Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

“They had no conception that sex had anything to do with emotional feelings and the desire for human contact – even among homosexuals. All that they cared about was a little bit of pleasure for themselves.” – Heinz Heger

We are but days away from the online premiere of PVRTD – my new project – and in case you missed out on the promotional previews that have really nothing to do with the project itself, here’s a post to catch you up. Lingerie and naked skin make for a typical trapping of click-bait, and if that brings someone new into our eclectic circle of friends, then so much the better. We always have room for more.

I also wanted to showcase the dichotomy of how we live today. You cannot – at least, I cannot – turn a blind eye to the world as it is, and the way we want to live. No one wants to live out a life of fantasy more than me; it’s simply no longer possible.

~ A Perverted Beginning

~ The PVRTD Tease 1

~ The PVRTD Tease 2

~ The Promo Blitz

~ A Hint of the Perverted

~ Perverse Thrills

~ The Act of Creation

~ The Decadence Before the Perversion

“Jews, homosexuals, and Gypsies, the yellow, pink and brown triangles, were the prisoners who suffered most frequently and most severely from the tortures and blows of the SS and the Capos. They were described as the scum of humanity, who had no right to live on German soil and should be exterminated… but the lowest of the low in this “scum” were we, the men with the pink triangle.” – Heinz Heger

How to reconcile the way we live, with the way we once lived, with the way they live, and the way they used to live… How to make sense of our happiness and comfort in a world of such pain and sorrow and injustice?

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 1

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 2

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 3

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 4

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 5

~ The PVRTD Promo Interview Part 6

“All of them, before their imprisonment in concentration camps, had been decent people in private life, many indeed highly respected citizens, who had never come up against the law, but were set apart only by their homosexual feelings. Al of these otherwise decent people had been assembled here, in this melting pot of disgrace and torment, for extermination through back-breaking labor, hunger, and torture. None of them were child molesters or had had sex with children or adolescents, as all of these had a green triangle. Were we with our pink triangle really outrageous criminals and “degenerates”, a menace to society?” 
― Heinz Heger

The wind was peripatetic that day (see Meryl Streep in ‘Doubt’), flitting this way and that with large gusts that would press the imperious fountain grass close to the ground while ripping the staunchest oak leaves from their tenacious grip. It pushed against windows and doors, shaking the whole house and making me glad to be on the inside looking out. Before hunkering down for the long wait of winter, however, I needed to do one thing: smudge the house.

I opened up various windows and doors and started in the attic. Lighting a stick of sage and lavender, I filled the first corner with the cleansing smoke of ages, and relaxed a bit. The bad spirits were swept instantly away, and I waved the burning wand in gentle swirls, making sure the smoke went into every hiding space. Working my way downstairs, closing windows and doors behind me when the cleansing of each space was complete, I filled the house with the pungent aroma of burnt sage and smoky lavender. A purification and a benediction. The christening of a new couch and the start of Daylight Savings season.

When I was done, and the last of the negative energy had been driven out of the house, I walked outside to snub the smudge into its mother-of-pearl shell. I inhaled the wind as it rushed by and gave quick thanks for all that we had. Our house was again a home.

A scene such as the one that’s been playing out in our front yard is so beautiful it merits an excessively-flowery post title, hence the literary histrionics at hand. (Not that anyone could tell a difference; I’ve made bigger deals out of mouse poop, I’m sure.) Anyway, here is the late afternoon sun illuminating the Chinese dogwood and Japanese maple in front of our home. This photo was taken before Andy had a chance to give one final haircut of the season to the lawn, but I like its wayward appearance. It reminds me of a rocky ocean, much more befitting of this time of the year. The beauty of November too often goes unnoticed or unappreciated. I’m trying to do better service to the month and the notion.

