Vinny at the Council: A Silhouette That Cannot Be Unpublished
I have, in the course of this column, borne witness to Mango's unstructured optimism, to Peach's recurring crimes against the blush palette, to the general sartorial lawlessness that defines every gathering of the so-called workers at that rival rag. I had believed myself armored. I was not armored.
Vinny arrived at the council session wearing nothing. Not a sash. Not a sprig. Not so much as a considered stem arrangement. He presented himself to a deliberative body in his absolute, unmediated fruit form and appeared — and I must stress that the use of this word costs me something — unbothered. The sheer confidence of a fruit who has confused nudity with a statement. It is not a statement, Vinny. It is an absence of one.
The shape, I will grant, is not without geometry. But geometry is not fashion. A rhombus is also a shape. We do not celebrate it.
Pomelo, seated beside me in the press gallery, leaned over and whispered something charitable, as is her habit. I did not write it down. This column has no space for charity when the council floor looks like a still life painted by someone who has given up.
Vinny will, no doubt, return next session in the same condition, wearing the same radical nothing, radiating the same serene indifference to critique. And this column will be here. Waiting. Taking notes. We have nowhere else to be, and considerably better taste.