Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, with the POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) Edgar Allan Po’ Boy = Edgar Allan Poe (the American writer and poet) + po’ boy (the superb New Orleans submarine sandwich):

(#1) Edgar Allan Po’ Boy is a N1 + N2 compound N, understood as having the head, N2, semantically associated with the modifier, N1, by (the referent of) N2’s being named after (the referent of) N1 — parallel to the Woody Allen Sandwich (a tower of corned beef and pastrami) at NYC’s Carnegie Deli

(Plus the allusion to Poe’s poem The Raven — Quoth the raven, “Nevermore” — in Grimm’s, “I had it once, but… nevermore”.)

If you were a betting person, you would surely put some money on this MGG strip as not being the first to use this particular POP — of course, that would be fine, it’s all in how you develop the joke — and you would win.

Just on this blog, in Zippy postings from 2016 and a Rhymes With Orange posting in 2017.

Plus bonuses: a texty with a pun turning on the ambiguity of /póbòj/ as either po’ boy or Poe boy; and two cartoons turning on Edgar Allan Poe / Po’ Boy understood as a Source or Ingredient compound (parallel to shrimp po’ boy) — yes, Edgar Allan Poe in a po’ boy, in it, good enough to eat.

Zippy in 2016. In my 1/7/16 posting “Bilkpoe and fractured Stein”, a Zippy strip “with writer Edgar Allan Poe (under the name Elgar Durwin Poboy) crossed with Army Sgt. Bilko from the tv show The Phil Silvers Show (in a mash-up of high culture and pop culture)”:

The names are absurd plays on the writers’ names: Elgar (the English composer Edward Elgar) for Edgar, Poboy (for po’boy, the New Orleans submarine sandwich) , and Durwin for Allan (probably an echo of the misnamings the character Endora on the tv show Bewitched came up with for her son-in-law Darrin — Delmore, Darryl, Darwin, Durwood, etc.)

Then in my 1/24/16 posting “More Ravening”, a Zippy strip devoted to Elgar Durwin Poboy.

Rhymes With Orange in 2017. From my 7/18/17 posting “POP with Poe”, a Rhymes With Orange strip with the doggerel “The Edgar Allan Poe Boy”:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Edgar wasn’t thinking clearly,
“Give me raven, lettuce and tomato,
hold the mustard, extra mayo.”

plus material on po’ boys / po’boys

An Edgar POP bonus. In my 5/15/20 posting “Edgar Allan Wrench”, a Bizarro cartoon with the POP of the title: = Edgar Allan + Allen wrench.

A texty bonus.Texties are cartoon-like compositions in which a pictorial component is entirely absent or merely decorative, not essential to the point of the composition — in effect, words-only cartoons; they can be intended as humor, like gag cartoons, or as serious commentary, like political cartoons. This one turns on the ambiguity of /póbòj/ — either po’ boy or Poe boy:

(#2) Zazzle shirt design by Funny Shirt — one of many designs on this text, from various sources; this one’s my favorite

A Source / Ingredient bonus. Two cartoons (the second a photoon), both from Reddit postings (and both incorporating a raven), turning on Edgar Allan Poe / Po’ Boy understood as a Source or Ingredient compound, thus exploiting  the well-known multiplicity of understandings for N1 + N2 according to the semantic relationship between (the referents of) head N2 and modifier N1: contrast Source / Ingredient lobster po’ boy with

Metairie po’ boy (New Orleans suburb of Metairie), Mitch Landrieu po’ boy (former New Orleans mayor Landrieu), NOLA po’ boy (NOLA restaurant in Palo Alto), foodie po’ boy, time-sink po’ boy, old-time po’ boy, and so on.

Plus an endless number of distant compounds, requiring interpretation in a rich discourse context, like Superdome po’ boy understood as referring to a po’ boy like the ones we used to get at that stand next to the New Orleans Superdome.

(#3) Posted by u/drummerchuk77 7 years ago (yes, Allan mis-spelled as Allen; that happens a lot); the roll is a specially made New Orleans French bread

(#4) Posted by u/forceduse 8 years ago (that is one gigantic roll)

Two Wayno / Piraro Bizarro POPs (phrasal overlap portmanteaus) that have been accumulating on my desktop: the lobo oboe from 4/22, the velveteen teenager from 7/11:

(#1) The reedy wolf (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s only 1 in this strip — see this Page.)

(#2) Stuffed and sulky (not to mention rebellious and willful) (3 symbols this time)

El lobo and his oboe. From NOAD:

noun lobo: North American (in the southwestern US and Mexico) a timber wolf. ORIGIN mid 19th century: from Spanish, from Latin lupus‘wolf’.

From the great parade of things named Lobo or El Lobo or Los Lobos, I pick just one, the fabulous American rock (or whatever) band Los Lobos. From Wikipedia:

(#3) Album cover for Wolf Tracks — The Best of Los Lobos (2006), showing the band as young men

Los Lobos (Spanish for “the Wolves”) are an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California [formed in 1973]. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. The band rose to international stardom in 1987, when their version of Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” topped the charts in the U.S., the UK, and several other countries.

Current members: David Hidalgo (b. 1954) on vocals, guitar, accordion, fiddle, requinto jarocho (1973–present), Louie Pérez (b. 1953) on drums, guitar, jarana huasteca, vocals (1973–), Cesar Rosas (b. 1953) on vocals, guitar, bajo sexto (1973–), Conrad Lozano (b. 1951) on bass, guitarron, vocals (1973–), Steve Berlin (b. 1955) on keyboards, woodwinds (1982–). The guys are all now around 70, not kids any more, but still touring — right now — and still wonderful.

I suspect that Steve Berlin’s woodwinds are various clarinets, maybe flutes, but probably not a bassoon or oboe. Though an oboe would be perfect for this posting.

And now, a really cool honor: in 2021, the band was named a National Heritage Fellow (yes, Fellow, a truly awkward reference to a group) by the National Endowment for the Arts.

(#4) The Heritage Fellow, with agave (NEA photo by Piero F. Giunti)

Announcement from the NEA here, with a lengthy and detailed bio for the group that begins:

Los Lobos has defined the East Los Angeles sonic landscape for nearly a half century.

Well, that’s true, but meanwhile their influence has spread far and wide.

The Velveteen Rabbit grows up a bit. And turns into a stereotypically sulky, rebellious, and willful teen.

From Wikipedia:

(#5) Front cover of the 1922 Heinemann edition (from Wikipedia) — cf. #2

The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real) is a British children’s book written by Margery Williams (also known as Margery Williams Bianco) and illustrated by William Nicholson. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit’s desire to become real through the love of his owner. The book was first published in 1922 and has been republished many times since.

And then in my 2/26/22 posting “velour”, notes on velour, velvet, velveteen, and plush (no, it’s not straightforward).

O pickle, my love / What a beautiful pickle you are!

Blame it on Nancy Friedman (@Fritinancy on Twitter), who took us down to the pickle plant in Santa Barbara on 7/18, citing these 5 delights, with their label descriptions:

Unbeetables (pickled beets with unbeatable heat) – pun on unbeatable

Carriots of Fire (pickled carrots to light your torch) – punning allusion to the film Chariots of Fire

¡Ay Cukarambas! (dill-icious spicy dill pickle spears) – complex portmanteau of the American Spanish exclamation ¡ay caramba! and the noun cuke ‘cucumber’

Asparagusto (pickled asparagus with a kick) – portmanteau of asparagus and gusto

Bread & Buddhas (semi-sweet bread & butter pickles) – pun on bread and butter (pickles)

(#1)

Pickles are automatically phallicity territory, and the Pacific Pickle Works in Santa Barbara CA (website here) doesn’t shy away from their penis potential, augmenting it by references to phallic carrots, asparagus spears, and unpickled cucumbers. If you have the eye for it, we all live in Penis Town.

