August Transcipt

August Breakfast Den Guest List:

Sadie Bridger

Rebecca Holmes

David Everitt Carlson

Betsy Brabandt

Shaun Leonardo

Hyeku Song

Sophie Grant

Rotem Linial

GaHee Park

[Start 10:27]

McKendree: So, usually it’s packed. This is nice. The last two conversations have been very full, which is great. But it’s nice that we have one spot so somebody could potentially walk by and sit down. Thank you so much for coming. Thank all of you for coming and getting here so early. This is the last of three conversations this summer up here on the High Line in which I have invited people—and also it’s open to public; that’s kind of part of it people could potentially sit in on a conversation on their way to work or something. I’m sure you all are probably going to work after this. The only thing I ask is that you stay until 10 if you can. If you absolutely have to leave before 10, then that’s okay. But it’s better if you can commit until 10. And maybe we end early, but it just kind of helps if people aren’t getting up and leaving in the middle of the conversation. You can get up and get more food and coffee and whatever you need during the conversation. You can go to the bathroom. The bathroom is unfortunately a bit of ways down there, but feel free to get up and move around. No need to feel like you can’t do anything. This is being recorded. Liz is taking photos but not video. So I thought...So the topic is masks, and I had a little bit of a last minute freak out the past couple days just thinking about masks and feeling like it wasn’t personal enough. Or I didn’t relate enough with…

David: Wait the topic is masks...

McKendree: Masks. Yes. You didn’t know that?

David: No. Printed it says utensil. 

[cross talk]

Sadie: I came prepared for utensils, but I can switch…

McKendree: So, it’s totally fine. There’s no need…You didn’t need to prepare anything…

[cross talk]

McKendree: I want to stick with masks. What I realized on my long drive yesterday, masks are very versatile as a topic, and we can get to the personal through masks. I just want to say if you can speak from the heart, that’s what makes the conversation really great. If you can speak about yourself and your own personal experience and go into your own life, if you can. That would be amazing. Don’t hold back. And speak loudly….because, yeah, this is nice and small but... And what were my other rules? I can’t remember. Well, yeah, let’s get into it. I’d love to hear everyone’s names. If you could introduce yourself, and I thought we could start by talking about a time when you wore a mask and you felt changed by it in some way. It can be any kind of mask. It doesn’t have to be a plastic mask, something you put on your face. I’m sure we’ll get into other kinds of masks. The only other thing if you could remember that there’s a lot of people at the table and that we want everyone to share that’d be great. Who wants to start?

Hyeku: Names and a mask we’ve worn? I’ll start. I’m Hyeku. The most recent mask I’ve worn was a face mask for serum and moisturizing, and I got it in Korea. My husband and I spent about three days searching for the perfect snail gold face mask. And he...that’s like his biggest memory about Korea was searching for these snail gold face masks...

David: If you can’t find it in Korea, it doesn’t exist.

Shaun: What is a snail gold face mask?

Hyeku: It has like the snail...the excretions, the mucus, slime…

[cross talk]

McKendree: Does it really?

Sadie:  What is it supposed to do?

Hyeku: It’s just really moisturizing and nourishing. And it really was... And so we bought about twenty of those, and I’m still using them. 

Sadie: Wow. How long did you keep it on?

Hyeku: You just wear it for fifteen or twenty minutes.

David: Korea is the land of ultimate make up. Men wear makeup…

Hyeku: Yeah…well, health care… face care…

David: ...whitening products

Betsy: And where did you finally find them?

Hyeku: Well, it was just comparing different stores. I mean it’s almost like Starbucks there. There’s so many different face care shops all over. So we just went through all of them, and we’re like price checking and comparing...It’s a really big process. Too much of our travel is around masks.

McKendree: And how much did it cost?

Hyeku: I think each mask was like $2.50?

McKendree: $2.50?

Hyeku: Because we bought a big bundle, and then my friend also bought twenty. So we bought forty. So it was a better deal that we could negotiate...

Sadie: I wish you could have brought me back some.

Hyeku: Well, I have used them as gifts so that’s the benefit. But, yeah, that’s my most recent mask story.

Shaun: Well, my name is Shaun. I have an intimate relationship with masks as a former Mexican wrestler. Gonna talk about that later. 

Rotem: My name is Rotem. On my way here I was thinking about various mask experiences that I’ve had, and the first thing that came to mind was when I was studying theater and they would give us the blank masks as an exercise and really what that felt like…Because there’s the rigidity...there’s no…it’s a fixed expression or no expression right?...and there’s all these ways to make it express...I remember doing that in high school...really what it felt like behind that mask... 

Sophie: My name is Sophie. I’m really stumped on when the last time I wore a mask was, and I’m not sure I have. Or I mean I probably have done a spa treatment, a less exciting one. But I actually have, maybe, some aversion to [wearing masks], which maybe I’ll talk about.

GaHee: My name is GaHee. I was thinking about my practice of public face...I make unfriendly face in public…And I can talk about it…

David: Hi, my name is David, and I immediately thought of the last Halloween costume I wore that involved a mask—and I have not worn one since. Does anyone know who the cartoon characters Spy vs. Spy [are]?

Shaun: Yes.

David: Mad Magazine, old stuff. Okay. The spies have pointed noses, and there’s a black spy and a white spy. So my wife and I did Spy vs. Spy. And they have these triangular shapes, and we made this out of foam, rubber and what not…but the cones you have to wear, and they have eye holes. And so we put black stockings in the eye holes to make them black…and forget all of that. You can’t see shit. And you’re going to a party where there’s a lot of drinking. You can’t see your feet. You can’t see anything. So, that was the last time I wore a mask. I was the black spy. 

Sadie: Hello, my name is Sadie. And the last time I can remember wearing a more traditional mask—Of course I believe that people wear masks all the time and they don’t even realize that they wear masks—but was over two decades ago. My husband and I, we went out to a Halloween party at a gallery, and I went as the night. And I wore a big moon mask over my face. And it was really magical thinking what it would be like to be the night and to [be] the moon and to actually put yourself mentally in that space. But what I find most interesting in life is the kind of masks that we put on and don’t realize it. We not only mask how we look, there’s masks in how we talk. There’s so many masks that we do. I think we have an ignorant mind about how much we do it.

Betsy: My name is Betsy, and I’m so pleased to be here. I think I haven’t worn a literal mask, you know, since I’m thinking back to my childhood in the sixties; we wore those weird plastic masks for Halloween. It was a weird sort of mask that you would put on with a rubber band behind your head. I was so interested in this subject because at my age now my parents have both passed away, and I feel as if I’m still wearing that mask. I’m working really hard this year to remove that mask and to be more of myself. So I’m very interested in this conversation. That’s it.

McKendree: Thank you. Did you know the topic was masks?

Betsy: I did. I did. Yes. 

McKendree: Interesting

Abby: I’m Abby. When you said masks, I didn’t know. I thought it was utensils. But, in my teen years, I read the poem “We Wear the Mask,” and I can’t remember, I just remember the first line: “We wear the mask that grins and lies.” And I don’t remember the last of it. But I remember really connecting it to...

McKendree: What was the first line?

Abby: “We wear the mask that grins and lies.” That’s the only part I remember, but I used to read it a lot and had it above my bed. And I believe it was written by a poet in the Harlem Renaissance...Dunbar? But I don’t want to misspeak that. But anyway, I really connected to it as an adolescent when you’re really growing into yourself and feeling all these emotions and you don’t identify with the face you are wearing or the person you’re presenting in that very hyper socialized space of high school…So that’s what I’m connecting back to is that experience of really growing into yourself and figuring out how to match the inside with the outside.

McKendree: I also feel like Sophie. I don’t know that I’ve worn that many masks, but I do wear makeup. Although I’m not wearing any makeup today, which is interesting. I made that decision consciously this morning, but not consciously thinking about this. But I do wear makeup daily, and when you stop to think about it, it’s bizarre that you paint your face. I could go into that—real deep into that—but that’s the mask I wear, and I feel comfortable wearing either no makeup or makeup but too much makeup is a mask in itself that I can’t get down with on a daily basis. But it is...But I’ve had bizarre experiences wearing other kinds of masks, but I can’t think of what they are.

Abby: How do you feel about makeup?

McKendree: Makeup? I feel like...I think it’s just so strange that we paint our faces...and I know that women (and men)...but a lot of women do it all over the world every day...

Hyeku: Tattoo their faces…

McKendree: Tattoo their faces. Right…And do it in a much more intense way than I do. I just put a tiny bit on...And I know... I don’t know it’s bizarre to me that we think that we actually look better with this on. I mean we do, but it’s also totally relative right? I mean...

Abby: For you when does it become too much?

Sadie: I was thinking the same thing. 

McKendree: That’s a good question. I think maybe it’s the changing of the skin color? I put blush on sometimes, but only a little bit, and I’m very conscious...if I ever put too much blush on, I feel like I’m wearing a mask. Then I start to like... I’ll just check before I leave and I’ll be like, Oh God. No. And I’ll take tissues and take it off.

