Archive for the ‘Beard of the Week’ Category
Beard of the Week XXXI: Beauty in Science
This week's beard belongs to geneticist Sean Carroll, professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of the book Endless Forms Most Beautiful, which is what this post is really about. The book, that is to say, although it does demonstrate that I'm not above finding a scientist attractive for his […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week XXX: Bauhaus Style
Let's get the year of beards started with a bit of style–Bauhaus style, to be specific. This week's beard belongs to Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879–1940). The upper photo shows Klee as most of the world might have seen him; the lower image is Paul Klee as seen by Paul Klee. He taught at the […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week XXIX: A Lovely Face
This week's honorary beard — his mustache, actually — belongs to Bruce Rogers. Rogers' name will be unfamiliar to most except for certain connoisseurs, in this case aficionados of typefaces, by whom his name is venerated. Rogers was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1870 and died in 1957. To say that he is a renowned […]
Beard of the Week XXVIII: Gutenberg
This week's beard belongs to Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468), often described as "the inventor of printing". That rather overstates the case, but someone needs to be called the "inventor of printing"; Gutenberg is the "canonical inventor" in the terminology of John H. Lienhard, the author of the excerpt below.* In fact, printing had existed for […]
Beard of the Week XXVII: Tallis & His Scholars
This week's beard belong to English composer Thomas Tallis (c. 1510–1585), often hailed as the "Father of English Music". (Here's a brief biography.) However, this is only tangentially about Thomas Tallis. I invoke Tallis' name because a couple of weeks ago — on Sunday, April first, to be precise — Isaac and my Dad and […]
Beard of the Week XXVI: Unjustly Neglected Beards
Gosh but it has been a long time since we've had a beard of the week. I suppose I've been preoccupied by finishing some projects for Ars Hermeneutica and by our production of "Kiss Me, Kate!". Fortunately the latter is now over with and some level of schedule flexibility returns. Let me introduce the beard […]
Beard of the Week XXV: Welcome 2007
Happy New Year from your hosts Jeff (above) and Isaac (below). Our South Park doppelgängers come via this amusing divertissement for creating such. We do look tolerably like these guys, but not too much I hope. Pondering that makes me think that occasionally we see people who strike us as looking like they are cartoon […]
Beard of the Week XXIV: Jolly Ol' Tom Nast
This week's beard is a double-header, if you'll pardon the expression: Thomas Nast (1840-1902), German-born American political cartoonist, and Santa Clause (unknown), as drawn by Thomas Nast in 1881 for Harper's Weekly. (The latter link is an interesting essay about how St. Nicholas was transformed in America into the red-suited Santa Clause that is so […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Reflections
Beard of the Week XXIII: A Natural Selection
This week's beard is worn by none other than Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882), the infamous, the reviled, the namesake of the dreaded Darwinism, author of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Quite without my really meaning for it to happen, the past month or more has […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books
Beard of the Week XXII: Artistic Celebrities
Recently I read a very nice essay by Bryan Appleyard* about literary biographies, which he describes as "one of the dominant forms of our time". He establishes his theme right at the beginning: Jane Austen had a lesbian affair with her older sister, Cassandra. It’s obvious, really. There was “the passionate nature of the sibling […]
Beard of the Week XXI: Renaissance Polyphony
This time I'm in the mood for some Renaissance polyphony, brought to us tonight by one of its masters, Heinrich Schütz, whose rather stylish and stylized beard is featured in the two portraits at right. In fact, if it helps you get in the mood, we are listening to a recording of choral music by […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week XX: Election Day
In recognition of American democracy's return from a near-death experience with yesterday's election, this week's beard is presidential: it belongs to Ulysses Grant, the eighteenth president* of the United States (from 1869 to 1877). I have nothing to say politically about Grant. He's always been far down on anyone's list of greatest US presidents, but […]
Beard of the Week XIX: NCOD
Today,# here in the US, it's National Coming Out Day, a day chosen to commemorate the first "March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights" on the same date in 1987. I didn't make it to that one, but I was there with Isaac for the next March in 1983, along with about a million […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week XVIII: Bulgarian Wedding Bells
This week's beard belongs to Azis, described by the Sofia News Agency as "Bulgaria's famed Roma transvestite". It seems that Azis, following what was to be his farewell appearance in Sofia, was set to fly to Germany to get married. The original caption to the lower photo read: Bulgaria's famed Roma transvestite Azis (R) exchanged […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week XVII: Medieval Astronomy
Isaac and I have both recently finished reading Tycho & Kepler, by Kitty Ferguson, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. (There's more about the book in our Science Besieged Book Note.) Thus it happens that this week's beard and rather extravagent mustache belongs to the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Tycho, active in the second half of […]
In: All, Beard of the Week
Beard of the Week XVI: Queen of Queens
Most of my life I have been a partisan of "classical" music. No doubt this has something to do with my starting to play 'cello when I was in the fourth grade, but still it took time. In my junior-high years (nowadays: middle-school years) I adored my parents' few recordings of popular classics, particularly Johann […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Faaabulosity
Beard of the Week XV: Pride Edition
This week's beard belongs to our friend in Toronto, the faaabulous* Chris Ambidge. He is shown here# in the 2006 Gay Pride Parade in Toronto, sporting his traditional gay-pride regalia in homage to HM Elizabeth II. No doubt this photo of him would make some people uncomfortable because of his apparel, which is a shame; […]
Beard of the Week XIV
We happened to be in Rome this time during the World Cup Soccer playoffs, which created several curious memories. The championship was being hosted in Germany. We flew to Europe and back on Lufthansa — entirely pleasant flighs, by the way — which had a severe case of World-Cup fever itself. The noses of many […]
Beard of the Week XIII
The rather tardy BoW this week belongs to your truly. In this shot I am caught eating a sardine in — naturally — a Sardinian restaurant called "La Tana Sarda" (in the San Lorenzo section of Rome, Via Tiburtina, 134). It was thought of as "Jeff's Favorite Restaurant", but that was only because Isaac and […]
Beard of the Week XII
Yes, we are back from our trip to Rome. We returned late last Thursday night having lost none of the 22 people in our group. This was Isaac's first venture organizing a tour, and he had great fun as tour guide, mother hen, and font of all historic and cultural wisdom about Rome, ably aided […]