(Warning: some material about gay sex in plain language.)

On AZBlogX, a posting about a “cast album” for the gay porn flick Crave. Here, some reflections about this (conventionalized) visual format, an analogue to to conventionalized formats for linguistic material, variously referred to as “styles”, “registers”, “routines”, or “genres” (the terminological issues are vexed indeed) — choices of linguistic features that come together in packages, for use in specific contexts for specific purposes.

Some examples: from primarily spoken language, live sports commentary, church services; from written language, newspaper headlines, recipes, menus. And then, the primarily visual (graphic or photographic) analogue, for instance, the formats (and conventionalized features) of comics and cartoons. And the cast album in gay porn ads.

From my XBlog posting:

The cast album is an odd, highly conventionalized, format in ads for porn flicks: usually, a set of narrow framed photos of the actors, labeled with their names, side by side. The men are displaying their bodies, with a focus on their cocks (and sometimes their armpits as well), though a few are in rear shots (offering their asses for fucking) and a small number in side shots (to display both cock and ass, but this presentation is pretty much the porn equivalent of the spork — not great as a dick display, not great as a butt display, either). They are mostly standing, though a few are sitting or are lying on a bed. Most are naked, but some have a bit of clothing or costume on. Some are facially impassive or even scowling — tough guys — but some are invitingly smiling, or at least half-smiling. In general, these photos are not particularly revealing of character or thought (as the shots in “art” male photography are), nor are they intended to be: their function is to reassure the viewer that the actors have the equipment that can get him off.

You’ll have to go to the XBlog posting to view examples, since by their very nature they can’t be shown on this blog. That posting has the cast album for the porn flick Crave (with the usual slices-of-bodies layout replaced by a montage of the bodies, but still keyed indirectly to the names of the actors), along with two more typical cast albums, from  the flicks (The Best of Joe Gage) Rednecks and Sucked Off in Weird Places. (As a bonus for enthusiasts of my XBlog, it also has discussion, with explicit photos, of the pornstars featured in Crave.)

(The first of two postings with vanishingly little linguistic comment, but plenty of appreciation of male bodies, plus material on the projection of sexuality in photographs. Not technically X-rated, but certainly steamy, so you might want to use your judgment in viewing these postings.)

First, Nick Jonas paying homage (in Flaunt magazine) to the boy-band star and original Underwear God Marky Mark / Mark Wahlberg (hereafter, MM), in this photographic homage to MM’s famous Calvin Klein photos — crotch-grabbing, abs-displaying, flagrantly challenging, and homoerotic all at once.

(#1)

He’s pulled his jeans down just for us!

(Hat tip to Aric Olnes.)

The MM original can be viewed on this blog in the 12/25/12 posting “Oh, no, not a pony!”, which cites an 8/13/10 AZBlogX posting on “Pits ‘n’ Tits: five underwear models”, in which MM is #2; the jeans-to-ankles are not in the original.

On Nick Jonas, from Wikipedia:

Nicholas Jerry “Nick” Jonas (born September 16, 1992) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor and multi-instrumentalist, best known as one of the Jonas Brothers, a pop-rock band he formed with his brothers Kevin and Joe. The Jonas Brothers originally started as an attempted solo singing career for Nick, but the record producer liked the sound when his brothers sang backup for him. Nick previously starred in the Disney Channel original series Jonas L.A. as Nick Lucas, alongside his brothers. He also starred in the Disney Channel original movie Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. He formed the band Nick Jonas & The Administration, which released its first album in 2010.

To judge from #1, the cute curly-haired boy-band kid has definitely grown up (and without MM’s jail time). A less outrageous but still intensely steamy abs display from Flaunt:

(#2)

He has a big following with Teh Gayz, and (though straight) entusiastically returns the appreciation to this audience; he seems to be entirely comfortable, even celebratory, serving as an object of gay male desire. I’d like to see this as a positive development in gay-straight relations, with young people in the vanguard.

(not about language, but about male — that is, homoerotic — photography)

Max Vasilatos has been sending me postcards with male photography by Clifford Baker. Some of it X-rated, but most of it merely homoerotic. A few samples, starting with the cover of his 1999 book (the first in the Euros series):

(#1)

A cowboy cock-tease photo:

(#2)

And a loving couple:

(#3)

I haven’t been able to find out anything substantial about the photographer’s life.

(Mostly about art.)

A wonderful, somewhat mysterious, image playing with light and water:

(#1)

Reminiscent of the paintings and water-colors of J.M.W. Turner. In fact, this is a photo (from the back, through blue glass) of bottles on the shelves at the restaurant Reposado in Palo Alto.

The larger picture:

(#2)

(Photo by Ned Deily.)