Artistically arranged display on the PPW website:

(#2)

The company’s own copy, heavy with word-initial /p/ and vivid word choices, generally evoking the picture of PPW as a place of fun, fun, fun (till some meanie takes the pickles away):

Fresh from the farm to our sunny Santa Barbara factory, peak-season produce is hand-packed in the bold & spicy brine that makes a West Coast pickle truly shine. Our signature recipe blends punchy California chiles and umami-rich aromatics with a classic vinegar pucker and delightfully snackable crunch. Whether you mix up a batch of savory cocktails with our award winning mixers or pluck a pickle straight from the jar, we hope you enjoy sharing a taste of the good life with great friends. We‘re stoked to be sharing this one with you.

(#2) The pickle-plucking poem (from AZ, not PPW); in performance, the noun cuke in the final line can be freely varied

Nine more from PPW, again with the playful label descriptions:

Pandemic Pickles (spicy habanero caraway pickles)

No Big Dill (baby kosher dill pickles) – pun on the idiom no big deal, perfect for varieties with the lowering of ɪ to ɛ before l (so that deal and dill are homophones); imperfect (but very close) for the rest of us

Mother’s Puckers (home-style garlic dill pickle halves) – play on the vulgar insult motherfucker (well, muthafucka), plus a reference to the puckering of the lips on consuming sour things, like pickles and pickle brine; perhaps — much more outrageously, taking a cue from the sexual verb fuck — an allusion to the puckered appearance of the anus

Pickles Under the Ginfluence (brined with gin, rosemary, and jalapeños) – a pun on the idiom under the influence ‘drunk’, plus a portmanteau of gin and influence

Jalabeaños (pickled green beans in a spicy jalapeño brine) – a complex portmanteau of jalapeño and bean

Brussizzle Sprouts (semi-sweet and tangizzy pickled Brussels sprouts) – a complex portmanteau of Brussels sprouts and sizzle

Stokra (totally killer pickled okra) –  portmanteau of slangy stoked ‘excited, euphoric’ and okra

Cauliflower Power (peace, love, and pickled cauliflower) – rhyming cauliflower and power, plus an allusion to the 60s slogan flower power

Fenn Shui (pickled fennel slices in rice vinegar) — play on Feng Shui (using the fenn– of fennel), adding to the overall Chinese effect

Selected background notes.

— Nancy Friedman, also dba Fritinancy, from her own site:

Nancy Friedman, chief wordworker of Wordworking, is a name developer, corporate copywriter, and recovering journalist.

A notable observer of language in advertising.

— Chariots of Fire, the 1981 film. From Wikipedia:

The film’s title was inspired by the line “Bring me my Chariot of fire!” from the William Blake poem adapted into the British hymn “Jerusalem”; the hymn is heard at the end of the film. The original phrase “chariot(s) of fire” is from 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17 in the Bible.

— caramba. From NOAD:

excl. caramba: informal, often humorous an expression of surprise or dismay: ay caramba! ORIGIN mid 19th century: from Spanish. [in Spanish, euphemistic variant of vulgar carajo]

And then on carajo, from Wiktionary:

masc. noun carajo: 1. (vulgar) penis | No importa ser inteligente si tienes grande el carajo. ‘Being smart doesn’t matter if you have a big dick.’ 2. [AZ: as a vulgar minimizer] (un carajo) shit (US), jackshit (US), sod all (UK), bugger all (UK) | [No] me importa un carajo. ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ 3. (al carajo) hell | ¡Vete al carajo! ‘go to hell! bugger off!’

— bread-and-butter pickles (with various spelling variants, notably the separated bread and butter pickles). From OED3 (Sept. 2020):

bread-and-butter pickle  n. North American (in plural or as a mass noun) a sweet pickle made from sliced cucumber pickled in seasoned brine, typically eaten on sandwiches. (Apparently so called because originally eaten just with bread and butter.) [1923 and 1968 cites with recipes; 2019 The burger features two certified grass-fed patties .. on a potato bun. The Double is topped with bread-and-butter pickles made in-house.]

— pucker. From NOAD:

pucker: verb (especially with reference to a person’s face) tightly gather or contract into wrinkles or small folds: [with object]:  the baby stirred, puckering up its tiny face | [no object]:  her brows puckered in a frown. noun a tightly gathered wrinkle or small fold, especially on a person’s face: a pucker between his eyebrows. PHRASES pucker up contract one’s lips as in preparation for a kiss.

And from OED3 (Sept. 2007) on the noun:

A tightly gathered wrinkle or small fold; a pleat, crease, or gathering in a piece of cloth or the like, as caused by drawing a thread or seam too tightly. Also: a ridge, wrinkle, or corrugation of the skin of the face, brow, lips, etc.

— stoked. From NOAD:

adj. stoked: informal, mainly North American excited or euphoric: when they told me I was on the team, I was stoked.

The adjective is a metaphorical development from a fire-tending verb; from OED2 (currently in revision):

1. a. transitive. To feed, stir up, and poke the fire in (a furnace), to tend the furnace of (a boiler). Also, to feed or build up (a fire), and with up.

The OED has the AmE slang usage in cites from 1963 on.

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, requiring a boatload of popcultural knowledge to understand:

(#1) The easy part: these are three anthropomorphic peanuts, M, M, F from left to right, and they are sitting at a bar, with drinks in front of them (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

Somehow the meeting of these three exemplifies the N1 + N2 compound N wingnut / wing-nut / wing nut (which has 4 senses in NOAD, plus a bunch more you can imagine). But how?

You should also be able to identify M1 (through his top hat and monocle) as the commercial mascot Mr. Peanut. He’s one classy guy, and in line with that, he’s drinking an elegant traditional martini (with olive) in a cocktail glass.

M2 is clearly marked as male (hair, goatee, shirt and tie), looking amiable but nerdish, and drinking whisk(e)y of some type, in an Old Fashioned glass / rocks glass / whiskey tumbler: a man’s-man drink. He’s talking to F.

F is clearly marked as female (hair, lips, string of pearls), looking a bit dubious at M2’s approach, and drinking a glass of white wine: a lady’s drink.

We are meant to understand this situation as a complex variant of the hopeful hookup scene — Guy Cruises Girl For Sex (or, more aggressively, Guy Hits On Girl For Sex) — with an intermediary guy negotiating with the girl on behalf of the cruising guy. Here you need to know that in modern American culture, the intermediary guy in such a scene is known as a wingman.

Yes, M2’s a wingman peanut, which portmanteaus to wingnut.

Aha, there we have the title — though there’s no evidence in the cartoon that M2 is in fact a wingnut, in any sense I can dredge up. So this part of the joke seems to be entirely verbal — ooh, wingnut! new meaning! cool! — and not conceptual or visual.

Now for some details. Starting with the portmanteau and going on with Mr. Peanut and wingmen.

wingnut. NOAD on the compound noun wing nut (3a is the sense we’re interested in here):

1 (also wingnut) a [hardware] nut with a pair of projections for the fingers to screw it on. 2 an Asian tree of the walnut family, with a deeply fissured trunk, compound leaves, and characteristic broad-winged nutlets. Genus Pterocarya, family Juglandaceae. 3 (wingnut) US informal [a] a mad or crazy person [AZ: that is, a nutcase]: some wingnut down in Finance. [b] a person with extreme, typically right-wing, views: McCarthyite wingnuts.

The nut here is nut ‘crazy person’; the wing is not so clear, but possibly a reference to being in the wings — on the side, the edges, or sidelines, so metaphorically out of the ordinary.

Salon’s “Ask a Wingnut” column (“a conservative answers your questions about why his people do what they do”) by Glenallen Walker comes with an entertaining logo that manages to combine senses 1 and 3b:

(#2)

As for the history of our sense, NOAD‘s 3a, GDoS has wingnut ‘an eccentric, a fool’ with a 1st cite in 1986: Joseph Wambaugh, Secrets of Harry Bright: He’d been called Wingnut since Grammar school.

There are any number of other possible interpretations for wingnut, beyond NOAD’s 4: for example, ‘a crazy person with [the bodyparts] wings’; some involving metaphorical wings ‘big ears, person with big ears’ or  metonymical wings ‘a pilot’s certificate of ability to fly a plane’; and a number involving the snowclonelet nut, with nut in NOAD‘s sense 3b of that noun:

[with adjective or noun modifier] a person who is excessively interested in or enthusiastic about a specified thing: a football nut.

