Definitions Can Be Tricky

Writing for BoingBoing, Xeni Jardin offers a post on BlackMetal for Dummies. An excerpt from her post illustrates the dangers of facile definitions--an object lesson for all young scholars:

"Musical characteristics include superfast guitars and shrieky, bummed-out vocals. Fashion characteristics include spiky shin guards, medieval accessories(swords, chains), and generous use of corpse paint.

"But as the comparative graphic above shows, identification can be tricky. At left, Dani from the band Cradle of Filth is wearing lots of corpse paint. He is Totally Black Metal. At right, Louie the pug -- who is owned by television news producer Jeremy Blacklow from a Certain News Network -- is not one bitBlack Metal, despite facial markings that strongly resemble corpse paint."