Rotem:   So, is it about the kind of invisibility of it? That it’s somehow imperceptible?

McKendree: Yeah. I think it’s that I’m putting on another face.

[cross talk]

Rotem: No, just that...it’s a question of...the mask is artifice right?

McKendree: Right.

Rotem: And it’s deliberate artifice. Makeup, as a mask, kind of passes...walks that line, and what it sounds like you’re saying is that when it crosses too artifice, when it becomes mask in that really deliberate way, then it’s too much. But is it really any less of a mask when it’s hidden or imperceptible? What is a mask?

McKendree: I think it has to do with the work behind it.

Shaun: The effort.

McKendree: The what?

Shaun: The effort.

McKendree: The effort. 

Abby: Trying…

McKendree: …People knowing that I thought about it and took the time to do something with my face. I think it’s about the act of it and the exposure of the act...

David: But nobody thinks that because everyone does it. It’s just so common place.

McKendree: Yeah. But have you ever seen somebody...

[cross talk]

David: I’m wondering if it’s tribal...

McKendree: Yeah...for sure...there’s…

Sadie: And then there’s the whole question...I mean is it really about the act of what you put on before? Or is what’s more important is what you’re feeling inside—not only about yourself but about how you’re projecting yourself to the world and how you feel about other people.

McKendree: Right.

Sadie: Because when you put on a mask, or you put on makeup, you’re trying to be more attractive right? Particularly with women. I don’t know about men. But anyway…You’re trying to be more attractive. So, are you trying to be more attractive because you want other people to like you?

McKendree: Right.

[cross talk]

Sadie: To me, it’s those questions that are …that are really...that make me stop in my tracks. Because sometimes I put on makeup and I go out and I don’t even think about it. You know you just...

McKendree: Yeah.

Sadie: …You mingle, you might be marketing yourself or whatever. But when you do it and it becomes who you are and you feel like you have to do it in order to have people like you, I think it becomes a whole different level…

McKendree: Right. Like you can’t leave your house without doing it.

[cross talk]

Sophie: Can I just say one thing about your blush? When I heard that it made me think about how blush is one of the things that really indicates our emotional state—more than maybe other aspects like eyeliner. And I think it’s a very hot situation and maybe has associations with the sexual [???]... So there’s some aspect, I think, of conveying a physiological function and having it manifest here artificially that’s kind of interesting, and maybe out of your control. And I relate to that as well, feeling like blush is the thing that gives me away. But then how you mentioned that poem, reading it and feeling like it matched. I like thinking about this word matched with masks. Whether you’re trying to mask what’s going on here or not. The hiding or masking…

David: What if you just walked around with a picture of something that embarrassed you? Every time you want to look good you just pull it out.

McKendree: Well, I’m not saying that I’m embarrassed by makeup. I’m just... when you stop and think about it… It's more...I wear it all the time and I feel good and like I’m presenting in a certain way and I feel comfortable with that but…

Rotem: It sounds to me like there’s something...I’m thinking about it in relation to the traditional ways that masks operate. They're often ritualized or they function in some kind of art or culture or social function right? Whether it’s in ritual or in theater or anything like that and somehow there’s something very deliberate about the putting on or the taking off. Right? It’s never masked or hidden in that sense right? And somehow it sounded like what you were talking about with the makeup—and that also goes to the things you were saying about like how does it represent a real interior state or playing at the artifice of it—when [makeup] is visible there is this completely ritualized aspect that is a private ritual that happens but also, of course, is public because it communicates around makeup.. But then there’s something around like...if there’s too much effort in it, then it’s unappealing.

McKendree: Yeah.

Rotem: Or you feel less comfortable with it. It’s only when there’s that very thin veil of masking…And it’s interesting because it’s functioning in that way as though we are all….We’ve taken away an aspect of the ritual that's actually the donning of the mask and privatized…

McKendree: That’s the what?

Rotem: …The donning of the mask and privatized or hidden it.

[cross talk]

McKendree: So, it is about the process and the act of putting it on then. You’ve taken away, yes, the actual physical putting on of an object, but it’s still about the process of applying it. Right? Is that what you’re saying?

Rotem: Yeah, yeah but that ritual part of it is a private ritual, which outside of Brecht and other avant-garde traditions, the mask doesn’t go on on the stage. It happens...There is a private ritual where the actor or the practitioner, whatever, enters that state, puts on the mask, does the thing, which is very similar to any one of us waking up in the morning, sitting in front of the mirror and putting on the face. There’s something where...there’s...maybe it’s not that different. I don’t know. I’m just curious about how it is or isn’t different. 

McKendree: Have you ever seen somebody putting makeup on on the subway? 

Shaun: Always.

McKendree: That to me…I’m like repelled when I see that.

David: Interesting.

McKendree: I find it so bizarre that you would do [makeup on the subway]...For me, it’s such an intimate thing and it’s so personal and it’s such a like... I would never ever ever do that in public.

Shaun: An exposure.  

David: How about doing their nails on the plane? 

McKendree: Oh, God. That’s terrible too.

David: Where the smell permeates the entire cabin…

McKendree: That’s probably illegal.

[cross talk]

David: …And nobody will tell that woman to stop.

McKendree: Or cutting your finger nails. Any kind of personal care, but especially like altering your face, is to me, in public, is just like...Why would you do that?... I guess you don’t have time in the morning...

Hyeku: I’ve seen that. I used to be on the same train with this lady who had a really fast process.

Rotem: That’s amazing.

Hyeku: But it was also...she would do it so intensely. And you’re watching her do it, and I think the judgment that you are observing, or going through, is being like, Wow, you think that looks good, and then you know, there’s all these other people on the train being like, It’s still really pink right on this side. It just was like all sorts of bright colors that didn’t really blend, and like you said it’s a personal thing, and it’s like if you don’t feel good leaving ...You do one last check before you leave the house and then you blend it a little more. Or you ask someone, “Does it look okay? Is it rubbed in?” And so it’s interesting when you see it in a public space just happening right there.

McKendree: Totally. And it begs the question, Who is this for? If it’s not for you, not for who you see on the way to the subway or getting on the subway. What are...Who is it for?

[cross talk]

Hyeku: Just the office people.  Maybe. A certain...

McKendree: Like in your daily...Yeah.

David: Well, is one of her clients going to come by? What does she do…? That’s what I would think. What if somebody I know…?

McKendree: Right...sees you…

David: …Or someone I work with? Or even a coworker? That’s a private thing. Isn’t it? I don’t know. I don’t wear makeup…

[cross talk]

Sadie: I thought that was the most important question. Who is it for? Because when I’ve seen it before a part of me is instantly repelled. However, on the other hand, when I start to ask myself…Well let me put myself in her place. Okay. Is she...Does she feel like she has to do this at work in order to get clients? Does she have a family to feed? Is she a single mother? I mean, I don’t know what’s happening from her side. Was she brought up in a culture that her mother expected her to do this every day?

McKendree: Totally.

Sadie:   It’s a hard thing to judge. 

McKendree: You’re right. You’re absolutely right. There’s so many societal…

Sadie: We don’t know what’s inside of that person’s mind. We don’t know what they’re going through. So, I try to have a lot of empathy for women because I grew up in 1952 in the South and I mean we really don’t know. 

McKendree: Yeah, totally.

Sadie: We haven’t stepped inside of their shoes.

[cross talk]

David: How old were you in 1952?

Sadie: Yeah, I was zero.

David: You were like “growing up.”

Sadie: Yeah, I was…[laughter]

David: You’re looking good.

Sadie: Thank you love. Thank you love.

McKendree: Wait you were born in 1952?

Shaun: Particularly why I like this idea of what if you shift it from mask to match [is] it encompasses thinking about drag performance, which is also a private transformation but I know individuals that would say that that projection is a truer self, and that it’s on the other side of that transformation that is actually...that there’s an accuracy; that it requires the painting; it requires the very elaborate drama in order to preserve that…to preserve and present a self.

Abby: The too much is necessary you know?

Shaun: Exactly. Yeah. 

Rotem: And the artifice…the idea that we somehow have a hierarchy where artifice somehow falls, or [is] less than or worse [than] lying, conniving, whatever...There’s actually a way in which artifice is literally expression. It is art. Art and artifice, literally the same word. And this idea that the natural is somehow unmade and therefore more genuine is a very late invention. And...kind of…not.. you know, I was also thinking about drag, yeah, the sense that through artifice you arrive at truth.

