It’s rare to find an ‘Alan’ that spells his name correctly, so it’s especially thrilling to name Alan Cumming as Dazzler of the Day. It’s even rarer to find someone with such an exquisite last name, so Cumming wins on both fronts. An actor who has been shape-shifting like the most miraculous trickster over the last few decades, Cumming is one of those amazing performers who completely disappears in character, despite a larger-than-life personality that has made his Club Cumming a magnet for the most fascinating people. Seeing him on social media has given his coveted events and performances an accessibility that voyeurs like myself have feasted upon.
His career has spanned a generation, with notable film performances in ‘Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion’, ‘Circle of Friends’, ‘X-Men’, and ‘Emma’ (and during only a few seconds of screen time, he was easily the most interesting and engaging part of the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman/Stanley Kubrick masterpiece/fiasco that was ‘Eyes Wide Shut’) and his theatrical and television accomplishments are just as incendiary (he largely gave ‘Cabaret’ its renewed lease on life, lending a menace and pathos that got lost in the movie version). He’s put out a musical album, written several books, and released a fragrance line (with a name like ‘Cumming’ you just have to take a sniff), and regularly enthralls at his club. From all personal accounts, he is as sweet and generous and entertaining as you’d want him to be. Check out all the happenings at Club Cumming – I’m setting a goal to pop into New York before the year is out and finally visit this entertainment landmark.
As our favorite month of May enters its final full week, attention has shifted from the indoors to the outside, frost warnings and freezes be damned! I won’t waste precious time and space by droning on – here’s your weekly recap:
The scenario depicted here is one of life’s more infuriating moments, and it’s rampant on the Mass Turnpike whenever I’m trying to get to Boston. For those times when you need some constructive rage to light a fire under your ass, check out this Madonna-fueled post. And when you need to cool down, calm down, and slow down, revisit this post when I managed to turn the road rage off. I’m not always able to do it, so reminders like this are helpful.
Taking a picture of a picture and playing with reflections can reveal a portal into the past. The young man in the forefront is all of 18 years old, while the older, grayer man in shadow, looking like he is peering amusedly over his shoulder, is heading toward 48. Three decades of difference and wondering at the world around them is revealed in this single shot. It’s easy to say that with age comes wisdom, and largely that may prove to be true, but when I look back at myself at that time, there was a certain wisdom inherent in innocence and not knowing things that carried its own weight and import. Of course, that was often overshadowed by the misguided pride and exuberance of youth, and the unabashed revelry one finds upon returning home for the summer after a year at college.
On my headphones, and originating from a walkman we once had to carry in our hands, this Janet Jackson song, ‘Love Will Never Do (Without You)’ played its booming melody and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis magnificence. With a video gorgeously directed by Herb Ritts, complete with more than a few erotic undertones (and some homoerotic ones for those looking really hard) this song became a summer anthem for me, and still brings me back to those carefree days…
Our friends think we’re opposites Falling in and out of love They’ve all said we’d never last Still, we manage to stay together
May had arrived in all its heady glory. Faced with the luxurious prospect of three summer months of freedom, my Virgo nature also understood it needed some sort of structure and plan to feel completely comfortable, and so I started a daily jogging regime, followed by a swim in the pool. It kept track of the days, provided a basic blueprint around which to organize a day, and kept me in shape.
While I would never quite be devastatingly cute enough to be a proper twink, I teetered on the brink of twinkdom on my best days, and in the warped, overcompensating method of finding self-confidence through faking it, I flagrantly began to revel in my youth in the way everyone should during its brief years of dominance. The robust confidence that came after a single year away at school left me feeling undeservedly superior and slightly smug, and I’m just thankful I didn’t turn into a total monster.
Pounding the pavement as delicately as I could muster while jogging (and doing my best to avoid shin splints) I embraced the warm days and looked forward to traveling around my small hometown, which felt even smaller after a year’s glimpse at more expansive places. Halfway through these runs I’d doff my shirt, as much for pleasure as it was for comfort – the sun felt wonderful, especially when I recalled practically crying when the 20th snowstorm of the year barreled across the campus of Brandeis just a few short, and cold, months earlier. It was also a relief to be freed from sweaty clothing – nipple-chafing is a very real and painful thing – I don’t care how deeply one might enjoy some nipple-play. There was also something vain in it – the body and mind wanting to reveal themselves for reasons that went back centuries, and it felt as primal as it did imposed by a society that celebrated sex for all its selling points.