“Don’t let yourself feel worthless: often through life you will really be at your worst when you seem to think best of yourself; and don’t worry about losing your “personality,” as you persist in calling it: at fifteen you had the radiance of early morning, at twenty you will begin to have the melancholy brilliance of the moon, and when you are my age you will give out, as I do, the genial warmth of 4 p.m.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

For our last official interview session, he has invited me to witness the “sacred space” of getting ready for a big party. Only a few select people have been behind this curtain, and even Andy is not part of most of these intrigues. While he’s only recently been more vocal about his social anxiety when it comes to events large and small, it’s been with him all his life. He’s worked out various ways of dealing with it (a cocktail never hurts) and in the hours before heading out he has several methods of which we’ll try a smattering. First up, a showing of ‘Auntie Mame’ – no party he throws is complete without watching a few minutes of Rosalind Russell greeting her guests in the opening tableau. Her gift for gab and meaningless small talk, along with her carefree skills as hostess form the backbones of his cocktail persona. Second is Madonna. In the bathroom, she blares from the stereo speaker while Alan fixes his hair and makes his cologne selection.

In an impossibly-frilly satin robe, silver in color and accented by numerous sheer flowers in darker shades of silver and gray, he opens the glass door that leads to his pride and joy: an extensive collection of fragrances, anchored by the largest number of Tom Ford Private Blend bottles I’ve seen outside of Ford’s flagship Manhattan store. Even rarities like ‘Japon Noir’ and ‘Amber Absolute’ are here, along with recent offerings such as ‘Fougere D’Argent’ and ‘Fucking Fabulous’. It’s a cologne connoisseur’s dream featuring other houses as well: Byredo, By Kilian, Hermes, Diana Vreeland, Creed and Frederic Malle. For tonight’s event he chooses By Kilian, and the rum-accented ‘Straight to Heaven’, the name of which he quickly condemns. “How would I ever tell someone what I’m wearing?” he asks. “If it didn’t smell so heavenly I wouldn’t abide it, but it’s so good I couldn’t resist. And I suppose cheesy over-the-top nonsense is what I do best, so ‘Straight to Heaven’ it is!” With a dramatic flourish of the handsome black cologne bottle, he expertly lands a few spritzes at all the pulse points and caps it with a click. I giggle at the histrionics and he laughs at himself too.

Walking by me with a swish of his robe, he does smell damn good. “Pick out something to wear too!” he shouts over his shoulder before closing the door to his bedroom. The opening electronic strings to ‘Vogue’ sound as I peruse the olfactory riches on display, and for a moment I give in to the decadent indulgence on hand, losing myself in how pretty the world can be, and how gorgeously it can be scented. “When all else fails and you long to be something better than you are today… I know a place where you can get away…”

I make my choice: ‘Vert D’Encens’ for its incense-like take on fall. A single spray on my wrist is all I need, or want, and I make my way out into the living room. Settling into the ornate conversation couch, I spy the ‘PVRTD’ project on the table before me. It looks smaller than expected. For something that contains such powerful images, it appears diminutive and harmless, with its elegantly-abstract cover and manageable size. Surrounded by beauty, and scented decadently by Tom Ford, I feel at odds with the pages I slowly thumb through, and the opening images of a snowy winter lend a sudden chill to the moment.

Though I’ve seen them already, the photographs draw me in again. ‘PVRTD’ is one of those rare works that gets better with repeated viewings. The subtlety lost on first glance returns with a resonant grace, while the overall arch of the piece comes into a more focused rendering. For all its referenced horrors, ‘PVRTD’ is very much a work of beauty – heartbreaking, harsh, atrocious beauty – and it encompasses the human spirit simultaneously at its best and worst.

Images that rekindle the holocaust, white supremacy, and prisoner abuse are etched into our minds, but they are fading. Someone growing up today doesn’t have the same visceral reaction to a hooded KKK figure or a burning cross. ‘PVRTD’ wants to jolt us into feeling that abhorrence, to shake us from the lethargy of apathy, stir up something inside each of us that we must never forget or allow to be dulled. Our complacency is our death. If it’s Ilagan’s most political project to date (there isn’t much competition) it also manages to steer clear of direct reference to current events, taking the past for its initial inspiration. That said and seen, it’s shocking how prescient it feels when one thinks about the state of the world right now. When framed with that, ‘PVRTD’ is almost perfectly, if diabolically, timed.

