She was the effervescent injection of fun energy into this otherwise-lackuster season of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ but she will always hold a special place in my heart for her Oscar-nominated turn in ‘Bullets Over Broadway’. Jennifer Tilly has been thrilling audiences for years, and based on the glimpse we got of her fabulous life this past season, she’s made her daily existence into a work of art, hence this Dazzler of the Day crowning.
Every year I forget we have this single crocus corm, and every year it takes me by pleasant surprise as it comes into bloom, that is when I’m lucky enough to capture it before the lingering winter weather turns it to mush or some greedy chipmunk plucks it in its pretty prime. This year it managed to find a pocket of sun and warmth (before the latest shower of snow and cold weather) in which to bloom, and fate had me walking in the side yard to spot its glorious color amid a landscape of browns and grays.
For all its whimsical magic, the way it takes me by surprise every year, there is also something comforting and reassuring about the notion of tradition and repetition. In a world that feels less stable by the day, nature reminds that she will not be swayed or rushed or nudged or defied. Whenever I get bogged down by the mess that we humans are making of things, I return to nature and the lessons she has always taught us when we care enough to stop and listen.
A dreamy spring finds a sky that complements its dreaminess.
Think the ‘Lover‘ color theme from that Taylor Swift era.
Think the background of the mural behind the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis in New York.
Here we have the whimsical addition of a moon as it was encroaching on achieving full status – this would become the Pink Moon – fitting for a sky featuring clouds hinting at pink.
Some days the sky feels more like a painting – muted, soft, impossibly beautiful.
Or maybe some days the paintings are like the sky – muted, soft, impossibly beautiful.
‘The Last of Us‘ has taken over from ‘The White Lotus‘ as the only television I’m watching right now (ok, with the guilty exception of the reunion episodes of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills‘). And truth be told, all of it is just a waiting game for the new season of ‘The Gilded Age’.
This shirtless post of Pete Buttigieg is dwarfed by the reaction to any shot of Pete Buttigieg with a beard. Nobody who frequents this blog seems mad about it.
{See also this couple of Dazzlers.}
We need spring and we need it yesterday.
In the hopes that it is on the way, here is a dreamy vibe to musically invite the sun back to stay a while.
Saint Etienne also performed this glorious summer song that personified the sunniest season decades ago. It still bring summer to mind whenever I hear it. It is the sound of hope and light and water…
Spring arrives in short, halted steps – retreating a bit with some wet snow, then advancing in tentative fashion – while we wait anxiously for things to warm up and give us a hint of sunnier days to come. The past week brought a full Pink Moon, and the requisite restless sleep and stressful exhaustion that accompanies such lunar stretches. That rollercoaster of a weekly recap begins now…
Spoiler alert: Buster Poindexter is NOT the same person as Al Franken.
Bonus shirtless Patrick Schwarzenegger post.
A monologue for this very moment.
Is Levina pronounced like ‘Regina’ or ‘vagina’?
This one goes out to those FOTUS voters who voted because the economy.
History repeating, ducks quacking.
Bad ass boys ride bad ass toys!
Do I even have the energy to build rapport with a new tailor?
I don’t feel like I do.
(And are we even in the first world anymore? I fear we’ve already slipped at least to second.)
My friend Anu asked me what the alternative to building rapport with a new tailor was, to which I replied I’d have to learn how to hem pants. Not a big deal, and I’d have saved myself hundreds of dollars in adjustments over the years, I just yawn thinking of the prospect. The other consideration is that my eyesight is nowhere near what it once was, and I don’t want to go blind like all the sewing nuns that came before me.
Back when I wrote freelance for Edge Media, I would get DVDs to review ñ some of which were fun (and then-expensive) such as a full season three of ‘Cheers’ that brought me way back to my childhood. (I was team Diane during her whole tumultuous run, as a prim and proper Virgo would be.)
One of those DVD sets was a compilation of Aaron Star’s ‘Hot Nude Yoga’ series, which was exactly as billed: a bunch of men doing nude yoga in their birthday suits. When it was released literally a couple of decades ago, it was relatively new and the gay man angle was a refreshing glimpse of what was happening far from the confines of upstate New York. While the scandalous notion of full-frontal male nudity may have been the main drawing card and point, the yoga practices were perfect for a beginner like myself, and I have been using the ‘Virgin‘ sequence on and off ever since. The days of me doffing clothing and joining in the naked method as prescribed have passed; I just can’t be bothered to get my kit off, especially in this winter-like weather, but the practice remains, and this past week I found myself returning to the poses and the deep breathing and the opportunity to add an hour of mindfulness to my day.
There was a time when I would automatically turn to a cocktail for help and support, especially during stressful situations. It’s been well over five years since I took a drink of alcohol, and my go-to stress-relief these days is meditation. The past few weeks have found me sleeping poorly and feeling stressed out more than usual, and I only noticed this in retrospect as I was on my third day of yoga. Somehow, without fully realizing or being cognizant of what I was doing, my coping mechanisms have evolved naturally into meditation and mindfulness. That’s a happy place to be, even in troubled times.
