Pins and Needles

Pins & Needles

‘Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvellous' Bill Moyers


The human waist seems to be bringing all manner of issues and challenges to the fore.

Then there’s this apparent need to not only expose the midriff, but thereafter to decorate it with some artwork that in time will surely be viewed differently? What gives? Often these tattoos are on the base of the spine and are displayed in glorious splendour to all who are behind these hapless people. We are walking along, minding our own business, and then SHAZAAM! We are confronted with ultimate butt cleavage, and more often than not some tattoo of sorts.

It took long enough to get used to the idea that just about any contractor that did work at your house in summer, effectively had sweat glands only located between his butt cheeks; Thus the need for low cut jeans was born. Are electricians, carpenters, plasterers et al really oblivious to what happens to their jeans when they bend down?But, back to the tattoos…

The tattoo may as well be a red neon sign flashing “CHECK THIS OUT”. How can you not help but look? It’s a magnet for Christ’s sake. And what is the tattoo most likely to be I hear you wonder?

Well, some weird intertwined plant that looks like it could be symbiotically attached? Maybe that’s barbed wire? (For realism, razor wire would be better in many cases, as perhaps for that authentic look, skip the tattoo and go for the real thing as a cost effective alternative to liposuction).

Maybe a rose, a pair of lips, or some other symbol that unwittingly causes the over 40 years of age viewer to hope that this person isn’t as life challenged, as the tattooed person’s looks are cheap. Skip the artistry girls and just make the statement you are making anyway… just have tattooed, quite simply, “Come and get it”.

And then of course there are the Chinese character symbols… ‘good luck’, or ‘good fortune’, et al. What a joke. Most of these people with these symbols couldn’t find China with an atlas and probably think it is purely a fond way of referring to posh people’s porcelain.

Assuming the tattooed person actually knows the symbol is in fact a Chinese Character, as opposed to a design constituted from strategically placed spaghetti, or an insignia from mass produced dinner plates, it’s likely that the tattooist most likely waxed lyrical about how this symbol means this or that and originated in this dynasty or other, possibly being oblivious to the fact that the symbols actually mean “No Spitting”, “Don’t Fall Down”, or something equally stupid.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if someone gave tattooists the Chinese symbols for health wealth and happiness, which actually said “slap my butt, squeeze my tits, and then I’ll shag you stupid”.
The numbers of Chinese men entering into the western world’s penal system would triple overnight… though a few would get lucky in the short term and then head home with much expedience when they find out their preconceptions about western women probably don’t hold true… like the rest of the guys in the world and their preconceptions about girls from here or there.

The effect of time on tattoos equally should be born in mind. Tattoos are permanent, that much is true, but over time they perhaps can be viewed as shape shifting. The tattoo is applied to skin tone and musculature of a defined level, but what happens when this tonality changes through losing or gaining weight, and even just old age?

I doubt if the original artistry could be preserved to a great extent, if at all, assuming you see tattoos as artistry to begin with, of course. Text would be totally messed up, over time. People who gained lots of weight would have issues and those who were once obese and tattooed would have all sorts of other issues upon shrinking.
“What’s with having the board game name ‘Ludo’ tattooed on your abdomen?”
“Ah, that was before I went on diets and worked out… it once said my home town, Llandudno”.
The Ludo/ Llandudno tattoo idea could only work if it was tattooed on a man’s penis. It could be a good ‘physical’ chat up line
“So where are you from?”
Sound of unzipping follows…
“Take a look… stroke this gently and you’ll find out… it’s not a bad place – once you start to get a feel for it, it kind of grows on you”.

The human body is a pretty remarkably well designed piece of technology and mankind throughout time has managed to find mates and procreate… is all this adornment necessary, I wonder? Especially as much of it is pretty permanent. This strikes me as strange. The fashion followers of the world must know by now that fashion trends come and go like politicians’ and game show host’s tales of perversion and sex scandals. What in heaven’s name would allow you to suspend judgment long enough to get permanent adornment for, then?

Phases aren’t permanent, are they?

A further appearance enhancer, nay adornment technique, is cosmetic surgery, of course.
Why do people keep trying it? Don’t these people read newspapers, magazines or watch TV? Haven’t they seen recent photos of Michael Jackson? Let’s face it, literally… the procedures can cause somewhat fabulous results, yet at the same time one risks alarming results, if not present day horror stories.

