From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Fri, 16 Jan 2026 15:23:00 +0100, "Mickmane"    
   wrote:   
      
   >On 16.01.26, ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de   wrote:   
   >> "Mickmane"  wrote or quoted:   
   >   
   >>> Yeah, but I'd rather stick with crazy hair guy (people know who I   
   >>> mean, and he didn't mind the hair reference in some episode) than   
   >>> trying to spell the name correctly. :)   
   >   
   >>   People have long used messy or "wild" hair as a visual shorthand   
   >>   for a disordered or unusual mind, and phrases like "bird's nest   
   >>   in one's hair" grow out of that older association of tangled hair   
   >>   with neglect, eccentricity, and madness.   
   >   
   >Blame Albert Einstein, or someone before him?   
      
   In one of his plays, Aristophanes portrays Socrates with some of the   
   features of a "mad scientist", such as a robe and (IIRC) a funny hat.   
   He might or might not also have had tangled hair (in the play).   
      
   If you are thinking Aristophanes is rather far back there, consider:   
      
   1. In one play, a country bumpkin sells two pigs in a bag to a   
   desperate city dweller (desperate because the Peloponnesian War is   
   hindering the supply chain). When he takes it home and opens it, the   
   bumpkin's daughter pop out and run away. Hence "a pig in a poke" for   
   buying something you cannot see.    
      
   When I bought our new oil furnace, it quickly became apparent that I   
   was, effectively, buying a pig in a poke. That is, all I really had to   
   work on was a sales pitch. By a salesman who didn't know much about   
   the product.   
      
   To be fair, it was installed and it still works nearly 20 years later.   
   But, still, lingering dissatisfaction with how it was sold makes me   
   hesitant to move to a heat pump, which will, no doubt, involve Yet   
   Another Sales Talk By Someone Selling Something He Knows Little About.   
      
   Three of them, if it seems prudent to get three bids and compare them.   
      
   2. /The Birds/, the play with Socrates in it per Wikipedia, is the   
   first known instance of Cloud Cuckoo Land, the aerial kingdom of the   
   birds.   
      
   3. He also wrote /Lysistrata/, in which the women of Athens and Sparta   
   try to stop the war by going on a sexual strike, only to find they   
   their desire is stronger than that of their husbands. It's produced a   
   number of plays and movies.   
   --    
   "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,   
   Who evil spoke of everyone but God,   
   Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)