Today’s bon appétit top story, “Regional Potato Chips You’ve Never Heard Of”:

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Frito-Lay may rule most supermarket snack aisles, but once upon a time, regional potato chips dominated the American snacking scene. A visit to West Virginia wasn’t complete without a crunchy bag of Mister Bee. Headed to Ohio? Pick up a greasy handful of rippled Ballreich’s “Marcelled” chips. Many local titans aren’t the powerhouses they once were and countless others less fortunate have gone the way of the Marathon Bar, but their deep-fried legacy continues to bubble away on a smaller scale, thanks to online stores. Here are nine you should try, because there’s nothing more patriotic than supporting small businesses while stuffing your face with potato chips.

The nine brands the article looks at:

Frito-Lay may rule most supermarket snack aisles, but once upon a time, regional potato chips dominated the American snacking scene. A visit to West Virginia wasn’t complete without a crunchy bag of Mister Bee. Headed to Ohio? Pick up a greasy handful of rippled Ballreich’s “Marcelled” chips. Many local titans aren’t the powerhouses they once were and countless others less fortunate have gone the way of the Marathon Bar, but their deep-fried legacy continues to bubble away on a smaller scale, thanks to online stores. Here are nine you should try, because there’s nothing more patriotic than supporting small businesses while stuffing your face with potato chips.

More important, potato chips fairly quickly grow stale (unless the makers use additives to retard what the industry calls staling, with the causative / inchoative verb stale ‘make or become stale’), so getting them to consumers quickly is important, a goal served well by local production and distribution. When I was a child in southeastern Pennsylvania, potato chips and pretzels both were mostly produced by lical forms, many of which did home delivery in trucks (usually on a weekly schedule).

One of these was the Wise company. From Wikipedia:

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Wise Foods, Inc. is a company based in Berwick, Pennsylvania [in Columbia County, southwest of Wilkes-Barre, north of Reading and Allentown], that makes snacks and sells them through retail food outlets in 15 eastern seaboard states, as well as Vermont, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. Best known for its several varieties of potato chips, Wise also offers Cheez Doodles, bagged popcorn, tortilla chips, pork rinds, Cheez Waffies, onion rings, Dipsy Doodle chips, Nacho Twisters, Quinlan brand pretzels, and French onion and nacho cheese dips.

… Wise Foods started as Wise Potato Chip Company, founded in Berwick, Pennsylvania, in 1921 by a young man named Earl Wise, Sr.. He owned Wise Delicatessen and began making potato chips as a way to make use of excess potatoes, initially cooking them in his mother’s kitchen,[2] and then selling them to customers in brown paper bags. At the time, potato chips were generally kept in glass display cases, or cracker barrels, and scooped into paper bags for customers. The bags developed grease spots and did not keep the chips fresh for very long, eventually leading to the development of waxed paper bags. Wise’s chips proved an immediate hit with customers and soon the delicatessen owner became a regional potato chip mogul. He decided on an owl as a company mascot, a creature reputed to be “wise,” the stylized eye of which remains the corporate logo. He had his first delivery truck by 1922, and opened his first production plant in 1925.

From its local beginnings, Wise expanded and was eventually largely swept into big snack firms, though it’s still mostly an eastern, rather than national, company..

Now three potato chip firms that are still focused in an area that includes Reading, the land of my childhood.

Martin’s. From the company site, with some enthusiastic ad copy:

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Central Pennsylvania is considered by many to be the snack food capital of the world. Enjoying the benefit of the rich loamy soil, farmers had to find ways to use their excess crops. From the farm kitchen of Harry and Fairy Martin, back in 1941, a unique potato chip found its way into the hearts and homes of York County. Business soon outgrew the kitchen. The Martini’s built a small factory and expanded their distribution from delivering fresh daily to market stands, to also selling to mom and pop grocery stores.

In 1971 the business was sold to Ken and Sandy Potter with the Martin family remaining as employees. The Potter’s had a dream, of expanding the business outside the York area. By 1977 the delivery routes increased from one to five, covering York, Lancaster, Dauphin, and Adams counties. As Martin’s grew through the 80s and 90’s, the combination of quality products and superior service proved to be successful.

Today over 50 routes operate from the distribution facilities in Reading, Allentown, Williamsport, Lancaster, and Hagerstown, MD to ensure products are delivered fresh daily. We also have distribution serving Pittsburgh, Altoona, Philadelphia, New York and Virginia.

Good’s. From the company site:

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What is the difference between “Red Good’s” and “Blue Good’s”? Basically, it’s the temperature at which the chips are cooked. The “red” Homestyle chips are placed in a continuous cooker, entering at one end of the equipment and being mechanically raked through the lard to the other end, where they emerge to be salted, cooled, dried, and packaged.

The “blue” Original chips are produced in two large steel kettles. When the chips are placed in the kettles, the temperature is lowered, then increased as the chips slowly cook, producing a harder, darker, curlier and crunchier chip.

Where are Good’s Potato Chips distributed? Good’s Potato Chips currently has 16 distribution routes throughout south-central Pennsylvania including Berks [Reading’s county], Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks, Lebanon and Schuylkill counties. Independent distributors also serve several Mid-Atlantic and New England states. Good’s products are available at most major grocery stores, as well as independent grocers, markets, convenience stores, sandwich shops and served in many restaurants. If Good’s Potato Chips are not available in your area, we offer many of our most popular items for sale in our on-line store.

Dieffenbach’s. From a Reading Eagle story of 8/4/15, “Mix of old and new at Dieffenbach’s Kettle Chips” by Brad Rhea:

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It’s been more than a half-century since Mark Dieffenbach began making potato chips on the kitchen stove in his house near Womelsdorf [in western Berks County].

The company he later founded, Dieffenbach’s Kettle Chips, produces about 250,000 pounds of chips a week.

With an expansion planned later this year, production could increase by up to 30 percent.

The business was founded in 1964 by Mark Dieffenbach, grandfather of current President and CEO Nevin Dieffenbach.

“That’s why we’re located out here in the middle of the country,” said Dwight Zimmerman, vice president for business development and Nevin Dieffenbach’s brother-in-law. “(Mark) lived here, and it kept growing and growing. We still have one of the kettles that Mark Dieffenbach made.”

… “I would say 80 percent to 90 percent of the Dieffenbach’s brand is sold in Pennsylvania, specifically in Berks, Lebanon and Lancaster counties,” Zimmerman said.

Bonus musical note: a little song that I used to entertain Elizabeth in her infancy. To the theme from the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony:

Potato chips, potato chips! / Potato chips, they’re crispy and crunchy and salty!

Two recent cartoons, a One Big Happy in which the grandmother copes with black street speech with an app for her audience; and a Doonesbury in which marijuana companies tailor their products and their advertising for gay and black audiences.

The app for seniors:

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Advances in language technology:  a specialized translation app.

I’m not up on the latest (in almost any domain), but I recognize the relevant sense of BE break s.o. off as ‘give, share with’, though not with the math ‘numbers, spec. phone number’ as object.

Black gay stoners?:

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Handsome gentleman farmers is wonderful; every so often, I post here with photos from calendars of near-naked hunky young men purporting to be farmers (as well as calendars of such men who are in fact rowers, firemen, rugby players, cops, and so on). For the month;y viewing pleasure of women and gay men. And now: pot farmers for gay stoners.

Meanwhile, menthol cigarettes and vape juices have a big black market, so why not for black gay stoners?

(Like Zonker, I find the idea of minty fresh marijuana, um, questionable.)

(Not much about language. Warning: eventually there will be hunky young men wearing virtually nothing.)

As part of the run-in to Pride Month, the Out Magazine June-July issue has a page on clothes for the occasion:

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I’m not aesthetically moved by most of these, though I do like the Levi’s socks; and at $15 a pair they’re the closest thing there is to an affordable item in the set. Second on the economic front ($28 a pair) is the Mack Weldon underwear — but you’re probably wondering what black trunks are doing in a display of Pridewear. Seems they’re a stand-in for a line of underwear in hot rainbow colors, one color per skivvy. (There’s a Page on this blog on rainbow underwear, if you’d like to explore a more conventional approach.)

Here’s an ad for the Mack Weldon line:

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With extravagant winking ad copy (including boys for testicles):

This Mack Weldon Pride Pack ($135) is equipped with Mack Weldon styles in colors that make up the pride flag: a Red Heather boxer brief, a Tyrian Purple boxer brief, a Lemon Yellow trunk, a Nectarine Orange trunk, an Army Green brief, and a Cendre [Fr. ‘cinder, ash’; cf. Cendrillon ‘Cinderella’] Blue brief.

The boxer briefs, trunks, and briefs used for the Mack Weldon Pride Pack are made up of the Mack Weldon styles that are created from the ultra-soft 18 Hour Jersey. This pack will not only benefit the Human Rights Campaign, but it will also greatly benefit your package. Your boys will be resting in such a comfortable way – the way a man’s best friend deserves to be treated. And that is definitely something to feel prideful about during this Pride season! (link to Underwear Expert)

Here’s the Underwear Expert’s assemblage of six models in rainbow underwear, one color per man (from various designers):

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If that isn’t minimal enough for you, here’s another set of models making a thongbow — a rainbow in things:

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After this, we’d go to a set of cocksocks in rainbow colors — yes, such things exist — and that would have to go on AZBlogX.

It started with Chris Hansen posting this London bus ad on Facebook:

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On the bus:

IT’S SMOOTHIFIED.
WE’RE AMERICAN.
WE CAN MAKE UP WORDS.

NOW IN THE UK

So: about the morphology; about the advertising tactic; and about the beer.

Emily Rizzo then threw this into the mix:

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with chelada (a variant of michelada), a type of beer cocktail — that is, a mixed drink with beer as one of its ingredients.

smoothify ‘make smooth‘. From my 8/28/11 posting “Pepsification”, about –ify, deriving V from N or Adj, used in PepsiCo ads in the Vs drinkify and snackify:

A whole lotta ification going on.

Innovations in -ify tend to be playful, ostentatious, or deliberately “creative” — so they’re noticeable, which makes them good in the advertising world.

The posting provides a collection of  innovative –ify examples, many from N, but also nastification and distinctifying ‘differentiation’ from Adj and some examples that could be from Adj or N, like queerify. And the Quinion Affixes site has the ostentatiously humorous examples trendify ‘to make trendy or fashionable’, cutify < cute, and uglify < ugly. The Bud Light smoothified, PSP of jocular smoothify ‘make smooth’, is right in this tradition.