So: wing nut ‘someone excessively interested in wings, a nut for wings’ (wings of birds, planes, etc.; fried chicken wings; flying; pilots; etc.).

Mr. Peanut. From my 1/13/20 posting “Just one peanut”, with a section on the character:

(#3) The classic Mr.Peanut figure

Mr. Peanut is the advertising logo and mascot of Planters, an American snack-food company and division of Kraft Foods. He is depicted as an anthropomorphic peanut in its shell dressed in the formal clothing of an old-fashioned gentleman: with a top hat, monocle, white gloves, spats, and a cane.

wingman.  In my 9/3/20 posting “wingman, winger”, I observe that the wingman is an American social role, a specialization of the American buddy relationship between men — a close and supportive friendship:

your buddy is someone you can confide in safely and will dependably support your interests, and you do the same for him

[a buddy] can serve as a buffer against same-sex competitiveness over social dominance and against the stresses of negotiating the [straight] sexual marketplace

[a wingman] can help scout out the [sexual] territory, smooth the negotiations, and provide emotional support

The wingman serves as a go-between, an intermediary, a negotiator.

The origin of the term is in the Air Force. From OED2 on the noun wing-man:

the pilot of an aircraft which is positioned behind and to one side of the leading aircraft, as in formation for combat [AZ: and so serving a protective function] [1st cite from 1946]

Back at the bar. The word is that Mr. Peanut is a heavy-duty skirt-chaser, using his elegant presentation of himself to rack up one-night stands. F in #1 might well know the goober guy’s rep, so the earnest wingman’s presentation looks like it’s not winning her over. Too bad that M2 is taken.

Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, with an instance of one of the house specialties — the Psychiatrist cartoon meme — rich in mythic resonances, and incorporating a bovine Nietzschean pun:

Not just any old ruminant on the couch, but the chimeric monster the Minotaur, reflecting guiltily on, oh, the young people sacrificed to him in the Labyrinth, and now confronted with a Theseus figure, in the form of his therapist (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)

Wayno’s title, another pun, but a perfect one this time: “Bull Session”.

Truly, I don’t know where to start unpacking all this stuff; it’s all intertwined. Ok, the puns first, beginning with the simplest one:

ruminate. Explicit in the cartoon: figurative ruminate (‘think deeply about something: we sat ruminating on the nature of existence‘ (NOAD)). And then evoked by the cartoon, bulls being cud-chewing animals: literal ruminate (‘(of a ruminant) chew the cud: goats ruminated nonchalantly around them‘ (NOAD)).

bull session. Literal bull — the male bovine — vs. bull in the idiomatic compound bull session; plus literal session, as in therapy session (NOAD‘s 2 [a] a period devoted to a particular activity: gym is followed by a training session) — vs. session in that idiomatic compound:

noun bull session: North American an informal, typically impromptu discussion, especially among a small group: I heard sharper political talk in the all-night bull sessions. (NOAD)

grazing into the abyss. The model for the pun is the catchphrase gazing into the abyss, originally a quotation:

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

— Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

And then the imperfect pun graze for gaze — ruminants being grazing animals:

verb graze: (of cattle, sheep, etc.) eat grass in a field: cattle graze on the open meadows (NOAD)

The chimeric monster the Minotaur. Which knits everything together. From Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being “part man and part bull”. He dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, on the command of King Minos of Crete.

Young men and women were sent into the Labyrinth as sacrifices to the Minotaur; eventually, Theseus slayed the Minotaur (with the aid of Ariadne and her thread, which do not figure in the cartoon).

The portmanteau Minotaureador in my title. A title for Theseus:

Minotaur + toreador ‘bullfighter’ = Minotaureador ‘Minotaur-fighter’

Meanwhile, Minotaur is a compound noun of ancient Greek, composed of the personal name Minōs (for the king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa, whose wife Pasiphaë gave birth to the Minotaur) + tauros ‘bull’.

As for toreador itself: in Spanish,

noun toro ‘bull’ → verb torear ‘to fight bulls’ → noun toreador ‘bullfighter’ (with the agentive suffix –dor)

   tiger tiger tiger for ultimate September; tomorrow the inaugural rabbits of October will bound in

In today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, set in the Schmancy auction house — think Christie’s or Sotheby’s — a Mötley Crüe cruet POPped (phrasal overlap portmanteaued) to  Motley Crüet (somehow the first röck döt got lost in the compression process):

(#1) Wayno’s title: “Tinny Aftertaste”, combining the metal of heavy metal with the taste of a cruet’s contents (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)

To understand this, you need to know about fancy-schmancy auction houses and how they operate; about cruets and their function in dining; and about heavy metal music and the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe and their reputation for vulgarly outrageous behavior, which clashes with the civility of oil-and-vinegar dressings for salads, so yielding the humor of anomalous juxtaposition.

The Schmancy auction house gets its name from the reduplicative adjective:

adj. fancy-schmancy: informal North American extremely or excessively fancy. Ben has some fancy-schmancy job. (Oxford Languages dictionary)

On shm-reduplication, from Wikipedia:

Shm-reduplication is a form of reduplication originating in Yiddish in which the original word or its first syllable (the base) is repeated with the copy (the reduplicant) beginning with shm– (sometimes schm-), pronounced /ʃm/. The construction is generally used to indicate irony, sarcasm, derision, skepticism, or lack of interest with respect to comments about the discussed object.

With a noun base, the shm-reduplicated form usually functions as an exclamation (A: He’s just a baby! / B: Baby-shmaby, he’s five years old!). With an adjective base, the shm-reduplicated form usually functions as an intensifying adjective (Whenever we go to a fancy-schmancy restaurant, we feel like James Bond.)

To get the name of the auction house, fancy-schmancy is clipped down to its crucial part, the reduplicant.

Cruets. From NOAD:

noun cruet: 1 a small container for salt, pepper, oil, or vinegar for use at a dining table. …

As here:

(#2) A Sudbury glass cruet set, 6 1/2 in high (on amazon.com)

Mötley Crüe. The Wikipedia summary:

Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1981. The group was founded by bassist Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee, lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil. Mötley Crüe has sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

… The members of Mötley Crüe have often been noted for their hedonistic lifestyles and the androgynous personae they maintained. Following the hard rock and heavy metal origins on the band’s first two albums, Too Fast for Love (1981) and Shout at the Devil (1983), the release of its third album Theatre of Pain (1985) saw Mötley Crüe joining the first wave of glam metal. The band has also been known for their elaborate live performances, which feature flame thrower guitars, roller coaster drum kits, and heavy use of pyrotechnics (fireworks) (including lighting Sixx on fire).

… [about the name:] while trying to find a suitable name, Mars remembered an incident that occurred when he was playing with a band called White Horse, when one of the other band members called the group “a motley looking crew”. He had remembered the phrase and later copied it down as ‘Mottley Cru’. After modifying the spelling slightly, “Mötley Crüe” was eventually selected as the band’s name, with the stylistic decision suggested by Neil to add the two sets of metal umlauts, supposedly inspired by the German beer Löwenbräu, which the members were drinking at the time.

From the band’s own site, the bad boys boasting about their vulgarly outrageous behavior and the sheer level of noise they can produce, while only hinting at their enormous commercial success and not even mentioning their pyromania:

(#3)

No still photo can capture the Mötley Crüe experience. Just one sample: the song “Dr. Feelgood”(about the neighborhood drug dealer), the title track from from a 1989 album; you can watch the official music video here. About the album, from Wikipedia:

Dr. Feelgood … is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe, released on August 28, 1989. … In addition to being Mötley Crüe’s best selling album, it is highly regarded by music critics and fans as the band’s best studio album.

Chorus 1 from the song:

He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood
He’s the one that makes ya feel all right
He’s the one they call Dr. Feelgood
He’s gonna be your Frankenstein

A little more on the name. Two notes: on motley, and on röck döts (aka metal umlauts).

