R.I.P. Farrah And Michael (We Loved Your Hair, Among Other Things)

Oodles of words have been spilled about the deaths this past Thursday of both Farrah Fawcett, at age 62, and Michael Jackson, age 50, and oodles more will be said. There’s little I can add, except perhaps this. 

When I think back to my youth in the 1970s, I will fondly remember one gift among the many that these pop icons gave us, and that is their hair.

Ah, Farrah’s mane. Long, thick. My God, did she ever have thick hair! And all different shades of blonde on one head.

She was Jill, the sexy athletic Angel. Sabrina (Kate Jackson) was the smart Angel and Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) the girl next door. But we all wanted to be Jill. Or at least, most the girls in my graduating class did.

We knew nothing of “blow-outs” then. Why today, with the right cut, I could replicate a Farrah Fawcett hairdo in no time, thanks to styling gels, leave-in conditioners, multi-sized barrel curling irons, diffusion blow dryers, and round bristle brushes. But back then we had few tools at our disposal.

Nonetheless, I tried my best to turn my frizz into Farrah’s layered mane. As seen in my high school graduation photo, I managed to feather my bangs, which I did by slowly pulling out (and in the process, singeing) the strands of hair clamped in my curling iron.

I settled with partial feathers, a sort of ready-for-take-off look that alone required hours to achieve. The rest of my curls I left be, except for the very ends, which I halfway straightened.

Some girls were excellent at emulating the ‘do, and I was excellent at hating them and their blonde streaks. But most girls, like me, failed miserably at transforming their natural waves into Farrah’s sexy look. And then there were the girls, in hindsight the courageous ones of our day, who didn’t even try to, through their hair, be anything other than who they were.






                     

                                                  




My hair was probably better suited for the male ‘do of the time, which in the late 1970s was donned by Michael Jackson, pre nose jobs, skin bleach, dimpled chin, and straight wig. 

In 1979, his song Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough was in the Top Ten. We danced to his music and tried his moves. And the most fashionable guys — the foxes, as we called them — wore polyester shirts, vests, and slacks.

Not every boy could pull off a Michael Jackson ‘fro, but this had to be about the only time in the past 30 years where men yearned to possess curls worthy of clown wigs. For some, the ‘fro came naturally. For others, it was just a bad perm away.




       

                           




You gave us many gifts, Michael and Farrah. How can a legacy in music and dance compare to the short-lived afro that even you, Michael, discarded once you hit mind-blowing fame and fortune? It is minor, I admit.

And Farrah, you were much, much more than the sum of the seemingly infinite hairs on your head. But in the late 1970s, those hairs were the goal of every female my age, and I don’t think we have ever worked in tandem to achieve a singular style since.

Thank you both. For being the ones who impressed us most when we were at our most impressionable.

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Hair: A 10-Minute Free-Writing Practice

By Christine Swint


Whatever grows out of this pen, the ink, the spidery words trailing across the page, grow out of me like the hair sprouting from my scalp. The words are connected to my brain only in the instant the pen touches the paper, the same way that my hair is a part of my body only on the surface, at the follicle.

I often wonder why humans have so little hair covering their bodies, when our primate cousins have fur aplenty. In his book, The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris theorized that for a while, and I guess he meant a long while, humans became water mammals, losing most of their thicker body hair because it wasn’t needed, keeping only the hair on their head for warmth. But what about pubic hair? Why would that hair have stayed on the body while rest of our skin kept only peach fuzz?

Maybe hair in places other than the head is not as sexually attractive to humans, at least not on the female form. Think how much money women, and some men, spend on ridding their bodies of unwanted hair: laser removal, electrolysis, Persian threading, waxing, tweezing, chemicals that shrivel the hair at the root, and of course, time-honored shaving.

As I grow older, the faint down of a young man’s moustache has appeared above my lip, which I remove every six weeks or so. I also have my eyebrows waxed. I’m not going to reveal anything else here — I’m writing to the bone, but not the bikini line!

I’ve tried threading, because it’s such a clean, non-invasive way of removing hair. It works like a rotary lawn mower, gently swiping the hair off the skin.

Humans do love hair, but we’re selective about where we want to see it.


