My Friend Went to TCAF and All I Got Was This Stupid Blog Post.
Okay. Saturday, I spent the day in Toronto at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I had a great time, especially enjoying talks by Chester Brown and Jeff Smith.
I subscribe to an RSS feed of a Technorati tag for the phrase "Krazy Kat"
I was surprised and delighted when this tag subscription revealed a picture of me! Technorati caught the word "Krazy Kat" amidst a photo report of TCAF, blogged by an assistant editor of the Flight Anthology. Krazy Koincidence. (As an aside: I just about swooned with glee as Smith began his lecture by praising Krazy Kat.)
The very top of my (shaved) head can be seen at the very bottom center of this photo that I've stolen from the aforementioned blog report of TCAF:
Okay. Saturday, I spent the day in Toronto at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I had a great time, especially enjoying talks by Chester Brown and Jeff Smith.
I subscribe to an RSS feed of a Technorati tag for the phrase "Krazy Kat"
I was surprised and delighted when this tag subscription revealed a picture of me! Technorati caught the word "Krazy Kat" amidst a photo report of TCAF, blogged by an assistant editor of the Flight Anthology. Krazy Koincidence. (As an aside: I just about swooned with glee as Smith began his lecture by praising Krazy Kat.)
The very top of my (shaved) head can be seen at the very bottom center of this photo that I've stolen from the aforementioned blog report of TCAF:
posted by trawlerman at 9:48 PM
4 Comments:
What is it with you and shaving?
We begin to wonder about this . . .
Do you have some strange problem where you can't decide if your hair should grow or not?
Or perhaps you are just like the modern culture and have a weak self-image, subject to every new fad?
Is shaved head "in"?
Or perhaps you're just preparing for the day when you will lose all your hair?
PS: Did Jeff Smith say anything interesting about Bone? Like, why on earth did he make Bone leave the valley??
Interestingly enough, Smith spent the entire hour speaking of Fone Bone's shaving practices. The Krazy Kat slide was used to effectively point out the varying degrees of hairiness found in other anthropomorphic cartoon characters, contrasted with the Bones' hair condition(s).
As far as my hair....
I prefer to have it shaved. Abigail prefers it shaggy. I let it grow shaggy, then I shave. Usually right before the shaving I'll let Abigail cut my hair to try to make it look respectable, but I am always uncomfortable with hair on my head that's not wild and shaggy.
My hair was once so long that it reached the middle of my chest.
So.. your first proposed answer is probably the closest to the truth. I do have a strange problem.
As far as my beard/moustache...
This is a given to me. A man should have facial hair. The reason that I shave mine off approximately once a year is to prove to myself that I don't really believe that possession of a beard is a measure of holiness in a man; that some of my Asian brothers in Christ with their pathetic non-scruff are no less Christian than I am; that the mass of daily shaved/daily washed American Christians aren't all quite as bad as their beardlessness advertises them to be.
Over the past few years I've built up a pretty good arsenal of Bible verses and quotes from history to bolster my position. The case for beards is implicit in Scripture. My favorite quote (apart from Scripture) is from John Calvin's commentary on Genesis (I don't have the book up here with me, but Calvin is commenting on the passage that reads that Joseph shaved himself before appearing before Pharoah. Calvin cannot believe that a man of God would shave his beard so insists that this verse must be taken in a non-literal, metaphorical sense). I believe that Adam was created with a beard. Every Sunday School picture book/picture Bible I've ever seen has Adam depicted with a full head of hair, but no facial hair. If this is not a reading back of 20th century ideals into the text, I don't know what is. Why should we assume that Adam had a full head of hair if he did not have a full beard? I would prefer to see Adam fully haired or completely devoid of any hair on his body.
So, there you have it. The shaving of my face has nothing to do with self-image or culture. It has to do with sympathizing with and understanding those that cannot or will not also grow a beard, to understand that perhaps it's not a sinful disobedience or willful ignorance that keeps these people clean-shaven, and to weep with those that cannot grow a beard at all. Also, it is probably a bit of a protest against my father, whose face has been bearded my entire life.
This bearded soul is in conflict with itself.
thanks john for making me feel accepted. i can't grow *expletive* when it comes to facial hair... perhaps i didn't need the expletive and just said 'i can't grow facial hair', but i wanted to let you know how angry i am for not having genes to allow me to do so.
that comic festival looked like it was a hoot. cool smart people meeting together. i was tellin spike the other day that we should start an annual conference and show-off what we created in the past year. i can see it now, "check this doo-hicky out, i can make it clean kitchen floors AND do my taxes!!!" lata man.
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