November 2, 2007

The Lost Art of Facial Hair

I'm a guy who likes to switch up his look. One of the easiest and best ways to do this is by messing around with different varieties of facial hair growth. I'm big on experimentation: standard beard, fuzzy lambchops, pencil-thin mustache, goatee, soul-patch, lenghty beard, neck beard, sideburns, standard 'stache, soup-strainer stache - the more I see and the thicker my hair gets, the more I try. Ever since I grew my first sideburns and soul patch when I was eighteen (when I finally could) I haven't stopped. It's a fascination in morphing appearance that probably won't ever end. In fact, I haven't had a totally shaven face since then: the soul patch at the least always stays so there is something I can tug on when I'm thinking (or, perhaps more appropriately, want to look like I'm deep in thought).

My whole fascination must be some hybrid of my love of the Old West since I was a child and idolization of all things classic rock in my early teens.

However, I live in a time and place that is pretty tough on creative facial hair. Sure, rock stars, liberal-art teaching academics, construction workers and (shudder) hippies get away with it well enough, but everywhere else in society seems to frown upon it. There's some unwritten code that dictates: grow facial hair, don't succeed (including all you professors out there - "liberal arts" - scoff!). Is it some indication of prediliction to immoral acts or teacherous motives that I am unaware of?

I have yearned for a return to the days of 150 years ago, when men's facial hair in America was finally expressing its collective freedom. The mid-to-late nineteenth century truly was the golden age of creative facial hair. Hell, sideburns got their name from General Ambrose E. Burnside's (see picture to the right) famously uninhibeted ear flappers. They're like the rings of Saturn.

I long for the day when your average, white-collar professional (admittedly, something I've never yearned to be) has six inches of mustache twisted and formed into a terrifically fanciful twirl, when the President of the United States has chops patterened after an-upside down Floridean shape (perhaps to win votes?), and the leaders of my church return to the glory of their long-bearded ancestors. I think there is some freedom, some part of ourselves as masters of our own destiny that we lose when we allow such a prominent sign of our masculinity, of our gender, to be cut away with the shear of a scissor or blade of a Bic.

I predicted years ago that we'd see a beard trend on the horizon, and though it hasn't taken over society like some widespread system of strangly roots, it has made progress. I applaud you men out there who are fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work. Now let's get a start on bringing back the 'stache - no longer will it only be the domain of sexual predators and highway patrolmen.

Men, it's time to stand up. It's time to throw down the pre-pubescent, look of clean shaven lollygaggers and grow some David Crosby mustaches, Lincoln chin beards and burly mountain man unruliness!

And now, some songs by those who have inspired me not only by their music, but also by their gnarly choices in facial hair.






My Morning Jacket - Dancefloors
Iron & Wine - The Spectre of Jasper County
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I was a guy then...;) I think it's soo cool to have a beard...if you are a man of course... or at least female dwarf ;)

November 4, 2007 at 5:22 PM
The Professor said...

Right on, man. I've had some version of sideburns ever since I was fourteen (save for a two-day hiatus when this guy on my mission demanded I shave them, completely ignoring the clearly stated policy that "sideburns should not extend below the MID-EAR"). These days, even in my shaven-headed glory, the hints of the sideburns remain, along with the occasional soul-patch, and the even rarer full beard (which you saw today).

November 4, 2007 at 10:00 PM

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