Like acid and oil on a madman's face

After hearing so much about the Tleilaxu Face Dancers, the troupe's actual performance came as something of a let-down.



You know who else was a Face Dancer?

JOSEPH CLARK THE POSTURE MASTER

This man was a very extraordinary posture master who resided in Pall Mall. Though well made, and rather gross than thin, he exhibited, in a most natural manner, almost every species of deformity and dislocation. He frequently diverted himself with the tailors, by sending for one of them to take measures of him, and would so contrive it as to have a most immoderate rising in one of his shoulders: when the clothes were brought home, and tried upon him, the deformity was removed to the other shoulder; upon which the tailor asked pardon for the mistake, and altered the garment as expeditiously as possible, but, upon a third trial, he found him perfectly free of the blemish about the shoulders, though an unfortunate lump appeared upon his back. In short, this wandering tumour puzzled all the workmen about town, who found it impossible to accommodate so changeable a customer. He dislocated the vertebrae of his back, and other parts of his body, in such a manner that Molins, the famous surgeon, before whom he appeared as a patient, was shocked at the sight, and would not even attempt his cure. He often passed for a cripple among persons with whom he had been in company but a few minutes before. Upon these occasions he would not only change the position of his limbs, but entirely alter the figure of his countenance. The powers of his face were more extraordinary than the flexibility of his body. He would assume the uncouth grimaces that he saw at a Quaker's meeting, the theatre, or any other public place. He died about the beginning of King William's reign, as it appears from Evelyn's Numismata that he was not living in 1697.