Links

• Persian Hair Threading on YouTube
• BBC article about Desmond Morris

Christine Swint studied English and Spanish at the University of Georgia, and Spanish literature at Middlebury College in Spain. She writes poetry, fiction, and personal essays in Spanish and English. She lives in metro Atlanta with her husband, two teenage sons, and two dogs, Raf and Duffy. After teaching in the public high school for many years, she now teaches yoga in local community centers.

You can read more of Christine’s writing at her primary blog, mariacristina. Christine also keeps a blog — called Yoga Dreams — about her experiences as a teacher and practitioner of yoga.


-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – HAIR

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Hair – 15min

By Robin


There’s a story about my birth that was told fairly often when I was growing up. It’s a short story, and involves hair.

When my mother was pregnant with me, my father was asked by a friend what his preference was: a boy or a girl? His answer was that he didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl as long as the child was healthy and didn’t have red hair.

I don’t know what he had against red hair. His father had red hair. Whether or not that had something to do with it, I don’t know. He would never say.

I made my appearance in December of 1958 with a blaze of bright red hair.

Sorry, Dad.

I have 40+ cousins on my father’s side of the family. I’m the only one who inherited my grandfather’s red hair. My oldest son also inherited it. We’re the stand-outs in a family of brunettes and blondes.

My father said my hair reminded him of the feathers on a robin’s breast, that bright orangey-red color, and so my parents named me Robin in an age when it was mostly a boy’s name. Perhaps they started a trend, one that’s caught on in recent years, of giving girls’ names that were usually associated with boys.

By the time I was in middle school, the red had started to fade. To make sure it was gone for good, I dyed my hair for the first time when I was in the 8th grade. I went blonde because, it was said, blondes have more fun. I think it was also in the 8th grade that I went from having long hair to a medium-length shag (which was the fashion at the time).

The red has never really come back, although there are signs of it in the streaks of color in my hair. My natural color now is a mixture of blonde, brown, red, gray, silver, and white. Like my cats, I’m a calico.

In the year 2000, I had 16 inches of my hair cut off. I think it took me a period of about two weeks’ time to do it. I had a couple of inches cut off at a time, then I’d go back to the stylist and have him cut some more until I got to the grand total of 16 inches.

There was something very liberating about getting rid of all that hair. I don’t know why I couldn’t do it all at once. I guess a big change like that takes a little time and getting used to.

My hair is relatively short now, unintentionally trendy. A friend recommended a cut called the stacked bob a couple of years ago, thinking it would look good on me. I went to see my stylist and, without having seen a picture of this cut, asked her to give me a stacked bob. It was obviously one of those days when I’d had enough of my hair and I didn’t care what she did to it as long as it was different.

I was delighted (and a little surprised, because this sort of spontaneous decision doesn’t always work out well) to find that I not only liked the style and cut, but so did my hair. I’ve been sporting the look ever since. Then Victoria Beckham came to the U.S. and made the style/cut popular. Mine is not as extreme as hers, but it’s basically the same style and cut. It’s everywhere now.

No matter. I like how it looks on me and will likely keep it in some version of a bob for many years to come. This cut finally did for me what no other color or cut or style ever did — it made me like my hair. It has bounce, it has body, and it’s easy peasy. A quick blow-dry and go.

That’s what I like best about it: no fuss. I’ve never been the kind of girl or woman who fusses with her hair.

Someday I’m going to try out some purple streaks in my hair. Just for the fun of it. Because I’m old enough now to appreciate having fun with my hair.

As long as it doesn’t require too much fuss.

Redhead, Robin’s son when he was young, photo taken in
February 1977, photo © 2008 by Robin. All rights reserved.

Robin is a photographer and writer living in an area she calls The Bogs, also known as the snow belt of northeastern Ohio. (Note: she is a self-described “amateur photographer,” but once you see her work on her blog, Bountiful Healing, you’ll undoubtedly agree with our editing out the word “amateur.”)

Robin used to write but has spent the past two years focusing on photography. Recently, she is once again taking up pen and paper (or keyboard and monitor, as the case may be) for daily writing practice, inspired, she tells us, by the writing practices at red Ravine.

She wrote this essay as a writing practice, unpolished except for correcting typos (which she does automatically as she types), based on the post WRITING TOPIC – HAIR.

