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The Day I Met Dave is a short film with a creepy surprise, and manages to make a minute and a quarter feel like just enough time to get under your skin. Man, I need to shave!
–via Geekosystem
Inflatable Beard – $3.95
Are you having a facial hair emergency? When you absolutely need a beard, but you don’t have time to grow one the Inflatable Beard from the NeatoShop is there for you. Transforming yourself into a distinguished gentleman is just a few puffs away.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Inflatable fun!
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Yes, that's a giant steel wool sculpture of Karl Marx's epic beard by Ukrainian artist Nataliya Slinko for your bourgeois viewing pleasure. Via Eyeteeth
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I see all your smug facial hair photos and raise you this: Cat Beard. Top that! Via I Have Seen The Whole of The Internet
Crochet whiz Cynthia Stenquist wants you to have the beard of your dreams. Its fluffy, soft, removable and doesn’t itch. You can order a customized beard (Viking hat sold separately) for Halloween or whatever–get your Viking on–a must for any pillaging you need to do around town.
This popular item is a growing craze among the young and the old alike. Too young or can’t grow your own beard? Looking for that unique costume accessory for play or Halloween? Let this latest craze be the perfect solution! It offers not only style but also warmth. The beard pictured is made of acrylic boucle yarn in shades of tans and browns. The strands are firmly attached to a crocheted brown beard . The long strands can be braided for that stylish rugged look! Can be made up in other colors, sizes and lengths.
Ah, the 19th century, when men wore their manliness right on their faces -or maybe they were just afraid of the barber. Luckily, cameras were around during the US Civil War so that we may still admire the mustaches, beards, muttonchops, goatees, and sideburns of brave battlefield soldiers. Smithsonian presents 24 of these faces, and asks you to vote for the best. Ambrose Burnside actually had a style named after him. John McAllister Schofield made up for being bald on top with a foot-long beard. And I believe Alpheus Williams could hurt someone with his waxed whiskers. Pick your favorite! Link
The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
by Susanne Fuchs1, Melanie Weirich1, Christian Kroos2, Natalie Fecher1, Daniel Pape3,
and Sabine Koppetsch4
If one walks through the first level of the main building at the Humboldt University in Berlin and looks at the portraits of the researchers who studied there, became professors, and in some cases won Nobel prizes, one may conclude that the most important visual signs of a famous person are being a man and having a beard.
Wearing a beard has a long socio-cultural tradition going at least back to the Pharaohs. The ancient Egyptians associated facial hair with the sexual, religious and social power of the monarch. Indeed, Queen Hatshepsut wore a bodkin beard after her accession to the throne (Wietig, 2005). Lack of facial hair was long considered a sign of weakness
or divine punishment. The first recorded radical shavings were ordered by Alexander the Great to prevent Persians pulling his soldiers’ beards during hand-to-hand fighting. Another tradition relates beards with fertility.
Today, belief in bearded monarchs, male or female, has declined. The general acceptance of facial hair and specific styles of facial hair appears dependent on sex, culture, nation, and fashion. According to the American Mustache Institute, mustache acceptance is between 16 and 35% in the U.S., though between 72 and 94% in Germany. This paper concerns the influence of facial hair on audio-visual speech intelligibility in noise. It is known that watching the speaker’s face increases the intelligibility of speech in noisy environments (Grant and Seitz, 2000). By observing the cyclical opening and closing of the visible jaw, an observer can identify the rhythmic structure of the spoken utterance or even the focus of a particular sequence (Dohen, Lœvenbruck, and Hill, 2005).
Facial hair can cover parts of the face such as the upper lip, the teeth, and the larynx. This modifies the visible area of the open mouth, and hence facial hair is responsible for a kind of natural impoverishment of the visual speech signal. Under normal conditions such impoverishment may be marginal for the intelligibility of speech, since auditory information is fully available. However, under noisy conditions such as a cocktail party (in audiovisual speech research terms: multi-talker babble noise), visual cues may be crucial for increasing speech intelligibility (assuming that listeners want to understand their communicative partners). Based on these considerations, we hypothesize that:
(1) Facial hair hiding visible articulatory movements leads to lower speech intelligibility under noisy auditory conditions, longer reaction time, and lower confidence in recognizing the relevant target words.
