Ear

Usage

"There is a bone in your ear which does not belong there!"

-- Jonathan Trenchwheat to Nathanael West, Hollywood, 1940.

"Well that would be the time I lay naked on a gurney in agony as the orderlies stuffed a snack cake into my ear... my left ear to be precise."

-- San Francisco Vagrant to Miss Monitzer when asked about his worst experience while institutionalized, 1991. This quote would later be adapted into a screenplay, but misplaced in 2004 during an alcoholic stupor.

“Pass me an ear of corn.”

-- an often heard request at the ].1 not even your own. This is quite amazing when you stop to consider that there have been some 10 billion people on Earth -- that's 20 billion ears! (And that's not even counting chimps and apes!) Ears are, in fact, the most reliable distinguishing identifier between identical twins.

The big question, as always, is why? For some, this is glimpse of the unseen hand of the Maker, shaping each person from the clay anew; for others, this is evidence of the grand random chaos in the universe, a bit of trivia, purposed as we grant it.

Like men and women, these twin views were once one in the poetic sciences of ear divining, which appears to have traveled with alchemy from the Indian subcontinent to the ancient Greeks around the 4th century BCE. The practice eventually morphed into the blind fatalism of phrenology and the cold science of ear-based identification systems² around the beginning of the 20th century in London and Brussels.

The schism was retained, indeed amplified, as ear identification was quickly replaced by fingerprinting (and eventually, DNA sampling), while phrenology evolved into a host of predictive practices (e.g., racial profiling). This split is really only an echo of the contrary philosophies “shared” today by the American peoples, where a fundamentalist president who “shapes reality” to fit his believes presides over scientists who explore the heavens with Martian rovers.

The O'Donnely Zodiac Placemats

What's your sign?

Ear Incidents in the AA Lore

• Addisson apparently did not stick his tongue in Krystine Monitzer’s ear as she slept; she apparently mistook a story someone told her about P-Boy with an incident from her own life.

• Due to a cannon-related, hearing-loss incident, A.W. Slippers was able to blow tobacco smoke rings out of his ears.

• Later day AA clamper David Payne was called a “sicko perv” after he was heard whispering “lemme like yer hot ears, babe” to a woman of ill repute.³ 

See Also

• Hunimal
• Eye
• Hand

Notes

Note 1:   “The ear is, for each human being, so different that the precise description, with all its characteristic features, would already be enough to ascertain the identification” (Professor Niceforo, Die Kriminalpolizei und ihre Hilfswissenschaften).

Note 2:   Ear investigators continue to prosecute criminals on the basis of ear prints, which are particularly suited for identification due to:

a) The readily measurable ratios present in the distances between the numerous standard cartilaginous protrusions (e.g., tragus, anti-tragus, knob of Darwin, etc.)

b) The uniqueness of these ratios in every ear.

c) The fact that these ratios are established by the fourth month of fetal development and remain unchanged until the decomposition of the corpse.

Mr. Cor van der Lugt (http://www.crimeandclues.com/earprint.htm) has presented an excellent discussion and proposal concerning the role of ear identification in the field of criminology. Ironically, unattached and unclaimed ears turn up world wide on a regular basis, and most large police forces now host a substancial collection of ears and unsolved ear mysteries.

Note 3:   Amateur AA history Steven Adkins defended Payne, pointing out that the “sicko perv” claims were “childish and unsubstantiated. Besides, we all have our own crosses to bear. And remember, to ere is human, to ear, divine.”

An attached human ear

Steven Vogeler's Fun Facts ®

Ears N' Stuff

You can't smoke in your ear-hole. Anywhere else will do.

People who fix ears are called otologists. People who fuck ears are called pencil dicks.