text:
I started graduate school a few years before the Sokal hoax, when what was still transgressive and sexy about literary theory was fighting it out with the sheer ay, caramba factor of such pronouncements as "E=MC2 is a sexed equation." By the time I exited grad school, the feeling of an era being over—however meretricious in some of its particulars the era might have been—was unmistakable. These days, no think tank pundit would bother to denounce literary theory; its biggest stars, by way of generating some final headlines, have publicly disowned it; and no fresh cohort of terrifying intellectual charismatics has crossed the Atlantic to revive it.How many hours of your precious life did you throw away trying to get your mind around literary theory? What else did you fritter away your undergrad years studying and what intellectual pursuit would have been a better use of your time? What ideas did you take seriously then that seem so worthless now?
November 18, 2005
"The con man's game is always the same: sensing what the gull most wants to be true."
34 comments:
- L. C. Staples said...
Trying to find meaning in rock music lyrics has to be high on the list.
- Bruce Hayden said...
Actually, close to zero. I don't know what was wrong with me. I also never tried to play Beatles' records backwards to try and hear the hidden messages on them.
But then, despite going to a small liberal arts school (with a great hockey team - despite losing to UW last week) I gravitated towards the sciences and business early on, as grading there was much more objective, than in, for example, English.
- Icepick said...
What ideas did you take seriously then that seem so worthless now?
The idea that grad school would be a good thing to do. Little did I know....
Still, I built up a lot of positive karma in grad school, with lots of personal torment and suffering. In my next life I hope to come back as something better than a grad student - a dung beatle, perhaps.
- Palladian said...
It's interesting that Metcalf's piece dates the end of the "literary theory" era around the time of Sokal's satirical paper, 1996. In 1996 I was a sophomore in art school, just beginning to take classes in "critical issues" and beginning to have some instructors who implied that all the technique and aesthetics of art I had been asked to consider my freshman year were "falsehoods".
What Metcalf may not realize is that, while PoMo literary theory may have exited stage left in English departments around that time, it had already thoroughly percolated deep into the tissue of quite a number of other liberal arts subjects, fine art being one of the worst. I've long thought that people who fail as actual, bona fide academics, and who desperately need to find some way to earn a living with that phd in comparative ethnic, gender and global studies, quickly see the world of art theory and criticism as juicy quarry. What better group could you find than a bunch of dumb young artists to fob off your half-baked theoretical jargon? In truth, not many, especially young artists in art school who for the most part have not been encouraged to think independently and critically about other subjects and are often not very well or broadly read. The fury with which Baudrillard, Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari, Hal Foster and Rosalind Krauss are hurled at young, paint-spattered heads is alarming and the effects of a casual reading of this stuff is devastating; nothing is more destructive to a young artist's brain than nihilism, and it is nihilism in which these charlatans trade.
Luckily, I had both a naturally skeptical mind and a healthy dose of rural Lutheran intolerance for foolishness so I was able to weather this storm of signifiers and focii and transitional objectifications relatively unscathed, though there were certainly weak moments, such as the week I carried around Hal Foster's anthology "The Anti-Aesthetic" (I didn't read it, I just carried it around). But for the most part I enjoyed learning about the most excessive manifestations of lit theory for my own amusement, and to facilitate informed satire.
Sadly, the cobbled together and reanimated Frankenstein's monster of 80s and 90s postmodernist "theory" (as it was and is called in art school; not art theory or social theory or literary theory, just theory. Like Cher or God or Madonna) is still lumbering around the halls of art schools and graduate departments bludgeoning victims. Toward the late 90s and in my time in graduate school "theory" began to mutate into a pernicious contagion that I call "poetical postmodernism", which is sort of equal parts Foucalt and Mallarmé: theory without any pretense of rigor or detachment.
As I said, good for a lot of laughs, but sadly taken seriously by many who, in saner company, should know better.
- Ross said...
I'm a few years behind everyone else, but I just started reading "The Corrections." I had no idea the collapse of the "theory" professor's life was actually an allegory for the collapse for an entire "academic" "field."
