Beard of the Week XXXVIII: Every Beard Type
This lovely beard, called an "anchor" style, belongs to Jon Dyer, of dyers.org. I have recently become familiar with the many beards of Mr. Dyer thanks to a pointer from my friend Tim Wilson.
Jon Dyer is clearly a man after my own heart when it comes to an appreciation of beards, with the exception that he can seemingly grow one in any style he pleases.* Witness his epic "The Quest for Every Beard Type", in which he illustrates–with photographs of his own beard on his own face–as many identifiable beard types as he's collected since 1998 or thereabouts.
His story goes like this. Every winter he grows a beard; every spring he shaves it off. For several years, as he's removed his beard, he tries to shape it into as many of the beard types as he can, providing photographic documentation.
I like projects long-term like this, for some reason. At flickr there is one pool/group that fascinates me called "365 Days". Here's the description: "The Challenge: Take one self portrait each day for a year." There are nearly 500,000 photographs in the pool. I love the results. I've always loved portraits, and self-portraits are a particular fascination. There's also something about the challenge of doing one every day for a year: after the first dozen or two the obvious has been exhausted and then the creativity begins. Someday, perhaps, when I feel more attentive, I will do it.
Anyway, I don't really understand shaving off his beard once a year, but since he always grows a beard once a year I don't have any real complaints. One should visit his resourceful beard page for links to the illustrated "Expanded Beard Type Chart" (link above, too), and the FAQ, in which he exposes the weak excuses for what they are of those who refuse to grow their own beards. I don't know that I'd say the illustrated chart shows every beard type but it's a good collection.
His beard page is great fun, entertaining and informative, and sure to help those who just can't figure out how to trim their facial hair. Of course, as we've discussed here before, there may be some controversy over the style labeled "Van Dyke" that some only slightly more anal-retentive than myself believe should be noticeably pointier (i.e., in imitation of van Dyke's beard) to be properly called a "Van Dyke". I, on the other hand, take a slightly less belligerent approach and think that calling it a "Van Dyke" is far, far better than egregiously calling it a "goatee" as so many do these days. I would be ecstatic, of course, if my own suggestion of calling it a "schnauzer" were more widely adopted.
It's been a surprisingly beardy week for friends sending me beard news, not that I'm complaining, of course. I have Mel (The Indextrious Reader) to thank for pointing out to me that Fortune magazine has been running its own contest to identify what they claim is the "best beard" in Silicon Valley. Here is the summary of results and I can't say the results are at all disappointing–Stewart Butterfield looks mighty cute in his beard–although I wouldn't object if an honorable mention went to Zach Nelson for the lovely frosted effect on his schnauzer.
__________
*I am somewhat more folically constrained, but I have, nevertheless, had a beard for some 25 years, give or take.
One Response
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Tuesday, 17 June 2008 at 17.17
Permalink
Jeff, thanks for the writeup and I'm glad you enjoyed the beard page. I have to agree that the chart doesn't have every beard type, but I had to stop at some point because there are so many combinations that the beard chart would've been just too massive. Using "every" sort of makes me a big, fat liar, but it sounds more impressive than the original title, "The quest for a decent number of beard types".