There’s no easy explanation for it But whenever there’s a problem We always work it out somehow Work it out somehow
They said it wouldn’t last We had to prove them wrong ‘Cause I’ve learned in the past That love would never do without you
Sprinting into the final days of my teenage years, I yearned for adulthood before realizing I had already entered it – the body advancing so much sooner than the mind. In-between girlfriends, and not quite having arrived at boyfriends yet, my love for this song was questionable given my relative inexperience in all things having to do with romance. Yet it spoke to me, and in a powerful way, and every summer that followed I would return to its spell, happily entranced by the notion of love, even if I had no love affair of my own to set to its music.
Other guys have tried before To replace you as my lover Never did I have a doubt Boy, it’s you I can’t do without
I feel better when I have you near me ‘Cause no other love around Has quite the same, ooh, ooh Like you do, do, do, do babe
Winding my way back home, I slowed as I neared our block, beginning the cool down that would culminate with a dip in the pool, dousing the fire that burned all about the body – a delicious denouement to the only work I had to do that summer. It was an indulgence – a harmless decadence that took place mostly in my mind because all of this happened in solitude. After years of doubting myself, and having others doubt me, it felt like a beginning of something else – a more genuine sort of self-love, of learning that I could be ok on my own. I didn’t see it then, but this song would not end up being the soundtrack to some great romance with anyone else – it would be the giddy and surprisingly reliable accompaniment to the love affair we should all be having with ourselves.
They said it wouldn’t last We had to prove them wrong ‘Cause I’ve learned in the past That love would never do without you
And so that May passed all too quickly – and that brief time in which I thought I was hot shit, and maybe I was, would prove to wither like so many spring blossoms that weren’t designed to last in the heat. Did I make the most of it? For the most part, yes. Do I wish I had realized more fully what a lovely thing it was to be young? Yes. That too. Do I miss the underlying wonder, panic and worry at not knowing what I should be doing and not knowing what I wanted to be doing? Not a bit, because it still fuels me to this day.
As for this song, it’s still a bop, still a summer dream, still a portal to the lusty month of May, when a young man once ran away from his youth, on the hunt for love.
(They said it wouldn’t last) (They said) hey (They said it wouldn’t) what do you want? (They said it wouldn’t last)
If you believe in love, sing (Love will never do) (Love will never do without you)
When left with the luxury of a day to enjoy, I tend to slow down and savor the simple minutes. Even when looking back on otherwise-busy weekends, it has been the downtime and in-between moments that were often the most memorable. On this morning I made a stop at the South End Buttery, one of the local haunts that I’m auditioning for the sorrowful vacancy left by the closing of Café Madeleine. It’s actually been around a lot longer than that beloved Café, and has some delicious scones – it’s just a little further from the condo. A regular haunt is a comfort when one is used to structure and routine. When I worked at the Structure store, and later John Hancock, I would make Finagle-a-Bagel part of my morning schedule, but that got pricey to do every day. (I imagine it’s even more ridiculously exorbitant now.) But a coffee at the Buttery would be doable on a daily basis.
From there, I wound my way through the South End, and the morning was so magnificent – the way May can be at its most beautiful – it was a thrill just to see the flowers and tiny squares in bloom. I thought of how charming the scene would be at other turns of the year. By the time I meandered along the edge of Boston Common and skirted the Public Garden, it was early afternoon – a favorite pocket of the day to be back at the condo when the sun began streaming into the bedroom – so I headed there.
Back on Braddock Park, the tea kettle whistled and I sat down at the table in relief. I haven’t been in Boston much, or anywhere for that matter, and my distance-walking legs were not what they used to be. It felt good to sit and be still, and I realized that yes, this was something I could handle, and embrace. I hadn’t had to crack a book or scroll through a phone or find any method of amusement because I hadn’t come close to being bored, nor was there any sense of needing to occupy the time or fill it with activity, despite the pace to which I’ve grown accustomed.
I also hadn’t cooked or baked anything in the kitchen for a while – another thing I’m looking forward to doing in Boston more when there aren’t a hundred new restaurants to try. All of these abstract ideas took more solid and defined form in my head, and I allowed myself a brief indulgence of the planning process that will ensue in more concrete form in a few more years. Time will pass all too quicker than I want it to, so I’m putting these thoughts back in their pretty box for now, content to focus on the moment at hand and fully inhabit the present. And so it is that I end this post, and this little jump to the future, and return to life as it currently stands. I don’t want to wish any of it away.
Calm down, I tell myself, just calm the fuck down. My retirement eligibility won’t kick in for another eight or nine years, but having made it through more than two-thirds of my working career part of me understands that it’s not too soon to plan that far ahead, particularly when it comes to such a major life-shift. And retirement is something I’ve longed for since the day I first started as a Data Entry Machine Operator in a year that still had titles like ‘Data Entry Machine Operator’. I’ve always joked that I’d retire yesterday if it were a financial possibility, but at this point working has become part of the fabric of my existence, and I’m not entirely sorry that it has become so.
