'stache #56 - the beef tendon moustache

While American adolescents of the early 20th century restricted themselves to simple ‘staches like green pepper moustaches, musselmoustaches, lime moustaches, and only dreamt of one day resting an entire roast chicken under their sensory-deprived snouts, around the globe Samoan teens wildly threw marinated and sautéed beef tendon atop their mouths, or so reported the young anthropologist Margaret Mead in her 1928 Coming of Age in Samoa. Typical of most Americans, Mead left home for college in the big city and the world’s truths announced themselves to her so that she, like all other bright 18-years-olds, found herself the sudden owner of all life’s answers. In Samoa, she found the youth’s sexual development uninhibited by the shackles of Christianity and monogamy and manifest in this cartilage lip ornament. Franz Boas, a deeply sentimental wearer of a great many moustaches himself, found no reason to correct his ambitious and newly liberated student. Of course, this was long before 'problematizing' texts was popular in the classroom.

The Beef Tendon Moustache, not unlike Margaret Mead’s dubious contribution to anthropology, is controversial, unstructured, and messy. This beef tendon for ‘staching came from a dingy midtown Szechuan restaurant known for its (nonsexual) spice.

'stache #38 - gummy worm moustache

Like all religious revolutionary 'staches, the gummy worm 'stache had sticky origins. In the middle of the night, November 1517, Martin Luther, cleverly 'stached a traditional German gummy worm, to sneak past the guards and nail his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg castle, thus kicking off the Protestant Reformation. In these brazen beginnings, no one knew about this clandestine 'stache naturally. But the religious fervor wore on Luther's nerves and he became, well, less than lucid at times and started frivolously wearing all types of candy moustaches. Things finally came to a head in 1521 when Luther was excommunicated from the Church -- as if he cared -- and was engaged in a screaming match with the Holy Roman Emperor, whereupon he ripped off his gummy lip scarf and slapped Charles V in the face with it. He was then declared an outlaw. That moment is now remembered as the Diet of Worms, and the moustache is, thoughtfully, remembered in the zen koan, not where he eats, but wear he and he is eaten.

The gummy worm moustache can be worn all year.

'stache #29 - takoyaki moustache

Under Emperor Hideyoshi, 16th century Japan had become a pale, colorless land. But in 1598, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who despised Jesus and blandness, took power and ushered in the country's first Cherry Blossom festival in Kyoto and relegated the small Christian population to the dingier, less colorful city of Osaka. The next spring, Jesus lovers began shrinking the Pentateuch into tiny octopus capsules, or takoyaki, that would be worn as moustaches and later unraveled to reveal His Word. Tokugawa bedded down the lippy clandestine revolution in 1616 by outlawing all fish-based moustaches, and the style was thought to be lost forever. Until General Douglas MacArthur, of Little Rock, Arkansas, attempted to revive the octopus-ball style, and Christianity, in 1947, but quickly abandoned the look, having grossly miscalculated the smell of day-old octopus.

Christianity, one should note, also failed to take root, do in large part to Japan's love of Kawaii, or cuteness. The takoyaki 'stache may be worn only on grey or rainy days. This Arkansas native stached this octopus ball at Otafuku on East 9th Street in Manhattan.