When branding turns dangerous. Three corn cobs do not a difference make!
Author Archives: Alan Ilagan
14
July
2020
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July
2020
Mask and You Shall Receive: Kema’s Kreations
Every year has its notable fashion accessory – for 2020 that must be the mask. It may not seem as fun as some silly ‘Sex & the City’ flower, but it serves both style and safety, which is more than most fashion fads can claim. Many of us are stocking up on masks for the foreseeable future, and if we can do it by supporting a local artisan, so much the better. Andy found Kema’s Kreations right on Orange Street in Albany, convenient to where my office is located, and Kema supplied the very first masks we bought back in March. Since then we and my parents have placed several orders, each time just as satisfied and pleased with her products, which are as pretty as they are comfortable. She offers a number of fabric options as well. As can be seen here, I found a mask to perfectly match one of my ties (and my black and white hair for that matter). As they say in ‘Steel Magnolias’, “The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.”
To that end, a few talented designers have stepped in to provide masks at such an important and dire time in history. Kema is one of those artists who has used her designer seamstress skills to become a vital supplier of face masks. While she was happily going about her business, specializing in bags and embroidery, the pandemic hit, and masks were suddenly all the mandated rage. Turning her keen eye to the business possibility at hand, she shifted her products to include face masks, which suddenly took over in everyone’s haste and demand for face coverings.
Today she says the face masks are one of her most popular items, and given the variety and quality, along with the exceptional customer service she provides, it’s a moment of synergy where artistry and demand and function blissfully intersect. You can have her items personalized through embroidery too, so if you need something special or simply want to stand apart from the masked crowd, special requests are always entertained. If and when the mask business wanes, her bags and embroidery and other design options are worth a look (she has some great t-shirts too). Her website offers a recounting of her journey, revealing how she has come to hem and mend our crazy world.
She remembers the feeling of her 4-year old finger sliding across the tile floor, gently tracing its delicate floral pattern. The sun warming her face as a gentle breeze carries the scents and sounds of Panama throughout her mother’s sewing room as she was… Hemming and Mending.
Years later, home economics reawakened long suppressed memories of the time she spent with her mother in the warmth of her sewing room and all her beautiful and vibrant creations. Her deft fingers quickly set to work, and the admiration of classmates resulted in requests to wear her creation of long, straight lined dress with short sleeves. Kema created in her mind and developed her craft by Hemming and Mending.
The appreciation for her creations developed her confidence and she applied to Fashion Industries High School to major in fashion design and merchandising. Her sewing addiction was supported by winning dance contests, always wearing a Kema original to showcase the finesse used to command the stage. Brooklyn’s Hoyt Street, and Delancey Street in Manhattan, were more than happy to share in her success. Disenchanted by an industry that didn’t support the beauty of curvaceous women, Kema decided to design and create captivating pieces which accentuate the body in all its marvelousness. Kema’s Kreations hems society’s definition of beauty by entertaining the senses with visual statements of amazement and mends the soul of its people by giving them original craftmanship to celebrate their unique beauty. ~ Kema’s Kreations
{For more information and to order face masks, visit Kema’s website here.}
13
July
2020
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July
2020
Visage of Peace
I wish I could say that this garden combination was the carefully-constructed plan I had in mind all along when planting this space, but this is one of the many happy accidents that occurs during the life of any garden. The hydrangea – which is blooming for only the second or third time in its decade and a half of life – forms the backbone and was there first. The Japanese painted fern in the lower right was planted several years later. Finally, the hosta in bloom in the lower left seeded itself there a couple of years ago and is blooming for the first time. Together, they are forming a lovely little nook of coolness on such a hot day.
Cool hues, cool tones, and cool flower shades conspire to create a softer and, duh, cooler effect, something especially gratifying in the garden right now. Many of us, and I include myself first and foremost here, seek out those flowers with the brightest and most garish hues, looking for things to pop and explode in the high heat of summer, forgetting the power and elegance in something more somber and subtle.
At a time in the garden when the cup plant is about to start screaming its canary yellow heads off and the butterfly weed burns bright flaming orange, scenes like this douse the figurative heat, giving our senses a respite of relief, even if it’s only in our eyes and minds.
