Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

The summer of 2020 already feels like a ghost. 

Hollow, ephemeral, transparent – like the strange way airs seems to bend above hot asphalt. 

Is it all really happening like this? I find myself wondering… is it all really unfolding this way?

And then I feel the sting of a mosquito or the slice of razor grass and those little pains indicate that yes, I’m still alive, yes, we are still living, yes, life is still happening with all its minor annoyances and hurts. 

Without a summer party theme, we traverse a season rudderless, floating adrift without the guidance of a get-together, and maybe that’s why everything feels a little lost. 

And so, let us play some music. To make a memory, to make the moment matter, to demarcate this time in a happier way than news reports or school worries or office video conferences. This is Oscar Patterson and his ‘Backyard Blues’ from ‘A Summer in Munich.’

It joins our other summer songs from 2020 such as ‘Starry, Starry Night‘ which kicked the season off to an uncertain and somber start, as well as ‘Second Night of Summer‘ which pretty much explains itself. Summer makes music sound better somehow; I can’t explain it any other way. This year, songs take on a different gleam, shimmering in moments mostly of solitude, and in all honesty, there is more silence that informs this particular season than music. There is something telling in that. Telling, and peaceful, and welcome. We needed the break. The world needed it. To get better.

We are not there yet. And so, let us fill this summer day with more music. 

Bobby Hutchinson and ‘Recorda Me’ give us some summer soundtrack solace, for when the summer nights wrap their warm winds around the shoulders, leaving sweet invisible kisses and whispers of sweeter days. 

This is music as perfect for a sunny day by the pool as for a cool and rainy night hinting at the fall to come. It works both ways, touching on all emotional extremes, allowing for myriad interpretations and moods. And what is summer but one grandly elaborate mood? In this year, perhaps more than any other, the moods are variable and wild, swinging and shifting, tempered by the sun or trampled by the rain. 

Sunlight, water, and wind play in the pools of a backyard summer, wishing their way around the world in a single day. 

This swallowtail butterfly has been doting on our two enormous clumps of cup plants, a reward on a par with the hummingbirds and finches that have been visiting as well. A sight for satiated summer eyes, it’s always worth a quick run outside to see this gorgeous creature fluttering about and flitting from bloom to bloom. 

Is there something more beautiful about something that is so fleeting?

In fact, I would argue I had absolutely nothing to do with the unfortunate closing of Albany’s Pier 1 Imports, because a single pillow incident like this simply does not have the power to take down an entire store. Still, there is something vaguely karmic about this whole sad situation, because I believe a store’s management takes its lessons from the very top, and this sort of poor customer service surely accounts for something.

Anyway, maybe if they’d sold me the pillow I wanted things would be different. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t, but I’d like to believe that karma still works some wonders in the world. As for the longstanding Pier 1 Imports on Wolf Road, it’s a bittersweet goodbye. You’ll have to find your wicker papasan elsewhere. 

This may very well be the most riveting and inspiring speech I have ever seen in my lifetime. Fittingly, the only other speech that I recall (because I honestly am not usually moved by political speeches) was also given by Michelle Obama at the DNC Convention when her husband Barack was running for re-election. She was electrifying that night. But it was nothing compared to this speech, at this immense moment in history, when the world balances precariously on the razor-thin line between good and evil. Ms. Obama rose to that occasion in stunning, breathtaking fashion, and her words should be heard and read in the history of our country. Take the time to watch it – it’s that good. It’s that necessary. It’s that important.

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.” – Michelle Obama

I haven’t intentionally planted any cleome for the past few years, yet our front yard has always had a few self-seeders that have come up faithfully. Actually, the past two years I’ve spent pulling out more than I’ve let remain, so this season, along with the late start and then sudden onslaught of summer, we’ve only had a few make it through the mulch. I’m glad they did, as they are providing some new florals for the second half of summer. On with the weekly recap…

The essence of gorgeous.

Fire in summer.

Summer means watermelon. 

I love Kamala Harris. 

Summer hair, don’t care!

No company, only comfort food. 

Summer lounging.

Summer nostalgia.

Mr. Sassy was born this month.

Summer Speedo experimentation. 

Savoring Saturday.

Tomato fail, typical of 2020.

A Sunday setback that wasn’t.

Hunks of the Day included Tom Ellis, Sean Basil McGiver, Chasten Buttigieg, Craig Conover, and Michael Strahan.

They had such great promise. They started out so well. And they, like most things in 2020, ended up being a big-ass failure thus far. These photographs of our tomato plants hide the sad fact that before any of the ‘Early Girl’ or ‘Giant Beefsteak’ varieties have reached ripening stage, their lower portions rot out – just the bottoms, and in every single fruit that gets red. After researching it online, it seems that this is blossom end rot, which is not a fungus but a physiological disorder based on a calcium imbalance. 