The ad strategy. After the ostentatious smoothified, the ad goes on to be boastfully American — we can do whatever we want — thereby playing self-mockingly on British stereotypes of Americans. As it happens, the current ad campaign is not just an introduction of Bud Light in the UK, but a reintroduction. From Marketing Week on 2/24/17:

Don’t call it a comeback: Bud Light re-enters the UK market after 16 years away

Bud Light is being relaunched in the UK, 16 years after the last attempt ended in failure.

The ad campaign includes a video of the Budweiser frogs croaking Bud, light, and beer — a re-doing of the famous frog ad, which you can watch here. From Wikipedia:

The Budweiser Frogs are three lifelike puppet frogs named “Bud”, “Weis”, and “Er”, who began appearing in American television commercials for Budweiser beer during Super Bowl XXIX in 1995.

We’ll see how the campaign works this time.

The beer. From Wikipedia:

Budweiser is an American-style pale lager produced by Anheuser-Busch, currently part of the multinational corporation Anheuser-Busch InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, it has grown to become one of the highest selling beers in the United States, and is available in over 80 markets worldwide — though, due to a trademark dispute, does not necessarily do so under the Budweiser name. It is made with up to 30% rice in addition to hops and barley malt.

… Some drinkers prefer the lightness of beers like Budweiser and consume it as a refreshment or for its inebriating effects. Several beer writers consider it to be bland. The beer is light-bodied with faint sweet notes and negligible bitterness, leading to reviews characterizing it as a “…beer of underwhelming blandness.” Even Adolphus Busch disliked the beer he marketed in the United States. But based upon sales alone, it became the second most popular American brewed pale lager among North American beer consumers. [In 2009, the top beer brands by market share were Bud Light (28.3%), Budweiser (11.9%) and Coors Light (9.9%).]

Budweiser has a 5% alcohol content and 145 calories per 12 fl. oz.; Bud Light has 4.2% and 110 calories.

Despite widespread complaints about the blandness of Budweiser and Bud Light (echoed in comments on the Facebook posting), these beers sell fabulously well in the US. (I find both Budweuser and Bud Light unacceptable, but then the only beers I drink in the US are dark German beers, and when I lived n the UK I drank bitter.) There are many more flavorful beers in the US, but they’re mostly made by smaller breweries, which are now threatened by mergers of big beer companies with big alcohol distributors.

A brief summary of the UK stuation, from Wikipedia (lightly edited):

Beer in the United Kingdom has a long history, and has quite distinct traditions [in different regions]. Historically the main styles were top-fermented bitters, porters, stouts and milds, but after World War II lagers took over half the market by volume. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was founded in 1971 and has encouraged the preservation and revival of traditional styles of ale.

Despite CAMRA’s efforts, lagers — including American pale lagers like Budweiser — continue to sell well, so the re-introduction of Bud Light might well find a receptive audience.

Beer cocktails. In particular, American “red beer” made with tomato juice, American lager, and worcestershire sauce, and the Mexican michelada. From Wikipedia (crucial bit boldfaced): the michelada is

made with beer, lime juice, and assorted sauces, spices, and peppers. It is served in a chilled, salt-rimmed glass. There are numerous variations of this beverage throughout Mexico and Latin America.

There are a variety of types of micheladas. For example, clamato contains clam juice and tomato juice. A chelada contains simply lime and originally sea salt, but often simply regular table salt. A cubana contains Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, chile, and salt. Depending on the region of Mexico, the preparation will vary. For people unfamiliar with the local area, it is best to ask how micheladas are prepared before ordering if there is concern for what ingredients will be used. In some regions a chelada is a michelada, and vice versa.

There are two popular versions of the origin and etymology of the michelada.

One concerns a Michel Ésper at Club Deportivo Potosino in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Ésper used to ask for his beer with lime, salt, ice, and a straw, in a special cup called “chabela”, as if it were a beer lemonade. The members of the club started asking for beer as “Michel’s lemonade”, with the name shortening over time to michelada. As time went by, other sauces were added to the original recipe. Today, it contains the same ingredients as a chelada but contains ice and chili powder on the rim.

Another etymology states that michelada is a portmanteau of mi chela helada. The word chela is a popular term for a beer in Mexico. When you ask for a chela, you are asking for a cold beer; therefore the phrase mi chela helada means “my ice cold beer”.

[Both etymologies sound dubious.]

In the 2010s, major U.S. beer producers began marketing cervezas preparadas, illustrating the wide variety of recipes in the chelada/michelada category and meeting its popularity among the country’s Latin American population. For example, Miller Brewing Company produces Miller Chill, a “Chelada-style light lager with a hint of salt and lime”. Anheuser-Busch makes Budweiser Chelada and Bud Light Chelada, a combination of lager, clamato, lime juice, and salt. As of 2012, Tecate now offers a michelada flavored with lime and spices. In 2015,Cervecería Centro Americana, a Guatemalan Brewery, released a Michelada under the trade name Dorada Draft Michelada Chiltepe. The beverage is spiced with chipotle peppers, the most widely used peppers in the region.

Alternatively, many consumers are known to use Bloody Mary mix or similar pre-made mixes with lager to make micheladas.

The michelada is just one type of beer cocktail. The Wikipedia article on this family of drinks has a fairly long list of named beer cocktails, which I post here in full because of the wonderful names:

A beer cocktail is a cocktail that is made by mixing beer with a distilled beverage or another style of beer. In this type of cocktail, the primary ingredient is beer. A mixture of beer with a beverage that contains a soft drink is usually called a shandy.

List of beer cocktails:

Black and Tan [the nickname given to the brutal British paramilitary force, largely made up of English WWI veterans, formed to suppress the Irish Independence movement in 1920 and 1921; consequently, the drink is not to be ordered in Ireland] – Made from a blend of pale ale and a dark beer such as a stout or porter. Traditionally uses bitter and stout.

Black Velvet – Stout with some sparkling wine or champagne. Cheap version uses cider and stout.

Boilermaker – Mild ale mixed with bottled brown ale or in the US a glass of beer with a shot of whiskey

Brass Monkey – Beverage created by adding orange juice to a partially drunk 40 ounce [beer]. Named after the Beastie Boys song although disputed whether this is the drink referred to in the song.

Coronarita [note portmanteau] – Overturned Corona [beer] bottle draining into a margarita

Clam Pint – Lager with clamato. Occasionally served premixed or with the Clamato in a sidecar for the customer to add. Popular in Western Canada

Dog’s Nose – Beer and gin, referred to in Tom Sharpe’s book Grantchester Grind

Flaming Doctor Pepper – Flaming drink made from beer, high-proof alcohol and Amaretto [liqueur]. Tastes like Dr Pepper.

Hangman’s Blood – Porter combined with brandy, gin, and rum

Irish Car Bomb – Irish stout with a mixed shot of Irish cream [liqueur] and Irish whiskey

Michelada – Beer mixed with lemon juice, salt, Worcestershire sauce, Valentina and Maggi hot sauces

Micky Mouse – Equal parts of lager and bitter

Porchcrawler – Equal parts of beer, vodka, and lemonade concentrate.

Red Eye – Beer, Clamato juice, Worcestershire sauce, pepper.

Sake bomb – Shot of sake poured or dropped into a glass of beer.

Snakebite – Equal parts of lager and cider

Tom Bass – Bass ale with a shot of Jägermeister served in a pint glass

U-Boot [Gm. ‘submarine’] – Glass of beer with a shot glass containing vodka “submerged” in it

This list includes a number of beer cocktails in which a small glass of one drink is submerged in or dropped into a larger glass of another drink. There are two intersecting drink categories here: beer cocktails and bomb shots / depth charges. Wikipedia on the latter, again with a long and fascinating list of named examples:

A bomb shot, or depth charge, is a mixed drink that is made by mixing two drinks. A drink in a small glass (typically a shot glass) is dropped into a larger glass holding a different drink. The resulting cocktail is typically consumed as quickly as possible (“chugged”). Recently, the term has become more loosely defined as simply a shot that is made by mixing two drinks.

A bomb shot typically consists of a shot glass of hard liquor that is dropped into a glass partially filled with beer but sometimes with some other beverage. Many variations exist. When the shot is dropped into a superpint it is commonly known as a “Depth Charge,” because it resembles the anti-submarine weapon being dropped on a target.

Examples of popular bomb shots include:

The classic Boilermaker: a shot of whisky dropped into beer

Barrel Bomb: in reference to the improvised weapon of the same name, a Barrel Bomb consists of a shot of red Aftershock [a cinnamon liqueur] dropped into Red Bull [caffeinated energy drink]. The red Aftershock represents the blast of the aforementioned weapon’s explosion and also blood spilled. Served in a highball glass reminiscent of the cylinders used to make a barrel bomb.

Claymore Mine: a shot of Bacardi 151 [rum] or Everclear grain alcohol dropped into a glass containing a fruity, sugary drink, typically a Sex On the Beach

Flaming Doctor Pepper: a shot of Amaretto [almond-flavored liqueur] and Bacardi 151 which is lit on fire and dropped into beer

Jägerbomb: a shot of Jägermeister [high-alcohol herbal digestif] dropped into a glass containing an energy drink. Likewise, the F-Bomb — Fireball Cinnamon Whisky and Red Bull.

Irish Car Bomb: a shot glass containing 1/2 Irish Cream [liqueur based on Irish whiskey] and 1/2 Irish whiskey dropped into Guinness stout

Sake bomb: a shot of sake dropped into beer

Skittle Bomb: a shot of Cointreau [orange-flavored liqueur] dropped into a glass containing an energy drink

Hand Grenade: Two shots, One of tequila, one of Jägermeister, carefully balanced against each other over a tumbler of energy drink. The tequila is then ‘pulled’ as the pin and drunk allowing the Jägermeister to fall into the tumbler creating a Jägerbomb which is then to be consumed immediately after.

Elephant on a Table: A shot of Amarula [South African liqueur made from sugar, cream, and the fruit of the marula tree] dropped into a half pint of Tafel Lager. A Windhoek speciality.

Cider Bomb: A shot of Jägermeister is dropped into a glass of apple cider.

Drop Bear: An Australia-specific bomb shot where a shot of Bundaberg Rum is dropped into a glass of Victoria Bitter. Named both for the iconic drop bear of Australian legend [a mythical predatory carnivorous version of the koala], and because the label of Bundaberg Rum [has a polar bear on it].

Magic eye: Central-European drink where a shot of Crème de Menthe [mint-flavored liqueur] is dropped into beer, usually staying consistent and forming [a  green “eye” inside the beer glass.

Haggis Bomb [reference to haggis as a characteristically Scottish food]: a shot of Jägermeister dropped into a glass containing Irn Bru [Scottish carbonated soft drink].

Bucky Bomb: a shot of Buckfast Tonic Wine dropped into a glass containing energy drink.

Caught on a local tv station, an ad for Spam:

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An easy pun — fried for tried — on a formulaic expression, Don’t knock it until / ’til / till you’ve tried it. In service of an exhortation to enjoy Spam by frying it just like ham.

First, on the ad campaign. Then, on the expression.

The ads. From Adweek’s “How Spam Used the Super Bowl to Kick Off Its Sizzling New Message: From out of the cupboard and into the frying pan” by Robert Klara on February 9th:

Did you know that right now, as you read this, the pantries of one-third of American homes contain Spam? (We mean the precooked pork product, not the junk mail.) Using 2016’s tally of 125.82 million households in America, that comes to nearly 43 million homes with a can of Spam on the shelf.

That’s a lot of Spam, but parent company Hormel would, naturally enough, like to see more. Which is why the famed convenience meat has quietly lifted the lid on a new marketing campaign this week.

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Actually, it wasn’t so quiet. Not only did Spam air its new ads in select markets during the Super Bowl, its new campaign is all about noise — specifically, the sizzling sound a slice of Spam makes when it hits a hot frying pan.

You can watch the commercial here.

The formulaic expression. The idea — that you can’t really appreciate something until you’ve experienced it, and then you’ll probably like it (Try it, you’ll like it, in the catchphrase from an old Alka-Seltzer ad campaign) — is an old one, and has been formulated in many ways as an encouragement to engage in some novel experience (from foods to sexual acts). One formulation partly crystallized into a family of admonishing expressions involving the verb knock (NOAD2: informal talk disparagingly about; criticize) under negation in the main clause and the verb try in a subordinate clause. Some variants:

Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it (at least once). Don’t knock it if you haven’t (ever) tried it. Don’t knock it if you’ve never tried it. Never knock it if you haven’t tried it. 

plus variants with specific NPs instead of it — Don’t knock Spam unless you’ve tried it — and variants with the subordinate clause first — If you haven’t tried it, don’t knock it — and variants with main-clause declaratives instead of imperatves — You shouldn’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.

But my impression is that one formulation is by far the most frequent:

Don’t knock it until / ’til / till you’ve tried it.

(until rather than unless or if tilts things towards the expectation that you will indeed try it). That is, this version is in some sense the canonical version of the catchphrase (one that in fact appears in some idiom dictionaries), which can then be varied in a number of ways.

This is in fact a common configuration for idioms. As Susanne Riehemann noted in ch. 3 of her 2001 Stanford PhD dissertation,  though an idiom generally has a canonical form (which dominates the data statistically, is reflected in the way dictionaries and speakers refer to the idiom, and serves as the seed for learning), some have more than one. For example, a search for the idiom in which someone is placed at the mercy of the meat-eaters yields the canonical throw to the wolves (39 exx.), plus lions (11 exx.), and 1 ex. each of tigers, sharks, dogs.

(Warning: kinky mansex territory, so NSFW and not for kids or the sexually modest.)

The header on a Facebook posting by Michael Palmer, which took me to the BareTwinks site and scenes like ths one:

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Two BareTwinks flicks. Here we see Kyle Rhodes, (shock of blond hair, Pokémon trainer cap) and Cameron Hilander (glasses, Pikachu cap) in an early scene from A Rewarding Day of Hunting, before the boys strip down to their caps and screw like minks, trainer on top. A shot of Rhodes and Michael Klein (in Pikachu cap) in advanced mink mode, from Poketwink Bedroom (where the ad copy works the poke-Pokémon territory hard):

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This is the shot that Michael Palmer labeled a distracting moment in gay male erotica, because of the caps. (Michael’s version had the site of sexal pleasure concealed by a large white box; my version here just has the boys’ testicles fuzzed out, to yield a genital gray zone.)

Unless they zero in precisely on your own sexual quirks, props and costumes can blunt the urgency of desire; you might well be inclined to giggle. Or shrink back.

You hook up with a hot hunk on Grindr and he arrives with a gym bag containing costumes for a pirate and a cabin boy, so the two of you can play Ravished by Cap’n Jack. This is a fairly routine gay fantasy — but you are, at best, reluctant. Or the bag contains a mini-watermelon with an appropriate-size hole reamed out of it, so that the two of you can be straight buddies sharing a melon fuck. This does happen occasionally in real life, and it’s something of a staple of gay porn — but you might still be unmoved by the blandishments of a juicy melon-hole.

Now the two porn videos above are playing with the Pokémon craze, no doubt to emphasize the boyishness of the actors, but most viewers will find the costumes silly, distracting, and probably sexually deflating.

Pokémon notes. Rhodes gets the trainer cap:

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Hilander gets to play Pikachu:

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Pikachu is an Electric-type Pokémon introduced in Generation I. It evolves from Pichu when leveled up with high friendship and evolves into Raichu when exposed to a Thunder Stone. (link)

And Klein gets to play Espeon:

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Espeon is a Psychic-type Pokémon introduced in Generation II. It evolves from Eevee when leveled up with high friendship during the day or morning, or when leveled up with high friendship with a Sun Shard in the Bag. It is one of Eevee’s final forms, the others being Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Umbreon, Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon. (link)

(This elaborate other world, with a large cast of characters and customs, its own history, and a complex specialized vocabulary, is especially attractive to kids, though by no means just to kids.)

The BareTwinks site advertises itself unabashedly (but with eccentric use of upper-case):

ALL Exclusive Video Website Delivering High-Quality Videos of Barely Legal BOY-ON-Boy Action. We are committed to high quality amateur Video, delivered twice a Week … All our Boys Fuck Bareback

Legal age is 18 — that is, in the US, college age. Young men. “Barely legal” actors normally are chosen to appear roughly 16 and to present themselves as youths. BareTwinks seems to have combed the land for males 18 and over who look 13 or 14 and present themselves as boys: very thin (Hilander looks scarily emaciated to me), without adult musculature, and with completely smooth bodies. That I find deeply creepy. The caps are silly and somewhat distracting, but as far as I’m concerned the young-boyishness is downright distressing (and also anerotic).

Then there’s the barebacking, which always makes me a bit uneasy, especially out of concern for the actors.

Yesterday’s Bizarro, another exercise in what you have to know to understand what’s going in a cartoon:

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

Setting. From the characters’ dress, the architecture, and the saguaro cactuses in the background, we conclude that we are in the mythic Old West, cowboy country. (Actual saguaros are limited to certain desert areas of Arizona, Sonora, and California, but as Wikipedia says: “The image of the saguaro is indelibly linked with that of the American Southwest, especially in western films.”)

We could spend considerable time in “reading” the costumes of the salesman (coat, tie, boots, hat) and the cowboy (chaps, spurs, boots, hat, etc.) and their beards, and in analyzing the design of the buildings — all of this is part of the mythos of the Old West — but here I’ll just say a bit more about the saguaro, from Wikipedia:

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Carnegia gigantea in Saguaro National Park, near Tucson AZ

The saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) is an arborescent (tree-like) cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea, which can grow to be over 70 feet tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican State of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California. The saguaro blossom is the state wildflower of Arizona. Its scientific name is given in honor of Andrew Carnegie. In 1994, Saguaro National Park, near Tucson, Arizona, was designated to help protect this species and its habitat.

(It also has an edible fruit.)

Interaction. What’s going on? I’ve already identified the character on the left as a salesman: how do I know this?

Primarily from his sales patter, involving (among other things), these lexical items of English (from NOAD2):

noun line: a range of commercial goods: the company intends to hire more people and expand its product line.

adj. top of the line: chiefly US of the best quality or among the most expensive of its kind available: top-of-the-line smartphones can replace a laptop | my equipment isn’t top of the line.

His pitch stresses the features of comfort, speed, and maneuverability, which we are supposed to recognize as standard selling points for cars. The automotive theme is reinforced by the string of triangular pennants flying over the scene: standard symbols used by car dealerships and used car lots to identify the location (from passing roads) as a place where cars are sold. You can buy the pennants on-line:

(#3)

(The company that markets these lets you pick pennant colors from a wide range of possibilities and to order them as you wish — so that you could, if you were so moved, do the Pride flag in car lot pennants.)

But the salesman here isn’t touting cars, he’s touting animal means of transportation: from smallest to largest: armadillo (an inspired Southwestern choice), pig, cow, and horse. So a car sales scene has been metaphorically transported into an Old West counterpart.

All the cartoon is missing is the dealer suggesting a test ride on the horse and offering the cowboy an attractive financing scheme for it.

A Joe Dator cartoon in the June 19th New Yorker:

(#1)

which will lead us to today’s Mother Goose and Grimm:

(#2)

Along the way we’ll visit the naugas and their hides.

Daddy, where does bubble wrap come from?

Honey, a sheet of bubble wrap is the pelt of the bubble sheep. Sort of like naugas and their hides.

The conceit of the Dator is that bubble wrap is in fact the pelts of those endearing creatures, bubble sheep — pelts barbarically stripped from them on factory farms.

Two things here: the actual source of bubble wrap; and the compound nouns bubble wrap and bubble sheep.

Bubble wrap. From Wikipedia:

(#3)

Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items.

“Bubble wrap” is a generic trademark owned by Sealed Air Corporation. In 1957 two inventors named Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes were attempting to create a three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. Although the idea was a failure, they found that what they did make could be used as packing material. Sealed Air Corp. was co-founded by Alfred Fielding in 1960.

The term is used generically for similar products, such as bubble pack, bubble paper, air bubble packing, bubble wrapping or aeroplast; Sealed Air denotes its product as a brand of “cushioning material”.

… The bubbles can be as small as 6 millimeters (1/4 inch) in diameter, to as large as 26 millimeters (1 inch) or more, to provide added levels of shock absorption during transit. The most common bubble size is 1 centimeter.

… Because bubble wrap makes a satisfying popping sound when compressed and ruptured, it is often used as a source of amusement. Acknowledging this alternative use, some websites provide a virtual bubble wrap program which displays a sheet of bubble wrap that users may pop by clicking on the bubbles, while the Mugen Puchipuchi is a compact electronic toy simulating bubble wrap popping.

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day is celebrated on the last Monday of January. The last Monday of January was designated as Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day after a radio station in Bloomington, Indiana received a shipment of microphones wrapped in bubble wrap, which, after being unwrapped and installed, inadvertently broadcast the sound of their wrappings being popped.

