A dominant theme in modern art is to transform everyday, seemingly mundane objects into art. I guess we can blame Warhol for this trend. In the case of Sonya Clark, her object of inspiration is plastic combs. She makes sculptures out of them. She explains: "Combs imply order in as much as they are tools that organize the fibers we grow. They suggest thorough investigation as in 'to go through something with a fine-toothed comb.' When a comb has broken or missing teeth there is evidence of struggle. The missing teeth provide a new rhythm, the music of a new order." [via junkculture]
Last week three black women stood in New York City's Union Square holding signs that read, "You Can Touch My Hair." It was part of an "exhibition" intended to explore people's "tactile fascination" with black women's hair.
But the exhibition quickly proved controversial, because apparently many black women don't think it's a good thing to be encouraging strangers to get their grubby hands all over their heads. A group of protesters formed, holding signs such as "you can't touch my hair but you can kiss my ass" and "touch my hair with your hand & I'll touch your face with my fist." [huffpost]
As gross-outs go, the notion of a giant head raining its dandruff on helpless humans (or is that a normal-sized head raining on shrunken doll people?), is pretty far up the scale. Not sure, however, that it makes me want to buy the product.
Here's an old-timey hair tonic with a weird name. The strange noun just means "helper."
Composed of "55% grain alcohol," it went down many an alcoholic's gullet, I'm sure.
Believe it or not, the tonic was mentioned in a SIMPSONS comicbook. If you look at their ad below, you'll see why. The mutant female user resembles the famed Springfield three-eyed fish.
The article "Pubic Hair Grooming Injuries Presenting to U.S. Emergency Departments" was published in the December issue of the journal Urology. The authors note that the scientific community has paid little attention to the subject of pubic hair grooming injuries, which is why their article is a welcome correction.
The take-home from the article is that a) pubic hair grooming injuries are on the rise, mostly because more people are watching porn, inspiring them to want to look like porn stars down there, so they start grooming, sometimes with bad consequences; and b) razors were responsible for most of the injuries. The authors recommend using clippers instead.
Do afros make you think of chairs? That's what they made Korean designer Yangsoo Pyo think of, inspiring him to create the "Afro Chair." He writes:
"Afro" is a chair that employed the image of the hair style "Afro Permanent hair." Springs are used to visualize the tangled and puffed up texture of the afro hair. The springs used to create the "Afro chair" are the two-ring binder springs used to bind together a notebook. The two-ring binders do not get tangled but rather wraps around each other.
Therefore, there is no danger of destroying women's stockings or knitwear. In fact the chair is very comfy. The manufacturing process of this chair begins with a simple iron frame. Then, the springs are used instead of the normal sponge and leather cover.
1. Facial hair that does not exist on the face, but instead on the neck. Almost never well groomed. 2. Talkative, self-important nerdy men (usually age 30 and up) who, through an inability to properly decode social cues, mistake others' strained tolerance of their blather for evidence of their own charm.
Horace Greeley probably offers an example of both definitions. The wikipedia page about him notes: "Greeley was noted for his eccentricities. His attire in even the hottest weather included a full-length coat, and he was never without an umbrella; his interests included spiritualism and phrenology." And add his neckbeard to his list of eccentricities. Even by nineteenth-century standards, it was an odd fashion choice. The National Archives blog describes it as a "neard", as well as "neck hair run amok". In 1872 Greeley ran for president against Ulysses S. Grant (who had a normal beard) and suffered a landslide loss. His neard may have played a role in this.
A Scottish child and a Native-American child pour hair tonic on the head of an elderly Anglo man and massage it in, while a child soldier out of some European comic opera stands by with sword upraised in tribute.
The only sensible part of this weird iconography is the Scottish kid. Once upon a time, right up to, oh, the 1960s, "anything Scottish = cheap and economical" was standard advertising shorthand.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.