A physiological disorder based on a calcium imbalance? Are you fucking kidding me? Growing tomatoes shouldn’t have to be this complicated. That’s part of the reason why I’ve taken it all in stride, like other incidents from this disappointing year, chalking up the failure to the general suckiness of 2020. Blossom end rot is not the end of the world. The end of the world will be the end of the world, and we may very well be there. So I shall focus on the cherry tomatoes.

Our cherry tomato plant is doing quite well, producing red fruit, and an abundance of it. Andy consistently did well with cherry tomatoes, both here and at his first house. Next year, I will work only with the cherries. Their foliage remains handsome, while the bigger varieties have started getting spindly and raggedy. Gardening leaves us with such lessons. Failures and successes and all that comes in-between. 

How frail the human heart must be – a mirrored pool of thought. ~ Sylvia Plath

Summer turns to high, and in the midst of a pandemic the creative juices have begun flowing. My last project was a rare summer one – I tend to favor spring or fall for project releases, but it’s good to change things up. Whispers of something new have been haunting my nights and the elusive spells of silence during the day. I always heed those hints, allowing the universe to gently nudge or lead me in the right direction. 

I don’t anticipate anything coming to full fruition in 2020 – like much of the sensible world, I’ve written off the rest of this year. If anything good or wonderful happens, I’ll consider it a pleasant surprise. A new project wouldn’t see the light of day until 2021, but it’s time to look ahead. To that end, a small hint at the road on which I may soon be traveling. Something temporal, something fleeting, something ephemeral… something not unlike summer, shaded with a little melancholy, mirroring movement of the body, mirroring movement of the mind. 

If it sounds a bit vague and abstract, that’s the way it always is at this early stage of development. It’s also probably my favorite part of a project. A quieting of the mind to heed the little whispers of the universe goes along with the sense of peace I’ve been courting for the past few months. To capture the synergy of those lessons with the fulfillment of the creative process may be a daunting challenge, and it just so happens that I find indulgence in a challenge. 

T-minus ten days and counting until my birthday!

This is not a year for traditional social gatherings, which has made birthday celebrations, and all celebrations (such as ten-year anniversaries and twenty-year anniversaries) a different sort of animal, and I’m not completely upset by it. With our own private pied-à-terre in Boston, we are planning another quiet birthday there, social distancing and safety as intact as possible. (And quite frankly the folks in Boston wear masks and ensure on safe practices far more insistently than people in Albany – that post may come in the near future based on a recent day trip I made.)  

As for my birthday wish list, it’s more of the usual, and I’d like to add Tom Ford’s ‘Tobacco Oud‘ and/or ‘Tobacco Vanille‘ Private Blend to the mix, because as a coolness seeps into the late summer nights, I feel the pull of tobacco. (His upcoming ‘Bitter Peach’ won’t be available until October, so put that on the Christmas Wish List.)

A Southern charmer who knows his way around the sewing machine as much as he does around a set of court briefs, Craig Conover earns his first Hunk of the Day honor, mostly because he sews a mean pillow. Bonus: he wears eyeliner both proudly and nonchalantly. Another Bravo hunk to join the Bravo Hunk Pantheon (listed out here).

Not many of you know this, but Suzie and I were once apparently part of some synchronized swimming extravaganza in Amsterdam, NY. [See featured photograph.] Actually, I think this was taken during our Olympic trials for monkey-in-the-middle (I was the monkey at this particular moment). I can’t for the life of me recall whether we medaled or not. I’m guessing no since I can’t find the thing anywhere. 

Summer was always bookended by our birthdays: Suzie opened the season on June 9 and I brought up the rear on August 24. When I was younger, and the days seemed to last so much longer than they do now, I always considered my birthday to fall smack dab in the middle of the summer. (With a great deal of relief too, as I couldn’t imagine having to deal with all the attention that bringing cupcakes to school would entail, and with that came the benefit of not wasting a minute of a birthday stuck in school.) As I grew older, my birthday seemed to creep closer and closer to fall and the end of summer. By the time I hit college, and the first day of school moved up into the end of August, my birthday was very much the final sigh of summer. To that end, it was the anticlimactic finale to every summer season, tinged with melancholy as the sun always slanted a little differently in the sky then, and a coolness had already seeped into the nights and early mornings. More birthday ruminations later on today. 

For now, check out this other vintage photograph of when Suzie and I were competing for badminton glory. Based on her poor form and wardrobe (she refused to don the regulation track suit) we lost this game, and any chance at making badminton history slipped through our fingers. Summer has its disappointments too.