How Now, Brow....

How Now, Brow, or What Kind of Brow-Ser (or Madam) Do You Have? by
J.B. Pravda
Transcript of Keynote Speech from the 111th Convocation of the World
Academy of Really Obscure Anatomical Studies

Pick up any photoalbum or view any facial image, anywhere, from anytime
and the defining feature will be&;#8230;..the eyebrow.

Long over-looked (pause for wordplay to take effect), the brow above
those port holes of the vessel of self, will prove decisive on
questions of pulchritude or, absent that, the value judgment known as
'exotic' or 'stunning' or, perhaps most seminally, 'interesting'.

And, yet, it is understandable that this should be so----what function,
after all, does it, this eye-brow, serve? While anatomists of narrow
perspective will hasten to opine that it acts to shield the vulnerable
eye from direct harm, isn't that best left to the eyelid? [Note to
reader: it is likely in the extreme that such persons are equipped with
the most freakish of its manifestations, the much-commented upon
'onebrow', hence their experience alone should sufficiently have
colored their viewpoint, defensive as it is, so as to disqualify them
from such commentary, along with, I'm sure you'll agree, anything as
simple as being seen in public as a general proposition]. [Reflexively
self-conscious laughter, the audience, indubitably, featuring a
'healthy' complement of aforesaid specimens, eh?] Where was I?

Still others, whose response is virtually proof of my point of neglect
and overall absence of serious consideration of the facial feature in
question, will submit that it is vestigial, from some evolutionary
stage of a long-ago proto-humanoid: the genetic fact is that no one for
some 28,000 years has been able to claim (who, frankly, would)
Neanderthal heritage: no, it is not some cantilevered cranial shade for
the eye.

Having now disposed of such distractive and otherwise---you'll pardon
the expression---'low brow' analyses, let us turn to actual laboratory
cases, worldwide, to bring home this thesis, to wit: The human
eyebrow---useless relic or sign of a truly vaunted visage? I begin with
the now famous case from pre-war Germany.

Professor von Luddens, doyen of anthropological studies, was loved by
his students at the Munich Institute and the object of much deference
by his colleagues; noted for his incisive stares of curiosity, none who
knew him could ever forget his incredibly, well, bushy eyebrows;
indeed, so endowed were they that it was often difficult to know
whether his eyes, lurking somewhere within those tangled forests of
multi-hued hair and dandruff, were fixed upon you, the observer.
Convinced that this was the hallmark of great intellectual charisma, a
graduate student of his determined to establish the theoretical
proposition in her thesis, inasmuch as he was her faculty advisor.
Having screwed up her courage, the day came for her to announce her
"Thesis: Human Eyebrow Configuration and Consistency as A Genetic
Marker of Frontal Lobe Fertility."

Young Eleanor Frupac was delighted with his enthusiasm for her
proposal.
"Yes! How ingenious, I'm certain that I have never, myself, even
considered such matters; tell me, child, how did you come upon it?" he
wondered aloud, oblivious to his two very bold, albeit silent, even
adamantine announcements of her very concept.
"Why, thank you,Herr Doktor; begging your pardon, but you were such
inspiration" she cautiously replied.
"Ach, but of course; never really think of them, just there, you see"
he offered, inadvertently scratching one in some reflex of belated
empathy, sadly, although without his taking note, coating his dark suit
of stiff clothes with a seemingly unpredicted-if not unseasonal-dusting
of snow.
She simply smiled, knowingly, so encouraged by his oblivion to press
her almost intuitive insights concerning the very physical phenomenon
which framed the far more celebrated 'windows unto the soul'; she
designed to penetrate that unchallenged myth with her peculiarly
enlightening findings concerning their penultimate markings of blithely
unconsidered depth.
Well, we all are aware of her formidable proofs, right down to certain
arcane mathematical formulae, to the effect that, far more than any
other anatomical feature, the eyebrow gave ample access to the
intrinsic value of any member of any society: hence, the perverse
National Socialists of the day, in telling ignorance of these delvings,
wrote their own demise in focusing upon illusory (and very much lingum
oriented) markers of so-called Aryanism, not to mention just plain
obtuse irrationality stemming, no doubt, from the perfectly ordinary
and otherwise contemptible low brow quality of that self-same gang of
thuggery. Imagine being inspired by the spewings of the mawkishly
moustauchioed lips of an obviously atavistically eyebrowed leader!
Nevertheless, she did overlook the subject of our next focus of
explication: the puzzling, if not flatly disconcerting phenomenon known
to us all: the perfectly discordant note struck by the facial
contradiction of dark, youthful eyebrows wed to a decaying mop of
topside covering!
Which leads to our next case study, made by the somewhat infamous
founder of the 'Hair Club for Men', one Spivey Herchenk. At the outset
it must be reemphasized that his completely affected inattention to
what we may now term the 'eyebrow dilemma' ultimately led to his having
been out-competed by the far more sensitive, not to mention
research-oriented, 'All-Head Hair Club for Men'. But that is the
province of the business analysts amongst us; more to our purpose, let
us attack this too often unassailed blemish upon our ongoing study of
the hirsute human face.
Hirsuteness, then, has perhaps its ultimate quandary: how to explain
this diametric disparity----indeed, almost injustice----fostered,
somehow, by an otherwise pretty amazingly autonomous and admirable
autonomic biology. For our edification, I have been specifically
authorized by
'All Hair's' founder, Clarence Appomatoxx, to recount the results of
their actual and most thorough research.
In the interest of time, and realizing that many other presenters must
timely follow me---not least the final word on female facial hair
outside the customary side-show 'fat lady' scenario---I shall focus
upon but one rather prominent case, that of the Beatle's 'Fool on the
Hill'. In summary, this individual, using the naked eyes in his head,
simply saw the sun going down, and, therefore, simply saw the world
spinning round----why?
After much digging, it was discovered with state of the art biofeedback
that his unanswering passive observer status had everything to do with
the overly rationalistic worldview of same: you see, it seems that his
hyperactive lobes were so devoted to linear rationality that his
much-deprived topside head of hair simply withered in its supply of
imaginative qualities, hence the much-deserved ostracization of this
otherwise 'interesting' person due, in large measure, to his untaxed
youthful eyebrows.
To sum up, as we, today, 'browse' the landscape of the world's
countenances, what do we observe: an alarming rise in the number of
either overgrown or mutant--- or, perhaps worse, contrast-colored,
eyebrows, signaling the absence of a necessary evolutionary passage of
humankind into the realms of superrationality, into
spirit-centeredness: in short, away from the overrated properties of
brain toward universal mindedness. [Spontaneous applause]

[Editor's Note: Leaving the podium, it became painfully obvious that
our noteworthy speaker, owing to the bright, hot lights aimed at the
dais, showed signs of his hair dye dripping 'down' his cheeks].