"Why is your logo a pair of Y Fronts?"

"I had never heard of Y-Fronts, so I wrote it off and scrolled right past. But they kept coming…"

I got there from here: "A data company turns an unusual branding issue into a case study: does its logo looks like a pair of men’s underpants?"

ADDED: What's worse making your logo accidentally look like men's underpants? Making it accidentally look like the contents of men's underpants. I first blogged that link back in 2005, when we laughed until we cried.

"Arguendo" — a play with the text lifted from a Supreme Court oral argument about free speech and nude dancing.

At the Public Theater until the end of October. From a review in NY Magazine by Scott Brown (presumably not the political dreamboat Scott Brown)(links added by me):

In 80 dizzy minutes of towering, tottering legalese, hilariously atrocious wigs and highly athletic swivel-chair-ballet, five performer-creators... do the seemingly impossible: They make the Rehnquist Court feel as intellectually rigorous as The Muppet Show. (And I mean that flatteringly, with respect to The Muppet Show.)...

Guided by conceiver-director John Collins and aided by the endlessly creative video projections... the ensemble teases out the muffled passions and inarticulable absurdities throbbing beneath the intellectual chessmatch of [Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc.]—is this an obscenity case? Is dance really “expression”? “Why do they call this place a ‘bookstore’?”—and crystallize the justices as characters without resorting to direct caricature.... The black-robed sages literally circle Indiana Attorney General Uhl (played by Williams and Knight) and respondent attorney Ennis (Iveson), swooping down like vultures one minute, creeping up like Skeksis the next, depending on the line of attack.... The whole nature of expression is called into question in the uninhibited finale, where briefs of all sorts go flying.... The show’s ultimate thrust is a bit of a feint, but the legal term “arguendo” translates colloquially to “for the sake of argument,” not “to conclude definitively and forcefully.”... [A]s a friend of mine used to say, “to reach a conclusion is to limit the potential of argument.” 

That review could use a rewrite. Maximum sexual innuendo or children's puppet show analogy: Pick one.

From the NY Post review of the play: 

Since the case revolves the issue of defining nude dancing as a means of communication, Collins seems to extend the discussion to the idea of theater itself. Can you turn any document into a play, even a law case? Can actors jumping and yelling seemingly randomly qualify as a show, and does nudity make that much of a difference?

Lo and behold, [the actor playing the lawyer for the strip club] strips to a golden thong, black socks and dress shoes. Then he takes off the thong.

He takes takes off his underpants to nail the argument.

HuffPo has a lawprof's cogitations. It's Michael Meltsner, who uses Barnes in his teaching of oral advocacy (and who wrote a book called "Race, Rape, and Injustice: Documenting and Challenging Death Penalty Cases in the Civil Rights Era").

Alas, while the production presents the legal arguments of two knowledgeable advocates, it is replete with jargon and enough insider's free expression law that even many lawyers in the audience were grabbing smart phones to do some instant Googling. Collins has chosen neither to dignify the ideas expressed by the lawyers nor use them as a take off point for a serious exploration of a culture that debates at the highest levels the constitutional value of public nudity before consenting adults.

That would all by perfectly ok if the result was really funny but too often the text has been saddled by distracting black robbed justices swivel chairing around the stage, enough voices overriding voices to suggest a confusing Tower of Babel in what for all its faults is a process that in the real world aims at clarity and a chaotic display of less than beautiful frontal nudity.

Ooh. Ow.

I hope you like the link I did — up there in the first indented block of text — on "briefs of all sorts go flying." That was the most literally apt image from a Google search on "flying underpants." But something urges me to show you this too:



What is Sting saying via flight-themed underpants? The eloquence of his expression escapes the banks of chaos in my mind.

Poets, priests and politicians

And lawyers and judges...

Have words to thank for their positions
Words that scream for your submission
And no one's jamming their transmission
'Cos when their eloquence escapes you
Their logic ties you up and rapes you 

When words tie you up and rape you, say it with — or without — underpants. Sing a song. Sting a thong.

