Word: flannel
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Inside McMillin Theater at Columbia University, an audience of about 900 assembles. Most appear to be younger than the poem they are to hear. A few are bearded hippies loyal to the Movement. A few are enervated, gentle, Buddhistic Wasps. A handful are black. All around are flannel shirts, funny hats, sleeping children, the emblems of safe bourgeois funk. Not many in the crowd notice, let alone cheer, the arrival of one honored guest, Radical and Felon Abbie Hoffman...
...newcomer who wanders into this scene not knowing what to expect notices first that everyone seems to know everyone else. Dress is plain and runs for both men and women to tractor-fixing clothes, nondesigner jeans and faded flannel shirts hanging out from under jean jackets. There isn't a sequined vest or pair of DayGlo satin Grand Ole Opry overalls in sight...
...recently as 20 years ago for most people, the body was hardly more than an interesting mass somewhere down there below the head. It could be barricaded in gray flannel and wantonly pleased in steak houses and French restaurants. If the body belonged to Clint Eastwood or Sophia Loren, it was interesting. Otherwise, except in bed, it was ignored by the public in favor of more important pursuits like winning the space race or building the New Society. Of course, Muscle Man Charles Atlas beckoned to boys from ads in comic books (Don't let bullies kick sand...
...stays aloof, ordered, and self-possessed, triumphant in his wiry celibacy. He's Hemingway's man, and he's that Dearslayer from James Fenimore Cooper. He's one of the real men you see at the hangout trying out a few High Lifes in the Miller commericals. He wears flannel shirts, boots, and a down hunting vest. He shares a mobile home with one of the guys. He drives his '59 Cadillac into the mountains to hunt deer one last time before he has to go to Vietnam...
...sweats now come in stripes and seven colors. There are short cheerleader-type rah-rah dresses and skirts, harem pants, saucy knickers, long bomber jackets, and oversized sweatshirts to be worn over tights as minidresses or as tunics with pants. For fall Kamali has added bright, bold, billowing flannel jumpsuits and-shades of 7 Love Lucy-Fred Mertz pants with shoulder straps and Ethel Mertz wrap dresses...