly vampire: Count Chocula

the annoying talking bird: surely meant to be Toucan Sam for Froot Loops; but it could also be Sonny the Cuckoo Bird for Cocoa Puffs (Sonny’s “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs”)

the mentally challenged rabbit: the Trix Rabbit

the cute li’l Neanderthal kids: Flintstone Kids for Pebbles

the chubby old sea captain: Cap’n Crunch

I recognized them all immediately, but then I’ve posted about all of them (in connection with their being sugar bombs) except Count Chocula (and I will remedy that omission below) — though I’ve never eaten any of them.

These are all cereals advertised to kids, with menorable mascots and an astounding amount of sugar in them. I’ve also posted (here) on the (sugary) cereals Quisp and Quake and their mascots. And there are more sugary cereals: Lucky Charms, with a leprechaun mascot (the cereal reported to be 41% sugar by weight, here); (Post) Golden Crisp, with Sugar Bear as the mascot (52%); Honey Smacks, with Dig’em Frog as a mascot (56%); Frosted Flakes, with Tony the Tiger (”They’re gr-r-reat!”) as mascot; and Honey Graham Oh’s, with a honey image rather than a mascot.

On Count Chocula and his family, from Wikipedia:

The General Mills Corporation’s Monster Cereals monster-themed breakfast cereals, officially referred to collectively as the Monster Cereals, are five current, and formerly distributed, breakfast cereal brands in North America. The series includes Count Chocula [chocolate flavored, Franken Berry [strawberry flavored], and Boo-Berry [blueberry flavored], in addition to the long-discontinued, but temporarily resurrected, Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy.

(#2)

In the cartoon (#1), the grandfather wonders whether they have any adult cereal in the house. Possibly not, with the grandkids around. But there are huge numbers of breakfast cereals with very low sugar: many from smaller companies, but some fr0m from the big ones:  (General Mills) Kix, (General Mills) Cheerios, (Quaker) Life, (Kellogg’s) Rice Krispies, (Kellogg’s) Corn Flakes. (Rice Krispies even have cute mascots: the trio Snap, Crackle, and Pop.)

But we might worry about a call for adult cereals, thanks to this usage of adult:

[from AHD5] containing or deaing in explicitly sexual material; pornographic

[from NOAD2] sexually explicit or pornographic (used euphemistically to refer to a movie, book, or magazine)

The euphemistic usage tends to drive out the literal meaning ‘grownup, mature’, which is what the grandfather has in mind.

But that fact inspired me to wonder whether there were any sexually suggestive breakfast cereals, and of course there are (and people have been inspired to create more, with vaginal, mammary, or phallic symbols). From the world of real breakfast cereals, we have Honey Smacks: not only are they loaded with sugar (as noted above), they are also vaginal in form (though the makers’ intent was clearly to suggest lips (as in lip-smacking good cereal), rather than labia:

(#3)

And then there’s Honey Stars, with a space explorer theme; the individual cereal pieces were originally just stars, but then (inevitably phallic) rockets were added:

(#4)

Penis and testicles. The mascot is a cute bear in a space suit. (This appears to be the Indonesian product —bentuk roket ‘rocket form’ in Bahasa Indonesia.) Other shape offerings are moons and what are labeled as galaxies:

(#5)

An announcement in my Facebook feed this morning, from Adverising Age yesterday:

Burger King Introduces Whopperito, a Whopper Burrito: Tex-Mex Mashup to Be Sold Nationally From Aug. 15

Burger King’s latest new item is taking a cue from Chipotle Mexican Grill, which is still reeling from a string of foodborne illness outbreaks.

The Whopperito, which puts Whopper burger ingredients like beef, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and pickles inside a flour tortilla, will be sold nationally beginning Aug. 15 [after marketing trials in Pennsylvania]. A queso sauce replaces the mayonnaise from the hamburger.

I had two reactions. One, that the Whopperito as described in AdAge is very close to my conception of an American burrito, with (possibly) only the tomatoes and pickles outside the usual list of ingredients, though with beans (or refried beans) crucially absent, so the thing hardly looks like a hybrid food (Whopper plus burrito), but more like a stunted variant of a burrito — but then this is advertising (for Burger King, home of the Whopper), not food studies. Two, that althugh the name could be construed as a portmanteau (Whopper + burrito, with the shared r indicated by underlining), the first interpretation I got of the name was that it was a diminutive of Whopper, in –ito, that is, as ‘little Whopper’ — an oxymoron if I ever saw one.

Then I discovered that AdAge had spelled the name wrong. It’s Whopperrito, much more clearly a portmanteau.

The object itself:

Now, back to burritos. From Wikipedia:

A burrito … is a type of Mexican and Tex-Mex food, consisting of a wheat flour tortilla wrapped or folded into a cylindrical shape to completely enclose the filling (in contrast to a taco, which is generally formed by simply folding a tortilla in half around a filling, leaving the semicircular perimeter open). The flour tortilla is usually lightly grilled or steamed, to soften it and make it more pliable.

In Mexico, meat and refried beans are sometimes the only fillings. In the United States, burrito fillings generally include a combination of ingredients such as Mexican-style rice or plain rice, beans or refried beans, lettuce, salsa, meat, guacamole, cheese, and sour cream, and the size varies [the La Bamba chain famously offers “burritos as big as your head”].

The word burrito means “little donkey” in Spanish, as a diminutive form of burro, or “donkey”. The name burrito as applied to the dish possibly derives from the appearance of bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried.

To my mind, beans or (especially) refried beans are crucial ingredients for a burrito, so that the main thing that characterizes the fabulous new Whopperrito is leaving out the beans. Anyome could put some tomatoes and pickles in a burrito, but it takes a bold marketer to omit the beans.

(Racy, but not, I think, officially dangerous to children and the sexually modest, unless the verb shag is over the line. Look, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me came out in 19 – bloody – 99, with a PG-13 rating in the U.S.)

From Daily Jocks on the 29th (with my captions):

(#1)

Dick is a CHEEKY LAD,
Bit of fun, bit of bad,
Acts the monkey,
With his banana:

(#2)

Fancied Davy in a trunk, Davy in a brief.
Davy came to my house, where ‘e shagged me beef,
‘E shagged me royally, right fine,
So I went to Davy’s house
And kissed him twenty time.

I’ve made out the narrator, Dick, and his lust-object, Davy, as working-class Welshmen. Hey, I’ve been watching the tv show Hinterland / Y Gwyll (German Hinterland ‘back country, boonies’, Welsh Gwyll ‘dusk’: “Und die anderen, die im Dunkeln, sieht man nicht.”). Welsh film noir, astounding scenery, almost painful sense of place.

What DJ said:

Check out the latest collection from British brand, Curbwear!

After the massive success of it’s initial offering, the Identity line [the firm itself keeps writing IDENTITY] is back with a cheeky range of inventive swimwear and sportswear. Curbwear takes a daring approach and puts the answer “front and center” for game night. The time-poor man who knows his preference will undoubtedly choose a Curbwear pair – roomy pouches and ultra smooth waistbands setting the standard.

Trunk first, then the brief:

Show your cheeky side with the Curbwear Cheeky Lad Brief.

White brief [#2 is the red version] with navy back panels, featuring boosting pouch and star print to attract attention, just where you want it.

(It’s a special skill, writing wink-wink ad copy like this.)

Earlier on this blog: on 2/27/15, on Curbwear’s IDENTITY line, which advertises your preferences and self-presentation. Back then the available texts were

POWER BOTTOM – POWER BTTM – BOTTOM – BLOW ME – TOTAL TOP – TOP – VERSATILE – ACTIVE

to which the rather modest CHEEKY LAD has now been added.

(The current ads are visually amateurish, no doubt by design, to make the model look a bit yobbish. But cute.)

Then on 2/7/16, in “The news for, um, monkeys”, some about the adjective cheeky, and the phrase cheeky monkey, and of course the banana connection. I don’t have to explain the banana thing for you, do I?, not once you’ve seen #2.

