Mumblers

There's a disturbing trend in women's clothing. Now, ladies, you've all seen men in overtight jeans, or Speedos.*
You know; the ones that give you too much information?

Anyway, in recent times, there's been a disturbing rise in the female equivalent. It was a while ago, I was at the pub with my pal Ken the box, and he was dispassionately eyeing the barmaid "Mumblers.", he said. "What?" "Mumblers, she's wearing mumblers."

I looked blankly at him. "Elucidate".

"Mumblers, " he repeated... Those pants.... I can see her lips move but I'm not sure what she's saying".

Ladies. Please!
It's not a good look.
Well, I suppose if you work in the "Spearmint Rhino" bar it might be de-rigeur business-wear, or handy if you're a russian nymphet hoping to snag a seventy-year-old industrialist.

*Australians have a name for tight Speedos, -'Budgie Smugglers"

Unfilled Vacancy in Fairy World! Apply Now!

No Caption Required

Relax Max recently posted something about winged helmets, which got a rather mixed reaction,  Boris Legradic is a fervent wearer of them, who swears by their pulling power, whereas Stephanie Barr, the Rocket Scientist, says they're not babe magnets at all. She thinks only men think they're cool.

The above pic suggests otherwise. I ran through a lot of captions, or dialogue for the scene portrayed.
I snorted my drink messily a couple of times and decided that I didn't have a caption I dared post. I'll leave it to you to supply your own.

A Man Young And Old: III. The Mermaid

A mermaid found a swimming lad,

Picked him for her own,

Pressed her body to his body,

Laughed; and plunging down

Forgot in cruel happiness

That even lovers drown.

William Butler Yeats

i will wade out e.e. cummings

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Fish/Bicycle: Results still coming in.

 

We think Mermaids might be commuting to work by bicycle.

 

This one, however, seemed abandoned.

 

No comment.

 

Still unproven...

 

This Vietnamese man advertises "Bicycle rides for fish" by the harbour. He is unable to keep up with demand and is now employing seventeen more riders.

 

This slogan alters the phrase, and thus suggests that a bicycle, non-sentient, has no knowledge of fish, and no need of fish, then a man would have no knowledge or need of a woman. Note the capitalisation of woman, the lower-case man, note how the t-shirt maker, and perhaps wearer fail to understand subject and predicate. The slogan on this shirt might be more aptly worn by a gay male, though even then it would denote enormous ignorance of how much his world is formed by women, and the bigger, much bigger, undeniable truth that no man, no matter how gay, no matter how much he rejects women, has come into this world other than by being formed, carried, gestated, within a woman. it's undeniable.  The slogan writer and t-shirt wearer need to sit in a darkened room and think that one through.
No fish will rub your back, no bicycle will bring you hot buttered toast in bed..

 

Older fish may recall Penny-Farthing bicycles.

 

Brrr.

 

Images of mermaids on bicycles are few. Photographs are rarer still.

 

That might be because they have cars.

It is said that "A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle"

This Blog's research assistant, Professor X has volunteered his services in the quest for knowledge'

Here he is seen about to embark on his mission to discover how accurate is the statement "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle", when applied to mermaids.

Wish him luck.

Nymphs, Naiads, Whatever.

Hylas and the Nymphs (1896)

John William Waterhouse 1849-1917

Following on from my earlier theme of mermaids, sirens, and other seductive aquatic maidens, it would be remiss if me not to give some space to the freshwater variety.

in the first picture I posted we saw a hapless maiden being hauled from the depths by a crew of brawny fishermen, and I suspected that her wishes might not be altogether respected. Then I posted Odysseus, bound to the mast, as the seducing sirens board his ship, the fearful crew desperately hoping their wax-plugged ears would save them from being seduced by the maidens' song, and then destroyed. 

Here we see Hylas, the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopians.... Or maybe not. Heracles, (or Hercules, as he is also known) had an adulterous affair with Theiodamas' queen, and she bore a son,  Hylas, famed for his beauty. 