Digression on Mugen Puchipuchi. Billed as “the world’s first electronic bubble wrap”. From Wikipedia:

(#4)

Mugen Puchipuchi is a Japanese bubble wrap keychain toy by Bandai (Asovision). Mugen means infinite in Japanese while puchipuchi means bubble wrap and also refers to the sound of the bubbles being popped. The toy is designed to mimic the sensation of popping bubble wrap for infinite number of times. It is made of a double layer structure of silicone rubber to create a similar feeling to the real bubble wrap. The square shaped toy has eight “bubbles” that would make a popping sound when pressed. It would also make a sound effect for every 100 pops, which includes “door chime”, “barking dog”, “fart”, and “sexy voice”. Bandai worked with the Puchipuchi bubble wrap company to create a design that is most realistic to the real bubble wrap. Bandai also created other Mugen keychain toys based on Mugen Puchipuchi, such as Puchi Moe, Mugen Edamame, and Mugen Periperi. The original Mugen Puchipuchi has also been marketed in North America as “Mugen Pop-Pop”.

Digression on Naugahyde. As bubble wrap comes from bubble sheep, so Naugahyde comes from naugas (though the manufacturer has tried to deny the sordid truth, in an elaborate campaign of fanciful disinformation).

From Wikipedia:

Naugahyde is an American brand of artificial leather (or “pleather” from plastic leather). Naugahyde is a composite of a knit fabric backing and expanded polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic coating. It was developed by Byron A. Hunter, senior chemist at the United States Rubber Company, and is now manufactured and sold by Uniroyal Engineered Products, LLC, a publicly held company under Invisa, Inc. Invisa also owns Wardle Storeys in the UK.

Its name, first used as a trademark in 1936, comes from the Borough of Naugatuck, Connecticut, where it was first produced. It is now manufactured in Stoughton, Wisconsin.

… A marketing campaign of the 1960s and 1970s asserted humorously that Naugahyde was obtained from the skin of an animal called a “Nauga”. The claim became an urban myth. The campaign emphasized that, unlike other animals, which must typically be slaughtered to obtain their hides, Naugas can shed their skin without harm to themselves. The Nauga doll, a squat, horned monster with a wide toothy grin, became popular in the 1960s and is still sold today.

(#5)

A clever attempt to conceal the terrible truth. From a 11/13/16 posting, in a discussion of faux-leather fetishwear: “Tell me, Eric, just how many innocent naugas had to be sacrificed to make you those sexy chaps, jockstrap, and big bulldog harness?”

Some people just have no concern for animals.

Compound nouns. Start with bubble wrap, subsective but with a non-standard semantic relationship between the two nouns.

Subsective, because bubble wrap is a wrap, in this sense (from NOAD2):

noun wrap: paper or soft material used for wrapping: plastic food wrap.

But the connection to bubbles is complex: something like ‘wrap made of bubble-like plastic material’.

Bubble sheep (as illustrated in #1) is also subsective: the fanciful bubble sheep are sheep. The relationship between sheep and bubbles in this case is very complex: something like ‘sheep that are the source of bubble wrap’.

There are other bubble sheep, in other senses of bubble sheep. For instance, sheep-simulacra made of bubble wrap:

(#6)

And a sheep-simulacrum composed of pointillist bubbles, as in this poster by Andy Westface:

(#7)

And, most inventively, a sheep that is the source of a cartoon bubble:

(#8)

Which is what brings us to the cartoon in #2, in which (as in #8) cartoon bubbles are objects on their own, which can be attached to someone held in police custody as a way of making them talk (playing on an ambiguity in make s.o. talk).

[revised version]

From David Preston, yesterday’s Brewster Rockit comic strip, in a male character attempts to mansplain mansplaining to Pamela Mae Snap (aka Irritable Belle):

(#1) (Note strategic use of speech bubbles in the third panel.)

Today’s follow-up:

(#2)

[Notes from David Preston on Facebook:

[Rockit’s alias is] Short Attention Span Avenger. He’s blond. I’m not sure if Mansplainer is a previously introduced character, or if he’s just a random member of the crew. Usually it’s Ensign Kenny who gets injured. He’s the equivalent of Ricky Redshirt in Star Trek.

Brewster Rockit appears in #4 below.]

On the comic, from Wikipedia:

Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! is a satirical retro-futuristic comic strip created by Tim Rickard. It chronicles the misadventures of the dim-witted Brewster Rockit, captain of the space station R.U. Sirius, and his crew. Many of the comic’s characters and elements are derived from the Star Trek franchise, American science fiction films of the 1950s, and science fiction comics of the 1940s and 1950s. It debuted on July 5, 2004, and is nationally syndicated by Gracenote.

The weekday strips usually feature extended serial storylines, often running several weeks at a time. The Sunday strips are stand-alone, self-contained gags which are often more elaborately illustrated and action-oriented than the dailies, and are sometimes presented in medias res style. The comic’s humor includes satire, metahumor, slapstick, dark humor, running gags, word play, and puns.

Two central characters:

Captain Brewster Rockit: The lantern-jawed and squinty-eyed captain of the R.U. Sirius. He is brave, optimistic… and dumb as a rock. His strong leadership skills are complemented by a boyish sense of humor (and childlike mindset). He graduated from the Air Force Academy and then served in NASA as a space shuttle pilot. However, he failed his intelligence exam because he kept eating the pencils. He originally had the intelligence of an average person, but excessive memory wipes from alien abductions caused him to lose it. According to Pam, he has an obsession with ham.

Lieutenant Pamela Mae Snap [aka Irritable Belle]: The tough and pragmatic second-in-command aboard the R.U. Sirius, Pam is usually the one responsible for keeping things running, despite the collective idiocy of her shipmates. She sometimes has a hot temper and an attitude that gets her into trouble. She is also the mother of two young kids from a bad marriage that she doesn’t talk about. She has shown to have a “thing” for bad boys, having dated Dirk Raider, Brewster’s nemesis, as well as Karnor [a visiting alien given to eating people; he’s tall, green, and has a crush on Pam].  She enjoys killing things.

On mansplaining (and straightsplaining) on this blog, see this 9/20/14 posting. On the condescension in such explanations, see this Minnesota Public Radio site, with this illustration:

(#3)

Men mansplaining mainsplaining has become something of a trope on its own.

Back in the Brewster Rockit world, Capt. Rockit and his guys are also given to manfixing — “I’ll fix that for you, ma’am” — as in this 8/4/14 strip:

   (#4)

The two other characters in this strip:

Cliff Clewless: The station’s engineer – a position for which he is completely unqualified. He got his position through his computer-hacking abilities by hacking into NASA’s computer and upgrading himself from “programmer” to “engineer”. He believes himself to be popular with the ladies. He is fat and is invariably shown sporting a cap and sunglasses.

Dr. Mel Practice: The station’s conniving science officer (and mad scientist, though he prefers the term, “sanity-challenged scientist”). He often creates monsters and machines (killbots), but inevitably fails in his plans to conquer the universe. One of his craziest inventions was a “Procrastination Ray”, which sent troublesome objects into the future, so one would have no choice but to deal with them later. He is bald and wears a white lab coat, black gloves, and spectacles.

Irritable Belle. Out of the great pile of jokey names in the strip, I’ll comment on just this one, a play on irritable bowel, as in irritable bowel syndrome. On IBS (and the pun irritable vowel syndrome) on this blog, see this 4/11/17 posting.

The play in Irritable Belle can be taken one step further, to give the portmanteau name Irritabelle. And it has been. From an Adweek article of 4/14/16, “Ad of the Day: Meet Irritabelle, Your Irritable Bowel Sidekick, in Campy Ads for Viberzi: Actress Ilana Becker tells us why she loves the character” by David Gianatasio:

   (#5)

Take a bowel, Ilana Becker! [The puns just keep coming.]

The actress and comedian tells Adweek that portraying “Irritabelle,” the personification of a stomach ache with diarrhea, in campy ads for IBS-D (Irritable Bowel Syndrome With Diarrhea) medication Viberzi, has been a dream come true.

“I wanted this job from the moment I laid eyes on the copy,” she says. Originally hired to provide voiceovers when the work was in its animatic/storyboard phase, “I remember thinking how much fun it would be to be able to bring Irritabelle to life.”

Fashioned by Arnold Worldwide for pharma giant Allergan, the campaign broke nationwide last week, starring Becker as a kooky colon who makes life difficult for her owner. Clad in a jumpsuit decorated with a goofy digestive-tract illustration, her hair and lips painted atomic red, Becker makes a distinct impression in “Home,” the 60-second launch spot.

The site has several ads featuring Irritabelle.

A recent tv commercial for Jack Link’s beef jerky builds up to the punch line, the claim that the jerky

beats the snack out of other snacks

ostentatiously using snack as a euphemism for shit.

Ostentatious euphemisms are a subtype of ostentatious taboo avoidance, in which the point is to show off the taboo vocabulary — to draw attention to a commercial product through naughty talk, or just to talk naughty for fun without actually uttering the taboo words.

Three examples of shit euphemism from earlier postings here:

on 2/18/11 in “Shaving Cream”: a joke song in which the content and rhyme scheme both call for the word shit, but it’s replaced by shaving cream

on 4/14/13 in “ship my pants”: a Kmart ad with ship ostentatiously avoiding shit

on 8/14/13 in “Today’s baffling taboo avoidance”: Kraft ads with “Get your chef together”, with chef ostentatiously avoiding shit

On to the Jack Link’s commercial, which you can watch here. From a site on tv commercials:

Screen shot from the middle of the ad

Jack Link’s Jerky “beats the snack out of other snacks” – this is what the brand of beef jerky aims to highlight in its latest campaign, titled “Versus”.

The campaign, done by Carmichael Lynch, includes a series of spots featuring various tests run on Jack Link’s Jerky and other snacks, using instruments like polygraph, protein detector, microscope, speed gun, and others.

In one of the spots, a woman is using a protein detector on a Choco Nut Snack Bar, Cheese Made of String and Jack Link’s Original Beef Jerky to check the amount of protein they have, and it turns out that while the first two have 8g and 6 g, respectively, Jack Link’s has 10g of protein per serving.

“As you can see by our irrefutable science, Jack Link’s has more protein and better music than these other snacks.” – says the voiceover at the end of the spot, concluding that “Jack Link’s Jerky beats the snack out of other snacks”.

The words snack /snæk/ and shit /šɪt/ are not all that close phonologically, but the idiom context in beat the ___ out of s.o. pretty much determines what the middle word must be (similarly with scare the ___ out of s.o.).