I'll give the field this: There's a worthwhile place for exercising one's powers of parsing, speculation and imagination. But it just wouldn't for a university to offer a major in "bullshitting" -- even though that is what naturally takes up a large piece of most undergrads' time.
- Defiatron said...
The whole lit theory thing is fascinating to me. I spent all my time in science classes, all the way through grad school and never had a clue any of this stuff was going on. I mean, I guess maybe I am oppressing somebody, somewhere with my evil whitebread patriarchal physics and chemistry, but damn if I ever had any inkling. Like being on a whole 'nother planet from the liberal arts grad students.
I read about the Sokal thing during a post-doc 6 years after the fact, and it was so clearly scientifically vacuous that it took weeks of study and discussion with a good friend who is a communications prof to even figure out what was at stake. I can tell you, it hasn't made any deep impression among scientists I know that are interested in literature (and I count myself in this class)- instead, there is the the nagging feeling that the whole lit theory field is intellectually incoherent, that it literally means nothing.
- Palladian said...
Sokal's paper, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" was a parody, so brilliant in its thorough bullshit that it was actually published in a "reputable" PoMo litcrit journal. Sokal wrote quite a bit about his motivations for writing the parody and the implications of the seepage of post-modern nonsense into other fields. Here's his explanation from his website about the affair.
- sonicfrog said...
What ideas did you take seriously then that seem so worthless now?
Uhm... pretty much all of them!
- michael a litscher said...
How many hours of your precious life did you throw away trying to get your mind around literary theory?
None. I saw my literature profs for the pompous asses that they were the moment I came to realize that in their view, Moby Dick wasn't about a man obsessing over a whale to his ultimate death. Oh no, it was - no, needed to be - much more metaphysical than that.
Furthermore, the ultimate - and true - interpretation of Moby Dick was dependant not on the actual words on the page, but on which professor you got stuck with by the registrar's office.
To think that the actual story being told in Moby Dick was actually represented by black words on white paper was so pedestrian, so gauche, so proletarian. Why, we needed these otherwise useless doctorates in literature to profess to us in order to be properly enlightened.
Hogwash. It was nothing more than self-justification for their wasted college years, inflated and undeserved salary, not to mention their ego masturbation.
Michael A. Litscher
Bachelor of Science
Computer Science and Engineering
Milwaukee School of Engineering
Class of 1987
(where 2 + 2 always equals 4, unless you're in the English department where it necessarily equals oh so much more than that)
- Richard Dolan said...
"What else did you fritter away your undergrad years studying and what intellectual pursuit would have been a better use of your time? What ideas did you take seriously then that seem so worthless now?"
As a philosophy major during Vietnam-time (Yale '72), I and others were looking for the Overarching Theory of you-name-it, that would put everything into perspective and provide the ultimate guide to an Authentic and Fulfilling Life. Religion was a non-starter at the time, but the impulse was nevertheless basically that old religious imperative of uniting faith-based idealism with practical action. Except for a few, the Marxist shtick had some shock-value attractiveness but ultimately was just too passe, and its consequences in the real work too gross, to hold much genuine attraction. The frisson of the passing Theories that presented themselves then was all the more intense since so many of the basic texts -- Hegel, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, etc. -- were written in a highly abstract and deeply impenetrable German translated into an equally recondite English.
I have long since concluded that badly written, barely comprehensible prose is not a mark of Deep Thoughts, but just demonstrates the writer's inability to express himself well, probably because he has gotten himself lost in his own semantic fog. As for the antipathy to all things religious, that too has gone by the boards. At first it was just the impulse that sometimes accompanies parenthood, to impress on one's kids the notion that self absorbed materialism is pretty shallow stuff, and at the same time pass on a culture that was important in my own childhood. But in the process I also discovered why that particular culture has survived for millenia, and recognized that it had much to give, in ways that the Overarching Theories of my college days never did.
- Troy said...
Moby Dick is a bit more than a whale tale. The allegory scenes are an attempt to say more than "see whacked out captain chase big fish" (I know it's a mammal dammit!) with wise brutes.
