They walk among us unnoticed. That is, until some wildly -maniacs start screaming 'Mullet!' at the top of their lungs. Those maniacs are Harvard's own Ted Malliaris '03 and Curran D. Hendry '03. The unsuspecting center of attention wears a mullet--a haircut featuring long hair in the back and short hair on the top and sides. Malliaris and Hendry mean no harm; they're just playing the mullet game, in which the players are awarded points for spotting rare forms of the elusive mullet. This excitable pair of Harvard frosh recently embarked on a pilgrimage of sorts, traversing the fertile mullet heartland between Washington D.C. and North Carolina. While on their quest, Malliaris and Hendry uncovered the fabled mother lode of mullets on the grounds of a discount store selling "tons of cigarettes."

Malliaris' and Hendry's climb to the forefront of the field of mulletology had humble beginnings. The website www.mulletsgalore.com provided a crash course on the topic, enabling the inquisitive readers to absorb the fundamentals of mullet vocabulary, mullet classification and porn mullets (for the mature breed of mullet enthusiast). Soon thereafter, a friend bestowed upon Malliaris a book entitled The Mullet: Hairstyle of the Gods, which tackled advanced areas of mulletology such as the aerodynamics of the mullet and the emergence of mythical superhero Mulletman.

But just what kind of person gives good mullet? According to La Flamme's hair stylist extraordinaire Kim Abreu, today's requests for the dubious style, which have become less frequent ever since a fellow employee took a pair of scissors to his own mullet, originate mainly from hockey players and those stuck in the '80s. Abreu explains that they seek "a bi-level look that doesn't quite connect," the benchmark of a good mullet. However, she vehemently denies ever giving anyone a mullet by accident or even wanting to give anyone a mullet. Ever.

Mullets abroad do exist, as Paul M. Tselentis '03 reports. In South Africa, shifty characters loitering on street corners late at night are the ones sporting the haircut. Wai Tim Yu '03 tells of the occasional mullet for the purpose of a rebellious image in his native Hong Kong. An avid frequenter of Australia's Gold Coast, Yu notes that the mullet is much more common in the Land Down Under. There, he declares, the attitude can be summed up as "mullet for the sake of mullet."

--P. A. Steciuk