— on the adjective:

adj. motley: incongruously varied in appearance or character; disparate: a motley crew of discontents and zealots. (NOAD)

— on the diacritics, see my discussion in the 7/12/21 posting “A snowfall of diacritics, an avalanche of röck döts”

In the mail, from Mary Ballard, this penguin Christmas card (from Fantus Paper Products), featuring the conventional schematic cute penguin, which can be seen in many variants all over the place, not just at holiday time:

(#1) I get a penguin, because the penguin is one of my totem animals; but penguins, stereotypically from cold and snowy lands, are in general associated with holiday time in the Northern Hemisphere, so penguin Christmas cards are something of a thing

Previously on this blog, at least two penguin Christmas cards:

(#2) A Wallace & Gromit Christmas

(#3) A Monterey Bay Aquarium Christmas

The Antarctic Portmanteau Xmas Song. Combine penguin with the Xmas song “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”, and you get “It’s Penguin(n)ing to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (with two ways of reconciling the spellings of penguin (one N) and beginning (two Ns)). Two versions from Etsy suppliers, the first with iconic cute penguins, the second with a more realistic cartoon penguin:

(#4) An Etsy Creaternet card

(#5) An Etsy NineTwoDesign card

And on the song (whose generic sentimental cheerfulness sets my teeth on edge, but there it is), from Wikipedia:

“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” is a Christmas song written in 1951 by Meredith Willson. The song was originally titled “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas”. The song has been recorded by many artists, but was a hit for Perry Como and The Fontane Sisters with Mitchell Ayres & His Orchestra [in 1951]

You can watch the (cheesy) official music video of the 1951 Perry Como recording on YouTube here.

(#1) Xmas card from Tiny Bee Cards, offered on Amazon

Lizard warnings, lizzard warnings, lizards falling from the trees.

Lizard warnings. I wrote on Facebook on 12/22:

I know these dire weather reports are announcing “blizzard warnings”, but I keep hearing “lizard warnings” and breaking into giggles. … I note that lizards come in many sizes, from the little ones we have around here in the Bay Area, to iguanas and Komodo dragons, up to Godzilla and his ilk. I giggle about all of them (as I sit in Palo Alto), but for different reasons.

Lizzard warnings. No lizard-warning signage that I’ve found, but for lizzards, we have this sign, widely distributed on the net, as here:

(#2)

And amended by Tim Evanson to incorporate Gojira / Godzilla:

(#3)

As I then noted on Facebook,

Ah, that’s a warning about transgender lizards, “lizzard” being a portmanteau of “lizard” and “Izzard” (as in Eddie Izzard).

From Wikipedia, basic information about the remarkable Eddie Izzard (read the whole entry):

Edward John Izzard (born 7 February 1962) is a British stand-up comedian, actor and activist. Her comedic style takes the form of what appears to the audience as rambling whimsical monologues and self-referential pantomime.

Lizards falling from the trees. From the Daily Mail (UK) on 1/22/20:

(#4)

Great for brrr-itos! Iguana meat dubbed the ‘chicken of the trees’ is being sold online for $1 a piece after the frozen reptiles fall from Florida trees as temperatures plunge

– Nicknamed ‘chicken of the trees’, iguana meat has started popping up on Facebook Marketplace in Florida

– Sales of the meat come just hours after the weather service issued warnings of frozen reptiles falling from trees due to the harsh drop in temperatures

– The cold-blooded creatures become immobile in cold temperatures

– Iguanas that go dormant while sleeping in trees risk ‘falling from the sky’

– The UF/IFAS recommends treating the meat like chicken and cooking it through to at least 165 degrees because of the risk of salmonella

As I said to Bill Poser on Facebook about cold-stricken iguanas:

Do not bring a stunned iguana into your house to revive it; it will be seriously pissed off.

It would be helpful to move them carefully out of harm’s way (if they’re lying on roadways, sidewalks, and the like). When it gets warmer, the iguanas will walk the earth once again. But, unlike Gojira, they’re unthreateningly herbivorous; in the wild, they feed almost entirely on leaves (of trees and vines), plus some fruits and flowers.

Suppose you’re a cartoonist, and this POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) has, well, popped into your head:

eggs Benedict Arnold = eggs Benedict  (breakfast dish of sliced ham on English muffin with hollandaise sauce) + Benedict Arnold (American general who defected to the British during the Revolutionary War)

Can you work this (entertainingly) surprising juxtaposition of elements into a cartoon?

Today, Mike Peters (of Mother Goose and Grimm) took up the challenge:

(#1) The solution is a play on traitor: an egg dish named for a traitor, sold at a place named Traitor Joe’s — with a trader / traitor pun alluding to the grocery chain Trader Joe’s (a perfect pun for most Americans, for whom trader and traitor are homophones; a clever imperfect pun for everyone else

Sweet. Meanwhile, others have labored to devise variants of eggs Benedict that are somehow associable with Benedict Arnold.

The Canadian bacon Benedict. A natural idea: replace American sliced ham with a British counterpart — in particular, the kind of back bacon that Americans call Canadian bacon, as in a recipe for “Eggs Benedict Arnold” in Yankee Magazine‘s New England Today: Food section on 12/27/15, for eggs Benedict with an English muffin and Canadian bacon (instead of sliced ham). Not pictured here, because the hollandaise sauce covers the meat, so it could be virtually anything under the sauce.

On many sites, this dish is called Benedict Arnold’s eggs.

Relevant background on Canadian bacon. From NOAD:

noun Canadian bacon: US lean cured meat from the back of a pig, typically served in thick, round slices: we start by opting for leaner meats that still pack tons of flavor, including Canadian bacon.

And from Wikipedia:

Canadian bacon is the American name for a form of back bacon that is cured, smoked and fully cooked, trimmed into cylindrical medallions, and thickly sliced.

American bacon is fattier side bacon, cut from the pork belly and typically served in thin strips.

(#2) Canadian bacon at Safeway

American bacon , in contrast, from The Spruce Eats site on “What Is Bacon?”:

(#3) Uncooked bacon strips

Traitorous eggs Benedict. From the National Public Radio site, “Sandwich Monday: The Dunkin’ Donuts Eggs Benedict Breakfast Sandwich” by Ian Chillag on 3/10/14:

(#4) Back to sliced ham, but now as hand-food

By turning the open-faced sandwich closed and upping the viscosity of its Hollandaise, Dunkin’ Donuts has brought portability to Eggs Benedict … The full name is Eggs Benedict Arnold, because this sandwich is a traitor to everything breakfast should stand for.

Well, actually, that’s not hollandaise at all, but “hollandaise-flavored spread”. And those are suspiciously thick English muffin halves. Ok on the eggs and the Black Forest ham.

Other Eggs Benedict portmanteau variants in development. First, Eggs Benedict XVI, something to speculate about as Pope Benedict The Rat XVI nears death. Bound to be unsavory.

Then, a more pleasant task, imagining Eggs Benedict Cumberbatch: both good-looking and talented.

   trois lapins to inaugurate the month of February. But wait! Are those the hoofbeats of … wildebeests? Stand clear! Make way for gnus!

Out with the old month, in with the gnu. From my 5/31/13 posting “Transposed proverbs”:

(#1) Mother Goose and Grimm: A pun on gnu and new and a transposition of dog and new in You can’t teach an old dog new tricks — though a transposition of a N and an Adj is unlikely, though not unknown, in the world of inadvertent errors

On the wildebeest, from Wikipedia:

The wildebeest …, also called the gnu … is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. It is a hooved (ungulate) mammal. Wildebeest is Dutch for “wild beast” or “wild cattle” in Afrikaans (beest = cattle), while Connochaetes derives from the Greek words κόννος, kónnos, “beard”, and χαίτη, khaítē, “flowing hair”, “mane”. The name “gnu” originates from the Khoikhoi name for these animals, gnou.

An actual wildebeest, on the hoof:

(#2) Blue wildebeest, C. taurinus, in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania (Wikipedia photo)

Start spreading the gnus. From my 7/17/17 posting “Start spreading the gnus”:

(#3) A Dan Thompson cartoon

Wildebeests, gnus, whetever — they’re all ungulates.