Now on Turner, from Wikipedia:

Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (baptised 14 May 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as “the painter of light” and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism. Some of his works are cited as examples of abstract art prior to its recognition in the early twentieth century.

Here’s Turner’s Sunrise with Sea Monster of 1845:

(#3)

(in yellow rather than blue).

[Addendum 12/16: Turner is in the news, thanks to the new film Mr. Turner. From the NPR website yesterday, “Timothy Spall Takes On Painter J.M.W. Turner, A ‘Master Of The Sublime’ “:

Before he could play British artist J.M.W. Turner, actor Timothy Spall first had to learn how to paint; over the course of two years, Spall took private fine art lessons from London artist Tim Wright.

“The goal was to imbue myself in all of the disciplines and all of the different things that Turner would’ve known,” Spall tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. He had no hope of becoming as good as Turner — “that’s like being told to become as good as Einstein after you’ve done Sudoku,” he says — but the hard work paid off: Spall has won best actor awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Cannes Film Festival for his role in Mr. Turner.

The film, directed by Mike Leigh, follows Turner from his early 50s to his death in 1851 at the age of 76. The artist’s later landscape and seascape paintings are now revered, but were radical for their time.

“I suppose you would regard him as one of the greatest landscape painters of all time and a unique artist because he was a master of the sublime,” Spall says. “… The sublime … was something that tried to capture the beauty of nature, as well as its terror and its horror.”]

[Bluntly sexual language here, though the images are elsewhere.]

On AZBlogX, a posting “For the new year”, with two displays of penises. From that posting:

All about the cocks, but in different ways. The guy in #1 [an ad for a Channel 1 Releasing New Year’s Eve sale] is gearing up to double his fun by taking on two diverse cocks, but he’s not yet into the act; instead, he’s gazing directly and intently at us (the viewers).

The man in #2 [a New Year’s gift from Mike McKinley] is displaying his dripping dick, in a drawing (“Resting After Work”) that conveys intense physicality and urgent sexuality.

The drawing is a 1987 work by Roger Payne, using the pseudonym Mark, from the Tom of Finland site. More examples of his work on the Adonis Art site, with the write-up:

Artist and illustrator Roger Payne has made his regular living by illustrating books and magazines for schools and universities, companies and local authorities. But always he had a secret sideline in illustrating stories in American gay magazines. At first he signed his drawings with a pseudonym, then with his first name, and now quite openly signs them with his full name if he wants to. His drawings are openly pornographic, depicting the action in the stories he is illustrating. But the high standard and consistency of his drawing style have created a cult following amongst afficianados of ‘under the counter’ art. Drawing out of his prodigious imagination, he creates powerful images, presenting the inner emotions of his subjects to full view. Still drawing into his eighth decade, Payne is artist with collectors all over the world.

(Not about language.)

From Arne Adolfsen via Facebook, this wonderful image by photographer Tomasz Gudzowaty:

From the photographer:

Antarctic emperor penguins as taken on one of my last rolls of Kodachrome. From the primary colors of the Antarctic: white, gray, brown and blue, the last one has been taken out by the snowfall.

In Sunday’s (1/18) NYT Magazine, a feature by Mark Bittman: “Simple Stocks for Soup on the Fly: 9 ways to transform water into a flavorful dish in a matter of minutes”, with vivid photographs by Sam Kaplan. Three of these, for herb stock (elegant composition), prosciutto-parmesan stock (textural contrast), flavorful fish stock (somewhat creepy fish eyes):

(#1)

(#2)

(#3)

Bittman’s nine stocks: herb, coconut, flavorful fish, rustic tomato, prosciutto-parmesan, smoky tea, tempeh, mushroom, miso.

Stocks are ordinarily cooked for a long time; from NOAD2 on stock:

liquid made by cooking bones, meat, fish, or vegetables slowly in water, used as a basis for the preparation of soup, gravy, or sauces: a pint of chicken stock.

But Bittman’s stocks are quick preparations. From his article:

For years, I’ve written about the merits of homemade stock (or at least stock made by a real person), even insisting that if it’s a choice between canned or boxed stocks and water, you’re better off with water. At their best, the canned and boxed versions taste like salt; at their worst, like chemicals.

But here’s the problem with homemade stock: It’s so good that it doesn’t last long. What’s needed is something you can produce more or less on the spot. Although water is a suitable proxy in small quantities, when it comes to making the bubbling, chest-warming soups that we rely on this time of year, water needs some help.

Fortunately, there are almost certainly flavorful ingredients sitting in your fridge or pantry that can transform water into a good stock in a matter of minutes. The process may be as simple as simmering in water fresh herbs, mushrooms or even tea, or browning aromatics to create richness, or adding staples like crushed tomatoes or coconut milk. To further maximize flavor in minimal time, it pays to reach for ingredients that pack a punch, like miso, anchovies, chipotles, Parmesan rinds, sometimes even leftovers.

