A short ode to golden boy*
My longstanding top-ranked t-shirt – the one I would put on first, all other things being equal – is being retired in a few minutes. The cotton is thin and fragile like a piece of fabric at a museum, with holes forming around the silkscreens on front and back. It hasn’t been publicly wearable for close to a year (although that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been occasionally worn in public).
This shirt was left behind at my place in Montreal about seven or eight years ago by, I think, Ali Karbassi, a McGill friend. It’s a fuchsia Fidel shirt, and it was the shirt that made me aware of the fact that not all t-shirts are made equal. I had planned to give it back to Ali, but after wearing it once I decided to conveniently forget to do so. Sorry, Ali.
I’m writing this to deny, in some small way, the culture of consumption and disposal in which we’re complicit. It’s become so easy to throw things out and replace them without a thought; the value of material things has changed somehow.
But golden boy meant something to me, and so I note that here for the record. I will miss it. I appreciated its quality, and I thank it for its service and dedication.
