Mane Characters

When I was at university I let my hair grow and grow until it was long enough to tie back into a ponytail. I should remind you that this was in the first decade of the new millennium. Had I gone to university in the 1980s, or even the 1990s, perhaps I would have been more popular with the ladies. As it was, I did not receive a whole lot of female attention during my tertiary education. That’s not to say that men with long hair are inherently unattractive, but I’ll come back to that in a moment.
My reasons for eventually cutting my hair short are several:
Having long hair was uncomfortable. Each time I hitched my school bag onto my shoulders, my head would jerk violently as the strap of my bag pulled my hair down against my shoulder.
I had also been told on more than one occasion that once I entered the workforce I would be pressured into cutting my hair. I didn’t enjoy the prospect of having an outside force dictate my appearance, so I thought I would take preemtive measures and cut my hair on my own terms.
But the true driving force behind my decision to neaten myself up, Dear Reader, is because I am a cinephile. A large part of my perceptions of the world have been shaped by cinema, and towards the end of university it became profoundly noticeable that not one single leading man had long hair. As we entered the new millennium, long hair on men had become reserved for henchmen and side characters. Suddenly, any main man who was a mane man was automatically a parody of heroism.
While having long hair is not unattractive in itself, to me it is a sign of being a side character in the main act. In this new epoch of physical appearance, I found that I was no longer a hero, and I needed to change that, so I cut my hair in order to once again become the leading man in my own story.

McGruber came out in 2010, and the hair alone indicates that he is a not to be taken seriously.

Now that Hollywood has left long hair far behind, I feel the tide shifting again.
This time, it’s not a question of appearance, but rather of action. And it’s not something I am seeing in heroes, but in villains: I am beginning to feel that the presence of animal flesh on the screen is becoming a sign of menace.
If you want to show that a character is greedy, film him voraciously gnawing the meat off of a chicken drumstick. If you want to show that he is violent, show him punching an animal carcass. If you want to show that he is cold and unfeeling, show him torturing someone inside a walk-in freezer surrounded by skinned animals dangling from hooks.

Watching Denethor eat in The Return of the Kind is enough to make you despise him.

And it’s not just the villains’ treatment of animals that is starting to give carnivorism a bad name. Animal videos on social media are on the rise. Perhaps it’s just the friends I follow, but I am becoming increasingly exposed to videos of animals displaying painfully beautiful human traits. It seems silly to even write it down, but I will anyway: We are seeing animals displaying intelligence, and love, and loss, and friendship, and even selflessness. To say that animals exist solely for our consumption is ridiculous. They exist for the same reasons we do, whatever that may be. It’s becoming harder to ignore the fact that humans and animals have more commonalities than differences, and I personally am reaching a stage where I can no longer fight the cognitive dissonance which allows me to love animals while at the same time guiltlessly eat a hamburger.

You’ve probably already seen this video. It’s the kind of friendship I could only dream of having.

To be clear, I love eating meat. And I’ve got no problem with other people who eat meat. I do not want to give it up, and I don’t even know the first thing about maintaining a meat-free diet. So I won’t give it up readily. But my revulsion is on the rise, and perhaps one day I’ll find myself biting into a steak and truly realizing that I am not the leading man in my own life anymore.

Food Poise

Dear Street Vendor

I am not one to overindulge in deep-fried foods, but I found your unique brand of Colombian empanadas difficult to resist. I have no doubt that the placement of your empanada cart was strategic: A shady spot outside a popular grocery store, tempting shoppers on their way home to prepare a lunch from ingredients recently purchased. Who can resist the smell of dough cooking in oil? A curious human instinct, perhaps. A throwback to a time when oil and fat, while being dangerously scarce, were essential for human survival.
Your pastry, striking exactly the right balance between soft and crispy, envelopes a generous quantity of perfectly seasoned meat. What’s more, the little golden pocket, at the very reasonable price of one luka, makes for a perfect snack on a long walk home.
You clearly are a master of your craft: Oil boiling in the wok, empanadas cooling on the rack, aged hands nimbly rolling an empanada into wax paper, a square of paper towel snatched up and offered as a napkin. With a motherly “Gracias, cariño,” my 1000-peso bill is somehow switched with the empanada without a break in movement.

I suspect you won’t remember me. You have no reason to. I grant that mine is not the most memorable of faces, and when our paths crossed my clothes were drab and un-noteworthy: Plain shirt, black pants, an extended hand, unremarkable save for the single monetary bill within its clutch. I was just one extra soul in a long line of eager customers, all salivating and ready to order (a promising sign of a worthwhile purchase). For my part, I only thought of you again many hours later, with my knees on the floor of my bathroom and my stomach squeezed into an excruciating spasm, as if struck dead-on with an electrified cattle prod.
Certainly, there is no nobility in bowing to a porcelain throne. It was an inconvenient place in which I found myself after sampling your winsome wares. The embarrassment was exacerbated all the more by the party that my roommate was throwing just outside the door.
“I can cancel, if you need to rest?” she had said before the guests arrived.
“No, no,” I pressed, between intestinal paroxysms. “Don’t let me interrupt your night.”
I really didn’t want to spoil her evening, but certain interruptions could not be avoided: The guttural gurgling coming from the bathroom, my gaunt, pathetic figure slouching across the hallway in full site of the guests, my skin slick with perspiration. It progressed this way all night – back and forth between bathroom and bedroom. There was always a brief lull in conversation as party-goers paused to watch the spectacle, and always an abashed nod from me, as if to say Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.

At intervals that night, your empanada flashed across my vision. It had been a pleasure to eat. But as I lay on my bed, believing myself to be barely moments away from death, trying to trick myself into sleeping away the delirious torment, I wanted nothing to do with that repulsive morsel. I tried to cast it from my mind, but it clung to my awareness. The sight, the taste, the sensation in my mouth – these things would not leave me. From the living room, sounds of Spanish music and rowdy conversation dragged me from slumber and pushed me to the edge of madness.
I lost count of the times I roused that night. It was always the same process: Slamming awake, pulling myself to my door, stomach squeezing, crossing the hallway, the sudden hush and then upswing of noise as party-goers witnessed my shame, the kneeling down, the lurch of the stomach, and then agony.
Even in my more lucid hours I did not think ill of you. Despite the exhaustion in my empty gut and the intense pain in my knees from spending long minutes kneeling on my bathroom tiles, I rationalised that you had simply made one bad batch. It was not your fault. The popularity of your cart suggested that complete gastrointestinal shutdown was not a common side effect of your business. So please do not take offense at this letter. I merely want you to understand my position. You see, Dear Vendor, the smell of oil still beckons, and the thought of your deep-fried delicacy still causes me to salivate. Since that terrible night I have walked past your cart many times, but I have been unable to bring myself to purchase another one of your deeply memorable Colombian empanadas. Unfortunately, although the nightmare is long over, the fear of death remains.

Sincerely,

Empa Nada Mas