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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Absolute Monarchy

The colors in this tie are the same as those of the monarch butterfly (and its mimic, the viceroy), and they are arranged in roughly the same proportions, but the tie's pattern is more random than the geometric precision of the butterflies' wings. Since I first read about the viceroy in a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Sunday comic thirty-odd years ago, I went with the generally-accepted theory that the viceroy is tasty to predators, but achieved a degree of safety by mimicking the bad-tasting monarch. More recent studies, however, conclude that the viceroy tastes just as bad, so maybe it's just a fashion thing. Speaking of fashion, this necktie is a Stradivari by Park Lane, a label that usually promises a creative and original design.

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