The other day I was talking to a fishing pal, the redoubtable Linus J. Scrimshaw, who after his career with a government agency so secret that nobody other than the president, the speaker of the house, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, the undersecretary of the Interior For The Procurement Of Paper Clips, the director of the Bureau Of Explaining Unusually Stupid Projects, the editors of the Washington War-Whoop and Gazette-Hyphenated, the guy who runs the newsstand at 16th and L streets, Linus’ great-aunt Katherine out in Michigan — anyway, it’s a really secretive outfit.“It puts the ‘sub’ in ‘sub rosa,’” Linus likes to say as he sits on his porch in the Catskills, taking apart and reassembling his XK907 Discombobulator Ray, blindfolded and with outtakes from early rounds of “American Idol” blasting from the CD player (to simulate battlefield conditions).Anyhoo, Linus is a heck of a fly-fisherman and he was confronted with a terrible dilemma a couple weeks ago.He was fishing the Esopus Creek, behind the Shandaken (N.Y.) Town Hall. There is a deep pool back there, one that doesn’t get massively rearranged after the spring floods because the remnants of an old bridge provide a bulwark.Linus was fishing an itty-bitty, size 16 Light Cahill wet fly, with a single piece of split shot to get it down, and not really expecting anything.“Then I got hung up on a log, and I thought, ‘Dang.’” Linus really says things like “Dang.” After decades of facing down the world’s shadiest characters and surviving perilous situations, he doesn’t need to prove anything.“I was gonna go in and try to get the fly, but it started to move. I thought, ‘Dang, that’s no log.’”Linus fought the fish and brought it in.It was a magnificent brown trout. “Thirty inches,” said Linus. I must have looked skeptical, because he waved the XK907 at me in a vaguely threatening manner.“Yessir, 30 inches, that’s a mighty fine fish, yes indeedy,” I said, following my policy of never arguing with retired secret agents, especially retired secret agents who can listen to “American Idol” outtakes for hours without any visible distress.“And you’ll never guess what happened,” continued Linus. “I foul-hooked the dang thing. Dagnabbit.”(When Linus trots out the 19th-century frontier slang, he is seriously disturbed.)Turns out he had hooked the trout in the dorsal fin. “I thought it was swimming kinda funny,” he mused. This was a serious ethical dilemma. The trout did not just get hooked on this small fly by accident. The cunning and guile of the angler created the situation. The fish responded. It wasn’t Linus’ fault the trout, apparently nearsighted, got himself hooked up top instead of in the jaw. Why shouldn’t he keep this splendid brown trout and have it mounted?Plus — there was nobody around. Who would know?“I would know,” said Linus. I have foul-hooked my share of fish. I don’t keep many to begin with, and I would never keep one so acquired. It’s not fair. It’s not sporting.And it is important to keep the proper perspective. As Paul O’Neil indicates, the odds are rather lopsided in the angler’s favor. He should play fair.I expressed this sentiment to Linus.“Yep,” he replied. “But dang.”
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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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