Since my last few posts have been about creatures taking their pants off, a look at this shaker set seems appropriate: As a set, they have an interesting binary-oppositional relationship. I’m tempted to suggest that they replicate the insistence of the shaker miniverse on dividing things into opposite pairs: salt and pepper, black and white,Continue reading “Gendered Elimination?”
Category Archives: Pairs
An Odd (Really Odd) Couple in Lots of Clothing
I’m fairly well convinced that this pair was always intended as a shaker set, because their colour palette is more or less the same: the same dark green, with dark pink accents–and the smaller one’s face is the same brown as the larger one’s hair and shoes: But for all that, they areContinue reading “An Odd (Really Odd) Couple in Lots of Clothing”
Bath, Beneath, and Beyond
Continuing on with shaker sets that imply an invisible beneath, there is this pair: Once more, the shakers represent something that is standing in water, this time two bathers. We see only the top third or so of their bodies, but knowledge of the way things usually are allows us to assume that the expectablyContinue reading “Bath, Beneath, and Beyond”
The Implied Beneath
While it might not be apparent on first glance, this is a salt and pepper shaker set: This set represents the Bluenose, the Canadian fishing and racing schooner from Nova Scotia that has been appearing on Canadian dimes for many decades: While it’s a little hard to make out, since it consists of slightly raised brown letters on the same brownContinue reading “The Implied Beneath”
Polyamory
Recently, my friend Joseph Thomas made a comment on Facebook that relates to my interest in salt and pepper shakers: What I think is wonderful about salt n pepper shakers: although they come as a pair, they so often aren’t bound together, save by their maker’s intent or owner’s whim. Thus, even pairs “meant forContinue reading “Polyamory”
All Nature Is But Art
This is another set of salt-and-pepper shakers that my son Asa made me, this one a few years ago. As you can see from this view of their tops, he made them of modelling clay formed around an already-existing set of plain ceramic shakers. I’ve asked Asa for an explanation of what he intended themContinue reading “All Nature Is But Art”
Two Santas, and Some Guys Who Haven’t Been Good
In honour of the season, I offer yet another salt and pepper shaker set that consists of two male figures: Two Santas. And yet, of course, this makes no sense, no sense at all. There can only be one Santa Claus, surely. Other shakers, operating safely within the logic of a rigidly binary world, representContinue reading “Two Santas, and Some Guys Who Haven’t Been Good”
A Coupla Chicks Sitting Around
After generalizing about there being no same-sex pairs in my salt and pepper shaker collection, and then being surprised to find all the many male pairs I’ve been discussing in my posts over the last week or so, I decided it was about time to see what I could find in the way of femaleContinue reading “A Coupla Chicks Sitting Around”
Ambiguously Gendered: Batting for Which Team?
This shaker set is not necessarily ambiguously gay–more like ambiguously gendered. Its two baseball players (who each look a little like stereotyped angry codgers wearing too much eyeliner), might be either both male or both female or a combination of one male and one female. The shaker on the left wears a pink hat, whichContinue reading “Ambiguously Gendered: Batting for Which Team?”
Ménage à trois petits cochons
Since I’m on the subject of pigs on top of other pigs (see my last post), consider these: As you can tell from the expression on his/her face, the pig on the bottom either is not happy about being piled on or is so happy about it that it’s put her or him into aContinue reading “Ménage à trois petits cochons”
Perry Nodelman 