Unpleasant masks

     A few days ago, I was speaking with some colleagues just outside my office. Rebel Girl then walked up with information about the recent “mute asshole” incident, in which four young men suddenly interrupted a colleague’s lecture by walking into his classroom and standing in different parts of the room, refusing to explain themselves. She informed us that the mask worn by one of the four guys was, specifically, a “horse mask.”
     “A horse mask?” I said.
     “Yeah.”
     I thought about that.
     “Was it an unpleasant horse mask?” I asked.
     “Unpleasant? I dunno.”
     “Unpleasant?” said a colleague from another office. “Did you ask if it was unpleasant?”

* * *

     Today, Rebel Girl informed me that some among us are considering recommending to the IVC mascot replacement workgroup (IVCMRW) that the college adopt the “horse head” to replace the laser.
     “Yeah,” I said. “Horse head.”
     “The fighting horse heads!” exclaimed the Reb.

One end of a spectrum: Mr. Ed

     “The range of possibilities,” she then added, “goes from Mr. Ed on one end to that horse head in the Godfather on the other.”

* * *

     Back in the mid-60s, when it came time to choose a school mascot, students at the newly-opened UC Irvine encountered some corporate condescension in the form of suggestions for the school mascot—accompanied by professionally rendered illustrations. In response, students ignored the Irvine Co’s suggestions and deliberately chose the worst mascot they could think of—an attempt to outdo UC Santa Barbara, I think, whose students had just chosen the “Banana Slugs.”
     And so they chose the “Anteaters.” That really pissed off the Irvine Borg and the other borgs in Borg Land. The students were pleased.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

     Here at IVC, we managed to outdo those UCI kids. Somehow, though we weren’t even aiming for ridiculosity, we came up with the incomparably lame “IVC Lasers.” With the clarity that only time can provide, we now see that that mascot is a macot a lamer than which cannot be conceived.
     And guess what? A few years ago, we quietly sold our laser (yes, we actually had one). So, now, not only do we have a profoundly lame mascot, but we don’t even have an excuse for choosing it. We are the Lasers in the way that Fountain Valley is a valley with fountains. We are the Lasers in the way that Garden Grove is dominated by gardens and groves.
     We no longer have a laser. But we do have horse heads.