Finally, my caption, the second part of which tries to reclaim the scurrilous anti-Welsh nursery rhyme (cue the earnest song from South Pacific, Lt. Cable’s “You’ve got to be taught / To hate and fear … / You’ve got to be carefully taught”), the rhyme that begins, “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief; Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef” (Taffy = Dafydd = David = Davy). Oh, and to insert some gay content, of course.

Today from Daily Jocks, Teamm8 Activ8s Our Lad Lance:

(#1)

Lance leaps in his leggings,
Roguishly, ridiculously,
The Mustache Man of Manly Beach.

(#2)

Put a jacket on him and he’s
Mush Man.

The clothing is not only (to my mind) ridiculous, it’s also expensive: in US dollars, $115 for #1 (the ID Tight), $175 for #2 (the ID Reversible Jacket). Lance not included

As usual, the.ad copy has its odd charms. The overall text:

The wait is over, Teamm8’s new activewear collection has landed! The Australian Underwear, Sportswear and Swimwear label has launched its Activ8 range suitable for every type of workout, whether you run, lift, walk or stretch and everything in between!

Specifically for #1:

ID Teamm8 insignia print. Rubber grips on inside bottom of leg openings to keep them from riding up. Smartphone sized pocket on back hip.

And for #2:

When luxe styling meets sports function you get the ID Reversible Jacket. Classic black option suitable for all occasion wear or if you’re in the mood to show your graphic side reverse it and wear it with ID print on show.

The latest (August/September) issue of The Advocate has two themes, one long planned — it’s the LGBT travel issue — and one responding to urgent current events, the June 12 shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando FL. I’m still trying to reach a state of equanimity that will allow me to post about Orlando, but LGBT travel is easy, and there are three ads in the issue that take advantage of the colors of the Pride flag to invite LGBT travelers to Williamsburg and Miami and to encourage them to drive wherever they’re going in a Nissan.

(#1)

(DoG is Duke of Gloucester, but DoG allowed the ad agency to go for a canine theme.)

(#2)

(A coffee-flavored theme, with some really nice coffee cups.)

(#3)

(Rainbow crosswalk. Red is just barely discernible on the left, purple out of the picture on the right, but that’s ok because we know the colors.)

Two recent cartoons with complex puns, both requiring serious cultural knowledge. A Mother Goose and Grimm, and a Liam Francis Walsh cartoon in the October 17th New Yorker:

(#1)

(#2)

I Can’t Believe. Here you need to know about a specific food product. From Wikipedia:

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! is a spread brand produced by Unilever.

The J.H. Filbert company, based in Baltimore, Maryland, developed the product in 1979 as a low cost alternative to butter for the food service industry. The retail branding has its origin with a comment by the husband of a company secretary when sampling the product, and it was first marketed to retail consumers in 1981. The company was acquired by Unilever in 1986.

(#3)

The actual name is positive, expressing surprise that the stuff isn’t butter. The cartoon name is just the opposite: who would name their producxt I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better?

Waiting for Waldot. This one is double-edged, and sort of bilingual. The main image in #2 is the setting of the play Waiting for Godot, with the name Godot taken from French, though usually slightly nativized in English as /gǝdó/– vowel-final, like Waldo, though Waldo is accented on its first syllable.

(#4)

(Poster for a performance at Golden West College (Performing Arts), Huntington Beach CA: Vladimir and Estragon under the tree, as in #2)

On the play, from Wikipedia:

Waiting for Godot … is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. Godot’s absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many interpretations since the play’s 1953 première. Waiting for Godot is Beckett’s translation of his own original French version, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English only) “a tragicomedy in two acts”. The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949. The première was on 5 January 1953 in the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris. The English language version was premiered in London in 1955; this version was voted “the most significant English language play of the 20th century”.

As for Waldo, lurking behind the tree in #2, he’s the cartoon character in Where’s Waldo?, discussed in a 2/22/15 posting on this blog.

(Well yes, men’s bodies, and lots of gay innuendo, but nothing to frighten the horses.)

Headline in The Gaily Male:

“How Giacomo ‘Giacco’ Giaccone’s
SuperSnapJock made me into a sniveling bitch”

  (#1)

Big
Jimmy ruled the
Gym with a thumb of
Steel – one
Snap of his
Strap made the
Strongest man
Kneel

Big Jimmy’s in a Timoteo 84 Jockstrap in black. Here’s his younger brother Little Jake (also delicious, but much less threatening), in a Timoteo Shadow Jockstrap in black/red:

  (#2)

#1 came from the Daily Jocks people yesterday, with this (unusually staid) ad copy:

Timoteo underwear, swimwear and sportswear has grown into an internationally recognised menswear brand. a go-to-brand around the globe for stylish men. Known for their exceptional fit, quality and cutting-edge designs.

Two earlier postings on this blog about Timoteo, a name I like to think of as meaning ‘fear of God’ (Latin verb timere ‘to fear’ and noun timor ‘fear’, plus Greek theos ‘god’; yes, I know, the name Timothy / Timoteo / Timothée / etc. actually has Greek timao ‘to honor’ as its first element):

a posting on 7/11/13 “Steve Grand, DNA, Timoteo”: “The Timoteo line [of menswear by Timoteo Ocampo] is deeply devoted to men’s bodies, especially their crotches.”

a posting on 4/10/16 “Magnitude Boys”, with two shots of the Timoteo Magnitude jock in red, white, and blue

On Big Jimmy’s Italian names:

Giacomo [James] > nickname Giacco [Jim(my)] > augmentative Giaccone [Big Jim(my)]

(or Jacob for James and Jake for Jim).

Big Jimmy’s gym is called Rip Rep Rap City. The rip is simple; note the ripped bodies above. (Rip Rep Rap City is definitely Hunkytown.) But rap and rep come from the black dudes in Giacco’s crib: from the rap music that plays non-stop at the gym, especially the local favorite, “(I be) Reppin My City” performed by Brisco, Triple C, & Rick Ross, from Ross’s Trilla (2008). (You can listen to it here.) The slogan on a t-shirt:

  (#3)

On the verb rep in Green’s Dictionary of Slang:

(US black) to represent [first cite 1977]

Represent can here convey quite a range of meaning: ‘stand for’, ‘front for’, ‘stand up for’, ‘be a credit to’.

Advanced note for the sound-inclined: rip rep rap has a series of three lax (and open) front vowels /ɪ ɛ æ/ descending in height  — and with descending frequency of the second formant, giving the perceptual impression of a descent in pitch and a synesthetic impression of an increase in size (so, getting lower and bigger, in steps). The series continues with /a/ and /ɔ/; in my American variety, I have the whole series in big/dig beg bag bog dog (but other dialects have quite different phonetics).

Punctuating possessives and plurals in writing English is something of a minefield; possessive plural forms like ladies’ and women’s are especially tricky, and quite a few writers of English would prefer to see the system both rationalized and simplified — in particular to use the apostrophe to signal “grammatical morpheme s” and to place it regularly before the s. That gives us the “greengrocer’s apostrophe”, as in two eggplant’s.

It also gives us possessive plurals like kid’s, as in this ad photo for CheapesTees:

(#1)

But wait, there’s more.

The CheapesTees ads seem to be consistent here. It’s how they spell.

Next complication: orthographic alterations in the stem seem to be done standardly. So: ladie– for lady with a plural s. Well, at least for the possessive plural, as here:

(#2)

I have no direct evidence as to the possessive singular (standard spelling lady’s) or the non-possessive plural (standard spelling ladies) at CheapesTees.

Having seen #1 and #2 you would of course predict possessive plural men’s (identical to the standard spelling). And you would be wrong:

(#3)

The spelling here is probably influenced by the solid, rather than separated, spelling in menswear (and for many writers, mensroom), where an apostrophe internal to the orthographic word (men’swear) just wouldn’t do (men’s wear, yes, men’swear, no).