Heracles and Theiodamas fought, and Theiodamas was killed. Heracles took Hylas, and raised him as his son.

The two of them were part of the crew of the Argos, they were Argonauts, proud heroes, sailing from adventure to adventure. The Argos anchored in a quiet bay at the isle of Mysia, and the captain, Jason, sent some men ashore to find food and fresh water. Hylas was a water boy.  And he happened upon a pool, a beautiful pool of clear water, a pool of lilies, and so, Hylas knelt, to scoop up the water, but, in a moment, he was surrounded by naiads, nymphs of the pool,  they rose up out of the water, entranced by his beauty, oh, those girls had perhaps read about boys like him, in "Naiad's Weekly", they'd giggled and wondered what boys were, you know, really like... maybe they'd had fantasies, maybe they'd taken turns to pretend to be a boy, to swagger, and talk in a deep voice, to kiss, perhaps. 

Oh well. I'm sure you can imagine it.. Teenage naiads. Hormone soup... And suddenly, there he is,  a real boy, the most perfect boy in all the world, kneeling at the edge of their very own pool. So close you could almost... touch.... him. Ahh..

And so they did. They touched him. Looked upon him longingly, they wanted him, this new thing, this boy, so angular, muscly, hard; and he, face burning red, not knowing where to look, oh my, he a boy from a ship filled with big, ugly, smelly men, never  touched a girl before, suddenly surrounded by soft, pink, fragrant, (not to mention pert-bosomed and totally naked) girls, oh my, no wonder he dropped the pitcher, stammering  as strange feelings arose, "But I must go back to the ship.." "No, please, stay a while, stay with us, here, let us loosen your tunic, so, don't shy away, we just want to....."

Look closely at the picture.  Look at how her hands are placed, one at his wrist, the other behind his upper-arm, just above the elbow. Any law-enforcement officer will recognise that grip. It seems innocuous, until he tries to move.  A little push on the wrist, and a tug on the upper arm, and Hylas will topple forward, into their world.

What happened next? All we know is in the official report. The others all returned to the ship, which was by then ready to set sail, Hylas did not. A search party went out, found the empty pitcher by the pool, but no sign of the boy. They searched the entire island.

He was never seen again. What was his fate? We'll never know.

Listen, Sister!

This would, of course, be wise advice for The Sisterhood of the Pointy Heels.

(The Sisterhood of the Pointy Heels, Graduation Ceremony)

Roll over, Beethoven.

Bizarre news time.

Cellist Mike Edwards, who found fame as a founder member of 70s band ELO,  the Electric-Light-Orchestra, was struck by a straw bale which had rolled down a steep field before bouncing over a hedge, and into the path of his van.

This happened on the third of september, 2010, in Devon, south-west England.

Police say he died instantly. The bale could weigh around a half to three quarters of a ton.

The Call of the Briny

Seen in the window of Betty's Tea Rooms,
Ilkley
Yorkshire

View Larger Map

Measuring Tape Safety Wear

Wait a moment....

I'd better go get my blogging gloves, and tighten the safety harness on my  blogging chair.

Read carefully now. Wear glasses if you need them.

In Which the Time of Year is Written in Leaves

On What Men Do at Literary Events.

I posted this on what seems to be a redundant blog, a while ago.
"The Sisterhood of the Pointy Heel (incorporating also the Knights of the Besmirched Countenance)", seems to be defunct. It was a blog which made fun of the battle of the sexes.  I kinda..... infiltrated....


But. 


I love this pome. It's a deliciously naughty counterblast to the po-faced drones who take literary events too seriously.

