Ties of Sentiment

Notes on a receding shirt line

Diary of the Late Republic, #19

As some of you know, I have a large collection of neckwear, and colorful ties are the one distinctive element of my otherwise unremarkable sartorial style. (My most prized one is a souvenir from the 1936 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, at which Franklin Roosevelt received his second nomination for president.) I have a piece in today’s Current magazine about this personal quirk. Here’s an excerpt:

It was really only when I settled into a job as a high school teacher that the ties became a thing. But it happened gradually without any real effort on my part. My wife and mother liked giving them to me as birthday and Christmas presents, and it didn’t take long for them to start accumulating. And then of course there were my students, who typically gifted me more playful ones. Before long I was referring to them as “anti-soporific devices,” and began sporting ones tied to occasions (like my Edvund Munch “Scream” tie on exam days). There are now hundreds taking up the lion’s share of space in my closet. I have something like a six-month rotation, because there are some I like wearing more than once a year, and about a dozen for the weeks before Christmas (along with candy corn for Halloween, and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln arguing with each other over who’s birthday is being celebrated on President’s Day).

The backdrop for these ruminations is the gradual, and seemingly inevitable process where ties will be going the way of the powdered wig and Knickerbocker pants.

Current is an intriguing (and growing) magazine trying to stake out a place in the ideological middle. It’s worth surveying more generally.

Look for the next installment of “Diary of the Late Republic” later this week.