Without giving it a second thought I bought this Eyes Wide Shut mask 20 years ago in Venice. It wasn’t just the Kubrick connection (his team allegedly purchased a truckload of masks from Ca’ Macana) but the pencil drawings on the mask’s left side. I wore it for ten minutes on my flight back home and also during a relatively recent West Hollywood Halloween parade, but mostly it’s just been a wall ornament.

No parade tonight, of course, but many people along Santa Monica Blvd. are costumed all the same.

Postscript: Last night an attorney friend and I tried to enjoy outdoor Japanese dining on Santa Monica Blvd. WeHo was appropriately besieged with Halloween revelers and the usual (if diminished) array of exotic cosplay. The problem was the constant noise and alarm provided by municipal services — flashing cop cars in a big hurry, howling ambulance sirens and (my personal favorite) a large thundering helicopter circling overhead. In short, Bring Out The Dead meets Apocalypse Now. Where did I get the idea that it might be otherwise?