On Facebook, from several sources, these vintage ads for Ovaltine, notable (these days) for their use of the adjective gay ‘light-hearted, carefree’:

(#1)

(#2)

Two things here: the lexical items gay; and the beverage Ovaltine. Along the way we’ll pick up some Los Angeles lesbian rap.

Going gay. In brief, the various adjectives gay, from NOAD2:

1 (of a person, especially a man) homosexual; relating to or used by homosexuals.

2 lighthearted and carefree; brightly colored, showy, brilliant.

3 informal, offensive foolish, stupid, or unimpressive.

Subentry 1 has the adjective gay-1, which is currently the most frequent; its use spread rapidly in the middle of the 20th century. Subentry 2 has the adjective gay-2, which was the most frequent before then. Subentry 3 has an adjective gay-3, which developed from gay-2 late in the 20th century.

From a 3/21/11 posting about an ad (from roughly the 1950s) with the slogan “Jell-O is the gay dessert”:

This was from a time before the ‘homosexual’ sense of gay spread into general use, when the relevant sense (from OED3, August 2010) was:

Of persons, their attributes, actions, etc.: light-hearted, carefree; manifesting, characterized by, or disposed to joy and mirth; exuberantly cheerful, merry; sportive.

Now of course we’re inclined to see double entendres in material like this, and people complain that homosexuals have “stolen” the word gay— though in fact all they/we did was introduce another sense of the word (well, really, another word), usually easily distinguishable in context from the one above. Then the usage above was contaminated for people who were offended by the mention of homosexuality.

This posting was followed a few days later by one with a vintage ad for Jester Wools, with the slogan “I’ve robbed the rainbow to make you gay!” (this one combining the ‘light-hearted’ and the ‘brightly colored’ senses of gay-2).

There are now people who collect vintage ads with gay-2 in their copy — not a difficult task, because being gay-2 is positively valued, desirable. Here are two more, from a 6/14/12 posting on the Autostraddle site with the title:

16 Vintage “Gay” Advertisements That Are Funny Now That “Gay” Means “GAY”

(#3)

(#4)

The name of the singing teakettle in #4 is, of course, pronounced like gala /gélǝ/, but it could be interpreted as gay-LA ‘gay Los Angeles’, and in fact the Autostraddle posting suggests that this ad was the inspiration for a rap video “Gay in LA” (which you can listen to here):

Romi Klinger (The Real L Word and Casa Por Vida) raps about how good it is to be gay in LA. Featuring Shay from Love Darling. Directed by Daniel Ainsworth and produced by WorkItLA.com.

Klinger appeared in seasons 2 and 3 of tv show The Real L World. On the show, from Wikipedia:

The Real L Word is an American reality television series aired on the cable station Showtime, where it premiered on June 20, 2010. The show was created by executive producer Ilene Chaiken and Magical Elves Productions, following the success of the television drama The L Word, also created by Chaiken. The Real L Word follows a group of lesbians in their daily lives in Los Angeles, and as of the third season, Brooklyn.

Lesbians let loose on L.A.!

Ovaltine. Ads for Ovaltine plug it as a source of vitamins and minerals; as a food for convalescents; and (as in #1 and #2) as a soothing bedtime drink. Some vintage ads for it that offer refreshing and invigorating sleep, without promising it will make you gay:

(#5) Songful and perky

(#6) Glad

(#7) Well

(The copy in #7 should probably have read sleep well, look good, feel good, since the intention is to promise good looks and good feelings, not merely the appearance and feeling of not being sick — but that wouldn’t have allowed for the parallelism in verb complements.)

On the product, from Wikipedia:

Ovaltine (Ovomaltine) is a brand of milk flavoring product made with malt extract (except in the blue packaging in the United States), sugar (except in Switzerland), and whey. Some flavors also have cocoa. Ovaltine, a registered trademark of Associated British Foods, is made by Wander AG, a subsidiary of Twinings which acquired the brand from Novartis in 2003, except in the United States, where Nestlé acquired the rights separately from Novartis later on.

Ovaltine was developed in Bern [/ Berne], Switzerland, where it is known by its original name, Ovomaltine (from ovum, Latin for “egg,” and malt, which were originally its main ingredients). Soon after its invention, the factory moved out to the village of Neuenegg, a few kilometres west of Berne, where it is still produced.

Ovomaltine was exported to Britain in 1909; a misspelling of the name on the trademark registration application led to the name being shortened to Ovaltine in English-speaking markets. A factory was built in Kings Langley, which exported it to the United States as well. By 1915, Ovaltine was being manufactured in Villa Park, Illinois, for the U.S. market. Ovaltine was later manufactured in Peterborough, Ontario for distribution in Canada.

Originally advertised as consisting solely of “malt, milk, eggs, flavoured with cocoa”, the formulation has changed over the decades, and today several formulations are sold in different parts of the world.

The popular chocolate malt version is a powder which is mixed with hot or cold milk as a beverage. Malt Ovaltine (a version without cocoa) and Rich Chocolate Ovaltine (a version without malt) are also available in some markets. Ovaltine has also been available in the form of chocolate bars, chocolate Easter eggs, parfait, cookies, and breakfast cereals, where it is [only the] brand name that connects the cereals with the chocolate drink.

A regular feature of my childhood.

(Men’s underwear, bodies, and fetishes, so not to everyone’s tastes.)

The Daily Jocks ad from the 19th displayed this vision from Cellblock 13 / CellBlock 13 / Cell Block 13 (plus my caption):

(#1) Commando jockstrap and neoprene harness, in camo/red

Over years, bit by bit, Butch
Stripped his clothing down to the
Bare minimum.

DJ’s sexy suggestive copy:

These days, it’s not only gay men who take obsessive good care of their bodies. Straight men and women are also looking for clothes that show off their hard work in the gym and on the playing field – and maybe even signal their deep-seated desires.

Well, people harness up for a variety of reasons, including displaying their bodies (for commando and bulldog harnesses, highlighting the pecs) and enjoying the feeling of being constrained.

By the same company, but offered by International Jock rather than DJ, this remarkable garment:

(#2)

Lucian dreamt he was a
Sex kitten in his
Silky Covert Harness.

The ad copy:

The Covert Harness tank by Cellblock 13 is made of sporty mesh fabric and features a slick and stretchy black Liquid Skin material detail on the shoulder straps and back. Perfect for those times you wish you were in a harness but can’t be.

Note: my caption for #2 is a take-off on the long series of “I dreamed I Xed in my Maidemform Bra” ads from the 50s and 60s, like this one:

(#3)

(The underwear and men’s bodies thing again, plus gaydolls and some homoerotic art. Outrageous enough that it won’t be to everyone’s taste.)

Daily Jocks sale on the 8th offering the Barcode Berlin Thermo Brief in white (it also comes in black), with a caption of mine:

(#1) 83% Cotton 17% Polyester. US$25. Model not included.

Billy the Berlin
Barboy
Works the room in his
Barcode Berlin
Pouch-panel
Briefs.

Barcode Berlin. From DJ about the company, which is new to its offerings (ad copy reproduced here without editing; it’s almost surely written by a native speaker of German):

Barcode Berlin is one the world’s leading men’s sports- & fetish wear label.
Barcode Berlin has a distinct style and is authentic & sex-infused home base in Berlin. The clothes are a distinct pairing of comfort and sex-appeal. Guys that wear Barcode-Berlin love to show their sporty and masculine side but especially for those people who love to be able to live their fetish. Barcode-Berlin loves fetish and having a large fetish fan base

Slanting towards the fetish side is the bluntly named Bang Singlet (in black), displayed here front and rear:

(#2)

(#3)

New leather imitation material. Exclusively produced for Barcode-Berlin. Laboratory styles mixed with other special materials perfectly showcases Barcode´s unique and distinctive styles and color combination.

Innovative. Resistant and washable. High quality look. Material is soft, eslatic and matt-silky. With 2 pockets in the front.

Homowear singlets are designed to show as much as possible of the wearer’s body, front and back. Still, the designers managed to work two front pockets into the thing. Rubbers? A mini-cellphone?

Now a gaydoll break, and then a return to Barcode Berlin.

Billy dolls. Our Berlin Barboy is named Billy, after the iconic queer doll / action figure. From the Back2Stonewall site —

(#4)

“LGBT Flashback 1997 – The Billy Doll: The Worlds First Anatomically Correct Gay Doll” by Will Kohler on 5/16/12:

The “Billy Doll” created by artist John McKitterick and marketed in the United States by London-based Totem International was known as “the first out and proud gay doll” McKitterick who originally designed Billy as limited-edition run of 1,200 dolls created to benefit an AIDS charity decided to mass market his creation after the entire first lot sold out in a matter of days.

Billy was 13 inches tall and was introduced in a number of versions, many based upon stereotypical gay characters of the time.

Billy also came dressed in many outfits, including a standard business suit, but Billy was also available as Sailor Billy, Cowboy Billy, Master [aka Leather] Billy, San Francisco Billy [also Army Billy and Gay/Basic Billy, in black tanktop and jeans], and even once as Dolly Parton Drag Billy. Other dolls in the Billy line included Carlos, Billy’s Puerto Rican boyfriend, and Tyson, their African American friend. And best of all Billy was anatomically correct!

(As for anatomically correct, the whole package is there in detail, and it’s decidedly larger-than-life in all dimensions.)

On this blog, a 7/14/10 posting “Dolls and action figures”, with a section on Billy dolls (and Tyson and Carlos), each in a variety of personas, plus a photo of Army Tyson preparing to mount Leather Carlos.

An array of gay action dolls:

(#5) Gay/Basic Carlos, SF Tyson, Cowboy Billy, Sailor Billy, Leather/Master Billy, SF Billy, Army Carlos

And the action dolls in drag:

(#5) Billy and Carlos donned drag in 1999, with Billy dressed in a gingham checkered pantsuit as “Dolly” and Carlos as “Carmen” in a polka dot outfit reminiscent of those worn by Carmen Miranda: Gay/Basic Carlos, Carmen Carlos, Dolly Billy, Leather/Master Billy

Salem Beiruti. Enough of the gay 90s, back to Barcode Berlin, now with its studiedly outrageous Can You Host tank top, with a design by Madrid conceptual artist Salem Beiruti. Front and rear:

(#6)

(#7)

The shirt’s slogan has a sexual specialization of the verb host ‘to receive or entertain people as guests’: ‘to host for sex’. Usually, this conveys ‘to host for sex at one’s own place’ — an escort who advertises I host services clients at the escort’s place, one who advertises you host services clients at the client’s place. In combination with the extended fuck-finger and the placement of the image on the front of the shirt (the side of the body with the wearer’s penis) rather than the rear (the side of the body with the wearer’s buttocks), the slogan uses host to convey ‘to host for sex (in particular, anal sex) in one’s own body’, that is, ‘to bottom, to get fucked’.