The spellings certainly aren’t standard, but they also don’t involve just sprinkling apostrophes around at will.

Being heavily advertised on cable television: Blue-Emu spray for pain relief (a relatively recent addition to the company’s line of ointments). You can watch baseball great Johnny Bench flogging both the spray and the original emu oil creme in the video here. The spray:

(#1)

Originally I thought this must be a joke: emu oil? blue emu oil? But no.

I recalled my surprise on discovering that mink oil (great stuff for conditioning  leather) was in fact made from mink fat (and neatsfoot oil from the bones and feet of cattle). My first guess at the meaning of the N + N compound mink oil was that it was (absurdly) a Use compound (‘oil for minksto use; oil to use on minks’), or possibly a Resemblance compound (‘oil that is like a mink’ in some way or another), but it turmed out to be a Source compound (‘oil from minks’). Ok, mink oil is a way to get the most out of a mink after you’ve killed it for its pelt.

Well, rendered goose fat and chicken fat are used for cooking in various ways, but they’re also used in folk medicine, as ointments. Why not emu oil? In fact, both ostrich oil and emu oil have medicinal uses, though the WebMD site is very cautious about the therapeutic values of emu oil:

The emu is a flightless bird that resembles a small ostrich. Emu oil is taken from the fat of this bird during processing. It is used to make medicine.

Emu oil is taken by mouth for improving cholesterol levels, as a source of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, for weight loss, and as a cough syrup for colds, H1N1 (swine) flu, and flu.

Some people apply emu oil to the skin for relief from sore muscles, aching joints, pain or inflammation, carpal tunnel syndrome, sciatica, shin splints, and gout. It is also used topically to improve healing of wounds, cuts, and burns from radiation therapy; to reduce bruises and stretch marks; to reduce scarring and keloids; to heal surgical wounds caused by removing skin for skin grafts; to reduce redness due to acne; and to soften dry cuticles and promote healthy nails. Emu oil is also used topically for athlete’s foot; diaper rash; canker sores; chapped lips; poor circulation; and skin conditions, including cancer, dry skin, dandruff, eczema, psoriasis, wrinkles or age spots. It is also used to protect skin fro sun damage and to promote more youthful looking skin.

Emu oil is also applied to the skin to reduce pain and irritation from shingles, bedsores, hemorrhoids, diabetic nerve pain, insect bites, earaches, eye irritation, “growing pains,” and frostbite. It is used for rashes, razor burn, and nicks.

Some massage therapists apply emu oil to clients’ skin as part of their treatment.

Some people put emu oil inside the nose to treat colds and flu.

Emu oil (7%) is used in combination with glycolic acid (10%) for lowering blood fats including triglycerides, and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol; preventing and treating allergies; preventing scarring; treating headaches, especially migraines; preventing nosebleeds; treating and preventing cold and flu symptoms; and relieving discomfort associated with menstruation.

In veterinary practice, emu oil is used to reduce swelling in joints, prevent cracked or peeling paws, calm “hot spots,” and reduce irritation of flea bites.

In manufacturing, emu oil is used to sharpen and oil industrial machinery, for polishing timber and leather, and for conditioning and waterproofing.

How does it work?

Emu oil contains chemicals called fatty acids that might reduce pain and swelling (inflammation). There is some evidence that emu oil might work better for sudden (acute) inflammation than for ongoing (chronic) inflammation.

When emu oil is applied to the skin, it has moisturizing and cosmetic properties that resemble mineral oil.

On the last point: pretty much any oil — including petroleum, in Vaseline, and coconut oil, which I use for my flaking skin — is a moisturizer as well as a lubricant, and some oils are not only edible but tasty.

The virtues of fatty acids in reducing swelling and joint pain seem to be dubious, but there are lots of products trading on the idea.

Blue-Emu spray goes one step further. Look at the text in #1. And consider this ad copy from the Blue-Emu site:

Blue-Emu continuous spray is an odor free pain relief spray that combines the active ingredient, trolamine salicylate, with emu oil. This unique formula provides relief of minor aches and pains of muscles, and joints associated with minor arthritis, strains, sprains, bruises, and backaches. Spray-and-go makes it easy to use and enables hands free application. It sprays at any angle so that hard to reach spots are no longer a problem.

Ah, the active ingredient is trolamine salicylate! From WebMD:

Trolamine salicylate is used to treat minor aches and pains of the muscles/joints (such as arthritis, backache, sprains). It belongs to a class of drugs known as salicylates [related to salicylic acid and hence to aspirin].

Now we have a substance with a genuine track record. But a lot will depend on the level of its concentration in the Blue-Emu spray.

But back to the emu. From Wikipedia:

The emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the second-largest living bird by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. The emu’s range covers most of mainland Australia, but the Tasmanian emu and King Island emu subspecies became extinct after the European settlement of Australia in 1788.

… The neck of the emu is pale blue and shows through its sparse feathers.

(#2)

The blue neck:

(#3)

And from this, Johnny Bench gets his joint spray. Which — major point in the ads — doesn’t stink (in #1, “odor free”). I can’t vouch for that. Despite the fact that I’m a walking circus of arthritic pain (wrists and ebows at the moment), I haven’t tried the stuff. I’m a wary geezer.

A final sobering note: in the late 19th century, penguins were heavily hunted for their oil. Not just whales and seals.

Today’s morning name, an AZ name: AstraZeneca. Which of course led me quickly to the singer Astrud Zeneca.

From Wikipedia:

AstraZeneca plc is an British–Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company. In 2013 it moved its headquarters to Cambridge, England, and concentrated its R&D in three sites: Cambridge, Gaithersburg, Maryland (location of MedImmune) for work on biopharmaceuticals, and Mölndal (near Gothenburg) in Sweden, for research on traditional chemical drugs. In 2015 it was the eighth largest drug company in the world based on sales revenue.

On to Astrud Zeneca, a Brazilian singer famous for her performance of the song “The Girl from Ipana”, touting Bristol-Myers Squibb products: Sal Hepatica (laxative), Ipana (toothpaste), penicillin, and other pharmaceuticals. From the song:

Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipana goes walking and
When she smiles, everyone who sees her goes “ah”

Her teeth are gorgeous and
She radiates healthfulness and
When she passes, each one she passes goes “ah”

Ok, the ingredients: Astrud Gilberto, “The Girl from Ipanema”, Ipana, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Astrud Gilberto. From Wikipedia:

Astrud Gilberto (born March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is best known for her performance of the song “The Girl from Ipanema”.

Astrud Gilberto was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a German father, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. She married João Gilberto in 1959 and emigrated to the United States in 1963, residing in the U.S. from that time. Astrud and João divorced in the mid-1960s and she began a relationship with her musical partner, American jazz saxophone player Stan Getz.

“The Girl from Ipanema”. From Wikipedia:

“Garota de Ipanema” (“The Girl from Ipanema”) is a Brazilian bossa nova jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes. English lyrics were written later by Norman Gimbel.

The first commercial recording was in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro. The 1964 single featuring Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz became an international hit. [You can see a performance of it here.] This had been shortened from the version on the album Getz/Gilberto (recorded in March 1963, released March 1964) which had also included the Portuguese lyrics sung by João Gilberto.

… Ipanema is a fashionable seaside neighborhood located in the southern region of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Ipana. From Wikipedia:

Ipana … was a popular toothpaste product manufactured by Bristol-Myers Company. The wintergreen flavored toothpaste (0.243% sodium fluoride was its active ingredient) reached its peak market penetration during the 1950s in North America. Marketing of Ipana used a Disney-created mascot named Bucky Beaver in the 1950s.

You can watch an old Bucky Beaver “brusha brusha brusha” ad here.

Bristol-Myers Squibb. “Bristol-Myers Squibb, often referred to as BMS, is an American pharmaceutical company, headquartered in New York City.” (link) It was formed by the merger of former competitors Bristol-Myers and Squibb and is a competitor of AstraZeneca (which is where we came in).

