Archive for the ‘Beard of the Week’ Category
Beard of the Week LXX: "Disproving" Darwin
This week's beard belongs to birthday boy Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), born 200 years ago on 12 February 1809. This photograph (which I have cropped) was taken in 1882 by the photographic company of Ernest Edwards, London.* Many people call Darwin's great idea, common descent through evolution by means of natural selection, the greatest scientific […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science, Reflections
Beard of the Week LXIX: Accordion Virtuosi
This week's beard–not to mention the accordion–belong to virtuoso Swiss accordionist Hans Hassler. Mere hours ago I knew nothing about Mr. Hassler, but thanks to the serendipity of free association with google images,* I now know more. Here is a thumbnail biography (source): Hans Hassler was born in Switzerland in 1945. He studied accordion with […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXVIII: Being in the Art
This week's beard belongs to filmmaker Daniel Anker. Here's a convenient biographical sketch (from the 2007 Florida Film Festival, also the source of the photo): Filmmaker Daniel Anker has been a producer/director of independent feature documentaries for more than a decade. His credits include Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, for which he received an Oscar nomination […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXVII: The Age of the Sun
This week's majestic beard belongs to Sir William Thomson, Baron Kelvin* (1824 – 1907) or, simply, Lord Kelvin as he's known to us in the physical sciences. This is the same "Kelvin" as in the SI unit "Kelvins", the degrees of the absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. The photograph was taken c. 1900 by T. & […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week LXVI: Cubism
This week's beard belongs to art dealer Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), seen here in a portrait painted by Pablo Picasso in 1910. The painting is currently in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow. When I was much younger I could get quite excited about modern art and the avant garde. Now it seems more like […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXV: A New Year, A New Art
This week's beard belongs to Dutch-born artist Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853–1890), an artist who, these days, really needs no introduction. This visual extract is from the last of his many self-portraits, painted in September, 1889 when van Gogh was living in Saint-Rémy, France.* The obvious point of this extracted beard is that almost anyone […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXIV: Time Marches On
In acknowledgment of the season, this week's beard belongs to Father Time, beautifully sculpted in this high relief bronze medallion by Steven Adams, owner and proprietor of SGA Sculpting and Engraving.* For good allegorical reasons Father Time, who represents the ending of the year, is an old man with a long beard (so we know […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week LXIII: Beard Clubs
This week's beard belongs, by proxy, to Santa Claus. The proxies in this instance are members of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.* (Photo source: David Haldane, "Bearded Santas let their hair down at lunch", Los Angeles Times, 21 January 2008). Surprisingly, this is a group I'd not heard of before. I say surprisingly […]
Beard of the Week LXII: Saint Isaac
As some of you will already have recognized, this week's beard belongs to Isaac, my beloved partner of (so far) 16 years. For obvious reasons this photograph is known around our house as "St. Isaac", certainly among my top-five favorites.* Whether it is obvious or not, he also deserves the appellation "saint" for putting up […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week LXI: Some Guys and Some Dolls
This week's beard* belongs to Clay Boyce, artistic director, chair, and founder of Park Players, a group in Birmingham, Alabama, that performs live outdoor theatre. For example, next year is a big Shakespeare year with "As You Like It" and "Taming of the Shrew" on the playbill. In addition to his chairing and directing, Mr. […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LX: Spock's Theremin
This week's beard belongs to Mr. Spock, the venerable half-Vulcan who served as the science officer aboard the Enterprise in "Star Trek", the original television series. It is thought that he has another name that is unpronounceable by humans. In grade school I identified quite a bit with Mr. Spock. Personally I hoped to develop […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LIX: Accepting PI
This week's beard belongs to Euclid (c. 365 BCE — c. 275 BCE) of Alexandria, Egypt, possibly one of the earliest celebrities to use only one name. Euclid is famous, of course, for writing Elements, his 13-book exposition on geometry and the earliest mathematical textbook and second only to the Bible in the number of […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week LVIII: The Big Oyster
This week's beard belongs to Mark Kurlansky, celebrated author of Salt and a number of other books. In fact, one of those other books is my subject at hand or, perhaps, at chin. (Photograph by Sylvia Plachy, which I took from this citation for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Nonfiction given to Kurlansky.) […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books, Food Stuff
Beard of the Week LVII: A Marine in Vietnam
This week's beard belongs to an unnamed US Marine who fought in the Vietnam War. The date was 1966. I found this photograph on the website of the "White House's Commission on Remembrance". Here is the caption that accompanied the photograph (on this page about the Vietnam War): Date: 1966 Title: U.S. Marines forward reconnaissance […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Beard of the Week LVI: Hand-Made Vacuum Tubes
This week's beard belongs to Claude Paillard, also known since 1959 as F2FO when he apparently received his amateur-radio license. M. Paillard's beard is on view after about 15 minutes in this 17 minute video, although his hands are visible much more frequently. The title of the film, "Fabrication d'une lampe triode" ("Build a triode […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week LV: SX-70
This week's beards belongs to an anonymous actor in this film from 1972. The film is 10:47 long; the actor who provides the excuse to include this first-ever video at Beard of the Week appears very, very briefly at the 1:48 mark; or, if you prefer, it's a different actor who appears very, very briefly […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LIV: Waters of Thirst
This week's beard belongs to British writer Adam Mars-Jones (b. 1954); I haven't yet identified the terrier (despite the fact that they seem to be always depicted together / photo source). Mars-Jones has a large literary reputation for an author with — until now — a surprisingly small output of fiction. I know him for […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week LIII: The National Portrait Gallery at 40
This week's somewhat stern beard (with eyebrows to match) belongs to Adolph Cluss (1825–1905), an architect born in Germany, who immigrated to America, working in Washington, DC. A few years ago the Washington Post described him as "without question the least known of Washington's most important architects."* As used in the title of that article, […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LII: The Crown Prince of Norway
This week's regal beard belongs to Norwegian Crown Prince Håkon Magnus (or, as frequently rendered, Haakon Magnus). Prince Håkon came to our attention thanks to Chris Ambidge, friend of this blog and BoW devotee; the photograph is originally by Sean Hayford O'Leary. Born in 1973, Håkon became crown prince when his father was crowned Harald […]
Beard of the Week LI: Promoter & Defender of Equality
This week's beard belongs to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (born: 1945), the president of Brazil. Lula was first elected in October 2002; he was re-elected in October 2006, extending his term until 2011. Upon the first news of his first election, the Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald lead with this news: Sao Paulo: Leftist former […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity