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Culture

Mask of the Week

Busó costumes:

Busó is apparently a festival to mark the start of spring in Mohács, a town in Hungary.

“According to the oral tradition, the Busó who crossed the river on boats chased the Turkish away from the area of Mohács in 1687. This has never been proven but possible since it is well known that the Turkish are very suspicious and the frightening Busós looked like the devil especially when the Turkish saw an army of them. According to traditions, the Turkish fled in panic when they saw the horrible army.”

Categories
Culture

Mask of the Week

The character Xue Gang from the Chinese opera. From the surprisingly eclectic site of Paul and Bernice Noll. These ‘masks’ are done with face paints.

“A dictum familiar to most Peking opera fans, “No red for the three Gangs,” illustrates how colors represent human character. The three Gangs (Li Gang, Yao Gang, and Xue Gang) were bold and obstinate, but in Peking operas they are portrayed as solemn and serious, so no red is allowed in their facial make-up, not even on their lips, and no pink powder (which symbolizes humor) is applied to their cheeks. By contrast, in operas adapted from the Romance of the Yang Family the cheeks of the two characters Meng Liang and Jiao Zan are powdered pink because these two men are humorous by nature. In Hongyang Cave, however, the two no longer have pink cheeks, for this opera portrays them as old people whose temperaments have changed.”

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Culture

Mask of the Week

I decided to look for something seasonal and came up with this, from Where’s Cherie?:

“Greg with the Santa “Mola” mask and his reindeer finger-puppet. (Whenever Greg donned this mask the Kuna children would scream: “Santa! Santa!”)”

Thanks to Google, I now know that a ‘mola’ is a blouse worn by the Kuna women of the San Blas archipelago, off the coast of Panama, which has decorative panels on the front and back made of reverse appliqué. Or possibly the ‘mola’ is just the appliqué panel; it’s not clear. You can see a Santa Claus mola here. The masks are made for the tourist trade – you can see more of them here.

Or, if you’re in a more bah humbuggy kind of mood, there’s always ‘Santa Claus removing the mask of Death’ (which has an unexpected poetry connection).

Categories
Culture

Mask of the Week

The Marquardt Beauty Analysis mask.

According to the MBA mission statement:

MBA is dedicated to proactively researching human visual aesthetics, including its biological and mathematical bases, and to utilizing the results of that research to develop and provide information and technology with which to analyze and positively modify (i.e. improve) human visual attractiveness.
[…]
MBA believes that this information and technology can empower individuals within our species to have a greater and more clear understanding of human attractiveness and its role in our behaviour. Further we believe that this understanding can and will give each of us a more positive control over human attractiveness and ultimately over our own lives and fate.

Well, if nothing else, they’ve successfully demonstrated that people look better without lots of black lines drawn on their faces. You need to look at the ‘our research’ section to get the full glory of the MBA system. I will exercise great restraint and simply say that I find the theoretical underpinnings unconvincing.

Categories
Culture

Mask of the Week

A latex fetish mask, from Flickr.



yellow mask

Originally uploaded by Latexfan75.

Categories
Culture

Mask of the Week

A seasonal one. Krampus is one of the Companions of St Nicholas.

[Krampus pic]

I found that photo via Google Images. I don’t know where on the site it is, but the domain is that of the only naturist hotel in Austria.