Your Humble Blogger, as there is no particular reason for Gentle Readers to know, is a man with a moustache.
\n
—Darling, there’s a man at the door with a moustache.
—Tell him I’ve already got one.
Boom Boom<\/blockquote>
\nI started growing a moustache as soon as I could, or in truth a few months sooner. I never looked forward to shaving; I looked forward to not shaving. Sadly, the beard thing never happened. In addition to coming in patchy, a moustache suits my face, a beard does not. I did grow a goatee—an echt<\/I> goatee, not one of those imperials that are called goatees these days (although as a descriptivist, I am obliged to concede that since nobody other than YHB has worn what I would call a goatee in decades, and since the word is actually used by actual English speakers to refer to any beard (with or without a moustache) that doesn’t connect to the sidewhiskers, communication requires that the things called goatees are goatees, curse them all)—where was I? Oh, yes, I grew a goatee for a few months, for comic effect, but as it neither looked particularly good nor improved my morning ablutions, I gave up and shaved it off. My beard comes in dark and impressive down my throat, which is exactly where it should not be.
\nBut the purpose of this note is not to gripe about my facial-hair situation, except to the extent that its purpose is<\/I> to gripe about my facial-hair situation, as will be seen. You see, I am a man with a moustache. I like having a moustache, I think of myself as having a moustache, and for twenty years or so, the only times I have shaved my upper lip have been for the stage. As I shaved my upper lip on Friday morning.
\nThe first set of publicity photos are set for Wednesday, so there was a terminus for the moustache, and my experience is that it is wise to give the raw skin a few days sunlight and air before starting with the greasepaint. Well, pancake. Nobody actually uses greasepaint anymore. And spirit gum; my mad Hrungarian has whiskers, as Shaw requires. Not the fluffy and luxurious sidewhiskers I think would be perfect for him, but I really don’t have time to deal with fluffy and luxurious sidewhiskers as I make the eight-minute change to Rich Alfie. Particularly as our Dear Director is trying to pick up the pace everywhere, so I may have only a seven-minute change…
\nIt’s Whiskers that’s the problem. Alfie could have a moustache, but Whiskers must<\/I> have a moustache, and therefore Alfie must not<\/I> have a moustache, for the purposes of differentiating the two. And as it’s difficult for an actor with a moustache to play a character without a moustache (at least on stage), YHB must shave the lip for six weeks or so. Which is all right. Of all the inconveniences I have inflicted on myself to be in this show, the shaving ranks very low. Even counting washing out the washbasin.
\nHowever, it has been dispiriting how few people have noticed the change. My Best Reader noticed, of course, as did (eventually) a G.R. who was houseguest at the time. My Perfect Non-Reader when prodded, felt sure that I had shaved it off the previous day or even earlier. Co-workers failed to notice, or at least to comment, although many of my co-workers won’t see me until Monday. I had lengthy conversations with four of my Perfect Non-Reader’s friends’ parents, and short ones with two more, and none of them seemed to notice. Of the couple next door, the fellow gave me the business about it but his wife did not (although that doesn’t mean he noticed first). It seems in the mirror to be a radical change in appearance. If it isn’t, if it’s not something that people notice is missing, then maybe YHB is not, after all, a man with a moustache, just a man who happens to have a moustache?
\nTolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Which Your Humble Blogger shaves close to the gums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing","category-theeyater"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18445,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11324\/revisions\/18445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}