Sunday, October 30, 2022

Easy Sunday: Halloween costume

Maybe the costume works too well to be funny.  

I thought it was over-the-top crazy, and therefore funny. People didn't laugh. I scared people. I decided to put the costume away. It is disrespectful to the poor and unwashed.

I put on this hat, with stringy hair coming out the back.



Then I inserted these false teeth.


The result is that I went from this:



To this:


The costume works better when I add a tee-shirt. I am not wearing overalls. It is just a tee shirt with a printed design of plumber's overalls and a hairy chest.


I keep the costume as a reminder about how we use cues to profile one another at first glance. We fit people into categories. The hair, teeth, and tee shirt define me.


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10 comments:

Curt said...

You could get elected to the Portland City Council.

Rick Millward said...

Yes, while you can make certain inferences from a person's appearance, it's not always accurate. I think it's important to look past appearance and get more information. If it wasn't for the teeth I might just think "hard working guy", or "musician".

One might accept someone working on their plumbing who looked like that, but I doubt they'd go for a heart surgeon.

Probably the best example of this is ageism.

Trick or Treat!

Anonymous said...

Be very afraid. You can’t unsee a full moon. 🌝🤷🏻‍♂️

M2inFLA said...

1. We don't judge a book by its cover.

2. We usually have only one chance to make a positive first impression.

Michael Trigoboff said...

In defense of plumbers:

A plumber goes to a doctor’s house to fix something. When he’s done, he presents the doctor with the bill for $500.

The doctor says, “$500 for an hours work? I’m a doctor and I don’t even make that much per hour.“

The plumber replies, “That’s OK Doc, when I was a doctor, I didn’t make $500 an hour either.”

Up Close: Road to the White House said...

Of course we judge books by their covers. The cover has the author's name, the title, and some blurbs, and that is the primary way we decide to read it. We might leaf through it a moment, but publishers take care with covers because it is the first impression that shapes all the subsequent ones.

The first impression gut feeling impression is what I write about every day. It isn't the denoted message. It is the actual message, which is sometimes related to the denoted message, but is often the opposite. The easy example is, "Yeah, right." Depending on how it is said it is either agreement or disagreement with distain.

We know almost nothing about the people we vote for other than vague impressions. Here is another test case. Imagine the Attorney General in your state. In Oregon the AG has been in office for several years. Tell me seven things about her. Seven real facts. Name. Approximate age. Gender. Party. Policy on three issues.

We just have vague impressions and we fill in the blanks.

Peter Sage

M2inFLA said...

Actually, I don't.

I read reviews and publisher blurbs to see if the book is interesting to me.

I'm interested in certain authors.

Most of the books I've purchased over the last decade or perhaps longer, are Kindle books.

It's actually been quite a long time since I've purchased a real book, but I do own a few. I've also donated several hundred books before my move from Oregon to Florida.

Yes, I understand that publishers may have some attention getters in the jackets. The actual hard bound books are pretty boring except for those jackets. Paperbacks are something else.

Michael Trigoboff said...

We know almost nothing about the people we vote for other than vague impressions. Here is another test case. Imagine the Attorney General in your state.

We have an attorney general? 🤷‍♂️😱😀

Mike said...

Peter doesn’t want to wear the costume because it might seem demeaning to some. That sounds politically correct, or ‘woke’ as it’s now called, but Trump said political correctness is destroying America. So, my suggestion would be to wear the costume with a MAGA hat, call himself a Trumplican and nobody should be offended.

Brian1 said...

You already know I'm a righty.

Your costume looked great. Conservative comedy is pretty self-aware, hence why we laugh exceedingly at Larry the Cable Guy, Donnie Baker, the wholesome Ray Stevens, and various other caricatures of ourselves.

In fact, it is a common understanding that we can take a joke whereas the libs and dems cannot. Even Obama admitted recently that Dems sound like party-poopers.

Your costume is well received by my standards. I'm not offended at all.