Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Sunday Morning Cartoon: How Calvin Klein Ruined My Life

A quick, humorous meditation on advertising, the history of body image and undergarments for gay men. Or straight men for that matter.

Are You My Angel? The Queer Inflected Comedy of the Sexy Blonde Swede: Björn Gustafsson

Okay, I admit that just listening to Swedish sounds hilarious to me, but watching this video of the 21 year old Gustafsson at the Eurovision Song Contest had me giggling silly. So for those of you celebrating Christmas, I wish you an angel as pretty and as funny as this one to light up your holiday and new year.

Sexy Gay Brazilian Men Vs. An Alien Female Predator

Okay, perhaps that's a little dramatic, but then, this ad, from MixBrasil, the lgbt film festival in Sao Paolo features a hot gay couple poolside, staring at a woman that is clearly not human. Now this could perhaps be seen as homosexual gynophobia projected out visually. But the campaign speaks to the sense many queer folk have of being seen as alien, other. Thus, the theme line: What is weird for you?

Obviously, to those of us who live very queer lives, suburban soccer moms can seem weird. It is all in who is doing the looking. And while that may be the point of the ad campaign, I am not sure how it works to get people to go to this film festival — or whether they are seeking an audience above and beyond the usual lgbt film fest crew. Perhaps some alients. Don't know. Or maybe Grace Jones, since I have to admit, the woman in this ad looks like Grace Jones to me, and I've always suspected she wasn't quite human. You can see the rest of this odd campaign at adsoftheworld.

Sexy Underwear Advertising, Minus the Sexy Underwear: More Cute Butts

Somehow I don't think a straight guy will feel compelled to pull something out of this guy's butt crack, however cute it may be. That said, this "interactive" print ad for Styx underwear, with the USP that the fabric won't automatically give you a wedgie, is pretty attention getting. The question is for the media buy in Vogue, where one wonders if, as in perfume ads, there is an added fragrance to the card. Ahem.



As it is so often, courtesy of Adsoftheworld.com

W.H.Auden, Cute Butts and Bicycle Seats

This TV Spot from the ever amazing team at Euro RSCG Paris brings to mind the couplet by W. H. Auden:

I've often thought that I should like
to be the saddle of a bike.

Exactly.

The Sexy Men of Venezuela: Are You My Angel?

If you aren't familiar with the annual Mr. Venezuela contest then you are truly missing one of the world's great expositions of male beauty. Here, for your pleasure, and for my hungry ghost, is Angel Casallas from last year's competition.

And as an angel, he brings to mind this beautifully wistful paean to male beauty, Allen Ginsberg's poem, A Supermarket in California:

   

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons? I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe.