There’s a tinge of sadness when I see the hydrangeas sending up new blooms at this time of the year. It’s a crap shoot for whether they will all make it before the first hard frost hits. Most of these should flower before we get there, but there are those that don’t. In the past I’d try to bring them inside, to save a few like we did with green tomatoes, but not anymore. There is a time and place for everything to slumber, and that cycle, forged and refined and perfected by Nature herself, will not be hijacked by my endeavors. Still, there is sadness when buds are on the brink of being felled, and I may cut them if words of a frost carry on the wings of night.
The garden often gets a little second wind at this point when summer’s heretofore relentless heat and haze gives way to a crisp, cool alacrity that seems to snap order back into the proceedings. It’s as if suddenly everything is aware that the season is coming to its close, and goes about putting on one last show. The colors are more vibrant, and though the blooms are usually smaller and secondary, they carry stronger hues and deeper shades. The lower light works in tandem to show them off at their most expressive. It’s something that can’t be produced in the high-sun days of July or early August.
Dear Betty Lynn ~ Having just witnessed your next to last night as Dolly Levi in ‘Hello, Dolly!’ I immediately went back into your songbook and am listening to your rendition of ‘Come On, Come On’ as I write this. After such a wonderfully affirming celebration of musical theater, I had to hear further ruminations on life through the story only a song can tell. I started out with your ‘Hope’ album, and that gorgeous almost-liturgical title track by Jason Robert Brown, where our hope is our only religion. I seek out a way of understanding our present condition, a way to make sense of the madness that is the world around us. Whether or not the answer is to be found in a song, a work of art, or the voice of one of our generation’s great vocal talents, I do not know. You remain, however, a vessel who has always illuminated deeper truths. Maybe that’s why your recent performance in ‘Hello, Dolly!’ became so much more than a theatrical legend taking on a legendary role.
I still have fond memories of how you stepped into the role of Norma Desmond, and with laser-like precision and practiced artistry, made the role into your own. Following in such famed turbans as Gloria Swanson and Glenn Close, you rose above the fray the world wanted so badly to see battered and scarred, and you gave Norma not only the heart that was so brittle and broken, but the voice that she, and the show, so badly needed. Ever since then, your voice has supplied a way for me to connect to the human condition. From the song collections of that time – ‘With One Look’, ‘Much More’ and ‘Heart to Heart’ – and the live performances at London and Carnegie Hall – your voice has mapped out a way to unlock a few secrets of love and loss and simple longing. I didn’t always want to know, and I didn’t always learn them well, but I could count on you to make it feel a little more bearable, and breathtakingly more beautiful.
I wonder if you were haunted or comforted by the ghostlights that formed the namesake of your 2014 collection. The gentle ‘Come to Me, Bend to Me’ and the gorgeously portentous ‘If You Go Away’ nestled alongside a melancholy ‘Bewitched’ and ‘Lazy Afternoon’ gave ‘Ghostlight’ its dream-like atmosphere, wherein you were able to craft a cinematic soundscape, painted solely by your guiding voice. The ‘Story Songs’ that formed your epic double album of the same name were just further proof that nobody could tell a tale through melody and music better than you. The way that you occupied different characters in miraculous fashion, inhabiting and then becoming them through studied nuances and microscopic adjustments, apparent to the fascinated rapture of the listener, was a sight and sound to behold. While it’s one thing to take on a single song, it’s quite another matter to hold an entire show on your shoulders, but we already knew you could do it.
It takes more than a skilled singer to transmit so many layers of meaning – it takes a cunning actor too, and even though you expressed some surprise at being asked to step into the indefatigable boots of Dolly Levi, I always knew you would be superb. Who better to pilot this train of beloved Americana through the country, dispersing wisdom and warmth and happiness to cities near and far, than Broadway’s own Texas cowgirl? It wouldn’t have worked if you were merely game for the challenge – it required a full investment, a commitment, a generosity of spirit that only a consummate professional could conjure.
Throughout it all, there was a slight but absolutely necessary sliver of darkness that lurked beneath the most upbeat moments, a darkness that you have often thrillingly channeled, from your demonic Southern sorceress in ‘Preacher’ to the imperious (and let’s not forget murderous) Norma Desmond to the dominating mother in ‘Carrie’ and the ferociously-wounded feline Grizabella in ‘Cats’. There are some murky undercurrents even in the confection-like world of Dolly Levi. You manage to find the lonely, desperate pathos that belies all the pastel splendor around you, plumbing the riches of that reservoir to garner the emotional heft that raises the show into something grand and expansive.
As ‘Before the Parade Passes Us By’ began, you wiped your tears away, and you might as well have wiped all our tears away – so enraptured were we at the way life could be so bursting with joy and yet sadness at the same time. Somehow you showed us the strength and conviction to still be part of it, to dive back into the tumult no matter how much it may have hurt us in the past. The memories of lost ones are ever on the edge of when we think things might be ok, and you as Dolly, sadly freed from the binds of a beloved lost husband and trying valiantly to move forward, led the way. How to bring the rest of us so much gladness when your own heart is broken? I don’t know, but you did it, and you’ve been bringing us such happiness for a year.