13
July
2020
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July
2020
Stepping into a Recap, Sans Shirt
The pool steps are complete, so I’m keeping a tentative wish that our pool redux is finished sometime before July slips away. I’ve been keeping in the cool quiet of the indoors during these hot and humid, but stepped out and stepped up to pose for some empty pool pics (or pool carcass as Wanda Copernicus so aptly described the current environs of our backyard). On with the recap…
An incredibly sad picture of Andy.
A Tiny Thread found.
Disregarding the rules for some beautiful music by Rufus Wainwright.
Our summer look-back at Projects of the Past continues with 2018’s ‘PVRTD’.
Ending the weekend with some floral fireworks.
Hunks of the Day included Ken Screven, Nicholas Petricca, Valton Jackson, Maarten Hurkmans, Nick Cannon and Cody Rigsby.
12
July
2020
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July
2020
The Bracts of the Butterfly Weed
One of my favorite garden plants – the butterfly weed (Asclepias) – has been in bloom for the past week. This orange version is the typical garden variety, though we also have a mauve one that seeded itself a while back and has returned again this year. As part of the milkweed family, they earn their common nickname from the love that butterflies bestow upon them, both in caterpillar form and final flighted version. The doting of these winged beauties is the crowning jewel of this plant’s performance.
Peaking when summer is typically at its height and glory, the butterfly weed is a strong dose of color when everyone is giddy with the sights and sounds of the season. The orange ‘petals’ of the flower are actually bracts (think of the red ‘petals’ of the poinsettia or the creamy white ‘petals’ of the dogwood tree). I personally don’t care what they call them when they’re this pretty. Anything that brightens this summer season is a gift.
12
July
2020
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July
2020
Project of the Past: PVRTD ~ 2018
If you’re looking for some chill to take the sting out of all this heat and humidity, look no further than this revisit of the icy ‘PVRTD‘ project from 2018. Filled with wintry scenes, covered in snow and ice, and shot through with the frozen dagger of unblunted hatred, there is little that is warm or fuzzy about ‘PVRTD’.
Following my final tour and the colorful grandeur of delusional madness, the world took a decidedly dark turn after 2015, and for my first new project in three years, I wanted to do something reflective of the somber era, and the rise and revelation of more hatred than some of us realized was still present in our country. ‘PVRTD’ wasn’t about a perversion of a sexual nature, but rather the perverted ways racism, homophobia and ethnocentrism have ingrained themselves in almost every single aspect of our world.
As disturbing as some of the images were, that was entirely the point. Designed to draw the reader in with a gradual slow beginning of winter scenes and stark black-and-white photography, ‘PVRTD’ locks the door behind you before you realize it’s not a world in which you want to be.
There was also a contradictory sense of calm in the winter-themed project, something deceptively soothing about the photos as they whirled past as if tossed into an arctic blast. A chilly remoteness was inherent in the themes – and I was afraid that it would translate poorly to the project. It was absolutely necessary to maintain such a distance for my own mental well-being; the world had gone dark enough (who knew it would get so much darker) and I was genuinely afraid of letting this one get into my headspace. To combat that, and to bring a subtle and unseen thread of warmth to the whole thing, I enlisted the photographic aid of my favorite people: Andy, Suzie, Kira, and my brother – each of whom helped take photos for those scenes in which I played a part.
The promotional blitz of provocative and sexually-suggestive images was designed to titillate and tease, deliberately intended to confuse and pose the possibility that ‘PVRTD’ would be an exploration of sexual peccadilloes and erotic perversions. A bait and switch of the most shameless sort, with no apologies whatsoever for anyone who came looking for sex and skin and found a fully-clothed statement on the deteriorating state of our country and world.
‘PVRTD’ also marked a return to a purely photographic project, where only the photos tell the story – no narrative or expository writing to give a hint of what’s happening. Rendered in shades of gray, its colorless consistency lent a subtlety that belied some of its images, a softer take at odds with the harshness of its motifs. There is only one object in full color – a pink triangle that blazes in horrifying fashion near the very end. It is a sign of doomed hope, but hope nonetheless. That hope dissipates in the flames of a cross, and the bleak, forlorn landscape of grays that insidiously works its way around your throat, beautifully suffocating the care and expression from your eyes.
