Alterations

So the name has changed here, from Fried Butter to Physiognomics. The former struck me as a funny name for a diet blog, but I don’t think anyone else really got it and I’m not so interested in straight-up diet blogging anymore. I wonder if, statistically speaking, diet blogs have the quickest burnout rate? So many people start them and abandon them. I’ve read them for years now, and the ones that were on the original sidebar were the most consistently updated back in February, when I started this thing. Now two of them are updating. And while my primary blog has been cooking along for almost four years now, I haven’t written here since June. Losing weight just isn’t all that interesting unless it’s your all-consuming passion (and there’s nothing wrong with that!). The problem for me is that my all-consuming thing right now has to be finishing my Ph.D.

But there are still things I want to write here that I can’t write there, all the things about the body: weight, birth control, hair, pain and the management thereof, depression and the management thereof. The title refers so Aristotle’s Physiognomics, which attempted to classify physical aspects of humans and animals and the meaning each aspect contained. Here’s an example from 1.6, a "selection of signs with regard to men is as follows":

• Buttocks pointed and bony are a mark of a strong character, fat fleshy buttocks of a soft character, whilst lean buttocks which look as if they had been rubbed bare, are indicative of a mischievous disposition, as in apes.
• A loose build round about the belly indicates strength of character, as in the male sex, whilst the opposite is by congruity indicative of a soft character. [Yay! I have strength of character!]
• Suppleness of the clavicles signifies quickness of perception, for when the collar-bone is supple, stimulation of the senses is rendered easy. Contrariwise, a stiff collar-bone indicates dullness of sense, because then it is difficult to apprehend sense-stimuli.

And so on. This strikes me as hilarious stuff, and I’m mired in Hellenic texts right now anyway, and so therefore the new name. More anon.