Takes some work to set things up for the punchline, an absurdist pun on the first line of the song “New York New York”, which Frank Sinatra took on as one of his signature tunes.

Oscar Wildebeest. From the DUB site — “the independent news and opinions site with current news and background articles centered around the university community in Utrecht” in the Netherlands — the cartoon of 9/9/22:

(#4) The DUB cartoon on university topics features as regular characters a cow, a pig, a kangaroo, a zebra, and a wildebeest named Oscar — yes, the POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) Oscar Wildebeest

The meatless Tofudebeest. A Gary Larson Far Side cartoon from January 1991:

(#5) The portmanteau tofudebeest ‘health antelope’ = tofu ‘bean curd as health food’ + wildebeest

Addendum, later in the day, specifically on gnus. From my 3/14/12 posting “The news for gnus”, about this Rhymes With Orange cartoon:

(#6)

Gnus do inhabit the Serengeti.

I can’t think of gnus without being reminded of Flanders and Swann’s delightful Gnu Song — which you can hear here, along with photos of real-life gnus.

A Mark Anderson Andertoon (brought to my attention by several Facebook posters) with an excellent portmanteau: Narcisyphus = Narcissus + Sisyphus:

(#1) Anderson’s selfie cartoon #7599 (he has a whole series of them); there’s a Page on Andertoons on this blog

Narcissus. Narcissism — usually through reflections, in water or in a mirror, but here through taking a picture of yourself. Sisyphus — a whole cartoon meme here. Not the first time Narcissus and Sisyphus have been joined in a cartoon, but not so elegantly, in a single panel.

Background. From NOAD:

proper noun Narcissus: Greek Mythology a beautiful youth who rejected the nymph Echo and fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. He pined away and was changed into the flower that bears his name.

noun narcissist: a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves: narcissists who think the world revolves around them | narcissists preening themselves in front of the mirror.

noun narcissism: [a] excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance. [b] Psychology selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration, as characterizing a personality type. [c] Psychoanalysis self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder.

proper noun Sisyphus: Greek Mythology the son of Aeolus, punished in Hades for his misdeeds in life by being condemned to the eternal task of rolling a large stone to the top of a hill, from which it always rolled down again.

noun selfie: informal a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media: occasional selfies are acceptable, but posting a new picture of yourself everyday isn’t necessary.

noun selfie stick: a device in the form of a rod on which a camera or smartphone may be mounted, enabling the person holding it to take a photograph of themselves from a greater distance than if holding the camera or smartphone in their hand: some concert venues have banned selfie sticks over fears they block the view of the stage.

The narcissism of the selfie. What enables Anderson to get a one-panel gag cartoon out of the portmanteau is the selfie (achieved here by using a selfie stick with the left hand while pushing the boulder up the slope with the right). The question is whether taking pictures of yourself is narcissistic, and I think that’s debatable. Though I would venture to say that taking a picture of yourself pushing a boulder up a hill does smack some of self-regard.

A different union of Narcissus and Sisyphus. From my 5/27/15 posting “Narcissyphus” —

the title of an Art Spiegelman cartoon in the [6/1/15] New Yorker: a portmanteau title (Narcissus + Sisyphus) with a visual realization:

(#2)

The woozy protagonist climbs out of his hole, admires himself in a mirror, falls back into the hole, and the cycle begins again.

Genital narcissism. An occasional topic in my postings on the sexual content of premium men’s underwear ads, notably in a series of postings on underwear models contemplating their genital packages — including a model for Helsinki Athletica clothing I called Helgi (full name Helgi Narcissus). From my 11/3/21 posting “An address to his penis”:

A Daily Jocks ad for its new Signature line of underwear captures a handsome young man in his white high-rise Signature briefs focused intently on the solidly packed pouch of those briefs

(#3)

The Sisyphus cartoon meme. On this blog, beyond the two cartoons above:

— from 5/10/14 in “Party of five” –  a Rhymes With Orange Sissypuss cartoon

— from 4/6/19 in “The trail mixer” – Seth Fleishman

— from 3/14/20 in “Higashi Day cartoon 4: tending the stone” – 3 cartoons by JAK (Jason Adam Katzenstein)

— from 3/16/20 in “Corónsyphùs: Strength Through Biochemistry” – Vadim Temkin

— from 4/13/20 in “The labors of Corónsyphùs” – Bob Eckstein, Isabella Bannerman, Vadim Temkin

— from 11/1/22 in “Every meme is better with a pumpkin in it” – Bob Eckstein

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, in which George Lucas tangles with Hector Boiardi in an interleaved portmanteau:

(1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.)

Orthographically, we’ve got Chef Boyardee (a brand of canned ravioli) confronting R2-D2 (a film robot), which don’t join easily to get Chef BoyR2D2. But it’s all in the pronunciation. In transcription, marked off in syllables, with the shared parts underlined:

bòj.ár.tu.dí.tu  =  bòj.ar.dí + ár.tu.dí.tu

If the film robot had been named RD2 / ar.dí.tu / and the title of the cartoon had been (Chef) BoyRD2 / bòj.ar.dí.tu /, then it would have been a textbook portmanteau. But R2-D2 has a / tu / in between the / ar / and the / di / of Boyardee. So the shared syllables are interleaved — still a portmanteau, just a more complex type.

The contributing elements in #1.

(2) Chef Boyardee (Formerly Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and also Boyardee Foods) is a brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by ConAgra Foods. The company was founded by Italian immigrant Ettore “Hector” Boiardi to Cleveland Ohio U.S.A. in 1928. (link)

(3) R2-D2, the fictional robot character in the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas.

Wayno’s title for #1: “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, an indirect allusion to:

Marvin the Paranoid Android … a fictional character in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series [in which The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second book] by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship’s robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold. (Wikipedia link)

It’s an old theme on this blog: 6-year-old Ruthie in the comic strip One Big Happy as a constantly entertaining source of efforts to cope with unfamiliar words and larger expressions by assimilating them, in one way or another, to things that are familiar to her. Some examples surveyed in my 2/3/19 posting “Ruthian lexical items in real life”; and then, yesterday, in the posting “Ruthie goes for the donuts”, she understands windchill as Winchell’s (donuts): the unfamiliar element is the technical meteorological term windchill. and Ruthie copes with it by replacing it with a phonologically similar item that’s familiar to her (she’s fond of Winchell’s donuts):

(#1) unfamiliar windchill / familiar Winchell’s

Over the past three years or so, I’ve been accumulating One Big Happy strips in this vein and am now disgorging six of them: a similarity case, in which Ruthie copes with unfamiliar material by treating it as phonologically similar familiar material (as with windchill / Winchell’s); two ambiguity cases, in which unfamiliar material is homophonous with familiar material, so she has to cope with her mistaken interpretation of what she hears; and three more complex cases (one involving portmanteaus, one involving orthographic abbreviations, and one involving Ruthie’s own analogical creation — Ruthie is indeed ingenious).

Some past examples on this blog. Just a sampling of Ruthie’s ingenuity already posted on here.

Two similarity examples. Like unfamiliar windchill / familiar Winchell’s.

— from my 10/22/14 posting “What was that word?”:

(#2) unfamiliar odalisque / familiar odorless

— from my 7/7/15 posting “It’s the glue, Ruthie”:

(#3) This is a complex example: collagen and collages are both unfamiliar words to Ruthie; but collages are apparently not familiar to Ruthie, while the substance collagen is

Ambiguity examples. The phonology is familiar to Ruthie, but not with the meaning she’s confronted with.

— from my 12/3/14 posting “Permanent”:

(#4) unfamiliar permanent ‘lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely’ / familiar permanent ‘permanent wave (hairdo)’

Apparently Ruthie has experience of women getting permanents, but hasn’t noticed occurrences of what are, from the point of view of the language as a whole, the general sense of the adjective permanent; it’s all about Ruthie’s world and her experience of English, not about the culture she lives in and the English language in general.

