Protests - Part 24

 Intermittents, France

In 2014, a group of French performers, technicians, and other workers in theater, film, television and festivals protested a proposed change to French law.  The workers are called intermittents because of the seasonal and part-time nature of their work.  The proposed change eliminated higher unemployment compensation and benefits that a 1936 law had given them in recognition of their job insecurity.

The intermittents, in protest, forced the cancellation of a number of summer festivals.  In June, 2014, they confronted French Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti in the town of Guise in northeast France.  See the video clip above, showing some clothed intermittents making a gymnastic pyramid, while other naked protesters gathered.

The naked protesters formed a wall of naked bodies, above, to confront the Minister of Culture.  The sign on the chest of the guy in front says, "No to the agreement."

In 2021, intermittents protested at several theaters, including the Theatre du Nord in Lille, France, above.  They demanded the reopening of places of culture after pandemic shutdowns, asking why churches could reopen but not theaters.  The sign says, "You can't stop a people who dance."

A rear view of a naked protester in Lille.  On his back: "Art is public."

We end with a video of actor and author Sébastien Thiéry in 2015 at the "Nuit des Molières," an evening recognizing excellence in French theatre, which was attended by another Minister of Culture, Fleur Pellerin.  Thiéry entered the stage completely naked, and then he lectured the Minister of Culture, whose face is shown in the audience, about the lack of unemployment benefits for playwrights.  He said everyone else in the industry, including costume designers, got benefits, but not authors.

"Why this discrimination?" he asked.  "Is it because we are physically ugly?"  Then he stepped out from behind the lectern to show everyone his naked body.

His lecture went on for over 4 minutes, but I trimmed it to the parts that you can enjoy even if you don't speak French.  The video was from a French TV broadcast without blurring or pixellation.  I wish American TV was not so puritanical about showing nudity.

Calendars - Part 24

 Burscough Cricket Sports and Social Club Calendar 2014

While creating yesterday's post on the game of cricket, I found that the English (and Australian) love of naked calendars extends to cricket clubs.  Today's photos are from the 2014 calendar of the Burscough Cricket Sports and Social Club in England.

Rolling the pitch.  The pitch (the area between the wickets) is not dirt; it's covered with very short grass.  The pitch is rolled to keep it compacted.  This is important because the bowler (pitcher) may throw the ball so that it bounces on the pitch on its way to the batsman.  If the pitch gets wet, the ball may bounce very erratically as the pitch dries, becoming almost impossible to hit.  This is known as a "sticky wicket."

Enjoying a laugh on the sidelines.  Might as well, since a cricket game can go on for days.

We saw this photo yesterday of a batsman defending a wicket, with the wicket keeper ready to catch the ball.  I think the batsman is holding the bat for modesty in the calendar photo.  It doesn't look like a very effective position for hitting the ball.

The December calendar page shows club members enjoying a drink at the Rod Clayton Lounge.  They're dressed in holiday g-strings to preserve their modesty, although the g-string on the guy on the right is not so modest.  I think the reindeer's nose is part of the costume, not his own generous endowment (click to enlarge), but in either case, it might give a whole new meaning to "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer."

This photo was on the club's Facebook page to promote the calendar.  Bottoms up!

Boys and their Balls - Part 22

 Cricket

If baseball is the classic American game, then cricket is the classic English game.  The English have been playing cricket for a while.  There was a reference to it in an English court case in 1598.

I made the gif above from a series of photos called "Nude man playing cricket, batting and drive" from Eadweard Muybridge's 1887 book Animal Locomotion.

Cricket is played primarily in Great Britain and some former British colonies, including Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and the West Indies.  Like baseball, there's a pitcher (called a bowler).

Above: fast bowler Chris McCabe on the Sunshine Coast Scorchers team, from an Australian naked calendar.

And there's a batter (called a batsman) and a catcher (called a wicket-keeper).  But that's where the similarity to baseball ends.

The thing in the middle is called a wicket.  (The term "sticky wicket" comes from this game.)  The wicket has three "stumps" (vertical poles), with two horizontal "bails" balanced on top of them. There are actually two wickets, one at each end of the "pitch", 22 yards apart, and two batsmen, one by each wicket.  The bowler (pitcher) tries to hit the stumps so the bails fall off, in which case the batsman is out.  The batsman tries to hit the ball with a bat that has a flat, rectangular face, to prevent this from happening.

Above: a page from the Burscough Cricket Sports and Social Club Calendar, 2014, another British naked calendar.  We'll see more from this calendar tomorrow.

If the batsman hits the ball, then both he and the other batsman run to the other wicket, passing each other.  If they get there before the other team can return the ball to the wicket, then they score a run.  If the other team is taking longer to retrieve the ball, the two batsmen can keep running back and forth between wickets, scoring more runs.