"Corey Feldman threw himself a $250-per-guy birthday party with lingerie girls..."

"... and some jerk made it look kinda sad."

The problem began with the publication of VICE editor Jamie Lee Curtis Taete’s “I Went To Corey Feldman’s Birthday Party,” a firsthand account of a soiree recently Feldman threw himself in “The Feldmansion”....

Unfortunately, despite Taete’s introductory note explaining he was only allowed to attend on condition of allowing Feldman final edit of the piece—and that the story thus represented “text approved by Corey Feldman”—something about the way Taete captured his Corey’s Angels party didn’t sit well with Feldman....

“It’s called defamation of character and slander n I’m pretty sure those things r still illegal n this country,” Feldman tweeted....

Feldman approved the text, yet he's crying defamation... apparently because of the photographs. Well, go over and look at the photographs. As the headline says: some jerk made it look kinda sad.

At the Treillage Café...



... I was going to say get out of the grid, but you have to stay on the grid to jabber in The Treillage Café. Meade taught me the word treillage. I was going to say "trellis," but treillage sounds a little exotic. I did a Google image search on the word to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong, and the first couple things that came up made me worry for a moment that I'd stumbled into the name of some subdivision of bondage fetishism. The next step in my research was the Oxford English Dictionary (to which I cannot link). Meadhouse dialogue:

ALTHOUSE: Trellage is not even in the Oxford English Dictionary.

MEADE: French!

Trellis, however, is. My favorite historical OED quotes for trellis:

1861   Bp. S. Wilberforce Let. in Life (1881) II. xiii. 454   The earthly love becomes the trellice, up which the heavenly love creeps.
1894   H. Drummond Lowell Lect. Ascent Man 193   Language formed the trellis on which Mind climbed upward.

What metaphorical trellis — treillage — is supporting your upward aspirations? (The shadow the trellis makes on the grass — the focus of this photograph — is a also metaphor, though I don't have quotes for that easily at hand.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Rabel said: "OED may have it with an 'i' before the first l.'" Ah! You are right. Meade only said the word, so I take responsibility for misspelling. I've corrected the spelling in the post, except at the spot where I'm not finding it in the OED. In fact, treillage is in the OED:

1712   J. Addison Spectator No. 477. ¶1   There are as many kinds of Gardening as of Poetry:..Contrivers of Bowers and Grotto's, Treillages and Cascades, are Romance Writers.

Instapundit: "Bras make boobs saggier, study finds."

Posted this evening, but please note that in June 2009, I wrote — on Instapundit:

DO BRAS PREVENT SAGGY BREASTS? “There is, so far as [The Straight Dope] can discover, zero evidence that bras prevent saggy breasts.” I recommend bralessness. At least don’t let fear of drooping breasts stop you.."

I had a corresponding post on Althouse, so there was a comments thread here. The first commenter was Bissage (the dearly missed Bissage):

I’ve always worn briefs instead of boxers, just in case.

Then somebody else said: "For older women, the bra offers one benefit. It holds the sagging organ away from the skin beneath it." And I said: "Go braless so you don't develop a place called 'under your breasts.'"

I also have a September 2005 post on this subject (which is close to my heart).  It started out talking about the old Maidenform bra ads, and I was criticizing the ones that featured a woman staying home with her kids:

What's the business sense of this? If I'm staying home with kids, that bra is coming off! A bra is for going out into the male-dominated world and achieving. As soon as you cross the home threshold, that bra is off. Right, ladies? What is the lag time for you between when you walk through the door and when you take off the bra? Five minutes, tops? Is it the first, second, or third thing you do when you come home?

That brought comments like:

You're kidding, right? No woman with a D-cup or greater --- I think the cutoff is really C, but I'm trying to be conservative --- would make that statement, I am guessing.

