Holiday Hair

'Tis the season.....

Hara Kiri: Using Hair to be Satiric & Offensive

The 1960s satiric French magazine Hara Kiri is known for its outrageous covers, sporting the subtitle, "Journal bête et méchant" ("Stupid and vicious magazine").  As a predecessor to Charlie Hebdo -- published by humorist Georges Bernier, author François Cavanna, and artistic director Fred Aristidès --  a number of the cover images, as one might imagine, portrayed hair as grotesque, repugnant, or distasteful.

 "The mode for summer has hair on the beach" - July 1974

  "Is the hair obscene?" - March 1972

  "What, aren't you gagging? Ben, and that, then?" - March 1989

Chuy, The Wolf Man - A Documentary

Tomorrow, Monday, November 30th at 8pm, the Morbid Anatomy Museum is screening the documentary Chuy, The Wolf Man, a story about the life of Jesus 'Chuy' Aceves and his family, all of whom suffer from congenital hypertrichosis, or excessive face and body hair.

"No-one's really sure what causes hypertrichosis, or how to cure it. What they do know is that there are about 50 documented cases in human history and it was my fate to be one of them," says Aceves. "We are the hairiest family of our species."

The earliest recorded case of hypertrichosis is Petrus Gonsalvus who was born in 1537 in Tenerife. He was exhibited at royal courts in Europe with his children who also had hypertrichosis.

Jesus and his family suffer discrimination in all areas of their lives: the children are made fun of at school and abandoned by their 'non-hairy' parents, and the adults cannot find work unless they choose to exhibit themselves as freaks in circuses. This documentary examines the family's day-to-day lives and their struggle to find love, acceptance and employment.

You can read more about the struggles of Jesus and his extended family in this recent BBC article.

 
Here's a trailer of this moving documentary:

Hair: This Day in History

Today in 1968, the musical Hair premiered on Broadway and
came to symbolize the counter cultural movement.

She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know

But the hippies knew why they grew their hair. It was not only a symbol of rebellion, but a marker of political and cultural allegiance as well as a rejection of restrictive gender norms.

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

Down to here
Down to there
Down to where
It stops by itself

They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair
 

But let us now enjoy the abundance of wonderful poster illustrations of H-A-I-R!

Tallulah Gets a Haircut

August 1923 Actress Tallulah Bankhead, star of the play The Dancers,
wearing black dress and pearls, looking away from camera. Via Conde Nast

It is 1923 London. Tallulah Bankhead has been cast in a ten-month run of The Dancers.  A number of female fans dubbed the “Gallery Girls” flocked to her every performance and wanted to emulate the larger-than-life star known for referring to everyone as “dahhling”.1.  In the middle of one of the performances Bankhead surprises her co-star (and playright) Sir Gerald Du Maurier by cutting her hair into a bob. A surprising response...many of her fans sheared their own hair during the performance, tossing their locks onto the stage.2.

image source

1. http://www.thevintageguidetolondon.com/famous-londoners-tallulah-bankhead/ 
2. Frances Osborne, The Bolter, Knopf (June 2, 2009), page 135.

Beard Balls and other holiday treats

It's the winter holiday season and there is nothing quite like a parade of bobbles, especially for your beard and bouffant.

Hairy Alphabet

In 2008 British born designer Craig Ward designed Hairy Alphabet, a font set using strands of hair. Each letter was created with randomness, using the natural tendencies of hair to arrange itself organically and chaotically. 

He allowed the hair "to fall into shapes on his scanner naturally, only tweaking letters slightly to achieve an "incidental look", before scanning them in at a high resolution. One clump fell into a perfect circle, inspiring him to adapt his usual process of starting an alphabet with the letters 'A', 'B' and 'C', to building it up from the letter 'O'.
(via www.creativebloq.com)