The harmonious way you worked with the rest of the ‘Hello, Dolly!’ is a lesson in itself, and what a glorious ensemble it was. Lewis J. Stadlen matched your optimism with entertaining pessimism until you met happily in the middle. Nic Rouleau and Sean Burns won hearts and burned the boards with their electrifying singing and dancing, while Analisa Leaming and Kristen Hahn brought enough wit and comedic elegance to stand out in a troop of outstanding performers. Throughout it all, you wove a fascinating arc and managed to match the very spirit and essence of Dolly’s outlook on life.
How wonderful to see an actor being so generous – the genuine joy you conveyed while watching the company whirl around you elicited its own triumphant joy – happiness feasting on happiness when we were all so starved for it. We needed to smile. We needed to laugh. We needed to believe in a simpler, sweeter world, when people might actually be kind and decent to one another, a forgotten moment when we got through the darker times together.
After performing this demanding show for such a stretch, you more than deserve a break. Maybe you will return to your beloved ranch, to the horses that must have missed you so, to your faithful companion Lucas who just may need you more than we do, to recharge your creative batteries and simply be – and I wish you all the best. Selfishly I hope that you will come back to entertain and enlighten us sooner rather than later, to enrich our lives with the wonder of your voice and your talent, and to engage in whatever strikes your passion and fancy, the way Dolly returned to triumphantly descend that grand staircase before the parade passed by. In the same munificent manner that she viewed sharing her wealth, so too have you given to all of us over the years.
That communal exchange between performer and audience, and the way that this role fits so perfectly into spreading that love around is a once-in-a-lifetime collision of kismet, destiny and happy circumstance. You’ve been giving us such gifts throughout your entire career, and such generosity is rare. In the last year you’ve dedicated yourself to Dolly Levi, sharing a love and unbridled hope for the world throughout our country – and in a country that’s not always what it should be, we needed it more than ever. Thank you, Ms. Buckley, for sharing such excellence in your craft. Thank you for being such an advocate for people less fortunate and strong than you. Thank you, above all else, for showing us what loveliness is still to be found in this world.
COME ON COME ON, IT’S GETTING LATE NOW
COME ON COME ON, TAKE MY HAND
COME ON COME ON, YOU JUST HAVE TO WHISPER
COME ON COME ON, I WILL UNDERSTAND
After the sluggish start to spring, I wasn’t sure if our Angel’s Trumpets would bloom while it was still nice out, but these two specimens have been putting on a glorious concert over the past few weeks, dangling their fragrant trumpets and filling the backyard with their perfume. It is the quintessential scent of summer, one that brings me all the way back to our early days together, when I started a few plants in a guestroom at Andy’s old house. They struggled inside, but once they could get out into the warmth and sun they took off and put on an astounding show.
They usually take a year or two to really get going, which makes overwintering them a necessity. I tend to pot them up every few weeks and let them go as high as they want. Our relatively short growing season will force them to top off between six and ten feet, and right before the first hard frost I’ll cut them down to three feet or so and bring them in.
While they took their time, these have gotten the tallest we’ve had, which makes them a bit top heavy and one was just felled by some of the crazy storms we’ve had of late. They are so heavy that right them is no easy feat, and I added a few large rocks to their pots in the hopes of keeping them grounded. The few branches that broke off will be put into some water to see if we can get some new ones started. Eventually they will outgrow their pot, and rather than root-prune and repot, I’ll have hopefully started a few new ones to take over the mantle of summer perfume.
The final week of August has begun, and with it goes the final full month of summer. Our fall season won’t officially begin until September 23, and we intend to make full use of every last one of those summer days. Before that final flourish, however, let’s look back at this full week of August revelry…
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
One of the stronger cuts, and definitely one of the most fun, from the ‘Madame X’ album, this is Madonna (with some help from Anitta) putting on a proper shredder complete with a carnival plunked right in the middle of the party proceedings. It deserves to be heard and celebrated rather than analyzed, which means this Madonna Timeline will be short and to the point so we can abandon ourselves to the glory at hand.
I have no idea what she’s saying or what any of it means, I just know that I love it and it makes me want to dance. The best songs cut through words and literal meaning to hit at the very heart and soul, something raw and powerful and driving, and that’s what this is to me.
Seeing as how it’s my supposedly special day, it seems a fine time to focus on the frivolous bits of flotsam and jetsam that populate my scanning interest these days. Each one is a category on this blog because I post so much about them that this makes for easy organization. Such was the intent of early blog ambitions – these days if I want to seek out a specific post I simply type a keyword into Google, followed by ‘Alan Ilagan’ to see what exactly I wrote since the search engine here is broken.