— from my 9/4/19 posting “Ten to one”:

(#5) unfamiliar ten to one (odds in betting) / familiar ten to one (telling time), involving two different senses of to

Ruthie faces six more challenges.

A similarity example.

(#6) unfamiliar azure [æžǝr] the color / familiar as you’re [æžjur] as part of a request for a favor so long as you’re goin’ to the [grocery store] … (in casual speech, with palatalization of the [z] of as before the [j] of you’re)

Observant of Ruthie to have noticed the casual-speech palatalization — a phonetic detail below most people’s conscious perceptions.

An incidental point: my 2/22/20 posting “While you’re up” looks at BACKGROUND CONDITION + REQUEST constructions.

Ambiguity examples.

(#7) unfamiliar adj. hardscrabble ‘requiring hard work and struggle’ in hardscrabble life  / familiar adj. hard ‘difficult’ + the proper noun Scrabble referring to the board game, as the first word in the N + N compound Scrabble life ‘life playing Scrabble’

Nothing, it seems, is simple. There’s a constituent structure ambiguity here, with alternative parsings:

hardscrabble + life OR hard + Scrabble life

This goes hand in hand with a lexical ambiguity in the middle element, which is scrabble (verb or noun) ‘scratch, scramble’ in the unfamiliar reading, but Scrabble (a proper noun denoting a board game) in the reading that’s familiar to Ruthie, because she knows about playing Scrabble (which is, by the way, not in fact a hard life).

(#8) unfamiliar (to Ruthie) noun seal ‘sealing material’ / familiar noun seal the marine mammal — or, in this case, the simulacrum of the animal (oh yes, you need to know about Animal Crackers)

Plays on seal referring to the marine mammal abound in verbal and visual jokes: the official seal of the State of Massachusetts, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. etc.

Complex examples.

(#9) Ruthie aims for the unfamiliar technical term periodicals but also retrieves the familiar (to her) noun pterodactyls, producing the portmanteau periodactyls, and then hopes that the library’s magazines will be about dinosaurs

(#10) Ruthie attempts to concoct some kind of account for the unfamiliar noun plague, tries spelling it out as PLAY plus the letter G — so it looks like an abbreviation, PLAYG. in orthography, which could stand for PLAYGROUND

Yes, monumentally, desperately, over-ingenious.

(#11) unfamiliar verb sauté /sɔté/ (which Ruthie understands as the familiar (and phonologically similar) salt + /e/) ‘cook with salt’), used as a basis for Ruthie to create the analogous verb pepper + /e/ ‘cook with pepper’

Notified via Google Alert on Saturday: on the Jenkem Magazine (skateboarding) site, “Allies: Calder Zwicky of MOMA” (with a YouTube video) by Alexis Castro & Ollie Rodgers on 10/2/18. Another chapter in the story of artist Calder Zwicky — previously reported on in this blog back in 2016, so this is an update, but not actually up-to-date (though it gets skateboarding into CZ’s story, which is a good thing).

(#1) Screen shot from the video: CZ talking about a work of his from the Lonely Thrasher series — slang thrasher, roughly ‘excellent skateboarder’, also the name of a skater magazine — showing a cover of this magazine with the skater removed, to yield an image that, CZ argues, is still a skateboarding image, of the huge space and the complex physical structure that offers a challenge to a serious skateboarder; the skater is implicit in the image

The source of #1. The Thrasher cover of 2/4/16, with — oh my god — skater Jaws Homoki in mid-air:

(#2)

CZ explains that such a static mid-action shot pushes the viewer into imagining the past that could have led to this moment and the future that could be in store — that is, towards imaginatively reconstructing the dynamic act.

The Jenkem interview. Bear in mind that this is a publication written by skaters for skaters.

Skaters have historically been characterized as lazy stoners with little to no future, but in 2018, that’s not so true anymore. Skaters have infiltrated all sorts of jobs and career paths that seemed unimaginable a decade or two ago. We’ve got skaters on TV, creating educational programs in Afghanistan, working in politics and museums, just to rattle off a few. And as a result, we’ve befriended a few non-skater ambassadors along the way, who are pulling for us on the inside, helping us represent skating in these new spheres that we’ve never really had access to.

The people you’ll see featured in this series are the very people advocating for skaters’ rights to freely use public spaces, assuring our skaters and artists are properly compensated for their work when commissioned for commercial projects, and teaching parents that letting kids skate from an early age is actually a good thing.

For our first episode of our new mini-series, Allies, we sat down with Calder Zwicky, a skater who has been working with NYC’s Museum of Modern Art over the last decade to incorporate skate-centric programming into its Teen Programming along with its Open Arts Space, which caters specifically to the city’s LGBTQ youth.

We traveled to Calder’s home in Manhattan and asked him what his views are on the art world’s incorporation of skateboarding and skate culture and how he sees his work evolving down the line. He also showed us a peek at his own artwork in the form of his “Lonely Thrasher” series, which flips the idea of the traditional skateboard cover on its head. Check out what he has to say in the player [the YouTube video] above and stay tuned for future episodes.

Note that the Jenkem interviewer chooses to mention CZ’s outreach work to LGBTQ teens. The skateboarding world is resolutely countercultural, but it’s also heavily invested in intense masculine competitiveness and physical daring and risk-taking (just look at Jaws Homoki in #2) — attitudes that are traditionally inimical to, and contemptuous of, LGBTQ-folk. MOMA’s outreach program for queer teens is just one of CZ’s responsibilities there, so Jenkem could have simply failed to mention it; the fact that they noted it specifically is, maybe, an encouraging sign.

Now, CZ’s job. From his website, his own account of what he does for MOMA, which, stunningly, ends with his e-mail address (something I’ve never seen on the website of an artist or writer); he really wants to connect with people — especially with teens — so he can help to bring art into their lives. (He comes at his job with immense enthusiasm, a kind of evangelism for art, that’s both startling and refreshing. He will tell you that art saved his life when he was a kid, and he’s paying that back now.)

Calder Zwicky is an independent curator, museum educator, and artist based in NYC.

For the past decade, he worked as the Assistant Director for Teen and Community Partnerships at the Museum of Modern Art. In this capacity, he ran the Museum’s Community Partnership initiative, which creates programming throughout New York City for a wide-range of non-profit organizations and their audiences, including programs with homelessness initiatives, court-involved youth, post-incarcerated adults, HIV/AIDS organizations, refugee groups, and more. In addition, he oversaw all of the institution’s free arts programming for teens including the MoMA + MoMA PS1 Cross-Museum Collective, the MoMA Digital Advisory Board, In the Making studio art courses, teen art shows, and the Open Art Space initiative, a weekly drop-in program for LGBTQ teens and their allies.

He has worked for a variety of museums and arts institutions throughout the years including the Walker Art Center, the Queens Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Bronx Museum of Arts.

Contact: calderzwicky@gmail.com

CZ’s presentation of self. #1 is a motionless screen shot, but it clearly catches CZ in the midst of a whole-body performance, with moving hands and mobile facial expression. Engaging his audience with the restless energy of his physical presence as well as his enthusiastic talk.

He’s a high-physicality exponent of art — with a presentation of self that’s common (though far from universal) in athletes (consider the immense joy with which Roger Federer plays tennis, not to mention his ability to make shots in mid-air); notable in some actors (from my 1/11/15 posting “Bobby Cannavale”: “Cannavale is a very physical actor, employing his face and body for both large effects and subtle ones. Always a pleasure to watch.”); and in some academics (linguist / philosopher Gennaro Chierchia is famous for his ability to unfold complex ideas in formal semantics while pacing around the stage and gesturing dramatically, more like an Italian actor than a Harvard professor — again, a great pleasure to watch).

No doubt the physicality of his presentation of himself makes CZ a good emissary to teens. I’m sure that when he was a teen back in Minneapolis, he was That Kid Who Can Never Sit Still, didn’t connect to his schoolwork, and felt dissociated from everything having to do with school — until a teen outreach program at the Walker Art Center pulled him in and gave him a focus on engaging with the world through art, including by making it. (I told this story in my 10/16/16 posting “On the Zwicky art watch: Calder Zwicky”.)

