Hello, Dalí! (original) (raw)

Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro plunges us into a double play on words, plus a visual parody — offered on a platter — as well:

(#1) To understand the cartoon, you need to know about kosher delis (deli, short for delicatessen), and pastrami as a prominent offering in them; and about Salvador Dalí and his surrealist painting The Persistence of Memory (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)

The egregious pun kosher deli > kosher Dalí in combination with a play on the title of a Dalí painting Persistence of Memory > Persistence of Pastrami (with a visual parody on the painting itself, offered on a platter by the waiter; hence, Wayno’s title, “Culinary Surrealism”).

Dalí’s name is most commonly Englished as /ˈdali/, like Dolly, and that makes the deli > Dalí pun particularly close ( /ɛ/ > /a/, otherwise perfect), but sometimes maintains the Spanish / Catalan iambic accentuation as /daˈli/, in which case the imperfect pun is more distant.

On the artist, from Wikipedia:

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí was a Spanish [Catalonian] surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.

Not to mention his personal flamboyance and showmanship.

The artist in a photograph that probably served as the model for the Dalí character in the cartoon:

(#2) Dali’s Mustache (photo by Philippe Halsman)

The painting:

(#3) Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931)

The painting has been much parodied. As in #1 above and in my 9/26/22 posting “The news for wieners”:

(#4) From cartoonist Gary Larson’s 1990 book Wiener Dog Art: the drawing The Persistence of Wiener Dogs, a parody of / burlesque of / riff on / homage to the Dalí

This entry was posted on January 30, 2023 at 8:41 am and is filed under Abbreviation, Art, Language and food, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Parodies, Puns, Understanding comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.