(Obviously, sexual content, so not to everyone’s taste.)

On AZBlogX yesterday, in “Johnny Rapid at the jizz ball”:

It started with a device for simulating ejaculation in making porn movies, called a jizz ball (or jizz-ball [or jizzball]) in an episode of (the American) Queer as Fuck (in which the character Emmett becomes an on-line pornstar). That led to jizz ball ‘orgy’, especially a gang scene with one person as focus (a scene I’m familiar with in an all-male context). And specifically to a scene from the 2012 video Jizz Orgy: Winning Ball (from Men.com) in which Johnny Rapid takes on four members of a soccer team (played by Blaze, Brad Foxx, Leo Forte, and Rafael Alencar). Johnny has a jizz ball!

(with four shots of Johnny Rapid in action).

I’ll move on to simulated ejaculation in a moment, but first brief lexical remarks about the two (unrelated) verbs ball in all of this. Summary from NOAD2:

ball-1: a solid or hollow sphere or ovoid, especially one that is kicked, thrown, or hit in a game; a ball-shaped object

(balls) vulgar slang  testicles

verb N. Amer. vulgar slang  have sexual intercourse with.

ball-2 a formal social gathering for dancing

have a ball  informal  enjoy oneself greatly; have a lot of fun

The ball of the ejaculatory device starts out in what is sometimes called an enema ball, rectal syringe, or anal douche — a hollow spheroid filled with a liquid (plain warm water is recommended), with a tubular extension that can be inserted through the anus and into the rectum; squeezing the ball then shoots the liquid into the rectum for cleansing purposes. This device comes in several sizes with several kinds of tips. Here’s a traditional model:

(#1)

In the simplest simulated ejaculatory device, the bulb is filled with a commercial semen substitute, and ejaculation is just a matter of squeezing the ball so that the faux-semen squirts out. (I did a 9/13/12 posting on Come-On brand artificial cum, but that’s designed to provide smell and taste, rather than appearance.) Material on the — actual name! — Magic Money $hot brand:

(#2)

(#3)

You will probably not be surprised to hear that one large site on baby names reports that Jizzball is unattested as a baby names. Well, you never can tell.

jizz + X. GDoS doesn’t have an entry for jizzball, but it has a collection of other compounds in which jizz is an alternative to cum or to insulting scum ‘cum’. Examples (all of them first attested relatively recently, 1991 and later):

jizzbag = cumbag ‘contraceptive sheath’

jizzbag = insulting scumbag

jizzbags = cumbags ‘testicles’

jizzrag = cumrag ‘a handkerchief or similar piece of material into which one masturbates’

jizz rocket = cum rocket ‘the penis’

jizz water = cum water ‘semen’

Comment by Robert Coren on my “Meaty matters” posting:

“It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion” inescapably reminds me of a cigarette ad from my youth, whose slogan I chose to interpret in a way probably not intended by its creators: “It’s not how long you make it, it’s how you make it long”.

The 1951 song title was intended to convey (in the Wiktionary gloss)

When it comes to sexual satisfaction, penis size doesn’t matter, but technique does.

The cigarette ad from the 60s (which came in many variants, for television and for print media) was for Winston Super Kings, and the sexual innuendo was surely not inadvertent.

Background: the symbolically phallic potential of cigarettes has long been exploited in advertising: men display their cigarettes, women fondle them. Back in 1948 we got Lucky Strikes marching to the slogan

So round. So firm. So fully packed.

(cylindical, hard, full of stuff). You can watch the ad here.

Then came Winston Super Kings. Extra-long cigarettes that the makers claimed were designed to supply more taste, not just more millimeters. You can watch one of the tv ads here. Like “It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion”, the message was that mere size isn’t the point, it’s all in the technique.

The Winston ads all featured erect penises jutting cigarettes. The print ads were more colorful than the tv ads, and sometimes reinforced the natural phallicity of a jutting cigarette with a fully packed man’s basket:

Hey, sex sells.

(It starts with dough and cross-dressing and eventually touches on several sexy topics. So: definitely racy, but probably not enough to frighten the horses in the street.)

Today’s Rhymes With Orange portrays the kinky side of the Pillsbury Doughboy, Poppin’ Fresh (the advertising icon and mascot of the Pillsbury Company):

(#1)

The Doughboy cross-dressing in an adorable pink skirt — a fluted cupcake liner, from the set on the kitchen counter.

Now: some remarks on cupcakes; a note on sexual undercurrents in the Poppin’ Fresh ads; and extensive discussion of sentient, speaking figures (often anthropomorphic, as here) in advertising, cartoons, or fictions of other kinds, figures that are in fact foodstuffs.

Cupcakes. From Wikipedia:

A cupcake (also British English: fairy cake; Hiberno English: bun; Australian English: fairy cake or patty cake) is a small cake designed to serve one person, which may be baked in a small thin paper or aluminum cup. As with larger cakes, icing and other cake decorations, such as candy, may be applied.

… Cupcakes are usually baked in muffin tins. These pans are most often made from metal, with or without a non-stick surface, and generally have six or twelve depressions or “cups”.

… Individual patty cases, or cupcake liners, may be used in baking. These are typically round sheets of thin paper pressed into a round, fluted cup shape.

(#2)

Frosted chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles, in their fluted cases

The British and Australian term fairy cake introduces a potential ambiguity with sexual content. My 11/24/14 posting on “fairy X” distinguishes at least four senses of fairy in fairy X expressions:

fairy ‘associated with fairies, the magical beings’ (as in a fairy ring of mushrooms)
fairy ‘effeminate or homosexual man’ (derogatory, like pansy, fruit, fag, etc.)
fairy ‘small or delicate’ (as in fairy shrimp and fairy cake)
fairy ‘perverse’ (as in fairy chess)

In addition, cupcake itself has sexual uses. From GDoS:

1 (US) an attractive young woman; also an affectionate term of address [1st cite 1939, from Damon Runyan]

3 (US gay) a young homosexual man [esp. a passive one; 1st cite 1972 in Rodgers’s Queens’ Vernacular, indicating earlier use; in my experience, as an address term used affectionately by queers to queers and derogatorily by straights to queers or despised straight guys (if I call you cupcake, it means I think you’re cute; if a straight cop calls you cupcake, he’s calling you a fag or demeaning you by comparing you to a woman)]

4 (US gay) in pl., buttocks, esp. when tight, firm and small [metaphorical; 1st cite 1971]

So we get a possible penumbra of queerness and/or effeminacy (probably not intended by Hilary Price, the cartoonist) surrounding the straightforward kinkiness of the cartoon in #1.

Sexual undercurrents in Poppin’ Fresh ads. As I noted in a 8/26/15 posting on “Nothing says A like B”, the Poppin’ Fresh character (a talking anthropomorphic — and male — creature of dough) comes along with the (rhyming) slogan

Nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven

which explicitly introduces love — that is, deep affection — into the ads, but also suggests loving  in the sense of making love to, having sex with. And then there’s the oven image, evoking the hot core of the body, especially the female body. Whatever the adwriters’ conscious intentions were, they certainly managed to introduce sexual undercurrents.

(The Doughboy ads also featured a human finger poking Poppin’ Fresh affectionately in the belly, making him laugh: some tickle play. You can watch one here (from the 1960s) — complete with the slogan.)

Eating my kind. Eat me! Poppin’ Fresh is both a hunk of dough and a sentient, talking humanoid. Hawking dough in the BBCCM — bread / biscuit / cake / cookie / muffin — domain (which has no ordinary-language label), completely prepared but not baked, sold in refrigerated containers so that you can then bake the dough at home, thereby getting just-baked foodstuffs with a minimum of work and fuss.

