A PICASSO LOOK (August 29, 2009)
There is a certain number of men roughly my age who maintain a Picasso look in the summer: grizzled and unkempt beard, a portly potbelly, a shabby T-shirt with blue-and-white stripes, baggy shorts, and a haggard straw hat. It is clear at a glance that they are not after the artist in Picasso. God forbid. They are after the artist’s manliness well past his prime. For men roughly my age, and especially if they are accompanied by considerably younger but delicate women, that is the gist of the great man. Which is perhaps why they appreciate him even as an artist, too. He is the proof of the dodgy pursuit, as it were.