I Mustache You: Does this hair make me look like a man?

 

A Review of Cross-dressers who Fooled No One

 

In honor of April Fool's Day, Disney announcing a live-action Mulan (crosses fingers), and dramas where pretty girls unconvincingly cross-dress... I cut my hair to make myself a mustache/beard.

Just kidding. I didn't keep the gnarly beast-tail for cosplay. I'm donating the 12" and 3 ounces to Locks of Love, in hopes that they'll use some to build a wig for children with cancer or alopecia. Or at least sell the unusable dyed/permed strands to fund alopecia research. Which would hopefully come back full-circle, as I currently work in a lab that studies hair and teeth disorders!

What is alopecia areata? Basically, children begin to bald at a young age because their immune cells mistakenly attack the hair follicle cells. The cyclical nature of hair follicle cells causes all hair to eventually fall out and regrow. But not so when follicle cells die permanently.

Are you interested in donating? Then I recommend donating to Pantene Beautiful Lengths instead of Locks of Love. After reading some articles, I noticed that Locks of Love takes forever to manufacture wigs, throws away or sells most donated hair, and gives wigs to families at a "discounted" price. Pantene Beautiful Lengths, on the other hand, partners with a specific wig company and American Cancer Society, which distributes the wigs to those in need for free. A much more efficient system, and they only require 8" of hair. They just don't accept chemically treated hair, which I had.

As regards to the new look, my hair dresser kept looking over at me with concern and asking, "Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you really sure?"

I firmly nodded for her to hack the heavy mop. And with a long, loud snip! I was finally free of the heavy and difficult varmint.

 
Unlike Mulan, I cannot say that I adopted an alter ego with a single chop, but I feel lighter and more refreshed. Even though an outer appearance shouldn't define you, it can certainly shape how you feel about yourself.  

Before, I always felt uneasy about having short hair. People associate longer hair with femininity. So as a tomboy, I used to be afraid that I would look even more like my brother. But with 2015's runner-up Miss Universe flaunting her unique cropped look among all the other Misses, and my own long hair becoming quite the hassle... I now know that having short hair is quite the bomb.

Here are a few other stars who tried to conform to a "boyish" look for a typical cross-dressing story, but their girly charm still shines through the short locks.

1. Yoon Eun-Hye: 1st Shop of Coffee Prince

Practically everyone at the coffee shop could tell Eun-Hye was a girl, except for the boss "who freaked out because he thought he was gay." Or maybe you need to get your eyes checked for not noticing Eun-Hye's boobs earlier. I have to say though, Eun-Hye's portrayal of a cross-dressing tomboy is the most convincing out of all the other dramas I have seen. And that's what makes her Coffee Prince one of my favorites of all time.

My addiction to dramas did not start from Yoon Eun-Hye's coffee, but her palace life in Goong. Tiptoeing downstairs with my mom to watch each episode every Wednesday night at 11pm was the harbinger for countless of future sleepless nights spent on >16 hours of vapid soap operas...

2. Park Shin Hye: You're Beautiful

The story in You're Beautiful is practically irrelevant. From the start, everyone knows she's a girl. The true charm to the drama is that the amazing, easy-going Park Shin Hye is just chilling out and having a blast with three good-looking guys her age. One of which she actually ends up dating IRL... Second-lead syndrome finally upended!

Park Shin Hye has been my girl crush for more than 7 years. Christina and I keep trying to win her hairstyles, but someday I will just have to accept that my hair, my clothes, and my life will never look as perfect as hers! :P


3. Horikita Maki: Hana Kimi

Horikita Maki wears this short hairstyle all the time anyways. So surprise, surprise, now she's a "boy." The real reason why these actresses with short hair can pull off looking like boys, is probably because Asian actors have girly hair.

Hana Kimi is my least favorite cross-dressing drama of the three. I would definitely pick her "debut" drama, Nobuta Wo Produce or the Hana Kimi manga over this hot mess of a Jdrama any day.

Mulan: "Who is that girl I see?... Why is my reflection someone I don't know?... When will my reflection show who I am inside?"