As Madonna fades into the background, and the distant rumble of drawers and closet doors being opened and closed sounds in muffled fashion, an eerie sense of being suddenly and unexpectedly alone begins to give unnerving apprehension to the images in my hands. On this cusp of day and night, when the inside and the outside light are a match and you’re not quite sure which will end up being brighter, I find myself in a disconcerting disposition. This, then, is the twilight.

Andy is out getting groceries, Alan is getting ready, and I sit upon the conversation couch sifting through the pages of PVRTD. An ancient folk song plays from a music box in some sorrowful minor key. At least I think it’s a music box. The raspy way it slows and repeats indicates some mechanized element; it sounds like the whole world is ticking slowly down to a standstill. A waltz picks up where it leaves off, some bit of Viennese elegance and enchantment, and I turn the pages of crumbled stone and snow, dust and ice and desiccated flowers gone to empty seed-heads. A world of ruin beautifully frozen in gradations of gray. Beauty’s where you find it…

The dichotomy of this – the conundrum of such hard reality and history in the face of such comfort and beauty – makes me wonder at the world. I know that these photographs are intended to inspire contemplation. Raised awareness. A reminder that these atrocities did occur, they did take place – this was all real. And it might be again. 

The circle of gold-rimmed cocktail glasses sits atop a smoky mirror, surrounded by a border also gilded with gold. They are empty, and perhaps a little prettier because of it. They hold the emptiness of promise – the possibility of getting filled or getting left behind. We will not fill them tonight, but there will be other nights, at least I hope there will be, when company will regale itself with revelry and camaraderie. After all, what else is there besides company?

I think of the times we have spent together – all the moments, really. Once you make a friend of someone, they are with you forever, most of the time anyway. And if you’ve made a friend with yourself, well, that’s the best kind of friendship to have. If you can get on with yourself, you can get on with just about anybody. 

I hear him in the distance.

A door opens and closes, and another one opens. 

There are many doors in that little hallway of that little house.

Eventually I hear the rustle of his approach. I want to turn around and look, wondering what he or I may have chosen to wear on such a night. I wonder at what we wear on any given night. How silly and foolish and all-important it might be. Outside, the world has gone black. A lone light stands in the middle of the front yard. Is it safety? Is it warning? Does it welcome or does it repel? Oh what a world. What a wicked, wonderful, wayward world. 

He rounds the corner of the couch, lifting the finery in which he is draped, and sits down gently beside me. Close and near, it feels as though our hearts beat as one. I place a hand on his leg out of reassurance, and friendship and, yes, love, and I feel it on my own leg. The finery surrounds me, and in such beauty and luxury there is comfort. 

It is time to go. A party awaits. Andy is back and dressed, and I’m just about ready. As I search for the remote to turn the television off, I catch the last bit of a Lawrence Welk episode on PBS. The farewell song is playing – the song that once lulled me to sleep as my father would lift me up, carry me upstairs and tuck me in to bed: “Good night, sleep tight, and pleasant dreams to you, here’s a wish and a prayer that every dream comes true…”

Flinging a coat over my shoulder, I laugh. Half a guttural guffaw, and half a demonic squeal, all before Andy can hear and question my stability. The absurdity and sorrow is so much that all there is to do is laugh. 

The song fades.

Silence, and then the static-like crackle of a distant fire, and a hissing that grows louder…

On the news, reports of a shooter in a synagogue are just trickling in. The gunman reportedly shouted out “All Jews must die” as he killed eleven people at a baby’s bris. Thirteen bombs have been sent to Democratic leaders and supporters who have opposed the current President. Two black people were killed at a Kentucky supermarket after the gunman tried getting into a predominantly black church. 

The world burns, but oh how brilliantly it glows…

{See also Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 & Part 5.}

‘PVRTD’ will be released on The Projects page this month.

“Life is so damned hard, so damned hard… It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can’t be hurt ever any more. That’s the last and worst thing it does.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

There’s an epilogue to one of the ‘Grey Gardens’ documentaries that shows Little Edie touring the yard at the brink of winter. They had long since finished principal filming, and this looks and feels like a reunion of sorts after their summer together. A torn fur coat is draped over her shoulders as she surveys the damage of the colder seasons. All the leaves that provided such verdant drapery for the movie have been ripped from their perches and the land is bare but for the winding architecture of vines and tree limbs. It is comparatively somber, and Little Edie lets out plaintive coos about another oncoming winter.

