All the gays have made Josh Hutcherson the hot new Hollywood name (yes, again, because I feel like we already did this a number of years ago). The new resurgence is mostly from a couple of photos and perhaps a prosthetic penis scene in a recent film, and that’s all it really takes to be a Dazzler of the Day in this purgatorial week before we begin the New Year.
At the very time this almost-full Christmas moon was on the rise, the sun seen here was in the midst of its descent at the other end of the sky. As we dropped my Mom off at her new home after our first Christmas dinner without Dad, we paused to witness the moon and the sun dancing one last duet in the dimming of the day.
It had been a quiet and uneventful Christmas Day – the very best kind that we could have asked for this year. The weather had been quite kind as well, closing the afternoon with this pretty scene, which was more reminiscent of summer than the earliest days of winter. Lending the moment a welcome air of colorful beauty, it felt giddily at odds with the gray shadows that usually signify this season.
This, then, may have been our true gift – a glimpse into the sublime near the end of a somber year.
One day before it went fully full, the moon hung low in the sky as we wrapped up our first Christmas Day without Dad. He died on the first full moon of August, so when it goes full now it feels like a hello from him, even as it mucks things up in the way it always has. Or maybe it’s just another reminder of his goodbye. Whatever the case, it reminds me of him, keeping his memory alive.
After years of fearing the moon, and the effect it seems to often have on things, I’ve been coming around to appreciating it. One of the celestial constants in our lives, it informs more than we realize. Or maybe it doesn’t, and it’s all in our heads. If that’s how we assemble our lives, and make sense of the confusing and frightening and hurtful, then let us have our fanciful astrological constructions.
It wouldn’t be 2023 without another loss, and this time our family lost my Dad’s older brother – the oldest of the Ilagan brothers – my Uncle Ding (a shortened version of Narding, which is a Filipino nickname for Leonardo). That leaves just one last Ilagan brother – my Uncle Pablo – who just visited this fall.
Uncle Ding had had similar medical afflictions as my Dad, but for years longer. In many ways, it is yet another erosion of the people who have been in my life since I was born, and an echo of the loss of Dad this past summer.
Uncle Ding and his wife, my Aunt Sally, formed part of our favorite family visits in our childhood. They lived in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with their three children – our cousins Greg, Lee Marie and Mark. They were only a few years older, but as kids they might as well have been adults, as they wanted little to do with us, with the occasional exception of Mark, who took us around the block on his motorcycle once.
Our visits were centered around the NJ anesthesiology conference that Dad would attend with his brother. Mom would take us around to see the sights, usually in nearby Philadelphia, but we were more interested in hanging out in our Uncle’s cellar, where a pool table and air hockey and a foosball table provided the dreams for two boys whose own cellar was then only a holding place for the washer and dryer.
My brother and I would sneak out of bed at night and creep down into the basement, fire up the air hockey engine, clicking around the pool balls and somehow avoiding getting yelled at for keeping the house awake. My Aunt and Uncle seemed less strict with their kids than our Mom and Dad were with us, but everyone thinks that about their parents I suppose.
I remember one night we had already changed into our pajamas and were in the family room waiting for bedtime. I’d crossed my arms in front of me and must have looked cold, as my Uncle came over and asked if I wanted him to turn up the heat. It was the simplest and kindest thing to offer a kid like me, and something my own parents would have never bothered to do. I told him I was fine, but that little act endeared him to me for life.
He and Aunt Sally were a foil to my own parents in many ways, and they were there for all the weddings and funerals and formative family events in our lives. In later years, Andy got to to meet them, and he was as amused by them as they were by him. Now, another light has gone out, adding to the darkness that 2023 will forever embody for us.
Anyone who lists ‘Dandy’ as part of their social media profile is a Dazzler of the Day in my book. Coupled with Actor, Director and Producer, Emerson Collins checks all the requisite boxes and then some, filling out a career of Renaissance-scope accomplishments as well as he fills out the Speedos, jockstraps and underwear on his Instagram feed. His witty way with words and social media magnificence handily earns him this crowning, and his camera-ready persona and production expertise backs it all up with substance and style. Visit his website here for a more comprehensive look at his long list of accomplishments.