And:

Take off bra when you come home? Only if you're lucky (and small) it's UNCOMFORTABLE if you're "generously endowed" to go around without a bra. (...yes this is true for C cups too)

I think this may only be the case if you have become dependent on the bra instead of keeping up the strength of your ligaments. As I said then:

It's less a matter of size than inner structure. I think there is some evidence that wearing a bra all the time decreases your natural support.

And linked to some technical stuff (photos of breasts at the link):

There are lots of studies showing that ligaments and tendons in limbs do atrophy when the limb is immobilized. Bras obviously prevent the the natural slight up-down movement of breasts when we walk, and let shoulders bear the weight of breasts. If breast ligaments behave like limb ligaments, it may be a matter of "use it or lose it".

The only study ever published on the subject of bras and sagging was done in 1991, in Japan. The study suggests that a bra can actually increase breast sagging rather than the opposite. The abstract says (emphasis mine):

'Eleven adult female subjects aged 22-39 years wore a certain brassiere for 3 months while anthropometry and moire fringe photographs on the anterior trunk were taken regularly once a week. After the 3 months, the brassiere was not worn for another 3 months. Then the measurements and photogrammetry were repeated for comparison using superimposed moire configurations. The results are summarized as follows. Regardless of slim or obese trunk, subjects with pendent breasts showed the highest degree of breast form "correction" from wearing the brassiere. In all subjects, after 3 months of brassiere constraint, the underbust circumference was smaller but the chest circumference became enlarged, the distance between the right and left nipples became wider, and the breasts tended to hang down. This change was more marked in obese subjects with pendent breasts. And when this type of subject wore a "well-fitted" brassiere for a long time, her breast form became developed, that is, her breasts hung down more." Ashizawa K, Sugane A, Gunji T Institute of Human Living Sciences, Otsuma Women's University, Tokyo, Japan: Breast Form Changes Resulting From A Certain Brassiere Journal of Hum. Ergol.(Tokyo) 1990 Jun; 19(1):53-62.

The unspoken rules of the society may force you to wear a bra to work or to social occasions, but there's no need to wear one for the purpose of preventing sagging. It just won't work. Remember also that breasts will benefit from bra-free time, so it is good to take the bra off whenever you can.

I hate to think that anyone is doing something that's less comfortable because it's supposed to help when it's doing the opposite. Think about your ligaments, ladies.

ADDED: "Medically, physiologically, anatomically, the breast does not benefit from being deprived of gravity. Instead, it languishes with a bra."

Misread headlines... misread photographs.

So... I saw this over at HuffPo...



And I thought, well, really how many men go in for a waxing? I remember when Christopher Hitchens went in for a Brazilian wax and wrote about it in Vanity Fair:

The male version of the wax is officially called a sunga, which is the name for the Brazilian boys’ bikini. I regret to inform you that the colloquial term for the business is “sack, back, and crack.” I went into a cubicle which contained two vats of ominously molten wax and was instructed to call out when I had disrobed and covered my midsection with a small towel. Then in came Janea Padilha, the actual creator of the procedure. She whipped away the exiguous drapery and, instead of emitting the gasp or whistle that I had expected, asked briskly if I wanted any “shaping.” Excuse me? What was the idea? A heart shape or some tiger stripes, perhaps, on the landing strip? I disdained anything so feminine and coolly asked her to sunga away.

Whipped away the exiguous drapery... Oh, lord, I miss Hitchens!

And now, I'm looking at the photograph and thinking, well, this guy is none too bulgy. (Have you heard the news? Women prefer men with large penises!) And what is that? A dragon image on the underpants? Hey, wait a minute! That's not a guy! This is not an article about "men's bikini wax preference." This is an article about women's bikini waxes and what men think about them!

A new study... surveyed 1,000 men and found... 43 percent...said they preferred women's hair natural with a "Bermuda triangle" (i.e. trimmed hair and waxed sides). 17 percent said they like a "landing strip," 15 percent dig a heart shape, and only 12 percent said they prefer a full-on Brazilian (no hair at all).

Noted.

Your thong?!

Why assume a thong?!!!

