“Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.” ~ Leo Rosten
“A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.” ~ Gore Vidal
Monthly Archives:
February 2013
28
February
2013
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February
2013
28
February
2013
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February
2013
A Day of Daffodils
Far more than crocus or snowbells, the flower that symbolizes the arrival of Spring is the daffodil. Those pre-cursors may come first, but they also carry with them the possibility of destruction, by a late-season snow storm, or the muddy arrival of April. True, even the daffodils and tulips have been known to bloom through some late-season snow, but for the most part it’s safer to bloom as a daffodil than as a crocus.
These are, obviously, procured from a market, and not the backyard, as ours is still frozen and covered with snow. But I couldn’t wait a moment longer for a peek of Spring – this Winter has gone on long enough – and when these were in such luscious bud I couldn’t resist. A big bouquet of daffodils will always boost my spirits.
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February
2013
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February
2013
The Jaunty Jonquil, The Naughty Narcissus
For some reason, I seem to have the most elementary school memories from second grade. I remember each grade distinctly, and the main events from each year, but collectively the most numerous come culled from the second grade class at McNulty School, helmed by one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Loomis. I remember the folders we got at the start of the year, and if we had a good week of work, she’d give us a sticker to place on the front of the folder. The students with the most stickers at the end of the year got rewarded by getting first pick at a pile of gifts she brought in. (This may have marked the start of my competitive scholastic nature.)
I remember the time we sat around drawing something on the floor, neatly staying within the lines until I messed something up, then letting out an audible “Whoopsie-daisy!” before I even knew what I was saying. For the record, not even second graders say ‘Whoopsie-daisy’ – especially not second-grade boys. But instead of being ashamed or embarrassed, I laughed along with everyone else – we were too young to know real shame, too young to have it mean more than a silly slip-up of language, too young to hate, really.
I remember the doily-festooned brown paper bags we used as Valentine’s Day card receptacles, and how thrilled I felt to watch it fill and get heavier day by day, threatening to fall from its scotch-tape-secured post at the edge of my desk. I remember trying to discern between the collective love of the class and the selective love of a few close friends, but mostly just feeling warm and happy to be part of something.
And I remember a girl named Amanda, who had long stringy hair that she often kept in two pig tails framing her face – a face that was usually stained with something at the edge of her mouth, or unnaturally pink in the cheeks, like she’d been outside on a winter day for too long. She was one of those unremarkable kids in my world – we spoke occasionally, but weren’t friends. I sat next to her at the long lunch table a few times, but she was fidgety, spinning around in her seat, or leaving the edge of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich spilling off its plastic wrap and directly onto the lunch table. (Gross.)
We would never be closer than that. Yet there was one thing that Amanda had that I didn’t. I remember watching her walk down the hill to school one day, so far back that she would surely be late again, and in her hand she held what looked like a few magic wands. Daffodils. It was early spring, and the day was gray and cloudy, but from this mist emerged the girl I’d never much noticed before, holding a small bouquet of flowers for Mrs. Loomis. It was a moment of beauty, and all I could do was watch. They were wrapped in damp paper towels, their green stems so fresh, tinged with the slightest tint of silver , and almost as beautiful as the colors that blossomed on their ends ~ yellow like the purest sun, cream like the thickest egg nog, and orange like the sweetest piece of citrus. Amanda sat down like she had done nothing at all, when she had really changed the world – my little world – full of judgment and criticism and class – all cut through by a simple act of generosity, of goodness, of sharing.
I watched as the daffodils bloomed for the rest of the week, studying how they opened, stealing a sniff when I thought no one was looking, and generally enjoying the preview of spring. Maybe she stole them from a neighbor’s yard, maybe her Mom sent them in, thinking her daughter needed whatever help she could get in the sticker department, or maybe she just felt like Mrs. Loomis would like a few flowers. I’ll never know, but for that one dismal morning in second grade a little girl touched a little boy with a bouquet of daffodils, and he’s never forgotten it.
