truth: rounder than fiction?

(panel from Peanuts strip, November 24, 1951)

Major developments in mass culture this spring have been the saga of the so-called Three Divas on American Idol, as well as the debuts of the Three Divas of UW Law School blogging (see Exhibits A, B, and C). I had very pleasant dinner with the three this evening, which was the first time I met A or B. The question was raised of the extent to which the drawing of me at the top of this page actually looks like me, especially since I've lately taken to using it as an all-purpose stand-in for a photograph of me. The conclusion was something about how one face was rounder than the other face, but I didn't quite catch whether it was that the drawing's face was rounder than my face or whether my face was rounder than the drawing's face. It seemed like something that was supposed to be sufficiently apparent that I didn't want to seem dense by asking for clarification. Predictably, afterward, I was looking at myself in the mirror in the mirror and wishing I had some calipers to measure ellipticality vs. roundness more precisely. Less predictably, it also caused me to spend some time reminiscing about that poster child of round-headedness, Charlie Brown.