One of my favorite artists also happens to be a favorite friend: Kevin Bruce. A pillar of Albany’s artistic community, Kevin is one of the most entertaining and supportive artists in the Capital Region, happily contributing work and time and energy to many causes and events over the years. I first wrote about him in this post, and a few years later he was named Dazzler of the Day because a more worthy person of that dazzling moniker simply doesn’t exist.
His work is whimsical and witty, imbued with knowing winks and nods, and laced with deeper meanings and layers of innuendo. There are cheeky, sexier aspects present too, coupled with humor and offset with innocent exuberance. A fantasy, a flight, a defiance of rules and boundaries – all in the name of artistic freedom and release. Bruce finds the wonder of a moment, then bends and transforms it into something magical, plucked from the realm of imagination and make-believe then made into gorgeous scenes that suddenly feel like possibility incarnate.
By grounding his subjects in everyday, relatable situations (one of my favorite works of his is a masterful depiction of the crowd at the downtown Albany Dunkin’ Donuts) he is able to employ more fanciful elements in the outfits and actions depicted. His alter-ego Whiskey Sour saw us through those first few tumultuous home-ridden months of the pandemic, doing what she always did best in the form of madcap entertainment and indomitable enthusiasm. We need more of that kind of spirit in the world, and I’m happy that Kevin Bruce is here to provide it through his artwork and in his inspirational existence.
{Check out his FaceBook page here, where he regularly posts pics of his work. It’s a joyful addition to the otherwise-drab social media landscape.}
All of these informed the days of Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’ album, and in that incense and patchouli-scented period of time, a classic pop moment was born. At the age of thirteen I was just awakening to the world around me, and my place in it. Such a heady time needed a dramatic soundtrack, and ‘Like A Prayer’ was it.
Through the ensuing years, the album has matured and endured, growing more resonant with the passing of time, ageless with its themes of family, love, empowerment, spirituality, and self-discovery. With Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, Madonna crafted one of the finest pop albums of the 1980’s, topping off the decade that she ruled and setting up the pinnacle of her pop culture reign. ‘Like A Prayer’ was the first time the world began to understand her legacy and place in musical history.
Sometimes, though, that albatross of the past, and all the controversies that would come, weighed heavily on the heart and mind. It’s been over three decades since ‘Like A Prayer’ was released, and trying to encapsulate an understanding or summary of such a stretch is a daunting endeavor. Sometimes I just want to put on the music and let it take me there…
When confronted with the quest to find a defining song for this website, I turned to the children in my life – their answers will be forthcoming in the next few months, but it seemed unfair to task them with such a daunting challenge when they’ve only known me for the short duration of their lives thus far. How dare I ask someone else when I haven’t narrowed it down myself? And so let’s begin a little collection of songs that I would put on a mix tape if I’d met you when we were both teenagers in love. Up first, ‘Grace Kelly’. Ca-ching!
Do I attract you? Do I repulse you with my queasy smile? Am I too dirty, am I too flirty? Do I like what you like? I could be wholesome, I could be loathsome, I guess I’m a little bit shy Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me, without making me try?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly But all her looks were too sad, So I tried a little Freddie, I’ve gone identity mad!
After knocking about this planet for forty-seven-and-counting years, I’ve got bruises and black-and-blue memories and tales of thrashing my brain and body against all sorts of odds and ends. At this point, perhaps a turning point, or a midway point, or a point of contention, I’m more willing to be unwilling to change for anyone or anything. The grace of Ms. Kelly and the brazen boldness of Mr. Freddie were never for me, despite my early Norma-mantra of ‘I can play any role!’ Wishful thinking, powerful enough for the younger years when one could coast on a wish and a prayer and the sheer will to make it so. One person’s confidence is another’s delusion.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Why don’t you walk out the door?
And so for many years – too many years – I tried to be everything I thought everybody else wanted. After several failed attempts at romance, and being too needy and quick to rush into a relationship, I learned all too slowly and painfully that people didn’t want that, and so I became someone who didn’t want or need anyone. Hardening off the heart and numbing the brain, I deadened my exuberant thrill and giddy excitement at meeting someone who fascinated me. Those were the rules, and to try to play outside of them simply didn’t work for me. Once I played that silly game, I could get the guy. Even if I couldn’t keep him. It was maddening.