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February
2013
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February
2013
A Love of Tragedy
How foolish and simpleminded I had been to have so loudly proclaimed to the world that art was the object of my desire! Art! No! Watching you being forced to leave me, you, for whom I felt such a strong attraction, such a great affection, such a great… dare I speak it… love… I knew I would spend the rest of my life in the pursuit of something grander than art, grander than happiness. Yes, I would spend my life in the pursuit of tragedy. And I knew, too, that for me somehow tragedy and love would forever be wed. It may be true for us all that there is no tragedy without love, and no love without tragedy. ~ Louis Edwards, ‘Oscar Wilde Discovers America’
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February
2013
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February
2013
Wilde Inspiration
The act of creating art is an act of violence – it is the willful destruction of nothingness. All true art is violence. Are all acts of violence art? No. of course not. Some acts of violence are. But for the inartistic, the creation of violence is usually a crude substitute for the creation of art. Violence is usually not art because it merely destroys one form of nothingness and replaces it with another. True art always fills the void. ~ Louis Edwards, ‘Oscar Wilde Discovers America’
Man wants to create art. For some, as I’ve stated, violence serves as an alternative. So any place where one finds a dearth of art, one will surely find a wealth of actual physical violence. ~ Louis Edwards, ‘Oscar Wilde Discovers America’
I shall seek to regain your attentiveness. I shall give you something new. Maybe not today – but soon. Don’t you give up on me just yet. Keep listening. And I shall find a way to win you back. ~ Louis Edwards, ‘Oscar Wilde Discovers America’
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February
2013
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February
2013
Not Quite Shiny & New
But not quite dilapidated and old yet. The resurrecting of former posts is a thing I usually save for year-end recaps or anniversaries, but when feeling under the weather, I occasionally delve into nostalgia, or simply scrape the barrel to find scraps of things that together will assemble into a proper post when I’m too light-headed and delirious to do it the right way. Hence this smorgasbord of previous posts, assembled and conveniently hyper-high-lighted to give you access to posts that otherwise may have gone mercifully unnoticed prior to this. It appears my sentences get longer and more convoluted as this post goes on, twisting and turning into… oh blah, blah, blah. Here, read some things that may make more sense:
Like the First Time I Kissed a Man…
Or the Madonna Timeline of the earliest of Spring…
And one of the first letters I wrote to my niece & nephew…
Long before Madonna got spanked by Instagram, I got spanked by FaceBook…
And an Ilagan tradition, that was supposed to be just between brothers.
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February
2013
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February
2013
Count On It
“I’ll bury my grief deep inside me and I’ll make it so secret and obscure that you won’t even have to take the trouble to sympathize with me.” ~ Alexandre Dumas
“I ought to have left without seeing you again, like the benefactor in a novel, but such virtue was beyond my strength because I’m a weak and vain man, because it does me good to see gratitude, joy and affection in the eyes of my fellow men. I’m leaving now, and I carry my egotism to the point of saying: Don’t forget me, my friends, for you will probably never see me again.” ~ Alexandre Dumas
“I will always be what I am. That is why I tell you things you have never heard before, even from the lips of a king, for kings have need of you and other men are afraid of you.” ~ Alexandre Dumas
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February
2013
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February
2013
A Dangerous Thing
He was bored by his own necessary lies. How he longed to tell them exactly what he was! He wondered suddenly what would happen if every man like himself were to be natural and honest. Life would certainly be better for everyone in a world where sex was thought of as something natural and not fearsome, and men could love men naturally, in the way they were meant to, as well as to love women naturally, in the way they were meant to. But even as he sat at the table, pondering freedom, he knew that it was a dangerous thing to be an honest man; finally he lacked the courage. ~ Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar
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February
2013
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February
2013
Wearing David Beckham’s Undies
This has happened to me before: the idea of getting into David Beckham’s underwear is always more thrilling than the actual event. Mr. Beckham‘s latest offerings from H&M are slightly changed from the first run, but I still have to admit that I’m more of a fan of them on him than on me. The boxer briefs are a bit snug – and for a footballer that seems at odds with his body. He would do better to take a lesson from Bonobos and allow room for some junk-in-the-trunk. Of course, perhaps the manufacturers are not banking on us having footballer bodies (which in my case is a very good thing.) The fabric is a definite improvement from the cheap modal-like blend that ruined his entry into the underwear world, but I’m still not sold on the longevity of such a brand, or its products. He’s got a long way to go before threatening Calvin Klein. That said, I did enjoy the top and the additional colors (an army fatigue green and a darker blue are vastly more interesting than the black, white, and gray palette of before, if still bland as beige). For now, though, this line is mostly just a vehicle to see Beckham in his briefs, and I can’t complain about that.