It's not all the Derrida crowd want it to be, but it's a tetch deeper that Grisham, Steele, and your average technical manual -- which is sometimes written by English grad looking for work.
2+2 = 4 always, but sometimes Ahab + white whale + Starbuck > fish story
- Defiatron said...
After reading the article in Slate, the quote from Cardinal Newman- the university shouldn't be seen primarily as vocational school- seems appropriate, and reasonable.
By contrast, the hope that the English dept could somehow subsume all of human knowledge is not so reasonable, I think. I wonder if 'physics envy', or some similar reaction to the idea that science sees itself as emcompassing all things is what engenders this and causes the author to lament the passing of the 'terrifying intellectual charismatics' who could place lit crit on top?
I think science is a great tool. It has the potential to illuminate parts of our nature. But understanding the neurophysiology of orgasm will never be the same as having one, and thus, I have no problem ceding to art its domain. While I'll not likely be a producer of great art, I am certainly a beneficiary.
But to call E=mc^2 a 'sexed equation' because it privileges the speed of light is just nonsense. The fault must lie in the patriarchial biases of algebra (hmm, a Muslim invention) because the equation follows from some definitions (designed to be measurable- any sexist oppression this causes is gravy) and a bunch of mathematics, the sequence of which I had not thought about since my sophomore year in college. This was, on the other hand, a time I was quite interested in chasing women, thereby playing right into all the gender roles I absorbed from society, but I don't think I can foist the blame for that onto Einstein...
- Icepick said...
Dudes, 2 + 2 = 0 and 2 + 2 = 1 are just as true as 2 + 2 = 4. It's really a question of how you define your equivalency relation. And that's NOT lit theory.
- Isaac said...
mod 4 and mod 3. Go algebra!
- jeff said...
What is literary theory? After several years in the Army, I didn't really restart college until 1998. And then I did the Community College thing until I ran out of classes I could take there before transferring to a local mid-level state 4-year school.
Avoiding "English" and other fuzzy stuff that didn't improve my abilities to either understand a computer or write a paper was a goal I successfully achieved.
- Steven Den Beste said...
The conclusion of the article is bogus. He laments that English departments can no longer ask deep questions about meaning and purpose.
We don't need English departments for that; that's what the Philosophy department does.
Which once again leaves open the eternal question: just what does an English professor do?
- Unknown said...
My professors steadfastly rejected literary theory (or perhaps I merely missed it). Really, my experience was unique.
- Icepick said...
Isaac wrote: Go algebra!
Algebra, sweet algebra:
Destroyer of worlds....
- michael a litscher said...
Any day that Steven Den Beste has something pithy to say is a good day.
Nice to see you posting again.
- Ann Althouse said...
sometimes Ahab + white whale + Starbuck > fish story
Hey, nowadays, when people read "Moby Dick," do they have a feeling that Starbuck is an especially important character? If so, should people name coffee shops after other characters in the book to counterpromote them?
- Andrew said...
Steven, philosophy departments too frequently get wrapped up in definitional questions to ask those deep questions. That's not to say that English departments avoid definitional questions, but I should think that having more people asking more deep questions would be a positive thing and that having more angles on the big questions would likely produce valuable comparisons of conclusions.
I personally have found it a great deal easier to study philosophical concepts through either a work of fiction or through a religious worldview--these focus and filter certain aspects of the larger concept and allow for a partial but ultimately deeper understanding of the original question.
Limiting big-question-asking to one department, which is often inefficient at asking the big questions, seems to be a rather absurd suggestion to me.
Ann, Stubb's Coffee just doesn't have the same ring to it, sorry.
- tdocer said...
I was an English major (with PoliSci and Philosophy minors) at a small southern college, and I suffered through many tortured sessions of lit theory and emotive writing 101. I didn't buy the lit theory thing, and it showed. Shockingly, I was *not* the most popular student in the department.
The final straw met the camel several years ago: the English department chair asked if alum actually using their English education would mentor current students. I was gainfully employed as a tech writer, so I agreed. During an e-mail exchange with a student who professed an interest in tech writing, I advised her to A) take more writing-focused classes than lit classes, B) stop following the writing advice of Prof X, and C) put down the thesaurus and slowly back away. I haven't heard a word from an English student or professor since.
