The Sad Mustache

I cannot decide if he is morose that his mustache barely makes it down his face for a proper lip waterfall (often vulgarly called a Fu Manchu in the modern era) or if his visible distress is due to a catastrophic state of flaccidity in what should have been a spectacular overhand twist.

The Mustache of a Scholar, Surely

The gentleman has two of the most subtle overhand twists I ever encountered. In fact, I do not think they can even be considered to employ a twist at all.

Pressing Question Answered

I thought I might pause a moment and take time to answer a faithful reader's question. It seems a fine pursuit on a day when the weather is so unmustachely.

(lord) franko said...
as someone struggling with a long-ish moustache, i just have to ask: good LORD, how did this man EAT?? i am constantly getting food in my 'stache, or 'stache in my food, or both in my mouth... it's en embarrassing spectacle to live through, and probably even worse for those around me to watch. i'm considering either (gasp!) shaving off my moustache in 2008, or staying indoors and eating alone forever. how in the world did men from that era get so huge with moustaches so robust -- it boggles the mind.
December 30, 2007 12:50 PM

Firstly, I counsel against any rash mustache butchery on your part. A well-trimmed mustache will admit as gross an amount of foodstuffs as any state of barelippedness. (Why, in fact, do the determinedly barelipped eat at all? An unmustached life may not be worth living for any proper gentleman.)

To your question: There were two main methods by which a Victorian gentleman might deal with his mustache at mealtime. For formal occasions is was common to style the whiskers up and away from the mouth for the sake of neatness and expediency. Since formal mustache portraits would rarely be shot at dinner parties, a modern example with have to suffice.




A different method was often employed privately in the home or at sup with intimates, the humble face cage. Its purpose was to lift and separate the mustache, holding it out of the way to admit the various cold meat forks or monkey spoons one might wish to employ.

No Victorian gentleman would have allowed himself to be photographed in his face cage; it would be as unthinkable as a lady displaying her whalebone bustle for an albuminist. So, unfortunately, all I can offer for visual reference is this crude Photo-Shoppe recreation.

New Year's Day Special Edition: A Famous Mustache Extravaganza

Five of my personal favorite famous mustaches from The Golden Age of Mustaches.



The Mustache that Attempted to Tame The West. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. (A man undertaking such a series of adventures can be forgiven the occasional lower lip hair.)



The wild, wonderful, Whitmantorial splendor of Mr. Samuel Clemens' artfully unkempt mustache is worth all the riverboat stories in the world to me.



Hounded by his own Demons at every turn, Edgar Allan Poe still found time to cultivate a neat and civilized mustache. Would that his descendants in fantastical literary pursuits have the same fortitude.



No faithful reader of this blog is ignorant of the amazing life and times of President Chester A. Arthur. Long may his magnificent faceshelf loom in history.



Finally, what more can be said about dear Nietzsche that one glance at his stupendous mustache cannot tell you? When you gaze long into his mustache, his mustache gazes into you...

May Two Thousand and Eight find you and yours mustached, happy, and free.

Henry Stanley

The mustache that found Dr. Livingstone.

At least, I presume that it is...

George Dewey

The mustache that won a stunning victory at The Battle of Manila Bay.

John A. Logan

Mustaches of the Civil War (Ret.)