"Why were we born?"

"What were we born for?"

The link goes to a commercial — in Japanese, with subtitles — for an insurance company. I am presenting it neutrally for you to comment on.

ADDED: After I watched that, YouTube suggested that I watch this ad, which I will comment on and say I liked:

The Troll.

The Howdy Doody caveman.

Neanderthals had red hair and freckles. (Maybe.)

(Can somebody Photoshop an image?)

ADDED: Combine:



Ah, there's this:



ADDED: 2 images, from Palladian and Lordsomber, respectively:



I love the complete contrast in mood.

Bad hair day.

This last 24 hours was a monumental bad hair day! I go in to my usual place for a retouch, and somehow, sitting down in the chair and looking into the mirror unleashes my impulse to reconnect with my identity as a redhead. For a woman of a certain age, like me, it's easier to be blonde, but no matter how light my hair gets, I still believe I'm a redhead -- even when I'm looking in the mirror. It has deep personal meaning!

Here's my original hair color, photographed long ago.



(Let that chair tell the story of how long ago it was.)

So, suddenly, I'm all let's make it red! But for elaborate chemical reasons that aren't worth explaining, the attempt at red came out the horrid color an old penny. It was shockingly homely, plain, drab, dowdy, frumpy... aarrggghhh! I can't begin to tell you. It was a nightmare.

The hairdresser went into emergency mode. It would have been insanely embarrassing to show up at work like that. The restoration effort had numerous stages and took three more hours.

At work, no one seemed to notice. I guess the recovery effort was a success. In the end, I think it was an improvement over what it was when I sat down in the chair, but in the middle, it was horrifying, my friends. I'm glad you didn't get a chance to see me like that.

My cartoon environment.

On a concrete wall -- it's actually the art school -- in the snow... it's mysteriously evocative...



Speech balloons unconnected to comic book characters...

In a café, I'm staring at the back of a young man with the Punky Color red hair of ten years ago:



Or is that Manic Panic?

ADDED: Tonya photographs my "Do Not Disturb" sign, which overlaps two postcards by the comics genius Mark Beyer.

"Gray is nature's way of whispering 'You're dying.'"

Anderson Cooper talks about his gray hair. He says it can be cool for a guy to go prematurely gray. But:

When was the last time you saw a sexy gray-haired woman in a movie? Rogue and Storm don't count; they're cartoon characters.

"It's not fair," says Diane Harris, a media image consultant, "but men see gray on a woman and they think she's old."

My friend Cathy went gray in her early thirties. She was attractive and successful, but guys backed away.

"Men instantly assumed Birkenstock-wearing, protest-rally-organizing cat lover," Cathy says. "You could see it in their eyes."

Needless to say, Cathy's no longer gray.

Gray and white are flattering colors. We wear clothes in these colors all the time. But the meaning of gray/white hair is just too deep. I started getting white hairs when I was a teenager and had so many by time I was in my late twenties that my naturally red hair didn't read as red anymore. It just looked dull. And when I ran into friends I hadn't seen in a while the horror would show on their faces! You have to color. Anyway, most women color their hair even when they aren't going gray, don't they? Gray hair? It's just not done anymore. Completely white hair? That might be cool, but it takes a while before it's completely white, and by the time it is, you've probably been coloring so long that it's hard to think of how you could do it. Let the roots grow over the summer, then cut it so only the new uncolored part is left. Then waltz into work in September with very short, absolutely white hair. That would really shock people. I'd do it. But only if they made a reality TV show about me doing it.

"Red hair is smart, sexy comedy."

That's the opinion of Valerie Cherish, channeled by Lisa Kudrow, as told to WaPo fashion theorist Robin Givhan, who writes:

All of ["The Comeback"]'s nuances are reflected in Cherish's most distinctive physical characteristic, her long red hair with its painstakingly organized curls that have been flipped back and away from her face. That hair is gloriously thick and the waves fall with an unnatural precision. The hair appears Breck Girl clean, devoid of the styling products now used to give hair an informal, slightly messy appearance. Hers is hair meant to be tossed in slow motion during the opening montage of "Baywatch."

In constructing the character, Kudrow has said that Cherish's hair color was a calculated decision. In Cherish's mind, "blond is dumb comedy, red hair is smart, sexy comedy." And, presumably, brunette isn't funny at all.

Givhan doesn't mention it, but red hair and comedy are indelibly associated with Lucille Ball. But of course, Cherish is wrong about a lot of things, so Kudrow's analysis of how Cherish thinks must be understood in that light. But I have a feeling Lisa loves Lucy.

Red hair is a touchy topic with me. My natural hair color is red — see it here — but not so red that I couldn't spend my entire childhood insisting that my hair was in fact not red, despite the tendency of strangers to call me "Red" and even "Carrot Top." As an unstably pigmented American, I had to endure both freckles and the early loss of hair color. Anyone fighting the latter problem should know that going lighter makes it less noticeable. If you see me today, you may consider me blonde, but I am incapable of seeing myself as a blonde. Though I spent my entire childhood denying that I had red hair, I now insist that I have it. I know it's a delusion, but the mental imprint is too strong to shake.

Why is red hair so meaningful?

"We wanted something intimate, and we listen to Tori Amos when we're alone."

Fashion designer Rolf Snoeren explains his inspiration:

The headlines in Thursday's papers will be "Pillow Talk" or "The Big Sleep," and there will be sniggers at the breakfast table when people catch a glimpse of a model in a red duvet dress with a fat white pillow tucked behind her head. The Viktor & Rolf show, at the ancient Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, was something. Beautiful in its dreamy use of white cotton shirts with eyelet ruffles, and highly conceptual in its evocation of the bed as the center of family life, Viktor Horsting's and Rolf Snoeren's show was an ode to love, with Tori Amos at the piano.

"We wanted something intimate, and we listen to Tori Amos when we're alone," Mr. Snoeren explained. "All good things happen in bed."

And Tori herself plays at the fashion show. Tori lovers should not miss the beautiful picture at that last link of Tori flailing her crimped orange hair about. She's wearing something big, magenta, and liquid. Ah, but avert your eyes from the text Tori lovers. Tori loathers: there's plenty here for you to savor:

Naturally, given the Lawrence Welk tendencies of [Viktor & Rolf], the live music for their show yesterday was provided by Tori Amos, the pop music klaxon.

Held in a space where what passes for experimental theater is usually staged, the production had as its centerpiece a black grand piano played by Ms. Amos, a stiff and stately piece of furniture herself. Her long hennaed hair was arranged in pre-Raphaelite crimps, and she wore quilted red trousers and a red satin blouse.

After greeting the audience with deep Kabuki bows, Ms. Amos took to the keyboard and began banging on it and keening as the English kewpie-doll mannequin Lily Cole appeared wearing quilted trousers and with satin pillows strapped behind her head like a weird Elizabethan ruff.

Red? The blouse sure looks magenta to me! In aesthetics, it's all subjective, I suppose. But no: that blouse isn't red!

Klaxon? Being a lawprof, I hear "Klaxon" and think of the Erie doctrine, but the definition I'm picking up from the dictionary is "A trademark used for a loud electric horn." So presumably, the writer (Guy Trebay) means to say that Tori clashed with the "Lawrence Welk" tone of the designers? And the designers are wrong that Tori is intimate?

"All good things happen in bed"? Then why are we at this damned fashion show? Maybe that aphorism makes more sense to a person whose name is -- it looks -- pronounced "snorin'."

Fashion is a strange other world.