These recipes are meant to be fast, so by ‘‘simmer,’’ I mean as little as five minutes and no more than 15. You can season these stocks at the end with salt and pepper to taste, or wait until you’re ready to turn them into full-fledged soups. In the continuing spirit of speed, convert these into soups using things that also cook quickly: some combination of chopped greens or other tender vegetables, cooked grains or beans, shellfish or thinly sliced meats. The recipes here yield about six cups of stock, enough for four servings of soup.

Previously on this blog, in a posting of 5/8/13, on among other things, the food shawarma (or shwarma):

I first came across shawarma as an Israeli street food sold in shops in American cities. It’s first cousin to kebabs (which are often sold in pita sandwiches), for instance the Turkish döner kebab (discussed here), and the Greek gyro(s) (also often sold in pita sandwiches).

(with photos). Now in Sunday’s (February 1st) New York Times Magazine, a piece “Turkish Delight: Chicken shawarma deluxe, no rotisserie required” by Sam Sifton, with this fine photo by Johnny Miller:

The main part of Sifton’s text (full recipe on the magazine’s site):

“Shawarma,” “doner kebab,” “gyro” — these are words to soothe hunger pangs near drab office buildings, dodgy bars and bus stations in New York and London alike. You can find great versions on Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles or on Kreuzberg side streets in Berlin, anywhere people gather to work or drink or wait for hours. People inhale the meat, crisped hard at the edges and sliced, served with pita and salad, drizzles of white sauce and red.

Most people do not make it at home. The reason has to do with the traditional preparation of the meal on a vertical rotisserie. The technique is alluded to in the name of the dish itself. “Shawarma” derives from a Turkish word meaning “turning.” “Doner” is Turkish as well: “turn around.” “Gyro,” Greek: “circle.”

This weekend’s recipe is not for rotisserie meat (though you could easily adapt it to the spit, should you have a Ronco or a setup for your oven or grill). It is for an oven-roasted version of the classic street-side flavor bomb, a shawarma for grown-ups who are neither rushing out for a greasy lunch nor drunk and starving. It is shawarma deluxe.

The traditional shawarma meats are lamb and chicken. You could certainly use lamb, but we start here with chicken thighs, boneless and skinless, set in a marinade of lemon juice and olive oil, with copious amounts of garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika and turmeric, plus a whisper of cinnamon. Prepare that one night and cook it the next, or set it up on a weekend morning after a run to the market and cook it a few hours later for dinner. (Those pressed for time could shrink the amount of marination to an hour without diminishing the flavor too much.) The rest of the work is just hunting and gathering, and a close watch on a hot oven.

You’ll want a great deal of stuff to adorn the roasted meat: tahini, perhaps, and some chopped cucumbers and tomatoes; some olives, chopped parsley, feta, fried eggplant, hummus swirled with harissa; and rice or rice pilaf to bulk up the meal. (For a simple pilaf, sauté a small, cubed onion in butter, then add rice and chicken stock, cover and cook as you would a regular batch of rice.)

On the streets of New York, shawarma often comes with white sauce — yogurt cut with mayonnaise and lemon juice, flecked with garlic. You can make red sauce by simmering ketchup with red-pepper flakes and a hit of red-wine vinegar until it goes syrupy and thick, or just use your favorite hot sauce instead.

The key to the meat is using a hot oven, 425 degrees at least, and turning it a couple of times over the course of 30 minutes or so, to mimic the self-basting properties of the rotisserie. The heat should seize the chicken thighs — ragged, perhaps with small bits of skin still attached ­— and treat them roughly. What you’re looking for is meat that gets a little crisp, brown and curly, like something cooked on a fire high in the Turkish highlands. Go a little longer than you would ordinarily — a chicken thigh is a beast of burden, run through with fat and flavor, and is difficult to overcook.

Then slice the meat thin, against the grain, loading the strips of meat onto a warmed platter, and surround the mound with parsley. Serve with the salads and toppings, and with the best warm pita you can find.

Introducing a new vein of silliness: another set of captions, this time based on “bookend” photos sent to me by Chris Ambidge; these are slyly or flagrantly gay. Most have X-rated photos, so will have to appear on AZBlogX. But #1 is not, so you can view it here.

#1 (to follow as a separate posting) starts with an already absurd photo of two naked muscle hunks posing on a tabletop, adds a title with a reference to Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and then has the guys dishing on the Pittsburgh art scene.

Table Talk: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

“I just love Andy Warhol’s art!” “Honey, Warhol’s boring. If you want Pittsburgh, go for Duane Michals.”

(Mostly on art, with some gay interest.)

