Word: waxen
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Gloom, distress and shame descended, last week, upon the sleek, waxen faced, bandolined and faintly perfumed gigolos of Paris...
Imagine an enormous male doll, bigger than most policemen. Its ruddy skin has a waxen glow. There is a wiglike perfection to its yellow tonsure. Its puffy hands make pawing gestures. Upon its gentle mouth is an infantine wetness. The staring eyes are china-blue and someone has dressed up this prodigious toy in a swaying, broadtailed coat, canary waistcoat, blue velvet tie, patent leather shoes. Its breath is stertorous, mechanical; its tread is elephantine; its vocal chords match its tread?for this doll can talk?and bawl? and bellow. It looks and talks like one of the footmen from...
...enjoy exploring among the yellowed pages of the Newgate Calendar; if you enjoy paying your quarter to see the waxen images of Mrs. Snyder, and the Chicago barber who went mad with his razor in his hand; if you enjoy following the dotted lines in the "Daily Mirror" diagram photographs to find the "X", marketing sport where murder was committed:--in short, if you have hankerings after homicide, you will find much in this collection of twentieth century crimes to quicken up your blood...
...Frenchmen (Bonnard, Braque, Duffy, Seganzac, Laurencin, Marchand, Marquet, Matisse, Utrillo, Vlaminck) are all seduced by wonder, preoccupied with the intricacies of moods, of surfaces. The pinguid fingers of Matisse's Jenne Fille au Piano strike from the keyboard notes that drip with colored stridence, red like the shuddering walls, waxen yellow and scarlet like the overripe fruits on the table. Duffy's Trouville clutches the beach insecurely, as if at any moment it might balloon, mad with gaiety, into the seawind, and shatter its striped pavilions on the salvoing clouds. Bonnard's Le Palmier is a jungle as gemmed...
...side of the altar and then on the other. The Bishop's ring was kissed. The Bishop and sacred ministers were censed. The sacred host and chalice were raised high at the sound of the sacring bell. Before the altar the ministers were prostrate, while kneeling acolytes elevated waxen tapers that flamed. Then followed the kiss of peace received from the celebrant by the Bishop's chaplain and by him transmitted to the Bishop, subdeacon and all other priests...