Shaun: Absolutely

Sophie: One thing that’s interesting about the drag connection was this summer at MOMA, in the teen class that both Rotem and I taught, I invited a drag queen to come and speak with the kids and do an activity—or series of activities—and we had conversations about “Do I come in drag?” “Do I teach in drag?” And I really wanted to know what they [the drag queen] wanted to do in terms of that. And it ended up being a sweltering day, like today, and they were like, “If I get in a drag I’ll be like...” But what was super interesting is they decided not to come in drag because they felt like it would almost be too—what’s the word?—that it would take away from the educator connection. And I totally respect that. And they didn’t want the whole class to be a performance in that way. But the kids themselves didn’t end up getting a lesson on ideal drag makeup because they kept saying, “You know you can look at YouTube. This is all on YouTube. It’s all on YouTube. All the precision of the eyebrow.” The real work, the real exercise that needs to happen—through a series of performative gestures and questions and group conversations—is what it is you’re trying to become—not the perfection of eyebrow or the blending in...And that was interesting to me, which makes me think even if it is too much, there’s still a privacy that needs to be culled over a period of time, questions with your identity, that isn’t just about the physicality of application or putting it on. 

McKendree: So, did they speak about that to the kids? Did they speak about the putting on?

Sophie: Yeah. And they talked all about how they became Lady Quesa’Dilla—that’s her drag name—

McKendree: So, then it’s left to those students to imagine…?

Sophie: —heritage, different drag queens as mothers, as inspiration, the language, and the heuristics side of becoming a person. 

McKendree: When you invited them, did you expect that they would come in drag?

Sophie: I realized that I thought they would not, but my co-educator Sofiya (sp?), who knew them from NYU, from a Performance Studies that they did a Masters in together, thought they would. So, I thought that was funny. Like these two educators: one completely thought they would come in drag and the other didn’t. Just, you know, when you are an individual that embodies these split cells, it could go either way. But the kids loved it, and they loved putting on makeup, and they loved being given permission to be other people, even within a three hour class period. 

Hyeku: I think what you were saying Sophie connects to what Betsy had said earlier how you’re [Betsy’s] doing the work this year to really uncover a mask of your identity from your parents to your identity as yourself…and then also what GaHee said about your mask—or what people perceive you as from the faces that you make. I think that’s interesting. I would love to hear more. 

McKendree: Yeah, I would love to hear more about that.

Betsy: About my…

McKendree: About your experience, yeah…What’s the mask?

Betsy: So, you know what, I’m not really quite sure. But I think... My mom had Alzheimer’s in the last few years of her life. I was her main caregiver, and I think the way that I acted when my mom was alive…And I’m the oldest.  So I’m the one who's supposed to be the most responsible…And I love my mom to death…But having her leave was almost like a freedom. Is that ...Doesn’t that sound sad?

Hyeku: It makes sense.

Betsy: I feel like I had to perform mainly for my mom because she expected so much. And now that she’s gone, I feel almost as if it’s easier to remove the mask as to what people would expect of me. Do you understand?

Hyeku: Yeah.

Betsy:   So, I think...I’ve always been that person inside, but I’m not quite sure people experienced it from the outside as to what I truly am. I’m an artist. I went to school here in the city at F.I.T. [Fashion Institute of Technology]. I did a lot of art work when I was younger, but now that I’m older I’m not doing as much. I live in Orlando so when Pulse happened I was involved in a painting and drawing called [???] to the people that passed away…And I was experienced in dealing with that…And it was crazy because when we were all together, all the artists were together, drawing the angels, as we called them, the feeling of that was almost as if I’m drawing somebody I never knew…And I was thinking about the mask as well…And then I was also thinking about myself and how I have to remove the mask and get back to my true self, my true creative self. I don’t know. It’s so complicated.

McKendree: So in depicting somebody else, who you didn’t know, you realized that you had that in yourself as well that you had to [remove the mask].

Betsy: Correct.

McKendree: And that was when your mom was still alive?

Betsy: Yes. She was still alive, and then it was complex because I think when...I don’t know...In my experience, I had a pretty strict upbringing, and I was expected...I think from that early age when I wore that plastic mask, it’s almost as if I wore that mask my whole life and now I’m working because I don’t want that mask anymore. I want to just feel relaxed and be myself.

Rotem: I remember...this makes me think...this is all really touching to me. There’s a lot in it that I really connect with, but I was thinking almost about...Do you guys remember that Jim Carey movie The Mask?

Sophie: Oh yes.

Shaun: Sure.

Rotem: And there’s this thing where the mask right? The curse of [the mask] is that you can’t take it off…And [in the movie], it’s almost the opposite. It’s this id that allows him to be bad and be gross and sexual and ughhh, all of that.  And there’s something where you’re describing…Almost like this other mask right?…And there’s the fear that the mask will take over. This thing from the outside—that of course latches on to something inside— would become you, but it sounds like there’s always a gap for you between that plastic mask and you.

Betsy: I can still feel that plastic mask on my face. Isn’t that crazy?

Rotem: Right. And that’s kind of a beautiful thing. The mask never fully latched onto you. 

Betsy: No.

Rotem: There was always a gap. And that’s a really amazing and really important thing…And I think going back to what you were talking about, as a teenager, there was always this..., I remember also thinking about it, as a teenager, Am I mask? Is there a mask under the mask? Am I becoming the mask? Is there a difference? Is there matching [the inside with the outside]? All these things. Am I putting on a show? But knowing that at this point with your parents passing, with all of these...connecting with creativity, you still find that space between you and that mask. [That] to me [is] phenomenal. 

McKendree: Well, and that you acknowledge…

Betsy: …Can talk about it.

McKendree: …That she realizes it.

Rotem: Yeah. Amazing.

McKendree: Because so many people walk around—I’m sure I do it—without knowing there’s any difference. Without knowing that you can actually take [the mask] off.

Shaun: The unconscious performance.

Sadie: I wanted to tell you Betsy. I have a friend that lost their parents and they told me they felt the exact same way.

Betsy: I feel guilty about it. I feel guilty about it. 

Sadie: I had a friend who felt bad about it until after a year or two, she just finally realized she was here to do what she was supposed to do with her own life and that it was up to her. But I’ve had this conversation with other girlfriends before so you’re not alone.

Betsy: That’s nice to hear.

Sophie: Just thinking about masks and feeling like you have to wear a mask as a form of oppression, which whether it’s parental judgment or insistence or feeling like you have to behave a certain way in church or in society…And then I’m also now just thinking about gendered aspects about masks. When you said, “The Mask. Jim Carey.” Then I was like, Okay. Zorro. Robin Hood… 

Shaun: Sure

Sophie: Oh, all these men. But it’s not that simple. They’re wearing a mask for a reason because there’s some sort of societal oppression. I’d be curious to know your guys’ thoughts on that. Like masks throughout stories or history that come to mind? 

David: There is Catwoman. It’s not only men. 

Sophie: Tell me...

David: There’s Catwoman.

Sophie: Catwoman? Yeah. That’s true

[cross talk]

Shaun: At some point, I looked into the origins of masquerade—the masquerade party particularly in Italy. It was instated as a festival, specifically because I think there was an acknowledgement that we performed all these social codes, and so for a two-day period, by donning on the mask, it would be a 48 hour period of lawlessness, where people could behave however they wished. And it would protect one’s identity because once you returned to the classism and elitism…There would be no judgment. So there’s this interesting idea. Is it a cathartic experience in which you’re allowing yourself to behave outside of the social norm? Or is it an amplification or projection of who you want to be? And it gets slippery because when is that mask not removed at some point? When does that behavior continue and start to pervade other places of your life? I found it interesting that in the masquerade it actually was an event where all bets were off. 

McKendree: That’s so interesting. Yeah.

Hyeku: You know what’s interesting? So, my husband is a location scout, and they wanted to do a scene where it was a masquerade protest over by the Brooklyn “port house,” and they had all their permits go through and then someone from the city came back and said, “Oh, there’s a law from the 1940s that does not allow masks in public spaces,” that came from the era of farmers who would come in dressed as pigs and they would protest and become very violent…And this idea [that] you cover your face, people don’t know your identity and you can act out in obscene ways. And then this opposite idea, you brought up church, and that’s what I was thinking about with Betsy too. I grew up Mormon and thinking of my persona and who I was and thinking about a lot of people in the Mormon religion, are very...I mean there’s so much anxiety and depression medication used in Mormon communities, which I think is out of this need…or this masking feeling of needing to be perfect in your religion. This perfection.

McKendree: In your religion did you say?

Hyeku: In the religion yeah

David: Where did you see the study about the medication being specifically for people in that religion? Were there other religions that had a similar instance…?

Hyeku: I’m not sure about other religions. But it’s pretty high [within the Mormon community]. It’s known within the Mormon community that there’s a high use...

David: …Because [Mormons are] always in the subway telling you what a better life it’s going to be. That surprises me. 

Hyeku: Well, exactly, but then they don’t tell you about how many people are really depressed. I mean even the teen suicide rate within Mormon communities is really high.

David: Really?

Hyeku: And I also think it’s this need to be accepted or the perfect child. It’s especially prevalent in the homosexual community of Mormon kids who feel totally abandoned from their communities. So, it’s an interesting idea. What does that mask mean when you go to church and you have a calling and you are doing service and you’re paying your 10% tide but then when you’re on your own and you’re feeling sad or alone or depressed or not good enough?...And now with social media and blogs, I feel like it’s increased even more. All this competition.

[cross talk]

Hyeku: I feel like social media is a mask of your life.

Shaun: Well said.

