Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Yesterday was my day in the office, so the constant rain wasn’t the killjoy it might have been had the pool been literally waving to me outside the window. As it was, we needed the rain, badly, and it relieved the daily watering we’ve had to do this summer. There were hints of tornadoes on the airwaves, and in the air, lending a tension to all of the clouds and wind. References rife with Dorothy were scattered throughout the conversation of the office, and for lunch I didn’t make my usual walkabout downtown. 

The tension that has come to personify 2020 won’t be letting up for a while, and yesterday’s volatile weather was emblematic of that underlying strain. We’re all feeling it. We’re all a little exhausted from it. But that too came to an end. With the end of the storms came a surge of cool air. A crispness and clarity suddenly appeared, where once there had only been haziness and relentless heat. The blue sky was finally revealed as the clouds rolled away, then slowly turned dark to let the world go to bed with the sweet relief of all the absent humidity. 

August, and its requisite ups and downs, dipped and rose.

It floats on the surface, bobbing with the little waves, occasionally upending itself with the wind. It echoes the visitors from earlier this year, in happier and hardier and more colorful form. Best of all, it gives cheer and amusement to those who gaze upon it. 

This is our Rubber Duckie, a larger version fit for a pool versus a bath. I once used it to obscure my privates in an otherwise-naked pool shoot. (I’m not going to make it easy for you to find those shots – peruse the archives and type some words into the search engine and see if you can locate them. It’s easier than the quest for Carmen Sandiego – has she even been found yet?)

As for its wisdom, return to the first paragraph. Everything you need to know about life, and navigating its perilous waters, is contained there. This duck floats on the surface – it doesn’t go deep, doesn’t make waves, doesn’t cause trouble. It keeps things light and flexible, bobbing with the waves instead of fighting them, going with the flow instead of against the current, finding the easy way through rather than seeking out unnecessary challenges. It also upends itself from time to time, turning over on its side, or even going completely upside down. It doesn’t always keep itself perfectly upright. It doesn’t keep itself perfect at all. It allows the wind to wreck it a little, to fall down, sometimes face down, because it knows it can right itself again.

Where was this ducky when I was growing up? Where was it when I needed the lesson? Maybe it knew not to arrive until this year, when the student was finally ready for the teacher. 

Our pool is finally open! After a number of delays and issues, the new liner arrived and went in, so we were splashing in the water by Saturday. Of all the summers, it had to be the summer of 2020 that had such a rocky and lengthy road to such a simple thing that has always gone smoothly and without incident. You had us to thank for all the sunny and hot weather we’ve had so much of lately, and you will have us to thank for the next thirty days of rain that will no doubt fall now that the pool is operating. On with the recap!

Speaking of pools, here’s a glimpse of another one from a long time ago. 

These #TinyThreads surfaced again. 

This year’s birthday wish list, because no matter what 2020 may bring next, unless it’s my death I will be having another birthday nearer the end of the month. 

The underwear-clad beauty of Ben Cohen. 

Henry Cavill flexes his nerd muscles.

Presenting the Rose-of-Sharon. 

The last moments of July.

August enters.

A Sunday morning for the soul. 

A gratuitous Sunday night scene by Luke Evans.

Hunks of the Day included Josh Rimer, Gabe Kapler, Avery Wilson, Paul Abrahamian, Frederick Ballentine, Alden Ehrenreich and Karl Schmid.

It’s the stillness of early Sunday I think I like most. 

All the wild and crazy Saturday nights I’ve had, all the riotous and gloriously-anticipatory Friday evenings – they never seem to last. The memory is of the Sunday morning when no one else is up, and the world winks at you and you alone, and it’s a secret covenant between just the two of you. 

I do better than most people at being alone. 

That kind of silence and stillness makes most of the people I know uneasy and uncomfortable. They turn to their phones to see who might be up online. They scroll through the texts and fire off a volley of greetings for some interaction. They rummage through kitchen drawers and cupboards and coffeemakers in the thinly-veiled hope that someone else in the house might wake and join them for talking, for distraction, for noise. 

I find solace in solitude. 

It’s always been that way. 