In the 2/19/15 issue of The New York Review of Books, an appreciation, “The Subtle Games of Duane Michals” by Jed Perl, on the occasion of two exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the publication of ABCDuane: A Duane Michals Primer by Michals.

(Meanwhile, I’ve evoked Michals in “Captioned Bookend 1″, here.)

From the Wikipedia entry:

Duane Michals (… born February 18, 1932) is an American photographer. Michals’s work makes innovative use of photo-sequences, often incorporating text to examine emotion and philosophy.

… Michals cites Balthus, William Blake, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Eakins, René Magritte, and Walt Whitman as influences on his art. In turn, he has influenced photographers such as David Levinthal and Francesca Woodman.

He is noted for two innovations in artistic photography developed in the 1960s and 1970s. First, he “[told] a story through a series of photos” as in his 1970 book Sequences. Second, he handwrote text near his photographs, thereby giving information that the image itself could not convey.

Three examples:

(#1)

(#2)

“Chance Meeting”

(#3)

Michals came out in his 20s, and has lived with his male partner for over 50 years.

Now, from Perl’s article:

The photographer Duane Michals is a law unto himself. In a career spanning more than half a century he has worked in both utilitarian black-and-white and luxuriant color, produced slapstick self-portraits, evoked erotic daydreams, pamphleteered against art world fashions, and painted whimsical abstract designs on vintage photographs. You would be in for a disappointment if you expected a sober summing up in “Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals,” the big retrospective of the eighty-two-year-old artist’s career that is currently at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Michals remains aggressively idiosyncratic, the curator of his own overstuffed, beguiling, disorderly imagination.

… In ABCDuane, a book of autobiographical vignettes organized as an alphabet and published in time for the Pittsburgh show, Michals observes of his friendship with Andy Warhol, a Pittsburgh native, that “we had so much in common, coming from a similar background. We were both blue-collar kids, with a Slovak immigrant heritage and artistic inclinations.” [Not to mention their homosexuality.] Pittsburgh when Michals was coming of age in the 1940s was one of those tough, prosperous industrial cities where cultural life was seen as an essential element, something needed to balance and sanctify the rest.

… [Comparing Michals to Cocteau:] Admiration is essential to Michals’s enterprise (this was true of Cocteau as well). In a gallery adjacent to the Michals retrospective, the Carnegie is exhibiting a group of small works by Magritte, De Chirico, Balthus, Braque, Morandi, and other artists that are from Michals’s own collection and that he is donating to the museum. Over the years he has managed to visit and photograph a number of older artists whom he admires and clearly regards as inspirations, masters of the unexpected and enigmatic.

(Minimal linguistic interest, lots of male skin.)

From Michael Nieuwenhuizen, with a gasp, this cock-tease photo:

(#1)

I dreamt I went on the internet in my Dolce & Gabbana briefs.

Appreciative viewers then tried to idenfify the model. And obstacles appeared.

Opinion was that the model was either Chris Evans or Scott Evans. On Chris, from Wikipedia:

Christopher Robert “Chris” Evans (born June 13, 1981) is an American actor and film director. Evans is best known for his superhero roles as Steve Rogers / Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Johnny Storm / Human Torch in Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007).

(#2)

And on his brother Scott:

Scott Evans (born September 21, 1983) is an American actor, best known for his role as the police officer Oliver Fish on the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live. He is the younger brother of actor Chris Evans.

(#3)

(Scott is openly gay; Chris is straight but gay-supportive.)

Then people noted that the face in #1 was more like Chris than Scott, but that the tattoos in #1 were not like Chris’s. You can see that clearly above. (And if Scott now has tats, I haven’t seen them in still shots or videos of him.) Eventually, #1 was traced to a Pinterest posting, from adrianostar.tumbr.com, where it was identified as Chris Evans.

It is true that people change their appearance, hair styles and even color in particular, so that you can’t go much on those details. And people who once had no tats get them. So here’s Chris in his state as a fitness workout guru, sans tats:

(#4)

But back to the face. The more you look at photos of Chris, the clearer it becomes that the face in #1 is Chris’s. Compare:

(#5)

Finally, Mikkie pointed me to photographs of the British male model Adam Coussins.

On Coussins, in his own words, from the Model Mayhem site:

im adam coussins from derby been modeling a fair few years now and have no plans to stop.

i will travel anywhere and always show up on time and ready to shoot

i will listen to any shoots anyone has in mind and see what we can arrange.

im an LA muscle sponsored athlete and have worked alot for dead good undies.com

(LA Muscle is a bodybuilding and sports nutrition supplement firm. And, yes, Coussins does full-frontal nudes.)