Getting angry doesn’t solve anything…
So I became smarter. And harder. And cared even less. And I got a few more guys, and some stayed longer than others. And still I knew it wasn’t me. I couldn’t tell you what was me – I couldn’t even tell myself that then. I simply didn’t know, even if I was sure I did, and the blind-faith of youth was more blind than faithful. Left with gaping holes I covered with velvet and chiffon, in the manner of Grace Kelly herself, I hung the rusty sharpness of all my crooked nails and wonky screws with fancy duds and witty theatrics. Hiding in all the fantasy of black and white dramas, thinking I could outsmart the world and trap any bachelor with a penchant for other bachelors – I put myself above all others as a gambit, knowing full well there was nothing behind it. When there is nothing behind your image, you can be anything and everything – and it still amounts to nothing.
How can I help it, how can I help it? How can I help what you think? Hello my baby, hello my baby, putting my life on my brink Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Why don’t you like yourself? Should I bend over, should I look older, just to be put on your shelf?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly, But all her looks were too sad, So I tried a little Freddie, I’ve gone identity mad!
The first whispers of humility, of acknowledging my failures and imperfections, sounded in the distance, but I didn’t heed them. Certain that I could be what everyone else wanted, if they would simply tell me what they wanted, I made a vow to mold myself into someone desirable. Shedding styles and modes from season to season, every new person was a chance to become someone new myself, and every time I gave something up, I moved further from who I was.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
Let’s have an orchestral moment – for pomp and circumstance and the bombast of youth. We are so sure of ourselves for such a very short time. Only the very foolish keep their delusions. The very foolish… and maybe the very happy.
Say what you want to satisfy yourself, hey But you only want what everybody else says you should want You want
A moment of mourning, then, for that foolishness. For that innocence. For that young man who knocked himself about like we all do in our early twenties. Because once I knew a little more about life, and loss, I wanted to be a little better. Slowly, the awakening began, and every day I felt a little more awake, a little more like myself. Understanding that, and seeing for maybe the first time that every day would not bring more knowledge, but more questions, began informing the way I lived. It wasn’t the answers I needed to find, it was the acceptance of all that I couldn’t and wouldn’t come to know.
There would be days when I would get ahead of myself, when the hubris of history and all the beautiful barriers I’d erected for decades would get the better of my decent intentions and send me hurtling back to a place of cruelty and fear and smallness. And then there would be days when I made all the right decisions, when the world smiled back if I ventured to smile first, when I met someone magical like Andy who taught me things and allowed me to teach him things too.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
Is there such a thing as a happy ending? I don’t know. The older I get, the more we seem to lose. Beauty. Youth. Health. People we love. The closer we approach our own ending, the less happy life seems to get. I think it may have to be enough to find a tiny bit of happiness for which to be grateful at the end of every day – whether that’s in a stubborn patch of snow that finally melted, a violet that throws off an unexpected bloom, or a cookie that a co-worker brings you. If we find our happiness in the simple and grand glory of living out an average day, then that may be our happy ending.
Well… this was not what I intended to write when I chose this song, but some songs guide you differently as you write things out. This was going to be as colorful and brash as the explosion behind me in the accompanying pictures. It was meant to echo the driving defiance of ‘Grace Kelly’ and Mika’s impassioned delivery. Instead it stands in stark contrast to that, a monument to my failures and mistakes, an ode to imperfection and everything wrong, and a reminder to embrace it, make it better, and then let it go.
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me? Walk out the door!
Viva Empanadas is one of the delicious vendors at Galleria 7 Market in Latham, and I introduced Suzie to their glory at dinner last night. I first tried these empanadas this winter, on a quiet Saturday before Andy woke up. I was going to save one for him, but they didn’t make it. The filling and the sauces were just too good.
Suzie and I ordered a variety of four each – I’d only had a dry turkey sandwich that day, or so I justified it. A plate of three would have sufficed, but some dinners should be an excess of goodness, especially at the end of winter. It wasn’t difficult to finish them all. Suzie managed to save one.
