Sunday, January 19, 2020

TIL Bangs are a Thing, The Glory of Wolves, Words to Live By

All this time, I have been blithely going about my life minding my own business and getting my hair cut on the reg, only to be completely blindsided by the fact that Bangs are a Thing. I had no knowledge of this. I have never not had bangs. I have a big, pale, horsey forehead and I don’t look good with long lanks of hair just hanging down my face. So the most practical way of dealing with that is to maintain bangs. But thanks to an accident of Facebook, I was recently introduced to a barrage of articles on women’s lifestyle websites abhorring bangs and all they stand for. Apparently bangs are for twee, breathy girl-women who love collage, vintage teacups and poetry. (Guilty on the collage, teacups and poetry, but that has nothing to do with my bangs!) Bangs are the favored hairstyle of that bogeyman of pop culture misogyny, the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. Bangs are for overwrought goths who play acoustic guitar. Bangs are a visual blight and cause over-emphasis on your big, ugly nose. Bangs will cause your forehead to break out, simultaneously age you and make you look like a little girl, and are the last resort of the broken-hearted and those desperate to return to their childhood. I was completely shocked that all of this bang-hate was going on under my over-emphasized nose this entire time. I had no idea. I never attached any cultural significance to my bangs whatsoever and never even thought about them as anything other than a forehead-covering. (And just for the record, my forehead is not oily and does not break out. Cripes, people.)

It seems, then, that it is incumbent upon me to step up and defend the defenseless: If you are afraid of bangs, you are a dull, unimaginative person with outmoded ideas about femininity and hair, you have no personality, you are quite possibly pathologically vain, and you will never know the joy of collage, vintage teacups, and poetry. Bangs rule, your boring hair drools.

In other internet news, my Youtube feed recently popped up a video of Jocko Willink, (who I’m going to see at the Moore next week!) watching scenes from war movies and commenting on their realism or lack thereof. It turns out that there is a whole series of these types of videos, and I found them riveting and immediately went straight down a binge-watching rabbit hole. My favorite so far in the series is the one with wildlife biologist Forrest Galante (a marvelous name for a wildlife biologist), who broke down scenes from Anaconda, Jaws, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Grey, and other movies. He was a total delight. He is clearly very passionate about animals and has a wealth of knowledge. In just over thirty minutes, I learned a ton about bears, snakes, sharks and pigeons, and I re-kindled my adoration for wolves, an animal that has shown up in my dreams frequently over the last several years. I also enjoyed the one by a professional archer, who sagely said on shooting:

You are in control of the moment, the moment does not control you.

I’m getting that printed on a T-shirt.

Since wolves are on my mind, enjoy this video of one of my favorite songs, set to the glory of wolves:

2 comments:

masterpoethere@gmail.com said...

Very enjoyable post, Kristen, and very nice song and video.

Vanessa M said...

I absolutely love bangs! I am constantly schooled on how my hair can't really do them properly though. I have a tiny bit of hair envy for you!