I’m reminded of that scene when Alan brings me into his backyard in upstate New York, where the pool is still open but filled with dark leaves and swirling dead flowerheads from the once-glorious seven-sons-flower tree. He is not in a fur, but rather a colorful crocheted poncho made of yarn predominantly in a shade of flaming poppy red. A pair of jeans and a sensible yet still stylish pair of work boots complete this look, and once again his shape-shifting leaves a new impression. His scent is both intoxicating and off-putting for anyone other than cologne aficionados. I like it on him. I can’t imagine it on me. “Don’t worry,” he tells me. “It’s a secret combination of Tom Ford Private Blends. You’d never be able to conjure it. I probably couldn’t do it again either.”

He is equally imperious and self-deprecating today. If you’ve only heard about him or experienced him from his website, you might be surprised at how easily and quickly he will burst into laughter, often at his own expense. As we survey the wilted baskets still hanging from the canopy frame, Alan pulls the long, limp, lifeless length of a sweet potato vine off one of the patio lounge chairs. It has apparently been a long time since anyone sat outside. “We are but one step away from the poor-man’s version of ‘Grey Gardens’! And maybe not even that far…”

Inside, Andy is up to his own machinations in the kitchen. It makes for a cozy scene, these two gentlemen about to entertain for family and friends on a fall afternoon. “Let’s sit outside for a bit, while we still can,” he implores, brushing off more leaves from one of the chairs. “I love being on the verge of cold weather. It affords so many more wardrobe options.” A collection of gold crosses and chains dangles from his wrist, and he asks about favorite fall libations that he might have on hand for me. I venture a few beer selections, at which he scoffs. “I meant a real drink. This isn’t grade school.”

A simple yet potent Manhattan later (“note the Bada Bing cherries, do!”), I’m under his spell, and an afternoon that at first looked bleak and gray has blossomed into a rich wonderland of autumnal beauty. The sun slants through the fine fiery fronds of a Japanese maple and the ripe heads of a tree hydrangea, still holding onto their rich salmon shades. Alan is going on about the virtues of a certain Sweet Vermouth when Andy opens the door and asks what I want for dinner. A charmed existence indeed. 

A spaghetti and meatballs dish ordered and en route, I return us to the task at hand, and though talk of the ‘PVRTD’ project “feels almost blasphemous” on such a gorgeous day, Alan is game for more. But only a little more. “Must we sully the afternoon this way?” he asks himself almost inaudibly at one point. The air grows colder as our afternoon wears on. He folds his arms over his chest and wonders whether he should grab a hat. At such an idyllic autumn moment, it is difficult to place the horrors of humanity that are hinted at in the new project. Yet it pervades even this escapist space of respite. At the bottom of my almost-empty Manhattan, a cherry of the darkest red bleeds sweet juice and takes its final dying breath. I swallow the last of such bourbon-soaked sweetness and contemplate the predicament of an empty cocktail glass.

We touch a bit on the more controversial photographs in ‘PVRTD’. There are references both blatant and subtle made to the Holocaust, white supremacy, and the KKK – and it’s always dangerous to reference that kind of historical pain. As a gay man of a certain age, and a bi-racial minority from an inter-racial marriage, Ilagan has his own history of prejudice and pain. Though he comes from a position of financial stability, he can get away with a bit more because he also speaks from inside a place of first-hand prejudice. Before the choruses of ‘faggot’ as he got older, there were the students who poked fun of his Filipino heritage.

“Some of them thought I was Chinese,” he remembers, “And would pull their eyes into slits to make fun of me. And there was one kid who simply would not believe that I was NOT the Asian actor from ‘The Goonies’ – he insisted it was me. He was not really making fun of me, he just couldn’t get his head around the fact that the world was comprised of different people outside of those who attended St. Mary’s religious class in Amsterdam, New York.” He laughs a little at that memory.

Racism wasn’t always as direct as that, and most of his childhood and formative years would be divided between those who favored and doted on him as the first-born son of Dr. and Mrs. Ilagan, and those who eyed him suspiciously in stores, or substitute teachers who seemed harsher to him than to others. Is there any hard-proof that some of these adults treated him differently because of his race? No. That’s the insidious nature of latent racism; one usually never quite knows. But it’s there.