The guy on the shirt in #6 and #7 is wearing a bright red t-shirt, and the model in the shirt is wearing a red jockstrap. Red presumably conveying sexual heat.

And then the model is clutching his dick, offering that rather than his ass — reinforcing the message that the wearer of the shirt is advertising himself as a top looking for a bottom.

Beiruti’s Behance page has a rich assortment of male art, in several media, some of it romantic, much of it rough-edged, some both. Two examples:

(#8) “Te Quiero”

(#9) “Brian Maier”

His coffee-table book Morphosis (Bruno Gmŭnder) came out earlier this year:

(#10) Cover of Morphosis

(#11) Three images from the book

He’s been working on a Lumbersexual calendar in Salem OR.

Passed on to me by Arne Adolfsen, this vintage ad (from the 1940s, for what was then the Visking Corp.):

(#1)

Skinless wiener is pretty much immediately risible, because it’s bound to bring circumcision to mind.

From the Huffington Post on 7/1/16, in “Vintage Skinless Wiener Ad Is Mildly Suggestive”:

According to these Visking Corp ads from the 1940s, not only are skinless wieners tastier, but they’re also more tender and juicy. We’re not sure, but could they be making a commentary on circumcision while also trying to sell hot dogs? While we’re perfectly willing to accept that we may just have our mind in the gutter, we still wanted to share these vintage ads. If for no other reason than the fact that they’re absolutely bizarre.

The HuffPo piece has two examples, my #1 above and this one:

(#2)

(This one advertises skinless frankfurters and wieners. Though the original Frankfurter (from the city of Frankfurt) and Wiener (from the city of Vienna) sausages were no doubt distinct, the AmE nouns frankfurter and wiener (and hot dog / hotdog) have long been referentially equivalent; various groups of speakers have preferences for one over the other, and some speakers judge hot dog / hotdog to be the neutral term, while frankfurter is more formal in style and wiener more informal, but so far as I can tell, no one takes them to have different referents.)

Two relevant (and somewhat overlapping) Wikipedia articles, on skinless hot dogs and on the Visking Corp. From the hot dog article:

“Skinless” hot dogs must use a casing in the cooking process when the product is manufactured, but the casing is usually a long tube of thin cellulose that is removed between cooking and packaging. This process was invented in Chicago in 1925 by Erwin O. Freund, founder of Visking which would later become Viskase Companies.

The first skinless hot dog casings were produced by Freund’s new company under the name “Nojax”, short for “no jackets” and sold to local Chicago sausage makers.

Skinless hot dogs vary in the texture of the product surface but have a softer “bite” than natural casing hot dogs. Skinless hot dogs are more uniform in shape and size than natural casing hot dogs and less expensive.

And from the Viskase article:

Viskase (formerly Visking) is a global corporation based out of Lombard, Illinois, United States that supplies plastic, cellulose, and fibrous film and packaging to the food service industry, including casings for processed meats such as hot dogs and sausages. Viskase has manufacturing facilities in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and France, as well as sales offices located around the world.

Edwin O. Freund, founder of what would become Viskase, sought a readily available replacement for animal intestine casing. Upon creating a cellulose casing, using the “viscose” process (also used in rayon) he realized the product stuffed well, linked, and was able to withstand the smokehouse. Quite by accident, he discovered that when the casing was removed from the product the sausages retained their shape and were firm. This was the beginning of the skinless frankfurter or hot dog.

But, wait! There’s more from Visking! Even more risible — we get the verb eat in both of them and a good fairy in the second — and with photographs of fancy wiener dishes as a bonus:

(#3)

(#4)

(These two are clearly from the same hand.)

I don’t know whether the ads were created in-house or (more likely) farmed out to an ad agency, but in any case the creators seem to have been unaware of the possible dangers of wiener in skinless wieners and eat wieners, not to mention fairy. I was a kid in the 40s, and I can attest that all of these usages could raise a laugh back then.

Aggressive days in the men’s underwear world, in my adaptation of a Daily Jocks ad from the 11th. There will be hot men in their underwear, suggestive captions, and a certain amount of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics; use your judgment.

OR

  (#1)

Well, now they often call him Bluto
But his real name is Dickie Steele

 (#2)

OR ELSE:

 (#3)

His balls are fuckin’ awesome
But nothing like his guy Genteel’s:

(#4)

Steele remembers Speedo,
A guy who don’t never take it slow:

 (#5)

Well, now, some may call on Joe:

 (#6)

And some may call on Moe:

 (#7)

But the twins can’t never beat Bluto
To put two lips together and blow.

……………………………………………………………………………………….

Ingredients. The main image is this DJ ad offer:

(#8)

This is the offer on the DJ site:

The DailyJocks Monthly Underwear Club is the best way to discover men’s underwear. Every month, we choose from a curated selection of underwear from international designer brands and send you a pair in your size and preferred style. It’s like a monthly surprise of the best underwear around.

It’s $21.95 a month after the come-on offer.

In (#1), the offer line has has been removed from #8, and the simple juxtaposition of clauses —

Join our underwear club
We’ll send you designer underwear every month

— (intended to convey a promise) has been turned into a (threatening) coordination with or:

Join our underwear club
Or we’ll send you designer underwear every month

After #1 comes a version of the I Want You Uncle Sam poster from World Wars I and II, an I Want You to Obey version from the Federal Trade Commission. And then in #3 a Popeye cartoon with Popeye’s nemesis Bluto pounding Popeye.

There follow four additional intense underwear images from the DJ offer site (#4 – #7). It’s all drenched in sex.

The text for all of this is adapted from the lyrics of the 1955 doo-wop hit “Speedoo” (in the original spelling) / “Speedo” (in most later references). The relevant lyrics:

Well, now, they often call me Speedo
But my real name is Mister Earl
… Well, now, some may call me Joe
Some may call me Moe
Just remember Speedo
He don’t never take it slow

You can listen to the original Cadillacs recording here.

[Digression: the lyrics of the original have been misunderstood in an enormous number of ways, including the one that I firmly believed in for years: “… they up and call me Speedo”, with the colloquial Up And VP construction. I still think that’s a more interesting line than “… they often call me Speedo”.]

From Wikipedia:

The Cadillacs were an American rock and roll and doo-wop group from Harlem, New York, active from 1953 to 1962. The group was noted for their 1955 hit “Speedoo”, written by Esther Navarro, which was instrumental in attracting white audiences to black rock and roll performers.

… Earl “Speedo” Carroll [the lead singer, whose nickname gave the title to the song] died on November 25, 2012.

Parataxis, hypotaxis, conditionals, promises, and threats. We start with Offer-Jux (above), a simple juxtaposition of two clauses, the first (join our underwear club) a subjectless BSE-form VP, the second (we’ll send you designer underwear every month) a full finite clause. Your task as reader or hearer is to construct a plausible connection between these two, to make this two-clause text coherent.

This is the general task for making sense out of text, but there are shortcuts that are conventionalized to one degree or another, and one of these is for pairs of the form above, which are more or less automatically understood as conveying a conditional:

Talk to me that way again, I’ll kiss you conveying ‘If you talk to me that way again, I’ll kiss you’

(which can be taken as a warning or threat, or as an offer or promise). In any case, a paratactic form conveying a relationship that would ordinarily be conveyed by hypotactic syntax.

In #8, the two clauses are juxtaposed on separate lines, without punctuation (as is customary in advertising copy), leading readers to take the first clause to be not merely a subjectless BSE-form VP, but in fact an imperative, so that #8 conveys both an instruction or injunction (to join the underwear club) and a conditional, that is:

Join our underwear club / We’ll send you designer underwear every month conveying ‘You should join our underwear club, and if you join, we’ll send you designer underwear every month’

Turn now to conditionals. In addition to a particular relationship between situations, conditionals can also convey either a warning or threat or an offer or promise. The same is true of coordination with and, as in

Talk to me that way again, and I’ll kiss you. (It all depends of how the addressee feels about the prospect of being kissed.)

Join our underwear club, and we’ll send you designer underwear every month.

The second of these would ordinarily be understood as an offer, on the plausible assumption that it’s directed at an audience that would welcome getting designer underwear every month; but if this assumption is wrong, then it sounds like a threat.

The corresponding coordinations with or usually convey a threat or warning

Join our underwear club, or we’ll send you designer underwear every month conveying ‘If you don’t join our underwear club, we’ll send you designer underwear every month (and I believe you wouldn’t like that)’

which is what I was playing with in #1.

(Note: my observations about the examples in this section are not original, but have been framed here so as to play down complexities in the technical literature.)

Yesterday morning, foraging in the Whole Foods around the corner for something to take as a food contribution for the annual Palo Alto all-day shapenote singing (we eventually settled on some truly fine smoked trout — see below), Kim Darnell and I happened to walk past the jerky section of the store — who knew there was such a thing? — where I admired some lamb jerky, and then we discovered, groan, turkey Perky Jerky:

(#1)

First, the smoked trout (which was much admired, and fully devoured), then on to turkey jerky.

(#2) Ducktrap River of Maine Lemon Pepper & Garlic Smoked Fillet Trout

As for Perky Jerky, from their bubbly website:

the PERFECT SNACK

Perky Jerky is an all natural, premium jerky that is unlike any other!

Tender cuts of meat marinate overnight in a blend of all natural ingredients. Our fans are addicted to the awesome flavor, tender texture and healthy perks!

What makes it so healthy? It’s low calorie, low fat, low carb and a great protein source. Unlike most jerky products ours has none of the bad stuff:

NO NITRITES • NO PRESERVATIVES • NO ADDED MSG • GLUTEN-FREE

Perky Jerky powers you from workout to night out. It’s great for a quick pre-game boost, busy moms on-the-go, or a mid-mountain hike snack. It’s a functional morning desk snack and the perfect munchie to survive a long road trip. Satisfying and portable, it’s the perfect fuel to do, well, whatever it is that you do!

So what are you waiting for? Try our amazing meat for yourself!

Perky Jerky is available in both beef and turkey in a variety of flavors:

More Than Just Original • Tasty Teriyaki • Brewmaster’s Pale Ale • BBQ With Seoul • Sweet & Snappy • Jammin’ Jamaican • Hot & Bothered

The company is nothing if not playful, and the copy on their website exploits pretty much every sense of jerk you could think of (outside of weightlifting).