Above: batsman Scott Milini in the Sunshine Coast Scorchers naked calendar.

If the batsman hits the ball past the boundary of the field, it's kind of like a home run in baseball.  It automatically counts as four or six runs (depending on whether the ball hits the ground before going past the boundary), and the batsmen don't have to run back and forth.

Above: English professional cricket players James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Alastair Cook.

You know how some people complain that the game of baseball is too slow-moving?  Well, a game of cricket can last for days, with the game being suspended before it gets dark and resuming the next day.

Above: Australian cricket player Shane Watson. 

Because the games can last so long, there are special rules about suspending play for lunch, tea, and drinks.  Leave it to the English to have a sport where they suspend play to have tea!

Above: English cricket player Chris Tremlett posed naked for Cosmopolitan magazine. 

We end with model Jacob Hoxsey in his cricket gear.  He's not a professional cricket player, but he's certainly an unashamed male.

Weighing In - Part 25

 Jack Catterall

Jack Catterall, born in 1993, is an English boxer who held the British light welterweight title in 2017.  He seems quite casual about stripping for a weigh-in, like this weigh-in before a fight with Gabriel Calfin in 2015, above.

Or this weigh-in before a fight with Christopher Sebire in 2018.

A photographer at that same weigh-in got a slightly better view, above.

And he's pretty casual after weighing in, too.  After weighing in before a fight with Tom Stalker in 2014, they gave him the towel to cover up, but he just held it at one side, not covering much.

Ivy League Posture Photos - Part 3

 Ivy League Posture Photos

In 1995, a New York Times article called The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal exposed a strange practice in the 1940s through 1960s at certain Ivy League colleges such as Yale and Princeton and some of their Seven Sisters counterparts such as Vassar, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke.  The colleges took nude photos of incoming freshmen, supposedly for the purpose of detecting any problems with their posture.  Actually, according to the article, the pseudo-scientists who were behind the scheme were using the photos for far more troubling purposes such as eugenic studies, now completely discredited.

For the full article, see https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-league-nude-posture-photo-scandal.html

*        *        *

I've seen photos online that said they were Ivy League posture photos, but they weren't.  Usually they turn out to be nude posture photos taken by the Navy in World War II.  For more info, click here to see my first post on this topic.

Recently, I had the opportunity to acquire two more genuine posture photos taken at Yale, and here they are.  The photos contained the names of the students.  I have confirmed that one of them has passed away.  Out of respect for the privacy of the one who may still be alive, I have removed his name, and I will only refer to him by his initials.

This is Yale freshman Benjamin P. Diebold on October 5, 1953.

An article in the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation described how in spring, 1952, Yale installed an apparatus using mirrors to produce "PhotoMetric" posture photos like this showing front, rear, side and top views.

Note the strange pins stuck to his back and chest.  These pins were prominently referred to in the New York Times article and are absent in the fake Ivy League posture photos, a confirmation that these photos are the real thing.

This is Yale freshman R.D. on October 12, 1953.  Although I have removed his name from the photo to protect his privacy, my guess is that, if he is still alive, he would be happy for people to see what he looked like as a fresh young 18-year-old.

These guys were not given a choice about being photographed naked.  They were told to show up at the gymnasium on a certain date and time, told to strip, and then the strange pins were attached to their back and chest, supposedly for later analysis to detect posture issues.

In that era, guys were routinely naked around each other in locker rooms and in swimming pools when women weren't present.  The students would not have balked at being asked to strip for a posture examination, or even being photographed naked, since they were told that it was part of the posture exam.

Beach Bums - Part 21

 Lady Bay Beach

In a previous post we saw this sign for Lady Bay Beach, Sydney, Australia.  It's also known to locals as Lady Jane Beach.  It's a favorite nude beach for Sydney gay men, and the beach-goers are mostly male.

The beach is located near the tip of a peninsula at the entrance to Sydney Harbor.  That's the Sydney skyline in the distance.

The beach is backed by a cliff.  You can see the stairs leading down to the beach on the left.  But maybe you weren't looking on the left.

Protected by such a cliff, you would think that the beach would be pretty private.

But there's a public path at the top of the cliff ...

With views down onto the beach.

In addition, there are tour boats that cruise Sydney Harbor, and apparently Lady Bay Beach is one of the sights that the boats pass.  This photo was taken from a tour boat.

This small boat was trying to get a better view of the beach when it accidentally ran aground.  The boaters were rescued by naked beach-goers, so I guess they got a closer view than they had expected.

But if you don't mind being gawked at from both sides, it's a nice spot to shed your clothes and shed your worries for a while.  It's also a favorite spot for photographer Brenton Parry, who we saw previously, to do nude photo shoots.  This is his model Andy at Lady Bay Beach.

And it provides some beautiful views.  The view of the harbor isn't bad, either.

