If the wig fits

SHE applies lipstick, getting ready for the quotidian—but should apply lipstick, prepare for something extraordinary. When we put on a uniform, add the final flourishes to a stage costume or tie a tie, we experience that rush of alien energy, releasing us from our usual identity. The masked theatrical chorus of classical Athens understood the paradox. To wear a mask, of whatever kind, does not conceal. Counterintuitively, it reveals. The conscious self is displaced. Instead arrives something unfamiliar, exciting, instinctive, other—and heady, because we are unfamiliar with its