There is noble work that my agency accomplishes, and I’m proud to be part of the HR force that supports everyone doing that important work. Still, I’m starting to feel the earliest tinges of burn-out, and I’ve noticed the slow slump of either age or cynicism that seeps into my walk into the office in the morning. It’s the state worker slump, and no one is immune. In a few years it will be time to retire, so when I was recently afforded some unexpected time alone in Boston, I decided to plunge into what a day in retirement mode might look like.
Part of my retirement plan is to spend more time in Boston during the week, something I don’t get to do right now. It would allow me to simply be in Boston – and by ‘be’ I mean to simply live and exist – without having to jam-pack a billion different things into one wicked tiny weekend. I did that once in my youth, and I’ve missed it. That would also give Andy a break from me when I get a little too extra. (One thing that being home together during the early months of COVID revealed was that we very much appreciate our own alone time.)
Most of the weekends I currently spend in Boston are filled with shopping and eating and the occasional show – and all of those require money. Fine for the visits that happen just a few times during a year, but not something sustainable for retirement purposes. What would I do when the paychecks dwindled and I had nothing but hours to fill? Would I get bored or long for something to do? I set about in the morning to see how it might feel, and how I might navigate or plot out what will hopefully be the rest of my life. As I opened the door and stepped outside, I studied the shadows of the handrail on the steps – this shadow has followed its same trajectory for over a century. I felt myself approaching some sort of realization of the scope of time, then backed quickly away from dwelling on it. This was not the day or the moment to start tackling that kind of philosophical conundrum…
Backed by a new bag by Trina Turk (my wallet would not withstand the matching suit by Mr. Turk) an old cologne, ‘Bamboo Harmony’ by Kilian, reminds of happy memories, particularly at this time of the year. Spring injects a new bounce into the step, as does this fun new bag, coupled with a green tea-inflected fragrance. It’s the little things that get us through the big things.
“Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.” – Galileo Galilei
Any opportunity to showcase one of the greatest living artists of the moment should be taken and explored to the utmost, so it is with fevered pleasure that the featured work here – ‘Flower Bed’ by Michael Breyette – that I present this blog post extolling the artist’s virtues. ‘Flower Bed’ came across my social media path as a harbinger of spring, and Breyette described it as such on his enchanting website: “I’ve always been intrigued by the impact nature can have on someone, the serenity of sitting by the ocean, the peacefulness of a walk in the woods, the coziness of a rainy day or the cheerfulness brought by flowers. In contrast, man’s effect on nature is not usually too positive. So with that I offer man enjoying nature, positioned between a bed of flowers and a bee. The bee population is suffering from massive ‘die offs’ globally, in which man certainly has a hand.”
From there, I hastened to delve into what Breyette has been up to of late, which brought me to a recent work, ‘Beach Bums’ – the perfect segue into the sunnier season on the horizon. It paints a picture of a tranquil stroll by the sea, indulging in the play of sand upon the feet, the ocean in the air, and the comfort of a lover’s hand in your own.
Closing out this post is the simplicity and grandeur of ‘Arcadian Lake’ – a contemplative pose of pause at the edge of a lake, where the gaze of the subject is fixed loosely out of frame, lending the work a mystery and intrigue that merely hints and whispers of something just out of reach. Like all of Breyette’s work, it leaves the viewer wanting more.
We are in that exquisite overlap of time when the American lilac is just finishing its blooming cycle and the Korean lilac is just starting its own show. These two varieties of lilac are a match made in sniffing heaven, with one picking up right as the other is finishing, extending the season of sweet perfume.
If you have to choose just one of these for your garden, I’d give the edge to the Korean lilac, which begins when there is warmer weather for enjoying its blooms. Its seemingly delicate foliage belies the fact that I’ve never seen it afflicted by powdery mildew at all, something that has consistently felled the American lilac leaves without fail over the past ten years, no matter how much circulation they get. The Korean version is also more manageable size-wise for those of us with limited space; they can be kept to a small shrub, or let loose to grow into a substantial size. (The American lilac will quickly soar higher than most adults can reach if unchecked; Andy remembers his Mom perched dangerously on a ladder to reach some of the blooms for cutting.)
One final bonus for the Korean lilac: it tends to re-bloom in late summer, when a few cool nights seem to trick the plant into thinking it’s time to flower. There’s something very magical about a re-bloom.
It takes a great many lily-of-the-valley stalks to make a bouquet that’s going to leave an impression, but it’s always worth it to bring their sweet perfume indoors. Currently we have a couple of colonies of this beautiful, if slightly invasive, groundcover, and they are lending the spring air a delicious fragrance, mingling with the remnants of the American lilac as their bloom comes to a close, and heralding the start of the Korean lilac season.
