Figure 1 – The faceless army, Natick Massachusetts. IPhone photograph. (c) DE Wolf, 2014.

I need to make a confession.  It was a beautiful day here in Massachusetts and despite the glory of the sunshine and a gentle breeze, I went to the Mall for a morning walk.  So I feel that I need to explain why, to explain my strange little foible.  I go in search of espresso.  I end my walk sitting in a chair, observing the shoppers, and sipping on espresso.

Saturday morning is a contemplative time for me.  So in my contemplations I have begun to become aware that there is a silent, faceless, often headless or armless army among us.  These are the manikins or mannequins.  The used to have faces with beautiful painted eyes.  And I have been trying to understand how they have lost their heads and become faceless.  I suspect that it has something to do with the desire to make them neutral so as not to attach a racial or ethic identity to them.  Indeed, where I grew up the eyes were always blue.

But the effect of all this dismemberment and eradication of identity is rather eery.  Today was the most disturbing yet featureless faces covered with canvas, like in a nightmare. They are everywhere and they come across as something very alien – or maybe are all too familiar.  The facelessness or headlessness betrays a social decapitation.

They are not us.  Or worse, they symbolize modern man and modern woman in some disparate existential sort of way.  They are like the homeless, the poor, the slaves – we try to ignore them.

Perhaps less caffeine tomorrow. 8<}