Code-X (92)

By: Joshua Glenn
March 2, 2016

Bob Dylan in a Cuban-collared jacket

Call this cultural code: CUBAN PEACOCK.

Definition: Cuba, in the popular imagination, depicted as a culture where men aren’t afraid to strut their stuff — i.e., be elegant and sexy.

The Beatles in Cuban-heel boots.

Notes on this code: The heyday of this meme appears to be the early 1960s, i.e., just after the Revolution. But traces of it linger.

Ad for Hatuey beer (from Bacardi)

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SERIES INTRODUCTION | ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES

MORE SEMIOSIS at HILOBROW: Towards a Cultural Codex | CODE-X series | DOUBLE EXPOSURE Series | CECI EST UNE PIPE series | Star Wars Semiotics | Icon Game | Meet the Semionauts | Show Me the Molecule | Science Fantasy | Inscribed Upon the Body | The Abductive Method | Enter the Samurai | Semionauts at Work | Roland Barthes | Gilles Deleuze | Félix Guattari | Jacques Lacan | Mikhail Bakhtin | Umberto Eco

Categories

Codebreaking, Semiotics

Tags

codex, Semionaut, semiosis, semiotics

See All Posts by Joshua Glenn

Josh Glenn, HILOBROW's editor, is a principal of the commercial semiotics agency Semiovox. He is co-author and/or co-editor of several books, including The Idler's Glossary, Significant Objects, and the bestselling family activities guide UNBORED. In the ’00s, Josh was a columnist and blogger for the Boston Globe's IDEAS section; in the ’90s, he published the zine/journal Hermenaut. He lives in Boston.