Masking allusions

I wanted to be Jane Long for Halloween, but they shook their heads, tightened their lips, and said no. Ugh, to silly Snow White. Lizzie Borden or Typhoid Mary appropriate choice for society’s current mood and cultural dictates.(USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Oh, the drama! Halloween. Cultural appropriation.

Wait. Isn’t that what actors and actresses do as their full time job? Think about it. They become another.

So if acting is an honorable profession – and it involves assuming another’s speech, dressing, hair style, mannerisms – well, then, it must also be honorable and OK for ordinary people to do that, too, right?

So confusing. Baffled by the make-believe criticisms.

But then again, if performers are just what they were thought of being during the Middle Ages through the Elizabethan Era, well, you know…

“In Elizabethan England, the theatre was considered a hangout for unsavory characters such as prostitutes and thieves. Also, actors were considered very low at the time too and would not receive a Christian burial unless they denounced their trade on their death bed. This belief also goes back to the middle ages, with wandering theatre troupes and the types of people who were in them.” (source)

Not to mention performers may have helped spread fleas and diseases like the plague as they traveled. Coincidences of bad stuff and you were not a safe thing back then….witches, demons, spirits, and burnings, you know.

Oh, a pox on that.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, it’s said.

So go ahead. Pick any Halloween costume showing who you respect and admire and enjoy.

Dare you.

Ironically, if clothes make the man or woman, when costumed, you become exactly as you appear. Tell critics that. Works for politicians.

Pick your poison, uh, personality to project.(USPD/commons.wikimedia.org)

Speaking of irony, have you noticed this weirdness: On line Amazon is massive, growing larger daily, and burning up all sales predictions, while across the line, The Amazon is burning up, crumbling, and disappearing.

If space aliens arrived million of years from now and found the word “Amazon” scattered everywhere, what possible conclusions would they draw from that?

• “Well, was this some overlord plundering his area for materials and products, then moving those north to sell to the peasant masses there?”
• “A primitive experiment by primitive people: Twins separated at birth, raised in different environments, producing opposites: good twin and evil twin?”

You got any better ideas or plausible explanation for that?

Spooky, loopy, and goofy. Image that.

Phil, the Philosopher Mouse of the Hedge

Camille Paglia remembers “wearing my fabulous Halloween costumes as a Roman soldier, toreador or Napoleon.”

She’s interesting. How about her idea that banning drinking for those under 21 yrs is what’s keeping college students from learning the art of conversation? (Something’s halted that critical development.) First published in WSJ, but you can also read article here.

Image is projected and accepted by those happy to suspend belief. (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

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