Lily-of-the-valley was a favorite of my grandmother, and it retains an old-fashioned element that is well-deserved due to its hardiness and insistence on spanning the generations. I’ll let the flower spikes go to seed, as any diminishment or weakening of the swaths we have going is not a bad thing. The brilliant red berries that remain are a treat to find in autumn when color is more rare.
Christine Sun Kim is an artist whose work focuses on sound, and sometimes its absence, positing intriguing explorations of art through music, linguistics, drawing, and performance. Her body of work is as impressive as it is wondrously varied and powerful. A magnificently minimalist website offers glimpses into her work and career, as encapsulated in the excerpt below. Her passionate search for the myriad ways in which we communicate is one of the most important journeys ever made by a Dazzler of the Day.
In her work, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim, whose first language is American Sign Language (ASL), approaches the concept of sound via deconstructive exercises, experiments, and observations through drawing, painting, and performance. Over the course of developing her own visual language, Kim explores and employs elements from various information systems. By combining aspects of graphic and musical notation, body language, and ASL, she uses these systems as a means to expand what each is able to communicate and to invent a new grammar and structure structure for her compositions.
Performance is also part of Kim’s practice, often providing the starting point for works on paper that display witty evocations of both sounds and signs. She highlights what is constantly present and yet unnamed by us all through naming and then deconstructing preconceived ideas about sound and communication through their parameters, social values, and linguistics. Moreover, Kim works within and around the nuances of sound: at what point does noise become sound? When is something appropriate, and whose job is it to determine the agreeability of a sound, a noise, and their ensuing respectability or social capital?
Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, California) received a Master of Fine Arts in Music / Sound from Bard College in 2013. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Whitney Museum, New York (2018); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (2017); Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2017); Berlin Biennale (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2016); Sound Live Tokyo (2015, 2013); MoMA PS1, New York (2015) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). Kim was awarded a MIT Media Lab Fellowship and a TED Senior Fellowship and has presented at numerous conferences and symposia. She lives and works in Berlin.
My love for cologne and perfume should clue everyone into the fact that I love fragrance – not just as a personal affect but as an atmosphere-enhancer. It is with great care and precision that I select what scents go into our home, whether that’s through misting humidifiers, candles, or room sprays. My favorite go-to scent when preparing the house for guests is a discontinued Yankee Candle named ‘Greenhouse’ – it has the convincingly-heavenly scent of its namesake, plain and simple – the green, grassy and earthy perfume from a floral shop or greenhouse is somehow distill into this candle, and I’ve used it sparingly because I can no longer find it. (Every once in a while it will show up in an outlet or Marshall’s and I’ll grab whatever is available.) That luck can’t last forever, so if you see one please get it for me.
This season, I’ve finally found a suitable alternative, and a genuinely lovely candle/fragrance in its own right. It’s the ‘Tomato Plant’ candle from Trader Joe’s. Do not be put off by its title – I’m not a fan of the bruised tomato leaf scent, and this only hints at that pungent signifier of summer. Instead, it carries a fresh and tart green fragrance, sweetened by some listed bergamot and rhubarb. The result is a ‘Greenhouse’ variant that gloriously rekindles that long-lost beauty – a perfect segue from spring to summer. I’m stocking up as we speak…
This is a style of door handle I’ve never seen before, and it was designed to allow for someone to open the door with the crook of their elbow so as to avoid touching it with their bare hands. An interesting concept, but the execution and design brings to mind something decidedly different. Don’t even tell me this isn’t a barely-disguised dildo waiting for some drunken dare and an ensuing lawsuit. The least they could have done is bend it downward, but maybe they wanted the provocative angle.
My adoration for Martha Stewart goes back decades, when I first caught her show in the months that I had begun to date Andy. In between jobs and locations, I found myself at his house in the middle of the day, when I would find her show in an early afternoon hour, and her voice was always so soothing and calming, that I connected that to a happy and idyllic way of life. Since then, we all know the rollercoaster she’s been on, and she’s still around and kicking ass because she’s a boss. ‘Sports Illustrated’ recently made her their oldest cover subject for their celebrated Swimsuit Issue, and nothing makes me happier. Check out her website here for more ‘good living’ (I’ve never had a failure with any of her recipes) and have no doubt that she is definitely a Dazzler of the Day.
The world needs more happy posts like this one, which captures our recent Mother’s Day dinner in Amsterdam, at Mom and Dad’s new digs. It was very much a family affair, proving that home is wherever the family heart beats, and it stretched from Dad in his 90’s to little Jaxon Layne who is only in his 10th month. It was Landrie’s first Mother’s Day, and it was Mom’s 47th. Here’s to many more!
