How Does Aspirin Find a Headache?

by David Feldman

  I can’t speak for the current generation, but when I was a boy, dancing was considered “sissy.” I went to a rural school, and I don’t think any male ever learned to dance while I was there. From TV reports, boys today seem willing to learn the more athletic dances, such as break-dancing, but I suspect that ballroom dancing is still considered beneath contempt.

  Curiously, though, dancing has often been considered a macho pursuit among diverse working-class subcultures, ranging from the Italians depicted in Saturday Night Fever, the spiritual descendants of the kids who danced on “American Bandstand” in the 1950s, to the African-Americans in inner cities, where break-dancing and hip-hop cultures emerged.

  Another correspondent, Joseph M. Novak of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, argues that from the earliest ages, boys are touted toward what society deems gender-specific physical activities emphasizing strength and power, such as football and wrestling. Girls, on the other hand, are encouraged to develop grace and beauty, in sports such as gymnastics and arts such as ballet. Novak even argues that the musculature of the two genders might play a factor: “Who do you think is a better dancer, Arnold [Schwarzenegger] or Maria [Shriver]?”

  We’re betting on Maria. But we’re still concerned that we haven’t pinned down why dancing is considered a feminine form. Some readers feel the answer is…

  3. Dancing Is an Emotional Expression, and Men Don’t Like to Express Their Emotions

  Cheryl Stevens’s response speaks for several readers:

  Dance is an emotional expression, like any art. Men are not (or were not) encouraged to express their emotions, especially with potential spectators around. Maybe as men are allowed to be more sensitive, they’ll become better dancers.

  Cheryl, we’re betting that big bands will come back before men become more sensitive. But we like your point about spectators. Men tend to open up emotionally to a few selected intimate friends, whereas women are more likely to share emotions with acquaintances; therefore, men might be more reluctant to express their emotions (and thus their vulnerability) in public, even through dance.

  Still, why would men have no problem expressing emotion in writing or music but stumble upon dance? Perhaps the answer is that while we don’t tend to read the average Joe’s prose or listen to an amateur’s musical stabs, we are constantly subjected, whether at wedding parties or at discos, to the prancing of amateur dancers, many of whom are coerced onto dance floors by their dates or mates. After all, there are plenty of spectacularly graceful professional male dancers; maybe the average man would be just as reticent about playing the oboe or reciting his poetry in public.

  4. Men Don’t Like to Dance, So They Don’t Do It Well

  This may not be the most profound explanation, but it makes some sense. For all the reasons stated above, many men don’t like to dance. LaNue Parnell-Reynolds of Warren, Arkansas, thinks this insight unlocks the Frustable:

  You need to watch some country dancing! Men are good at what the enjoy. More women than men like ballroom-type dancing.

  5. Dancing Seduces Men More Easily than Women

  We have no idea if Robin Pearce’s theory is correct, but it was the only answer we received that ties together the many threads we’ve discussed in a way that, well, might bag her an “A” in an anthropology course:

  Dancing, like brightly colored clothing and makeup, is a way of visually displaying one’s self to potential mates. Since men are visually oriented, women take greater pains to make themselves attractive [to men], and this includes dancing well; gay men are usually excellent dancers for the same reason [they are also trying to attract men].

  Your average straight white American male subconsciously feels that dancing well, like being too concerned with one’s appearance, is not masculine. However, heterosexual men in cultures where visual display is considered appropriate for the male (i.e., Latin, Mediterranean, and black men) both dance well and dress colorfully.

  Robin is obviously generalizing about gender and various ethnic and national types, but her notion is fascinating. After all, choreographers and lyricists constantly cast dance as a metaphor for sex. And although it is hard to conjure up any woman being enticed by the fellow performing a lumbering lambada at the disco, it is hard to argue with Pearce that the ultimate, if often subconscious, goal of much social dancing is seduction.

  While most men are attracted by the dancing of potential mates, it doesn’t necessarily follow that most men are attractive when they dance. Maybe the maladroit average male is showing rare good sense in being a wallflower—better not to attract a mate than to lose any chance by flailing around on the dance floor.

  Submitted by Judith Dahlman of New York, New York.

  A complimentary copy goes to Robin Pearce of Kansas City, Missouri.

  FRUSTABLE 6: Why do so many people put their hands up to their chins in photographs?

  “Because the photographer tells them to!” answers Rosemary Gee of Ridgefield, Washington. She’s right, in a sense. We doubt if many portrait subjects spontaneously thrust their hands into their chins upon hearing “cheese.” As Bill Jelen of Akron, Ohio puts it:

  It is a conspiracy by all of the professional photographers. Have you ever seen anyone posed this way in an amateur photograph? No!

  We can testify to the existence of hand-in-face commands by professional photographers. We didn’t spontaneously place our fingers on our forehead when the picture on the back cover was shot. We were asked to do so.