{See the entire ‘PVRTD’ project here. Also see ‘StoneLight‘, ‘The Circus Project‘, ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea‘ and ‘A 21stCentury Renaissance: The Resurrection Tour‘, and ‘Bardo ~ The Dream Surreal‘, and ‘The Delusional Grandeur Tour: Last Stand of a Rock Star’.}
11
July
2020
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July
2020
Frolicking in an Empty Pool
There’s something very evocative of the smell of rain’s first fall on hot asphalt during a hot summer day. Whether you grew up in the suburbs or the city, it is, I would imagine, a universal touchstone of mixed emotions. The momentary happy relief from the heat coupled with the realization of, well, rain on a summer day. For some reason, I’ve always loved the scent. If the fragrance brand Replica needs an idea, they should try bottling that for a summer spritz of happy memories. I think it’s a little too urban and specific for Jo Malone. (And Tom Ford likely wants nothing to do with asphalt.)
This year the rain has been in short supply, probably because our pool remains unopened and empty, so you are so very welcome for the long stretch of sun we’ve had. As soon as the new liner is in, the rain will begin. If not the snow. Mark my words. It’s 2020. That’s the way the year has gone. And so we have a fun little photo shoot made possible only by the machinations of an empty pool.
We take the fleeting joys of summer when and where we can get them, whether that’s in the intoxicating fragrance of a summer rain or the vast expanse of a pool that has yet to be filled. There may be fun in both if you know how to embrace the moment at hand. Summer was made for fun. Indulge.
11
July
2020
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July
2020
Once Upon An Empty Pool
Once upon not such a long time ago I would have thrown quite the hissy fit and tantrum over not having a pool for the summer thus far. Fortunately, once in a great while the universe grants me just enough wherewithal to move into a new perspective in the nick of time. There was a sprinkling of the divine in the grand scheme idea of therapy and meditation leading into this summer, and those practices have left me in a better place to deal with life’s minor setbacks.
One of the lessons of ‘The Science of Well-Being’ course I took on finding more happiness in life was getting off social media. Unplugging and stepping away from the phone. Not checking on FaceBook or Twitter ot TikTok or Snapchat or Instagram or Name-Your-Own-App. For someone whose website is fed by links on social apps, it was surprisingly easy. I’m actually on most social media sites far less than some might assume. I hit often, but I hit quickly and leave. I’m not usually a scroller who burns away tons of time just peeking at things that don’t directly concern me.
More importantly to the happiness course, and the lesson that is really at the heart of stepping away from social media, is the idea that we should not be comparing our happiness with the happiness of others, nor should we compare anything in our lives with what others have. That’s a certain path to unhappiness and discontentment. There will always be someone who has, or pretends to have, “more†than you and me. What we forget is that “more†is relative, and one person’s “more†can be quite different from what truly constitutes our idea of “more.†In other words, comparing someone else’s online life – the image they cultivate and put forth on social media – to our life, whether real or cultivated for public consumption, is a certain recipe for unhappiness.
My general attitude goal – the one that has allowed me to survive on social media for all this time – is that I’m happy for whatever someone else is happy about. If they get to do something or obtain an item they really like – a vacation, a show, a new bag – then I’m more or less just happy for them. Very rarely do I think, “Damn, that should be me!†In fact, I’ve never thought that. I can’t say I haven’t ever felt envy and jealousy about some of what I’ve seen, but I never thought I deserved it more, or deserved it at all. Prior to this year I was definitely guilty of making those comparisons, and while I was strong enough never to be bitter over it, I felt somewhat bad whenever I went online. Once I realized what I was doing – comparing myself to other people rather than to what I really wanted in life, as well as believing that what appeared to make other people happy would invariably make me happy – I was able to adjust how I looked at things online. What a profound difference that made.
And so, these days when I see my friends and family frolicking in their pools, with actual water, I don’t feel envy or bitterness, I just feel happy that they are having a good time. It’s so much nicer, and feels so much better, celebrating other people, and I’ve never been able to feel bad about myself if someone else is finding their own happiness.
Besides, who says you can’t have fun with an empty pool? Stay tuned for those photos…
10
July
2020
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July
2020
Rufus Wainwright: Still Gorgeously Defying the Rules
Crafting compelling musical art occasionally feels like it should come easier during the peaks and valleys of our twenties than the less volatile and extreme moments of our forties, but Rufus Wainwright defies that notion with the gorgeously dramatic ‘Unfollow The Rules’ – an album that could only be created by someone who’s seen those peaks and valleys, survived them (sometimes quite barely), and lived to push and defy and challenge.