On a happier note, I still keep in contact with my PoliSci and Philosophy profs. And when the gift drive comes round every year, my check gets split evenly between those two departments.
In non-answer to Mr. Den Beste's question, I have no idea what English professors do.
- somross said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- somross said...
My goodness, what a lot of venom about English professors. I am one. For the most part, we teach 18 year olds how to write. If we're lucky, we get to teach novels, poetry, and plays, and hope that students learn to love to read for the rest of their lives. We teach them that there are many ways to look at literature, some of which are informed by theories. Literary theory is hardly new: a look at 18th and 19th century writers will show you that they looked at Shakespeare, for instance, in a particular ways that we no longer do. Sorry if some of you got a bellyful of some indigestible postmodernism in your undergraduate days.
- XWL said...
As a recovering English Major, it's the squishiness of the study of English that disturbs those who are wired for more linear thinking (and as someone whose been exposed to those classes, I feel a compulsion to explain that these assumptions are my own and I don't claim any ownership on facts, but as all viewpoints must be considered valid from the perspective of the viewer, I feel justified in asserting the privelege of communicating my personal views, phewwwh).
If you organize the world in a linear way then being forced to discuss semiotics when you just want to know how to punctuate a sentence or make a persuasive argument can be frustrating.
English professors have free rein to discuss current events, history, philosophy, anthropology, theology, sociology, and any other -ology that strikes their fancy since all things are expressed by language.
All subjects are text, and all texts are possible subjects for the study of English.
Most English professors don't abuse the posibilities created by these facts, but enough do that those impacted by that abuse focus on the bad examples rather than remembering all the good instructors, and the legends of these abuses grow until they represent the whole of the discipline to many outside observers.
Just cause it's unfair and untrue doesn't mean that isn't how many see things.
- XWL said...
New theory (ignore the old theory).
It's the 'frenchness' of it all.
Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, and to some extent Saussure (Swiss, I know, but practically French) they are the demons that haunt most anglophones studying language theory (the least well regarded area of English studies, it seems).
My pet theory is that the damnable obtuseness of critical/language theory stems from the difficulties of translating French into English.
If the meaning is occluded and the syntax tortured, it's not cause it doesn't make sense, it's cause it's profound, it must be it's French.
That's why even English speaking natives write in a style that mimics poorly translated French when discussing language. It's not appropriation it's homage.
I would love to learn French well enough to read the most famous tracts of critical theory in the original, just so I could say, "Knew it all along, it does not make any sense in French, also."
(French is low on my language learning list, though, First master Japanese so that I can play their video-games, then Russian for the poetry, then Italian for Dante, then Spanish cause I live in SoCal, then Tagalog since I may live in a resting home one day, then German since compound words in English aren't nearly long enough, and finally French for the reasons previously stated, after that my brain would be too full to add any other tongues, except maybe dead languages like Greek and Latin)
- Simon Kenton said...
I read French well enough to read and translate French LitCrit. And you got it - it doesn't make any sense in the original either. There are at least a couple of reasons to learn French - Camus's La Peste, and Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu are grand novels - but Derrida, Lacan, Foucault? In college I tried to read "The Anthology of Socialist Humanism" (what a richly layered compendium of oxymorons) and it became, almost simultaneously, the first book I ever failed to finish, the first book I ever tore in half, and the first book I ever threw on the ground. Decades would pass before, with an eerie sense of the recrudescence of things past, I encountered Derrida and was compelled to the identical response. Really, dude, would you want to read Heidegger in the original? I'd as soon take hemlock. French literary theory is to the mind as an unremitted diet of Velveeta is to the bowels.
- marquisdesade said...
Sokal was shooting fish in a firkin, and the commenters here are dancing along the yellow brick road with strawmen. Although there was much glee at the time (and the book that came out of it is a good read) the theory train had long left that station.
Strangely enough, more fashionable lit-theory such as New Historicism hasn't received the same kind of scrutiny, perhaps because its emphasis on power relationships in language has been embraced by the neocons.