(2) The shape and location of the beard is crucial for the reduced speech intelligibility in noise. A mustache hiding upper lip movement has a larger impact on visual speech intelligibility than a long chin beard, hiding the larynx only. So in terms of speech intelligibility, is it time for a shave?
more …
Adam Fisher spent 13 months growing a beard. I had to check to see if we had already posted that part, but they are two different men. Fisher’s beard became a prop for a public service message about our natural resources. -Thanks, Bill!
The blog named Let’s Get Jiggy with Civil War Dudes! features individual soldiers of the Civil War, highlighting their magnificent names, their accomplishments, and their manly facial hair. Pictured is Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox.
He lived during a time when mustaches could be mustaches, and not simply a means to mask a scrawny hipster’s weak chin and acne scars.
Behold the awesomeness of Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Bushrod Johnson, Absalom Baird, John Sappington Marmaduke, and others. All feature links to further information. Link -via Metafilter
If growing a beard were only this simple in the real world! This stop-motion film by Ian Robertson looks as if a lot of time went into it, both in recording and editing. -via the Presurfer
This crocheted cap comes with a built-in beard. It was made by Etsy seller Tara Duff, who has several others for sale, as well. This leprechaun beard/hat is especially cute.
Link via The Presurfer | Duff’s Blog | Photo: Tara Duff
What would Robocop, Hellboy, Batman and other comic characters look like if they had beards? You don’t have to wonder anymore. Behold Croatian illustrator Vanja Mrgan‘s series "Bearded": Link – via Laughing Squid
Imagine sticking 2,222 toothpicks in your beard!
George Gaspar makes history by sticking 2222 toothpicks in his beard, a new world record. Gaspar’s achievement beat previous record holder BeardPick by 222 toothpicks.
The record was set on February 4, 2009 at Gaspar’s home in Sherman Oaks, California. Ayleen Gaspar was present to witness the feat and count the toothpicks.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by oezicomix.
David Traver of Anchorage, Alaska won the World Beard Championship on Saturday with his 20.5 inch beard. 300 competitors were in Anchorage for the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships, and about half were competing for the beard award. Traver’s beard was dyed several colors and woven into a snowshoe shape.
With his beard stylist, Ledjha Carson, Traver months ago started brainstorming a beard shape that was “out of the box,” he said. They considered eagle wings, moose antlers and a sled dog team before settling on the snowshoe. It took Carson 90 minutes to weave it the day of the competition.
“She wanted it right. She was very meticulous,” he said. “But my neck is still stiff.”
Traver, who is 43 and works as a driver for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, got into facial hair competition locally about 10 years ago with the Mr. Fur Face competition during Fur Rendezvous. After that, he got involved with the South Central Alaska Beard and Moustache Club, which bid to bring the international championships to Anchorage this year — beating out Liechtenstein. He dedicated his win to his father, David Traver, who died in September
Traver is willing to shave off his award-winning beard to raise money for his favorite charity, Covenant House. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: ACVB / Rebecca Coolidge)
Police officer Javid Iqbal, 38, of Bedforshire, England, doesn’t just have any beard. No sir – he has what can truly called an "epic beard."
Daily Mail (yes, I know how you guys feel about this newspaper, but they always come up with the most interesting stories …) has more on Javid’s travail and lawsuit involving said epic beard:
A Muslim police officer claims he was forced out of his job by colleagues who made fun of his beard and called him a ‘f***ing Paki’.
PC Javid Iqbal, 38, said white officers openly discussed in front of him how they were ‘ better’ than their ethnic-minority colleagues. [...]
Mr Iqbal says he was sacked after fellow-officers in Luton launched a ‘smear and witch-hunt campaign’ during which they lodged a string of complaints about his performance.
He is taking the Bedfordshire force to an employment tribunal claiming he is the victim of racial and religious discrimination and unfair dismissal.
