dadäphîlia

al F r e d o T ri F f I'm a fan of Yves Klein's art. There is something unique about his messed-up theology & outlandish cerebration, his ability to reinterpret, reinvent and re-appropriate the avant-garde that is very telling of his time. Above all, I enjoy Klein's perverted sense of humor. He may have pursued his art with obliged doses of [avant-garde] "seriousness."*  However, one would surely miss a great deal in Klein's "actions" if one were looking for a pellucid correspondence between what he said and what he did  — or what he did and what he meant. **  So, I was baffled when, in recapping some of the existing literature on Klein, I found Benjamin Buchloh's Klein and Poses, an article for Artforum International (Vol. 33, Summer 1995). Buchloh's tone betrays ideological ressentiment:  The property claim and the administrative, legalistic approach measure both his mania and the misery to which the neo-avant-garde would advance in

Beardness or non-beardedness?  It's a bit puzzling. Full beards and heavy stubble edged out light stubble and the clean-shaven look. The conclusion is based on a study of women's judgments of attractiveness, health, masculinity, and parenting abilities from photographs of clean-shaven men, lightly or heavily stubbled and fully bearded. How about non-beardedness? Surprisingly, men rated full beards and heavy stubble as most attractive, followed closely by clean-shaven and light stubble as least attractive. Well, a dose of male narcissism is to be expected here. Men and women agree on male beardedness, i.e., masculinity ratings increased linearly as facial hair increased. The study is overlooking a social side effect. Keep in mind that our culture promotes and rewards a "clean" male image over its bearded counterpart (which may explain why beardedness is a less common trait than non-beardedness). How does that prove the study's conclusions regarding female cour