That’s my beard. I include it because of this piece by the poet Donald Hall (I enjoy his work a great deal and have fond memories of lying in bed with a particular woman and read from The Painted Bed, one of the collections he wrote after the death of the poet Jane Kenyon, who was also his wife, but I put poet first because that’s how she should first be remembered).

Anyway. Read his essay, Three Beards from the New Yorker.