Optical Brown

     LastSunday, while attending Quaker Meeting, I sat behind a woman whose hair colorwas one I call “optical brown.”

     Bythat I mean it was a medium-brown color subtly suffused with red-orange.

     I call it optical brown because the only place I have seen this exact color hairpreviously is on movie actors I’ve observed in various Los Angeles locationsand on airplanes.  These are people whosenatural hair color is elusive and, in a very real way at this point,irrelevant.  Work requires them to dyetheir hair frequently and I believe that the hue of brown you see on them(which looks freakish and unnatural up close) probably photographs extremelywell and looks rich and lustrous on-screen. 

     Unfortunately,the harsh treatment these actors’ hair receives coarsens it; up close it reallylooks ghoulish.  In one two-week periodsome years ago, I had occasion to observe Winona Ryder, Sigourney Weaver (engagedin making the final Alien picture) and Kevin Bacon (my seatmate) up close. All of these physically attractive individualssported optical brown coifs that had the texture of the cheap “doll hair” youmight recall from childhood.  Theylooked, for all the world, like a variant version of Village of the Damned.

     Ishould mention that the person seated in front of us at Meeting had reallybeautiful hair, which reminded me (in its color and gloss) of the coats of someof the gorgeous horses we passed by on our way there.  We spoke briefly with her at the rise ofMeeting and she seemed as pleasant as the very fine weather that day which, unlike yesterday, wasa very good one.