Oh, and the debate on constitutional interpretation for the SCOTUS is a debate on literary theory.
Now, what do law professors do again?
- somross said...
I should mention that Ann and I had the same English teacher in high school (who was quite professorial) who was obsessed with Moby Dick. I had to read it twice more (undergrad and grad? I'm blocking it out) and hated it all three times. It's one of the reasons I specialized in English rather than American Lit. I don't care if the whale stands for something else or not. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
- tdocer said...
No venom, at least on my part. Bemused and slightly cynical recollections, perhaps...
In fairness, I had three excellent English professors in college. Unfortunately, one has long since passed, one was encouraged to find a new place to teach, and the third left education to focus on other interests.
With some of the other faculty, though, I'm quite convinced that I could have led an hour-long class on the evils of conservatism and libertarianism as evinced by the Milo Bloom character in the "Bloom County" comic strip and received high praise for my ability to distill the essence buried therein. I grant that William Blake's "The Tiger" has a more profound theme than the title might indicate, and that a discussion of that theme is as viable in an English class as it would be in a Metaphysics class, but Freud was right: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. It is also relevant in an English class to discuss rhyme scheme (or lack thereof), scansion, word choice, and whether these more technical elements of writing add to or detract from that underlying theme. I found that in too many courses we focused on long discussion of theme and little discussion of how the written word conveyed that theme.
I recently noticed in a college mailing that an English prof of my acquaintance (he was my advisor) wrote a paper on Lord Voldemort of "Harry Potter" fame. While I haven't read the paper and know neither its audience nor its contents, I wonder if that's the scholarship I'd promote if I was marketing the college to prospective students.
Anyway, having read your posts, I think your students are safe from the worst tendencies of some English profs, and I wish you well in your endeavors.
- Ann Althouse said...
somross: "I should mention that Ann and I had the same English teacher in high school (who was quite professorial) who was obsessed with Moby Dick. I had to read it twice more (undergrad and grad?"
I can still remember Mr. Tucker getting enthused about the lines "He tasks me. He heaps me." and "Meditation and water are wedded forever." And I can still remember sitting next to Joe A. at the front right table and making comments to him, whereupon he would shoot his hand up, get called on, and say my comment as if he'd thought it up. I didn't mind because I wasn't about to raise my hand for every stray thought (I needeed a blog for that), via Joe the thought would get airtime, and Joe was kind of cute.
- Rockeye said...
What sticks most in my memory of Moby Dick is just how little I like romantic literature. Melville tells of a whale boat being lowered to chase a whale then being lost in the fog. The unlucky sailors spend a night separated from their ship terrified that they would be lost at sea and would die. This horrific event is covered in less than a full page. Melville in another place discusses why things that are evil and colored white are much worse than evil things of a different color. This takes eleven pages. Melville kills me.
- Ann Althouse said...
Rockeye: "Melville tells of a whale boat being lowered to chase a whale then being lost in the fog. The unlucky sailors spend a night separated from their ship terrified that they would be lost at sea and would die. This horrific event is covered in less than a full page. Melville in another place discusses why things that are evil and colored white are much worse than evil things of a different color. This takes eleven pages."
This is highly appealing to me!
"Melville kills me."
Don't tell me. Let me guess: you love "Catcher in the Rye."
- somross said...
I'm trying to remember who Joe A. was. I did enjoy "He tasks me, he heaps me."


text:
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Hair Typing : 4b is really just dry 4a hair?
Q: What does science say about the hair typing system?
Well it was invented by Andre Walker who is a hair stylist and it was based on his experience. It is not a scientific system but it is very definitive. My google research says that over the years people have added in categories such as 3c and 4z. For the newbies/transitioners, if you haven't heard of the hair typing system - just google it!
I do not think the system was meant to be as restrictive and rigid as some naturals make it. You can have multiple textures and additionally, sometimes hair doesn't quite fit the exact definition but comes close to it
Q: Is 4b hair really just dry 4a hair?