Such Sunday mornings bring a gentle smile to my face, the kind of smile that certain yoga instructors make a part of their practice, a smile that some Buddhist monks carry with them as their resting face – a smile I’ve tried to elicit without force during my meditations, and a smile that has thus far eluded me then. On certain summer mornings, however, I find that smile, and it starts the day. 

If it’s early enough, the perfume of the angels’ trumpet sometimes lingers from the night before, hanging in the thick humid air with potent force. Soon a pair of hummingbirds will flutter by, darting into the salvia and begonia, then flitting away in their magical form.

I let out the sigh of a Sunday beginning again, the sigh of starting over. The happy sigh of summer rebooting.  

Summer’s final full month enters to scattered applause. In this weirdly wild year, we look warily at what may be on the horizon, and hope for the best, or at least something simply not diabolical. A world on edge continues on edge, but the summer lends it a different shimmer. 

The month of my birth has always been a happy one, but tinged with a bit of ambivalence. The first flush of June is the space of celebration and the glorious return of summer. The heat and light-filled month of July signifies vacations and a sense of never-ending sunny days. August is different. 

It starts wth days like high summer – not much different from the July that came just yesterday. About halfway through the month, though, something changes. A coolness seeps into the nights. The gardens, having gone non-stop with all this warm sunny weather, take the moment to take a breath, the ferns starting their shriveling and browning that constant water will only slow, never reverse. You can’t go back when it comes to summer, only forward. 

There is still more sun yet to come, still more heat to annoy and bear. Most of September is summer too, and this year we need to make the most of it. I’m slowing the days in the only way I know – marking and making a moment at least once a day, even if they’re not to be remembered. The act is enough, the ritual is its own comfort. 

August, welcome. 

It wasn’t the best of times, it wasn’t the worst of times – these are merely, well, the times. July is typically more aligned with a happier ebullience, but this is a strange year which sees us at home more than ever and ticking off days filled with home officing and air-conditioned ennui. (I’m making ‘home officing’ a verb to describe working from home because I’m so tired of saying the phrase ‘working from home’ at this point.)

Here, then, lies the last of July. Vacations of the past come floating through the mind, when the scent of privet rides the breezes of Provincetown or the salty sea air of Ogunquit rolls in with the tide. If there are storms they pass quickly, the water dripping through the sun, the relief momentary before the heat returns, and the humidity creeps back up. Summer at its best and worst at once. 

It doesn’t quite feel like we’ve had it properly, suspended in the stresses and new reality of a pandemic and all this social isolation. That’s just how things are now, and how they may be for some time. August beckons… and still the privet blooms.

Most of the people in my world would happily watch Henry Cavill assemble a computer, and this post, with its poor-quality photos, is proof of this. You’re here for a reason. Here are some naked Henry Cavill photos in the event that you want a better look at the goods. PS – Mr. Cavill also makes some sexy appearances here and here and here. You just can’t get enough. 

It’s red alert time: there is less than one month until my birthday. Sound the alarm. All hands on deck. Coordinate those Amazon orders so we don’t have a duplicate of colognes like we did several Christmases ago. Better yet, go outside of the box and just get me any underwear from Tom Ford in size small (they run big). If you’re looking for a guaranteed grand-slam, here are several other offers with links where to get them in timely fashion.

Creed’s ‘Royal Oud’ is absolutely exquisite, and it’s got the richness and smokiness to see if out of summer, which is where my birthday is so dangerously situated. In many ways it was always the last safe celebration of summer. Labor Day was too late. (Helpful shopping hint: Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus will sometimes have big single-item sales that extend to their fragrances – these are a steal for cologne, which rarely goes on sale.)

As mentioned many times in this space, Tom Ford can do no wrong. Here are some of my favorite underwear selections – I’ll give you several choices so as to prevent overlap, and even if there is some, that’s fine. There’s always room for an extra pair of underwear. Option one, option two, option three, option four, and option five.

I’m currently inspired by John Sargent Singer and his work with Thomas Keller; the former was friends with Henry James, leading me into this gorgeous cologne, ‘Portrait of a Lady’ which I’ve been resisting for a couple of years, thought it’s been haunting me ever since I first sniffed it in Boston. Fragrance and literature: a match made in heaven. (Again, look into whether Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorf Goodman has a sale.)

If you’re still in doubt, there’s always Amazon.