  Still, we need to plumb deeper. Even if only professional photographs seem to feature this pose, why do these photographers request it? We spoke to many professional photographers and received quite a bit of response from readers, too. As usual, with Frustables, answers were all over the map; but they fell into five major categories:

  1. Look Ma, No or Two Hands

  We received this unusual theory from James P. Gage of Washington Island, Wisconsin:

  Many portraits were requested by immigrants to send to relatives in the “old country.” Should the fingers not be shown, the relatives would assume the immigrant had lost some or all of the digits in transit or at work. Even in the 1960s, when I worked as an apprentice at a portrait studio, “Show their fingers!” was the request of the boss.

  Finger-posing can exhibit good news as well as bad. Gail Lee Dunson of Dallas, Texas, points out that “in a wedding or graduation portrait, the pose is used so that the ‘portraitee’ can show off the new ring.”

  2. A Cheap Form of Plastic Surgery

  The most popular theory among readers is that the pose is used to cover a myriad of physical defects in the subject: wrinkles in the neck; a weak chin; a double chin; acne or other blemishes; a scar; or even bad teeth.

  Of course, no subject is going to look great if the image is blurred. Curtis Krause of Vernon, Connecticut, offers a theory similar to that mentioned earlier in this book during our discussion of why people didn’t smile in old photographs:

  Many old photographs contain blurs caused by movement during exposure. Exposures were originally rather lengthy…. It may be that the hands on the chins helped to steady the head and avoid blurring. As film speeds increased, this pose would have become less necessary, but might have been continued as part of the style.

  Ultimately, the more important reason why the hand-to-chin pose might make the subject look better was expressed by John C. White of El Paso, Texas:

  People posing for photo sessions often feel awkward and don’t know what to do with their hands. Photographers have learned to resolve this problem with the hand-to-chin pose. It may be a bit hackneyed but it sure beats the Napoleonic pose.

  3. Spruces Up the Image

  Many readers (“Dobie Gillis” fans?) mentioned that the hand-in-chin pose reminds them of Robin’s The Thinker. To them, the pose conjures in the viewer the notion that the subject is an intellectual, of a philosophical and cerebral nature.

  Gene Lester of the American Society of Camera Collectors notes that hands can enha
nce the subjects in other ways:

  Hands are very expressive and the way people hold them or use them shows a bit more of their character. Hands can help express deep thought, puzzlement, even humor, depending upon how the subject uses them.

  Reader Joanna Parker of Miami, Florida, corroborates and expands upon Lester’s thesis. If you want to show the potential power of this pose, suggests Parker, watch actors:

  If you watch truly adept actors, you will find that they consider the body to be three spheres, balanced one atop the other. When you want to express power, you use all your arm and hand gestures in the middle sphere. You punch from there, poke your fingers into the other guy’s chest from there, tell people “no!” with a slicing gesture of the open hand from there, etc.

  If the actor wants to exude sex, he works with his arms/hands in the lower sphere. All gestures originate from and work in this area.

  The top sphere projects intelligence, thoughtfulness, and intimacy. Watch good actors who are playing professors. Chances are that when they are on camera, they are fiddling with their glasses, moving their hair off of their foreheads, using a pipe by gesturing with it held close to their faces, etc.

  In still photography, perhaps the placing of the hands under the chin enhances this expression of intimacy with the viewer of the photo. It lends the photo a feeling of sincerity.

  4. Improves the Composition

  Several readers and professional photographers noted that a head floating in space looks funny in a photograph. The hand-in-chin pose anchors the head, but it also makes the composition look more natural, at least according to photographer Mike Brint, who notes that in nature, larger objects usually support smaller ones. He speculates that the originator of the pose might have thought that a head shot featuring a thin neck supporting the head looked funny, like an ice cream cone.

  Why might the hand-in-chin pose create a superior composition? Photographer Bill O’Donnell supplies an explanation:

  The most common explanation is that the vertical or diagonal line formed by the arm will tend to “lead” the viewer’s eye to the face. A simple face-front picture looks rather static and may be unflattering; the hand-in-chin pose makes the subject appear more relaxed and lifelike. There’s a reason why mug shots and driver’s license photos look like they do—no hands, no relaxed pose, no suggestion of possible movement.

  Chandra L. Morgan-Henley of Cleveland, Ohio, is also a proponent of the “composition theory” and notes that good photographers

  compose photographs in their minds before clicking the shutter…. What might otherwise be a poorly composed and boring portrait can, with the addition of a carefully placed hand, strike exactly the right balance for visual interest.

  Please note that I said can in the above sentence, because poorly trained (and untrained) photographers often copy techniques that they have seen, with results that are less than pleasing. Incidentally, my father and two brothers are all portrait photographers, and I studied retouching before deciding my talents lay elsewhere—such as in writing letters to authors.

  Good idea, Chandra, there’s a great future in the lucrative and expanding field of writing letters to authors.