Homophobia was a little more easy to ferret out, particular when people would yell ‘faggot’ as he walked past, but it was no more easy to accept. The world has made strides toward equality, but the current administration and the things we are seeing daily on the news indicate a backlash against acceptance and love. In some respects we seem to be going back in time to a more sinister era when racism and homophobia were the accepted order of the day. Some of the same conditions are in place, some of the same hatred has risen to the surface, and some of it is sanctioned by the uppermost levels of our government.

The photographs of ‘PVRTD’ illustrate the perverted nature that society dictates and builds into existence. It’s dangerous folly to think that something similar won’t happen again – gays are being killed around the world, especially transgender people – and the suicide rates for both groups are exponentially higher than heterosexuals. What if it’s not a sickness that’s born with them, but one that society has imposed and created from years of oppression and hatred? What if the perversion is not of nature, but a man-made symptom? It gets into a dicey and difficult area, and such questions are not blatantly asked, which is another departure for Ilagan. (He has, of his own admission, veered into heavy-handed hamming when it comes to making a point or illustrating a thesis). ‘PVRTD’ offers no such up-front explanation to its images, and even less of a defense for the more incendiary photographs.

He himself gives no easy answer, no kumbaya save-the-world push for peace, no bumper-sticker feel-good turn of phrase – only the cold images that echo the barbarism from our past. It’s easy to think of the Ku Klux Klan and their burning crosses as the stuff of ancient history, to relegate the Holocaust and its Anti-Semitism to the sepia-toned memory corridor of long ago; Ilagan brings a renewed recreation of those horrific images not only to remind, but also to reveal. What does it inspire in the viewer? Outrage? Apathy? Disgust? Dismissal? Why does the very notion of a burning cross cause such a commotion? And if we push it away, if we avoid it and bury it and pretend it doesn’t have a place in today’s world, why couldn’t it happen again? More than ripples of such hatred have been making waves in America. The latent racism and tamped-down hatred of certain groups has found fissures and outlets to release itself, and certain individuals and political parties seem to embrace this dangerous divide. Ilagan wants to hold them to the light, to bring them forth from their caverns and basements and hidden recesses and reveal them for what they are. That can get messy, especially when he doesn’t offer a clear-cut answer. ‘PVRTD’ takes its premise of how hatred perverts the natural order of love with which most humans are intrinsically born, and makes the bold stance that the historically ‘perverted’ categories of people have been made so by the actions of those denying them their true nature. ‘Gay reparative therapy’ with its electroshock treatments and cruel, forced method of eradicating the ‘gayness’ of its subjects is the most glaring example of this. To cure a ‘pervert’, one need only force them into a hetero-normative situation and mindset.

The oppressiveness of this dark new world sinks into both of us as we head inside for a refill. Andy says that my dinner plate will be ready in a few minutes. Alan is working on a bourbon cocktail for fall, as family will be arriving for dinner soon. He arranges a circle of gold-rimmed glasses on a smoky mirrored tray then disappears for a wardrobe change. I spend the remainder of my time with Andy, enjoying his homemade meatballs and feeling cared for in a way I don’t often get from my own family.

I have to leave before Alan emerges in his latest finery, so I can’t report what he was wearing for that evening’s gathering, but we have one more official interview before I can return to my status as friend and confidante…

{To Be Continued… Also see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4}

I was about to go all devastated about the news that the Spice Girls were mounting a tour without Posh, but then I realized that Victoria Beckham has much better people, I mean things, to do. 

PS – Find more of Mr. Beckham in his underwear and other gratuitous glamour here. 

“We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.” – Andre Berthiaume

We make our way along Boston Common and then the Public Garden, where Ilagan was married in 2010. He ushers us along one edge, as is his usual wont when passing by, pointing out where they stood during the ceremony. It’s a comfort to pass through, even as evening has arrived, and the leaves have started falling in earnest. He recalls their wedding lunch at the Four Seasons across the street. Even at a distance, Andy is never that far away. In the same way that he informs much of Alan’s blog (as do many of us friends and family if I may be so bold to say), he is present even in absentia.

