May 23, 2007
Tattoo removal, a growth industry...
Andrea linked to a thoughtful blogger, Maclin Horton. A couple of small things I liked...
I Enjoy Being Right
I've been predicting for a while now that the tattoo fashion would lead to a profitable trade in tattoo removal.
My parents had a collection of cartoons from Punch that gave me many hours of pleasure in my youth. I think it was there that I saw one which has come to mind often since the fad began: a tattoo artist drawing something huge on a man's back and remarking "Of course it's the fellows who can take them off who make the real money." [Link]
And this is a thought I have often had myself...
One of my perpetual complaints is the treatment of the 1950s in popular lore, in journalism and entertainment. The way some of these people talk, you’d think they really do not understand that Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver were sitcoms, not documentaries, the silly pap of their time just as Desperate Housewives is of ours. Or even that physical reality was very much the same then as now: that colors, for instance, existed, and that human beings were physically the same creatures we are now, although they dressed differently. The usual view is that life was gray, repressed and miserable from roughly 1945 until 1964, when, as Philip Larkin tells us, sex was invented....
In "popular history," as in so much else, everything is adjusted to fit the perspective of us Baby Boomers. It's really stupid. All the "60's" fads were invented in the 50's or earlier, and just taken up into mass conformity in the sixties. And passed along into mass culture in the 70's, with hideous destructive effects...
Speaking of tattoo removal, there's a great SF book on fads, Bellwether
Posted by John Weidner at May 23, 2007 08:16 AM
One of my favorite books of all time, that one.
Pity she's not a faster writer, but I'd rather have it good than fast if that's the choice.
Posted by: B. Durbin at May 25, 2007 05:15 PMI've actually been thinking about getting a tattoo lately...one of our good friends is a tattoo artist (and a cabinetmaker, actually...and an all-around handyman, and sculpter, and stained-glass window maker...here's our dining room before, during install, and after, and here's the half bath he and his wife put in for us...)
...anyway, he also does tattoo's, and I think it would be remarkably cool to have a tattoo designed and installed by a friend, so I'm really considering it...
Nice glass. I've done a little stained glass work, and I know how much work went into those.
If you get a tatoo Ethan, I don't quite think you will be just a kid following a fad. What I tell my children is, "THINK if you could have gotten a tatoo when you were six. You would be stuck with Barney or Power Rangers for the rest of your life! What seems cool now will not seem cool forever."
Posted by: John Weidner at May 26, 2007 07:20 AMTHINK if you could have gotten a tatoo when you were six. You would be stuck with Barney or Power Rangers for the rest of your life!
...that's hilarious...you know, it might well be worth it to let 8-year-olds get tattoos, just to give them an object lesson in the long-term consequences of bad decisions! It would really kick in about the time really bad choices become available to them...plus, the results of the poor choice aren't death or dismemberment or pregnancy or addiction...
Ethan, those are beautiful.
Posted by: B. Durbin at May 26, 2007 07:45 PMB. Durbin - thank you! Yeah, he does amazing work...and actually, he and his wife just left about ten minutes ago - we had them over for dinner...if anyone is in the Cincinnati area, and is looking for high quality wood, glass, paint, or sewer work, let me know and I'll put you in contact with them!
