momebie

I watch a lot of tv for someone who doesn't have basic cable. Even during these first days of Nano I've stayed pretty caught up on things while still hitting my word counts. Mostly. One of my favorite shows on television right now is Boardwalk Empire. It's not flawless, but it's gorgeous and dramatic, and it's really good at getting at the simple, quiet things that are the most gut wrenching. My favorite character on the show is Richard Harrow, who had half his face blown away in WWI. He wears half a mask to cover it over. It's unsettling to see him without the mask sometimes, but for me it's almost more unsettling to see him looking at the mask, wishing that he didn't frighten children and women, wishing that he could just be again.

The masks in the picture below were made in WWI. The top row are masks of soldiers' faces after they had been injured during the war. The masks on the row below those were made to reconstruct their faces with, using old photographs of the men for reference. The very bottom row are the masks that were made to cover over the deformities, like Richard's.

What do masks do for you, and do you wish you didn't have to wear them?