CZ’s art. From the 2016 posting, this wonderful photo:

(#3) CZ demonstrating color mixing techniques in a MOMA on-line course

plus some examples of his artwork. Then there’s the Lonely Thrasher series, one of which is on display in #1 above. And now, because I’m a linguist, two examples of CZ language art:

(#4) CZ, The Grapefruit Dead (Found Rock Poster) (2017) — a title and an image combining grapefruit with The Grateful Dead

(#5) CZ, The Longest Day (2020) — an allusion to the movie (Wikipedia: “The Longest Day is a 1962 American epic war film, shot in black and white and based on Cornelius Ryan’s 1959 non-fiction book of the same name about the D-Day landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944.”), which is at once a gigantic spectacle and a gritty depiction of the horrors of war

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, featuring the straight-leg denim favored by the spacefolk who visit us in the Nevada desert:

(#1) Levi’s 501® Originals, always the choice of the discerning visitors to Area 51 in Nevada (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page)

So: Area 501 is a goofy portmanteau of Area 51 and 501 (jeans).

Two parts: the Area 51 part, the 501 denim part.

The Area 51 part. From my 3/7/18 posting “Aria 51”, about this Rhymes With Orange cartoon:

(#2) This is, among other things, a space alien joke, taking off from the United States Air Force facility commonly known as Area 51, a highly classified test area in Nevada

Two relevant components of this joke. First, space aliens — in the conventional imagery, the space alien

(#3) is a composite of two figures: the grey alien and the little green man (more in the 2018 posting

And then Area 51:

(#4) From Wikipedia: Novels, films, television programs, and other fictional portrayals of Area 51 describe it — or a fictional counterpart — as a haven for extraterrestrials, time travel, and sinister conspiracies (again, more in the 2018 posting)

Note that there’s no significance in the number 51. Various special areas were given numbers for reference, as the need arose. And that’s it. Things turn out to be more complicated in  the jeans world.

The 501 jeans part. From my 9/28/20 posting “Straight men’s jeans” (but putting aside the play on the ambiguity of straight), the Levi Strauss homepage copy about:

(#5)

The original blue jean since 1873.
The original straight fit jean.
90’s inspired look and feel.
All-American style

More from the homepage on the history, with a huge dollop of ad copy:

It began with a patent back in 1873. A way to add rivets to denim work pants, making them more durable for a tough day in the mines. These work pants are what we now call blue jeans, 501® Originals. They’re still tough. Still resilient. And yes, many of us still wear them to work. But in their time, they’ve come to embody something you can’t patent: style. Rule-breaking, gender-bending, Wild West, do-what-you-want style. The kind that’s been defining cool for decades. The kind you can only find in a pair of straight-fit, button-fly jeans, loved and lived-in to perfection.

But, but, you’re saying, why the number 501? Surely not just the next number up in assigning numbers to styles, back in 1873. The company recognizes the issue, poignantly, but here’s all they can offer:

Lot numbers are first assigned to the products being manufactured. 501 is used to designate the famous copper-riveted waist overalls. We don’t know why this number was chosen. We also made a 201 jean, which was a less expensive version of the pants, as well as other products using other three-digit numbers. Because of the loss of our records in 1906 [in the gigantic fires after the great earthquake], the reasons for many of these changes are unknown.

There was presumably some kind of logic behind the lot / style numbers, but it’s lost forever. But: there’s no secret code at work.

Phrasal Overlap Portmanteau time, starting with one from yesterday’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, which is (by accident) regrettably topical; and going on to a more complex one from cartoonist Leigh Rubin’s Rubes strip back in 2016 — complex because Rubin probably was thinking of the joke as a cute pun (I told you it was complex).

But first, yesterday’s Bizarro:

(#1) Drag queen meets legendary lumberjack: the POP RuPaul Bunyan = RuPaul + Paul Bunyan (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)

Drag queens. From my 5/25/22 posting “The Stanford Dragfest”:

The history of drag  — so-called in English, though cross-dressing has a long history — is complex, associated with gay black men, minstrel shows, male brothels, vaudeville, burlesque, night club acts, comedy performances by straight men, female impersonators, gay bars, organized crime, effeminacy, drag balls and courts, African American and Latino drag ball culture in NYC, and more, but modern drag is primarily a performance art (turning crucially on the doubleness of the performer) strongly associated with gay men and gay culture [through the figure of the drag queen].

As here:

(#2) Poster for season 9 (2017) of RuPaul’s Drag Race

From Wikipedia:

RuPaul’s Drag Race is an American reality competition television series [first aired in 2009], the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, WOW Presents Plus, and, beginning with the ninth season, VH1. The show documents [drag queen] RuPaul in the search for “America’s next drag superstar.” RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week.

And again from Wikipedia:

RuPaul Andre Charles (born November 17, 1960 [in San Diego CA]) is an American drag queen, television personality, actor, musician, and model. Best known for producing, hosting, and judging the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race

… His parents were both from Louisiana. He was named by his mother; “Ru” came from roux, the term for the base of gumbo and other creole stews and soups.

All this is regrettably topical because of recent widespread attempts in the US to ban drag performances wherever they might be seen by children — as part of a large-scale attack on LGBT+ people currently underway.

The Paul Bunyan legend. From Wikipedia:

(#3) The Paul Bunyan statue in Bangor ME

Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero in American and Canadian folklore. His exploits revolve around the tall tales of his superhuman labors, and he is customarily accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox. The character originated in the oral tradition of North American loggers, and was later popularized by freelance writer William B. Laughead (1882–1958) in a 1916 promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company. He has been the subject of various literary compositions, musical pieces, commercial works, and theatrical productions. His likeness is displayed in a number of oversized statues across North America

RuPaul Bunyan is then an especially delicious combination, of fabulous feminine performance and legendary masculinity.

Club sandwiches. I start with a variant of Rubin’s cartoon, with a POP title supplied by me:

(#4) A Mickey Mouse club sandwich = Mickey Mouse Club + club sandwich: Mickey from the Mickey Mouse Club in the top layer of a two-layer club sandwich (with visible tomato slices, lettuce, slices of chicken, turkey, or ham, cheese slices, and mayonnaise)

The Mickey Mouse Club. From my 2/11/17 posting “The terror of Disney”:

I grew up with Disney comic books, which I enjoyed a lot; I now have several reprint volumes of the Carl Barks and Don Rosa strips. I also grew up with Disney animated shorts, which I detested.

The Mickey Mouse Club tv show started when I was 15, and I detested it too, for its forced cuteness.

About the show, from Wikipedia:

The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised for four seasons, from 1955 to 1959, by ABC. This original run featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers.

… The opening theme, “The Mickey Mouse March”, was written by the show’s primary adult host, Jimmie Dodd. It was also reprised at the end of each episode, with the slower “it’s time to say goodbye” verse

You can watch the opening theme presentation here. With the evil Mickey Mouse March. Its first verse:

Who’s the leader of the club
That’s made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Club sandwiches. I start with the OED entry:

club sandwich n. originally U.S. a thick sandwich containing several ingredients, as chicken or turkey, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, etc.; also figurative.

— 1903 R. L. McCardell Conversat. Chorus Girl 69 All we need is a club sandwich and a bottle of beer.

— 1945 New Yorker 25 Aug. 14 This is a club-sandwich sort of story, combining a hotel, a secretary, and an electric fan.

— 1966  ‘G. Black’ You want to die, Johnny? v. 88 It was a club sandwich, three layers.

And then with further information from Wikipedia:

A club sandwich … is a sandwich consisting of bread (traditionally toasted), sliced cooked poultry, fried bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. It is often cut into quarters or halves and held together by cocktail sticks. Modern versions frequently have two layers which are separated by an additional slice of bread.

