The face is a fascinating thing. Through evolutionary necessity, humans have evolved a complex system for conveying emotions using the blunt instrument that is the face. Eyes widen with alarm. The nose curls at the scent of something foul. The face is like a road sign to our experience, broadcasting for commuters to be on the lookout for abducted feelings, along with a phone number. The face warns drivers of all kinds to raise the plows of their attention. Raise them where?
“To your face, dummy!” the face says, eyes wide with consternation.
Actors know these secrets, but why should actors hold the keys the kingdom, when they have so much already?
Memorize this list and you’ll hold the Rosetta stone to your wife’s infidelity, or you’ll pick up on your impending dismissal from work before your boss can even spit out the bad news. In short, your life will no longer be shrouded in mystery. You’ll understand perfectly the vile emotions people have been disguising from you for years!
1) Puckering lips means contemplation. The puckerer is deep in thought. It is speculated that this originated when early man ate strange animals and plants to survive. Early man was trying to understand, through the taste buds located just behind his lips, whether or not he would die of poisoning within minutes. It gave him a lot to think about.
2) Have you noticed a scrunching nose goes with feelings of doubt? It’s true. Just say aloud: “I don’t think so, Marsha.” Now scrunch your nose and say it. See how much more doubtful you feel? If you scrunch enough, there’s no way Marsha Dernbill, head of Human Resources, can pin that cafeteria vandalism on you.
3) Everyone knows lying eyes drift up and to the left. Bill Clinton’s eyes went up and to the left when he said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” George W. Bush’s eyes did the same when he told Barbara Walters that Saddam Hussein harbored WMDs. What lies beyond up and to the left? Doctors recently named a rare condition Occular Donaldosis for eyes that have spun 360 degrees in their sockets. Multiple Occular Donaldosis is when the eyes make 720 or 1080 degree turns. The condition is so rare, there’s only one known patient. Don’t become the second one! Keeps those eyes still!
4) The head turns inquisitively. Even a twist of only an inch or two says, “Oh, really? I didn’t know that.” When the head twists so far the chin rises, this signals fascination. “Wow!” Certain colleagues are known to employ this over cubical walls when they think you aren’t looking. What their inquisitive faces don’t realize is that you have a mirror app on your phone, and it works pretty well.
5) But read those facial road signs carefully! If the chin is thrust forward and to the side, the chin-wearer suspects you are gas-lighting them. You’ll need to clench your lips with adamancy in order to get their chin to go back to normal. Try saying, “I didn’t even want the Levinson account, Don!” Then clench those lips tight!
Tighter!
6) The brow is veritable semaphoric library of hidden meeting. Wrinkled, what could it mean? Probably that your supervisor is upset. What about a rippled brow? “Troubled” would be my guess. Deeply troubled, feeling the kind of internal strife that only comes with the realization that you’ve been blind to obvious signs of your employee’s incompetence and deceptions.
7) As interesting and expressive as the face is, it’s worth noting the power of a blank face. A blank face betrays no admissions of guilt, whether regarding the diversion of Levinson account funds or regarding swear words spelled out with silverware on a cafeteria table. Cultural theorists and art historians have been hard at work on new ideas connecting the enduring appeal of the Mona Lisa’s faint smile to the priceless evasion delivered by a blank face. Until the work of these scholarly types is done, it’s best to adorn the face with profound lifelessness that admits no wrongdoing. None.
8) Where would our species be without some outward sign of pain? You only have to envision the terrorized eyes and the screaming mouth of a Neanderthal to understand that he’s trying to tell you not to hunt for delicious berries in a cactus patch. Such is the pure emotive force of this fascinating thing we—and clocks—call the face. Supervisors everywhere, take note. See the pain your baseless accusations have caused, and acknowledge it. Our face will be a stern, unforgiving visage as we listen to your insincere but mightily relieving apologies.
9) But the face’s ability to convey pain doesn’t end there. A crying face has told a million stories, none as profound as the story of severely injured employee, pained by the false accusations of their supervisors over missing funds for an account that said employee didn’t even want to manage in the first place. Tears are like coins that you put in the candy machine of a relationship. Put enough in, turn the dial, and you’ll get a prize. Like a promotion and raise, stock options, or package of compensatory damages.
10) Nothing says receptivity like an upturned face. Like most of this stuff, it’s a primeval thing; we learned it long ago, on the African Savannah or prep school where the headmaster was a total doorknob. A face raised to the sun sits atop the body of someone feeling eminently safe from harm. They’re at their leisure, working on their tan or just warming their skin. It feels good, which is why they’re receptive to it. Beatings with a leather belt don’t feel good, but the upturned face belies this. Sometimes belying is the face’s best option until the face enters the military and gets access to a weapon. If entering the military never happens, one’s vengeance can be taken out on corporations at large. They’re just as bad as headmasters.
11) I told you the face’s vocabulary was vast. The eyes squinch in distaste, apprehension, or uncertainty. The chin pulls back—disbelief! The jaw drops, so shocked is the face. Finally, the lips quaver and withdraw into the mouth in the ultimate expression of denial and revulsion. All this can happen in the space of a few moments as one opens the bedroom door after getting home from a crazy day at the office. A face this contorted by feelings should probably change its environment, as fast as it can run. Like early man, it has a lot to think about. At the bar, the face can rest in the palm and stare at the jar of pickled eggs in shocked concentration. The face sags and sags over neat double scotches until closing.
12) The face continues to impress. For weeks the face can take on the barrenness of Death Valley’s arid floor. Regret shows on the face in subtle twitches, twitches around the right eye that won’t relent no matter how much office coffee the face drinks. The eyes dart from place to place, looking for answers, evading the responsibilities of new accounts that are supposed to cement good standing and convince the department that everything’s blown over. But the face knows better. The lips protrude and the nostrils flap like wings as the face steels its resolve and burns with the desire for revenge. Finally, the cheeks droop with sadness even as the face repeats complex invoicing procedures that are not entirely above board. But the face can see no other way out but to pay off the philander caught in his bed. For fifty thousand, sure, he’ll stay away from your wife. In its remarkable way, the tireless face twitches on, letting us know it has more stories to tell.
13) Finally the face offers its last coded secret. A slow nod and a wry smirk means the jig is up for this face, as the blue and red lights flash outside the office window, and the detectives in trench coats and blazers stride through the department doors, their faces plastered with inscrutable countenances. No one can read a face like a detective, yet paradoxically no one can read a detective’s face, no matter how many mustaches they and the other authorities combined have. As the cuffs ratchet closed and the Miranda rights are read, the face turns inquisitive, eyes casting upward, mouth in an upside-down U. The face is wondering what the food is like where it’s headed, and will there be vegetarian options.