Playful Coussins on his site:

(#6)

And that sent me to the site of male photographer Dylan Rosser, where we find this steamy Coussins shot:

(#7)

Yes, we’re back to #1, but with Coussins’ head rather than Scott Evans’s. It’s the miracle of Photoshop, presumably to take advantage of Evans’s fame.

(Many many thanks to Michael Nieuwenhuizen.)

That’s the name of a site devoted to criticism of photographs — of penises. “Critiquing your dick pics with love”, says the Critic (who I will refer to with generic they, since they view their sex as irrelevant to the enterprise). (There is some evidence that they are in New Zealand: they use the grading scheme from a high of A+ to a low of D- because that’s what’s used in New Zealand schools; certainly the lexical choices are British rather than American.)

People send photographs of penises in to the Critic, who then provides a thoughtful critique of the photography (not the penis), with a summary grade. There are two sample photos on AZBlogX, here: the mince photo and the duvet photo.

(Hat tip to Laura Staum Casasanto. People send me the most amazing things.)

#1: the mince photo. The critique:

this is an unusual and rather good dick pic, sender.

i mean, you’re covered in raw mince [BrE ‘minced beef, ground beef’] and that’s going to have limited appeal for most people, although you’ve assured me your intended recipient is into it (a very important detail). the pose, layout and setting is well considered and executed, and your grip is convincing.

there are more interesting angles you could have worked with, but you seem to have taken the dick pic you set out to take. well done.

thank you for your submission to critique my dick pic. putting aside my personal feelings about raw meat on bodies, your dick pic gets a B+.

#2: the duvet photo. The critique:

the fact that you have dried fluids on you is not a particularly good look, sender, and your dick pic isn’t great at all.

you have a jumbled, loudly-patterned duvet [NOAD2: ‘a soft quilt filled with down, feathers, or a synthetic fiber, used instead of an upper sheet and blankets’ — strongly, but not exclusively, British] arranged oddly and messily over yourself and a measly fraction of your penis is visible. your hand placement is elegant, but that’s about the only thing that’s good about your picture to be perfectly frank with you, sender. it’s gloomy, strangely arranged and lacking erotic potential.

give it another shot, sender.

thank you for submitting to critique my dick pic. your dick pic gets a D.

Plenty more at the site.

Over the years, I’ve posted (on AZBlogX and this blog) a number of paired photos, in several categories (some labeled as “bookends”), almost all supplied by Chris Ambidge. The most recent crop, on my X blog on the 6th, has three pairings: two of men clothed vs. unclothed, one of a (naked) young man in a front vs. a rear shot.

Some history:

4/26/11: “XXX 30 Porn-Star Portraits” on X blog: clothed vs. unclothed

5/2/11: “Jason & Jeremy, Jeremy & Jason” on X blog: clothed vs. unclothed

4/22/12: “Bookends” on X blog: two men in similar poses; two views of men in the same activity; two views of a man in the same activity; front vs. rear view of one man; three examples of clothed vs. unclothed

4/22/12: “Bookends” on this blog: link to previous, plus views of two women engaged in similar acrtivities

5/5/13: “A 5-pack” on this blog: with a father and son pairing, young vs. old

5/11/13: “Man shots 2: pairings” on X blog: side-by-side butts; pairing – confrontation or liaison?

2/7/15: “Captioned bookend 1″ on this blog: pair of naked muscle hunks posing (mirror-image-style) on a tabletop

Max Meredith Vasilatos has been sending me postcards with reproductions of Richard de Chazal artwork — extensively ornamented photographs, definitely homoerotic (though not X-rated), on the four seasons. I haven’t been able to create anything larger than tiny thumbnails, but these might give you the idea:

In order, from left to right: spring, summer, autumn, winter (#1-4).

The artist in a self-portrait, with his own blurb, verbatim, from his website:

(#5)

Richard de Chazal is one of Australia’s most respected haute-couture designers, make-up artists, stylists and photographers. A member of the Australian design hall of fame and winner of numerous photographic, design and art awards, his lavish creations on the catwalks, in theatres, in the pages of magazines and calendars and on the walls of collectors globally have won him acclaim as well as outrage.

A self confessed anachronism – whilst exploring the boundaries of fashion and the archetypical symbols of beauty, sexuality and mythology – Richard’s work retains an air of mysterious nostalgia, heavily influenced by the collaborative works of Rackham, Dulac, Lord Leighton, Alma Tadema, Barbier and Gruau.

All de Chazal’s photography, including the fashion shoots, is extravagant, overheated. Earlier from him, on AZBlogX, some creations from his Zodiac series.

After two postings yesterday featuring hunky shirtless men, this morning I confronted the following fellow on Facebook:

(#1)

I call him Mr. Chicago — for the City of Broad/Big Shoulders, those shoulders being the feature that makes him stand out among the legion of highly developed hunky men whose photos you can find on the net.