McKendree: I’m curious how...GaHee, just cause I know you grew up very Catholic, if you relate to some of the stuff that...

GaHee: I relate to my religion [the] experience with masks. I don’t know. I grew up very repressed. You know, there’s a certain aspect that...I become very feminine. You know like I put make up...I used to put makeup on a lot and when I grow up I want to be pretty and I was wearing contacts all the time. I’m from Korea. And I don’t know...In public, I got sexually harassed a lot. Every woman in Korea—here I don’t know— [but in Korea] I got sexually harassed a lot. Men touched my boobs and run away and that’s very normal.

Shaun: Wow.

GaHee: Here [America]: people catcall me. People catcall woman so much right? And because I’m Asian, people use Asian like, “Hello, Nǐ hǎo” “Sayonara,” Whatever… [???]

David: Sayonara? Does that line work?

GaHee: I don’t know what they’re talking about…

David: Sayonara. What?

[cross talk]

Shaun: None of the lines work...

GaHee: So catcalling stresses me a lot. Anyway, I don’t like to talk to anyone in public. I’m a very private person, and I want to hold myself...You know, I don’t go out that much anymore. I work at home so whenever I go out, I decide to make this face that I don’t want to be catcalled. I built it for ten years you know. 

McKendree: What is it?

GaHee: Whenever there’s a man and I’m alone and he’s like looking at me [from] far away and I know. Oh, he’s going to catcall me…There’s like...Have you seen women standing on the street and looking at people? You barely see it. Because it’s very...The public space is very male-dominated for me. Maybe you can say no. For me, it’s not for me. I start to...I want to look not young. I want to look a little bit miserable. I want to look like I’m ready to yell at you. I’m not that kind of person at all. I’m sweet, I’m really sweet, really timid, really reserved. But I bend my shoulder, look up little bit like...I look like an old woman...I want to look bad. I want to look like some bad nanny in your childhood and I want to make this ...and walk like this and nobody talk to me then.

Hyeku: Wait GaHee have you heard the term “resting bitch face”?

GaHee: Yeah. I was going to say that, but “resting bitch face” can be cute. I don’t want to be a resting bitch.

Shaun: Right. Right.

Hyeku: You’re like I want to be a bad nanny. 

GaHee: Yeah. Your mean nanny [from] your childhood.

Hyeku: “I want to be your trauma, your walking trauma.”

GaHee: Yes, I want to be your trauma. Recently, I was walking like this, and my husband saw me on the street, and he was so scared of me. So, I don’t know. It’s a little bit sad, but I thought it was very funny. I’m not a performer so maybe I overdid, overused it.

Abby: That’s hilarious

GaHee:   But I don’t know how to make myself fit…

Rotem:   It sounds like, to bring it back to masks, this makes perfect sense with a lot of what we’re saying from a very different direction. The masks serving as armor. It’s a literal armor between you and the world. Whether because, like Shaun was talking about with the masquerade, it literally hides your identity and allows you to behave in ways you never would otherwise. Or it allows you to evade capture or the law or protest in a way that protects you, the individual. Or allows you to not be catcalled because you’re now going to put on this other armor that has to do with the face. Or it protects you emotionally from whatever it is that you had to put up with right? And you’re going to do this because it saves you all this other grief and violence and hurt. And that is...And like you were saying… Initially, we put on masks...it sounded like there’s something...or like maybe we should remove those masks because those masks are actually maybe keeping us from real connections…or connecting with ourselves …or whatever it is. But that’s also a function of the mask that’s possibly, actually, positive.

McKendree: Like a shield...

Rotem: Yeah, it’s an armor. It’s a shield. 

[Cross talk]

Sadie: It protects you is what I was thinking when you were talking. 

Rotem: Right…

Sadie: You put on the mask because you feel protected right?

GaHee: Sure

Sadie: And it just comes up naturally right? Maybe...

GaHee: Well, the problem for me is that it’s not natural...

Sadie: It’s not natural.

GaHee: I get hurt by doing this to myself. Being at home, being myself, kind and nice, is much more comfortable to me. 

Hyeku: You know, I’m thinking of my friends who do wear heavy makeup where it’s like their face really changes. You can make your eyes look happier or more awake—contouring shadows on your face that you didn’t have before. So interesting. And I know for some people when they are depressed that the makeup and the process of changing your exterior is really therapeutic and so there was like a year where it was really heavily investing in buying lots of makeup and learning how to do makeup because it was the one piece that made this person feel better or look happier than they were feeling inside. So masking that inner feeling.

McKendree: Yeah. It’s like a possibility is open. You can be somebody else, somebody different.

Betsy: I have to say something because I can relate to you [GaHee] so well because I’ve had people in the last few years… I think I’ve done the same thing. And I’ve had men tell me, you know if you would just open up a little bit people would be more attracted to you. I’m feeling better about letting go of that. And you’re such a fabulous person that from what I can see is ...My wish for you is that you can let that go and be yourself, you know. Part of this, for me, trying to get rid of my mask is I’ve made the conscious effort of the last year...you know I live in Florida so I go to the beach almost every weekend, and when I go to the beach, I sit and I just watch the ocean…And I actually prefer to go by myself. People are like, “You go by yourself? Who are you going with?” And I’m like, I actually prefer going by myself. And when I go, and what I’ve found going so often—like I’m going twice this week when I get back home—it’s freeing me; it’s helping me because it’s so hard to do it on your own and I’ve made this choice that I’m just going to do it. I’m going to do this for myself, and it’s making me feel better. And my wish for you is that...because you have a great smile...to hell with them, you know?

GaHee: That’s also my practice: to let it go. I do a lot of exercise. Meeting friends is good. Being alone is always…In the city—I can’t go to the beach here—if I go far, somebody talk to me. If I… [???] people talk to me. I think it’s also racial and gender thing.

David: I went to a nude beach once, and I found that being myself was not exactly where I needed to be. My self got sunburned for one thing. I had trouble sitting and having lunch. Saint Martin, I believe.

McKendree: Did anyone bring a mask?

Shaun: I did.

McKendree: Can we see it?

Rotem: I was going to bring a mask, but it’s very fragile. So, instead I brought...So my partner’s mother is a puppeteer, and she actually does a lot of mask work too. And she has this... when she teaches, she has a very quick...like how to make a mask from one sheet of paper, just with a few cuts and staples. So I brought that. We can try it. I can also call her up, and maybe she can guide us. 

Sadie: That’s cool.

Rotem: What did you bring?

Shaun: Well, I brought one of my Mexican wrestling masks. 

David: Yeah! 

Shaun: This is for my former identity. 

Rotem: Did you have it made?

Shaun: This was made by a very well-known Mexican Mask maker in Mexico City. That alone was an honor.

Sadie: Can I take a picture of you in it after...That’s awesome.

David: Are you going to wear it? 

Sadie: That’s awesome.

Shaun: Sure. This is the only remaining one that is intact.

Sadie: That’s awesome. That’s beautiful.

Shaun: Others are completely destroyed or in collections.

Sadie: Do you have a personal collection?

Shaun: I do.

Sadie: You do. Oh, wow.

Shaun: But I did want to bring this...To go back to something that you said Rotem where the mask can perform a positive act. There’s often a misunderstanding, or a misnomer, in which we feel the mask bestows a magic onto its wearer. Where[as] in many indigenous cultures, as a ritualized act, the mask is what unlocks the magic that’s already within the individual. And in Mexican wrestling, the entire identity of the performer—unlike in American theater—is known and enacted by the mask. So, the performance is actually quite similar from character to character, but this [mask] dramatically changes how you understand the performer. And what was so amazing to experience while training in Mexico is that your average wrestler is a school teacher, a taxi driver, janitor, bus driver…

David: Quiet, unassuming...

Shaun: They’re your everyday, unassuming, and yet when that mask goes on there’s a godliness…

David: The crusher…. 

Shaun: …That takes over the entire body...

David: Wow.

Shaun: And everyone in the audience completes that transformation, and it’s just a ...there’s a sanctity to it that’s very unique to Mexican culture, Mexican wrestling. 

Sadie: Yes, I’m [wondering] is there a connection between Mexican wrestling and wearing the masks and the [Day] of the Dead celebration?

Shaun: I think it all originates from indigenous cultures, particularly Mayan cultures…I do think it’s this elevation or amplification of who you actually are as opposed to transforming yourself into something that you are not. And it’s a really...it’s a very different psychological mindset.

Sadie: Is it like that in the [Day] of the Dead celebration? 

Shaun: The Día de los Muertos? I know less...Although we’ve been. We’ve participated.

Sophie: But I’m curious with this amplification, or unlocking, which I love that as you said. I’m curious if other people feel like there are things that they don or do that also unlock...that are not masks in your lives?

McKendree: That also unlock?

Sophie: Yeah. Like other things that you do, besides wearing a mask, that do that. 

Sadie: I think it’s the thoughts you put in your mind. I mean we’re talking about physicality, but we’re not talking about what actually happens in your mind. And you have to have ...When you were speaking, I was thinking you have to have a mental shift of who you are every day. You put on the mask...

