




He is the Aristocrat of the Backstreets — an anthropomorphic pineapple of singular refinement and prodigious appetite for the finer things. He keeps close counsel with the sun, bathing in its benedictions as though warmth itself were his birthright. He nurses aged wines with the patience of one who has long understood that time, properly employed, yields only splendor. He is a connoisseur of beauty in its feminine form — a man, or rather a fruit, of discerning and devoted admiration. And when the music finds him, as it invariably does, he receives it not as mere sound, but as a visitation — a thing to be felt in the rind and savored to the very core.