Mr. Chicago appears on the site Brutal & Soft + GUYradio.ru, a Russian site that specializes in gay radio links from around the world (it’s amazing what you can find on the net), plus a huge set of accompanying male photos: guys like Mr. Chicago, just showing off their bodies; smiling friendly hunks; a few male couples; and a fair number of self-consciously seductive shots that I think of as “hustler poses”.

From the GuyRadio.ru site (text in somewhat perplexing Russo-English:

Guy Radio – gay stations and not only. Catalog of gay radio.

Welcome to GuyRadio.ru. Here you will find a large catalog of gay radio stations from around the world. In addition, we still have a few good online radio, you are sure to enjoy.

Several mix channels, two channels devoted to Madonna, one to Enigma, and direct connections to stations in France, USA, Italy, Austria, UK, Russia, Germany, and Australia.

Then the photos, which have their own Facebook site. Here’s a hustler pose:

(#2)

The offer isn’t made explicit in #2. But then look at this streetboy:

(#3)

Each photo has a space for comments, which are almost all tongue-hanging-out appreciations. For #2:

Very HOT! I LOVE YOUR HANDS
SEXY
Gorgeous I’d surly eat u all up sexy

(As usual, neither the models nor the photographers are credited.)

.

Back in 1975, Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter published the first in a series of Urban Folklore From the Paperwork Empire books, in which they catalogued an assortment of material — drawings (most with captions or other text on them) and slogan signs — created by office workers, photographically reproduced, and distributed through office mail. In addition, “dirty” drawings and pictures were passed from hand to hand, just as “dirty” jokes spread by word of mouth. All of this material cycled informally, and (like classic folklore) no one had any real idea where it came from, beyond the person who gave it to you, nor did people care about that.

 (#1)

This dissemination of subterranean cultural material continues, but now mostly by digital means. And at a vastly increased rate. And a fair amount of it is the same stuff that used to be passed around the office.

In any case, few people care about the source of the stuff that comes their way — an attitude that distresses me with respect to cartoons and obvious artistic creations and makes me uneasy in lots of other cases. Meanwhile, some of my friends treat my attitudes as charming academic eccentricities that don’t, and shouldn’t, concern ordinary people.

I have several friends who follow the Male Ballet Dancers page on Facebook, which is packed with very high quality photographs of dancers in action: first class dancers, excellent photography. But rarely are either the dancers or the photographers identified. Here’s one such image, iof a remarkable dancer on a trapeze:

 (#2)

Meanwhile, from this Facebook page I have an image of a crowd of dancers distriibuted across a huge space, many of them floating in the air — obviously an original artwork. It was posted by a contributor who puts a great many images on the site. I have tried to reach him to ask about the image, but I’ve found no way to do that except though the page itself, and he doesn’t answer (quite possibly doesn’t even read messages), So I appreciate the art but feel I can’t share it.

Then there are odd things that people stumble across, often while looking for something quite different; typically, these aren’t identified as to their source. Like this caftan (or kaftan) moose-knuckle Chris Ambidge sent on to me:

 (#3)

There are a fair number of sites offering high-quality X-rated male photos — often pretty clearly taken by professional photographers, using professional models — but unless you start with a known photographer, you’re probably not going to get any information. It’s all just stuff that floats around on the net,

Meanwhile, the old-fashioned office-style folklore is still with us. Here’s an e-card I got an office-Xeroxed version of (with a pink pig on it) some 40 years ago. This one is slicker but essentially the same:

 (#4)

(The slogan has been attributed to Mark Twain and to Robert Heinlein and probably to others, but not with a lot of evidence.)

From Daily Jocks yesterday, this underwear ad, featuring intriguing tattoos and an equally intriguing facial expression (concern? puzzlement? or what?):

(#1)

While I was contemplating a sexy caption for this photo, I dug around a bit and discovered the full-length photo that’s shown cropped in #1:

(#2)

Now focusing on his package and his prosthetic right leg.

This is former Marine Alex Minsky, who lost the bottom half of his right leg in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan and, following a long course of hospitalization and rehabilitation, has taken up a career in underwear modeling, after being recruited by L.A.-based photographer Michael Stokes

Another photo, for Jack Adams underwear, with a different facial expression and a different prosthesis:

(#3)

Even steamier, a major Minsky moose knuckle:

(#4)

(There are apparently also nude photos floating around, but I haven’t seen them.)

Michael Stokes is a male photographer, with two recent books: Masculinity (2012) and Bare Strength (2014), which the publisher’s blurb characterizes as presenting

an edgy, artistic approach to the male nude with one chapter dedicated to United States Marine Veterans who lost limbs in the Middle East wars

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(Much about gay porn, so there’s plenty about the male body and man-man sex, in very plain language, but (just barely) without the visuals. Use your judgment. There are also a few linguistic notes.)