The scent of early fall is in the air, and walking beside him and thinking of this online cast of misfits and familiar characters makes me feel slightly less alone in the world, even as it grows ever colder and dimmer. The hour, already christened the saddest of the day, adds to the melancholy dampness that suddenly stands between us and the long walk back to the condo. Alan senses something too, and just as we exit the Garden he suggests one more stop for tea at the Taj.

A sumptuous couch is open in one corner and he quickly makes it his own, dropping his shopping bags and relaxing onto its arm like he owned it. He requests a list of teas from the slightly snooty server, dismissing my annoyance at the attitude of said server, and settles on a peppermint herbal selection. “No caffeine for me, ever,” he pronounces. “I need to sleep tonight.” Here, in another place where people make their temporary homes away from home, I wonder at his propensity for hanging out in hotels. It’s been a habit of his from the time I’ve known him, and all these years later he still thrills at the notion of transitory strangers. He doesn’t want to examine the notion much. “Maybe I just like other people to make the bed?” he ponders before swerving us back to his new project. If I wanted to get deeper, peppermint tea was not the way. Yet he is passionate about the new work, and as he delves into it he gets as animated as when talking of friends.

“The whole idea of certain people being perverted has always been fascinating to me,” he says. “Is it society that that has perverted us or is it we who have perverted society? Is a gay person more perverted than a leader who believes certain minorities are less than human? Why is it more perverted for me to love my husband than for a stranger to hate us because we’re gay? That notion of where true perversion lies formed the impetus for this project.” He is off on a trip now, galloping quickly as his words tumble out between sips of tea.

“I also found myself returning to the artistic aspect of photography and using the camera as a means of communicating an idea or a thought. Just images and whatever narrative the viewer brings into it. I wanted the photographs to indicate something missing. Empty space. I wanted to capture that feeling of emptiness, but also something haunting. Faded spirits. Foreboding. Ominous. Dread. A haunted aspect as if something or someone was missing. Photos that beg the questions: what happened here? Did someone disappear? What is missing? Is someone waiting? I wanted there to be tension and a taut sense of mystery. A sense of doom.”

There is a palatable tension to much of the project. Photos that initially read as mundane – an empty doorway, a deserted run-down factory, a dirty patch of snow – gradually turn into something more upon closer and longer examination. The cover is a ghostly vision of Alan, jarringly out of focus and barely recognizable as human, which looks like he could be dancing or being hung. That about sums up the different and disparate levels of meaning and image that run through the work. It is surprisingly complex, and eons beyond anything he’s done before.

He is somewhat critical of past projects, saying, “Most of my photos have been very posed and choreographed and set up just so. Very staged, very still, and there’s not a lot of movement in it. I wanted to do something different and new to convey movement and restlessness. So much of my previous work is stationary. Dramatic, yes, and over the top with costumes and stuff, but not in movement or action. Everything is perfectly posed, backgrounds meticulously created, framed and designed. It is deliberately formal. This project is raw, casual, entirely of-the-moment. It is urgent and transient, indicative of change and transformation. It also goes against so much of what I see today – on Instagram for example.”

Alan has a growing Instagram following, in addition to his formidable FaceBook presence (when he’s not being banned), a sizable Twitter account (verified, no less) and even an oft-neglected YouTube Channel (“Do subscribe!” he begs). Unlike some people, however, particularly those with much larger followings, he uses most of his social media outlets as light entertainment. Granted, his Twitter account veers hard into political retweets, and he is often calling out the current President for stupidity, cruelty, and simple nonsense, but for the most part Ilagan uses his social media accounts to drive traffic to his blog. “The rest is just fluff, honestly. People take those things way too seriously. For a long time I did too, but as much as I make use of them, they actually have little impact on real life.”

He will expound upon the virtual online world that is being created, and he owns up to being a part of it, but is hyper-wary of it. “I’m the first to post about a new coat or pair of shoes I got, or a trip to see a Broadway show, and cumulatively the world gets a very skewed notion of how I live my life. I don’t document getting up at 5:30 every morning to get to work, or sitting at my office desk, or getting home and typing a week of blog posts into my laptop. Yet those are what constitute the bulk of my daily life. On Instagram though? I’m a fucking star who lives a glamorous life where the only thing I need to do all month is try out the latest Tom Ford Private Blend.”