No this is not always the case. If you experience a mass of tiny little spiral curls when your hair is wet, then after styling (stretching) they disappear, then you most likely have 4a hair. However, there is hair which never forms coils/curls. 4b hair is supposed to be z shaped but sometimes it is more s shaped, it just never forms spirals.
Great shots of 4a and 4b hair - Click here for Mwedzi's fotki
Hair with no curling (4b) - See Sera's video where she shows her hair dripping wet and points out it has no curls (but it is not straight) - Click here for Sera's Youtube
Are you able to identify your hair twins using the hair typing system? Do you use the typing system or do you prefer not to?
24 comments:
I really prefer not to use the hair typing system because I feel some type of inferiority or superiority complex comes tied to it. Like I've read some people tie such disdain to their comment when they state they have some 4a/4b ish in their head. I personally know I am in that family but like you said there are a lot of different textures in my hair like everyone else and figuring them all out doesn't suit me very well, mentally LOL. I just love to find people with the same hair texture as me and watch them flourish hair wise as I try to. I think that it is possible that products for a hair type similar to your own can work just as well but i've found that its all about technique. Washing, deep conditioning, handling etc.ReplyDelete
Just to add a lot of people don't show that type of angst against their hair texture especially when its in the *dreaded* <_< 4 family. LOL.
IMO: curl-typing is simply a way to express the SIZE of the curls, nothing more. Whether you have loose waves or kinky/curly hair you can obviously see the difference in curl size. I think though that many people add in their own "good hair/bad hair" hang ups to this system. The typing system was merely to say: this is how big/small my curls are. The end.ReplyDelete
And yes, most people have more than one texture on their head, but if you're going to put yourself in that box, at least go by what you have on the majority of your head, not just that one patch that is xyz size. You wouldn't say for example "I'm skinny on my ankles and wrists, so am I thin?" and meanwhile being overweight everywhere else..that's called denial.
I don't think that 4a/4b hair is any worse or any better than any other texture. The desire for "good hair" is historical baggage from slavery days.. can we just accept ourselves in 2009 AS WE ARE? Or do we constantly require validation from outside? And why do we have to keep alive this 19th century idea which only serves to divide and conquer?
While I think curl typing is useful for determining the size of curls, it doesn't take into account any other factors such as hair porosity, thickness of the strands, etc. People of varying curl types now are using products that traditionally have only been used by those with afro-texture hair, so you can see that curl size (type) has nothing to do with anything.
I'm openly against hair typing. I think the hair hierarchy it creates is terrible for someone newly natural. I can count so many people who freaked out when they found out they didn't fall in the "good" 3 category and instead where proud members of the "bad" 4 club.ReplyDelete
The "product recommendations" (another reason I think people hair type) for [number][letter] don't always WORK on your hair even if it's the same number/letter combination because EVERY HEAD OF HAIR IS DIFFERENT.
I'm not a fan of hair twinship either. I much prefer someone who loves, reads about and cares about her/his hair as much as I do. Then we can have awesome conversations and I can learn how others, who may or may not have my hair type, care for their hair. I've actually had more success slightly tweaking routines from 3s to suit my hair type than I have from copying or tweaking 4s.
Thanks for contributing! I didn't touch on the 'curl envy' aspect. It is an important aspect to consider.ReplyDelete
I'm not against hair typing, because it helped me figure out what kinds of products worked best for my hair. I was so ready to go and buy Miss Jessie's and try her shingling technique to define my curls, but then I learned that Miss Jessie's products did not work for type 4 hair, so I declined. Also, some curly hair product companies use hair typing (though not always the 2/3/4 method) to help you find the products that will work best for your hair, and they're usually right.ReplyDelete
However, the thing that really helped me figure out what products to use and how to style my hair was finding out that i was a "cnapp" (had cottony hair - or maybe 4c? not sure) on Nappturality. I had never thought to look for people whose hair was like mine and see how they cared for their hair, but once I did my regimen improved by miles. I don't think I could ever find a true "hair twin" though. Looking at the regimens of women with similar hair only helped me create my own - I didn't copy them exactly. Their methods all varied, and probably wouldn't have worked as well for me as it does for them. As Alice said, every head of hair is different.