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February
2013
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February
2013
Bitchy, Blunt, Braze Oscar Commentary
This is how this post is going to work: I’m going to put all my random thoughts and musings up here as we go from Red Carpet to the interminable last minutes of this evening’s Oscar Awards. That means it’s going to be intermittently updated throughout the night (which is the polite way of telling you to bookmark this bitch now). I’ve been put in a foul mood by the weather and other events, so the same catty cruelty you saw at work during the Grammys is in effect ten-fold tonight, and I’m joining force with a martini to make it all the more offensive. Move over Joan Rivers, I can still move my mouth…
(If you want to join in the fun, put it on E! and their red carpet show from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, at which point I’ll switch over to ABC’s arrival coverage.)
- Â The bigger the hair, the gayer the Red Carpet host. Oh, hi Ryan Seacrest.
- Giuliana Rancic took a risk and got her hair chopped off the morning of the Oscars, and it paid off beautifully. Once again, though, her structural dress works against her gorgeous body.
- Eddie Redmayne – look out, there’s a cockatoo on your head! Oh, wait…
- Jessica Chastain – digging the Lana vibe, but the dress doesn’t impress. PS – Apologies for the balding comment a few award shows ago. The hair looks good.
- Channeling a bun from the 1800’s, it’s Amy Adams!
- Samantha Barks ~ the walking ad for double-sided tape.
- Channing Tatum – serviceable in a tux, more easily serviceable out of it.
- Little Q ~ Your cuteness and puppy purse are beyond my reach. My powers are no match for this…
- Reese Witherspoon in Louis Vuitton – perfection, and I love the bold color.
- I am trying to be bitchy, but Octavia Spencer looks good from the breasts up.
- Kerry Washington – the dress is a bit of a situation. Not in the best way. Do you want the curve there?
- Daniel Radcliffe is shorter than Ryan Seacrest. You know Ryan wants to marry him.
- Jacki Weaver – Drag queens got nothing on you.
- If a guy is in a black tux, there’s not much I’m going to say. Hoping they mess it up with bad hair or a heinous tie…
- Melissa McCarthy – big hair, big dress, big, big, BIG.
- Zoe Seldana – I love that dress, best so far…
- Amanda Seyfried in Alexander McQueen – not sure about the neck area…
- Oh look, Jennifer Lawrence is here for the prom… err, her wedding… but regardless she looks good.
- Please tell me Joseph Gordon Levitt is not dating Sally Field… and Sally, while red is your color, that dress is not your friend.
- Switching from E! to ABC… and already dismayed by Kristin Chenoweth, whom I love almost always. The ‘almost’ refers to tonight.
- Jennifer Hudson & Roberto Cavalli – you work better apart than together.
- Catherine Zeta Jones – I want your hyperbolic sleeping chamber, a.k.a. time machine. So does Ryan Seacrest – bitch was so jealous he wouldn’t let you do the Manicam.
- So far I stand by Zoe Seldana as my fave dress of the evening. Reminds me of the divisive Cate Blanchett Givenchy dress a few years ago, which I Â adored.
- At least Charlize Theron was completely consistent: unflattering in every way.
- I’m torn about Naomi Watts… not unlike her dress.
- Good God – I’m dressed like Bradley Cooper’s mother. (Hey, if I can give it I can take it.)
- Anne Hathaway – glorified bib.
- Nicole Kidman I adore thee.
- Ben Affleck – bringing the beard back! And I don’t mean Jennifer (she looks fine!)
- Hugh Jackman’s wife – finally confirmed as a man. I knew it!! (And I’m referring only to the mannish tux.)
- So what’s the protocol, is it wrong to critique the mothers that hot guys bring as dates? UPDATE: According to someone on FB, mothers are off-limits. I will say only this: my mother would know better. At least, I would tell her better.
- Salma Hayek – please don’t masturbate in that. No way to go…
- Jennifer Garner – Love the color, love the back, love the necklace… but the torso is… not right… and sorry about the beard comment.
- Is it another promo for Jack & the Beanstalk? No, it’s Kristin Chenoweth & Adele.
- When my beard comes in more white than black, I won’t grow it out. Talking to you George Clooney.
- I was sure I’d seen Sandra Bullock’s hairclip somewhere before… oh yeah, any mall kiosk since 1983.