Shaun: That’s a very good point.

Sadie: ...and you make a switch. So, those kind of ideas come from your mind, and what it is that you put in your mind. So that…I mean I’m...

Shaun: It’s almost a permission when you lace up.

Sadie: But only you can give yourself that permission. You have to give yourself that permission. You have to give yourself the permission to go to the beach by yourself. So, I think it’s...We talk about the masks, but then there’s all this stuff inside of us. We have masks of how we speak, we have mask of which college we go to, where you are from. There are so many masks in our cultures that are physical, and they make us divide, and they cause divisions—even between who you are and who you want to be. I don’t know.

Rotem: And I do think that there are definitely... What’s interesting about masks, and this specific mask, but generally, that there are, and this is maybe what you were getting at, we do have physical things or ways, kind of like, these proxies that allow us that kind of unlocking. I mean I don’t wear heels for example right? But I’ve talked to women (and men) who put on heels and feel like that allows them a certain power that obviously comes from them but they couldn’t tap into before. Or if you wear a specific jacket that makes you feel a certain way right? A power suit or a leather jacket. Or a certain kind of...

Shaun: Haircut.

[cross talk]

Rotem: Right absolutely. Haircut. Or makeup or anything. Or speaking a different language. I’m very different in the languages I speak or I can be. Or it allows me to tap into different things. And I think there’s something really amazing about the mask because it’s so concrete in certain ways and yet clearly is so multivalent; there’s so much in it. There’s something much easier to make the connection between. [For example] you put on the power suit and you feel powerful. The mask could be all these different things...

David: Power suits are great man. They are.

Rotem: They’re fabulous.

David:   It’s fun to wear

Rotem: I’ve never worn one.

David: You haven’t seen that tie in so long. The whole gestalt of it.

[cross talk]

McKendree: I have a question. Has anyone ever, masks or not….Has anyone ever lost themselves? Like have you ever really, truly lost yourself?

Sophie: Unlocking gone too far…

McKendree: Or just... I don’t know. I just keep thinking about this idea about what you said about that tradition in Italy: anything goes and losing yourself. And I know West African masks traditionally were used as a way to receive spirits, to receive the ancestors, and the person putting on the mask completely loses themselves and becomes this medium for the ancestors. 

Sophie: There’s an expression that I learned in Italy when I was studying abroad there. If someone is really into you or attracted to you it’s, “I’m lost for you.”

McKendree: It’s what?

Sophie: “I’m lost for you.” Like the love taketh over. And you can't see anymore. Kind of came from the same catcalling sect. But anyway, I think for me, when I’ve been the most lost it’s when I’ve been the most emotionally overcome through love or some kind of intimate, sexual or...I mean I’m a doula, I feel like that’s a moment I’ve felt closest to being lost or transcending a state.

McKendree: Because you’re so indebted to somebody else’s wellbeing.

Sophie: That…Or the transformation of states is so apparent that I don’t always know where the edges of my body are in that experience.

Betsy: I can speak to that a little bit. When we were caring for my mom…I have two sisters and I’m the oldest and we...This would happen to us quite often towards the end when it was getting very difficult. What would happen to us—and I didn’t realize that this was happening to me because I thought I never lost myself—we would go somewhere and we would get “stuck.” What would happen typically is I would go into a store and I would walk around and I couldn’t physically leave the store. It would usually be like a Marshalls or like a Ross [Stores], somewhere you could find fabulous bargains, I would be walking around for hours at a time and I would text my sister and say, “I’m stuck again.” I think the emotions of my mom—and what was happening—was so overwhelming. And we would tell the therapist this, you know from hospice, and they really didn’t understand. But my sisters and I understood. Because my one sister works at Disney and she would sit in her van and she would not physically leave her van. She would just sit there, and she would be “stuck.” It happened to all three of us. Isn’t that crazy.

McKendree: That is crazy.

Betsy: But it was very, very real. 

McKendree: What happens...what does that feel like when that happens? What’s actually happening to you?

Betsy: Like, it was almost as if when I was in that store I was free. I didn’t have to worry about anything. I would just mindlessly walk around. I often thought people must think I’m crazy because I’m just walking around looking at a candle…And again, I was very much aware of it, but I would not physically leave the store. And my sisters would do the same thing. My one sister would not physically leave her car. My other...And I’m talking about like an hour, two hours at a time. Where our lives are so crazy, where you have to do work, you have to take the kids, you have to do this, you have to do this, and we would just choose to...it’s not like we chose to…We just got “stuck.” 

McKendree: Huh.

David: I wanted to relate to going back to when you [Betsy] said your mother passed. And to your question [Sadie] about getting lost...and to being a bit younger, being born in 1952, I’ve just realized in the last couple of years...this is more about finding something, the mask that I wore for my parents, and how much my life has been dedicated to trying to make my parents happy, and it dawned on me one day that that wasn’t possible. 

McKendree: To make them happy?

David: Yeah. That that’s why it didn’t work. And what I was doing was not for me; it was for them. That was the mask for them. And this goes all the way...this can start with Catholicism and you know going through catholic school…And then where the Catholics are in terms of their cultural understanding and all of that…No. I had nothing terrible happen to me in that way. But the mask that I wore for them, what I did for them, and I’m not so young a man. Why didn’t I figure that in 2000? Why didn’t I figure it out when I got married? Because I got married for them…

McKendree: Do you know what made you suddenly realize? When you said it dawned on you, what made you suddenly…?

David: Um...father’s day. I have an estranged relationship, which means no relationship, with my adopted father. And a line in a film...There’s a film called Three Identical Strangers. Has anyone seen that? 

[cross talk]

David: These guys are triplets—and I don’t want to spoil it—but they were all adopted out to different families and they found each other later in life. Not a spoiler, but one of the characters, these are real people, but one of the characters commits suicide and one of the other brothers, says, “You know sometimes the adoption just doesn’t take.” And that resonated with me. And I thought you couldn’t in a million years make these people happy. They wanted something else, whatever it was. So...and that’s relatively...that part, the film part, understanding about adoption, that some of them just don’t take. That’s recent. But over the last couple years, just sorting through stuff, and realizing that on Father’s Day… And reading on Facebook—which is not people’s real lives; it’s the lives they want “Facebook friends” to see—reading all the father’s day tributes [for example] old stories about baseball, and I’m going, Well didn’t have that. So, anyway thank you for that.

Hyeku: I can relate to feeling lost in a similar way, but for mine...I feel like what I would call it is crisis. And mine was [a] faith crisis. And the idea that I would be disappointing my family so eternally—in this aspect of we won’t be together eternally—if I don’t stay within the church that [they] believe in. And it was hiding it for years from them until I could finally work through and come to terms with being honest with myself of what I was doing to family and to friends…But then this feeling of being so lost…It felt like a year of just floating and going through motions, and just trying to stay afloat. But... 

McKendree: I know you so well. But I always think about you, as one of the people in my life, who has this other history that I don’t know about and this other life, and this religion played such a huge part in your upbringing. I always think about you as somebody who went through this big transformation and now you’re a different person...

Hyeku: Which is interesting cause it’s still...I don’t feel that different. That was the big thing when I came out of my crisis. I was like I’m still the same person. There was this point of needing to prove it to my family and prove it to my friends that I was still the same person. I didn’t subscribe to all the same beliefs. I did different things. I drink coffee. There were different outer behaviors but internally I felt so the same, and it was me having to discover how much of [me] was the same. It was no longer saying, “Yes” to everything that people at church wanted me to do and being perfect in the way that they wanted me to be perfect, but creating a new paradigm of values and a real shift for myself of saying, “What is being a good person?” “What is being charitable mean to you?” “What does it mean to be loving and to be happy?” Because just going through the motions and showing up to church every Sunday and going to temple and having callings and paying them was what made you perfect? Or made you a good person? That was not enough anymore. At the same time, I was like I feel so similar to who I was before just with less responsibilities and checklists of telling me I am good.

Betsy: I don’t think that you’re the same person. I think that you’ve come to grips with who you want to be.  Is that really the same person? I know that you are the same person...

[cross talk]

Hyeku: The idea of it is so different.

David: Do you still practice the religion?

Hyeku: Not practicing any religion. No. 

David: Okay.

Hyeku: The faith crisis was leaving it completely for me and like also telling everybody...

[cross talk]

David: Because you were saying “not doing the things that people in church would want you to do”…Are you able to go back and be another person and have them accept you? Not another person...but the person you want to be?

Hyeku: But there’s like no desire to be a part of that community

David: And they have no desire to accept those things...

Hyeku: There is….

David: …Because they’re so invested in getting those things out of people

McKendree: Well, actually...I’m struck by how at such a young age you were able to shed that skin. And how it was...I mean you still have a good relationship with your family so it seems like there was...I mean we had a whole discussion about cults during one breakfast den…

Hyeku: I know I wish…

McKendree: And that’s a whole other discussion…But you did have an opening whether it was something in your personality or something that was allowed for you with your family or your community, but you weren’t...I mean there was an opening for you to break out of it.