  5. It Sells, Stupid

  The chin-in-hand pose was met mostly by derision by the professional photographers we contacted. Yet many noted that the pose is consistently popular with subjects. And if subjects want a pose, even if photographers disdain it? In this case, presumably, the customer is always right.

  Typical, if slightly more emotional than most, was the reaction of professional Wilton Wong of Belmont, California:

  I get nauseated every time I encounter a senior photo on someone’s wall or desk, with the senior shown with the hand up to the chin or side of head. It is obviously so phony, since one can tell that absolutely no weight of the head is resting on the hand (since that would cause facial distortion)…. As for why this is done, I’ll speculate that it is merely the result of a photographer who shoots “by formula” as learned in a workshop (“Now remember, pose#147 is great for seniors!”) and relies on cliche poses rather than being a real artist and coming up with innovative ways of making the photo interesting.

  Over the last five years, we’ve harassed Joann Carney, the talented photographer who managed to keep the Imponderables author photo down to only a minor sales deterrent. “Why did you suggest the hand-on-forehead pose for this photo?” we prodded.

  Believe it or not, Carney didn’t know herself. She mentioned that amateur subjects are often nervous and that movement distracts them from focusing on the mechanics of the shoot; she noted that some people come alive when using their hands; and she muttered something about the composition being more interesting. Maybe, in a burst of psychic energy rarely encountered, she anticipated the appropriateness of this pose for the title of this book.

  Submitted by Alice Conway of Highwood, Illinois.

  A complimentary book goes to Joanna Parker of Miami, Florida.

  FRUSTABLE 7: Why do very few restaurants serve celery with mixed green salads?

  It’s green. It’s crunchy. It’s low in calories. It’s in tuna and chicken salad. Can you think of another vegetable, besides lettuce, more qualified to belong in a mixed green salad than celery?

  But a glance at just about any mixed green salad will reveal a lack of celery. What’s going on? Mark Watson of Cary, North Carolina, formerly responsible for the preparation of the salad bar at the Chapel Hill Country Club restaurant, weighs in with three important reasons:

  First, every competent restaurateur knows that “people eat with their eyes.” Many of the ingredients in any item served in a restaurant are there as much for visual appeal as for flavor. Since celery is the same color as the lettuce base, it fails to improve visual appeal. On the other hand, tomatoes, carrots, and onions (white or purple) provide contrast. I cannot overemphasize the importance of visual presentation in the restaurant business. I have seen time and again that a good meal, poorly presented, will generate complaints, while a mediocre meal, presented colorfully and artistically, will bring raving compliments.

  Second, the preparation of celery is relatively labor-intensive. It must be washed, and the widely flared white base must be cut off because it tends to be too fibrous and ugly. The leafy tops and often the narrow branches are removed, and then any damage spots on the stalk are excised. Finally, it is usually chopped into fairly narrow slices.

  Third, the one superior attribute that celery does have disappears quickly in storage: that crispy crunchiness. Another maxim in the food industry is that food should have “good mouth feel.” Celery provides a satisfying crunch that consumers (correctly) associate with freshness. Leftover chopped celery tends to turn brown and become rubbery rather quickly compared to other vegetables; this increases food waste. Restaurants used to solve this problem by storing celery (and lettuce and sliced potatoes) in a container of water mixed with a powdered vegetable preservation product that contained sulfites. To the best of my knowledge, this process has been widely abandoned, because the FDA discovered an annoying drawback to the practice. People all over the country were eating sulfite-treated salad vegetables, keeling over, and plummeting into life-threatening allergic anaphylactic shock!

  Ronald J. Moore of Ecorse, Michigan, a professional chef for more than thirty years, backs up Watson’s complaint about the quick spoilage of celery. Restaurant personnel don’t appreciate having to prepare celery for dinner just hours before customers enter:

  If salad is kept from, say, 2:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M., it is fine without celery. If it contains chopped celery, seven hours will have turned it from mixed green salad into mixed brown garbage.

  Even before it oxidizes, celery tends to be dirty. Travel writer Judy Colbert reports that her food service friends tell her that celery is full of bacteria and is particularly difficult to clean properly. Another complaint that Judy and Ronald Moore mention is that celery is stringy and tends to get caught between teeth. Moore reports that o
lder customers complain that celery gets trapped in their dentures.

  Sure, celery adds crunchiness to a salad, but reader Cheryl Stevens notes that the cabbage and lettuce in a mixed green salad also provide snap. Tuna and chicken salad, on the other hand, “squishy in consistency,” require celery for texture.

  Finally, Ronald Moore contributes what could be a decisive factor in the demand-side of the missing celery equation: “An amazing number of people absolutely hate the taste of celery.”

  Submitted by Malcolm Boreham of Staten Island, New York. Thanks also to Launie Rountry of Brockton, Massachusetts.

  A complimentary book goes to Mark Watson of Cary, North Carolina.

  FRUSTABLE 8: In English spelling, why does “i” come before “e” except after “c”?