Given that Christmas fell on a Monday this year, the typical Monday-morning weekly recap we do here has been postponed until today. So while I’m going into the office to resume the work-week (why put it off any longer?) you can snuggle into your bed and your phone and scroll through all the posts you’ve been ignoring until this very moment.
It began with a tiny thread and an insignificant post.
Christmas comes with a deliciously scary side and her name is Fanny Cradock.
A salacious bit with some naked and semi-naked male flesh.
Forget eight, three is enough.
Albany’s Nipper pukes a rainbow! (There, I feel better!)
The world needs more biblical humor, especially this week.
The final day of fall reprises a found song.
The first day of winter sings with a whisper.
Put it in your hands and keep it there.
The Madonna Timeline returned with ‘God Control’.
An underwear-clad David Beckham by Victoria Beckham.
Mercury is in retrograde until next year. Fuck me hard.
A Christmas Santa Baby wish from Madonna.
A Christmas Safari thirty years in the making.
A Christmas visit to the cemetery.
Dazzlers of the Day included Morgan Spector and Ashlie Atkinson, because it was a celebratory week for ‘The Gilded Age’.
This has been a heavy year, and a heavy Christmas season. It feels incongruous with what Christmas has traditionally personified, but that’s all part of it. How could we ever experience the warmth and comfort without the cold and ache? Sometimes it’s not enough for the weather of the winter to be that dark and dismal – sometimes we have to feel it in our hearts.
As a frivolous antidote to such themes, I offer the following list of links to happier blog posts and memories, many from sunnier summer days, some from childhood, and all from a happier place than it feels like we’re in right now. Not everyone is happy or surrounded by loved ones on this day, so to anyone feeling lonely or simply not in the Christmas spirit, may this little list of look-backs provide some solace. Merry Christmas.
My father was never big on Christmas. He was always present, but we all understood it wasn’t his thing, and as his first Christmases with me would be happening at the same age that I am now, I can finally understand the lack of engagement and excitement about the season. For someone who’d lived through the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, then immigrated to this country to seek a better life for himself and his family, Christmas must have seemed like a silly exercise in gaudiness. He seemed most at home during the solemn moments at Christmas mass, when he would bow his head and I would wonder at what he might be thinking or ruminating.
That didn’t mean that Dad was not on my mind as we readied to prepare our first Christmas without him, and after dropping off gifts at my Mom’s new house, I found myself doing a U-turn to head back to the cemetery, just to visit his resting place before the holiday. Like my last visit to the cemetery, I hadn’t planned it, I simply went. Out of respect, out of loyalty, out of obligation, and mostly out of love, and missing him.
The day was cold – overcast in dismal shades of gray, and cut with a biting wind. I paused at the bottom of the cemetery and got out to walk beside the stand of cattails and wildflowers that were in bloom only a few months ago. They were brown and dead now, and still somehow beautiful. I’d picked a make-shift bouquet last time I was there, but no such trifles would be procured today. Dad was never one for such decoration, even if it was Christmas.
I got back in the car and drove to the site. Atop a stark hill, it sat near a road along which the occasional car would travel, reminding me that we were never truly alone. That didn’t stop the loneliness.
Looking up at the boughs of a nearby evergreen, I saw the pendulous future hanging in the pinecones, dangling like ornaments and decorating the cemetery in the only manner fitting to such sacred space. A multitude of future trees held their promise and possibility within – so much hidden life among so much quiet death.
I couldn’t feel my father lingering there, and I didn’t blame him. He would have hurried out of the cold, even if he’d made it his home far from the warmth of the Philippines, even if he was the one to snow-blow the driveway after every storm.
Later that day we would find out that Dad’s next-to-last surviving brother, who’d had similar struggles to Dad, and for years longer, had died. A sad and somber year takes another beloved soul. Perhaps he will join Dad wherever they might be, and have a Christmas reunion.