Poppin’ Fresh doesn’t eat any of these finished products himself — that would smack of cannibalism — nor does he offer himself to be eaten — that would be like offering himself for physical abuse. But both of these lines have been crossed by other fictional sentient creatures, some of whom eat the foodstuffs of which they are made (Eating my kind), some of whom offer themselves to be eaten as food (Eat me!).

[Digression on two verbs eat. So far, it’s all been about the food verb eat (roughly ‘consume as food by mouth’). But we’re working up to creatures that cry out Eat me!, using the food verb but suggesting the slang sexual verb eat (of metaphorical origin: it all has to do with using your mouth). From GDoS:

to perform hetero- or homosexual fellatio or more usu. cunnilingus [first cite 1888-94 in My Secret Life] [or analingus, first cite 2000]

In gay contexts, sexual eat is a rough synonym of sexual suck, but is (for some speakers) somewhat more restricted in its syntax. Suck and eat both take the full range of direct objects referring to a penis:

I sucked / ate his (hot) cock / (big) dick / (thick) meat; the biggest one I ever sucked / ate; Suck / eat that monster! I love to suck / eat cock / dick  …

Suck is also freely usable with direct objects referring to a man (understood as actually referring, metonymically, to that man’s penis):

I sucked him enthusiastically; the hottest guy I ever sucked; Suck my buddy! …

But many speakers are reluctant to use eat this way, and examples like the following seem to be rare:

I ate him enthusiastically; the hottest guy I ever ate; Eat my buddy! …

A striking exception here is is the imperative Eat me!, which is usable, and common, either as a true imperative (‘Suck my cock!’) or as a dismissive insult (very roughly, ‘Fuck off!’).]

On to Eating my kind examples, notably Mrs. Potato Head, taken unawares by her husband while she’s secretly snacking on Lay’s Potato Chips. Still shot:

(#3)

“But you’re a potato!” he cries out in dismay. Well, they are potatoes. And they’re also plastic children’s toys (on which, see #2 in this posting of mine). And humanoid characters in an advertising drama, with speaking (and eating) roles. In the end, they agree that Lay’s Potato Chips are too good to resist. You can watch the whole ad here.

And then, Eat me! Starting from this entry on the TV Tropes site, “Let’s Meet the Meat”:

Does the sign include an illustration or mascot? Drawings of plates of food or ribs are okay, though not great. Pig mascots are good; smiling anthropomorphic pigs are even better. Is the pig surrounded by flames? If so, it should look happy about the situation. Best of all is an anthropomorphic pig eating ribs. Such a sign says, “Our food is so good that pigs will commit cannibalism to enjoy it.”
— Stephen Granade, Choosing A Barbeque Restaurant

There is a curious phenomenon in commercials in which edible animals or the post-prepared food and drink is given intelligence and the power of speech. And it wants humans to eat it. Or at least, others of its kind.

The title comes from the Dish of the Day sequence in Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe [1980, book 2 in the Hitchhikers’ Guide series].

Background from Wikipedia:

[Zaphod, Trillian, Arthur, and Ford] escape from Zarniwoop by asking to be transported to the nearest restaurant. Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is the nearest restaurant in space but not time. They are transported there “five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years” into the future. Marvin [the Paranoid Android] is left stranded here for this incredibly vast amount of time parking diners’ spaceships while waiting for the humans to return. After the meal …

Detail from the Milliways wiki:

Among the items on the menu were the very obliging Ameglion Major Cow and the somewhat less obliging vegetables in a green salad. Many cuts of the Ameglion Major Cow were available, such as shoulder braised in white wine sauce, grain fed rump, casserole, liver and steaks.

You can watch the Ameglion Major Cow episode (from tv) here.Text from the book:

The waiter approached.

‘Would you like to see the menu?’ he said, ‘or would you like meet the Dish of the Day?’

‘Huh?’ said Ford.

‘Huh?’ said Arthur.

‘Huh?’ said Trillian.

‘That’s cool,’ said Zaphod, ‘we’ll meet the meat.’

… A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox’s table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips.

‘Good evening’, it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, ‘I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in the parts of my body?’

It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters in to a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them.

Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox.

‘Something off the shoulder perhaps?’ suggested the animal, ‘Braised in a white wine sauce?’

‘Er, your shoulder?’ said Arthur in a horrified whisper.

‘But naturally my shoulder, sir,’ mooed the animal contentedly, ‘nobody else’s is mine to offer.’

Zaphod leapt to his feet and started prodding and feeling the animal’s shoulder appreciatively.

‘Or the rump is very good,’ murmured the animal. ‘I’ve been exercising it and eating plenty of grain, so there’s a lot of good meat there.’

It gave a mellow grunt, gurgled again and started to chew the cud. It swallowed the cud again.

‘Or a casserole of me perhaps?’ it added.

‘You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?’ whispered Trillian to Ford.

‘Me?’ said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes, ‘I don’t mean anything.’

‘That’s absolutely horrible,’ exclaimed Arthur, ‘the most revolting thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘What’s the problem Earthman?’ said Zaphod, now transfering his attention to the animal’s enormous rump.

‘I just don’t want to eat an animal that’s standing there inviting me to,’ said Arthur, ‘It’s heartless.’

‘Better than eating an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten,’ said Zaphod.

‘That’s not the point,’ Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘maybe it is the point. I don’t care, I’m not going to think about it now. I’ll just … er … I think I’ll just have a green salad,’ he muttered.

‘May I urge you to consider my liver?’ asked the animal, ‘it must be very rich and tender by now, I’ve been force-feeding myself for months.’

‘A green salad,’ said Arthur emphatically.

‘A green salad?’ said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur.

‘Are you going to tell me,’ said Arthur, ‘that I shouldn’t have green salad?’

‘Well,’ said the animal, ‘I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whoile tangled problem and breed

an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.’

Bonus. A French ad for saucissons that goes one step further and has the pig actually carving the sausages out of its body to supply the customers:

(#4)

Yes, I know. Trying to analyze what’s going on here will just make your head hurt.

(Discussion of men’s bodies and male-on-male sex in mostly very plain language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Today’s playtime viewing began with a compilation video of scenes from porn flicks featuring Trenton Ducati, beginning with an especially nicely crafted scene from the 2012 TitanMen Stud Finder, involving Jed Athens, Ford Andrews, and Ducati. Well, yes, a bit of titular word play, combining carpentry / construction work and hot men.

  (#1)

The DVD cover, with Ducati in the middle

Gay porn flicks (and the scenes within them) are interpersonal dramas in a largely conventional format, involving stock characters and relationships and characteristic narrative structures (among them: first physical displays of affection as foreplay, then cocksucking, then fucking, then everybody comes, on camera), and set in characteristic locales. Some of the most favored locales are spaces mostly peopled by blue-collar men, so it’s no surprise that a number of gay porn flicks are set in carpentry shops and construction sites and have titles like Stud Finder, packaging together stud ‘an upright support in the wall of a building to which sheathing, drywall, etc., are attached’ and stud ‘a young man thought to be very active sexually or regarded as a good sexual partner’ (both definitions from NOAD2).

A posting on AZBlogX (“Beefier and beefiest”) has XXX-rated photos (#1-3) of the three actors in the scene, displaying their bodies; descriptions of the three characters; two stills of sexual action from the scene (#4 oral, #5 anal); the story of the scene compactly described (who does what to who, in what sequence, with what emotional tones); and a brief analysis of the relationships between the men, mostly in terms of b/t (roughly, subordinate / dominant) roles (see the Page on b/t here).

From AZBlogX on the characters:

The scene involves three men: at first, slender, smooth-bodied, boyish Jed Athens (an enthusiastic bottom who sometimes tops) and beefier, hairy and scruffy Ford Andrews (versatile), who run through sexual preliminaries — lots of kissing, passionate cocksucking, Andrews on Athens, then Athens on Andrews) before they are joined by the beefiest of the three, square-jawed bodybuilder (hence smooth-bodied) Trenton Ducati (also versatile in gay porn, but in this scene he’s top all the way). The contrast in body types is especially nice. (Meawhile, everybody’s tall and everybody has a wonderful pornstar cock.)