Photographers - Part 24

 Dimitris Yeros

Dimitris Yeros (or Geros; in Greek it begins with gamma, but it's pronounced "Y"), born in 1948, is a Greek photographer.  He is also a painter, but today we will be looking at his photos.

Above is Artist and model in a ruined hotel, 2011, with Yeros himself on the left.  I thought the photo composition was interesting.  The room is framed by the surrounding walls like the proscenium arch of a stage, making the image very theatrical.

Yeros has studios in New York and Athens.  This is Zachary, New York, 2002.

This is Francois and Diego, Athens, 2005.  In case you hadn't noticed, Yeros likes male nudes.

Nude Male with Duck, 2007, reveals a lighter side.

Yeros spends his summers on the Greek isle of Lesbos, which is his second home.  This and all of the following photos were taken on Lesbos.  This is Gypsy Boy in an Abandoned School, 2013.

Front of a Collapsing Minaret, 2001.  The phallic reference is pretty clear.

This untitled 2014 photo beautifully captures the form of the branch and the body.

Here, the captive bird vies with the model's body for the viewer's attention.

I call this untitled 2014 photo Two Asses.

Not all of Yeros' work is devoted to art and male nudes.  The island of Lesbos is right off the coast of Turkey, and it was flooded with refugees from the war in Syria trying to escape to Europe.  Above is a photo from Yeros' 2018 photo book Without Luggage, a sympathetic portrayal of those people and their lives in the refugee camps.

Poem of the Day - Part 25

 The Cow

by Ogden Nash

                                        The cow is of the bovine ilk;

                                        One end is moo, the other, milk.

(Photo by Dimitris Yeros.  We'll see more of his work tomorrow.)

Speaking of cows, I'll leave you with this close-up of artist Mike Manfull's work Milking Barn Fantasy. The "milk" end of the cow is one of several fantasy elements in the piece. You can see my earlier post on Mike's work by clicking here, or check out his website www.manfulldesign.com.

Performers - Part 24

 The Fly

The Fly was a 1958 sci-fi horror movie in which a scientist invents a teleportation device. He tests it out on himself, teleporting between two chambers in his lab, but a fly gets into the chamber with him, and when he emerges in the other chamber, he's part man, part fly.

The film was remade in 1986 starring Jeff Goldblum as the scientist.  In the critical teleportation sequence, above, Goldblum is naked, but we can't see much of anything.  In this version, when he emerges from the other teleportation chamber, it looks like he hasn't changed, but afterwards he starts gradually turning into a giant fly.

In 2008, the story was made into an opera, directed by David Cronenberg, who also directed the 1986 film, with music by Howard Shore, who wrote the music for the Lord of the Rings movies. The scientist was played by Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch. Like the film, the scientist in the opera teleports naked. Unlike the film, we get to see a lot more of him in the opera (above).

This video is from a performance in Paris with subtitles in German, but the singing is actually in English. Don't worry if you can't follow the words, because in this scene the chorus is just chanting technical terms (with a French accent) such as a list of elements: "potassium, iodine, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron."

Here's singer Daniel Okulitch when he emerges from the other teleportation unit.  Like the 1986 movie, he gradually changes into a fly afterwards.

Reviewers hated the opera.  One said "Let's not mince words ... Howard Shore's 'The Fly,' which was given its U.S. premiere Sunday afternoon courtesy of Los Angeles Opera, is the worst opera I've ever seen."  The reviewer hated the music, not the singers or the nudity.

Oh, well.  At least we got to see a good-looking young opera star naked.

Instruments - Part 18

 Banjo

The banjo is an American instrument.  It developed from instruments made by African slaves in the Caribbean and southern U.S.  Those instruments used a gourd for the body.  In the 1830s a minstrel performer in Virginia replaced the gourd with a circular wooden sound box covered with animal skin, and the modern banjo was born.

Today, the banjo uses a plastic membrane instead of animal skin.  It has frets like a guitar.  There are usually five strings, though some banjos have four.

The banjo is not an orchestral instrument.  It's used primarily in folk and country music.

This guy is wearing a Swedish sailor's hat.  Perhaps the appeal of the banjo has spread.

Another banjo player who looks like a foreign sailor.  There's something written on his hat, but I can't tell what language it is.

And another guy who looks sailor-ish, with his striped shirt, but probably isn't one.

This looks like it was taken during a World Naked Bike Ride, and this banjo player was apparently riding along on his skateboard, pickin' and grinnin'.

And this guy was playing his banjo on Halloween, 2010 in New Orleans.

We end with the "Dueling Banjos" scene from the 1972 movie Deliverance, in which four men canoeing down a river in Georgia run into the local hillbillies.  There's no nudity here, but those who have seen the movie know that afterwards, the hillbillies attack the canoeists in the woods, and one of the canoeists gets raped by a hillbilly and told to "Squeal like a pig."