Seinfeld Ethnography (34)—Mustachioed

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific.

Click below for all "Seinfeld Ethnography" posts: 

George Eats Trash     No Soup for You     Elaine Exclaims    The Puffy Shirt    Poppie's Pizza     Mr. Bookman

Marine Biologist         The Doorman          Opposite George   Newman's Mail   The Bootleg         Marriage
Just Dessert               Sleep Desk             Late Coffee            High Stakes        Motor Oil              Downtown 
Code Cracking           Nonfat Yogurt          Bad Boy                 It's Not You         I Can't Be...          Exploding Wallet
Elaine Flies Coach    The Close Talker     The Alliance           Broccoli               Coated Culture    Dinner Party
George's Friend        Jerry's Haircut          Face Paint             Mustachioed       Smoking              East River
Pool Man                   Dunkin' Joe              Life Lessons          Reckoning          Dog Medicine      Shower Heads
Looking Busy            George Tips             Kramer's Job          Empty Tank
Click here for the reference to the "Argonauts" title, below.
Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific 
Picking right up from our last Seinfeld Ethnography post, we will spend a little time today exploring the cosmetic and social implications of facial hair. In their comfortable booth at Monk's restaurant, George and Jerry discuss northern European ethnicity while sporting distinctive above-the-upper-lip hair styles. George wonders about the nature of identity and employment (wondering aloud about his appearance). Jerry would rather have gone on a real vacation than this "vacation from ourselves" that lands them in the corner diner, reading newspapers, and scratching their noses. Take a look.

Mustachioed 0:50

"Then who are the Dutch?" asks George with some urgency. How much does he want to know about a certain East India Company in an increasingly globalized world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Battles for supremacy on "Formosa"? Smuggling? Bankruptcy ending the company's influence?

[b] The Works RF

Not much at all, as it turns out. George wants a vacation from himself, and he takes Jerry along for his (Dutch) company. It turns out that they both will need a little more—or less—hair if they want to escape from themselves. Mutton chops? Buzz cuts? Maybe a job?

***  ***

My question for today is about facial hair and identity. Beards are one thing—storied appendages framed by culture and history. Whole gendered groupings of adults (often called "males") in many periods of human history have been distinguished by beards. Tightly groomed or flowing in hirsute profusion, the beard is as much a cultural marker as a sign (probably well understood by our Paleolithic ancestors) that the instruments of close grooming were unavailable.

The mustache is different. It is hard for me to imagine even the most debonair mastodon hunter outlined by a finely honed pencil mustache as he sharpens his spear over the morning fire. By the Neolithic, it was possible to scrape facial hair (and a few gobs of skin) from a hardy face, but the technology was little match for the concomitant, embodied pain.

It doesn't take many hours spent watching, say, NFL football broadcasts to see that obsession with facial hair technology is perhaps second only to beer in financial focus among American men. Scratching, bleeding, scraping, and general dermatological misery (along with the occasional cool, bracing recovery) is the order of our time. With beards—whether today or while enjoying a roasted leg of mammoth—the equation is simple: keep 'em trimmed...if you can.

The mustache is different; it is all about trimming. Indeed, there is no mustache without powerful distinctions between a naked face and a small copse of stubble. Mix technology, artistry, daring, and a little testosterone—voici, we have a mustachioed face. It is that simple...and complex.

We will complete today's cultural and historical lesson with a look at hair in three prominent locations in time and space. Because I am not near my personal library this week, I will have to make a departure from the usual philosophical and anthropological texts that conclude our weekly Seinfeld Ethnography posts. Don't worry, though. In a week or so, I plan to examine the role of facial hair in the history of anthropology. You have no idea how interesting this might be. Look for that in early January.

[c] Über RF

In the meantime, I have chosen three diverse texts, all of which deal in one way or another with facial hair. Interestingly enough, none of them deals with mustaches. I find this fascinating. Beards have power (and so does hair, as Samson, Delilah, and the Monkey King could attest); mustaches are, well, something else. We'll return to them in future Round and Square posts. 