(I follow the custom in many descriptions of porn of conflating the actors (identified by their stage names) with the characters they portray, since no one in the scene uses any names.)

Cropped versions of #1-3 in AZBlogX, so you can judge the men’s faces and bodies:

  (#2)

Athens

  (#3)

Andrews

  (#4)

Ducati

The somewhat breathless ad copy for the video, with the scenes numbered and the relevant scene description boldfaced:

Got hung? You need to find some wood and steel, and you need it soon. Hold the tool in your hand and guide it carefully until it hits the spot… [a little forest of phallic vocabulary] or just let TitanMen Trenton Ducati and Hunter Marx be your Stud Finders, leading the charge as a group of utility players get sweatier and hornier by the second. [1] A basement workshop heats up as Hunter Marx and Will Swagger [hard to beat as a porn name] take turns sucking each other before the hairy Hunter plows his bud’s hole. [2] After a passionate suck exchange, buddies Ford Andrews and Jed Athens are soon under the spell of alpha-stud Trenton Ducati, whose energy takes control. [3] Handyman Race Cooper’s ass is too much for co-worker Stany Falcone to resist; watch the duo’s tight abs and muscled bods glisten as they get breathless together. [glisten is a great porn verb]

The conclusion of my interactional analysis on AZBlogX:

On the basis of body types and face types, you might have expected Ducati over Andrews over Athens, or if you throw in Andrews’s [very masculine] hairiness and scruffiness (and Ducati’s versatility in other parts), maybe Ducati and Andrews flip-fucking [and both fucking] Athens (or even Andrews over Ducati). But the scene plays out with Andrews as everybody’s b (and Ducati as everybody’s t): the others both fuck Andrews (twice each), he doesn’t fuck anybody, and he comes last [coming first is a t move, coming last a b move]. A nice reversal of expectation — but only a partial reversal, since the three-way opens with Athens serving the other two orally, and his getting spit-roasted (ecstatically taking the other two men at once) is the high point of the scene, and Athens is a total cockwhore in it. So the three-way plays out as Athens serving the other two, then switching to being the man in the middle, and finally going back to where he really belongs, serving the other two.

Meanwhile, Andrews is a total b in the three-way, a role prefigured by his going down on Athens first in their initial encounter [going down first is a b move].

The whole scene (in two main parts) is long and unhurried, building slowly to its conclusion. Yes, I found it moving.

Within the constraints of the genre, this is a complex and interesting narrative.

Studs and stud finders. From NOAD2, with the senses relevant to the porn flick boldfaced. The complete entry for the inanimate noun stud:

1 a large-headed piece of metal that pierces and projects from a surface, especially for decoration; a small, simple piece of jewelry for wearing in pierced ears or nostrils; a fastener consisting of two buttons joined with a bar, used in formal wear to fasten a shirtfront or to fasten a collar to a shirt; (usu. studs) a small projection fixed to the base of footwear, especially athletic shoes, to allow the wearer to grip the ground; (usu. studs) a small metal piece set into the tire of a motor vehicle to improve roadholding in slippery conditions.

2 an upright support in the wall of a building to which sheathing, drywall, etc., are attached; US the height of a room as indicated by the length of this.

3 a rivet or crosspiece in each link of a chain cable.

ORIGIN Old English studu, stuthu ‘post, upright prop’; related to German stützen ‘to prop.’ The sense ‘ornamental metal knob’ arose in late Middle English.

And the complete entry for the animal-related noun stud:

1 an establishment where horses or other domesticated animals are kept for breeding: [as modifier]: a stud farm | the horse was retired to stud; a collection of horses or other domesticated animals belonging to one person; (also stud horse) a stallion; informal a young man thought to be very active sexually or regarded as a good sexual partner.

2 (also stud poker) a form of poker in which the first card of a player’s hand is dealt face down and the others face up, with betting after each round of the deal. [the sense development isn’t clear to me]

ORIGIN Old English stōd, of Germanic origin; related to German Stute ‘mare,’ also to stand.

And then, finally, the relatively transparent N + N compound stud finder, from Wikipedia:

A stud finder (also stud detector or stud sensor) is a handheld device used to locate framing studs located behind the final walling surface, usually drywall. While there are many different stud finders available, they all fall into two main categories, magnetic stud detectors and electric stud finders. Stud finders have been in use since the early 20th century.

Stud finders are not very photogenic, so I omit the pictures.

I suppose we could think of Grindr as a stud finder.

(Men’s underwear alert! Premium grade, but still…)

Harry stumbled one day into the neighborhood
Force field and was 22-Coded, became
Hunky, a super-beast of enormous
Strength, intense
Sexuality, and a
Fabulous body, with the power to
Transform himself —

Split into two men,

(#1)

Mirror-clone himself,

(#2)

Zoom in to enlarge himself

(#3)

Plus, he got the Cruise of Death, the stare that
Makes men melt before him, serve his needs. The

Hot underwear was an
Unexpected bonus.

(#1 was yesterday’s Daily Jocks ad; #2 and #3 are from the Code 22 website. The company has stores in Amsterdam and in Tarragona, Spain. It boasts that its materials are all European and that its clothing is European-made; it even has a .eu e-address. Go EU!)

The ad copy from DJ is a distillation of the company’s own copy (I’ve boldfaced my favorite sentence):

CODE 22 is an expression of defining men’s underwear and sportswear design. It gives meaning to the words balance, confidence and masculinity. CODE 22 is a concept born from the spirit of innovation and created for men who are in need of minimal yet elegant creations.

I don’t know about balance and confidence, but the ads have masculinity in spades: the models look testosterone-crazed, with absurdly ripped bodies. (Not that those are bad things in an underwear model. Just not so good in a real guy.)

In any case, the p.r. copy for premium men’s underwear tends to be profoundly serious: elevated and sweeping, both grandiose and worshipful in tone. And therefore risible. I mean: funny as hell.

Recently the admirable Margalit Fox has been posting on Facebook a series “Demented P.R. Pitch of the Day” (Margalit seems to read more of her nonsense mail than I do). I’ll give the two most recent examples and then turn to some long-standing advertising themes in my own postings: absurd ad copy for premium men’s underwear and for gay porn. (So, yes, in the second case there will be some incidental sex talk.)

(Note: I refer to Margali Fox by her first name because we’re acquaintances — and both linguists.)

A photo of MF by Ivan Farkas:

(#1)

A posting of mine of 11/21/14 has a section on her and her work, both the many wonderful obits for the New York Times and her two books on language-related subjects.

But on to the demented p.r. pitches. #2, on 2/14:

Imagine if all of a sudden the spigot of wealthy foreigners and their cash was somehow choked off from the American real estate market? There is no doubt that the country’s real estate market would crumble.

I would love to introduce you to __ , a Manhattan based international real estate attorney, who for over 20 years, represented international high-net worth investors, world leaders and foreign billionaires in private equity, commercial, and residential real estate transactions.

__ [is] more than happy to talk about whether Donald Trump’s foreign policies so far are derailing the American real estate market. …

The first question here is: Why Margalit?

(I realize now that I do get regular e-mail from people asking me to join them in “exciting business opportunities” — but nothing as elaborate, and indirect, as the pitch above.)

Then #3, from 2/17:

Hello Margalit!

I hope you are well and having a great week! I wanted to personally connect with you to see if I can schedule a time for you to interview __ from Shark Tank and product development expert, __ . …

This is timely because they just came out with the book __, which … is filled with step by step instructions to give a winning pitch that may just land you a spot in the Shark Tank.

TOPICS THEY CAN DISCUSS:
Become The Person Of Influence
Real Life Behind The Scenes Of Shark Tank
Insider Tips Of How To Get On Shark Tank …
How Not To Blow Your Funding Before You’re On The Market
On my end I will handle the logistics of the interview and ensure we promote to our thousands of followers on social media.
Eager to hear your thoughts! I am open to any suggestions you have for the interview.