Taking the high road.

"It is ridiculous and not really funny at all. I’d appreciate you taking the high road and not resorting to something childish like this that’s been blogged about 1,000 times."

ADDED: The linked article prompted me to research the history of the term "to go commando." The Oxford English Dictionary traces it to 1974:

slang (orig. U.S.). to go commando  : to wear no underpants (beneath one's clothing).

The origin of this use is obscure; the allusion appears to be to commandos' reputation for action, toughness, or resourcefulness rather than to any specific practice.

1974   Current U.N.C. Slang (Univ. N. Carolina, Chapel Hill) (typescript) Spring,   Go commando, to be without underwear.
1985   Chicago Tribune (Nexis) 22 Jan. c,   Colored briefs are ‘sleazy’ and going without underwear (‘going commando’, as they say on campus) is simply gross.
2001   Guardian 7 June ii. 8/2   Thank goodness he wasn't wearing a pair of sagging Y-fronts or, much worse, a thong. Thank goodness he wasn't going commando.
2004   J. Evanovich Ten Big Ones 186   Unless Ranger kept his underwear in his safe, it appeared that he went commando.

"... my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs..."

I thought you'd enjoy this taken-out-of-context sentence from "The Great Gatsby":

The prolonged and tumultuous argument that ended by herding us into that room eludes me, though I have a sharp physical memory that, in the course of it, my underwear kept climbing like a damp snake around my legs and intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back.

U've got to run... out into the Wisconsin snow... which was the subject of another post about a "Gatsby" sentence weeks ago.  No time to venture my comments about the damp snake and all that. So have at it. I'll join you later. 

ADDED: Herding, eluding, climbing, racing. Very active, especially the underwear, which was so memorable compared to the substance of the argument. There was a big argument, but it eludes him now. The argument ran out of his memory even as the running, racing, sweat and the climbing snakelike underwear wormed their way in.

The snake is so entrancing that it seems wrong to get to the introduction-to-creative-writing purple-prose "intermittent beads of sweat raced cool across my back." What's the point of "intermittent"? Why tag the trite "beads of" onto "sweat"? And "cool" as an adverb seems so twee. Perhaps all that verbiage was necessary to make it okay to talk about his underwear and to say snake. Damp snake.

Woman writing lengthily for The Atlantic doesn't seem to know the word "underpants."

Sarah Fentem goes on at bizarre length about how much she dislikes the word "panties." After extensive blah blah blah, she gets to this:

So what word could be used instead? Personally, I've always just called my bottom unmentionables "underwear." My sister, though, disagrees. "Underwear" is no dice, she says, because women have two types of underwear (bras and panties)—and how will you know which ones are being referred to?

Another friend of mine has suggested the terms "top undies" and "bottom undies," but I don't see that particular strategy catching on, either....

It's well-documented that women are ahead of the curve when it comes to linguistic ingenuity....

Oh, yeah, women... they're so verbally proficient that they don't know the word "underpants."

"I don’t think we should talk about Lincoln’s underwear..."

"It’s not appropriate for someone so iconic. Even in the bedroom, Lincoln is never shown in his pajamas. He’s in his shirt and pants."

Joanna Johnston, movie costume designer.

***

"But even the President of the United States/Sometimes must have to stand naked."

Bob Dylan.

***

"How many Bob Dylan songs have the word 'naked' and how many of them can you name?" I challenge Meade with a Bob Dylan test, as I tend to do when I've done a search at bobdylan.com (as I did for the "It's Alright Ma" quote, above).

Meade immediately says "even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked," then none of the others — not even "You see somebody naked and you say who is that man?" — and makes 2 wrong guesses:

MEADE: "'Mr. Tambourine Man'... just to dance beneath the naked sky..."

ME: "That's 'diamond sky.'"

MEADE: "The one where the farmer is chasing him out of his house."

ME: "'Motorpsycho Nightmare?' No."