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PRACTICE: Hair – 15min

I have brown curly hair. I am the only one in my family with curls. Not just waves, but corkscrew curls. People asked throughout my childhood: Who has curls in the family? The answer to strangers was: Her grandmother had wavy hair. To friends and one another, we joked: Her father was Zorro.

Zorro is what we called the postman who delivered mail on Neat Lane. Zorro stayed out in front of our mailbox and talked to Mom for hours. Literally. He would sit in his little postal truck and Mom would lean against the mailbox, and they would talk.

None of us knew his real name, and no one, not my dad or my older sisters, must have honestly believed that Zorro was a threat. I do wonder, though, what all the other housewives thought as they waited for their mail while Zorro frittered away the morning chatting with Mom.

Mom says my hair started out straight but that after the tracheotomy at 18 months, the time I nearly died of croup that became pneumonia, my hair got curly. She says I was in an oxygen tent for days and that as I lie sleeping and sweating, the ringlets formed.

Like a flower growing, in those nature shows where they speed up time, time lapse photography, that’s how I picture me inside the oxygen tent. Mom and Dad peering into the plastic then wham, straight wispy hair curls up all around, my forehead covered in drops of sweat. I even see their eyes growing bigger, as if witnessing something unnatural. And even though I’m sure this isn’t at all the way it happened, it is forever pressed into my consciousness, my own little film about a time in my life that I was too young to remember.

Nowadays my hair is long. If I were to straighten it, it might even reach my shoulder blades on my back. I usually straighten it when I have a meeting, like in China or with people I don’t know.

Something about straight hair, the notion that it’s not actually me underneath it, allows me to slip into a more businesslike, more powerful persona. I like having the option, and even though I’ve come to love my curly hair, I like that at any time I can blow it out and make it as straight as straight can be.

I was remembering this morning about a time, maybe in my 30s, probably after Em was born, when I lost a lot of hair. I was thinking about the thin-haired women, aunts and cousins, on Dad’s side of the family. I remember I went through a period where I had a recurring dream that I was one of those alien dog-men from Bewitched, the one who didn’t have much hair on top of his head but had instead long, hairy ears.

My dream was that I get up out of bed in the morning, wash my face in the sink, and as I’m rinsing the soap off my face I catch my reflection in the mirror. I am just like the dog-man on Bewitched. Bald on top, long floppy ears down the sides.


-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – HAIR

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PRACTICE – Hair – 15min

I can’t stand loose, grubby hair on the bottom of my socks. I either go barefoot, or wear slippers around the house. But I rarely go barefoot (tender feet). So we’re back to the slippers. My slippers are (were) Minnetonka Moccasins I had for the last, oh, probably, 20 years. They finally wore through at the toe and there was a gaping hole.

But I loved them so much, I kept wearing them. Last time I was in Taos, I forgot them in my room at Mabel Dodge. I’m sure whoever visited my room after I left, went, “What?! Who would have worn these ratty old things!” and tossed them in the garbage. I wonder who found them? Embarrassing.

Now I have no slippers. I need to revisit the Minnetonka Moccasin website and see what they have. In the meantime, I wear an old pair of Ked’s penny loafers around the house. But they aren’t large and roomy like my slippers and won’t accommodate the bulky butter socks I’m wearing this frigid Minnesota January.

I’ve worn my hair short since I was about 19. Back then, the feathered look was in for short hair. Before that, my hair was long the way women wore their hair in the 70’s, hippie or not. I understand that style has come back. But I don’t pay attention to hairstyles anymore. I wear my hair the way I am most comfortable. That’s all there is to it.

I like blonde highlights, but not just highlights, more like a bleached-out tips look. It’s expensive to get the hair highlighted though. So since I’ve been focused more on my writing, I take fewer trips to the hairdresser.

My grandmother was a beautician. She really enjoyed the work, but it was hard to be on her feet so much. I remember sitting in the beauty salon with her in the early 60’s, drinking icy bottled Cokes out of the machine, and listening to women talk with each other while they sat under those robot like hair dryers that wheeled around. The dryers were bulky and heavy and loud.

I was so hot as a kid, sweating all the time in that Southern climate, that one day I begged my grandmother to cut my hair. She finally gave in. My mother was so upset with her that day. She liked my hair long. But I was happy as a clam with my new bob. Eventually, it grew back out again.