The famous people who have undergone cosmetic surgery deny it in the main, whilst the unsuspecting members of the public who have had cosmetic surgery procedures done badly are vocal about having cosmetic surgery and its downsides. How many people, or celebrities for that matter, actually say they owe their good lucks to a great doctor or surgeon? The only person I have heard openly admit to this is Dolly Parton – and good for her too – it’s good that she’s honest and told us how she has managed to keep abreast of the latest procedures.
So as far as we see and hear, proportionately, the concept doesn’t work, most of the time. Why are people still even thinking about doing these procedures for pure aesthetics? Cosmetic surgery perhaps shouldn’t be toyed with (even if you do want to look like a doll)?

Some people stay on the fringe of plastic surgery and limit themselves to merely subscribing to a veritable salvo of the latest injections to make the wrinkles disappear, the lips fuller, and achieve fine line removal. What’s going on? If you are seeing wrinkles then may it be possible that its part of a since the dawn of time process called aging? And what’s wrong with getting old? That’s what people effectively do.

Alternatively it may be because you chose to get “that perfect tan” whilst repeatedly on holiday or living in sunnier climes and your skin now has all the form and texture of an iguana’s neck when in a death throe from dehydration… but that’s your own fault, isn’t it?

Some of the procedures that are undertaken today to improve the quality of one’s skin are fairly frightening in concept and reality. Seeing a woman after the latest ‘full Monty’ micro abrasion procedures on the skin, or acid peels, surely isn’t that great. Whilst some of these procedures are very mild and can be availed of at home or in a spa, more intense procedures are administered under anaesthetic… general anaesthetic.

Why is this? I would imagine the majority of people undertaking these ‘heavy duty’ procedures are already anaesthetised at least to the world, if not themselves as well, aren’t they?

Husbands and partners must be scared shitless when their better half walks in from the more intense procedures, from days of hospitalisation and looking like they have just spent the last 12 years working for NASA, personally inspecting the ozone layer at 45000 feet. Better to leave the bandages on if you ask me.

“Kids? Mummy’s home.”

This is taking parenthood too far… temporary mummification isn’t the process for being a good mother, now is it? And anyway, if one wants to have ones facial tissue effectively half stripped of its layers, it’s cheaper to go to England in summer. Simply visit any seaside beach, and quietly sit there in the wind. Sand blasting is probably nature’s way of taking care of deep exfoliation.

For a fuller effect of course, we can get started on the lips…

Aren’t lips wonderful? Lips are beautifully engineered things, sensitive, alluring, and whether fat or thin, deeply coloured or more pallid, they can give and provide so much pleasure to themselves and partners during everyday kissing and lovemaking. But it is a truism that on the inside of lips, it doesn’t have an instruction for how many pounds per square inch (p.s.i.) to which the lips should be inflated. Lips aren’t tyres nor are they old fashioned inner tubes.

Cold sores and chapping are probably the most common ailments affecting the lips, even causing the skin to rupture and burst, yet one doesn’t treat these complaints with a bicycle repair kit! Lips were not meant to be inflated.

Often these inflationary lip injections look hideous. Why are women doing this? When the effect is over pronounced, it isn’t a good look, is it? Are there advantages? Using the lips as a method of harnessing oneself whilst cleaning apartment block exterior windows perhaps? What gives?

Then there’s the wrinkling issue. If you are taking drugs, then lines are something to definitely get rid of. If you are a naughty student at school, lines can and should be avoided.
Otherwise, from a facial perspective, lines aren’t all that bad.
Its nature’s way of demonstrating that you are aging, and despite what you might want to think, others to think, and look like, the years are passing.
What’s wrong with that?

People are going mental to get the newest and latest invention that causes your skin to tighten and remove lines. Have these people never had really bad sunburn? Haven’t they ever actually burned themselves to the point where the skin has blistered? Stretched skin doesn’t have a good look, does it? So what’s with trying to get that same stretched skin tone on the face?
Your facial texture isn’t naturally like Clingfilm under pressure.