Underwear ads again (from today’s Daily Jocks sale), with captions from me. Men’s bodies, mansex allusions, not for everyone.

(#1) Sweat with me, baby

Solid Chet the gym jock
Sweats hard
Lick the salt he’ll
Towel you off

(#2) Lowriders on the storm

Lean Bo the surf jock
Goes low pull him
Lower use your
Teeth those trunks are
Made for cruising

Sweaty Chet and lowball Bo.

Note on body types. Both men are fit and muscular (almost alarmingly so), but in two different body types, alluded to in the captions: Chet is solidly hunky, Bo lean and chiseled.

DJ’s ad copy. For Chet’s shorts:

Marcuse has come out with a new line of shorts. These shorts are sexy, soft and extremely comfortable. Made with fine towel fabric, they are ideal for home, gym, beach or lounging in.

The pitch here is comfortable softness and absorbency. Wicks up that sweat like anything.

For Bo’s swim trunks:

Super low swim trunks for people brave enough to bare some skin and look super sexy! Simple design with embroidered gold Marcuse logo at the back.
Ready to feel and look hot?

This time the pitch is sexy display. This is a Marcuse theme. Here’s the Marcuse Hermoso [Sp. ‘beautiful’, as in hombres hermosos ‘beautiful men’] Swim Brief, also minimal:

(#3)

And the even more minimal Marcuse MA-Xtreme Xtreme, in pink:

(#4)

The copy says this one

stays low on the waistline that helps you to flaunt your sexy body. The design and the drawstring and the sexy pouch are the other features that completes the underwear.

It’s all about lowrise / low-rise / lowrider / lowriding / low-riding swim trunks (and in other contexts, briefs, jeans, and, in fact, women’s panties).

Chet’s caption. “Sweat with me, baby” — an allusion to “Dance with me, baby”, a song lyric that has been set to music many times, and vies with “Do you want to dance?” as an invitation to dance in pop music.

Two landmarks for “Do you want to dance?”: Bobby Freeman’s 1958 song (covered a great many times), which you can listen to here; and a line from Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want” (1971), which you can listen to here:

Do you want – do you want – do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

Strictly on the wording “Dance with me, baby”, there are tons of choices. Among them, Paice Ashton Lord’s 1976 song, which you can listen to here; and more recently a song on a hot video that’s billed as being by Cazwell, but seems to be Kazaky’s “In the Middle” from 2011, with the line “Dance with me, baby” in it; it might be that the video is part Cazwell, part Kazaky. (Cazwell — posted about here several times before this — is openly gay and flamboyant, and Kazaky was openly gender-fluid.) The male dancers in the video are studly and athletic. You can watch it here. One smoldering screen shot:

(#5)

On Kazaky, from Wikipedia:

Kazaky was a Ukrainian-based synthpop dance boyband from Ukraine, made up of Kyryll Fedorenko, Artur Gaspar and Artemiy Lazarev. Assembled in Kiev in 2010 by former original member Zhezhel, a skilled choreographer, the group has released two albums and several singles so far. In 2016 the group announced they were disbanding

On to Bo’s caption, “Lowriders on the Storm”, a phrasal overlap portmanteau, lowriders (referring to low-rise clothing) + Riders on the Storm (the song by The Doors); note the crashing surf in #2.

First, on lowriders. The noun is ambiguous, between a reference to the clothing style and a reference to a vehicle style. On the latter, from Wikipedia:

(#6)

A lowrider (sometimes low rider) is a class or style of customized vehicle. Distinct from a regular lowered vehicle, these customized vehicles are generally individually painted with intricate, colorful designs, ridden on 13-inch wire-spoke wheels with whitewall tires, and fitted with hydraulic systems that allow the vehicle to be raised or lowered at the owner’s command. Given these specific characteristics, while a lowrider is not always a lowered car, a lowered car is always a lowrider. The term is used to describe a class of vehicle, not simply the height from ground to chassis.

It began in Los Angeles California in the mid-to-late 1940s and during the post-war prosperity of the 1950s. Initially, some Mexican-American barrio youths lowered blocks, cut spring coils, z’ed the frames and dropped spindles. The aim of the lowriders is to cruise as slowly as possible, “Low and Slow” being their motto. By redesigning these cars in ways that go against their intended purposes and in painting their cars so that they reflect and hold meanings from Mexican culture, lowriders create cultural and political statements that go against the more prevalent Anglo culture. The design of the cars encouraged a “bi-focal perspective-they are made to be watched but only after adjustments have been made to provide ironic and playful commentary on prevailing standard of automobile design.” However, this resulted in a backlash: The enactment of Section 24008 of the California Vehicle Code in January 1, 1958, which made it illegal to operate any car modified so that any part was lower than the bottoms of its wheel rims.

The term lowrider can also refer to the driver of the car.

For both the clothing and the vehicles, the question is:

How low can you go?

And this is a formulaic expression worth notice in its own right, a catchphrase whose history is by no means clear, though it appears that its use in the song “Born to Hand Jive” in the 1978 movie of Grease was a vehicle for its spread.

Next, “Those trunks were made for cruising” in Bo’s caption. This is a play on the title

“These Boots Are Made for Walking”

as sung by Nancy Sinatra in 1966.

Finally, the second half of “Lowriders on the Storm’; from Wikipedia:

“Riders on the Storm” is a song by American psychedelic rock band The Doors. It was released as the second single from their sixth studio album, L.A. Woman (1971), in June 1971.

… “Riders on the Storm” is a psychedelic rock song that according to band member Robby Krieger was inspired by the song “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend”.

You can listen to the song here. A significant couplet:

Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone

Bo is no doubt a dog, but he certainly has a bone, and though he’s alone in the photo in #2, I doubt that his time by the beach will be solitary.

That’s from the NYT on the 17th (on-line), Frank Bruni’s op-ed column “Will Pumpkin Spice Destroy Us All?”:

(#1) In the labyrinth of pumpkin spice

It’s invention run amok, marketing gone mad, the odoriferous emblem of commercialism without compunction or bounds. It’s the transformation of an illusion — there isn’t any spice called pumpkin, nor any pumpkin this spicy — into a reality.

Pumpkin on its own is bland. What to do, if you’re not fond of bland? Pumpkin pie can get some pizazz from spices — especially cinnamon and nutmeg, also used to flavor eggnog, for similar reasons.

Such spice mixtures have been around for centuries, but only in recent years has pumpkin (pie) spice achieved commercial superstardom. Leading to Bruni’s comic savaging above, and to a Kaamran Hafeez cartoon (yesterday’s daily cartoon for the New Yorker).

(#2) Top of the line, Pumpkin Spice

On this blog on 11/24/14, “Pumpkin spice days”:

What with Halloween and Thanksgiving, pumpkin spice is all the rage in my country [the US] — in lattes, ice cream, and so on, in addition to the traditional pumpkin pie (which actually has pumpkin in it, not just the spice).

Then, Kim Darnell reported sighting pumpkin mochi (there are recipes on the net), but not pumpkin spice mochi (it turns out that that’s available too, and has both pureed pumpkin and pumpkin spice in it). And then, one step on with Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie Mochi Ice Cream (“softly seasoned with pumpkin pie spices”).

Background: pumpkin (pie) spice. From Wikipedia:

Pumpkin pie spice is an American spice mix commonly used as an ingredient in pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie spice (sometimes also referred to as pumpkin spice) is similar to the British and Commonwealth mixed spice. It is generally a blend of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice. It can also be used as a seasoning in general cooking.

The compound pumpkin spice. There seems to be considerable confusion about what this compound ought to mean: people seem to think that it should refer to a specific spice; that it should refer to pumpkin as a type of spice, a species of the genus spice; or that it should refer to a spice made from or with pumpkins. But a relentlessly repeated theme on this blog is that a N + N compound can be interpreted in a great many ways, even if we restrict ourselves to productive patterns of interpretation. So it is here.

Looking ahead: the meaning of pumpkin spice as used culinarily these days is, in a paraphrase, ‘a seasoning (or spice mix) for use in pumpkin dishes’.

First issue: subsectivity and its complexities. Some would object to the compound pumpkin spice on the grounds that it’s not subsective: pumpkin spice is not a spice (a spice like ginger, nutmeg, allspice, etc.). Two responses: that non-subsective compounds (crudely, N1 + N2 compounds where the denotation of the compound is not within the denotation of N2), of a number of different types, are commonplace and unobjectionable (the topic has come up often on this blog); and that, actually, pumpkin spice is subsective. The noun spice in it is not the C(ount) noun of OED2’s spice definition 1.a. —

One or other of various strongly flavoured or aromatic substances of vegetable origin, obtained from tropical plants, commonly used as condiments or employment for other purposes on account of their fragrance and preservative qualities. [cites from OE on]

but the M(ass) noun of definition 2.a.:

Without article, as a substance or in collective sense. [cites from ME on]

More specifically, a M noun spice ‘seasoning, spice mix, spice blend’, as in lamb spice ‘seasoning (or spice mix) for lamb’:

(#3) From the ad copy: “Lamb Spice is especially suited for marinating grilled meat and roasts”

Second issue: species + genus compounds. Some object to pumpkin spice because pumpkin is not (a) spice. Where someone would get the idea that (some) compounds should be of the species + genus type is beyond me, especially since a fair number of people object to all compounds of this type on the grounds that they are redundant. I take up such compounds in a 2/23/17 posting about species + genus cases like

collie dog, pita bread, phyllo dough, spanakopita pie

(arguing that despite the fact that collies are dogs, pita is bread, phyllo is dough, and spanakopita is a (kind of) pie, these compounds have their uses in context).

Third issue: Source compounds vs. Use compounds. Some would object to the compound pumpkin spice because it’s not a Source compound: pumpkin spice isn’t made from or with pumpkin(s); there’s no pumpkin in it at all. In fact, it’s a Use compound (very crudely, it’s (a) spice for pumpkins), and both Source and Use compounds are widely attested, with many entertaining contrasts; from earlier postings on this blog:

Source mink oil vs. Use saddle oil; Source cucumber soap vs. Use saddle soap; Source lobster salad vs. Use fish sauce and lobster sauce

(All of these compounds are in fact potentially ambiguous between Source and Use, though only one interpretation has been conventionalized, usually for good reason. Nevertheless, mink oil could be (an) oil to use on minks (to make them slipperier) as well as (an) oil made from minks, and saddle oil could be (an) oil made from saddles as well as (an) oil to use on saddles (to preserve them and make them more pliable); lobster salad could be (a) salad to use for lobsters (by feeding it to them) as well as (a) salad made from lobster(s), and lobster sauce could be (a) sauce made from lobster(s) as well as (a) sauce to use on (cooked) lobsters.)