To understand this at all, you have to know this:

Shark Tank is an American reality television series that premiered on August 9, 2009, on ABC. The show is a franchise of the international format Dragons’ Den, which originated in Japan in 2001. Shark Tank shows aspiring entrepreneur-contestants as they make business presentations to a panel of “shark” investors, who then choose whether or not to invest. (Wikipedia link)

I’m pretty sure Margalit has never expressed any sort of interest in being on Shark Tank — but then the spam comments on this blog (well over 5 million so far) have recently included a whole bunch advertising erotic massage in Bucharest (yes, Bucharest, Romania). If I wanted erotic massage, I’d hire a guy on the SF Peninsula, and would not be enticed by a young woman in Bucharest.

Again, a striking fact about the pitches that Margalit gets is how elaborate they are — way beyond “I would like to talk with you about a mutual business opportunity” or “I am young Russian girl in your neighborhood and want to know you better”.

In the world of underwear. Specifically, premium men’s underwear companies, which advertise to an upscale international audience, many of whom are gay men, so they’re trying to balance appeals to the comfortable and sensuous feel of the goods (for men in general) and to raw sexiness (for gay men in particular), while covering these with a veneer of high purpose, artistry, scientific design, and snob appeal. That gives us things like the following, from a posting yesterday:

CODE 22 is an expression of defining men’s underwear and sportswear design. It gives meaning to the words balance, confidence and masculinity. CODE 22 is a concept born from the spirit of innovation and created for men who are in need of minimal yet elegant creations.

the p.r. copy for premium men’s underwear tends to be profoundly serious: elevated and sweeping, both grandiose and worshipful in tone. And therefore risible. I mean: funny as hell.

Especially funny since the high-toned copy is paired with images of extremely hot nearly naked men looking conspicuously masculine (and, usually, seductive). So we get a disjuncture between the carnal draw of visible fantasy bodies plus almost-visible dicks and little faux-philosophical treatises on the higher nature of men’s underwear. The point, of course, is to engage men’s identification with or desire for the models in the ads — that sells underwear — while soothing their anxieties over these feelings.

Not all the ads have text as absurd as this one, but a great many do. An evergreen source of entertainment, for me, anyway.

All agog at gay porn. In the case of advertising copy for gay porn, there’s little anxiety to allay — prospective buyers are well-disposed towards the product, are probably always on the lookout for it. The copywriter’s job is to convince them that this particular flick will do the trick for them, to entice them with hot copy, copy that’s crude, thick with sex, and itself arousing, but that also plugs into their previous experiences jacking off to porn: this is just the sort of thing you like, buddy (an appeal to familiarity), but even better than what you’ve had (an appeal to freshness). Your favorite stuff, but new and improved!

This means that unless you can find unbiased reviews, you won’t learn much about a flick from the ads, since they’re always (way) over the top with enthusiastic positives, descriptions of hot bodies, thumbnail accounts of hot man-on-man action, and lots of (often conventional) porn talk. What you can learn from the ads is the special interests a flick caters to: black guys, military men, lots of anal, watersports, t-rooms, bareback, cute twinks, gangbangs, huge cocks, romance, whatever. Beyond that, every ad tells you, shouts at you, that the action is hot hot hot. (In actuality, there’s a huge range of craft in gay porn, so that the copy can easily lead a gay lad astray, suck him into buying a video that’s mostly a stinker, except maybe for one serviceable scene.)

My most recent posting on gay porn, on the 18th, about Stud Finder (great name), quotes a breathless piece of ad copy, with interpolated comments of mine:

Got hung? You need to find some wood and steel, and you need it soon. Hold the tool in your hand and guide it carefully until it hits the spot… [a little forest of phallic vocabulary] or just let TitanMen Trenton Ducati and Hunter Marx be your Stud Finders, leading the charge as a group of utility players get sweatier and hornier by the second. A basement workshop heats up as Hunter Marx and Will Swagger [hard to beat as a porn name] take turns sucking each other before the hairy Hunter plows his bud’s hole. After a passionate suck exchange, buddies Ford Andrews and Jed Athens are soon under the spell of alpha-stud Trenton Ducati, whose energy takes control. Handyman Race Cooper’s ass is too much for co-worker Stany Falcone to resist; watch the duo’s tight abs and muscled bods glisten as they get breathless together. [glisten is a great porn verb]

For the genre, this is relatively restrained. Points worth noting, beyond the ones above: sweatier and hornier, the hairy Hunter, plows, suck exchange, alpha-stud, tight abs, muscled bods, breathless. No one talks like this in eveyday conversation; it’s in a special porn register. And since the porn talk is so thick and dense, it’s absurd, and funny.

Many earlier examples on this blog and AZBlogX. Not a lot of guidance for the discerning shopper, but thoroughly enoyable.

Today’s Bizarro:

  (#1)

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

Appropriately for May Day, this strip is ephemeral: this month, if you keep up with popular culture, it’s wryly funny, but a year from now, almost no one will understand it. (Yes, I’m going to explain it.)

But first, from NOAD2:

noun ephemeron: an insect that lives only for a day or a few days. ORIGIN from Greek, neuter of ephēmeros  ‘lasting only a day.’

noun ephemera: things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time;items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity: Mickey Mouse ephemera. ORIGIN late 16th century: plural of ephemeron. Current use has been influenced by plurals such as trivia and memorabilia.

adj. ephemeral: lasting for a very short time: fashions are ephemeral.

Then, on the mayfly, from Wikipedia:

  (#2)

Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada) are aquatic insects belonging to the order Ephemeroptera. This order is part of an ancient group of insects termed the Palaeoptera, which also contains dragonflies and damselflies. Over 3,000 species of mayfly are known worldwide, grouped into over 400 genera in 42 families.

Mayflies are relatively primitive insects and exhibit a number of ancestral traits that were probably present in the first flying insects, such as long tails and wings that do not fold flat over the abdomen. Their immature stages are aquatic fresh water forms (called “naiads” or “nymphs”), whose presence indicates a clean, unpolluted environment.

… Mayflies “hatch” (emerge as adults) from spring to autumn, not necessarily in May, in enormous numbers. Some hatches attract tourists. Fly fishermen make use of mayfly hatches by choosing artificial fishing flies that resemble the species in question.

… The brief lives of mayfly adults have been noted by naturalists and encyclopaedists since Aristotle and Pliny the Elder in classical times. The German engraver Albrecht Dürer included a mayfly in his 1495 engraving The Holy Family with the Mayfly to suggest a link between heaven and earth. The English poet George Crabbe compared the brief life of a daily newspaper with that of a mayfly in the satirical poem “The Newspaper” (1785), both being known as “ephemera”.

And, finally, on Pepsi. From the NPR site, “After Uproar, Pepsi Halts Rollout Of Controversial Protest-Themed Ad”, on Morning Edition on April 5th, by Laurel Wamsley:

It was about unity, Pepsi explained. But the company’s new ad, set at a protest march, was quickly called out for being tone-deaf, offensive, and perhaps worst of all for the brand: not “woke.”

The ad, which stars model and Kardashian sister Kendall Jenner, had been slated for a worldwide release. But Pepsi announced today that it would halt any further rollout of the ad. “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding,” the company said in a statement received by the Associated Press. “Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize.”

The company removed the ad from its YouTube channel on Wednesday afternoon, where it had garnered at least 1.3 million views in two days.

[You can view the ad here, on the Slate site. The Slate posting also has a snarky critique of the ad.]

The ad features a diverse cadre of young, happy protesters holding signs splashed with calls for peace, love, and in one odd instance, to “Join the conversation.”

In the ad’s key scene, Jenner hands a can of ice-cold Pepsi to a police officer, who accepts it and takes a sip, to raucous cheers from protesters.

