Thursday, March 11, 2010

"Hey babe, your hair's alright..."

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[The Illustration Friday prompt for this week is "brave."]

Today we see some results of the truth and reconciliation hairstyle challenge--feel free to jump in--which all started back in 2008, when Manfred wrote,
"once I get a scanner, I shall put my own eighties [hairstyle] pictures up here, heh heh...."

And he finally did last week, as you may have seen.
I was quite interested to recognize his extended forelock on a soldier, right, in the famous painting The Death of General Wolfe, 1770, by B. West.
I expect they used bear grease back then.
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Momo bravely takes up the challenge and posts on her blog a picture of herself as a teenager.

Her hairstyle reminds me of John Travolta's (left) as Vinnie Barbarino in Welcome Back Kotter (1975–1979).
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Blogless bink e-mailed a before and after set:
below, left, age seven (natural color, but her mother made her sleep with curlers in her hair)
and, below, right, in 1985.
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She says the local alt/punk band Tetes Noires, below, probably influenced her choice of hair color.
"Tetes Noires, named best new local band by Mpls/St Paul Magazine, circa 1983," from Camille J. Cage.

One more bink, which she dedicates to Manfred:
"It's all about attitude and gel."

And here's Maura, below, 1985, who writes that she wants the Pat-from-EastEnders Bad Earrings Award. And adds, "Only because I love you am I willing to humiliate myself so."

Below: Fresca at the ocean, 1984

This two-tone modified Mohawk is as weird as my hair ever got.

I'm sure I was thinking David Bowie, but ended up with a bastard child of Annie Lennox (touch, 1984) and Molly Ringwald (with Jon Cryer in Pretty in Pink, 1986).
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I feel a mix of pride, tenderness, and chagrin toward images of our younger selves.

I don't know about the others, but I was scared and sad and generally out of sorts a lot,
but I'm reminded I was gutsy a lot too, and eager to take life for a spin.
I like that. A lot. Even if I don't always like the hair that went with it.

I'm also hugely relieved that much of the fear and sadness wore away over time--or, anyway, they're not as everpresent-- while the bedrock of curiosity about life remains.

I'm also surprised when I look at our pictures, some of them anyway, at how we pulled it off, how much we looked like we were trying to look.
I don't know if we knew how perfectly of our times we looked, until the times had passed.

What will we think looking back twenty years from now?

10 comments:

  1. F---I love that two-tone mohawk!

    As for bink, of course I'm biased b/c I get to lay my head down on the pillow next to her, but what a little hottie. That blue shirt/black hair one reminds me a little (in the face) of that averted gaze photo of her you took in Sicily---she's wearing a yellow shirt, black sweater and holding a glass of wine, remember?

    !Viva el pelo malo (sorry, I know Italian would sound better but Spanish is my second tongue!)

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  2. Twenty years from now we'll probably cringe looking back on our hair now (I've had some blond fiascos in recent years!). But I'm sort anticipating going gray (a long ways off I think) as it seems to to me a far better base for color or extreme haircuts than the dull hair-color I have now. Punking it up in old age might be a hoot!

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  3. As a youngin', I don't really have any bad cuts to speak of, (although honestly, none of these are really bad), but these lovely photos are inspiring me to head straight to a barber and get a cut worth remembering in 20 years.

    Oh, and Fresca: the Hawk is MADE OF WIN. WILLIAM SHATNER WISHES HE HAD HAIR SO HE COULD GET A BADASS CUT LIKE THAT. IF ONLY HE HAD A WOMB, HE WOULD CARRY THAT HAIRCUT IN IT, BECAUSE....YEAH.

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  4. Bink and Maura, adorable!
    Fresca, I've always wanted a Mohawk! and it's never too late. But I have to wait until my teenage child is too old to be mortified by her mother's extravagances.

    ROFLMAO Margaret! Comment Win!

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  5. PS> squinting at the Tetes Noires photo, I see at least two women who had the asymmetrical punk/new wave do that I had for a couple of years, probably at the same time they were playing!

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  6. I wish I had remembered to bring my messy-hair photo from school days. It's been worse, hair-wise, but nothing lately to report. (although I do have a beauty appt. coming up and I hope nothing bad comes of it) OH, yes, what will we think in 20 years?

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  7. Blimey!
    Well, I think we all looked rather wonderful....no mainstream 'dos for us!!!

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  8. Thanks, all!

    Spent the day reading about the French & Indian War, you know, and now I'm thinking... hm... I never grew a FULL Mohawk...
    wouldn't it look wild in grey hair?

    And the publisher keeps asking me to submit a photo for publicity purposes...

    Maybe now is the time?!?

    After all, as Margaret says, I too want
    "a cut worth remembering in 20 years."

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  9. 1. The painting of the soldier reminds me of something I ponder now and then: the outcry over the Beatles' haircuts in the '60s. The people who complained were people who probably didn't mind the flowing locks of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach (even though Beethoven was probably the only one of them to be long-haired without a wig). Didn't men wear their hair long, or at least longish, until WWI or something? All right, there had been a hiatus of a couple of decades when the Beatles came along, but how could the concept be so alien to people?

    2. Both my sister and I have had very similar haircuts to the black one that Bink sports in the photo! I miss the short hair in a way, but it was more sensitive to bad hair days than my current style.

    3. Annie Lennox is a dangerous hair role model. I once got a haircut like hers, and it was a disaster. You need to look like Annie Lennox all over to pull it off.

    4. Brave, punky haircuts of grey hair FTW! It's definitely worth trying!

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  10. ANNIKA:
    1. Good point.
    " Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it"--guess this goes for hairstyles... and intolerance too.

    2. Yeah, short hair, unless you keep it very short, requires more upkeep to look good,
    and as a physically lazy person, I tend to wear mine long.
    Every once in a while it drives me crazy and I get it all lopped off and start again.

    3. DItto David Bowie!
    Being entirely un-Bowie/Lennox shaped, I often looked like a disaster.

    4. Thanks for the encouragement. Stay posted... : )

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