CRISPY AND THE VIOLINS OF L.L. BEAN

I always notice that in the modern fashion catalogues, men’s shirts look quite wonderful as they are resting against the pier near the bay or in an open grassy field or even on a runway with a shiny airplane in the background. But then they–the fashion people–put the shirts on men, and they are always too small, and they look terrible, and the men look unhappy, and it seems as though no one is happy to be where they are. Least of all, the world.

If the world were made right and happy, and if shirts had feelings, which I suspect they might or will, this is what would happen: shirts would say “take me to the runway or the grassy field”; men would say nothing, as befits their masculine nature, relaxing and staying naked on the pier near the bay; L.L. Bean’s first name would quite possible be “Leonardo”; it would never rain on shirts on the foggy shores of New England; women would continue to think outrageous thoughts of poplin and damask, and girls, throwing away the catalogues of men, would play the violin silently in the dark metros of Paris.


all artwork, except likenesses of Lyndon B. Johnson, by Crispy Flotilla ® 2006