  (#3)

But on the Internet, the reaction was fierce. Many saw the ad’s climactic hand-a-cop-a-Pepsi moment as referencing – and exploiting – an important image from the Black Lives Matter movement — when a woman calmly, summer dress fluttering, stood before heavily equipped police in Baton Rouge, La.

  (#4)

In general, Pepsi was accused of trying to sell soda using the setting and symbolism of recent protests, such as those against police brutality.

AdAge reports that the spot was created by Pepsi’s in-house creative team, Creators League.

The company initially stood behind the ad. Earlier, Pepsi told Adweek in a statement: “This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that’s an important message to convey.”

The soda company may not be the last brand to try to invoke the protests and “resistance” ethos that are hallmarks of this political moment. But this ad may be one textbook example of what not to do.

… which brings us back to the Bizarro strip, in which the protest seems to be profoundly trivial, and you need a permit to protest without Pepsis for the cops. A fairly gentle swipe at the Pepsi ad.

But the ad’s been withdrawn, and the furor over it will almost surely be ephemeral. So the strip is funny at the moment (if you know about the ad) but will soon become incomprehensible.

It started with my observing to a friend that a container in which a blue cheese had been stored can be used to start “blu(e)ing” any cheese, citing the blue cheddar I had recently created in my refrigerator. And then this friend went off to buy some cheese for me, and came across some blue jack, a blue version of Monterey Jack. Jack is a mild cheese that has the virtue of being sliceable, and sliceable blue cheeses aren’t easy to come by (most blue cheeses crumble or shatter), so blue jack could be a good find. And so it was:

(#1)

From the Boar’s Head site effusive ad copy:

Inspired by the rich tradition of European bleu cheese, just the aroma of Boar’s Head Bold_® MarBleu_™ Marbled Blue Monterey Jack Cheese will send your senses on a flavor voyage. This masterfully blended cheese delivers a creamy yet distinctive bleu flavor that can be sliced without crumbling.

It is, in fact, subtly blue, and goes well in a sandwich with sliced roast beef.

I was then moved to think about possible interpretations of blue jack, considering first semantically transparent combinations of blue and jack, for various senses of each of these:

adj. blue: (a) blue in color; (b) depressed; (c) characterized by sexual or obscene language

noun jack: (a) a device for lifting heavy objects; (b) a particular playing card, the lowest of the face cards; (c) short for (a) hijack; (d) short for (a) jack-off ‘an instance of masturbation’; (d) short for (a) jackrabbit

No doubt there are more relevant senses (well, there’s blue ‘with the Penicillium mold added’ and jack, short for (Monterey) jack cheese). Not all combinations are sensical, but some are entertaining; I’m especially fond of blue jack ‘a masturbation accompanied by dirty talk’ and blue jack ‘a depressed jackrabbit’.

Then there’s a collection of fixed expressions, idiomatic to one degree or another, starting with a fish blue jack, aka coho (salmon). Dictionary.com (from Random House):

coho salmon: a small salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, of the North Pacific coasts and also in the Great Lakes, where it was introduced: important as agame and food fish.

Also called blue jack, cohoe salmon, coho, cohoe, silver salmon.

1865-70; earlier cohose (construed as plural) < Halkomelem (mainland dial.) k̉ ^wə́x ^wəθ

From Wikipedia:

(#2)

Blue jack in its ocean phrase

During their ocean phase, coho salmon have silver sides and dark-blue backs. During their spawning phase, their jaws and teeth become hooked. After entering fresh water, they develop bright-red sides, bluish-green heads and backs, dark bellies and dark spots on their backs. Sexually maturing fish develop a light-pink or rose shading along the belly, and the males may show a slight arching of the back. Mature adults have a pronounced red skin color with darker backs and average 28 inches and 7 to 11 pounds, occasionally reaching up to 36 pounds. They also develop a large kype (hooked beak) during spawning.

Then another fish, the aquarium fish the Electric Blue Jack Dempsey, Nandopsis octofasciatum, an aggressive carnivore. From the LiveAquaria site:

(#3)

We’re pleased to offer the Electric Blue Jack Demsey, an uncommon but natural variant of Nandopsis octofasciatum. Adorned in brilliant blue, this showcase cichlid is typically smaller and reported to be less aggressive than its popular counterpart.

The Electric Blue Jack Dempsey is a freshwater fish that originates in the murky warm waters of Central America. It has a base color of electric blue to gray, and displays many iridescent blue and green spots, giving this fish a spectacular look. When breeding, these colors will intensify.

By now, you will have seen that Electric Blue Jack Demsey doesn’t actually have the expression blue jack in it, since it’s parsed

[ electric blue ] [ Jack Dempsey ]

From NOAD2:

noun electric blue: a steely or brilliant light blue: the pot is decorated with circles of electric blue | an electric-blue sports car.

And from Wikipedia:

The Jack Dempsey (Rocio octofasciata) is a species of cichlid that is widely distributed across North and Central America (from Mexico south to Honduras). Its common name refers to its aggressive nature and strong facial features, likened to that of the famous 1920s boxer Jack Dempsey.

Then something of a mystery, the Bluejack National. From the company site:

Bluejack National is a private club and resort-style community located on 755-acres of rolling hills in Montgomery, Texas. Bluejack, which features the only Tiger Woods-designed golf course and short course in the United States, is limited to 400 residences and 550 memberships.

I haven’t found anything that explains the name. It might possibly have been intended to evoke the sport fish and bluejack as a shortening  of bluejacket in one of the regional, Native American, or military senses I’ll mention below.

Then from the allbud site on medical marijuana:

Hybrid – 50% Sativa /50% Indica: Blue Jack is one of the most commonly used strains that offers smokers a sense of newness; its strong citrus like scent calms the nerves and evokes the feeling of serenity. The strain is also known as blueberry jack, but in recent years, it has taken the name of ‘Blue Jack.’ The immediate effects of the strain include euphoria, happiness, laziness, sleepiness and uplifted mood.

And from (among other sites) Urban Dictionary on the verb bluejack:

to send a message, ringtone, image or file via Bluetooth to someone’s mobile phone who you don’t know. – by Gunter 11/4/03

(a portmanteau, Bluetooth + hijack).

Now, to Bluejacket or Blue Jacket in a variety of senses, many of which can be abbreviated to bluejack or blue jack. A summary from Wikipedia:

People

A term for an enlisted sailor in the United States or Royal Navy

Blue Jacket (1745–1810), Shawnee war chief known for his defense of Shawnee lands in the Ohio Country

Charles Blue Jacket (1817–1897), 19th century Shawnee chief in Kansas, and Methodist Minister

Jim Bluejacket (1887–1947), one of the first Native Americans to play in major league baseball

Jimmy Smith (baseball) (1895–1974), major league infielder often referred to as Bluejacket

Geographic

Bluejacket, Oklahoma [named for its first postmaster, the Rev. Charles Bluejacket, one-time chief of the Shawnee and grandson of noted leader Blue Jacket]

Blue Jacket Creek, a stream in Ohio

the original 1777 settlement at the site of today’s Bellefontaine, Ohio

Ships

Blue Jacket (clipper), an 1854 clipper ship in the Liverpool and Australia trade

USS Blue Jacket, the name of several U.S. Navy ships

Other

The Bluejacket’s Manual, the basic handbook for U.S. Navy personnel

The Bluejackets, a 1922 Dutch film

Columbus Blue Jackets, a professional ice hockey team in the NHL based in Columbus, Ohio [The Blue Jackets’ name and logos are inspired by Ohio’s Civil War history.]

Fleet City Bluejackets, a World War II American military football team that won the 1945 service national championship

Tradescantia ohiensis, a plant known by the common name “bluejacket”

(#4)

Tradescantia ohiensis (which grew wild in my Columbus garden)

To which I add:

blue jacket: part of the uniform of Union soldiers in US Civil War; hence, such a soldier

A display of Yankee blue (with Civil War re-enactors):

(#5)