Anyway, here are a few favorite topics and the links to their respective collections. The great revamping of 2012 obliterated most posts prior to that year, though a few choice ones have been saved that go back to 2009. After 2012, however, almost every post is still up and online here. It makes for a large body of work, because seven years of anything – especially when there are three posts a day – results in a vast collection of words and pictures. This is the modern-day diary, a virtual throwback to the little Garfield diary I once filled out in 7thand 8thgrades, that came with its own lock and key. Diaries are funny things. Blogs are too. Both feel a little antiquated, a little quaint, and more than a little necessary for those of us who feel the need to express things or burst. But it would be foolish to pretend that either a diary or a blog is entirely without guile or underlying purpose all of the time. We all wear disguises, even and sometimes especially when we purport to be naked. Veils of veils and shadows of shadows, the trickery of light at perpetual play – these are the subtle shifts of an online persona. The voice you hear now as you read these words is probably not mine. But I digress, entirely too much, particularly on such a fun day. Let’s keep it light and whimsical, like the very best notions that accompany one’s anniversary of birth.
When you’ve shown your ass to the world for the last sixteen years that ALANILAGAN.com has been around, it’s a bit of a relief to put all your clothes on and celebrate in a new kind of birthday suit. Hence this birthday post. Suited up in the post-coital garden of Adam and Eve, the only cup you will see here is in the cup plant behind me. (My junk is buried deep in the archives so you’ll have to search to find it.)
As for birthday wisdom this year, I’m feeling a little drained. This isn’t some grand post with multi-layered levels of meaning. This is me at 44 not giving a shit because I’m pretty happy with where I am right now. But there’s still some bitter to go with the sweet, so let’s have at that.
Forty-fucking-four, and I feel every second of it. Not always in a bad way, in fact usually not in a bad way. I earned all the gray hairs, laugh-lines and frown-creases I’ve got, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I traded them happily for knowledge and a certain amount of wisdom. I also bartered for patience and a bit of apathy, because in the not-so-distant past I cared a little too much. Better to let things go, better to let others get bogged down with semantics and the eternal quest for what’s right. It’s ok to be wrong. It’s ok to make mistakes. I don’t have to like it, I just have to be ok with it, and I am.
44 has a nice smooth edge to it – two even numbers divisible by 2 and 4 and even 11. Not one to get into numerology, I still hope that 44 brings about luck and fortune. I’™m more into astrology, which has me on the Leo-Virgo cusp, with a distinctive preference toward the latter. And second only to Virgo regarding annoyance factor may be Leo, which is why I’m so often such an insufferable dominatrix of sorts. (It also means that it’s much easier just to do as I say from the beginning because I’m going to get my way in the end. Why must it be so much work for everyone?)
Sorry, it’s my birthday, so I get to be a little insufferable. (And having just re-read these last few sentences I am roaring with derisive laughter. Leos roar; Virgos deride. This is my sweet spot.)
Birthdays sometimes turn into an opportunity to indulge in a little nostalgia, but this year I’m not feeling that. We will look back another time. Right now I’m worlds away, floating on a cloud of musical theater, traipsing through streets of storied beauty, and thanking my maker for keeping me ticking another year.
We begin with Chace Crawford and the bulge that rocked the internet. Real or photoshopped is beside the, err, point. Check out his Hunk of the Day crowning here and let me know if we should feature him again.
Ginger firecracker Race Imboden recently kneeled for a medal-winning rendition of the National Anthem, because our youth are the ones who have the strength and courage to stand up for the oppressed these days. That’s enough to remind me of why he was Hunk of the Day in the first place: it takes hunkiness and heart.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been in way too many posts to recall them all here, and you probably have link fatigue already, so here’s one of the most recent. oh, all right, here’s another. And one more for the road. Next to him is a newcomer, male model William McLarnon, who gives us some nude male celebrity street cred.
The grand finale to this post is brought to you by yesterday’s Hunk of the Day George Hill. This will likely not be the last you see of Mr. Hill, so relax and enjoy the ride.
It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, “Wait on time.â€
It hasn’t been the best year for our lavender plants. A couple of them barely survived the winter, and only one produced a decent flowering way back in June. This week there were only two stems that took part in the re-bloom, but all I needed was one to garnish the lavender martini seen here. It’s the first time I’ve made one this season, being so preoccupied with the Southern Sweet Peach Tea that took us all by storm.
This is a simple recipe, and the lavender syrup it requires can be made and kept in the fridge for several weeks – it also works quite well in a non-alcoholic lavender seltzer if you’re trying to be a little healthier. (Be sure to use culinary lavender – not the decorative kind, and certainly not something you’d find in a potpourri sachet.)
The drama of a summer sky as seen from a parking lot can be a beautiful thing. When the mundane meets the magnificent, something magical happens. Here, in the midst of an errand, I paused to examine the sky – all beauty and prettiness and painted by the hands of God. How else to account for such majesty? Maybe God is Mother Nature. Or vice versa. Regardless, the entity responsible for this has much mad respect.
These particular cloud formations erupted one night when the atmosphere turned itself upside down, threatening tornados nearby, and shattering the summer sweetness with some driving rain, ending as soon as it began. Volatile stuff, more fun in retrospect than in the moments fraught with potential danger. The sensations of worry become more pronounced the older we get.
As soon as they formed, they dispersed and dissembled. I could barely get these shots in time before the beauty passed. That lends another layer of meaning to them. There will never be another time when the sky looks exactly like this. It was, and will forever remain, a once-in-a-lifetime image.