Back to Bruni on pumpkin spice. His rant continues:

Pumpkin spice historians trace its origins as a sensory superstar to Starbucks in 2003. If Howard Schultz runs for president, he’ll have to answer for this. The chain’s pumpkin spice latte debuted then and instantly took off — it would eventually establish its own Twitter account, with more than 100,000 followers — and then American entrepreneurs did what they do best: glommed onto a lucrative thing and beat it into the ground.

Before long there were pumpkin spice pancakes, pumpkin spice almonds, pumpkin spice marshmallows. There was pumpkin spice vodka. There was even pumpkin spice candy corn, a feat of fakery atop fakery that’s almost too much to digest. It’s the culinary equivalent of staring into the void.

Pumpkin spice speaks to our talent for lying, especially to ourselves and in particular about what we eat. Although pumpkin spice products wear sylvan, seasonal drag, evoking autumn leaves and the harvest, they’re as far from the earth as Sandra Bullock in all but the last minutes of “Gravity.”

“A processed food flavor” is how my former colleague Michael Moss described pumpkin spice in a New York Times exposé of sorts — about a “spice,” no less! — that made clear that there is often “little or no actual pumpkin in it.” Sometimes there are slight vestiges of genuine clove and vague traces of honest-to-goodness cinnamon. Frequently there are just chemical impostors.

Somehow we accept the association, foisted on us, of these counterfeit confections with a chill in the air, a Jack-o’-lantern on the stoop and a Butterball in the oven. Pumpkin spice exploits our suggestibility and relies on our conformity, pegging us as pliant lemmings. Along it comes and en masse we march over the cliff of epicurean and olfactory logic.

And yet. We have this nick-of-time knack for knowing when we’ve reached peak lunacy and poking wicked fun at ourselves. That’s our saving and self-effacing grace, and pumpkin spice points the way to it.

Mother Jones magazine recently published a roundup of pumpkin spice ridiculousness: pumpkin spice fettuccine, pumpkin spice pet shampoo, even pumpkin spice underarm deodorant.

The website Eater maintains an inventory of “foods that have no business being pumpkin spiced” but that nonetheless met that gastronomic damnation. It includes pumpkin spice bagels, pumpkin spice yogurt pretzels, pumpkin spice kale chips and pumpkin spice Kahlua.

“Saturday Night Live” lampooned the pumpkin spice obsession in a fake commercial that imagined a pumpkin spice “intimate care wash” from the makers of Summer’s Eve — Autumn’s Eve. It was raunchy, hilarious and a sign of light at the end of this perversely pungent tunnel.

I might not have chosen an idiom with a tunnel metaphor in it in this context, but then Bruni probably did that on purpose, as a bit of final outrage.

Let Bruni go working at the care wash. I’ll go out with some real American food:

(#4)  From Trader Joe’s (back on 11/4/16)

In an ideal marriage of Japanese and American traditions, coupled with a conventionally unconventional Trader Joe’s sensibility, Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Pie Mochi Ice Cream made its way to our freezers for the first time in 2014.

… Mochi is a traditional Japanese food made from steamed and pounded sticky rice. It’s chewy and slightly sweet, and quite unlike anything else. In the early 1990’s, an enterprising Japanese-American entrepreneur wrapped mochi around ice cream, and a dessert sensation was born. For years, we’ve been the go-to market for Mochi Ice Cream from this original source – this Pumpkin Pie version, made by that same pioneering purveyor, comes with our name on it!

On the outside, a pumpkin-hued mochi “wrapper.” Inside, pumpkin ice cream, softly seasoned with pumpkin pie spices, and studded with chunks of graham cookie pieces. The sticky, chewy outside keeps the ice cream from melting (for a while – it will melt eventually if left out of the freezer, because, you know, it’s ice cream), and makes this treat easy to enjoy without a utensil. Or a bowl. It’s ice cream finger food! Pumpkin Pie Mochi Ice Cream is a seasonal specialty; if you’re a fan of mochi ice cream, grab a box before Pumpkin Season fades away.

Once more unto the pumpkin spice, dear friends, once more. We’ve been there twice already in the past week, on the 20th in “A processed food flavor” (about pumpkin (pie) spice, hereafter ps) and on the 23rd in “The pumpkin spice cartoon meme”. Now, from Canada (via Chris Ambidge), comes this:

(#1) Dare cookies with ps cream / creme / crème filling

The allusion to pumpkin (pie) in the name of the spice mix locates ps as an autumnal flavor, suitable for foods (especially pumpkin pie) at Halloween and (American and Canadian) Thanksgiving and Christmas. But ps mix is suitable for flavoring sweet foods of many kinds, and should not be tied so closely to a season.

In fact, ps food doesn’t need to contain (any) actual spices, but could merely have the appropriate artificial flavors, mimicking some or all of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and maybe allspice. The Dare company maintains that their ps cream cookies contain real pumpkin and actual spices, but of course no cream (though they do contain whey).

To come: Dare and their products (Canadian Whippets!), spice mixes (their ingredients and their names), and subsective (or not) compounds.

Dare. About the company, from Wikipedia:

Dare Foods, Limited is a Canada-based food manufacturing company. They have seven factories in Canada and the United States. Their products are distributed in North America and at least 25 other countries.

The founder of Dare Foods, Charles H. Doerr, started off in 1892 by making and selling cookies and candies in a small grocery shop in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. By 1919 he created the C.H. Doerr Company that distributed his goods within the Ontario area. In 1941, Charles’ grandson, Carl Doerr, took over the business and legally changed the name to “Dare” because it was easier to pronounce. Dare products became more popular Canada-wide by 1954 and began exporting to the U.S. in 1956.

Creme sandwich cookies from Dare: maple leaf creme, pumpkin spice creme, lemon creme, chocolate fudge creme. And they make a wide variety of other sweet snack foods, including a classic Canadian chocolate covered treat:

(#2)

Whippet cookies are produced in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They consist of a biscuit base topped with marshmallow-like filling and then coated in a hard shell of pure chocolate. Whippet cookies first came to the market in 1927, although they had been produced and distributed by Viau under the name “Empire” as early as 1901. Today, the cookies are still produced in Montreal at the east end of the Viau factory, which is now owned by Dare Foods. They are currently available with both dark chocolate and milk chocolate coatings, and with several flavors of artificial fruit jam filling inside the marshmallow-like filling.

The cookies are similar to Mallomars of New York City…

The Whippet cookie is a distinct part of Quebec culture because it does not travel well outside its area of production. This is partly because the pure chocolate melts very easily (compared with a chocolate mixture) and therefore they require refrigerated transport in summer. Furthermore, the combination of the hard chocolate shell and the air-filled inner marshmallow make them self-destruct when placed in the unpressurised or semi-pressurised cargo section of an airplane. However, they are currently available at various grocery locations throughout Canada and the US.

Spice mixes. There are many, many spice mixtures intended for savory (rather than sweet) foods, some of which I’ve looked at on this blog (cowboy rub, anyone? jerk spice?).

American ps is closely related to, but distinct from, British mixed spice (not a very informative name). From Wikipedia:

Mixed spice, also called pudding spice, is a British blend of sweet spices, similar to the pumpkin pie spice used in the United States. Cinnamon is the dominant flavour, with nutmeg and allspice [sometimes also cloves, ginger, coriander, or caraway]. It is often used in baking, or to complement fruits or other sweet foods.

The term “mixed spice” has been used for this blend of spices in cookbooks at least as far back as 1828 and probably much earlier.

Mixed spice is very similar to a Dutch spice mix called koekkruiden or speculaaskruiden, which are used mainly to spice food associated with the Dutch Sinterklaas celebration at December 5. Koekkruiden contain cardamom.

The formula for British mixed spice on the BBC Good Food site: 3 parts allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg; 2 parts mace; 1 part cloves, coriander, and ginger. It’s used especially for Christmas cake; British ex-pats in various parts of the world complain that it’s hard to find in shops outside the UK.

An Australian mixture marketed by the MasterFoods firm under the name mixed spice is almost all cinnamon:

(#3) 82% cinnamon, 9% allspice, 9% nutmeg (intended for cakes and biscuits / cookies)

(There are also several American “mixed spice” combinations on the market, intended for both sweet and savory uses.)

As a terminological distinction, I’d suggest the labels American sweet spice (inclined towards nutmeg) and British sweet spice (inclined towards cinnamon), with the acronymns AmSwSp and BrSwSp (pronounced /æmswɪsp/ and /brıswısp/, respectively).

What to do with sweet spice mixes. Three classes of uses:

in drinks: eggnog, rum punch

in sweet fillings and frostings: creme (sandwich) cookies, chocolate truffles, cake frosting

in baked stuff: cakes, sweet breads, cookies / biscuits

The flavor of sweet spice goes well with things that are creamy or sweet or both.

Canadian Whippets are a step in the direction of a transcendent candy, chocolate truffles filled with spiced ganache (‘a whipped filling of chocolate and cream’ (NOAD2)).

Subsectivity. Note that ps cream in the sandwich cookies / biscuits ordinarily has no cream in it whatsoever; the compound ps cream isn’t subsective, but resembloid: the filling in the sandwich cookies is merely cream-like, or creamy (cf. cream in the NYC egg cream, the UK salad cream, and the AmE cream soda, with resembloid N1 rather than N2; the first contains milk rather than cream, the other two have no dairy products at all).

The cream here is then this item from NOAD2:

noun cream [or creme or crème]: a substance or product with a thick, creamy consistency

For the purposes of law or merely truth in advertising, the cookie fillings and the like are often labeled creme or crème.

A new tv commercial for Naväge (sometimes just Navage) touts it as just the thing for current times:

Now is the time to make good nasal hygiene the new normal.

The commercial doesn’t seem to be available on-line yet, but here’s an earlier print ad:

“uses powered suction to relieve nasal congestion” (with a saline solution)

The brand name is, of course, a portmanteau, of nasal + lavage; on the latter, from NOAD:

noun lavage: Medicine washing out of a body cavity, such as the colon or stomach, with water or a medicated solution.

Reviews are mixed on the utility of the system for relieving chronic sinusitis and the like (though for a while as a child I had regular nasal lavage performed by a doctor, with pretty good results). But I’ve found no information about the wisdom of flushing mucus out of the nasal cavity in current times.