- So.. the producers of the Oscars are gay. [Faints from shock.]
- Remind me again who Seth MacFarlane is? And what is he doing on the Phantom of the Opera set?
- I think it was better before I knew who Seth MacFarlane was…. this already sucks.
- Oh good – a Disney tune to remind of the Snow White debacle. Smart move, Seth.
- Incidentally, and no offense, but out of curiosity, did Charlize Theron put on weight for an upcoming role? I mean, I did too…
- Bored by the flippant tone of the Oscars already. For people who supposedly know how to make movies, WTF?
- Samuel Jackson – you have me rethinking my love of a velvet jacket.
- Why can’t the cast of ‘The Avengers host the Oscars?
- Did Gandalf the White just win an Oscar?
- Jennifer Aniston – classy, elegant, and radiant. Loving the red!
- Makeup & Hairstyling clearly don’t translate to wardrobe.
- Halle Berry – let’s be honest: this is the only job you’ve had since ‘Monster’s Ball’, right?
- Dame Shirley Bassey may have single-handedly saved the show… for the moment.
- At times like this I wish I wasn’t gay, so I could shut this crap off. But it’s in the handbook.
- John Travolta introducing the musicals. It wrote itself.
- Catherine Zeta Jones just killed it. About damn time.
- And Jennifer Hudson just brought it back to life.
- Helena Bonham Carter – you slay me! And I love that we can’t tell if you were in character, or if that’s what you actually wore to the Oscars!
- And now we have Gandalf the Red…
- Followed immediately by Gandalf the Blonde.
- Will Anne start singing along to the Jaws theme?
- Adele always has amazing hair. I will give her that. And what an amazing performance.
- I take back my early praise for Nicole Kidman’s dress.
- Kristen Stewart – there’s really no make-up for that bruise? Not that you care at this moment, as you are clearly feeling no pain.
- They haven’t even done the ‘In Memoriam’ part yet – is it too soon to add this broadcast to that list?
- Barbra Streisand – over-accessorized to the max. Revoke my gay card once and for all.
- Peace out Quentin!
- Jane Fonda has turned back time. Nice color too -even if the style is a bit ‘Dynasty’…
- Is Seth MacFarlane starting to look like Peter Brady to anyone else? Is it time to change? Porkchops & applesauce?
- Jennifer Lawrence’s fall WAS her acceptance speech, and it was the best one of the night.
- The FLOTUS at the Oscars? Good night.
- Did Ben Affleck just have a nervous breakdown on stage? Riveting.
- A closing musical number? Here’s to the losers… dedicated to this damn show.
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February
2013
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February
2013
The Magnificence of Marimekko
“Marimekko is about living, not pretending. Marimekko is about understanding and accepting the beauty of life just as we encounter it every day.” ~ Mika Ihamuotila
This is the time of the year when I start shaking the cobwebs out of my head, and my home, and look toward the coming of Spring. There is no happier time, and no happier place, for me to be in the next few months than in the bedroom of our Boston place, around the two to three PM hours when the sun is slanting deeply through the slatted blinds of the Bay Window, and the curtains are parted to let in a new breeze. Every year, I try to do something to freshen the palette of the place – a new piece of furniture, a new group of towels, a fresh coat of paint. At its most basic, it’s just another variation on Spring cleaning. And the time to prepare is now.
This year, I have my sight set on a new bed set, to go along with our new bed. We’ve been using the same Calvin Klein Bamboo bedding since 1998 – and while it’s a classic, it’s time for something new. For some time, I’ve been flirting rather violently with the Marimekko bedding line at Crate & Barrel. Part of me – the very heart of my most intrinsic instincts – was instantly drawn to the bold colors, their courageous juxtaposition, and the almost-childlike strokes of abstract design. The other part of me – the more pragmatic, thoughtful, quiet side that refuses to give in to a trendy look that will be annoying and out of style a scant year later – has always had an issue with the line. Over the past few years, however, I’ve found both parts come together to meet in a happy middle. (It’s also been long enough to know whether or not I would tire of it, and I haven’t – if anything, my initial amusement and delight with it has only grown and deepened into something more – which is the best way to tell whether or not you can live with something for a while.)