"Maybe I just wanted to look in the mirror and see someone worthwhile... But I was wrong... I see nothing!"

Mushu: "Now that's just because this needs a little spit, that's all. Let me shine this up for you."

Rekindling Classics as Comics: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation - Illustrated by Tim Hamilton

I love to flip through familiar paperbacks in B&N to catch my favorite scenes, like a distracted middle-schooler's Post-It flip book. So imagine my delight on Saturday when my eye caught an illustrated version of Fahrenheit 451 validated by the prolific Bradbury himself! 

Tim Hamilton, the artist, is no Alan Moore, but his angular style does capture Guy Montag's ruggedness and the book-less world's insipid and stifling landscape. Considering how terrible movie adaptations have been, I was actually pretty impressed by how well the comic book's fast visual pace fit Bradbury's effortless dialogue.

Especially with beautifully written books like Fahrenheit 451, where I actually feel flames licking at the corners of the pages and Clarisse rubbing a soggy dandelion under my chin to see whether or not I'm in love; smell Guy doused in cursed kerosene; hear a Seashell tickling my ear (Bradbury's technologic prescience always amazes me); and see Clarisse's thin, white silhouette in an oppressive, starless city—I often think that no one could direct these moments better than my own mind.

But reading this comic book actually helped me grasp key parts of the book that slipped my memory or flew over my head when I was younger. And all in less than half an hour. 

For instance, Clarisse's oddball scenes and quirky dialogue has always stuck with me, as it does with Guy. Meanwhile, I never clearly understood Mildred's depressive suicidal attempt and her swift, but gruesome medical surgery, because Mildred herself does not recall it and waves it away, replacing it with empty wall-talk. 

(Random connection: Mildred's vapid concentration on her brainwashing shows while chugging pills reminds me of the crazy guy Mink from Don DeLillo's White Noise).

Also, I loved Captain Beatty's quote parrying scenes, his maniac obsession and love/hate relationship with books really jumped out at me between panels. I have always wondered if Beatty is aware of the power that literature has, but wants to keep that power to himself or is afraid of allowing it to spread to the masses.

In any case, if you happen to be looking for a quick refresher on Bradbury's classic or are trying to get your book-averse cousin to read something more substantial than the tiles in "Candy Crush," I recommend browsing through this adaptation. I do love the irony that a book about how instantly gratifying media might threaten the traditional form is being faithfully retold to reach a new generation of readers on the brink of Bradbury's greatest fear...

"We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing...
It is not books you need, it's some of the things that are in books. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Hooking the reader with the ending: The Secret History

The Secret History (Donna Tartt) Review

Does knowing how a story ends necessarily spoil the story? Especially for a murder mystery, you would expect that knowing the culprit would ruin the intrigue. So when mastermind Donna Tartt revealed everything from the get-go, I was utterly baffled. She broke the rules I thought existed in the mystery genre, yet instantly had me hungry for more.

So now let me spoil the story for you...

Tartt shares that a group of friends purposefully push their buddy Bunny off a cliff right before April snow so that everyone believes it is just an accident. She baits us with one key missing piece of information: why? 

And all this in a two-page prologue that I might have skipped if it had not been assigned by my professor. Yes, I am guilty of skimming through prologues. Aren't we all? I often assume that there cannot be enough information or substance in such a short frame. Prologues set the tone of the story and feed the reader unsatisfying crumbs. But the best prologues give readers enough to anticipate that this book will deliver a story to remember.

And Tartt delivers.

But not if you are looking for a typical murder mystery or a thriller of any sort.
 
The Secret History honestly reads more like a coming-of-age novel, a J.D. Salinger set in a lush New England backdrop at a liberal arts college campus. The first-person narrator, Richard Papen, has a vice for the opulent life and a talent for fibbing.

What really struck me odd and Salinger familiar was Papen's casual voice. In fact, each key character has a nonchalant shrug-off attitude towards everything in life, except Greek studies and booze. The very first lines of the prologue might demonstrate that better.

"The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He’d been dead for ten days before they found him, you know."

Right before Bunny is killed, the hunter and hunted have the most alarmingly understated conversation in betrayal history.