Nostalgia is not familiar territory for me, but at this time of the year it feels like a proper bit of indulgence. So it was that I stumbled fatefully into the back of the cologne cabinet, and down a memory slide that brought me all the way to the holiday season of 1993. After graduating from the typical guy’s starter set of ‘Cool Water’ and ‘Curve’, the classic ‘Eternity’ by Calvin Klein, and a brief foray into the rightfully and quickly discontinued ‘Zino’ by Davidoff, I’d landed on ‘Safari’ by Ralph Lauren for the holiday season, and my first return home since leaving for college that fall.
It is said that most fragrances don’t last beyond a decade or so, but I’ve not found that to be true. It helps that my bottles are stored in a dim cabinet and kept relatively cool, so there isn’t much of the wear and tear that usually breaks down cologne. Still, thirty years is a pretty substantial stretch, but somehow ‘Safari’ still help potency, and as I sprayed it on, I was back three decades ago… back to a happy time, to a hopeful time, even as it was fraught with the romantic drama as befits an 18-year-old freshman in college.
With proclaimed notes of eucalyptus, lavender and vetiver, this is a traditional cologne accented by opening sparks of bergamot and lemon. It manages to be both fresh and rich, and the original batch is still holding onto its power. Accordion to recent reports, the newer ‘Safari’ bottles are a bit more watered down – the usual story on most fragrances these days. Potency is out and light is in, and that’s a bummer. Thankfully, I have two bottles with a bit left in each – enough to see me through the next thirty Christmas seasons if necessary.
Fresh off the fabulous seasonal finale of ‘The Gilded Age’, Ashlie Atkinson earns this Dazzler of the Day for her marvelous portrayal of the maddening Mrs. Fish. Atkinson has somehow taken this charmless character and made her an icon of the current season, especially that glorious ending in the Academy, where her literally pointing out of people leaving was the final crushing blow to Mrs. Astor and all that she represented.
The first few times we glimpsed Mrs. Fish in season one, I found her entirely abhorrent – and to see her odious comments turned on Mrs. Astor was the culmination of two years watching and rooting for Bertha. Credit must go to Atkinson’s dismissive smirks and scintillating side-eye for crafting a character audiences have loved to loathe, then come to enjoy for all her transparent poses. A woman who said the silent parts out loud at such an age was often maligned, and perhaps that’s why she resonates so strongly now. Atkinson has won a rabid and loyal fandom not only for her work on ‘The Gilded Age’ but also films as varied as ‘Another Gay Movie’, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, ‘Juanita’, and ‘BlacKkKlansman’, in addition to appearances on ‘Happy!’, ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’, and ‘Impeachment: American Crime Story’.
This Santa took a tumble at Madonna’s latest ‘Celebration’ tour date when a dancer gave hi a bit of a lap-dance that he simply couldn’t handle. All in a Madonna concert, I suppose. The lady herself has never seemed all that big on Christmas, having released but one holiday song, a rather annoying version of ‘Santa Baby’ when she was in full Betty-Boop/Nicki-Finn mode. Still, as the only Madonna Christmas song we have (all stretches of ‘Holiday’ to the side) it has remained a holiday staple, even if nothing could ever come close to the original version by Eartha Kitt. It’s here below because it is, ahem, the season.
Personally, I’m glad we don’t have a Madonna Christmas album, although given her name and religious dabbling, I could see her putting together a majestically sacrilegious romp that might prove very interesting. Until such time, I’ll make do with the songs that remind me of my own personal holiday memories:
‘The Gilded Age‘ just finished its sensational second season (and my fingers are crossed for a third, please, please, pretty please!). One of the stalwart stand-outs of this series is the wonderfully complex portrayal of George Russell by Morgan Spector, who earns this Dazzler of the Day. Magnificently managing to be ruthlessly Machiavellian and ingratiatingly charming at the same time he manages to be suave, debonair, and sexy (even in a three-piece suit and top hat), Spector is the ideal foil for Carrie Coon’s beguiling Bertha. Very much hoping we get to see another season of this indulgent piece of exquisite escapism, and much, much more of Mr. Spector.
A little PSA for you and me (and please pronounce ‘me’ as in N’Sync’s ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’) to make it work: Mercury is in retrograde motion until January 1, 2024, so 2023 is gonna end on an appropriately sucky note. Forewarned is fair-warned, as they say in the retail biz.
