What possesses someone to use a life-size–I assume replica–of a skull as a dash ornament?
Perched on the front dash of a passing white Chevy van, the thing starred me down on my walk to work this morning.
Do they use real skulls for molds to make replicas? Or do the more morbid sculptors of this world know how to sculpt from memory? If they use real skulls, who’s do they use? Which leaves me wondering who it was I saw this morning.
The driver is my real concern however. Well, just a moment, I remember a plastic skeleton, a little larger than a key fob, that I had when I was sixteen. I hung it from the rearview mirror of my $75 Vauxhaul Viva. But no comparison really.
The skull this morning had it’s desired effect–shock value and garnered attention. Obviously…I’m writing about it.
Is it too much to read it as a garish and unimaginative symbol of our culture’s orientation toward death? Yeah probably. But for some reason it’s the way I think.
There are far more subtle and ridiculous signs of our death-wish-orientation. One rather leaky symbol of this orientation is the obsessions and excesses of our desire-for-youthfulness. Something the skull can no longer desire. And in this knowledge, I take my revenge upon the skull for unsettling my morning walk. Take that hollowed-one!
