The futility and absurdity of the Face Match could not be more clear. The competition consists of placing on easels random photos of the town’s inhabitants and asking contestants to attach names to the faces. Some have trouble with the cosseted millionaires who live east of Barner Avenue on Hampshire Street, in colossal mansions secreted behind gates and hedges. Others stumble over humble visages such as Dan Wendle, who runs the auto garage, or Patricia Foor, the school principal. But are these failures equal? A new book by the sociologist Anna Jackson, Reflections and Deflections, argues that knowing the names of the wealthy denizens of an exclusive neighborhood that has several times demonstrated its disdain for the broader town is a skill prized primarily by the grasping and the green-eyed. "Excessive proficiency," she writes, "which involves correctly identifying of not only the men and women who own the homes, but their minor children as well, and their pets, and even their horses when horses are kept, is possible only for a thoroughgoing tufthunter or toady." On the other hand, even Jackson concedes that she cannot remember the name of the deli guy.
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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