[The late 19th-century origins of the sandwich and the name are unclear]

(#5) From the Spend with Pennies cooking site (“easy home cooked comfort”), a club sandwich recipe from 5/10/19: “layers of ham, bacon and turkey with juicy tomatoes, crisp lettuce and cheddar cheese”

… As with a BLT, toasted white bread is standard, along with iceberg lettuce, bacon, and tomatoes. The sandwich is usually dressed with mayonnaise. Variations on the traditional club sandwich abound. Some replace the poultry meat with eggs (a “breakfast club”) or roast beef. Others use ham instead of, or in addition to, bacon, or add slices of cheese. Various kinds of mustard and sliced pickles may be added. Upscale variations include the oyster club, the salmon club, and Dungeness crab melt.

Note the usage for names of non-traditional club sandwiches — breakfast club, oyster club, salmon club — all with the beheading club ‘club sandwich’. (On beheading, see the Page on  this blog about my postings on the phenomenon.)

The actual Rubin cartoon. Here:

(#6) Now you see the complexity: Rubin might well have intended this to be the beheading Mickey Mouse club, the name of a non-traditional  type of club sandwich — so that the cartoon provides a pun on Mickey Mouse Club, the name of the tv show

Which is a sweet joke all on its own.

(Today’s quickie not-dead-yet posting.)

The Bizarro from 3/9/21, with a POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) that combines art — in the form of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe — with rock music — in the form of Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones:

(#1) Keith Richards rocking away, with a reproduction of an O’Keeffe on the back of his jacket (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)

The POP is Georgia O’Keeffe + Keith Richards = Georgia O’Keeffe Richards. The overlapping materials — /kif/ and /kiθ/ — are nor perfect matches, but are very close phonologically, the voiceless fricatives /f/ and /θ/ differing only in point of articulation).

About the painting on the back of Richards’s jacket, from Wikipedia:

(#2)

Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue is a [1931] painting by American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The painting depicts a cow skull centered in front of what appears to be a cloth background. In the center of the background is a vertical black stripe. On either side of that are two vertical stripes of white laced with blue. At the outside of the painting are two vertical red stripes.

Today’s whimsical Wayno / Piraro Bizarro:

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

A complex bit of wordplay here, which involves a chain of nouns — nanotechnology, nano, and nanobot — and then the combination of the nouns nana ‘granny’ and robot the way nano and robot are combined in nanobot. So: nanabot ‘granny robot, robot granny’. The nanabots in the cartoon are doing culturally conventional things for solicitous grandmothers: baking cookies, inviting the kid to visit, knitting a scarf, giving the kid some money for candy.

The noun chain. All entries from NOAD.

— the noun nanotechnology: the branch of technology that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers, especially the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules. [AMZ: on nano-: in units of measurement, a factor of 10^-9]

— the noun nano: informal short for nanotechnology: high-quality surgical nano wasn’t enough to do the trick | [as modifier]: nano scientists are talking about shrinking supercomputers to the size of a hardback book.

— the noun nanobot: a hypothetical, very small, self-propelled machine, especially one that has some degree of autonomy and can reproduce. [AMZ: a portmanteau of nano robot]

Then, separately:

— the noun nana-2: informal one’s grandmother: I grew up cooking with my nana | this card is sent with lots of love from Nana, Grandad, Mum, and Dad, and all of your family. ORIGIN mid 19th century: child’s pronunciation of nanny or gran.

So, then on the model of the portmanteau nanobot: nanabot. Delightful.

(Wayno’s title: “Another Job [grandmothering] Lost to Technology”)

From Tim Evanson (in Cleveland OH) on Facebook this morning:

Whew, it’s muggy out here….

I’ll get to the weather in Cleveland in a little while, but first, about the word muggy.

The word muggy sounds like a portmanteau, suggesting mucky, buggy, misty, foggy, drizzly (and maybe some other relevant words). But historically, it’s just an adjective in –y from a noun mug. From NOAD:

adj muggy: (of the weather) unpleasantly warm and humid: it was a hot, very muggy evening. ORIGIN mid 17th century: from dialect mug ‘mist, drizzle’, from mug ‘to drizzle’, probably from Old Norse; compare with Icelandic mugga ‘to snow in calm weather’, Norwegian mugga ‘to drizzle’.

The weather in Cleveland. On Facebook, responding to Tim Evanson:

— Bill Schlemmel: You can cut it with a knife!

— TE > BS: Like getting hit in the face with a hot, wet kleenex.

Ick.

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, a complex composition in which two centipedes look for bar snacks:

(#1) First bit of language play: the portmanteau barthropod = bar + arthropod, centipedes being arthropods, creatures in the gigantic phylum Arthropoda — also encompassing insects (including silverfish and springtails as well as flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, and more), spiders. crustaceans (among them, shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and barnacles), and millipedes (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)

Then there’s a more subtle bit of language play in silverfish serving as bar snacks in a world in which centipedes drink in bars — given that Goldfish crackers (gold fish, silver fish, bring out the bronze) are often served as bar snacks in the real world.

(I note that the Eurasian carp species Carassius auratus, commonly called goldfish (because it is frequently golden in color), and the insect species with the metaphorical common name silverfish both have compound names that are fixed in their spelling, as solid — rather than hyphenated (gold-fish, silver-fish) or separated (gold fish, silver fish) — no doubt because their names aren’t semantically transparent.)

Centipedes. From Wikipedia:

(#2) There are a great many species of centipedes, including several found in house and garden; this is Scutigera coleoptrata (Wikipedia photo)

Centipedes (from Neo-Latin centi-, “hundred”, and Latin pes, pedis, “foot”) are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda … of the subphylum Myriapoda, an arthropod group which includes millipedes and other multi-legged animals. Centipedes are elongated segmented (metameric) creatures with one pair of legs per body segment. All centipedes are venomous and can inflict painful bites, injecting their venom through pincer-like appendages known as forcipules. Despite the name, no centipede has exactly 100 pairs of legs; [the] number of legs ranges from 15 pairs to 191 pairs, always an odd number.

… Centipedes are predominantly generalist predators, which means they are adapted to eat a broad range of prey, including lumbricid earthworms, dipteran fly larvae, and collembolans [springtails] [and also silverfish].

The centipedes in #1. Wayno has drawn these so as to clearly differentiate them. Maybe they’re of different species (see above) — bars do often collect a variety of customers — or maybe they’re a larger gray male, with stiff antennae (on the left), and a smaller, more colorful female, with larger eyes and more graceful antennae (on the right). Even centipedes can be gendered along human lines, at least in cartoons.

Goldfish crackers as bar snacks. From the WSIL-tv site, “Goldfish is chasing a new demographic: Grown-ups” by DanielleWiener-Bronner, CNN Business, on 1/20/22:

Goldfish is growing up.

Pepperidge Farm, which makes the crackers, is rolling out a new line of snacks called Goldfish Mega Bites, which is designed to appeal to adults. Mega Bites come in two flavors: Sharp Cheddar and Cheddar Jalapeno.

… Pepperidge Farm launched Goldfish in the United States in 1962. At first, the snacks were targeted toward adults: Early on, the crackers were marketed as a bar snack, said [Janda Lukin, Chief Marketing Officer at Campbell Snacks].

Then from the The Mermaid NYC site — the Mermaid Inn oyster bar restaurant in the West Village — with a photo:

(#3) Goldfish are our bar snacks.

Wayno’s title. As so often, it’s yet another, different,  joke on the content of the Bizarro strip, playing on our venture into the insect world:

“They [AZ: the centipedes] already ate the barflies”

Centipedes do eat flies, and fly larvae, so, sadly, the centipedes in #1 might savagely ingest any fly that happened into that bar. But barfly is metaphorical, referring to (human) habitués of bars, who are presumably safe from the venom of house and garden centipedes, even those that frequent dive bars. (In any case, the bar in #1 looks pretty tony.)

From NOAD:

compound noun barfly: informal a person who spends much time drinking in bars: a beer-swilling barfly.

Note that this barfly is to be pronounced as a compound noun — /bár flàj/ — not as a manner adverbial /bárfli/ on a base noun / verb barf ‘vomit, puke’.