“I’m no Hercules, and this is Herculean,” he laments on the title track, “And tomorrow I’ll just be feeling the pain.” He continues, “Don’t give me what I want, just give me what I’m needing,” and amid one of the most exquisitely beautiful arrangements it’s a heartbreaking and sobering look at the cost of living, measured in careful consideration, a notion not accessible to most of us in our twenties, and a telling treasure map of all the places he’s already been.
Not that any definitive peace or resolution results from that awareness or resignation – see opening track ‘Trouble in Paradise’ – a lovely, languid jam that sounds as good as its tension-celebrating ambivalence conveys a shaky balance. Mr. Wainwright has always been a bit of a trickster in his work, shape-shifting and winking at every unexpected turn and key change. ‘Unfollow the Rules’ finds him endearingly in trickster mode, reminiscent of his very best work, now imbued with some hard-won wisdom, or at least the chuckle of acknowledging the occasional lack-thereof.
‘Romantical Manâ’ neatly addresses critics and all the accompanying heaps of detritus piled high on those daring to be “romantical” in such a cynical universe. ‘Peaceful Afternoon’ wryly describes thirteen years of a relationship – a feat for any two people to survive – and might be one of the greatest songs about marriage ever written. Magnificently capturing both the ennui and ever-changeable excitement that exist simultaneously in any long-term relationship, this ‘Afternoon’ is a lovely piece of music, taking flight and soaring with its strings and backing vocals, while positing whether the mundane can be beautiful, and why ever not?
Biting-humor and wicked-wit sharply-intact, ‘This One’s For the Ladies (THAT LUNGE!)’ finds Wainwright working through the search for peace and paradise as a harp weaves its luscious scales like golden threads into a wondrous land “where people listen to your plan” and “where no one stares at your face.” The Sondheim-celebrated ladies who lunch have always struck me as more than just socialites who have nothing but time and money on their hands; they seem more like unhappy, or at least slightly discontent, objects of beauty looking for purpose as much as for an escape. The meandering and queasy music personifies the ways we make such an escape.
Just when you think he may have it all figured out, or at least found a way to make some peace with all of it, he begins the glorious dirge of ‘Early Morning Madness’ which locates an early morning sadness where “I’m a perfect mess.” The only solution is to go back to bed until the dinner bell rouses him again. The battle with one’s own demons, addiction or otherwise, has never been more beautifully rendered than in this morning-after musing. The entire album leads up to this operatic highlight – a marvelous trough that holds its own dim beauty, and the solace of leaning into those moments of madness. Plunging exuberantly into the skittering strings and high drama of ‘Devils and Angels (Hatred)’, the song-cycle trio that ends the album embodies the richly-varied work that Wainwright has added to his impressive oeuvre in recent years.
Closing track ‘Alone Time’ reminds the world that sometimes Rufus and a piano is all we ever really needed to get away from it all, a very pleasant reminder in these perilous times. It’s also a call for some solitude at a time when we are all both connected and disconnected in so many ways – as much a need for an artist as for a husband as for a father and for a son. In crafting such a timely album, Wainwright has managed to make it timeless, the magic stroke of a genius artist in top form.
10
July
2020
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July
2020
In Stillness and Quiet
Maybe the Grinch was onto something before his heart grew all those pesky sizes so big. He proclaimed one of his biggest problems with all those Whos was the noise, noise, NOISE. Lamenting the loudness of certain neighbors, I can totally relate, if not wholeheartedly sympathize with the Grinch’s plight.
The half-joking of this opening belies a more serious statement, which is that the world needs a little more appreciation of stillness and quiet. After working mostly from home for the past few months, I’ve found more silence during the day than I’ve ever had, and it’s been good. For the first few hours of the early morning, instead of turning on the television or the music, I do my work in relative quiet while Andy sleeps. That’s not something I’ve had when trying to pack trips and travels into most weekends, but in the current state of the world, we’ve had nothing to do but stay at home and find our peace here. To my surprise, it’s been just as rewarding.