In "Motorpsycho Nightmare," Bob Dylan is just trying to get some sleep — no sign that he's sleeping naked — when Rita — "Lookin’ just like Tony Perkins" (i.e., the murderer in "Psycho") importunes him to take a shower. He's freaked out: "Oh, no! no! I’ve been through this [movie] before." Afraid of getting knifed to death, but unwilling to run off unless her father (the farmer) throws him out (because he promised the farmer he'd milk the cows in the morning), his sees his only option as saying "something to strike him very weird." What he says is: "I like Fidel Castro and his beard."



Beards. Fidel Castro made a beard as off limits to an American president — in spite of Lincoln — as Hitler made the mustache. And here I want to go back to that "Becoming Adolf" article by Rich Cohen that were were talking about a couple days ago:

[Y]ou could not wear any kind of mustache after [WWII], because, running from Hitler, you might run into Stalin. Hitler plus Stalin ended the career of the mustache in Western political life. Before the war, all kinds of American presidents wore a mustache and/or beard. You had John Quincy Adams, with his muttonchops...



You had Abe Lincoln, whose facial hair...



... like his politics, was the opposite of Hitler's: beard full, lip bare. You had James Garfield, who had the sort of vast rabbinical beard into which whole pages of legislation could vanish.



You had Rutherford B. Hayes...



Grover Cleveland...



... and Teddy Roosevelt, whose asthma and elephant gun were just a frame for his mustache.



You had William Howard Taft — the man wore a Walrus!



After the war, the few American politicians who still wore a mustache were those who had made their name before Hitler and so had been grandfathered in. Like Thomas Dewey.



Dewey was Eliot Spitzer. He was a prosecutor in New York in the 1930s (and later governor), the only guy with the guts to take on the Mob. For Dewey, the rise of Hitler was a fashion disaster. Because Dewey wore a neat little mustache. Dewey ran for president twice — losing to F.D.R., losing to Truman. In my opinion, without the mustache, the headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune (Dewey Defeats Truman) turns true. One of the few prominent American politicians to wear facial hair in recent memory is Al Gore, who grew a Grizzly Adams beard after he lost to George Bush, in 2000. The appearance of this beard was taken to mean either (1) Gore would never again run for office, or (2) Gore had gone completely mental.



The decision to grow a mustache or a beard is all by itself reason to keep a man away from the nuclear trigger.

Are we going to decide who deserves out trust based on they look? Come on, Abe. Lose the beard. Okay.

Pick one:

Why was Superman wearing underpants over his tights in the first place?

Rob Bricken pushes back against those who are outraged at Superman's redesigned outfit. The original outfit (from 1933) was based on what circus strongmen of the time wore. But no one gets that reference anymore. So:

No one is looking at Superman's redesigned outfit in DC's New 52 and saying, "Boy, now that Superman doesn't have underpants, he no longer looks like a circus strongman, which was a visual that had no value to me!" Maybe a few people are saying, "Boy, Superman's skin-tight unitard sure looks adult and manly now that he isn't wearing underwear!" …maybe. But most people are saying, "He looks weird without it."

Think about why old-time circus strongmen dressed like they did: They wanted to show off their muscles in a leotard and tights, but they needed to avoid all that precise definition around their genitalia. If it's just a drawing though, the artists can render the crotch any way they want. They don't need pants, but the lack of pants makes you think about it:

I have no idea why this is - maybe our brains instinctively know when a guy is effectively wearing a unitard, his junk should be visible. You don't have to want to see it, you don't even have to think about it for more than a second, but the lack of underpants forces us to acknowledge the super-crotch, while underpants allow us to ignore the region entirely.

And then there's movie Superman. (Photo of underpantsless Superman at the link.)

By taking away Superman's briefs in both the comics and the movies, DC is working against 80 years of tradition, a tradition that superheroes have completely claimed from their original inspiration. They aren't making Superman look any less "silly" - he's still wearing tights and a cape, for fuck's sake. They're simply making people think about Superman's penis now, and not everybody wants to. 

 (Via Metafilter.)