**Keatsian post alert**
Not that there are no serious stories to follow this weekend, in fact the air is thick with storm clouds that involve our Mme. Secretary one way or another, and certainly if and as events are confirmed, posts will appear on this blog. Meanwhile, the day after Black Friday seems to cry out for lighter fare.
Diane reminded me this morning that I once referred to Hillary Clinton's "kissy-mouth." This is a position her lips take when she is producing any of the back vowels (Ɔ O Ʊ U), the bilabial consonants (b p m), and the glide (w). Most speakers of Standard American English do not articulate these phonemes with quite the care Hillary Clinton is wont to take - especially when she is speaking to audiences that are not native speakers of English or to whom she wants to make her message eminently clear.
Aside from enhancing the comprehensibility of her message, the visual effect of this oral idiosyncrasy, the formation of the "kissy-mouth," (a very handy mouth to be able to make if one is attempting to speak French with any modicum of comprehensibilty) is also disarmingly attractive. Mme. Secretary does not use French, but she has mastered the kissy-mouth and would probably sound quite good in French.
From a purely Keatsian point of view, the kissy-mouth makes for pretty pictures to satisfy the guilty pleasures of Hillary-watchers no matter whether their names have a D, R, or I behind them. To a deeper extent, it is seductive and might actually be hypnotic!
My suggestion for the coming weeks: Mme. Secretary should meet face-to-face, no phone calls, with the Republicans who are showing soft on START. I have faith that the kissy-mouth can help get those 67 votes. (It's worth a try. Smart power. Those Senators have been missing their eye-candy ever since she left for DOS.)
This post is dedicated to Robyn and Diane.
RESIST, INSIST, PERSIST, ENLIST.” - HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