Once upon a happier time, my brother and I would pick up the family Christmas tree from Bob’s Tree Farm, winding through the back roads that lead out of then back into Amsterdam. It was something we started after I left for college, a small way of finding our way back to each other after the disturbing traumas of an average adolescence. Later, when he had kids, we would bring them along for the ride, and incorporate a dinner at the Cock & Bull.
A few years ago we had a big fight on the night we went to get the tree, and haven’t been able to pick up the tradition again. It was, like so many fights among brothers, something that started off in silly and trivia fashion, then quickly blew up into something that must have triggered both of us, bringing up all 40 years of being brothers. There’s a lot of misunderstanding and hurt that happens over such a long span of time. A lot of love and familial history too. Somehow, we’re still ok, as ok as any brothers can be I suppose. I wish we could be closer, but I understand why we may not be – at least, I think I’m starting to understand.
I texted him a few weeks ago to see if he wanted to go our for a dinner at the Cock & Bull with the twins again, as a way of reigniting our Christmas tradition. I never heard back, and I assume his calendar is booked with other events and obligations. Nobody texts back these days, and it’s simply something we can’t take personally.
Our history came up at my last therapy session, and my therapist had asked whether we had been compared to each other while we were growing up. My memory on this was that my brother was often compared to me, particularly regarding grades and performance in school. It was a regular thing, and when you are on the ‘good’ side of such a comparison, you don’t take much stock in it. It didn’t feel bad on that side of it, but I never gave much thought to my brother’s reception of such comparisons. I do know it happened a lot, and looking back it makes sense that it might have left a mark.
My therapist then asked if we had the same circle of friends, to which I replied we did not and never have. She said that might explain some things, as people who have been compared unfavorably with others tend to move away from those to whom the comparison has been made, finding their own circles and their own life away from the origin of such discomfort.
A greater understanding and perspective clicked for me then. All these years of feeling like I had to instigate every get-together or engagement with my brother may not have been in my imagination, and while I still don’t believe it was overtly intentional on his part, perhaps this is part of an underlying reason why he seems less than interested in hanging out with me. After thinking of it that way, I can’t blame him.
This isn’t the time of year for blame anyway, especially among families, and especially after losing our Dad. I don’t feel resentment for my brother’s apparent disinterest, and I can’t feel badly now for how we were raised. In many ways, neither of us had control over any of it, then or now. All I can do is be there if and when he needs his brother, and keep trying to be a better brother than I was the day before.
Having been lucky and blessed enough to have amassed a sizable collection of Tom Ford Private Blends from birthdays and Valentine’s Days and Christmas Eves (and a few non-occasion days where I simply had to treat myself) I’m fortunate to have an arsenal of fragrances appropriate for every turn of the calendar.
This time of the year, when things are filled with magic and sparkle, and when being extra is expected of everyone, I indulge in the intoxicating sweetness of sandalwood. At any other time of the year it might be a bit too much, but for the holidays it’s just right. ‘Santal Blush‘ is still sublime, and ‘Ebene Fume‘ is a smokier take on sandalwood that incorporates some Palo Santo to temper its sweetness.
Winter wants something dry and cozy, a bit of ‘Oud Wood’ or ‘Tobacco Oud’. It also comes with the pink sickly-sweetness of Valentine’s Day, for which the rosy sheen of ‘Oud Fleur‘ (and its incense-like haze) or ‘Rose de Russie‘ and its more delicate floral enchantment, are tailor-fitted.
The freshness of spring finds barber-shop beauty in ‘Fougere D’Argent‘ and ‘Beau de Jour’. That’s merely a warm-up for the heat of summer, when the Portofino collection comes into its own glory with ‘Neroli Portofino‘, ‘Costa Azzurra’ and ‘Mandarino di Amalfi‘. Then there is the warmth and light of ‘Soleil Blanc’.
Turning into fall, some of Ford’s richest offerings shimmer with the advance of colder nights, such as ‘Amber Absolute‘, ‘Bois Marocain‘ and ‘Japon Noir‘. And then it’s holiday time again, when the sparkle show returns…