Hyeku: Probably. I was in my twenties so I don’t feel like I was that old. I mean I do feel like a lot of my friends who have gone through faith crisis, from the Mormon culture, are in their later 30s, and it took them a lot longer than friends from other religions. Because I feel like, with how fundamental the Mormon religion is, you’re saying goodbye to your family for the eternities. Because you subscribe to the belief that if you do all of this [the acts that make you good], your family is going to be attached to you in the eternities, and if you do not do this, you’re done. So really unsubscribing from that…

David: Even in the afterlife…

Hyeku: Yeah.

David: …You will not have them...

McKendree: But your family still...You still...like that didn’t happen to you right? You weren’t rejected completely?

Hyeku: Disowned? No. There was definite...From my mom there was shock and disappointment and then blame of herself and her parenting. And I was like this is NOT your parenting. It’s a choice. And, you know, then there was sadness of my siblings being like, “I’m so sad you were hiding this from us for so long. Like I can’t believe you didn’t feel like you could talk to us.” But then I also don’t blame them because I think it’s more than religion, that there are personal feelings…

Sadie: I want to go back to what Sophie said. She talked about unlocking—and I think it’s what everyone said—it’s the whole idea of unlocking your eye. It seems like we use masks sometimes to unlock our eye, and sometimes we use masks to cover up who we really are. So it makes me think of what is your eye? Who are you? Who are you? And then if you look at your eye, then you see that ...If you look at your life, you see how you’ve changed. You changed if you’re divorced or if your parents died, so it’s like totally in flux and becomes chaotic. So, it’s a really big question 

McKendree: Yeah. I’ve been listening to everyone talk and sort of wondering…Like my question now is, “Do you have to go through some sort of transformation at some point in your life? Or does everyone usually do that?” Like your [Hyeku] leaving the religion…I went through a divorce. I feel like I, at that point, realized so many things; I felt enlightened. But I think a lot of people have that at some point in their life. They go through some sort of transformation, and they shed something and they become somebody else. But I don’t know. Maybe that’s not true. Maybe it’s some people take longer than others? Or [for] other people it’s over night? But do you think that’s true? That everyone has some sort of…?

David: Mine was more like I did everything. I went to the right school…

McKendree: But you were saying you had…

David: I became a Vice President at my company. I married the right woman. I did all of the right stuff.

Betsy: But that’s conventional stuff.

David: I know and then you realize that didn’t work. There was nothing more I could have done for them and...You know, well, Oh, but you could have loved them more. Did you miss out there? You did all the material things?

McKendree: Were your not happy?

David: I never felt like I was unhappy. I felt I was doing things as my family and society wanted me to do. Nobody’s unhappy being Vice President of a big company and being well-paid and, you know, wearing your power suit when needed. None of that is unhappy. Oh, you don’t want that stuff. Ok give us the money.

Hyeku: I think about transformation as people are constantly transforming. And I see…There’s this documentary about a Mormon guy...Have you guys seen Believe on HBO? He was Mormon. He’s the lead singer of Imagine Dragons. There’s a part in that documentary where he says, “I wish I could go back to all the people when [I] was a missionary and apologize for what [I] taught them.” 

David: Wow.

Hyeku: And I relate to that so much. 

McKendree: Yeah.

Hyeku: And, you know, even thinking about me as a twenty something, or in my high school days, or even younger, there’s so many times where I’m like, “Oh, I was such a hypocrite to what I believe now.” Or there are people I want to go back to and say something totally different to them because I went on a Mormon mission and I taught Mormon doctrine. I told people this is the way to be happy and the way to be with your family eternally. I taught so many things that I do not believe now. And I think that’s a transformation. And I think of...I work with young kids and I see young kids who are transforming so quickly, and then, you know, they work so hard to create an identity and then you’re working hard again to let go of these identities and I think human life is just a huge process of transformation. 

Betsy: You know what, I’m reminded—I don’t think that you should beat yourself up—of my favorite quote…And I can't [remember]—I have such a bad mind; my brain is not working the last couple years. “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” So, I don’t think...I think that you...My belief is most people do the best that they can with what they have and where they are. So, at that point in your life you were doing the best that you could with what you were taught. So looking back, you can’t play the Monday Morning Quarterback, and say, Aww, I should have done this. I should have done this...That’s you can’t...I think we do the best with what we have and where we are...We do.

McKendree: And she’s somebody who…

Rotem: …gives…

McKendree: …who gives tirelessly and just so wholly. I mean it’s…

Rotem: I’m so sorry you had to experience that.

Hyeku: But I think a lot of people do! 

GaHee: I actually relate to you so much. My mom, when I was young, wanted me to be a nun. 

[cross talk]

GaHee: Her best wish was me being a nun. You know, I was really interested in body in general. I drew a lot of body when I was very little, like teenager, or 9, 8, 5. You know, I would draw my boobs or vagina. I was talented for that, you know. 

David: [You’re] really good at it.

GaHee: I’m very good at it, but like I did babysitting, and when boys were interested in the human body, I would let it go. But my mom would burn [the drawings] and pray while she was burning. She wanted me to be a nun. And I went to this non-talking retreat every year, for five days, as a teenager… That was a lot. 

Shaun: Yeah…

David: Yeah…

GaHee: Transformation...I move to America very sneakily, and I’ve been living here for fifteen years almost. I said goodbye to my mom, who is so upset with me ...I was kind of mini-mom. I used to be mini mom. She wanted me to be some kind of form [of her] but I didn’t do that. I had to break up with it. I used to teach Sunday school for kids, [and] as you said, I don’t remember what I say because it was not me. 

Hyeku: Yeah. You were told what to say.

GaHee: Yeah. Or like whatever I heard. I don’t know. Transformation is hard.

David: Thank God, I left the catholic school after the 6th grade and the only reason was that my parents had moved to a new neighborhood and they had a brand new public school. The Catholic school was an old falling apart building with rattling lockers. It was all charming in a 1900s kind of way. But that cost money, and [my parents] said, “Well, new school is all shiny and new; it’s got a great gym and it’s free. And it’s free. We don’t have to pay it for so...” And it took even a year [for me] to become like a regular student to not stand up and step to the side of [my] desk…

Shaun: Whoa, yeah.

David: …and put [my] hands behind [my] back, answer, and wait to be excused while the entire class laughed at [me]. 

GaHee: For me, the hardest thing was not feeling guilty. The catholic is all about guilting you. 

Shaun: Yeah.

GaHee: There’s so many things good things in catholic, but the guilt…

Hyeku: All religions…

GaHee: Why I have to feel guilty? My existence being guilty?

David: Because you have original sin—sin that somebody else did that we gave to you. 

GaHee: Well, I’m not catholic anymore.

McKendree: I think it’s amazing. I’ve heard your stories about your childhood and your coming here and your wedding as well. I always think about the story you told me where your mom was literally applying...or maybe I just imagined it…Was your mom… You were made up, your our face was made up [for your wedding]?

GaHee: Yeah. I had the wedding in Korea because my parents really wanted to have the wedding in Korea. I originally married in City Hall and that was what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to wear a dress. I wanted to get married in City Hall. But my parents really insisted on paying for everything.

David: Did you have the Western [wedding] and the Korean [wedding] on the same day?

GaHee: It was a Western-Korean wedding. Very catholic. They hired three priests and I had to deal with…What is it? Talking my sin?

McKendree: Confession.

GaHee: Confession. And I had the education about abortion, which is...I don’t know. I was going through…My mom also hired a makeup artist and stuff and they wanted me to look like [I was] fourteen. They literally said, “Make [her] look fourteen.” I was disgusted

[cross talk]

GaHee: On top of that, I don’t have friends in Korea. They invited 400 people of my parents and it was like I’m very objectified, you know?

McKendree: But it’s amazing that you had such an intense experience in your childhood, and you were able, like you were as well, to break out of that.

GaHee: It’s like you can see [how] far away from what I was [I am now]. And that’s kind of awesome.

McKendree: Yeah

David: I was told, in Korea, that the wedding is not for you.

GaHee: No.

Shaun: I don’t think any weddings are for anyone. 

[cross talk]

Sophie: I was going to talk about my wedding. I was thinking of a moment of transformation and I think weddings are theater, I personally believe that… but I’m also just confronting a little bit of what I said at the beginning, which was not necessarily feeling like I related to wearing a mask—or like I wanted to [wear a mask]. And I think a lot of it for me has been growing up feeling very accepted, very privileged, and very loved and given a lot of permission to be whoever I wanted to be. Don’t wear makeup, said my parents. You’re beautiful the way you are. And at my wedding feeling like I didn’t...It’s not some form of purity of embodying the self, untouched or unchanged way, but just wanting to be the closest to me as I could. I didn’t want to wear a veil…All these little subtle choices that I made on that day to try to be me still in front of all of these people.

Rotem: What do you feel like ...What were the outward expressions of you being you…or the most you?