Like mellowyellow, the hair typing helps me to figure out products. when someone makes a recommendation, I know rather or not I should waste my money by their hair type.ReplyDelete
I have 4B hair. When it is wet,you can look at it and see curls but they do not clump.
My daughter is 4A, when her hair is wet, it immediately starts to clump and spiral.
The things that work on her hair, don't work on mine. I can shingle her hair and her curls are defined. If I do the same on me, it just looks like a greasy cotton ball.
There is a huge difference.
Hair typing has done nothing to help me decide what products to use. It's just a fun way to give yourself another label (and we seem never to tire of doing that!). Qualities of hair such as texture and porosity are far more important, in my opinion.ReplyDelete
@ Sage - Thanks for your comment. I do actually think that the hair typing system is a way of describing texture.ReplyDelete
I am actually intending to research porosity really soon! My theory is it doesn't have as much relevance as we give it. Many of the studies I have looked at show damage to the cuticle when the hair is chemically processed (bleached/coloured/relaxed).
I think if hair is natural and uncoloured, the likelihood of being porous is really minimal.
I haven't done the research though so I'm going to and put my theory to the test!!
I don't really care for the hair typing system of categorizing natural hair. I find it useless. I'd rather base it on the dryness of the hair so we can know what products to use. I always thought of myself as having 4b hair, however I do have a visible curl pattern even when my hair is dry. My hair doesn't match the so-called 4a pictures in the hair type charts, but I have coils all over. I do not have z pattern hair, this is why I don't find those charts helpful at all.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous16 May 2010 at 23:39
I guess I am a 4C (just found out about this whole categorization) but I could care less on the categories unless that will help me find proper products for my hair.ReplyDelete
I have been natural for 5 years now, and I plan on staying natural. I have to say though it is not easy - it's extremely curly and have to spend so much time every day to get it done. So for me I am looking at it in terms of manageability. It seems as if someone complains about their kinky hair then people immediately jump into the conclusion that it is a slavery mentality, or whatever judgement people make.
So hopefully I will find right products with this texture category thing - cause it's really a lot of effort everyday I am putting into the hair, and it breaks - the length I have now, is the same as what I have 2 years ago.
- Anonymous5 October 2010 at 00:14
To the Anonymous person who posted on 16 May 2010 at 23:19---if your hair is extremely curly then you are NOT 4C. Thank's yall. Have a good day.ReplyDelete
Anon 5th October - This is exactly why hair typing does not work. I am not being rude in my response to you though I am aware it will come across as a telling off (which is why I am saying this part first)ReplyDelete
1. You have not seen her hair so you really do not know what it looks like.
2. I would define my hair as extremely curly. I used to class myself as a 4a but nowadays 4a really is 4c.
3. I think the truth is we are resistant to calling natural hair by the word curly when in essence it is curly hair, just a different type of curl that does not necessarily form tendrils or spirals.
4. In truth 4c hair was made up by the hair boards and forums because people wanted an extra definition for super curly hair. Technically 4c does not exist (neither does 3c).