One of the Capital Region’s most venerable and vital resources for the community of LGBTQAI+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. In Our Own Voices, Inc. has been providing programs and services to the community for a quarter of a century, and gloriously heading up the helm of that organization is the ever-fabulous Tandra LaGrone. With a warm and welcoming smile that ignites whatever room is lucky enough to have her in it, Tandra is one of those magnetic characters who draws all people toward her infectiously enthusiastic spirit. The sparkle and pizzazz of her personality is matched only by her prowess and power in making things happen. While she is working on preparations for the silver anniversary of IOOV, she also has her eyes keenly focused on this summer’s BlPOC Pride Celebration, with planning sessions taking place in the days and weeks to come. Visit their website here for more information. It’s always a joy to name someone I actually know as Dazzler of the Day – and knowing Tandra is a joy unto itself.
{The 25th Birthday celebration for In Our Own Voices, Inc. will take place on Saturday, March 25, 2023 at the State Room in downtown Albany. Tickets for this event are available here.}
Billed as one of the bestsellers in stores that sell such items, the Billionaire Brownie comes in many variations. For my first attempt, I used a recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, which uses a brown sugar shortbread as the base, a layer of caramel, and then a brownie on top of that. They said more caramel could be added on top, but I’ve never been a big caramel fan, so I veered away from that – and honestly there was more than enough in the middle layer (a whole cup).
The results were spectacular for what was a rather simple recipe. The only time-consuming part was making the shortbread base and letting it cool before all the caramel and brownie mix can go on top. I was worried about double baking the shortbread, but it didn’t burn at all – and the brownies actually had to bake for fifteen minutes longer than the recipe time indicated before they were done (I lost track of how many dirty toothpicks gave their lives for this enterprise).
These sorry photos don’t do the sweet goodness half its due justice.
The full moon called to me last night, without warning or preparation, as I found myself on an errand and looked up to find her there, low in the sky, dancing with the bare tree limbs of late winter, and playing hide and seek as if it were possible for a full moon to hide in the barren sky of winter. She ducked behind branches, obscured herself in evergreen boughs, but her light shone through it all.
She followed me as I finished my errands, rising and changing from a soft shade of canary to a pale white as the night turned black. I captured her on the rise, when there was still blue in the sky, when a hint of spring rode on the breeze.
This is the Lenten Moon – also called the Worm Moon – and it’s the final full moon of the winter. Another sign of the season of slumber winding down. While this moon was going up, I saw Jupiter and Venus descending in the sky. All this planetary action feels exciting, signaling the earliest shift from winter to spring.
At this time of the year, my weekly pilgrimages to Faddegon’s are the only thing keeping my plant-loving soul alive. Starved for greenery and life as we await the slow-to-come end of winter, I whisper a prayer for an early spring, or at least a respite from the winter weather we’ve had of late. Speaking of prayers, the stunning foliage pictured here is from the prayer plant, a tricky plant I won’t even attempt, as much as I love the way it folds up its leaves at night as in prayer, giving it the common name. They are rumored to be too finicky for my basic plant care routine, and the spider mites love them, so I just need the stress.
They remain, however, ravishing, as you can glean from these glimpses. The mottled pattern and varying shades of green of their leaves look like a visual essay on painting – a vital jolt of beauty while the outside world remains gray and brown and barren.
A Monday in March, when the calendar still reads of winter, can feel like one of the sadder days of the year, especially when the time change is still on the horizon (is this really the last one ever?) The question hangs in the air, like Monday takes its time to pass, crawling to a slow but hopefully inevitable end.
Outside, the pool looks like a little pond, a calm and quaint version of the riotously green visage that will return in just a few months. Winter’s slumber is not quite done. The re-charge continues…
Here we are at March, the month in which spring will arrive ~ whether or not the weather will mirror that remains to be seen. At the moment, it very much feels like winter, with one of our bigger snowstorms having just dumped a fresh crop of white stuff on us. With that in mind, let’s rush through this next week, on the way to spring, the sooner the better…
From the magical way she describes the visual alchemy of the blooming periods of goldenrod and asters, to the pin-point accuracy of her scientific acumen, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been seducing readers with her wonderful work ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’. Weaving her scientific work as a botanist and professor with her background as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Kimmerer reveals the importance of people and plants working in tandem, and how a generosity of spirit and living is essential to our healthy survival. In beautiful fashion, she tells stories that aim to marvel in their gorgeous and moving way of intertwining science and a love of the earth. She earns this Dazzler of the Day for positing the revolutionary idea that how we treat the earth, and how we treat each other, will directly affect how we survive in the future.