Sophie: Choices that I made around what I wore, sure. But also choices around not being given away by a father. Or not doing a lot of the traditional stuff that felt really not me.

McKendree: But you also were elevated… You were elevating yourself. 

Sophie: Absolutely. I was elevating. I think elevating or unlocking or enhancing or putting the spotlight was part of it, which I don’t always feel comfortable with…Maybe that was the closest to the mask.

Rotem: I feel like going off of that I relate very strongly to...I had a very accepting family, like self-expression and being yourself was the highest dictum. And that was...yeah, and that could take any form...but that wasn’t prescribed. But then that led me specifically, and not necessarily my brothers, to theater and to masks and to all of those things, not as a way of separating myself from myself, but as giving myself liberty to do that, to explore that as a creative act and to get closer to me...

Sophie: Mmmhmmm… Multiply

Rotem: …to be me through this supposed artifice and that to me was really powerful. I like the idea...I also am really touched by your stories of a break...that to become yourself is a break with something. But then there’s a way also where like what you’re saying, Sophie, it’s a story of continuity where you are going to have a wedding, but that wedding is going to be an expression of yourself right? You’re not going to let...You’re not going to have a father give you away, but you’re going to think about it and make your own choices. So, you’re creating continuity and not just having one or the other model of...like life isn’t just these radical transformations to go to what you were saying McKendree...like I don’t think...like I’ve had many moments where like at the moment I was like, “Okay, this is that moment where my life changed”…but that’s part of...as you were actually saying, you are describing a big radical break. Or saying like life is transformation. I think that is true.

Sophie: And it can be subtle or huge. 

Rotem: Right. And we narrativize it for ourselves in either a before or an after or [in] these pivotal moments that you either have one of in your life or maybe two…But that may not be...There’s also a form of continuity and crisis that isn’t necessarily a dichotomy at all. A wedding can be very traditional but also completely non-traditional—that’s very much yourself through this act of embodying something else. Or, I don’t know, for myself finding myself through these, yeah, through masks and through other things, that is actually finding a form of...again as like a teenager right? Finding a way where either the mask is some falsehood that I need to shed or a way to actually be more true to myself. 

McKendree: I keep thinking about...I mean I think it’s a privilege to be able to hold onto something for your whole life right? There must be people out there that have completely lost themselves and become a completely different person. I don’t know. I feel like you. I was brought up [to] be yourself and it wasn’t prescribed, but I just keep thinking about the idea of completely losing yourself whether that means physically disappearing or by choice, actually really discarding your person and embodying somebody completely different and how crazy that must feel you know? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that. I’ve tried to, but I don’t think... Just because of the way I was brought up and the person I am, I don’t think I will ever have that opportunity you know? Not that I would necessarily want to. Just I keep coming back to this idea of completely losing yourself and if that’s possible with a simple act of putting on a mask. Or is there some way of completely…

Rotem: Was birth not..? Was giving birth something...did you come close to [losing yourself] or was it actually more…?

McKendree: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah…

Rotem: So that was close.

McKendree: Yeah. Now that I think about it. Yeah actually.

Shaun: When I think of losing one self, I mean what we often describe as, to piggyback off your point, what we often describe as transformation—or actually just these moments of rupture, where all of a sudden it manifests in an explosive way—internal transformation is a constant, but there are individuals who meet that with resistant for their entire lives. That there might be some change and potentially tumultuous change happening psychologically, physically, emotionally, but it’s met constantly with resistance until the day they die. And so, you know, I just want to throw that on the table...It’s like the mask can be impenetrable in its outward projection. I am relating that both to your story and what you just brought up. When I hear you ask about losing yourself, these are moments in which we are prepared to do that, where we completely shed our existence as we know it, that’s been prepared for a long, long, long time. That’s not just some magical moment.

McKendree: But what is it?

Sadie: I think that losing yourself...I think that you can make a decision that you want to lose yourself because one of the things that came to mind when y’all were talking is Buddha’s teachings. One thing he talks about in the Lamrim practice they have meditation on exchanging self with others, equanimity, where you put yourself in someone else’s place. You actually transform yourself. And actually when you are thinking more of someone else—as if it was your son, or your parent or your mother—you actually feel very happy and maybe you do feel yourself. It’s a transformation. It’s a transformation to be a mother and to watch your child grow up. It’s a transformation to see your parent die; I’ve seen that too. But you have to be able, I think, to see it and to say I want to transform. I want to see what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. And when you do that, I think you do. I think it’s rare…But it’s like what you were saying, some people really know how to do it and stay there...I really do think you become something greater than yourself because it’s not you. It’s everyone else is more important than you.

Rotem: Can I ask a question? I keep staring at the mask. And I’m just... I’ve never put on a Mexican wrestling mask. I was just wondering if you could talk to the experience of being inside of it. There’s also something very special about it, just the fact that it’s even a full head cover that feels like it’s a space…like you’re physically in...Mostly... I’ve also worn full, like big body masks. There’s always a difference between this kind of a mask or this mask or this mask and this mask. 

[cross talk]

David: And it has a lace and not a zipper…

[cross talk]

Shaun: Although there are ones with zippers. I just chose lace. The only thing that I can really...I mean this goes back to your question of losing...I’ll share anecdotally. There was one match that was in front of…in a stadium... hundreds of a predominantly Mexican audience. This was in Arizona. I used to enter with a very...my music, my entrance and closing music, was a very traditional mariachi song. And I won the match and the entire stadium was singing. And there’s this charge and it’s easy to explain it as adoration, but it really does...I think about it in terms of being a vessel. So going back to your comment, these audience members were filling me with some sort of aspiration, something that they were seeking, and it takes over entirely. And it’s something that you keep chasing. You keep trying to find that thrill over and over and over again. And it has everything to do with the fact that you are enclosed and your eyes give away everything. But you become this container for everything that surrounds you: people’s ambitions, fears, dreams. And it just...that amount of presence, has an emptying effect as well, and you’re just there. And it’s just the most beautiful experience.

Rotem: Isn’t there also something about not letting anyone see you without your mask on?

Shaun: Well that’s the sanctity of it. That protection...the protection of putting on the mask is…Again it’s easy to describe it as a disguise from your normal or day-to-day experience or life, but interestingly when you lose the mask, that identity is gone.

Rotem: Totally. Immediately.

Shaun:   Completely gone. Your career is over.

Rotem: Oh?

[cross talk]

Rotem: Somebody rips it off your face? 

Shaun: Yes. Correct. And that’s usually orchestrated...

Rotem: So, it’s like a symbolic death?

Shaun: It’s a symbolic death…To think about that…It’s not that all of a sudden you go back to your normal self. No. It’s you’re giving the identity away. That chapter, that character, ceases to exist. And you may become another character. That has happened.

David: You can do that? That was my question…

Shaun: But often times it’s the retirement of a character.

David: …Get a new mask and become...You know like one of the members of Kiss. “I want to be.”

[cross talk]

Shaun: That happens. But typically, you lose your identity at the end of your career.

Rotem: What happens to the mask?

Shaun: You know it becomes part of... It circulates. People will remember it for forever. So, it’s easy to think about it as regressive. Like all of a sudden you become a normal person, but it’s really not. You’re releasing it into the Lucha Libre world, into the Mexican wrestling world. It’s not simply a protection from whom you are on the day-to-day basis. That’s an easy way to understand it. It’s almost like you hold it up with such regard that identity. What was so amazing, was when I trained out there, if we trained together, I would not refer to you by your Mexican wrestling name because it would give it away to anyone else around. I would also not refer to you by your real name. There would be a third name that I would use.

Rotem: Wow.

McKendree: Wow.

Sophie: Wow.

David: Really?

Hyeku: Is that the training name?

Shaun: Training name. Or it’s an additional layer of disguise or protection.

Rotem: Could it be...think about it as a space between you and the mask? 

[cross talk]

Shaun: There’s like a double space. Yeah, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s the space in between. Absolutely. That’s beautifully said. Well put. It took me awhile to catch up to that because I would be like, “What’s this guy’s name?” “I don’t know. Listen we call him this.”

Abby: You learned three names. 

[cross talk]

McKendree: Names are a whole other form of masking right?

Betsy: This is your next topic. 

McKendree: When you asked him if...or you said something about being Irish? Your parents for some reason gave you a name…

Shaun: Very not Irish. 

[cross talk] 

McKendree: It was probably to Americanize you. Because they were coming from a different place.

Abby: To wear the mask…

Shaun: But also…

David: What’s your last name? Hernandez?

Shaun: I can say it now: El Conquistador. The conqueror.  

David: Oh, that’s your wrestling name. 

Shaun: That’s the wrestling name. But actually I would have a very hard time putting this mask on right now.

McKendree: I was going to ask you to...but no?

Shaun: No. I don’t think so. Yeah.

[cross talk]

GaHee: Name can be another form of a mask. So GaHee, my name in Korea is beautiful woman. My grandfather gave me [it] and I hated my name. I don’t care about being beautiful. I still don’t care about being beautiful. It kind of like...people don’t name [children] my name these days because women are smart enough [to not use] that name.