I don't pay any attention to the texture hierarchy because it makes me feel limited. I also feel that sometimes, its a force of categorizing into what is good and what isn't. On those specific days when I want to see hair that looks like mine I just look. Other than that, I appreciate all natural textures, because they're all beautiful.ReplyDelete
~I've got Kinky Coils, and Coily Kinks, Fuzzy Curls, and Curly Fuzz
It's funny the open dislike for hair typing. I don't see anything wrong with it. I think it's people that assign it this "devisive" aura. It doesn't have to be this way if we don't make it. All it simply is doing is describing your curl pattern. Nothing more nothing less.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous7 July 2011 at 11:43
I prefer the LOIS system as you easily identify which curl you have you either has L. O. I.S curl pattern or a combination which is quite interesting. I am 16 months-post relaxer and my curls are mostly S curls.The Andre Walker system was intented as a guide but unfortunately has become a rigid way that people want to classify people's hair texture. As it is the most known way you can't ignore it.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous18 July 2011 at 04:23
Ladies, ladies get a grip on the hair thing. I'm 46 years old now, so I predict I have about 30-35 years left on the planet, and I'm damn sure not going to spend that time being obsessed about my hair. After all, hair is just one of the many props that we use on the stage of life. You can fry, die, or lay it to the side, depending upon the scene your doing that day. I'll start thinking in terms of hair heiarcy when hair can actually be cashed for hair-bucks to pay my bills or put food on the table, or become a radar that can actually point-out good husband material. As long as your coif is clean and groomed, it's all GOOD. I bet it was a man that came up with this hair-typing crap, more than likely a gay man at that.ReplyDelete
- Jamillah19 July 2011 at 16:25
My last perm was in December of 2010, I have transitioned from December to the mid of April..and that is when I did my BC. At that time I will say I had about 4 months of new growth and now it is July 19th (7 months of new growth) and I must say that I am loving my natural hair! I have 4b type hair and in it's afro form i don't see a "z" pattern, so now im not sure if it's 4b or 4c. My hair is very thick and it has real tight curls, I tried looking closely to my hair and I honestly don't know what i'm looking@lol I can't define what type curls are they supposed to be.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous25 July 2011 at 07:22
Mwedzi's fotki needs a password. Anyone know what it is? Sera's hair is amazing !ReplyDelete
I call my hair 4a/4b but my whole head is filled with various sizes of little penspring coils & spirals from using Kink-Curly.Curl clumping is often dependent on what products you put in your hair. You can look like a 4b with some products & 4a with another. And that's why I'm not crazy about hair typing. Just find out what works for YOUR HAIR & call it a day
- Anonymous21 September 2011 at 22:48
The hair typing system is very discouraging, I am transitioning to natural hair, I'm 8 months post, I tought I may a 4a now that I have so much new growth I think I may be a 4c, My roots don't curl at all. And yes now I have curl envy.ReplyDeleteReplies
- Anonymous24 November 2012 at 20:45
It may be hard to assign any kind of "type" to your hair with the relaxed ends still attached. I big chopped last month and the curl pattern of my hair has gradually changed over the last few weeks. I think it has to do with me only needing to work with one texture, no weight from the straight hair, better conditioning, etc.Delete
And even if you have a different texture than you think you want, so what?
- Anonymous12 October 2011 at 22:17
Hair "typing" systems has helped me make better choices on what products and techniques work and do not work in my hair. Sure we have different curl paterns, density and textures in our hair, but there is no harm in using these system/methodology designed as a starting point to help up describe and understand our hair.ReplyDelete
I tend to like the LOIS system better because is it more descriptive. But after seeing the actual chart for Andre's system I understood his system as well.
I happen to have 3c pattern. But if I had a different pattern who is to say that it is better or worse? That is a problem that started way back when so it is time to stop trippin' and seeing these systems/methodologies as something that isn't useful and thus devides a people. - Jjac401
- Anonymous27 January 2012 at 18:04
- Anonymous23 February 2012 at 06:37
AnonymousOct 12, 2011 02:17 PM-- co sign.ReplyDelete
AnonymousSep 21, 2011 02:48 PM-- im sorry you feel that way, I hope you love to love what G-D gave you.
- Anonymous29 July 2012 at 05:57
What about Fia's system?ReplyDelete
And have you seen the studies on curl type?
"Shape variability and classification of human hair: a worldwide approach." by De la Mettrie R et al
"Worldwide diversity of hair curliness: a new method of assessment." by Loussouarn G et al
I love comments! All comments are moderated so they will only appear on the blog once I approve them.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
by Megan
Lego Guitar Man Costume Photo 3 of 3
Rate this costume:
40 votes
|5 comments · add a comment
More views: (click to enlarge)
Visit our gallery of Lego costumes for other creative Lego costume ideas.
|Costume type:
|Costumes for Boys
This homemade costume for boys entered our 2011 Halloween Costume Contest.
A word from Jamie, the 'Lego Guitar Man' costume creator:
My 8 year old son is wearing the costume. We built it out of cardboard styrofoam and foam. Read more »
Similar costumes: