The Friday Fillip

Because I’m an academic, September will always be the new year for me. I get a kind of excitement when the first threads of coolness enter the air, and part of that excitement has to do with beginnings, new beginnings, if that isn’t redundant. There’s something liberating about fresh starts. Too, these are often associated for me with having moved to a new town or country and taking up life there as an unknown person. I used to consider becoming someone other as I stepped of the plane, so to speak…. maybe hair slicked back and sunglasses, with a derring-do approach to life; maybe someone who, for a change, wouldn’t give a fig for the opinion of others… You get the idea.

I can’t offer you the chance to change your personality, not even with a Friday Fillip. But I can let you play with the notion of rearranging a person’s looks, making faces, so to speak, that don’t fit the usual moulds. Or, rather, Eric Myer can.

He offers you a 4 x 5 matrix of photos of the faces of people who are already not your usual suits. And then he arranges things so by clicking on the pics you can mix and match the bottom halves and the top halves of these 20 faces — to somtimes hilarious effect. After you’ve done it “by hand” as it were, you may wish to run the “slideshow” and let Eric’s website ring the changes for you, but if you do, then be sure to poise your finger over the stop button so you can capture that perfect combo, that new face with which to begin that new day… year… life.

Have a happy Labour Day!