Living the masquerade

The early day sun calls my attention to mourning doves; they’re sitting on a wire, two of them actually; a pair of doves side by side facing opposite directions. Their perch is a telephone line I must add, the same land line once sacred as a way of communication; sacred and spare enough that rural area folks most often had to share the use of one local loop. So imagine that a single ring summoned the Benways over on the Fourth Concession; two rings meant the Kleinsteuber’s; three rings the Nolans and so on. The thing was that you had to keep track of which ring was which because it was easy to get confused and haphazardly grab the phone; boisterous kids loved the concept as well as those who hadn’t received a phone call in a long time. An unspoken compromise said that the sport was on so be damned when the phone rang in eight homes at once.

To win, the incoming caller had to negotiate their way through the many voices on the line and repeatedly identify the intended recipient of their call. The referee was the operator who would sometimes interrupt to call offside. One at a time eliminated players with a receiver in hand politely bowed out and hung up: Until it came to Harold Boyce that is. Harold lived over on the Fifth you see and was very hard of hearing and also had a monstrous wheeze, enough in fact to wheeze out the loudest of appeals. Put it this way, it was easy to know when Harold was eavesdropping. You had to bargain that if he would simply please hang up likely the next call would be for him. It kept you busy later ringing him up just to prove that your foresight was spot on. That the phenomenon was called a party line was appropriate as you had to maintain a sense of humour in order to play the game; for the so-called upper crust, the party line was referred to as telephony with few participants getting the unintended irony within the name. Beginning with the first operator in the 1870s, the party line in sparsely populated areas continued up until recent years; in terms of comparison to our contemporary world, think Internet’s Zoom with conferencing open to anyone, voice only, none visual.

Where I think I’m headed here is to stretch the idea that there is continuance throughout different eras of just about everything. Take the present necessity of wearing face masks in public places par example. The idea of masking up was a 16th century Renaissance trend. Different from today’s usage, a masquerade— maschera in Italian—was a festive gathering with elaborate masks and equally elaborate costuming. The Venetian mask could be a buta—a full face deal—or if you preferred an eye mask, all of which gave liberty under disguise to exercise your multiple personalities.

By the 17th century, Charles de L’Orme, a French physician living in Italy was onto the science of virus spread during the bubonic plague. Influenced by the maschera and knowing of contamination, he came up with the white medico della peste mask, which had cut-outs with glass eyes and a long beak that held a potpourri of juniper berry, ambergris, rose, cloves—anything to kill the stench. Kitted out in a long cloak and felt hat he walked with a measured stick to avoid close contact. The outfit circled back into masquerade fashion and became a hit as the beak doctor costume; picture suddenly being unwell at a masquerade party and someone calls for a physician in the house to have arrived— Sesame Street’s Big Bird in black with hat and stethoscope.

My attempt to tie-in the threads of this story have to do with returning to sporadic duty monitoring customer traffic at the front door of a large local supermarket. Daily I witness a stream of mask-wearing folks appropriately abiding the rules, but when there is someone I am supposed to recognize, someone who stops six feet in front of me in hat, raincoat, face covering, fogged up eyewear and I’m left to guess who? Well hey, that’s living the Renaissance dream.

Betting on the future of face coverings, I would like to think naive and say that the mask will never soon become a fashion statement. Keep in mind that black is about elegance, dignity and mystery; will green be the new black; or will it be a William Morris paisley just like the royals? Face covering designers? Going further is to invite corporate branding: then comes the full Monty when advertising folks grab the chance to use your face as a billboard. The ‘Rent a Face’ app will promote a range of exposure opportunities at places to–be–seen. It’s a no-brainer; just simply stand there to seize ‘face board’ exposure for clients. Search for choice backgrounds to post ‘selfies’ online where it just so happens that you are wearing a ‘brand’ new face every week. Your clientele will be gobsmacked!

I recommend moving fast on this before the trend takes off. Because we know with absolute certainty it will soon be everywhere and your injury lawyer ad on your ‘face page’ or ‘chicken soup for the quarantine’ face cover will get lost in every competitor’s maskboard barrage. Conjure if you will what liquor store line-ups or pizza delivery folks or flaggers at road construction holdups will have to offer. All you have to do is walk down any aisle in a supermarket—remember to follow the floor arrows and watch for stop signs— and picture every one of the product labels on the shelf as being applicable to a face mask. Contemplate corn flakes or mustard or ketchup or soda or bananas. There are unlimited designer bottled water choices, but maybe leave out tapioca loaf or cling-free kitty litter or flaky turnovers or beef jerky. I’m willing to guess that many of the ‘face-boards’ will proclaim ‘no GMO’ or ‘new improved’, ‘fat free‘, ‘all natural’, ‘best value’, ‘no additives’ or ‘sugar free’ even if it’s toothpaste with an added ‘contains nuts’ warning for peanut butter.

You see, as I was putting out the garbage this morning it simply took the effortless distraction of two doves on a wire to scatter me all over the place. But wait, there’s more. Recycling day is just around the corner. Think facial coverings as the new T-shirt in the meantime.