Friday, August 16, 2013

What have you done for me philately?


"What should I do? 
I think the best thing is to order a stamp with my face on it."

-- Charles, Emperor of Austria 
(1882-1922 on learning of his accession to the throne)


Face in a shop window 8-16-13


"Next time ask my barber to approve them 
before you issue stamps with my portrait." 

-- King Christian X of Denmark 

(In 1924 he was shown commemoratives of 300th anniversary of Danish Posts. The stamps showed his portrait facing the left and the right and his hair parted once to the left and next to the right)

Face in a shop window (2) 8-16-13



I was window shopping for faces again and found this one gazing aloofly through the front window of an art boutique downtown. 

It tickles me how this girl seems to be trying not to look at the postage-stamp-covered torso/trunk standing right behind her. It also tickles me that so many of the stamps on the torso/trunk are face stamps. 

And I must admit that if I found myself eye-level with someone's Homer Simpson-stamped mons pubis, I'd probably act cool and look the other way and pretend I didn't notice it too. Maybe.

But since this torso/trunk is not human, I felt free to gawp.

I couldn't identify all of the faces, but here are the ones I could:

Plastic Man
Spider Woman
Homer Simpson
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch right there on the left inner thigh.
Gerald Ford
Many iterations of the Madonna and Child
Yoda 
Selena
Mickey Mouse
Lisa Simpson
Roy Rogers
Jimmy Stewart, right in the groin
A few nutcrackers
A reindeer
A bear
Frank Sinatra 
Frosty the Snowman
A gingerbread man
A Naval officer named Doris Miller
A baseball player
Ronald Reagan 
Rube Foster, of the Negro League
Gary Cooper

... the list goes on.

I'm not sure what the artist is trying to say with his/her body covered in faces. But I was pretty intrigued by the juxtaposition of faces stamped on a body standing next to a face.

I'm easily entertained.