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.

Faking it for real

 

“Since you can't touch me, you made something that could, didn't you?"

-- Jessica Verday, The Haunted 

 

Self portrait 7-27-13

Gus:  Pretend that she's real? 

        I'm just not gonna do it.

Dagmar:     She is real. 

-- Lars and the Real Girl

 “To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other 

as the real master's painting and a forgery.”

 

-- Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

 

Mayday. Mayday.

"When you're drowning, you don't say 

'I would be incredibly pleased  if someone would have the foresight 

to notice me drowning and come and help me.' 

You just scream."

                                                                                                            -- John Lennon

Drowning styrofoam face 5-1-13

Mayday is an emergency procedure word 

used internationally as a distress signal in radio communications. 

It derives from the French venez m'aider, 

meaning come help me.