My Dearest Freddy—
On a completely different subject, I’ve been wondering about your mustache. It gives me so much joy. It’s huge. It’s consummately badass, a Mensch Mustache. When I’m an older man, I will most definitely be sprouting a Ntzsch Mstch.
Does it require maniacal care? Does food get stuck in it? I mean, heck, all the world’s pestering you about Tragedy’s Birth, Gay Science, and brash Übermenschery, and in struts yours truly, eager to know more about your mustache. Healthy minds require equal parts knowledge and distraction.
I have no clear idea why, but: From the day I met you, there was something about the mustache. Why did you grow it so strangely, insanely large?
A large mustache creates a kind gap on the face… an abyss where the self is consumed. When a mustache or beard is shaved off, there’s an odd kind of nakedness. One feels exposed. The face, the locus of identity is suddenly present, there, for all to see. A mustache works like a mask (or like a pseudonym), covering up who one really is. So if the mustache gets larger and larger, does the self behind it feel smaller and smaller—less significant, less present in the world. With the enormous mustache, it is as if you’re vanishing. Perhaps it’s the most outward physical sign of ingenious madness.
