the purple wig.

I am not sure when the purple wig first made its appearance in my life.  I’d seen it at other parties, on other people, and I think I even took a twirl with it.  But it was always that wig with no owner, the wig that was at once nowhere and everywhere.  And one night, after a party I’d thrown in my first apartment in Ithaca, probably some time around late 1999 or early 2000, the synthetic, neon-magenta bob, complete with messy bangs, was now in my house.  The wig had migrated down the hill from Collegetown and into my life. 

And one winter night, a bit bored with my aesthetic theory reading (ah, those were the days!), I put on the wig and snapped a few photographs.  (It’s easy to do with my Nikon — my arm length is almost the exact length between my Nikkor 50mm camera lens and the closest thing it’s able to focus on, so I just stretch out my arm, point the camera in my general direction, and click away.)  I wasn’t trying to be particularly clever or noir or anything specific — it just seemed sort of fun to have a mini photoshoot with the purple wig.  And while the black and white film I had loaded in the camera some time earlier obscured the purpleness of the wig, what resulted was hilarious all the same.: film stills from a freshman’s homage to Godard, maybe, or perhaps early Tarkovsky meets Southeast Asia meets bored critical theorist. 

The wig remained at my house for a few years, and atop a few more partying heads, and then it disappeared all over again.  This past October, I was chatting with my friend Nancy, who lives out in San Francisco — and who, other than a couple of weekend visits, has never spent time in Ithaca.  She informed me that she would be utilizing the wig for part of her Halloween costume.  The wig had made it all the way out to the west coast!   I wonder what new photographic awesomeness it will elicit out there.