Chronicle: Ugly, the world is ugly

KNOW HOW TO LIVEThis week, the Masked Concierge is holding its nose to the letting go of the Parisians, more gray than gray and having abandoned all dignity. In addition to being dirty, they are ugly. And it is unforgivable.

By Concierge Hidden

God the world is ugly! Not new. And not from me. Look for Victor Hugo and Quasimodo. Weather in yoyo mode, nothing worse than a ray of sunshine to accentuate the cra-cra gray of a winter with overcast fires. Whole streets abandoned. Lease to assign. Permanent closure. In the lot, a bunch of dry cleaners. For once the Parisians gave things to clean, they can no longer get them back. It doesn't encourage good behavior. Suddenly, we let go of the ramp, we lose all pride. How long ago the time when the late Karl Lagerfeld decreed that wearing jogging betrayed the abandonment of one's dignity. What would he say today leaning out of his window? In view of the machines that are carried around, even more dressed, only dressed, the hated leggings would almost pass for "dressed", well in leg for the evenings of the ambassador. For a year that we have been moving in stop-&-go, we have turned into stylistic mashed potatoes. Resigned, no longer want anything, no longer need anything. Even on sale. Dress for what? To stay at home like a desperate housewife following Cyril Lignac's recipes? To look good in Zoom: impeccable at the top, filthy falzar at the bottom with shaggy legs as a bonus? Having become women and men-trunks, we only put on the top and too bad if crumpled, not washed. In short, gone from effortless to dirty-y-leash. Full cloth. If the practice of shaking hands is now obsolete, nothing prevents scrutinizing those of others. Men in particular. Badly filed nails, often in mourning. No glop. We imagine the rest. We only excuse those who travel by motorcycle or scooter and who must wear gloves. Hydro-alcoholic gel + gloves = poo nails. A drama that even the under-wearing of silk gloves will not avoid.

The osteos no longer even dare to ask their crooked patients to undress to push their knuckles where it hurts: they work through clothing. By covering his nose. Even the mask can't block the scent. Among dentists, armed to face the worst, we almost faint as soon as a patient opens his mouth. Fetid Uncle and gas mask on the wheel: sales of toothpaste, but also of deodos, would have collapsed since the first confinement of March 2020. As if on purpose, a few days before putting the country under glass, had been published a copious statistical report on the hygiene of the French. Nothing to brag about. Three out of four then washed once a day. A quarter brushed their teeth only once a day. One in five washed their hands every time an eye fell. As for the rhythm of changing underwear, it left one wondering, especially on the side of the men, these big disgusting. In the European ranking of personal cleanliness, and more specifically of those who wash their hands after using the toilet, the ranking was high at 96% for Bosnians, Turks, Portuguese (tied with the Greeks), while the Dutch, not surprisingly, came dead last. In 23rd place, the gray mine of the French, who not only did not wash their hands when leaving the toilet, but combed their hair with their unwashed fingers, like Phytofix sculpting gel.

Go buy yourself some toothpaste after that. It is said that six tubes per second are sold in France. At a rate of 32 ratiches per adult specimen, counting jackets, crowns, implants and empty spaces, we know that the French market has been in decline for three years. And that the Covid did not help anything. Fortunately, there are the masks. It is estimated that 59% of poisoning due to his own bad breath. Halitosis when you hold us. And it is not the mouthwashes and gargles with CB12 that change much. Get out you stink and walk in the shade! sang Renaud. Even, because the real dirty people are not those that we believe and that we see. A year has passed. Twelve months of violence and psychological breakdown later, it's proven: confinement and the rest have deteriorated the state of personal hygiene of the French by more than 15%. In the lead, the men, quickly reached the teenage stage, Roquefort between their toes. The drop in self-esteem was compounded by neglect. A vicious circle. Why wash myself, take care of myself, dress myself pretty since I don't go out and I don't receive anyone? Except for the inquisitive zoom screen, there is no longer any gaze from others to compel me to hold the handrail. And zou, paf, zyva my slut, we no longer fear being stigmatized for our lack of cleanliness. Or respect trampled under (dirty) feet. In January 2021, a poll that went unnoticed indicated that 12% of women thought they were beautiful in the current conditions we know; they were more than 22% a year ago. The discomfort is even more acute among single women living alone and who suddenly take it easy on the toilet. Failing to read his horoscope in a block of Marseille soap, read or reread Le miasme et la jonquille, Alain Corbin's own book about him, which teaches us a lot about body hygiene, global deodorization, and all the acts aimed at purifying society since the 17th century.

