One of the most impressive accomplishments in the history of art is Rembrandt’s annual self-portrait series. Each year the great painter looked in the mirror and imparted on canvas just what he saw, unflinching and authentic in the extreme. I’ve seen a few of the paintings and photographs of most of the rest; it was a stunning lifetime performance by one of the world’s geniuses.
This week, I prepared to apply for a passport renewal by having my picture taken for the document. I sat before a plain white screen and the photographer snapped the shutter. This was not a portrait in which the camera operator tilted my chin, adjusted the lighting, and used a slightly out of focus lens to dampen a few furrows; this was Wild Bill raw - as he really looks.
Without the aid of a magnifying glass, I was unable to grasp the impact of the photo until I got home and compared it under glass with the image on my expired permit taken some eleven years earlier. My goodness, the new passport will bear the likeness of an old man! Surely, there’s been a mistake! When peering into the looking glass each morning, I see what some great wag observed so long ago when describing all aged male homo-sapiens: `a thing of beauty and a boy forever.’
Surely, it cannot be that `All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal’ obtains in the case of Wild Bill – and his readers?
Maybe I should ease up on George Bush and his sycophants; I may have to answer to a higher power in the near future.
Nah!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
