Frequent Flier Smiles

Tony Pierce just posted on LAist about photographer Mark “The Cobrasnake” Hunter being on a flight to Miami and another passenger onboard just happened to be Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who obliged the popular shutterbug by posing for a couple pix (here and here).

Wow. One could come up with several reasons why Villaraigosa’s smile is so fake (tired, busy, sick, pre-occupied) or caution not to judge with such limited evidence, but the fact is all I see is a mayor who hasn’t been in office for two years and already the smile dies before reaching his eyes. Instead of being genuine or even pretending to be it looks as if it’s become nothing more than a Pavlovian reaction, a perfunctory constriction of the maxillofacial muscles in response to a camera being pointed in his direction.

Sad, really.