I love getting my hair cut. The pampering that goes along with having someone wash and cut my hair for me, that’s what I love. It’s not that often that we get to have someone else wash our hair. Maybe I’m strange, but I find it kind of nurturing.

Hair was a big deal in the 1960’s. Men wore their hair extremely long. Or else medium with those lambchop sideburns. I’ve come to discover that women have much more freedom around the way they wear their hair and the way that they dress. There are more choices for different occasions. Men seem so much more limited in style. But, at the same time, there can be freedom in that simplicity. So maybe it’s a toss up.

Back to the hair on the socks. I don’t know why that bothers me so much. But I really can’t stand to have dirty socks on the bottom. It grosses me out. Does anyone still say that – grosses me out? That’s what happens in writing practice, you show your flaws and weaknesses, you are exposed. Sometimes the writing is just plain bad. 8)

Body hair? I think Americans are obsessed with either having it or not having it. For women, if they have it, it’s a nightmare. They are stared at, laughed at, made to pluck, pull, yank, wax, and conform. If men don’t have it, perhaps they are athletes, or they might be gay and take off every centimeter of hair from their body. There are many gay men who like hairless bodies. I never asked about the particulars of this. I only know what a few friends have told me – every hair removed.

I like soft, fine hair. I tried to grow mine out a few times over the last ten years. I couldn’t stand it past the mid-stage, when it was driving me crazy, flailing in my face, falling limp and lifeless, where there was once short wild hair with lots of body. I’ve got a gray streak on the right front corner of my hair. It’s become kind of a signature. When I get my hair tipped, I never let them cover that up. I’ve grown fond of the original nature of the steak. It appeared sometime in my late 20’s, early 30’s. It doesn’t seem related to age.

When I was in 8th grade, I had hair like Patty Duke, curled under and wrapped to my head, tucked under my chin. It’s like that in my 8th grade school photo. Maybe I had a premonition of things to come. I traded the fake blonde for the authentic silver streak. And that’s what I know about hair.

Oh, one more thing. Last week, one of the popular local news anchors changed her hairstyle. We noticed right away. It made her look completely different and accentuated her already high cheekbones. She’s a beautiful woman no matter how she wears her hair. But the new cut had bangs and wasn’t as flattering as the old one.

Within, two days, she had swooped the bangs back under the longer hair and parted her hair on the side again. Back to the old hairstyle. I guess we weren’t the only ones that thought the new doo looked like a mushroom. Think of the pressure of being a news anchor, in the public eye every day, two or three times a day. No thanks. I’ll stick with writing every day, alone, from the comfort of my cave.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, January 31st, 2008

-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – HAIR

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WRITING TOPIC – HAIR

Hair, pen and pencil doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.


Maybe it’s the wind today. It’s a hair-raising wind. The kind of wind that would blow off a toupee or at the very least make the curly-headed among us look like we’ve been electrocuted.

Maybe it’s all the sickness around these days. Days spent in pajamas, stuffy head stuffed between pillows. Mega-bedhead.

Whatever it is, Hair is on my mind. Hair Brain. Hair Hair. Er, um. Hair we are.

Think about hair. It grows on your head, on your face, all over your body.

Or not.

How do you look at hair. Does it define you? Do you have curly hair or straight hair? Long, short, or a confused mullet? Do you wax your hair? Bleach it? Color it each month?

 It always seemed to me that men wore their beards like they wear their neckties, for show.  ~D.H. Lawrence

Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers.  ~Fran Lebowitz

They say we always want the hair we don’t have.

How about you? Do you hate your hair or love it? What are your earliest hair memories?

Set your sights on locks, beards, strands, tresses, cowlicks, fuzz, frizz, wisps, dredlocks, curls, whiskers, thatches, mops, split ends, fros, hairy backs, hairy arms, no hair. Hair and now. For 15 minutes. Everything you know about it or want to say about it.

Get hairy with it. Be bald. Bare your hair. Wig out.

Now go.

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like daughter, like father riddle

 




What do you get when you cross
a rhino knot with an orangutan butt?

A rhino butt, says Em.

Peas in a Pod, Em and her dad watching TV.

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