It starts with postcards that Max Meredith Vasilatos has been sending me, including a couple with photographs by Matt Bauer (who was new to me): shots of gay pornstars that are clearly gay porn, and intended to be, but are also male art of some interest. Mark Mason in particular.

To come: material on Mason; then on Bauer and some subjects of his other than Mason; then a digression on what is almost surely a different  photographer named Matt Bauer. Mark Mason then led me to a vein of humor/criticism that I hadn’t realized existed: Gay Porn Minus Gay Sex, intended as a critique of bad gay porn: when you don’t have the visuals (the meat in the sandwich, as it were), you’re forced to attend to the acting and so will begin to appreciate the deficiences of the acting. (In particular, “Tales From Two Cities” Minus Gay Sex”; Mason appears in the cast of the original “Tales From Two Cities” of 1999.)

Mark Mason. Here’s a version of the postcard photo, with Mason’s genitals cropped out:

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Here we see the muscular, mildly scruffy Mason gazing intently, invitingly,  into your eyes, with the suggestion that he might smile soon, meanwhile displaying his body, especially his six-pack, for you. (Also note the erect nipples; he’s aroused.) In the postcard version of the photo, his mouth is slightly open, a further gesture of invitation.

The full photo — from the Gay Muscle Time site (“focusing on gay muscle men”) — can be seen as #1 in my “Mark Mason” posting on AZBlogX. There, Mason’s cock is half-hard, inviting you to make it fully hard. All in all, a performance signaling receptivity.

Also from the Gay Muscle Time site, another photo (pretty clearly from the same shoot as #1), with focus on his biceps as well as his abs, but this time fully open to you, in a pits-n-tits pose:

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(The uncropped photo is #2 in my AZBlogX posting.)

Brief digression (from an earlier posting here) on the photographer Jonathan Black and his book Idols; on male photography, which explores the male body, especially with a gay gaze; and on the genre of images like the two above:

What the photographer reveals. Some commenters on the Idols book dismiss it as high-class (and expensive) jack-off material. There’s no question that the images present the subjects as “objects of lust”, as one commenter put it, and I’m sure that was part of Black’s intention; there would be nothing surprising, or wrong, in jacking off to whichever of these photos move you. … But Black was also trying to evoke characters: the personas he saw in these men, and perhaps the ones they saw in themselves.

Similarly for Bauer in his images of Mason.

Jonathan Black is especially relevant here, because he too shot Mason back in the 90s. Mason on Black’s cover of Advocate Men for December 1996, with his pecs featured prominently:

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On Advocate Men, from Wikipedia:

Men was an American gay pornographic magazine originally published as Advocate Men from 1984 until 1997, when it was retitled Men. … [It offered] explicit nude male photography [typically by accomplished photographers], often featuring popular stars from the gay adult film industry, erotic fiction, video reviews and other features.

About Mason. He was born 4/20/64 in West Virginia and in the 90s identified as gay. From a gay pornstar site, somewhat edited here:

He started working in the hardcore business in 1997 at the age of 33. Mark was featured in Boy Toy Wrestling 2, which was directed by Paul Carrigan. The meaty [Mason] also appeared in Paul Barresi’s The Mentor, released in 2006. Mark Mason teamed up with Patrick Ives, Kip Casey and Kent Burke in the film The Orgy Experience. He was last seen performing in 1999 and never went back to the business.

A still from The Mentor, Mason and youngman Peter Wilder about to kiss at the dinner table:

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Mason as mentor/daddy, Wilder as student/boy. The studio’s entertaining blurb:

“These horny young students of man sex are taking their lessons the hard way. But nobody is complaining. They have discovered that their daddy mentors have a lot more than just experience to offer…”

Matt Bauer. I have no real information about the photographer of #1 and #2. He had a substantial career in male photography, specializing in pornstars as his subjects, in the 90s and then seems to have vanished. Two more images from him: pornstar Cicero Scott on the cover of the November 1996 Advocate Men, pornstar Jim Thorpe in a feature in the December 1996 issue:

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Digression: Matt C. Bauer. Searching for information about 90s pornman Matt Bauer led me to a more recent photographer Bauer: the outdoorsy, athletic Matt C. Bauer, with a website on which he identifies himself as a “photographer, creative director, entrepreneur” in Venice CA and writes enthusiastically about himself:

Matt Bauer is a self taught photographer who’s only filter is following his passions. After completing his collegiate Division 1 swimming career with a degree in advertising, Matt left the east coast to chase his dream, working in the action sports industry. Matt broke down the stereotypes of what a surf obsessed youth from Philadelphia could do.

