Yearly Archives:

2015

Oh brutal winter, you are delivering some cruel blows. The temperatures, as I write this, are well below freezing, and the wind is kicking up a storm. It’s awful stuff, made only barely bearable by long-johns and velour track suits. Don’t cast your stink-eye at me: when you know the rules of fashion you can break them. On to the week gone by…

Beauty’s where you find it, and this week it was found in the eyes (and hair) of Walter Savage.

It can also be found in a book, especially when it’s as gorgeous a read as ‘The Perfect Scent’ by Chandler Burr.

Put up your dukes for Luke.

From the land of ice, the music of winter.

The very first Non-Hunk of the Day, Justin Bieber, who completely ruined Calvin Klein underwear for many of us. And I mean forever.

The most powerful memory-conjuror: fragrance. (Even when it’s so-so.)

An unlikely Hunk, by request: John Cusack.

This Charlie is a man of eloquent words.

It was a week filled with scents, even one as light as snow.

A trio of Hunks rounded out the chilly week: Jeffrey Hawkins, Jerrad V. Swodeck and Ashley Parker Angel.

Most people would say that there is no smell to snow, but I disagree. It’s nothing strong, it’s nothing you might notice, but it’s there, in the air, this metallic tinge of ice crystals. There would be no point in trying to capture this for a fragrance or a candle. It’s not substantial enough. The only route would be to incorporate some other ancillary scent – maybe the pine trees, or the smoke from a fire, or even the acrid notes of exhaust and snow-blowers that can’t help but attach itself to the scene, in the way that gasoline from a lawn-mower is inextricably bound to the smell of freshly-cut grass.

Yet in its purest form, the scent of snow must exist. There must be some combination of molecules in the air when it snows that combines to form the fleeting fragrance, like the scent of ozone after a summer rain. Technically speaking, this wouldn’t be the scent of snow, exactly, but whatever else was in the air at the time of its falling. These are the circles the mind traverses as the temperatures chase us inside. Really, who would want to smell snow at this time anyway? We’ll get more than enough in its natural form, no need to put it in a bottle when it will surely overwhelm.

Still, it’s tempting to capture it, so beautiful is the scene at hand. So much of life is driven by that quest for the sublime, but the only thing that can truly convey the wonder of snow is, well, snow. Everything else is but a poor substitute, a hollow echo of the real thing – and an echo of something as ethereal as snow is hardly a thing at all.

Most of us have one of these. The catch-all room that gets turned into a storage den, usually unintentionally and over years of accumulation, until it gets to the point you see here, and you keep the door closed whenever company comes over, hoping vainly that your piece and nephew don’t stumble into it in the way that they usually stumble into the only places you don’t want them to be. In my defense, I’ve been sick lately and haven’t had time to keep things as ship-shape as I’d like. But even that’s a cop-out and an excuse, as this mess has been in the making for years.

Like a junk drawer that never quite gets cleaned out, this is the room that houses both my work-out equipment (hence the sorry state of my rotund tummy) and just about everything else that doesn’t have a spot in the house. The bench-press is more of a shelving unit at this point, and the actual shelving units bend beneath the warped weight of wood that’s been punished by the wayward watering of an ancient Thanksgiving cactus and several butterfly amaryllis. The room is in a very sad way, which is why I’m making it one of my New Year priorities to get it cleaned up. I don’t do resolutions, but I make a few promises and goals that almost always get accomplished. Cleaning out this space is first and foremost among them.

There won’t be any before-and-after comparison shots, and the door will likely remain closed even when it gets its make-over (there’s no reason to showcase a work-out/CD room.) But I’ll know it’s spotless, and that is a burden off my back. I think that’s the point of feng shui. It’s a mental matter. When you know there is clear space and cleanliness, you may just find peace. At least, I’m hoping.

Injecting a dose of rejuvenation into the New Year and this old blog, I’m planning a few different posts for the near and far future, as well as some changes to shake things up. First, the tone. I’ve always been a little hoighty-toighty and lofty and arrogant in the way I write here, mostly because I went to school to study literature and didn’t want to make it seem like a total waste. Since it largely was, however, there’s no point in pretending, so the voice you hear now will be a little more raw, a little less polished, and a lot more blunt. It should also sound slightly more urgent and, ideally, more exciting. Demanding too, perhaps, because I’ve learned that when you ask nicely nothing gets accomplished. Bow down, bow down, Goddamn, Goddamn, Goddamn!!!

Second up will be a few new posts that require something of you – the reader, the viewer, the wonderful people out there in the dark. One of them will be a guest post or two from some of my favorite people, beginning with this guy: my webmaster and partner-in-Thor-crimes, Skip Montross. Skip is a fantastic writer, but even better than his way with words is his skill at eliciting emotion when he tells a story. I’ve seen him go from hilarious to poignant to gross to touching in a single telling. Those are the skills that dazzle and amaze. That’s the shit I want on this blog. If you’d like to contribute, drop me a line and make your pitch: alanilagan1[@]gmail.com. Batter up, Tom Brady.

Third, the Hunks. Which guys do you want to see? And for those who like the ladies, dare I do a Hunkette feature? (That sounds wrong. Instruct me on the error of my misguided ways with the ladies. Set me straight. Or at least try. You did know my first crush was on Kayla on ‘Days of Our Lives‘ right?) Send me names, send me photos, send me your fantasies. I always aim to please. You aim too, please?

Fourth and finally, I aim to be a little less guarded. For all the chaotic ramblings, the emotional silliness, and the dramatic snit-fits, nothing here is ever out-of-control or spontaneous. It can’t be ~ I plan too far in advance, I’m too much of a perfectionist, I’m afraid to really let go. But this is the year I have nothing to lose. It will be a bit of a high-wire act, and there will be magnificent mistakes and fantastic falls and some days you won’t be able to click away fast enough – that’s all part of this roller-coaster. You can watch from below, or ride up to the top and plummet down with me. Either way, I hope you enjoy the ride.