Blame Someone Else Day

Every day, San Francisco radio station KALW announces notable events for that day. Yesterday (May 13th) we were told that it was National Apple Pie Day (other sources agree with that; almost every day is devoted to some food or another) and also Blame Somone Else Day. An entertaining idea. Unfortunately, I can’t find any source that says Blame Someone Else Day comes on May 13th.

Liz Climo

In snail mail from Chris Ambidge on Thursday, a print of this cartoon by Liz Climo:

  (#1)

To get this cartoon, you need to know a good bit about the children’s book Charlotte’s Web — and then to appreciate how that sweet story is subverted by the taboo word asshole.

Penguins and tuxedos

Today’s Bizarro plays on the association between penguins and tuxedos — with penguins in t-shirts and open-necked shirts instead of tuxedos:

  (#1)

There are other cartoons about penguins and tuxedos (and other cartoons about Casual Fridays, though I won’t look at them here); in fact, there are vast numbers of cartoons about penguins, which are easily anthropomorphized (they walk, or waddle, on two legs, and have arm-like, flipper-like wings) and are fascinatingly anomalous creatures (flightless birds that feed underwater and live in extreme climates and terrain). They are also gregarious and gather in large numbers, leading to cartoons about the difficulty of telling one penguin from another.

Now some words about actual penguins, and how some of them can easily be seen as wearing tuxedos, leading to altered photos of penguins *in* tuxedos and penguins as the emblems of tuexo rental stores; about tuxedos; and about Casual Fridays. Then a selection of penguin cartoons that haven’t already appeared on this blog.

The news for penguins

(Mostly about penguins rather than language.)

From Chris Ambidge in Canada, a package cover for Brownies — brownie-like cookies in penguin shapes (shown at about half actual size).

I wonder how Brownies is pronounced in Canadian French.

The first swallow

From Bert Vaux on Facebook, from the Belgian paper De Standaard:

Roughly, the first swallow is not what it used to be.

A play on the formula the first swallow of summer – the harbinger of the summer season. (Last year’s first sighting reported on the (UK) National Trust site here.)

 

Comic machines

In a set of fairy tale postcards put out by Dover, this arresting illustration for Perrault’s “Beauty and the Beast”:

It turns out to be the work of Heath Robinson, the well-known cartoonist.

Opera news for penguins

Via Arne Adolfsen on Facebook, this photo on the Facebook page Against Modern Opera Productions, under the heading “Guess the Opera!”:

Commenters on both Facebook pages have provided entertaining suggestions for an opera a penguin might be introduced into. Not to mention those boots.

César Cui’s Puss in Boots, in a penguin translation?

 

Adam and Pingu in the Garden of Eden

From Arne Adolfsen in Facebook, a link to a story on the science of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, with this photo:

That’s Adam in the Garden of Eden, with two animal friends, including a penguin who appears to be investigating Adam’s private parts. This would be before the episode of the serpent, since Adam is figleafless.

The sexual depravity of penguins

This story has come to me several times — first from Gregory Ward, with the Guardian‘s version, then from Chris Ambidge, with the BBC News version, then from friends on Facebook and on the Grapefeed site. Headers from the Guardian site:

‘Sexual depravity’ of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal

Landmark polar research about the Adélie penguin’s sex life by Captain Scott’s expedition, deemed too shocking for the public 100 years ago, is unearthed at the Natural History Museum

(story by science editor Robin McKie on the 9th). Not much linguistics here, beyond the inclination of people (including scientists) to anthropomorphize animal behavior.

The construction worker and the penguins

A piece of silliness in which (quirky) working-class manliness meets the lure of penguins, in a system of hand signals:

(Hat tip to Tim McDaniel.)