Word of the Year -- Selfie

The Oxford Dictionary has declared the Word of the Year to be, drumrollllllll:  selfie!

This is the taking of a self pic via phone or digital camera, and is now a fairly contentious issue, public radio fueled, as to whether it's narcissism or art.  Whereupon people who actually know anything about art point out that it's an ancient art form. And that nobody turned round and called Rembrandt a narcissist!  a lot of other things perhaps, but narcissist, no.

So I thought I may as well be in the swim on this selfie tide, and did a few.  I had to delete the ones that almost completely missed my face on account of my inexperience of looking into the camera backwards. 

Then I kept on cracking up saying cheese and fromage and other such words, hence the slightly demented image you get here. One I more or less took accidentally while I was trying to push the right button. The cats firmly declined to be a part of this nonsense, and got on with their naps after pushing their paws into my face a few times.

In fact tomorrow I'm submitting a self portrait for an exhibit of local artists (we were ASKED to do the portrait, we're not narcissists, we're not.  We're just not.) so this fits in fine.  In fact  gallery director Donna might make capital out of promoting the selfie before  the Ox. validated it.

So here's me. 

 And, well, Rembrandt was no oil painting, either!

 This exercise reminds me of those booths you used to go into to shoot a silly series of self pix, or with as many friends could fit into the booth, the picture series would emerge on a long strip, and we thought it was the greatest fun.  It also makes me wonder why people think selfies are new.