Mom always said, "Stop doing that with your eyes or they'll stay that way!"

Ian Maxwell MacKinnon finds that pretending to be George W Bush can be harmful to your health.

Providing "the people" with a chance to pick his brain on issues ranging from the war on terrorism to Janet Jackson's breasts, George W. Bush stood front and left-of-center before an unsympathetic audience of some 50 Cantabrigians last week. Well, not Bush exactly, but actor Ian Maxwell MacKinnon as a Dubya-doppelganger, fielding questions that moved from the ridiculous (Is mustard a vegetable?) to the paradoxical (How does denying liberties via the Patriot Act preserve our liberties?). The opening salvo in Zeitgeist Gallery's "13 Days of Creative Dissent," MacKinnon's performance transcended cartoonish parody to achieve a provocative, unsettling humor. Blending swagger and earnestness, arrogance and inarticulateness, he treated the crowd to a pretzel logic that twisted into curious conclusions.

He quelled concerns about checking library records by noting that fewer and fewer Americans are reading books today.

[...]

MacKinnon will perform "The Apotheosis of George W. Bush" Tuesday night at the Zeitgeist Gallery. Still, he relishes the chance to retire his Bush for reasons political as well as physical and social.

"The no lip thing and that weather-beaten brow/squinty thing have given me a headache at times," he said. "Worse, sometimes I'll be on the T and the mere thought of Bush will make my face turn into his. So, there I am, looking like I'm clueless and vain. Then I'll catch myself, and wonder, 'Oh, my God! Did people see my Bush face?'"

Hmmm. Wonder what "social" diseases he's referring to?