2012.06.30 13:00 - Boxy's Final Word on Masks

The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray.

Alfred Kelberry: mr bruce :)
Bruce Mowbray: mr kelberry.
Alfred Kelberry: how are you today? staying hydrated?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, we got wonderful rains last night -- so I am finally hydrated -- although worried a bit about folks to the east.
Bruce Mowbray: hundreds of thousands who are suffering without air conditioning.
Alfred Kelberry: yes, read your mail
Bruce Mowbray: kk. in response to Wol, then?
Bruce Mowbray: When we were in Halifax together last July, Woly told me a bit about her sister Kathy . . .
Bruce Mowbray: She and my own RL sister have the same name...
Bruce Mowbray: so there was a sort of instant identification there.
Alfred Kelberry: yes, like owning same cars :)
Bruce Mowbray: yes, perhaps like owning the same cars....
Bruce Mowbray: So, good Boxy, what is the final word on masks, if I might ask?
Alfred Kelberry: final word?
Alfred Kelberry: last meeting we discussed newspapers :)
Bruce Mowbray: I think this will be the last session on the week's topic -- maybe another session at 7 p.m. today -- but I will give YOU the final word, regardless.
Alfred Kelberry: oh! well... it has to be something smart and grand...
Alfred Kelberry: I'll have to think
Bruce Mowbray waits patiently for something smart and grand.
Bruce Mowbray: Please take your time.
Bruce Mowbray: We have a drop coming up. . . so you will have lots of time.

--BELL--

Alfred Kelberry: :)
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray dies from laughing....
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: Are there no redeemable qualities to masks?
Bruce Mowbray: All this week folks seemed to put them down for being either deceptive or scary.
Alfred Kelberry: didn't notice that
Bruce Mowbray: I didn't hear anyone - except myself - speak in FAVOR of the mask.
Alfred Kelberry: well, i think they hold an important role in our lives
Bruce Mowbray: and they enable us to play many roles in our lives.
Bruce Mowbray ponders a "role" as doggie.
Alfred Kelberry: yep
Bruce Mowbray: So diversity of identity is enabled by the mask, no?
Alfred Kelberry: it's just an av :)
Alfred Kelberry: i think so
Bruce Mowbray: ahhhh. "just." Thou doest thyself a disservice, Boxy. . . Thou art one FINE doggie, Alfred!
Alfred Kelberry: :)
Bruce Mowbray: I am wearing at least three (or four) different masks right now. . .
Bruce Mowbray: each of them enables me to have unique experiences.
Bruce Mowbray: For example, when I wear the 18th Century costume, I can enter the world of Aphrodite.
Bruce Mowbray: and when I wear the tiki mask I am enabled to enter the world of Hawaiian warriors.
Bruce Mowbray: Is anything impossible with a mask?
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Eos!
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, San!
Santoshima Resident: greetings earthlings
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Eos Amaterasu: hi pabbers
Bruce Mowbray: Here comes Eos -- Is he an earthling?
Bruce Mowbray: AHHHH! Sees and loves Eos' new mask!

Alfred Kelberry: mr eos :)
Eos Amaterasu: Eos is an earth bio leaf node
Alfred Kelberry: ms san :)
Santoshima Resident: mister boxy :)
Eos Amaterasu dresses for the occasion
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: as does San-ji!

Santoshima Resident: gotta do as the local do
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Eos Amaterasu: Indeed!
Eos Amaterasu: Bruce is totemic
Bruce Mowbray: Masks impart a sense of power. . . and also of community.
Bruce Mowbray: among other things.

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray thinks that "totem" might be a good topic for some future PaB week.