Our first text gives a brief picture of the Norse über God Thor and his fiery beard. The second is a snippet from the classic Chinese narrative Journey to the West, which details the travels of a strange band of travelers in seventh century China who journey through untold perils to find the sacred (Buddhist) scriptures in the shadowy and magical lands of "China's" westland.  Hair is magical here. 

Finally, we conclude with the twelfth sonnet from Shakespeare's admirable collection of structured lyrics. I have always enjoyed memorizing, thinking about, and discussing The Sonnets, but today's search through them might have been the strangest I have ever undertaken. If you have never read through great verse in pursuit of references to facial hair, well, your literary studies are unfinished.

Myths of the Norsemen
Helene Guerber (1909)

[d] Thornder RF

As he was god of thunder, Thor alone was never allowed to pass over the wonderful bridge Bifröst, lest he should set it aflame by the heat of his presence; and when he wished to join his fellow gods by the Urdar fountain, under the shade of the sacred tree Yggdrasil, he was forced to make his way thither on foot, wading through the rivers Kormt and Ormt, and the two streams Kerlaug, to the trysting place.

Thor, who was honored as the highest god in Norway, came second in the trilogy of all the other countries, and was called "old Thor," because he is supposed by some mythologists to have belonged to an older dynasty of gods, and not on account of his actual age, for he was represented and described as a man in his prime, tall and well formed, with muscular limbs and bristling red hair and beard, from which, in moments of anger, the sparks flew in showers.
                    First, Thor with bent brow,
                    In red beard muttering low,
                    Darting fierce lightnings from eyeballs that glow,
                    Comes, while each chariot wheel 
                    Echoes in thunder peal,
                    As his dread hammer shock
                    Makes Earth and Heaven rock,
                    Clouds rifting above, while Earth quakes below.
                                                                    —Valhalla, J.C. Jones[1]

Journey to the West
Wu Cheng'en (Sixteenth Century)
Arthur Waley (Translated 1943) 

[e] Monkeyjourney RF

The combat began at dawn and lasted till the sun sank behind the western hills. The One Horned Ogre and all the kings of the seventy-two caves were captured and carried away. Only the four generals and the monkeys escaped and hid in the far recesses of the cave. But Monkey all alone, cudgel in hand, held back the kings of the Four Quarters, Vaisravana and Natha, warring with them half way up the sky. At last, seeing that dusk was at hand, he plucked a handful of his hairs, tossed them out, crying 'Change!' Whereupon they changed into thousands of monkeys each armed with a metal-plated cudgel. They drove back Vaisravana, Natha, and the four kings. Then Monkey, at last victorious, withdrew the hairs and returned to his cave. At the Iron Bridge, he was met by the four generals and all the host of monkeys. On seeing him they wailed three times, and laughed, hee-hee, ho-ho, three times. 'What made you wail three times and laugh three times when you saw me?' asked Monkey. 'We wailed,' they said, 'because the One Horned Ogre and the seventy-two kings were defeated and captured, and because we had to fly for our lives. We laughed with joy because you have come back victorious and unharmed.'[2]

The Sonnets—12

[f] Shakestache RF

William Shakespeare (1609)
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from head did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake 
And die as fast they they see others grow,
     And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
     Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.[3] 

Notes
[1] Helene A. Guerber, Myths of the Norsemen (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006), 67-68.
[2] Arthur Waley, translator, Monkey (New York: Grove Press, 1970), 61.
[3] Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 96. 

Bibliography
Guerber, Helene A. Myths of the Norsemen. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2006.
Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Waley, Arthur, translator. Monkey. New York: Grove Press, 1970. 

NEXT
Wednesday, January 4th
Smoking Kramer
Kramer makes his apartment into a smoking lounge. The rest is history (and culture)...and litigation.