Simulacrum of the Day

The mayor of Salem, Massachusetts recently took this photo and posted it to her Twitter account, and said something like "Anybody else see a face in the light? Eerie, huh?" Yes mayor, we see it, and yes, it's eerie. It's not anatomically correct, and that makes it even creepier, and much less likely to have been faked. I don't reckon the mayor would put her reputation on the line by fooling around with her Photoshop software and then posting the results online. That would be "fake news," right?
 This is slightly different from pareidolia, although it's hard to explain. It's the same thing in principle, which is seeing things (usually faces) in ordinary objects when they're not really there. This is more of a transitory thing, if that makes sense. Due to impurities, layering or separation of glass ingredients (similar to polarization), differences in thickness, the fluid nature of glass itself and several other things, glass is susceptible to producing "faces" and other images. What's interesting is there are a few cases when they clean the glass to remove the faces, but they reappear time after time. These are well-documented That's another story maybe.
 This face is interesting. It appears to be a man, although it could be an ugly-ass schoolmarm from Little House on the Prairie or something. It looks pissed and it appears to be saying something. I think it's saying "HEY...what the fuck I'm doin' up in this fuckin' lamp post? HEY...man, I feel so TALL. Somebody get me the fuck outta here!" Actually it's probably not saying that at all. Some people say that it's the ghost of one of the witches (male and female) that were put to death during the famous Salem witch trials. They say that the face is frozen in the act of cursing the town. I don't know about that, but then again I can't say with 100% certainty that that's not the case, whether I believe it or not.

Here's a closeup that shows the remarkable detail. It does look somewhat androgynous, which fits into the gender-neutral thing, but that's yet another story. It's plenty creepy. It looks like a real head; surrounded by mist and enclosed within the glass. You can see the amazing "detail" in the various facial features. Disregarding the incorrect distance between the nose and mouth, you couldn't have drawn it more perfectly.
 I'll keep an eye on this situation. It's gone viral, but unlike most of the crap that goes viral, it's actually interesting. I hope they leave it alone. It would make a hell of a tourist attraction. I don't want to be blasphemous, but I think it's cooler than Jesus in burnt toast. Hopefully the town of Salem will embrace it and not try to replace the glass. You'd think they would. It's interesting to note that Salem; a town that once had a bit of a problem with anything relating to the dark side, now welcomes anyone who's into witchcraft, satanism or the occult. How times have changed.
 It would be great if it could be sort of a magic-8-ball situation. You could go up and rub the lamp post, and the face would appear to answer your question (one per customer, please). That would be awesome. I'd do that. Maybe I could ask it if the Talking Heads really plan to reunite, or if it's just another rumor. Nah...I could come up with something better than that. It's a pretty good way to Salem, so I'd have plenty of time to come up with a good question. Maybe while I'm up North I could stop by Minneapolis and say a quick prayer at the foot of the Mary Tyler Moore statue. That's on my bucket list. I want to do that anyway, and it would be great to swing by Salem and ask the Oracle of the Lamp a question. I always wanted to visit Mary in the dead of Winter so I could experience the brutal cold firsthand, although I'm concerned that if I got carried away and tried to give the statue a little kiss, my tongue might stick. Maybe I should try to go this Summer. Just kidding. But I would never joke about Mary Richards. I love her.

While we're on the subject of faces in glass, here's an interesting photo that recently surfaced. It was taken by an assistant on the set of Hell's Kitchen, with the one and only Gordon "F-Bomb" Ramsay. Part of his job was to go around taking random photos of the set after a day's filming; I assume for publicity and to help maintain consistency between shoots. If this isn't a perfect representation of old Scratch himself I'll eat my hat. Again it's most likely due to the properties of glass, and/or a good old-fashioned reflection (but if so, let's hope an actual person doesn't look like that), but it's another really eerie one, and aside from the exaggerated eyebrows, nose and chin, the face itself is anatomically correct. This image is also real. Other people saw it within a minute and it was already being forwarded all over the place within two.
 Between this and the Lamp Post Witch you've got the makings of a decent coffee-table book. You could call it "Transparent Ghosts...Faces in Glass." I'd probably buy a copy if it went on sale. I remember seeing photos of a face in a window decades ago, and it was one of those things where they couldn't get rid of it. Man, that was so far back in my memory that when I go back and picture it it's in black and white. That's funny. Anyway it was not too far from here and you could see it clearly from the road. We drove by it on several occasions and there it was. Folks back then didn't much care for it and they tried scrubbing it off from both sides, but every time it came back [insert Twilight Zone theme here]. I think they finally replaced the glass.
 I think the Lamp Post Witch is more interesting than the Devil in the door, but they're both pretty wild. You have to give bonus points to the devil image because it's so realistic that you could use it as a logo, but the slight "askewedness" of the lamp face makes it much more creepy; like some demonic automaton. Man, that's crazy. I'll check later and see if anyone else has anything important to say. Maybe the mayor will weigh in again. Maybe they'll get up on a ladder with a bottle of Windex, or maybe they'll rope it off and charge admission. Either way it's an excellent example of a simulacrum. Plus it has creepoid points to boot. Is it really a ghost of a "witch" who was put to death during the witch trials? Who knows. If anybody has the right to be pissed, it's those unfortunate folks, and they say payback is hell. If on the off chance it should happen to be a malevolent witch-ghost out for revenge, it's sure in a good position to have a good look around and get the lay of the land before it opens up a size-10 can of whoopass. I wouldn't really want to mess with it.