The killing of Osama bin Laden removed a terrible human being from among us. It also made me think of what Eric Hoffer had to say about devils. While trying to understand the relationship between a mass movement and its doctrine, Hoffer asked whether any mass movements had “holy” books, and immediately came up with a list of them: the writings of Karl Marx, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” the Quran and the Old Testament. Then he attempted to figure out what these books had in common, and he came up with a startling answer: Mass movements could arise and spread without a God, but could not do so without a devil. In other words, mass movements require a personification of evil to focus their followers on what needs to be destroyed or overcome. I think that Hoffer was correct in that conclusion, and that, in the wake of bin Laden’s death, Hoffer’s insight raises important questions for us. Without a devil to pursue, should we continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan? If we are going to continue such fights, will we need to find or establish another devil to stay motivated? How much of our politics is devoted to finding devils and raising them to high satanic status in order to move the masses in a particular direction? Time will tell whether we, like a mass movement, will require a new devil. I hope the United States does not need one. We don’t need a devil to determine what the United States should do going forward in Iraq and Afghanistan. As for that, I would be ecstatic if our politics in general would no longer depend on demonizing anyone but instead would debate real issues in a way that had each side respecting the other side’s right to a differing viewpoint and looking for points of agreement between the sides. That is hard to do, of course, but it is a worthwhile goal to aim for. A couple of other devil references have floated into the forefront of my mind in the wake of bin Laden’s death — phrases and ideas that have long resonated with me. One is the saying that “the devil is in the details.” Looking up its origin, I found that it is derived from its obverse, the statement that “God is in the details,” which has been attributed to architect Mies van der Rohe and, even earlier, to French novelist Gustave Flaubert. I take the phrase to mean that broad strokes do not reveal something’s essence; only the minute details can provide that. The second devil reference comes from the 1950s and 1960s playwright Jean Kerr; it’s the title of one of her books, “The Snake Has All the Lines.” Her children were in a Garden of Eden play at school, and one complained that in such plays, the snake character always seemed to have not only the best lines but the majority of them. The playwriting lesson for Kerr was that badness always takes focus. It sure does: Witness our fascination for Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs,” or for any number of other on-screen villains, including Susan Lucci as Erica Kane in the long-running soap opera “All My Children,” or Orson Welles as the essence of evil, Harry Lyme, in “The Third Man.” Everyone else on stage or on screen becomes forgettable when these villains are in the frame. That the snake has all the lines can be salutary, as when it directs our attention to an evil and the need to eliminate that evil; but it can just as often be a trap, pointing our attention at a smaller, more specific instance or person when we ought to be dealing with the larger issue. That’s our difficulty today: We need to deal with the larger matter of how to exist in a world in which fundamentalist Muslims have some power, and we must find ways to come to arrangements with them and with the greater number of moderate Muslims. For me, this means that we must not be Muslims’ Great Satan, and that we must not permit them to be ours. Now that our particular radical Muslim devil, Osama bin Laden, is dead, perhaps we can begin to reach toward the solution to the larger problem of improving our relations with the moderate and vast Muslim world. Salisbury resident Tom Shachtman has written more than two dozen books and many television documentaries.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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