Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

"A frequent usage hoever, of the lip salve, as it is ingenioiusly called, but which is merely a red pigment in disguise, so inflames, thickens roughens, and gives a peculiar tint to the mouth, that is has the look of the shrivelled, purplish one of a sick negress." (p.51)

As everyone wandered through the doors, they put on their fronts.  Some even had masks or facades.  Others had veilling scarves, as they were being surveilled down the line.  Down the line, and over the bow's line.

A box is in the center.  and you are in it.  You have been placed in it, and now it smells like you.  In turn and regards you smell like it. 

Your bow is colorless.  it is bent. almost about to break.  But your cares about this once lively bow are far gone.  far far out the window. nor more wind to caution. debris now has escaped from your path.

"The habit of biting the lips soon destroys any grace of form they may have originally posessed.  Madame de Pompadour while lamenting the decay of her charms, confessed that she first began to spoil at the mouth."(p.51)

EXCUSE ME!

Your'e rotten sir.  mon·sieur, you are rotten! Par le vu France, Sir? Mixin me up in this world is what you're doing.  I've driven with you everywhere and I lost the map.  Now, I follow your Atlas suggestions.  But, unfortunately, I've been told that it's rotten.

NOW-PRESENTLY-CONCURRENTLY

I see how you ended up with this.  And c'mon, we both know you really didn't have to explain it.  They are straight.  They are straighter than any bow in this sphere.  And you know it.  And you made it happen.  Although, no biting was involved-the history suggests-stretching, straining, proglems, life.

"It is the most distinctive and repulsive sign of an envious old maid or any other ill-tempered person!"(p.52)

Bazar

Book of Decorum, (1873)