Monday, March 19, 2007

Beardy Diego and the Arrow of Time

I've been staring at this, speechless and thoughtless, for some time. It's a family in Buenos Aires that has taken pictures of itself every year for thirty years. Perhaps evading the spectacle of the depredations of age, I note that Nicolas acquired facial hair in 1998 followed by the impressionable Matias in 1999. Moody Sebastian held off until 2003. Daddy Diego was a beardy from day one. Susy just looks scarier and scarier until 2003 and then suddenly seems to discover irony. Perhaps she realised what a morbidly comic project this is.

11 comments:

  1. I think Susy's still a little scary.

    Weirdly fascinating project.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My son would have refused to be photographed by the age of 6, or at least not without making funny faces . What a stark way to record the fact that, as soon as you are born , you move towards death, but it is stuill fascinating - cover the neck Suzy ,and get a number three Tomas

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah, welcome back, Debra, I haven't heard from you in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  4. please make that "still" not "stuill"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Not the most "private" project, if they then stick it on the web and in a magazine.

    It does add weight to the theory that all babies are ugly...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Q. Who is Tomas?
    A. My cunning Spanish builder, who sold me a house which didn't exist... What I Meant to say was: Diego, have a nice short-short razorcut

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks, Brian. I've been hanging around, just haven't had anything to say, I guess.

    jon b--well, some babies are uglier than others.... (I'd do one of those winky emoticon things if I had it in me.) That said, it's interesting to see how the attractiveness level of the various members of this family changed from year to year.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I thought Diego looked routinely soulful, year after year. As is, sadly, so often the case with men and women, he started looking better with age and Susy went a bit downhill (she's beginning to look like Betty Friedan, methinks).

    The boys have gone through various phases of awkwardness, handsomeness, and hirsuteness and it looks like the latter is definitely gonna prevail.

    Ah, age: It makes a mockery of us all. And yet. It's nice to see that family still together, year after year. More power to 'em.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello Mr Appleyard.

    That was gruesome. I'm sorry, it just was. Mrs Mummy Self-Regard should just buy herself a comedy beard and be done with it - she is badly letting the side down.

    And Mr Daddy Self-Regard needs to keep it real and lighten up. I don't know what "keep it real" means, no, but for some reason I want to act young and cool after regarding this lumpy shower of face-torments (for simply far too long).

    Mockable and stabbingly painful at the same time. Neat trick.

    Kind regards etc...

    TPE

    ReplyDelete
  10. Welcome, Periodic, you first comment I believe. Sounds thoughts on sport over at your place.

    ReplyDelete