GaHee: If I have a daughter, I would just say brilliant girl. I don’t know. I wouldn’t name her…I never wanted to be a beautiful woman.

McKendree: Is GaHee a common name in Korea?

GaHee: It’s common in my era.

David: I’ve never heard it, and I lived there for ten years.

GaHee: Oh really?

David: I’ve never heard GaHee. What’s your family name?

GaHee: Park.

David: Ok. Park GaHee.

GaHee: So, it’s a little bit of a generational I would say but...

Betsy: But there’s nothing wrong with being beautiful and brilliant. 

GaHee: Yeah… but like you would never name your son beautiful right?

Shaun: That’s a good point.

GaHee: That was my question when I was growing up. Why my brothers name smart men and I’m beautiful. I don’t know

McKendree: I was going to say if one were to shed their identity or shed some part, the name might be a big part of that or might be the first thing you would...

Hyeku: I can speak to my name too. Because my name is not common in Korea. It was given to me by a poet. I was the first child of my parents to born in America. There was all this external pressure to give me an American name if I were going to be born and raised in America. So my Korean name means “graceful hill” and he wanted something to align with that. And so “Janet” means “grace”… And I was like, “That’s why there are so many Janets that are Korean-American in my era.” And then there’s also so many Graces. But it was this idea that I had to have an American name and they gave it to me. It’s on all my legal paperwork…And within the day they were just like you’re not our child. That [name] doesn’t feel like you’re our child. And so when they had my younger brother…He just has a Korean name. My older brother has just a Korean name. And then there’s also this tie-in a lot of Asian families where they do one character the same. So, we all have one same character, but I’m the only one with an American name that everyone finds out and they’re in shock. They’re like, “You are not a Janet. Oh I know an Aunt Janet.” I know everyone has an Aunt Janet. 

McKendree: But so you changed your name?

Hyeku: I was waiting until I got married to change my name to drop the Janet. But then when I went to get married and change my name, they said, “Oh that’s a whole different department.” And I didn’t take my husband’s name. So I kept my full name this whole time. My plan did not work, and I haven’t made the process. Every time I think I’m ready to go in to do the paperwork, I’m like, That’s so many departments and areas of my life to switch over my name and make sure it’s all aligned, which I’m like...is it worth all that work? And it’s weird because being younger no one knew that name until I was in college and it was on my records and they were taking attendance. I didn’t even respond when they called my name because it was so unfamiliar to me, but now as an adult it’s everywhere—Like the credit cards, everything, you have to have your legal first name on it, which is a really interesting thing because I don’t identify with it.

McKendree: And yet I know of you as Hyeku. And I don’t...Like when you told me that your name was Janet...and I remember when you told the kids...they were like what? Janet? Oh my God

Hyeku: It’s like a shock, and then it’s also a joke. Kids know how to tease me with it. Even a six year old will be like, “Janet.” And [I’m] like, How do you know that will irk me?

Sadie: They know your weak points.

Abby: Name calling can be so rattling right? Just it really goes deep.

McKendree: Totally, it’s like ripping off your mask. Ripping off your...we know something about you. We have to wrap it up. Any last thoughts about masks that we didn’t…?

Shaun: Let’s bring Abby in.

[cross talk] 

Sadie: Yeah, wrap it up.

Abby: Well, I think in a lot of education spaces we talk about bringing our full selves into the classroom and thinking about what that means at a present moment. I was reading something a fellow teaching artist wrote about this concept of “full of yourself” and how traditionally it’s negative, and maybe it’s something we identify of being caught and of being full of yourself… is something like being caught putting on makeup. But then turn that on its head and make it a positive thing to be full of yourself and kind of what that feels like. Like I am full of myself, which sounds funny to say, but when you, I guess, put more emphasis on the self part…I think I’m trying to practice that more. And then I’m also thinking about relationships with mirrors. Because mirrors weren’t brought up in our conversation about masks, but I think they’re so confrontational and aggressive sometimes if you’re feeling like your insides don’t match your outsides. But then [mirrors] can also be really validating and to tie it back to when we were first talking about makeup and the mirror is so tied to that…. Those are some of my thoughts.

McKendree: Yeah, mirrors. We could have gone on about that. Have you ever caught yourself in a reflection but not known it was you? I feel like those moments are so valuable because you see yourself but you don’t recognize...You don’t see yourself projected like that.

Sophie: I was going to buy glasses or I need to buy glasses, and I was going to try them on and the person who was helping was like, “Smile in the mirror,” and I couldn’t do it to myself, even though I smile all the time. But to put a camera and to take a picture of myself smiling in my glasses to see what I really look like? I couldn’t do it.

McKenderee: I could totally relate to that.

Sophie:   I was shocked. And then also really confronted by the mirror.

[cross talk]

David: What did they ask you to do? They said…?

Sophie: Well, they recommended to send a photo to your friends and I was like, “Well, I can’t do that. Thanks, but no thanks.” 

[cross talk]

David: For glasses?

Sophie: But it’s because I couldn’t fake a smile to myself in the mirror. And it was one of those moments where i had to walk away.

Rotem: I have an anecdote that kept popping up again and again and I was like, No. No. Whatever. But this brings me back to this smiling thing. There’s something where we again think that authenticity has to do with an unmediated external expression of an internal process. And I remember in undergrad, I had to take a class on primate behavior 

Sadie: What kind of class?

Rotem: On primate behavior. I called it my “monkey class.” And I did a presentation on deception and whether or not there is deception in primates. And it was actually incredibly fascinating and maybe...there are some really amazing stories which I’m happy to share with you later, but maybe my favorite one, which s actually one of the less spectacular and more subtle ones, was a story of a monkey that is confronted. In the hierarchy...so certain species have very strict social hierarchies and the Alpha male was confronting this monkey, and what they do is what’s called the lipfrom (?), which is a way to show deference. It’s where the top lip actually flips and they do this...It looks like a smile to us. They do this weird smile, and that’s actually a way to be like, “I am not a threat. Let’s take this tension away. I show you deference. Everything’s okay.” And if you don’t do it, there’s nothing to release that tension, and it can lead to an actual conflict. Now this kind of beta monkey was actually screwing with the Alpha’s female and was not quite showing the natural deference to this guy. And [the beta monkey] does this thing, the researchers observed, that when he was confronted, he turned his head away and physically turned his lip over…Clearly he wasn’t feeling it. It wasn’t...and we think about with animals that things are symptomatic. Your cat isn’t performing when its hair stands on its back, it’s a response right? You don’t think that it’s doing a performance for you. That requires a Meta understanding of ourselves as being able to create a physical right? To put blush on even if we’re not blushing. Or to smile even when we’re not feeling it. Right? And this monkey understood itself as being like I need to do the lip flip here whether or not I feel like it. So it did it. It showed the lip flip. Everything was fine. And it moved on its merry way. But there’s something really amazing to me about it, that even what we think [about] the animal kingdom [might not be true]—the distinction between us and these other animals, that we have the ability to distinguish between an inside and outside and understand that those two are separate things. This example just kept cropping up for me.

Abby: Did the alpha buy it?

Rotem: Yeah. It was fine. 

[cross talk]

Rotem: Because it was also ritual. I don’t know. I mean I wasn’t in his head, I don’t know if he was like, “Oh, yes this is true deference? Or this is ritualized? But that’s enough. It’s fine. Just show me. Do the right thing and we’ll be fine.” Or whether it was like, “Oh yeah, that guy’s scared of me.”

Hyeku: Which is a lot in our culture too. Just say sorry and we’ll be fine. 

Rotem: Absolutely. Right. You don’t need to feel it.

Sadie: I wanted to just put something...I’m always in yoga class, and my teacher is always saying, “Everyone we’ll go into a new pose.” Everyone is going, “Oh no. We have to hold this.” And she says, “Ok y’all, smile because that is going to transform the way you are.” And she says, “They’ve done research on this on humans.” So, maybe that line between us and the primates is very thin or not at all.

Sophie: Well, there’s an expression in birth work, which is, “Let your monkey do it,” or “Let the monkey do it.” So it’s like remove...

McKendree: Let your animal take over…

Sophie: …Yeah. Let the animal take over, but now hearing that I’m like, Maybe the monkey doesn’t want to do it. 

[cross talk]

David: Let me see what the monkey says.

Abby: Monkey see. Monkey do.

[laughter]

McKendree: Okay. Thank you so, so much for coming. 

Hyeku: Thank you McKendree

McKendree: That far exceeded my expectation of masks because I was like… I had a moment where I was like, Ahh. I don’t know if this is going to be good topic. But, absolutely, this was great.

[cross talk]

Maya: And thank you from the High Line. I’m Maya, the Public Engagement Manager.

McKendree: Thank you so much Maya.

[cross talk]

Maya:   It’s been amazing. Our season is wrapping up. There’s a few more things happening in September and October, but you can find out more about our programming on our website [www.thehighline.org], and before you leave, if you could sign a release form with Alicia here, we would be grateful.