While details still need to be settled, Governor Malloy has offered a compelling vision for the future of energy use in Connecticut — greatly increasing the accessibility of natural gas.The surge in domestic production of natural gas is well known, though its sustainability remains in question, as it relies on the possibly polluting technique of “fracking,” breaking into underground gas reservoirs with jets of chemically treated water. Not well known, as the Malloy administration notes, is that Connecticut’s natural gas infrastructure is terribly weak for a densely populated state.While about half the homes in neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island use natural gas, only 31 percent of Connecticut homes and not that many more businesses here do, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). While gas trunk pipelines run through the state, the lower use of natural gas results largely from the lack of spur lines. That’s what the Malloy administration aims to address with more than a billion dollars’ worth of gas main construction, financed by some combination of assessments against current and new gas customers and state bonding. The new mains would be routed first toward the likeliest potential heavy users of gas, like factories, schools, office buildings, and hospitals, and then to residences.The plan already has generated controversy as home heating oil dealers object to any state encouragement of a competitive fuel. But natural gas service is inevitably a public utility requiring government support and regulation, just like electricity, which is also a competitive fuel, if, for many years now, an uneconomic one in Connecticut. Heating oil dealers themselves long have benefited from government-supplied infrastructure, as there would be no heating oil deliveries without roads and no heating oil systems in homes in the first place without the electricity that operates them.Of course if the Malloy administration’s plan is ever implemented and gas main construction is undertaken in a big way, some neighbors of the new mains will complain about temporary inconvenience or appearance or the long-term danger of natural gas. Gas is more dangerous than heating oil. But accidents are rare and people who use gas choose to take the slightly higher risk. Indeed, choice is what the administration’s plan is all about, for with choice come efficiency and lower prices.Not only that, but in pursuit of this greater competition and efficiency in energy, many construction jobs would be created for the new gas mains — DEEP estimates as many as 7,000.The first step is to decide where the construction money is to come from. This won’t be easy, since the state budget is still running a big deficit and state government is too heavily indebted already. But this project is almost sure to save money, so maybe a way can be found to borrow against and repay from that savings. The Malloy administration has come up with a great idea that will not only save money for state residents but make the state more attractive to business. It should be pursued urgently by the administration and the imminent session of the General Assembly.If the proposal of the National Rifle Association to post armed guards at every school in the country is really so crazy, why, when it opened, was the new Sandy Hook Elementary School in Monroe surrounded by police officers and lauded as “the safest school in America”? Why weren’t the shrill, emotional and not always relevant advocates of gun control denouncing the school authorities and the police for exposing the children to more weaponry?Or might armed security for schools and other vulnerable targets actually be a first step in addressing the country’s gun violence problem, and might that problem really be a little more complicated than wishing 300 million firearms away and pretending that certain gun-control proposals will do more than disarm the law-abiding?Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
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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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