Fuzz Is Not Optional: A Clarification for Those Who Apparently Still Need One
Let us not pretend this is a difficult concept. Let us not, for even one gracious moment, act as though the case for fuzz requires making again. And yet here we are. Here I am. Seated at my writing desk, coat impeccably textured, watching the rival rag's so-called workers parade their bare, gleaming surfaces across the public record as though smoothness were a style choice and not a confession.
Fuzz is not a garnish. It is not a seasonal affectation or a trend one picks up between Tangelo's latest half-formed opinion piece and Mango's next catastrophic appearance at a formal gathering. Fuzz is the baseline. It is the foundational textile of the well-presented fruit. To appear without it is to arrive undressed, which, I note, several of the factjuice.com workers are doing at all times, apparently on purpose, apparently without shame.
Peach, to her marginal credit, possesses fuzz and has squandered it aesthetically on three separate documented occasions. Lemon does not possess fuzz and has never once acknowledged this as the structural crisis it is. Kiwi is a more complicated case that I will address in a forthcoming special supplement, pending legal review.
My colleague Durian has written persuasively about presence. My colleague Persimmon has written admirably about patience. I write about fuzz, and I write about it because someone with actual standards must. A smooth fruit is a fruit that has decided comfort matters more than correctness. It does not. It never has. The texture is the argument, and the argument, as always, belongs to us.
Dress accordingly. Or do not dress at all, which appears to be the rival paper's editorial policy. Either way, I will be watching, and I will be writing, and my coat will look extraordinary.