Silence is a big part of my meditation process too. While some people find it too scary to be alone in quiet, I prefer it, embracing the complete silence, slowing my thoughts, and allowing them to present themselves and then float away. There is no noise to cover that up, no distraction to make it easier. At first I’ll admit it was a little disconcerting. Not uncomfortable, just different. The world has evolved to the point where we are almost constantly surrounded by sound, and once you take that away it can be slightly jarring. If you’ve ever been to a rock concert, you know the feeling when it’s over. The world is suddenly eerily quiet. You may wonder if you’ve suffered some hearing loss for a while. And slowly, the noise comes back and things return to the general level of sounds to which we are all accustomed. When you meditate in silence, the same phenomenon surfaced, in smaller fashion. That’s partly why I started slowly, in short five-minute sessions before gradually increasing my time in quiet. Now I find it more comforting than classical music or white noise. Clearing the mind is easier for me when the world is silent.
I find similar peace outside in the yard. Where I once lugged out an old portable stereo to fill the air with Madonna or 80’s bops, now I walk in silence, listening to the birds and the chirps of chipmunks. At night there are noisy frogs that provide all the sounds I need. Amid the ferns, and the gentle unfolding of a summer day, silence feels like the best soundtrack.
09
July
2020
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July
2020
Summer Head Trip
It doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere this summer, because we have half a clue and see the rest of the country getting sick by traveling and acting like we’re not in the middle of a pandemic. I’ve lost count of all the events and trips and shows we’ve missed out on, so I understand what it’s like to want to get back out there, to hope and try to find some sense of normalness in all this madness. Yet I’m not stupid enough to risk things by going to a big gathering at a beach or something. Oh, and our pool is still not open, so it’s not like we have a paradise in the backyard just yet. Again, I’m just not dumb enough to take any risks.
And so we travel in music and books and beauty, touring the gardens and remembering various related events that come with the blooming of each flower. Daisies bring back times with Suzie and JoAnn, and a simple summer day riding my back down Romeyn Avenue and coming upon a patch of these in full bloom. I stopped and stared at them, studying their happy faces turned upward at the midday sun. I couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, but I still remember that moment. Daisies do that.
Music can do that too. This is a new song for me, and it’s an instant summer mood. Tinged with melancholy, and shot through with rays of sunlight, it’s like a summer morning when you’re packing the car for a road trip, and there’s hope and trepidation and excitement, all rolled together in the best kind of butterflies the stomach can flutter.
TIME HAS COME TO GO
PACK YOUR BAGS, HIT THE OPEN ROAD
OUR HEARTS JUST WON’T DIE
IT’S THE TRIP KEEPS US ALIVE
Daisies and vacations and summer days… what happiness these words conjure. What glorious connotations attached to each, with threads of silk and wonder leading to other memories. Amassing such threads has been a habit of mine. Maybe one day I’ll craft a cocoon in the hopes of some miraculous metamorphosis. Maybe a butterfly will result. And maybe the butterfly is already here, in the fluttering movement of the mind, piling into the car and hitting the road in giddy anticipation of another adventure to come.
THEY’RE FOLLOWING SOME DANCE OF LIGHT
TEARING INTO THE NIGHT
WATCHING YOU FALL ASLEEP
THE SWEETEST DOVE IN THE DREAM
We travel through the day, we travel through the night. Somewhere along the way, a storm comes and wets the world. Morning arrives, the petals of flowers still holding on to the kisses of rain. Water from the sky drips into the land, taken in by the plants, released again as oxygen, then back into the air, traveling in a cloud, moving over the land, toward the seas and the oceans, then trickling back down into more water, rejoining itself and lapping upon the shore, knocking on the sand, rising in the mist, carried and spun back into the air, funneled into a storm, tumbled through the atmosphere, falling through the night sky, and nestling onto the radial whorl of a daisy.
08
July
2020
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July
2020
Tiny Threads: An Insignificant Series
Why does the phrase “You don’t say” actually mean “You do say”?
08
July
2020
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July
2020
Petunia Panache
Petunias don’t get the critical credit they deserve. Too many of us, myself included, overlook their powerhouse performance simply because they are such constant working horse when it comes to producing blooms. Rather than rejoice and celebrate them, we look down at them for being such spectacular performers because they do it so seemingly effortlessly and consistently. We’d rather take months and years coaxing and coercing a rare orchid into bloom, pampering and prodding and whispering sweet nothings into its finicky ear while it demands time and attention and worship, only to disappoint with no flowers whatsoever, or a few measly and sickly leaves that eventually wither and die off. Why do we aim for the more difficult species than the ones that instantly and repeatedly reward with easy blooms and a constant show? I wish I knew. My life would have been gone much easier, in both ways.