It’s also a place anyone can find if they work at it a bit every day. I started my meditation journey by doing it for two minutes a day. The trick is to be consistent, make it part of the daily routine, and build from there. After a week of two-minute daily meditations, go for three minutes. I was surprised how easily it came to increase my meditation time this way, and sitting in stillness and silence for fifteen minutes a day is a comfortable and quite welcome pause in the madness.
During the creation and execution of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale (2004 to 2005) my brother was living in Miami, Florida, and I made a couple of visits to see him. That Miami vibe crept into some aspects of the fairy’s tale, as evidenced by the photos here, taken by photographer Dennis Dean.
Dennis and I had corresponded back when my website was just taking off, and he was gracious enough to do a photo shoot on one of my visits. My brother drove us to his home, where we took some photos, and Dennis asked my brother to join in for some of the shoot, which was fun (I was completely floored that my brother was game for it). Miami had long passed the crest of its mid-90’s cool factor, and I was already almost aged out of the club scene by then (not that I was ever even into any club scene), so it was amusing to simply witness it from a distance. There were other things that attracted my interest then, such as the tropical plants that grew so casually outside, or the mesmerizing pull of the ocean just across the street from the Art Deco stretch of hotels.
I would return there on an official Divine Diva Tour stop, carrying this cumbersome binder of a tour book with me. Miami has its darker underside too, but that’s a different tale for a different project.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
Many hats were worn for The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale, literally and figuratively, as they’ve been worn for my whole life. Does a shifting image make it easier to narrow down who you might be, or only add confusion to the mix? Does trying on different guises help us select which paths we take, or merely delay the inevitable crawl into our true selves? And how many selves might we find in a single lifetime?
“I was just, as a child, very different from the others, and didn’t really care what they thought because you know, a child doesn’t really have inhibitions; you sort of gain your inhibitions later.” ~ Philip Treacy
“The personality of the wearer and the hat makes the hat.” ~ Philip Treacy
“I remember in the early nineties people saying the hat was just for old women, but that’s ridiculous.” ~ Philip Treacy
“Hats are radical; only people that wear hats understand that.” ~ Philip Treacy
“How a hat makes you feel is what a hat is all about.” ~ Philip Treacy
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
A turn into the stereotypically-masculine (read: toxic, if we’d used such terms twenty years ago) marks this shift in The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale. After the powder-blue doll posts (and one milky interlude) this gives the sort of attitude that is more laughable than formidable, which is the perfect tone for a project that found me at my most unintentionally hilarious.
“Irony has seeped into the felt of any fedora hat I have ever owned – not out of any wish of mine, but out of necessity. A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me.” ~ George W. S. Trow
“There are very few moments in a man’s existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.” ~ Charles Dickens
“Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” ~ Frank Sinatra
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
Watching Madonna sip milk from a bowl like a cat was an indelible image from her ‘Express Yourself’ video, and it’s a scene that stayed with me up until this day. Coupled with the ‘Got milk?‘ ad campaign from my youth, this Divina Diva interlude switches us back into traditionally masculine mode – a recurring motif of stereotypical gender ideas twisted or flipped in some way.
“I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.” ~ H. L. Mencken
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
When last we left The Divine Diva Tour Book: A Fairy’s Tale, I’d unlocked the comical key to making bad drag and ridiculous scenes work in a way that touched on fantasy, glamour and fun, and finally allowed me not to take myself too seriously. That lesson was one of the most lasting and important from the project, and I’m not sure if it actually sunk in until all these years later. Two decades gives one a more accurate take on how things really played out. Only with the perspective of time do we see some things in their genuine light.
And so we revisit this platinum-ringleted diva in her natural state, primping or prepping for some fabulous time on the town, or making plans for a party she is about to host.
A diva’s life requires meticulous planning and careful consideration of every potential move. It is one giant chess game, and end result of which is to look like it is a carefree and effortless existence. Ease and style, grace and panache, and all of it without the slightest outward concern.
As with most diva antics, things rarely work out to the level of perfectionism she so badly wants to command. Such disappointment leads to demands… and exclamations of outrage when things don’t go her way.
She thinks everyone gets the act, that they see through the outrage to the fear and hurt, then she hopes they never do, and screams a little louder.
A diva shouts loudly into the void of a dead phone line, and our tale pauses for laughter. At the same time, a little line of doubt begins to thread its way into the narrative. Not all is powder-blue perfection and confection, and the underbelly of all this faux fur splendor reveals its vulnerabilities. Still, she screams… still, we laugh…
Then, another twist, another swing, and a sudden disturbing smile.
When a diva smiles like this, it’s best to run.
As fast and far as you can.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
