"Let the Jaw Drop"

At least once a month, and twice a month in season, the magazine Vogue works itself into a well-bred frenzy over the American woman, clucking with dismay over her shortcomings, chirruping with alarm over her sluggishness, shrilly urging her on to greater & greater miracles of attenuated charm.

Sometimes, mourns Vogue in its early April issue, it seemed almost as if the U.S. woman just doesn't care enough. Take a Frenchwoman, going out for the evening. "She will have thought for hours about her entrance. If she is tired, she is simply 'not at home' all day . . . She may take a 'shade bath' (chaise longue, darkened room, eyepads) for two hours . . . Inevitably, a trip to the hairdressers . . . She knows her dress. If it is a line that stands better than it sits, she will spend the evening standing--and standing in a particular posture . . . Say what you will, the effect . . . is far more momentous than that attempted by most American women."

American women, observes Vogue severely, are too tense and that is bad--"nervous people acquire a tendency to stare and to clamp their jaws into an ugly, tight line." Vogue could fix that.

While under severe nervous strain--in a taxi waiting for a light to turn green, in a restaurant waiting for a tardy guest--"use the waiting time to advantage . . . Let the jaw drop down until it feels about to crack. This relaxes the facial muscles . . . Bring the finger tips together at the base of the skull and lift hard, pulling the head up and stretching the neck muscles . . . Wiggle the toes inside the shoes. Limbering the big toe can do much towards improving the general feeling of well-being . . . Flabby buttocks have much the same effect on the body as a flat tire has on a car . . . pull them in and up . . . a dozen, two dozen times."

That should take care of the lady's tensions, Vogue concludes buoyantly, ignoring the loutish bewilderment of the cabbie and dismissing the astonished headwaiter with an imperious toss of the relaxed head.

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