Deaditerranean

The first thing I notice is the soil line. Four root vegetables—carrot, radish, beet, onion—sit in a row, each with a small face and each with its roots drawn down into the dirt. The words wrap around them: LET’S ROOT FOR EACH OTHER AND WATCH EACH OTHER GROW. It is a garden pun, and a… Continue reading The Smiling Roots Have a Second Meaning: Reading ‘Let’s Root for Each Other’

On 12 April 2021, the European Commission adopted an Implementing Regulation registering Χαλλούμι/Halloumi/Hellim as a Protected Designation of Origin. From 1 October 2021, only cheese made by cheesemakers on the island of Cyprus and conforming to the PDO product specification could be produced and marketed in the European Union under those names. The registration is… Continue reading Halloumi After the Green Line: How a Cheese Became Cyprus’s Most Unlikely Border Infrastructure

The wrapper is the whole joke. A butter stick, rendered as a costume graphic, with SALTED BUTTER running vertically in blue capitals down the side. Not a pat. Not a curl. The full rectangular block, the kind you peel open on a Tuesday night and forget to reseal. The shirt does not show a person… Continue reading The Salted Butter Shirt Says Salted: Reading a Kitchen Object as a Costume

The shirt does not show a dog. It does not show a beer. It shows two lines of white type on a dark ground: IN DOG BEERS above I’VE ONLY HAD ONE. That is the whole design, and that is the point. The joke lives in the missing word, not in an illustration, and the… Continue reading The Dog-Years Joke on a Dark Shirt: Reading ‘In Dog Beers I’ve Only Had One’

The hat is cream, engraved-style, pointed, with a curved brim and a square buckle. Above the words, it sits like a crest. The words are serif capitals: YES I CAN DRIVE A STICK. A long broom runs down the right side of the design, and a crescent moon, small stars, and flourishes surround the lettering.… Continue reading The Broom Is the Joke: Reading ‘Yes I Can Drive A Stick’

The shirt says PETER PETER PUMPKIN EATER in lettering that wants to be read aloud, the way a nursery rhyme is read to a child who has heard it forty times and still asks for it again. Beneath the words sits a farmer in a straw hat. Beside him, a spoon and a pumpkin. That… Continue reading The Spoon Is the Only Tool in the Picture: Reading the Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater Couples Costume

The ghost is wearing sunglasses. That is the first thing I notice, before the lettering, before the foam. A ghost in shades is a ghost who has decided not to be seen seeing. It is a small visual joke tucked inside a larger one, and it changes how the whole shirt reads. The artwork, as… Continue reading The Ghost Is Holding Two Beers: Reading ‘I’m Just Here For The Boos’

The shirt does not show a garden. It shows four root vegetables arranged around a sentence, each one smiling, each one with its roots drawn down into a band of soil. The carrot is orange, the radish red, the beet a deeper red, the onion pale. The words wrap around them: LET’S ROOT FOR EACH… Continue reading The Smiling Roots Have a Second Meaning: Reading ‘Let’s Root for Each Other’

The graphic is a butter stick. Not a butter dish, not a crock, not a curl of the stuff softened on a saucer. A vertical rectangle with a wrapper’s proportions, blue capital letters running down its length: SALTED BUTTER. The word salted is the whole design. It is not unsalted. That distinction is the joke,… Continue reading The Salted Butter Shirt Says Salted: Reading a Kitchen Object as a Costume

Two lines of white type, stacked, on a dark ground. The top line reads IN DOG BEERS. The bottom line reads I’VE ONLY HAD ONE. No dog is drawn. No bottle, no paw, no foam. The whole joke is carried by the words and the space between them, and by the fact that the phrase… Continue reading The Dog-Years Joke on a Dark Shirt: Reading ‘In Dog Beers I’ve Only Had One’