Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Yesterday’s joke was on Albany, NY, as Mother Nature laughed in our hopeful spring faces and dumped an afternoon sheet of snow upon the land. Such spring storms are to be expected. Dreadful, yes, but expected. They’re just so trying and taxing on the countenance at this late stage of the weather season. As I was texting with my Mom about it, however, she reminded me that it was a good comfort food and hygge day, so I did my best to embrace that outlook and make the most of the snowy scene outside the window. 

The beauty of such snow is that it rarely lasts. Even when we’ve been walloped with six or seven inches of it, the temperatures have shifted so far that it doesn’t usually have a chance at longevity. Not that I want to test it out. We’re good. I honor the spring snow, take in its beauty, and pray for its quick dismissal. 

A pair of ducks has appeared in our pool for the second year in a row, and that’s no April Fool’s joke, despite the date. Last year it was more quaint. Until it really wasn’t, at which point I made this futile plan. And now we greeted their return with a weary laugh, because running out and scaring them three times on a rainy day is not how I want to spend my time. Such is our work, however, if we don’t want them to nest poolside. This isn’t ‘The Sopranos’, so we simply don’t have the space. 

In the bird world, it’s usually the males who have the brightly colored plumage, while the females settle for drabber feathers and fuller figures. Such was the scene in our front yard the other day, when a scarlet male strutted across the lawn while his partner waited in the shadows, blending into the background and hopping about before joining him in flight. These grainy pictures don’t do them justice; their beauty cannot be captured or stilled. It’s a beauty that can only be experienced in fleeting form, the way most beauty exists only as a passing fancy. 

It’s been part of my elaborate plan not to binge on every film Bette Davis has ever made, in order to draw them out and enjoy them as something new and undiscovered from time to time. Hence my willful ignorance of the gem that is ‘Dead Ringer’. It came after her success in ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’ which makes it particularly interesting for those of us who enjoyed that period of her film work. This isn’t the greatest movie, but Davis gives it her usual bravado, and wears two of the greatest feather-fringed robes that cinematic history has ever witnessed. That alone makes it worth the watch. 

She portrays twins, so you get double the bang for your Bette buck, and there’s even a grand staircase which she ascends and descends several times – another hallmark of every great Davis film. While such artifice and superficial-posturing is what initially draws me to most Davis movies, there’s a bit of a riveting storyline at work too, and it drew me in until the very end. Check off another box for my Gay-of-a-Certain-Age Card. 

This week adds to the pile-up of physical upgrades my middle-aged body demands, with an eye-exam since I am due for one. Down to my last pair of contacts, it’s now or resign myself to a few weeks of spectacles. I have my share of eyeglass headaches from those moments when I need these readers – no need to turn it into a full-day affair. 

Such upkeep is the stuff of all humans. We battle and hold back the lines of age as it encroaches evermore on our bodies – a lost cause, but we fight it because it’s the essence of survival. It’s what humans have always done – something more primal and innate than planned or fully understood. Though I suppose there are those who do give up. I’m fortunately not there yet, and so we go, on with some new contacts, in with some new blood pressure pills, up with some sun salutations. Being alive is a good thing, no matter how much work it takes. 

Ladies and gentlemen and those who have yet to make up their minds, Holy Week has begun! Palms up for the Big JC Show coming your way! Before all that hoo-ha begins, however, let’s have our usual Monday morning look-back at what happened last week…

Hidden paintings on a pinecone.

Shirtless Superman Henry Cavill.

March mocktail madness.

Do not schedule a Zoom call on a Saturday. Please. I only get two days off per week. 

Summer sweet treat.

A dash of spring color.

Fuzzy dangerous. 

A chartreuse start, Adam & Eve style.

Pricked by the fragrance of hope.

The way back begins anew.

Return of the palms.

Dazzlers of the Day included Jonathan Capehart, Carmie Hope, Pete & Chasten Buttigieg, Eugene Lee Yang, Dionne Warwick, and Lil Nas X.