Shaving as an art form

Roger Sayre is a photography professor at Pace University who preference is conceptual art. In 2004 he turned himself into a walking piece of art by offering on Ebay to shave his beard into anything the winner wanted (with certain limitations). The auction generated thousands of hits and made newspapers and tv reports worldwide. He sold his “art” for $160 and donated it to charity. I heard about this auction and art creation when he contacted Weird NJ and they included a reference to it in their weekly email update. About 4 days into the auction Roger decided to try to generate some publicity. He began by emailing friends, but then decided to put out a press release on a news website. From there it took off, and he did radio interviews on an Opie & Anthony type program in Chicago, and even in Ireland.

Roger was gracious enough to allow me to document the creation of this art, and to tell me his story, which has numerous unexpected turns including fake bidders. Although I’ve detailed the story below, you can listen to him discuss the project in an interview Roger gave on WFMU. Click on June 3rd 2004 and go 1:04 into the audio file.

One of Roger’s more recent art projects was a phone booth sized pinhole camera which takes one picture over the course of an hour. After placing it in a studio gallery, people would reserve time to have their picture taken. “It really creates very different pictures depending on whether they sit still or move their face much.” After attending a presentation about artists who use Ebay as a medium (one person sold his soul, another sold his “blackness”) he wondered how he might be able to utilize Ebay. He decided to grow his beard for six months and then offer the beard for sale. Not the beard itself – the auction winner would get to decide how he would shave his beard, ala Wooly Willy. Ever heard of Wooly Willy? Me neither. It’s a tablet based game with a bald guy face and you drag the magnet marker around to leave iron particles as hair either on top of his noggin or as a beard. This game was popular about 40 years ago, but not so much now.

Under the title “Shave my beard for art, real life Wooly Willy”, he started his auction at $4.99. The winner would decide what type of beard Roger would have, then Roger would shave his face. He would wear the beard in its new form for at least one month, making him a walking piece of art. Roger suggested numerous types of beards including the Mutton Chop, the Handlebar, and the Anchor.

Roger really wanted no money for this and planned to donate the entire amount to charity, but he didn’t tell anyone because he wanted the purchase to be about the art, not a charitable contribution. “I was hoping I’d get $25, and after a day or so I began checking the hit count frequently.” To his surprise the hit counts and the bidding just kept going up. Unsurprisingly some bidders wanted unusual designs. He immediately specified 2 restrictions: no Hitler moustaches, and nothing involving an intricate design (too difficult).

One bidder who was insisting on a Hitler moustache piqued his curiosity, but had nothing but negative feedback. He investigated the identity of another of suspicious bidder, checking Ebay records, did some Google searches and came up with a phone number. What he discovered was that a disgruntled HS student had created a fake Ebay ID using a teachers info. He then bid on things and didn’t pay, generating negative feedback. He apparently also did other things to make the teacher look bad.

The auction eventually closed at $160, and Roger invited me to be present for the shaving of the beard. The winning bidder lived nearby and she selected an Amish look. A few strokes with an electric razor, cleanup with a BIC and it was done. The winner got a picture of the result, and a certificate of ownership of this “living artwork.” When he dons a serious expression he actually looks Amish (the glasses really add to the appearance). All he needs is a felt hat and a pitchfork.

Location of the first baseball game

Ask any baseball fan who invented baseball and the answer you’ll most likely get is Abner Doubleday, great grand father of Nelson Doubleday (co-owner of the New York Mets). In 1907 baseball commissioner A G Spalding investigated the origin of the game. According to Ken Burns’ 1994 baseball documentary, Spalding was hoping to find a distinctly American origin for the game. Spalding’s commission was led to Doubleday by Amber Graves, an 84-year-old mining engineer who claimed to have known Doubleday as a young man in Cooperstown, and said he remembered watching Doubleday concoct the rules of the game. The baseball Hall of Fame was established in Cooperstown in honor of it being the origins of the sport, and the field is called Doubleday Field. Current Commissioner Bud Selig even laid a wreath at Doubleday’s grave.

But is that the real origin of baseball?

Baseball is not the first game to involve hitting a ball with a stick. The closest forerunner to baseball is a game called townball, in which the primary way of throwing out a runner was to hit him with a thrown ball, similar to dodgeball. In 1842, Alexander Cartwright and Daniel Adams began drawing up rules for a new game that they had been practicing, to be called “base ball.” In 1845, they formed the first-ever baseball club, adopting 20 rules not previously included in earlier editions of the game: three strikes to a batter, three outs to an inning, tags and force-outs in lieu of throwing at batters, and the addition of an umpire. Cartwright and Adams named their team the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club.

On June 19, 1846 the Knickerbockers played the first organized, pre-planned game under those rules against another team called the New York Nine, losing by a score of 23-1 in four innings in front of a small crowd, on Elysian Fields in Hoboken. These are well documented facts, but the more important question is was it the first ever organized baseball game? According to a 2000 article in National Review, Doubleday was not in Cooperstown in 1839, and in his many diaries, he makes no mention of baseball, and some say he never even was in Cooperstown.

What it comes down to is that no one person invented baseball. People took an existing game and gave it a twist. The question is who and when. According to this site, there were variations of the game being played in many eastern cities in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Many used rules other then what we find in the game today. So can you really claim credit for inventing a game simply because you added one or two specific rules such as 3 outs and 3 strikes? Or if you changed the rules from hitting the runner, to throwing it the first baseman? It all depends on how you define “invent”. The debate is unlikely to be settled now or ever.

The run in between Lincoln and Booth

The year was 1863. The place was Jersey City. Abraham Lincoln was waiting for the train with his family. Suddenly his son Robert slipped onto the tracks, when a man rushed and saved him. Here is the story in Robert’s own words:

“The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.”

If you haven’t guessed by now, Edwin booth was John Wilkes Booth’s brother. You may have heard of strange coincidences surrounding the Kennedy & Lincoln assassinations, but most of that is pure hokum. This coincidence, however, is documented and true.