Minutiæ

It is not too bold to state bald­ly that the mon­o­cle has long been a sym­bol of élite stand­ing and state­ment of excep­tion­al genet­ic favor­ings with­in the gra­di­ent choirs of soci­ety. And while it has stood the test of time, along with the tuft­ed-leather read­ing chair, the wide-rimmed cham­pagne glass and the mid-breast­ed util­i­tar­i­an flask, it has slid down the scale some­what of item­ized acces­sories in the heat­ed side of the pedes­tri­an “Hot or Not” column.

How­ev­er! I am here to announce with clap­ping glee that the mon­o­cle is back at the top of the list, tri­umph­ing over romper-suits for ladies. It is now the time to dust off the case and wear the mon­o­cle with pride, much like the beloved social-page sta­ples: Con­tro­ver­sial box­er Rubin ‘Hur­ri­cane’ Carter, sin­is­ter and cat-lov­ing Sir Patrick Moore, famed les­bian Karl Marx, the major­i­ty of Gilbert & Sul­li­van’s musi­cal char­ac­ters and of course, the cheer­ful­ly obses­sive com­pul­sive Count Von Count.

Hav­ing acquired my mon­o­cle the only way it should be acquired, via ques­tion­able inher­i­tance, I have come to learn that a large swath of “Gen­er­a­tion Sext” has no idea the rich his­to­ry behind the uni­glass, nor the prop­er eti­quette for don­ning it. So in light of spik­ing deathbed requests, let me impart a brief lesson:

It must be worn on the right side, regard­less of nat­ur­al dom­i­nance dex­ter­i­ty, as that is the side of the face reflec­tive of the left-sided brain, the cor­ti­cal hemi­sphere known to favor the math­e­mat­i­cal, polit­i­cal and gin-drink­ing- par­ty-wink­ing cognoscente. The chain of the mon­o­cle, or “Sen­a­tor’s rip-cord” as it was known in the twen­ties, must hang just past the chin at a two fin­ger’s dis­tance from the wear­er’s smirk. One must remain pok­er-faced and emo­tion­al­ly neu­tral while sport­ing the lens, for if the eye­brows raise in dis­be­lief at say, a poor­ly made stock mar­ket invest­ment, the lens will fall com­i­cal­ly, most like­ly into one’s wide-rimmed cham­pagne glass.

It is impor­tant to know the back-sto­ry of the mon­o­cle, for one will find that inquir­ing minds will want to know all in this era of advanc­ing reti­nal tech­nolo­gies. The ety­mol­o­gy of the word, “Mon­o­cle” sup­ports the grandiose mythol­o­gy of the acces­so­ry’s birth. Deriv­ing from the French words “mon” and “oncle” trans­lat­ing direct­ly to “my uncle”, the moniker pro­vides the answer each high-born esthete deliv­ers upon hear­ing the ques­tion, “My, wher­ev­er did you get that?” Thus the ques­tion­able inher­i­tance of the eye­glas­sette is con­stant­ly cer­ti­fied. In fact I myself received my mon­o­cle from a far-away rel­a­tive in the West Indes, who upon his time­ly death, had it deliv­ered to me in a vel­vet-lined box by a well-trained, world-trav­el­ing mon­key with his own Delta SkyMiles card. Ques­tion­able? Indeed.

Now that you are ful­ly informed and can embody the ele­gance of the opti­mal opto­met­ri­cal style, squint your eye and take a good look at the world. How does the world look through a mon­o­cle? One-sided? Yes. But bright, my dear­lings and com­pa­tri­ots. Bright and ear­ly, well-pol­ished and pearly.

Cheers. ♦