"What are you doing up here? said Bunny, surprised, when he found the four of us waiting for him.
Why, looking for ferns, said Henry."

More about the characters. The narrator, Richard, lays clear his desires and motivations from the first chapter, but it took me longer to warm up to his character. I can see why he tries to lie his way through everything, he is afraid his bland background and personality will bore everyone and himself to death. So he contrives a fancy upbringing that traps him later.

The other five characters consist of two of the sweetest, most gorgeous but fatal twins, a dandy, a hyperactive and overly charismatic Bunny, and the reticent yet imposing Henry.

Henry, by far, was my favorite character. Also the most puzzling. Sometimes I think he's the true star, a Gatsby, while Richard is Tom, the observing side-narrator. He says so little, his movements are so simple, and his attitude so blasé, that everything about him carries so much weight. He is the only character in the story to fall with grace. Even though his pride breaks, it ends somehow intact.

Meanwhile, Bunny is Richard's foil. Their circumstances are so similar, yet they approach life in polar opposite directions. Richard hides the truth, Bunny touts the truth too loud. But Bunny's death does not stop his suffocating reach. Bunny does a good job of haunting his friends from the grave.

For the final, most crucial question to address: why would friends kill a fellow friend? 
 

Skip my answer if you want to find out yourself. Go buy yourself a copy of Tartt's novel right now.

Read on only if you won't read the book and trust that none of your friends would ever murder you.

Simply because they were close friends. Too close of friends. The littlest things can pile up between close friends. And there are some things you prefer to not be known by others.

Ironically, Bunny's death is the very catalyst for their dark secrets to bubble up to the surface and explode. Without Bunny, their actions and mentalities become more unrestrained, unchained, and things. fall. apart.

So lesson learned. Don't rip your friends apart just because they know you too well, you won't be able to sleep at night anymore.

Will my spoiling the secrets of The Secret History keep you from reading the book? Trust me, these are the least important surprises that this book holds. I hope this review only entices you to embark on this haunting narrative of the snowballing mistakes a few kids made in search for a surreal experience. Because I guarantee you will experience one of your own through Tartt's evocative imagery and clever storytelling.

Fortunately, not one you'll regret. 

"I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell." Richard Papen ― Donna Tartt, The Secret History (2004)

4/5 You Otter Read This Book Stars

Fishing for a good book? Well you otter check out my new book club blog!

I can imagine you rolling your eyes, "Enough of the otter jokes! Where are they coming from?" Well, short story long, the wisecracks started last weekend.

Thanks to my excellent timing, I was wise enough to visit the Smithsonian National Zoo / Woodley Park Zoo on a cold and rainy day of March. The only animals bothering to be outside were the sleek aquatics, particularly the playful otters rustling up some mussels for lunch. A couple next to me were snapping photos and watching with suspense as the otter wrestled with the mollusk's tight lips.

"Oh no, he can't get it open! You can do it little otter!" They cheered.

Their sympathy was contagious and I began identifying with the little critter myself...

"This is, like, the story of my life," I muttered, thinking about my pathetically weak arms that often fail to open doors, anything capped in lab, and any jars in my kitchen. Sometimes I wish I carried magic pliers, but even that would slip through my hands like butter.

Needless to say, the otter cracked open the mussel, chewed up all the insides in a flash, and then tossed the shell over the shoulder like it was no big deal. Perked up with renewed energy, it started hopping down the creek in search for its next meal.

And that's when a thought hit me. Why don't I just start writing a story about my life? The lively spirit of the otters has inspired me.

But my life in itself is not that interesting. No, seeing how I have bored you with my blog origin story. Surely though, there are stories that I have read, seen, and experienced in my life that I do find worth sharing. Just as the otters try to pry open them mussels, some of which are good and some are bad (but one can't tell 'till it's open), I'm always looking for the next story to devour and ponder. Some of which leave a sour taste, while others have a bittersweet or pleasant taste.

And so begins this blog about the stories in my life, the stories that I have opened and tried, and now recommend or don't recommend. Nothing like any otter blog you've seen before I bet...

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” ― C.S. Lewis