When photos refute theories.....

1. This is only the second photo I've ever posted taken by someone other than me.

2. My wife took this photo in 2006 at "her" annual Oscar Party. (It's definitely her party.) She offers prizes for "a movie trivia quiz" as well as for earning the highest (or lowest) score for guessing the Oscar winners. (Excuse me. Not "winners." That's not the politically correct Oscar language, for i forget that there are no losers at the Oscars. What I meant to say was for guessing correctly the persons to whom the Oscar went. pshaw!!) In 2006, she also gave a prize for best impersonation of a celebrity attempting to maintain anonymity.

I came as Ted Kaczynski. But I don't have to tell you that because if you are reading this blog you are not blind.

The visual likeness is striking.

3. Here's really what I'm writing. The beard simultaneously affirms and refutes various parts of the theory exposited here:
http://shinigami-sidhe.blogspot.com/2008/11/art-of-facial-hair.html

The photo affirms that facial hair can (and perhaps inevitably must) reveal important character traits of the person sporting the hair. The author of the essay, Ms. Shinigami-Sidhe, advances an absurdly rich and side-splittingly hilarious account of facial hair history that delves into the nature of moral virtue, the prejudices of grooming, and why some would-be conquerors of the world were incapable of keeping the lands they conquered.

I think it crucial to point out at this time that the author was once a student of mine, and everything good you see here--the originality, the charm, the breadth of knowledge, the quirky eccentricity, the flashy brilliance--is likely (i.e. absolutely) attributable to what she gained from my instruction and counsel. That goes nearly without saying, true, but sometimes truth warrants reinforcement.

Unfortunately, the photo also refutes a central point in the theory, which is that facial hair is a good thing. True, it can be a good thing; it has its time and place. As do ramen noodles. The photo strongly suggests that in this one case, at least, not shaving facial hair can be a terrible error of judgment.

Now is the time to reveal, reader, that Ms. Shinigami-Sidhe took only one class from me. I didn't have time enough to fill her with all of my wisdom. We just scratched the surface. I am in no way responsible for the flaws in her essay.

Those are hers.

4. I'm anti-Hitler from head to toe. Even my moustache is anti-Hitler. Whereas Hitler grew his moustache in a little Charley Chaplainesque square, my lip won't grow hair there. At all. Take that, you bastard.