“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s richly-resonant book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ is a wonderful way to wind up this winter season, and I’m taking my time getting through it so as to extend its wonderful spell. Kimmerer writes stories that weave Indigenous wisdom with scientific theory, held together by her love for this earth and our place in it. Her writing is compassionate and healing, the very things we need more of, especially at the tail end of winter. It reminds me to be more careful and considerate of what we take, how we take it, and what we give back – in deeds, in love, in thoughts and in action.
“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer
The tea kettle whistles from the kitchen, beckoning me to deeper warmth. Pouring the steaming water into a tea cup, I embrace the ritual, finding solace in the customary motion. The body and the mind lead one another – when the mind is stubborn and unwilling, putting the body into motion sparks the familiar sensations, and the mind follows. Alternately, when the body is not up to the motion, the mind may lead, and the desire for those same sensations sparks the movement. Taken together, the happy denouement of a warm cup of tea in hand staves off the coldness of another winter night.
“I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.” ~ Oscar Wilde
The water in the crystal vase long ago dried up, but the roses largely held their form, still recognizable as roses, and from a distance still giving off the approximate form of their lush beginning. The rich rosy resonance has dissipated, any scent that remains is tied to decay and desiccation – a not-quite-fragrant embodiment of the word ‘faded’, the way you expect an antique to smell – dusty and ancient and dry.
Memories fade in a similar way, regardless of how many times we go over them in our heads, trying as we might to hold onto every detail of events and people that matter to us. In the end, all we have are hollow approximations of what came before, and they grow more hollow and empty with each passing hour.
“I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Youth fades too, and the plump full faces and skin cells of our younger years become gaunt and tired and saggy. Hair grows brittle and gray, as if being drained of life, and our senses grow dull and weak. It’s been a process that I haven’t been as bothered by as some had predicted, myself most of all. Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t seem as scary as I thought it would be. I was preparing for worse, and maybe that’s still to come. No one is spared the indignity of age if we are lucky enough to achieve it.
“But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.” ~ Oscar Wilde
And so we attempt to still time, to create something that lasts, a way to enshrine our memories, a method of preserving what has happened with the keen eye of what is current. This blog has come to embody the stilling of time in a certain sense, the way it freezes a moment, a memory, a photograph. These are the many pictures of Dorian Gray but in reverse – they stay the same while the rest of us grow old and whither away. It’s the way life should be, no matter how much we may rail against it.
“There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.” ~ Oscar Wilde
In a high scratchy collar decidedly not made of silk lace, in ropes of pearls around neck and wrist, I bind myself to another past, to another world, to another life. Tethered by trinkets and all that is trite, I have tied myself to an image entirely of my own making, and even if I have devised it to be shape-shifting and morphing and boundlessly expansive, it remains limited by my own failure of imagination. It is a trap, laid carefully by desire and fantasy, made pretty and frivolous and silly so as to mask its terrifying necessity, and the only way out is to become someone else.
If you’ve been yourself for as long as I’ve been myself, you’d be tired too.
“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us.” ~ Oscar Wilde
The first whispers of wisdom, when we finally start to listen to them, are naturally upsetting. There is no way to face the reality of this life without feeling sadness, a sense of fatality, and futility. The second whispers of wisdom, if we haven’t given up listening, are the ones we hear when we realize that we are not the end of the world, that the wonder and the horror and the glorious muck we have made of things will not end with us. That comes with its own menace and regret, but wisdom’s work is not quite done. It will follow us around until we are finally ready to listen again – and if we are still alive, and still listening, the whispers reveal the wisdom of those at peace, who have reached a certain stage of grace and happiness and contentment. The beginning of enlightenment, perhaps, if you believe in that sort of thing.
Sadly, I’m nowhere near that last bit of wisdom, however I am starting to listen again. The music is faint, but I know it’s there. Maybe it’s a song for another time, and another blog post. Maybe it’s a song you don’t want to hear. Maybe it’s a song I’m not quite ready to hear. And so I leave it here, for however long this fading corner of the internet remains in place. When we are ready for it, and I hope we will both be ready one day, may we find our way back.
