Discretion of the Beard

The Tennessean has a report on a certain Dr. Visuvalingam Vilvarajah, who was convicted for the 1986 shooting murders of his wife and mother-in-law. Vilvarajah subsequently served five years in prison, and was released on parole. (BTW, that’s not the bad doctor pictured. It’s the Great Burke Kenny; more on him momentarily.)

Astoundingly, Dr. Vilvarajah got his medical license reinstated in 1993, and he joined a family practice in 1997. How is that possible? According to Tennessee Department of Health spokeswoman Andrea Turner:

“There is nothing in the law that would prevent a medical professional's ability to practice medicine from being reinstated. It really comes down to the nature of the conviction, the specifics of the case and the discretion of the board.”

The board’s judgment has subsequently been called into question as Vilvarajah was recently arrested on charges of drug-related organized crimes. Moving from the discretion of the board to the discretion of the beard, let me remind you that there are only 100 days until the next World Beard and Moustache Championships. (Great Burke Kenny took first place in its “full beard, styled moustache” category in 2007.)

The championships have six categories for moustaches (including the Dali and Imperial), seven categories for partial beards (including the Alaskan Whaler and Fu Manchu), and five for full beards. Hey, if I stop shaving now, I can grow a good Garibaldi by contest time!

Last two beard photos by Sheri Manson. (Bottom right: Franz "Schani" Mitterhauser of the East Bavarian Beard Club. Above left: Willi Chevalier Sigmaringen, Lord Master of the freestyle partial-beard category.) Oh, and thank you to Amy Faust for the hot tip!

Burritos for Books

It’s been snowy and icy in the Pacific Northwest this week, making this the least auspicious time of the year to go jump in a lake.

So that’s what 12 Seattle-are poets did. (Above, one poet lost her glasses.) But before leaping into the frosty arms of Green Lake each plunging poet did a recital of his or her own work. One was a certain Dr. Clinton Bliss, who rhapsodized, “The coronary arteries tighten up and cut the blood flow. If there already has been a narrowing of the arteries, it could precipitate heart attack or arrhythmia."

Oh, my bad, that’s the doctor describing vasoplasm, a potentially fatal reaction of the body after it's subjected to extreme cold. Bliss's actual poem was about a polar bear “swimming, skimming bottom, bubbles beating time.”
This surreality (above, VW's riff on Magritte) was especially welcome after receiving two sobering messages yesterday. The first was a forward from this blog regarding Portland independent bookseller Broadway Books. Below, the owner's son writes:

"This store is my mother's passion and she's been an outstanding success in her endeavors [for nearly 20 years].... my father told me that business this winter season at my mom's store had been incredibly bleak. So much so that the future of the store could possibly be in jeopardy....

To help publicize the store's plight, this devoted son will buy a burrito for anyone who can show a receipt from the store for over $50. (Man, I dropped $75 there the other month! Why didn't I wait?)

UPDATE, 1/22/09: Broadway Books survived, and 25 people took advantage of the burrito offer.

On the heels of this news came this posting from Around the Sun that two other local indies, Twenty-Third Avenue Books and In Other Words Women’s Books and Resources are in dire financial straits. The latter store needs to raise $11,000 by the end of December, and the former's website states that they're toast “UNLESS we can find a buyer, an angel investor, or somehow rally the community to SAVE OUR SHOP!”

UPDATE, 1/22/09: In Other Words Survived. Twenty-Third Avenue Books did not.

While these are Portland businesses, stores worldwide are having a tough go of it. So if you’re planning on buying books for the holidays, opt for your local independents. Not only does your dollar has a far greater impact there, it may well stave off a bookstore’s vasoplasm.