With dubious body hygiene, matching dress style. Can't blame anyone. Why make an assault on elegance when the city is a cesspool? In Paris, everything is so dirty that the mere fact of wearing light-colored clothing in the street is accused of urban suicide, of terrorist provocation. Everyone in Enki Bilal, gray or black, two textile colors, which, when dirty, are simply disgusting. Even a face-to-face professional meeting with barrier gestures does not encourage effort. And whoever dares to brave the dreary greyness is immediately considered an alien. On Instagram, the girlfriends unearth things they haven't worn for twenty years. Always better than Vinted with these poor rags of pecores bought on sale at La Halle. Yes, we all look like old heaps, tchiarraffi, rhinestones and hicks. But for whom and why to be beautiful? Everyone is dirty. The people, the street, the places. In the windows of shops that are lucky enough to be able to stay open, there is a finger of dust. Not a good seller. Unless some new speciesist eco-doctrine has decreed that dust has a conscience. Postulate visibly in force in organic greengrocer shops where staff seem to have slept on a compost heap. Who decided that these shops should be pale shambles haunted by piles of rotten crates? It's very simple, you enter a green-fingered biocopy gizmo for three endives priced at the price of caviar, you come out in the state of a forgotten turnip covered in manure.

Dirty, frumpy, the tight grin behind the mask – yes, yes, it shows – we have become very ugly. Not ugly ugly. Just ugly. Ugliness, which is the opposite of beauty, is a form of beauty. You have four hours. Especially since the ugly ones have the advantage over the beautiful ones of having a lot of homonyms: milk, strips, lais, laies, leds, inlays, francislai and léléladylé, while the beautiful marnent with Philippe-le-Bel, coco bel-œil, deci-bels and Bel cheeses. La Vache qui Rit as a beauty index to the smallest portion. And longevity: this year it celebrates its hundredth anniversary. We get lost, we digress. At least The Laughing Cow isn't ugly. And it is eaten with a teaspoon, in silver, if you are really chic.

What saddens is the generalized state of ugliness. The street, the people, everywhere. Just watch the ads, especially food. The insufferable kid who lectures her father because he drinks from the neck of a plastoc bottle? Ugly and re-ugly, like the father by the way. Don't want to hear it. Rather crush a full piece of Wattwiller on his face. Not content with bullying her parents, well fallots, this ugly brat who already looks like an ugly old woman, embodies the zero-waste eco-consciousness of a brand that we don't give a damn about. It's SodaStream blows me a colleague close to the file. And the kid's name is Naïa. SodaStream? Isn't that thing to blow bubbles in water with gas cartridges in plastic bottles that you can't wash? Vi, but there are also glass bottles. You know one thing, honey, if you want water with bubbles, just fart in a carafe of tap water, as Reiser said. Yes, it's ugly. But it goes with the people who bother us to buy it, doesn't it?

Otherwise, in 80% of commercials tunneled through TV these days, when protanists aren't ugly, they look dirty, unkempt, haggard. That must reassure the crados sores who eat pizza in Deliveroo, slumped on their Ikea sofa bed in ruined underpants. Me, ugly and mean, 7 to 11. There was a time when advertising stylized its characters, to the point of caricature, of course. But from Mère Denis to the bigoudens of Tipiak, from Grace Jones/Citroën to Rossy de Palma/Alain Mikli, everything that had a mouthful threw a lot of it and struck memories. Beaten in breach, the ideals of beauty standardized until Photoshop and decried by feminists have been replaced by banal dondons testimonial fakes with which only banal dondons subscribed to shopping centers identify. Same refrain with the guys, generic and stereotyped, always ugly, whether to “sell” glasses, cheese, pasta or cars. In essence, Mr. and Mrs. Everybody don't break bricks, but leveling the bottom down even further ends up tiring. Awful, dirty and mean yesterday, ugly, dirty and mean today. Look for the error: the absolute lack of humor. By wanting too much to include, concern and please, we no longer make people laugh, we no longer make people dream. Zero level of advertising. Worse: we don't even remember the names of brands and products. For an ad, it's ugly.

The phenomenon of ugliness has also spread to French public service fiction. In particular the police stuff that takes place in the provinces where everyone is weighed down by a heavy secret and where the heroines who are always cold are covered like bags of large boiled wool sweaters. Or else dressed like old babes with elastic jeans that could stand up so craspec. Guys ? Not better. Neurotic, beaten up, morfed, neglected. And ugly. According to a journalist friend who has not given up wearing lipstick under her mask, the presence of a clean-looking, well-groomed, determined, clean-looking woman or man in this TV format is judged fascinating. The writers save this look for the rich right-wing suspects. If you're too clean, your hands are bound to be dirty. How far will ideological Manichaeism go? As for driving mega-polluting like the repulsive Captain Marleau in his rotten Range Rover, it is to pose the rebellious side of the character. And your sister ? She's ugly but she washes her hands of it.

I don't know in what state we're really going to get out of this wobbly health regency in which dirty people try to get their dirty ideas across and where others wash their dirty laundry in public claiming proper justice. I just know that playing it ugly through negligence, complacency, laziness and resignation will send us mentally straight to the gray trash can, that of non-recyclable waste. Measured by the yardstick of this letting go, self-love as conceptualized by Rousseau ended up in the gutter. Covid dirt…