Outdoorsy Matt Bauer shoots surfers and skateboarders; landscapes (for instance, Yosemite); and lots of commercial photography (for instance, for GLCO, Garrett Leight California Optical).

Two photos of Bauer (by other photographers): with his surfboard; and in glasses from GLCO:

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An interesting photographic subject in his own right.

I haven’t been able to find out how old outdoorsy Matt C. Bauer is, but I can’t imagine that he’s old enough to be a new incarnation of pornman Matt Bauer from 20 years ago.

Gay Porn Minus Gay Sex. Now, a great find via Mark Mason: the video “Tales From Two Cities” Minus Gay Sex — Bad Gay Porn Acting”:

(There is in fact, a whole series of “Bad Gay Porn Acting” videos.)

The video starts with 1999 gay porn flick from Catalina Video,”Tales From Two Cities”, breathlessly described by the studio as follows:

When this sexy couple travels out of town, they can’t help but miss each other…or avoid their sexual urges! With a muscle-clad cast led by Blake Harper and Steve Rambo, watch as these hairy studs find themselves in sticky situation after sticky situation…literally! With FOUR scenes full of chiseled manly-men, throbbing cocks and nonstop ass-pounding, this is one Catalina production you don’t want to miss!

The cities in question are L.A. and Chicago. Harper and Rambo are married, and have sworn to monogamy, but in the course of the flick, both are unfaithful, though the resolution is that they reaffirm their exclusive bond to one another, with one swearing, “Your dick is the only one I want up my ass”. Ah, the poetry of true love!

The actors, with two names boldfaced (Mason’s and for reasons that will soon become clear, Steve Hurley’s): Blake Harper, Dave Nelson, Jason Branch, Joshua Scott, Mark Mason, Perry James, Steve Hurley, Steve Rambo, Carson Cole, and Rob Lance.

The Gay Porn Minus Gay Sex version was created by suppressing the video in all the visually X-rated parts — the good stuff — with graphics of rainbow pandas:

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The audio, with its sex talk and sex noises, is preserved. The effect is to focus your attention on the acting.

The Minus version was apparently created by “Titpig”, presumably the actor Steve Hurley, a hairy, muscular bear who is sometimes known by this name, from his own sexual predilections.

Minus versions. One side point: the model expession here is, I assume, the Music Minus One recordings, in which versions of multi-part musical compositions are made with one part suppressed, so that users can perform this part themselves.

Eventually, we get to things like the Garfield Minus Garfield comics, which I’ve posted about here.

Gay tits and titpigs. Another sidepoint, which comes in two parts.

First, tits in a gay sexual context. In brief: straight men have nipples, gay men have tits. Yes, a carry-over of usage for women to usage for gay men, as in a number of other cases. Compare man pussy, boy cunt, etc, in which we have the ‘male anus viewed as a sexual organ’ (posting here). In gay tits, we have the male nipple viewed as a sexual organ.

Then to titpig in a gay sexual context, using “the snowclonelet X pig, denoting someone who’s seriously into X (sex pig, involving sex in general or specifically “dirty sex” of various kinds; dick pig; piss pig)” (posting here). Specifically, a gay man who’s seriously into titplay, either as receiver or giver (very often both), so a gay man especially aroused by getting or giving nipple stimulation or (in a BDSM context) pain. Titpigs are stereotypically big hairy men, bears, leathermen, and sexual fetishists. Steve Hurvey is all of these (on the last, he has a thing for cigars), so the name fits him well.

Posted on Google+ by Tim Evanson yesterday, this image of a half-naked male superhero, Captain Marvel, that is simultaneously sexy and funny — celebrating the beauty of this broad-shouldered model’s body as he assumes a Captain Marvel persona in a gently mocking way.

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From the Flickr account of photographer Philip Bonneau, who’s an ornament of the Atlanta gay community and the creator of a Heroes + Villains series of male photography.

(Bonneau is on Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr, and he has works on sale on Etsy. His work is self-financed, through sales and Kickstarter campaigns.)

From Bonneau’s statement at the Atlanta opening of Heroes + Villains Issue #3 in 2012:

At this point in the series I had already tackled a good majority of Marvel and DC comics. If this was to be the next step I had to open up the world a bit more. It has comic characters, 80s cartoon characters, Disney and even Star Wars and Star Trek. I pretty much have tapped into my entire childhood and skewed it forever. The main theme of this issue is that everyone is unique and beauty is found in even the strangest of things. As a collection, you can really see the beauty of everyone’s individuality and that no one is ever alone.

A few more images. Aquaman:

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(Compare the Smallville Aquaman, on this blog here.)

The Invincible Iron Man:

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And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

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There’s a lot more.