It seems to me that many people who have had this or that tightening procedure become perhaps photogenically appealing, and maybe much more attractive from a distance. However, in those circumstances you are not interacting with them closely, and perhaps more importantly, they are not really relating with you either. When interaction does take place though, the skin has been tightened and stretched here and there rendering the person pretty much unintelligible, outside of the spoken word, I would have thought. And that’s assuming the stretching still allows the face to move enough to provide for speech.

It’s a well known fact that a great part of communication comes from expression of the body… this is critical and why it’s called body language. We are communicating 24 x 7 even when we are not speaking. We also know that frowning uses way more muscles than smiling, and facially we have a complex interlinked structure of muscles to show what we have come to term ‘expression’.

Will modification of the skin with all these procedures allow full expression, I wonder. Expression is kind of useful, don’t you think?

If you are peering into the eyes of your loved one, uttering a sensual and deeply private “I love you” and yet your face has all the undulation and fluidity of the glaze on a Noritake side plate, your emotion may lose a tad of its intent, don’t you think?

What about when you are in fight or flight mode? Threatened? Endangered? Go to a mirror and imagine yourself in a position of total danger and then scream “HELP!” into the mirror.
I think it’s fair to say that, assuming your mirror works, and assuming that you have completed that little exercise with some realism, your face actually contorts quite a bit while you are screaming for help.

Cosmetic surgery is removing the ability for people in dire need to request help in life threatening situations. A scream has an expression attached to it, doesn’t it? And doesn’t it need one to be convincing? Go to the mirror again and, whilst remaining totally deadpan, shout “HELP” again, whilst doing all possible not to move a muscle. You just became the boy who cried wolf, expression wise, and no one is going to rush to help you. You’ll probably look like someone who really doesn’t need help, someone who did, (but no longer does because they have gotten the situation under control), or maybe just plainly like a distracted mental patient and/or lobotomy candidate.

We need to be able to express ourselves, quite obviously. Have people who have undergone cosmetic surgery and lost expressive capability, also become in capable of laughing? Maybe that’s just as well… they probably don’t have much to laugh about anymore?
(Then again, maybe they do, because the mirrors of the world aren’t working, are they)?

And what’s with all this eyebrow nonsense? The things people do to their eyebrows is, for me at least, something that defies all known logic. Eyebrows serve a purpose; they protect the eyes, effectively, from dust, sweat and the like. Some people have thicker eyebrows than others, and some people have different shaped eyebrows.

This is ok; it forms part of our look, our character. But to sit in front of a mirror plucking and extricating them, one by one, for what seems like an eternity? What’s with that?
And after spending that eternity getting rid of them, women the world over simply recreate them again with a pencil? If you want to draw, surely a sensible thing to do would be to get a sketch pad! Take an art class for Christ’s sake!

Some people have their eyebrows plucked and then arrange tattoos to replace them; with I guess shaving or hair removal cream to keep them removed? Are they mad? Any hair that is removed or repeatedly shaved just grows back thicker and quicker – surely they know that? Tattoos go blue or green over time in many cases, girls, don’t you know that also? Does that look seem like it will be in vogue in years to come? What do you know that I don’t? Go to websites offering eyebrow tattooing procedures and check out the before and after photographs… try, just try and convince yourself that the majority of pictures look human and normal. Some ladies’ eyebrows are going to look, in tattooed form years from now, like they belong on a head in Traitor’s Cloister in Elizabethan times. And that’s the good news.

We have all seen tattoos that change over time… a bit of weight gained here and there effectively stretch the tattoos. Stretching any image does little to improve it, as anyone knows who has stood in front of a circus or funfair mirror, or more lately played around with skew functions on image manipulation software.


Then there’s eyebrow piercing.

How does that work? Eyebrows have functionality, don’t they? They aren’t a design cock up of some kind; otherwise the evolutionary QA department would have already starting phasing them out. How do piercings help with the functionality?

Having lumps of jewellery, (jewellery in its loosest term more often than not I might add), inserted in the eyebrows isn’t that useful is it? If they are ringed can you hang a shopping bag off them? Secure a pen perhaps? Provide a convenient ‘out of the way’ place for your mobile headset cord or iPod headphones?

How do piercings help with dust and sweat protection for the eyes? Why not just have a small dense brush surgically inserted, in that ‘perfect eyebrow shape’ and be done with it?
And what about all the other piercings that many are going in for these days?..