On my last trip to Crate & Barrel, I saw the above bedding set, named ‘Lumimarja Celery‘. It perfectly captures the spirit of the bedroom in the earliest of Spring – light, airy, fresh, and slightly whimsical. (“Lumimarja” translates to ‘snowberry’, the inside of which looks like a snowflake – a fitting bridge between Winter and Spring, lending it a year-round usefulness. I remember the snowberry bushes in the side-yard of my childhood home, and picking their fruit on summer days by the pool.) This set retains the touches of nature that were such an important part of the previous duvet, but brings it to a different plane, both in its abstraction, and its punch of bright green color. As fortune would have it, the color of the trunk and branches is almost an exact match to the silk headboard already in place, so the signs have once again aligned, as they tend to do when you’re on the right track in matters of design.
To add another accent, and prevent things from getting too matchy-matchy (the death-knell for so many bedding collections) I also found this Azure line, from which I intend to cull a few pillows so as not to forsake all bits of blue from the bedroom. They have a nice linen aspect to their shams, giving another texture, as well as color, to the bed.
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February
2013
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February
2013
Naked Flight
We’re so hard, aren’t we, on people who are given everything? If you’d been given everything, you mightn’t have wandered very far from the pool deck, though perhaps you wouldn’t have spent quite so much time in the direct sun. It’s as if, when someone has it all, we demand that he be tormented by some pointless ambition for more. Here he is, rich and handsome, beating off women with a stick, and he’s supposed to go have adventures, try himself somehow, scour the earth for some unhappiness. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight
Maybe they really were lovers, maybe this at last was what the word meant: your lover was the one you had to shelter from the worst things you knew about yourself. Yes, this had to be it, the hot shame and, somewhere beneath it, a strange, hopeless sort of jubilation. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight
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February
2013
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February
2013
Flight of an Arrow
Maybe it wasn’t ever easy being a man, but it was surely easier when what you were to wear, whether armor or the loincloth of a slave, was handed to you off the rack at birth, along with what you were expected to feel and do. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight
He had allowed men to love him; he had never induced it.
Really, never at all? Not the way he had dressed, or the attitudes he had struck when he had sensed that an attitude was desired? All right, he was practiced in making himself lovable. Men didn’t just happen upon him in a state of nature and fall head over heels. Still, it was one thing to put forth your little generic flower of masculinity and wait for some bee to come suck it, and quite another to set your sights on one particular bee. ~ Mark Merlis, An Arrow’s Flight
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February
2013
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February
2013
One Night Only
Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to do it rightly is an art like any other. ~ Freya Stark
As I write this, I have returned a day early from an ill-fated trip to Boston with my brother. One day I’ll write about what all went down, or maybe I won’t – that’s one of the hazards of having a writer in the family – writers don’t forget. For now, it will suffice that I’m back home, and the next time I go to Boston it will be alone or with Andy. The unfortunate thing about family, especially for a control freak, is that you have no choice or say in the matter, and that goes both ways – I am certain none of these people would have chosen me either. After years of trying to reconcile this, after years of fighting against it and trying every conceivable way in the world to make something work, to make myself the slightest bit lovable, it’s time to move on.
For his noble efforts in picking me up (and beating the storm), I bought a bouquet of pink hyacinths for Andy. When the family that God grants us disappoints or doesn’t care, we have to create our own. Over the past twenty years, I have unwittingly done that, and, as witnessed on nights like the last, they have never let me down. It’s a strange thing when the ones who are supposed to love you simply don’t – or can’t – and it creates all sorts of fucked-up ailments and afflictions that in turn tend to drive people even further away. Luckily, there has always been someone else to step in, to see through the hurt, to forge ahead into the heart because they knew there was love to be found. And when there’s no familial bond keeping them there, when you see they are there in your life because they want to be, and you don’t have to keep asking and begging and making all the effort yourself, they are all the more dear.
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February
2013
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February
2013
Waiting & Wanting for Spring
I didn’t feel it until this week: the antsy anticipation for spring to arrive. Up until now I’d been keeping my head down and shuffling along, bundled up and trudging through the endless unfurling of winter, in the hopes that when I looked up again spring would be on the horizon. I looked up too soon. We’re nowhere near it. The frigid temperatures, the wind, and the snow and sleet are instead indicative of a winter not content to take flight anytime soon. This refusal to yield has proven problematic in the past. Usually it results in some last-ditch-effort at sanity-retrieval in the form of a trip South. I am looking into it as I write this, because there is nothing here that appeals to me.
