Here’s an article I came across in the London Times, 1939, regarding the inherent beauty of the beard as a subject for photography.
Coincidentally (or not?), 1939 is the same year of LIFE Magazine’s epic double-page photo-spread exalting every type of beard! What a year to be alive!
Full transcript of the article below.
Official Wondermark beard correspondent Pat Race writes in to share this stirring highlight video his team shot at the 2009 World Beard & Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska. If you would like to see three minutes of amazing beard after amazing beard after amazing moustache after amazing moustache, are you ever in luck.
He’s also got a longer video account of his and his cohorts’ trip to the WBMC up at his blog. Thanks for sharing, Pat!
We’ve hit the ground running with the new Monocle Poppers shop! See, my in-laws are visiting, and they are the type who cannot sit still. They need projects. They brought tree-trimmers with them from Seattle to attack some branches outside my apartment while my wife and I were at work. These people are doers. So, they are here at the office helping me put cards into envelopes today! Hooray! We are having a grand time. Thank you for buying cards, and please keep doing so. These people need things to do.
The runaway hit so far has been the Multi-Purpose Card, and I can certainly see why — you can use that guy for everything for the rest of your life. You literally will never need to buy another greeting card, if you buy several dozen of those (like some people already have). Marvelous.
Here’s another card that’s new to the shop this season:
It is a TRUTH FROM HISTORY.
As reported in the New Hampshire Sentinel, June 20, 1855:
The Albany Argus has espoused the beard movement. This is its argument: – “We have come to the conclusion that the practice of shaving is alike ridiculous and absurd, and that it violates one of the laws of nature. Now, our beard was not given us for no purpose – that is evident. It was created for some wise purpose, and that was to keep the face and throat warm, and thus be conducive to health. Let us look at a few facts. It has been calculated that if one shaves three times a week, it grows twenty times as fast as if he did not shave. Allowing two inches as the annual growth of the beard, it will be seen that a man cuts off forty inches, or more than a yard of hair a year, and the nutriment which supports this, and is thus wasted, might have gone to nourish other parts of the body, and render him a healthy and handsome man! Again, allowing twenty minutes to each shaving operation, three times a week, amounts to one hour a week, – fifty-two hours a year. Supposing a man to shave forty years, we find he has consumed about three months in the simple act of shaving ; and calculating the expense of each operation at the small sum of six cents, we find it has cost him three hundred and sixty dollars. In view of these facts, we cannot but regard the practice of shaving as a decidedly barbarous one, and which ought to be discountenanced by the progressive civilization of the age.”
For more on the Beard Movement of the 1850s, see my interview with the world’s foremost beard expert.
p.s. do you think “shaving / barbarous” was pun-intended because I DO
LINK ROUNDUP for a lazy weekend:
Here is an interview with me at Comic Book Resources! Representative quote: “Wondermark is officially, canonically, an allegory about bears in America.”
Sesame Street Fighter is exactly what it sounds like.
From Timothy R., some crazy pictures of a “Victorian computer command center organ cockpit desk thingy.” If anyone ever asks you what “steampunk” means, there are worse places to start your explanation than with these pictures.
And from Kirk B., a video of a workplace beard contest prize-bestowment ceremony, with a very familiar prize presented to the champeen…
Kirk annotates the video thusly:
A while back I bought your Hierarchy of Beards poster because I thought it was awesome but I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. I had it sitting on the mantel in my living room and it ended up being a great conversation-starter when I had people over. My father has had a beard since he was in college and I have only seen him clean-shaven twice in my life. Unfortunately for me, my facial-hair-growing prowess has been a disappointment to my family. I originally bought the poster in hopes that it would inspire my facial-hair follicles to work harder.
So, at the beginning of February, several of my coworkers embarked on a beard contest which lasted five weeks. I decided to donate the poster as the prize. Unfortunately I did not win the beard contest; I
didn’t even place. But it was fun and I feel like we did our part in raising beard awareness.
You hear that? Be more aware of beards. Kirk demands it.