Eos Amaterasu: alfre kelberry AKa box aka puppy mask
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray loves the mask called "aka."
Eos Amaterasu: Alfred acts as boxy
Alfred Kelberry: apparently, masks is a royal thing
Bruce Mowbray: We often saw that one ("aka") at the prison where I taught for 8 years.
Bruce Mowbray: Masks a royal thing, Boxy?
Eos Amaterasu listens
Bruce Mowbray: like crowns?
Alfred Kelberry: first they'd been used by noblemen to play with anonymity
Bruce Mowbray wonders who royals think they are -- since they have SO MUCH already telling them that....
Eos Amaterasu: doesn't a masked man kind of stand out?
Bruce Mowbray listens and waits for topic to settle.
Alfred Kelberry: yes, but it's harder to identify
Eos Amaterasu: who was that masked man?
Alfred Kelberry: it spread through europe and on to colonial America with masquerade balls
Bruce Mowbray: Ahh!
Eos Amaterasu: a masquerade session
Bruce Mowbray rushes to change mask to something more "masquerade" before end of this session.
Eos Amaterasu: snoutrageous!
Bruce Mowbray: Comedia del arte!
Alfred Kelberry: I'd like to know the motivation behind usage of masks. since it was an invention of aristocracy, it could be something in relation to titles.
Bruce Mowbray: This actually spread to America???
Eos Amaterasu: yes, you put on the persona of the title
Alfred Kelberry: so the article says
Bruce Mowbray: ahhhh!~ The persona.
Eos Amaterasu: like the way judges wear white hair and funny clothes
Bruce Mowbray: We seem to have gone Jungian suddenly -- to my liking, btw.
Santoshima Resident: used in many cultures ... not just royalty ... allows for transformation
Eos Amaterasu: or ancient Greek (re persona)
Bruce Mowbray ponders "funny clothes."
Eos Amaterasu: robes, wigs
Alfred Kelberry: but it was met with a fierce opposition in America: The anti-masquerade writers (among them such notables as Samuel Richardson) held that the events encouraged immorality and "foreign influence"
Bruce Mowbray dies from laughing....
Eos Amaterasu: encouraged immorality, hmm.....
Bruce Mowbray had to laugh at the judges and "foreign influence."
Bruce Mowbray: Well, we'll have NUN of that! tee hee.
Alfred Kelberry: eos, maybe it was the origins of American political correctness :)
Eos Amaterasu: masquerade balls can encourage a kind of free floatingness
Bruce Mowbray: I feel that Puritanism was the origin of political correctness.
Eos Amaterasu: in masks and behind masks
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: Free floatingness.
Bruce Mowbray: !
Bruce Mowbray: I love it!
Alfred Kelberry: Bruce, could be lack of sense of humor :)
Bruce Mowbray: Mmmm. Indeed. Much is lost for lack of a sense of humor.  Especially among Puritans.
Alfred Kelberry: oh! this is how they came to be: "They were used as a seasonal accessory, worn only in winter as a protection from the cold."
Bruce Mowbray: like ski masks!?
Eos Amaterasu: protect cheeks from instant frostbite
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmm. I have worn such masks.
Alfred Kelberry: then, i imagine, someone decided to wear one in summer and made it trendy :)
Eos Amaterasu: where all the humidity in your cheeks explodes into ice crystals
Bruce Mowbray: Oh yeah! Cool, Boxy!  Cool, Eos!
Bruce Mowbray wonders what sort of mask would be appropriate for summer.
Bruce Mowbray: Sunglasses?
Alfred Kelberry: peasants of course did not possess that much time for creativity :)
Eos Amaterasu: As You Like It type masking....

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: or Marriage of Figaro
Alfred Kelberry: i think it would be fair to assume that common folk of that time had little or no "masks" to "wear"
Alfred Kelberry: and this tradition is still kept among people living in villages
Alfred Kelberry: they're more open and straightforward than a big city resident
Bruce Mowbray: So, the "common villagers" don't wear masks?
Eos Amaterasu is not so sure about that
Bruce Mowbray: me neither, Eos.
Eos Amaterasu: coming from peasant stock on his mother's side....
Bruce Mowbray: In RL my typist is surrounded by villagers wearing masks -- or so he perceives.
Bruce Mowbray: i come from peasant stock on ALL sides.
Alfred Kelberry: Bruce, i said "more open", not "they don't wear masks" :)
Bruce Mowbray: kk. "more open."
Alfred Kelberry: that's my experience
Eos Amaterasu: but it is extra fun to have a masked party
Bruce Mowbray: and I agree that commoners (so to speak) seem to be "more open" -- more frank -- more tell-it-like-it-is .... less tactful....
Alfred Kelberry: yes, sl is a never ending masquerade ball :)
Bruce Mowbray: but why, then, do we continue to think of masks as negative?
Alfred Kelberry: Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: ?
Alfred Kelberry: this would be my final word on masks :)
Bruce Mowbray: Ahhh!
Bruce Mowbray: and I thank you so much for that, Boxy!
Alfred Kelberry: hehe
Alfred Kelberry: thank you for this great honor of the final word, Bruce :)
Alfred Kelberry: it gradually formed itself
Bruce Mowbray: It is all yours, with my pleasure and gratitude, Sir Boxy!
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Eos Amaterasu waits for the final word (and hopes he hasn't missed it)
Alfred Kelberry: ah, that was my comment on sl, eos
Bruce Mowbray: Alas, tis time for moi to scrounge up some vitals . . .
Alfred Kelberry: "sl is a never ending masquerade ball" :)
Bruce Mowbray: but waits if there might be a final final word [word].
Eos Amaterasu: dinner time here, also
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm.
Alfred Kelberry: eat well, eos
Eos Amaterasu: sl as an ongoing masked ball, yes
Bruce Mowbray: So, then, I shall say, may all of your narratives be coherent and all of your masks happy!
Eos Amaterasu: ciao boxy and brucy :-)
Bruce Mowbray: ciao!!!
Alfred Kelberry: thank you all