I may not be the best at any one thing, but I’m a loyal and consistent guy. My attire, while perhaps not always to your taste, is always refined. My commitment to a task – whether a job, a creative project, or a new recipe – is steadfast and true. And my panache – well, I like to think my panache is unwavering. And as such, people expect such stuff from me, and I’m usually happy to oblige. I didn’t get to be the person I am today from hating what I do. I like being consistent. I like being organized. I like being anal. I like to dress up and spray delicious cologne in the air while I stride through its perfumed cloud. Scoff and joke and guffaw all you want – I’m pretty happy these days with the convoluted and contradictory stance I’ve adopted and made my own.
If you’ve come to expect it but find that the thrill is gone, please feel free to seek your newness elsewhere. Every chameleon-like Renaissance man has certain pools he favors, as much as he likes to change; we are different from day to day and year to year, but the soul stays relatively the same. I’ve come to appreciate that over the decades of my life. Like these petunias, the doggedly pretty things of the world have a scrappiness to their stalwart consistency. They, and we, try every day to be a little better, to put on a grander show, to inspire and impress and delight even if the petals are a little torn and the perfume a little faded. Our powerhouse performance isn’t often perfect, but we’re here for it.
Striving and blooming and putting on the show – even on a Wednesday morning.
07
July
2020
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July
2020
Aww, Andy
Easily the most heartbreaking photographs I’ve taken this year (and being that this is the year of our Lord 2020, that is saying quite a bit) here is Andy opining the present pool situation. I sent it to a few friends, who agreed it was the saddest thing they had seen in a while. Everyone knows how much Andy loves the pool – well, maybe not everyone, so I’ll bring the stragglers up to speed.
Given his back issues, Andy’s favorite time of the year is when the pool is open. He can go in the warm water every day and obliterate the hurt and ache of gravity on his back, and simply float and exist in a relief that he doesn’t get the rest of the year. The pool was probably the main selling point of our home, and he takes pride in and care of its maintenance.
Having grown up with a pool, and the turmoil and stress of opening it as a twelve-year-old with just my parents and eleven-year-old brother to help, I didn’t need a pool as an adult, but I was open to it, and I’m glad. It’s become a place of respite and escape in the oppressive and humid summers of the Northeast. In fact, I’ve grown to love a pool again, finally embracing the peace of floating on some silly piece of inflated plastic while music plays in the background and I do my best not to wet the pages of a book in my hands. Yet as much as I love the pool, and miss it now that it’s out of commission, my pain and sorrow is minor compared to Andy’s. So when I looked out the window the other day and found him dangling his legs over the side into the open space where water once rippled, it broke my heart.
Thankfully, hope is on the horizon. Since we needed to replace the liner (part of the delay this year) we decided to add some steps. Both of us are getting a little old to be bounding in and out by way of ladder or cannonball, so a trio of steps have been installed, which is why this post has a hopeful, if not happy, ending. More to come…
06
July
2020
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July
2020
Hot Pink Wilderness
This wild sweet pea seeded itself in our garden many years ago and has persisted ever since. It’s a perennial variety – the same weedy thing you see taking over roadsides that haven’t been taken over by crown vetch. I like it in controlled, finite form. It blooms and then quickly loses steam, at which point I cut it harshly back , almost to the ground, and it will usually send up a new crop of foliage and flowers for a second, smaller flowering. This is our routine. This is our covenant. An agreement we have honored ever since I allowed it to take up some space in the prime area of our sunny garden section.
It’s tried to push its boundaries, seeding itself further out, only to be met with strong resistance, if I’m observant enough to catch it in time. Occasionally one gets by and it’s a battle when it comes back stronger the next spring. In the end, the human wins. For now. We can handily beat nature in certain battles; She will always win the war.
As for this wild sweet pea, her wilderness impresses me. She won’t ever be anything less than wild, nor anything more. She persists and pushes herself. If I allowed it, she’d bloom and set immediate seed, sapping her strength for the season but probably ensuring an ever-expanding perpetuity. I force her to put on a second show, saving the garden from an invasive monster, and allowing a second round of prettiness.
These things must be done delicately.