At the Poetry Reading,   by John Brehm

I can’t keep my eyes off the poet’s wife’s legs—
they’re so much more
beautiful than anything he might
be saying, though I’m no longer
in a position really to judge,
having stopped listening some time ago.
He’s from the Iowa Writers Workshop
and can therefore get along fine
without my attention. He started in
reading poems about his childhood—
barns, cornsnakes, gradeschool, flowers,
that sort of stuff—the loss of
innocence he keeps talking about
between poems, which I can relate to,
especially under these circumstances.
Now he’s on to science, a poem
about hydrogen, I think, he’s trying
to imagine himself turning into hydrogen.
Maybe he’ll succeed. I’m imagining
myself sliding up his wife’s fluid,
rhythmic, lusciously curved, black-
stockinged legs, imagining them arched
around my shoulders, wrapped around my back.
My God, why doesn’t he write poems about her!
He will, no doubt, once she leaves him,
leaves him for another poet, perhaps,
the observant, uninnocent one, who knows
a poem when it sits down in a room with him.

Redressing the Balance

In my previous post, we saw a terrified looking sea-maiden being hauled in by hungry-looking sailors. This picture shows a rather different balance of power. Same painter, four years later. Polish, if you must, your recollection of the stories of Odysseus and his crew. Here we see them, with the Sirens coming aboard. Odysseus is bound tightly to the mast, so he can hear their song, without hurling himself overboard and drowning in his need to get closer to them... his crew, in the first ever successful attempt to avoid dying when meeting the Sirens, have all stopped up their ears with wax, whilst the ship's poet, Orpheus declaims poetry, loudly, in case a tiny bit of siren-song gets past the wax.

In this depiction, the crew looks far from enthusiastic at being boarded by by the daughters of Melponeme.
And the girls look as though they're having a ball, taunting the puny, trembling, mortals.

Homer, Odyssey 12. 200 ff :
"Then with heavy heart I [Odysseus] spoke to my comrades thus : `Friends it is not right that only one man, or only two, should know the divine decrees that Lady Kirke has uttered to me. I will tell you of them, so that in full knowledge we may die or in full knowledge escape, it may be, from death and doom. Her first command was to shun the Seirenes--their enchanting notes, their flowery meadow. I alone was to hear their song, she said. You for your part must bind me with galling ropes as I stand upright against the mast-stay, with the rope-ends tied to the mast itself; then I shall stay there immovably. And if I beg and beseech you to set me free, you must bind me hard with more ropes again.’
Thus I told my comrades and made things plain, point by point. Meanwhile the trim ship sped swiftly on to the island of the Seirenes, wafted still be the favouring breeze. Then of a sudden the wind dropped and everything became hushed and still, because some divinity lulled the waters. My men stood up, furled the sails and stowed them in the ship’s hold, then sat at the thwarts and made the sea white with their polished oars of fir. I myself, with my sharp sword, cut a great round of wax into little pieces and set about kneading them with all the strength I had. Under my mighty hands, and under the beams of the lordly sun-god whose father is Hyperion, the wax quickly began to melt, and with it I sealed all my comrades’ ears in turn. Then they bound me fast, hand and foot, with the rope-ends tied to the mast itself, then again sat down and dipped their oars in the whitening sea. But them, the Seirenes saw the quick vessel near them and raised their voices in high clear notes : `Come hither, renowned Odysseus, hither, you pride and glory of all Achaea! Pause with your ship; listen to our song. Never has nay man passed this way in his dark vessel and left unheard the honey-sweet music from our lips; first he has taken his delight, then gone on his way a wiser man. We know of all the sorrows in the wide land of Troy that Argives and Trojans bore because the gods would needs have it so; we know all things that come to pass on the fruitful earth.’
So they sang with their lovely voices, and my heart was eager to listen still. I twitched my brows to sign to the crew to let me go, but they leaned to their oars and rowed on; Eurylokhos and Perimedes quickly stood up and bound me with more ropes and with firmer hold. But when they had rowed well past the Seirenes--when music and words could be heard no more--my trusty comrades were quick to take out the wax that had sealed their ears, and to rescue and unbind myself. But the island was hardly left behind when I saw smoke above the heavy breakers and heard a great noise [the whirlpool of Kharybdis]."