See the picture of the goofy-looking guy that accompanies this column? Well, that\u2019s nothing. You should have seen his first Costco card. Now that photo was a masterpiece of doltishness. Unfortunately, I lost that card a couple of days ago – and that really bums me out. I will never be able to duplicate that spectacularly grizzled look again without the help of a Hollywood makeup artist – and a bottle of Scotch.<\/p>\n
In the photo, I not only had a beef-witted grin on my face, but my hair was so unkempt I looked like I had spent the previous night strolling through a wind tunnel, and then sleeping under a truck with a broken oil pan. That, combined with the unflattering lighting, created the look of a disheveled but cheerful hobo – a guy who had just hopped off a railroad car, and then showed up at Costco to pickup their signature giant jars of mayonnaise, huge slabs of cheese and immense packages of toilet paper. (I once bought a set of tires at Costco only to later discover they were doughnuts.)<\/p>\n
Since I now have to get a NEW photo taken at Costco, I\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking about the look I\u2019ll want to affect this time around. Maybe I\u2019ll try to look contemplative – by placing my hand just under my chin, while casting my eyes thoughtfully skyward. Or maybe I\u2019ll go with an ambivalent look – uncertain whether I am entering or leaving the store. Perhaps a facial expression registering terror and shock might be best – trying to duplicate the same look I get at the cash register when I find out my total.<\/p>\n
In any case, you can bet the photo-taker at Costco couldn\u2019t care less about anyone\u2019s particular pose. But in Canada – at least in the passport department – it\u2019s a different story. The Canadian Foreign Ministry, which is in charge of issuing passport photos, announced several years ago that they would no longer accept photos of people who are \u201claughing, smiling or frowning.\u201d It is so.<\/p>\n
The Ministry said that Canucks can only use photos with \u201ca neutral expression.\u201d On a car, neutral is the gear position to use when you don\u2019t want to go anywhere. On a Canadian passport photo, if you don\u2019t look neutral, you also aren\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n
The United States Passport rules insist on a \u201cnatural\u201d expression. But Canada uses the word \u201cneutral,\u201d which is even more peculiar. After all, one person\u2019s neutral expression might be another person\u2019s sneering scowl. Human faces are as different as snowflakes, and sometimes just as slushy.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about you, but as soon as someone tells me to look serious, that\u2019s when I start snickering and snorting. So it seems pretty certain that Canadians must be steadily testing the limits of their ministry\u2019s regulation. In fact, while people getting passport photos have been banned from smiling or frowning, there is apparently nothing wrong with wearing silly hats, wax lips, or even Billy Bob teeth.<\/p>\n
For that matter, the regulations don\u2019t spell out a specific ban on letting a trickle of drool creep down the corner of your mouth. They also don\u2019t disallow a long, twisting hair to protrude from one\u2019s nose.<\/p>\n
In fact, there is no specific mention of the need to even wear a shirt. A dickey alone might be good enough. And it does not appear there is a problem with a person wearing one of those fake arrow-through-the-head -things – provided, of course, they maintain a \u201cneutral expression\u201d while doing so.<\/p>\n
When I was a kid, I bet my brother a dollar that I could screw my face up so completely, that I could walk right past our mom and she wouldn\u2019t recognize me. He took my bet. A few days later, while walking home from school, we spotted Mom walking into the supermarket. She hadn\u2019t seen us yet, so I tucked my ears in, messed up my hair, crossed my eyes and twisted my mouth as far as I could. Then, with my brother peering around a corner aisle, I went strolling past Mom. Scarcely looking up, she said, \u201cPat, stop making that face or it will stay like that.\u201d My brother walked up to collect his dollar.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been practicing in front of the mirror quite a bit, but have found that it is really hard to create a \u201cneutral expression.\u201d I\u2019m not even sure what one is. But if it means, \u201ca look that reveals nothing at all about what the person is really thinking,\u201d it might be worth studying the faces of people working the counter at the DMV.<\/p>\n
On second thought, maybe it\u2019s dangerous to practice a \u201cneutral expression.\u201d It might stay like that, you know.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
See the picture of the goofy-looking guy that accompanies this column? Well, that\u2019s nothing. You should have seen his first Costco card. Now that photo was a masterpiece of doltishness. Unfortunately, I lost that card a couple of days ago – and that really bums me out. I will never be able to duplicate that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":214,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/214"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14191"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}