If ‘PVRTD’ is a social commentary on today’s political world, it is also as much a statement on Ilagan’s own artistic evolution, and how his creative work fits into the current pop culture environment. The advent of social media has resulted in a platform for everyone to act like a star, and all the filters and apps and fancy digital tricks have given even the dullest person an opportunity to shine. That comes with benefits and drawbacks. The playing field may feel more even, but it’s also more vast, and in such a climate where the masses can theoretically put forth their own content in the same exact way that Kim Kardashian or the President does, something has to set people apart from one another. As Alan and I sit near each other, engaging in a conversation, following the threads of where thoughts and listening lead us, I’m struck by how suddenly old-fashioned such a scene has become. In this ancient hotel of this most ancient city, we are relating as humans have related since we first learned to communicate. No one under the age of 30 would dare be caught idly sipping tea and simply talking without a cel phone within safe reach. It all feels slightly sad, and I wonder if that makes me old.

Alan mentions going into “old curmudgeon mode” and indulges in a bit of lamenting to go along with my train of thought. As much as the landscape of ‘PVRTD’ is a new challenge for him, the process of its creation marks a return to where he actually began.

“Today everything is in sharp focus, brilliant color, and has this impossible-to-ignore sheen,” he explains. “With our filters and photoshop we can make perfect images, even from rather rough raw material. I didn’t want to do that for this project. I’ve never been a big photoshop fan. If you can’t take a decent photo without excessive filters and effects, then you need to work on that first. I wanted these shots to be unfiltered and unfettered by those bounds of perfection. I wanted it to be a throwback to film, when a hand or arm or foot was inadvertently part of the finished product, when you caught what you could catch in the blink of an eye, and didn’t take a series of bursts from which you could get the best shot. I wanted the immediacy of that, yet also the time-freezing and time-catching that was a hallmark of film.” To that effect, ‘PVRTD’ is strikingly effective, and plants Ilagan squarely in the realm before the arrival of digital cameras.

“It feels like moments and photos are more fluid today. There are so many ways of capturing pictures, it’s no longer so strict and unforgiving. When you used film, you had the 24 or 36 prints that were available on a roll, and that was it. You had to reload, do it all over again, and send it away to get processed if you didn’t develop them yourself. You didn’t see how things were progressing, whether you needed more or less light, until days or weeks later. Most of the time you worked with what you got, even if it was less than perfect, and tried to make it better the next time.

Conversely, today’s technology allows for instant correction – not only in the editing process but in the act of taking the photos themselves. You can see what it will look like instantly on the screen and readjust instantly. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted it to be like one roll of film, where you had to use what you got. It gave the thing a feeling of daring, of risk, of possible failure. But it gives an absolute rendering of a moment that is less staged and artificial. What happened was what got captured. There were no repeats, no retakes, no additional opportunities to make things better or prettier.”

If it sounds like he may be pining for a by-gone era, don’t be fooled: his website exists precisely because of the advance of the internet. It’s not lost upon him, yet his Thoreau-like aversion to too much technology has kept him mostly on the creative side of things (even if he can tell you what “HTML” code stands for). As we finish our tea, I look around the beautiful room, at the Public Garden across the street, and I yearn for a little bit of the past. A little bit of our youth. A little bit of what the world was once like. At the end of this day, it feels like it’s all gone.

We part in the lobby of the Taj, near the bottom of a circular staircase and beside a banquette of seasonal flowers. Alan always walks through this space just to see the floral arrangements; he still recalls the bountiful bouquets of peonies and cherry blossoms that marked his wedding stay all those many years ago. It is a fitting end to our Boston interviews. He will go back to the condo and sleep on the couch, listening to the sounds of the Braddock Park fountain before it is drained and put to bed for the winter. We’ll rendezvous at his home in upstate New York in a few days for one last interview session. He sweeps through the revolving door and disappears into the night.

{To Be Continued… Also see Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3}