This Dazzler of the Day hails from across the pond, where they made an indelible impression portraying Diana, Princess of Wales in worldwide sensation ‘The Crown’. Emma Corrin was more noticeably celebrated in these parts thanks to being the first non-binary cover star of ‘Vogue’ back in 2022. They also appeared in ‘My Policeman and ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’, and will be featured in the upcoming ‘Deadpool 3’.
Twitter, I mean X, totally sucks now, but I haven’t left it entirely yet because shit-trolling is just too fun.
Out of the corner of my vision, from the vantage of the dining room window, a little cloud of blue caught my attention, and I knew immediately what had happened. This has been a summer where I was largely absent from the garden, and those times when I did make it our back, my mind wandered, unable to focus, unable to keep an internal journal of what was coming into bloom, what needed to be moved, what required watering, etc. Most summers, I’m out there multiple times a day; a gardener’s greatest weapon against trouble is a watchful eye.
As soon as this little blue cloud appeared, however, I knew what it was. I planted several hydrangea shrubs over twenty years ago in the shaded backyard area where this bloom suddenly beckoned. “Don’t forget me!” it seemed to shout in a little voice. “I’m not done yet!”
No, you beautiful thing, you are far from done. Part of me wanted to weep for having missed the journey to this point – so much fun is in the anticipation, the slow development of the mop-head as it first appears in compact and shriveled form, only to gain in size and shade. Right up until the end, we’re never quite sure what color these will take. Maybe there are still enough iron nails acidifying the soil at its base – whatever the case, this is a brilliant color – the very color that made me rush to get these shrubs into the ground during that first summer at our home.
For years – almost decades actually – they didn’t flower much. The past few summers, however, have found them throwing out a decent number of these gorgeous flower-heads. Patience is a virtue that sometimes finds reward.
Artist, author and advocate Paul Castle has lost 90% of his physical vision since being diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an untreatable eye disease. I write that he has lost some of his physical vision, because the vision he carries forth in his life and career is something that won’t be stopped or sidelined by his blindness. A visit to his enchanting website will astound anyone with its notable list of accomplishments and artwork, including his children’s book ‘The Pengrooms’. He lives in Seattle with his husband, Matthew, and his guide dog, Mr. Maple. This marks his first crowning as Dazzler of the Day.
Speaking of a series, I’ve never seen a single episode of ‘Seinfeld’. Or ‘Star Trek’.
Not bothered by it either.
It’s National Coming Out Day, and if you’re part of that you have my heartfelt admiration and applause. I’ve done it already (not that we don’t have to keep doing it), but it was so long ago that it doesn’t cross my mind the way it once did. Seems to be less of an issue in the happy circles in which I travel now, though I’m aware it’s worse in other places. (We see you, Florida, and we are still capital G-A-Y.) That said, I’m not feeling very much like fighting back today. Let the young people take the torch and fly, my pretties, fly.
No, I’m feeling a little down thanks to a recent trip excavating photos from the past year for our year-end photo books. Collecting them in one place and seeing the past year unfold again, all that we knew was coming, and all that we didn’t know – it left me with the sadness and ache that losing a loved one leaves in their wake.
And then there’s the news: our own political turmoil, and the burgeoning war in the Middle East. So much wickedness, so much madness, so much blame and death – and it makes our petty problems feel even more petty. It’s an icky place to be, an icky thing to feel.
I move to my meditation space, lowering myself to the ground, feeling the floor beneath me, seeking something solid, something to hold onto or sink into, and there I begin the deep breathing. It takes me through the next twenty minutes, lightening the worry, expanding the plain of peace – that empty place where, if I concentrate and focus and inhabit only this moment of breathing, the emptiness becomes a relief. It helps. It helps a little. I will not ask for more.
Perhaps this Dazzler of the Day could have been better-timed to coincide with Mean Girls Day, but Aaron Samuels deserves more than an October 3rd to shine, thanks to the timelessly-winning portrayal by Jonathan Bennett, who earns this Dazzling honor for winning all our hearts. The boxing/Halloween-themed photo shoot from Out Magazine is a pleasant reminder that Bennett still knows how to land a pretty punch.
Do you see what I see?
This is how a container of whipped butter appeared upon opening.
(And I didn’t even have to use my mouth.)
Our side yard has become embarrassingly overgrown in the last two years. I meant to get a handle on it this summer, but other events prevented that. Now it is an eyesore and a problem, and I still can’t summon the ambition or drive to do much about it. Surveying it the other day, I noticed we had a stranglehold of bittersweet vine rambling up a pine, so robust that it had gone to seed. This invasive species is a nightmare, popping up anywhere and everywhere, soon entwining itself around whatever crosses its path. It comes with one saving grace: at this time of the year its yellow berries signal the time to cut them if you’d like a fall bouquet or decoration. The thing here is crucial – it must be cut before the berries open, or they will fall apart and to pieces inside.
Once the branches are cut and brought indoors, provided the berries haven’t yet opened, they will open up and reveal this gorgeous orange fruit, which upon closer examination lends it the look of miniature pumpkins. Nature likes to echo her pretty creations, and despite the negative aspects of this vine, this fall I’m taking the pretty and worrying about the mess outside later.
While the world continues in its downward spiral, a spell of a post to bring noting but gratuitous shirtlessness and some brief semi-naked male celebrities for your viewing escapism and pleasure. We begin with a blog favorite, Chris Salvatore, who appeared not in just one Dazzler of the Day, but also this encore performance since his talent demanded it. He’s currently fielding ideas for locations for his 2024 calendar, so send some inspiration his way.
With an epic underwear brand and business already humming under his belt, Todd Sanfield has proven as savvy a marketer as he is a model. Witness this underwear post for additional evidence.
Glen Powell stole all the charisma in the latest Top Gun movie, which is what he tends to do whenever he appears on screen, even when fully clothed. Watch for an upcoming Dazzler of the Day crowning soon…
Simu Liu was but one of the several charming Kens in the Barbie movie which I have yet to see. (It’s been… a summer.) Thankfully, Liu dazzles in this post which you can put on repeat if ever you need a loop of beauty.
Dominic Albano is at the helm of his own underwear line, putting his goods where his mouth is and selling the shiny stuff out of his comfy drawers. That is, when he isn’t simply dazzling the world.
Kit Connor first made a splash across the pond before soaking the entire world – see more in his first Dazzler of the Day crowing here – then come back for what will surely be a second.
Speaking of splashes made round the world, here is the titular tease of Harry Styles naked – because a nude Harry Styles GIF is the root and anchor of any man candy post in the 2020’s. Styles has thrilled here before, and been crowned Dazzler of the Day to boot.
And bringing up the rear, and somewhat unfortunately covered in briefs, here we have Ben Cohen, who merits his own category here. (There’s also tons more in this epic post.) With this photo by Snooty Fox Images, we have a proper closing to this gratuitous bit of online fun.
Not all of fall burns with the fiery bombast of 1000 suns – some days are muted and soft, with skies of gray and flowers of subdued form and shade. It’s the best way of transitioning into a winter that is usually bleak and barren – to go from super-saturated flowers and leaves to shades of gray is a cruel fate indeed. Let’s enjoy these days of transition, and look back with this weekly recap.
A letter to my Godson, written for no apparent reason other than to say hello.
Birds of prey on a magnificent morning.
Best believe I’m still bejeweled.
The absence of a father at his final resting place.
The presence of a father in every place.
Back in the pool: the healing and feeling of water.
Putting the pool to bed in one final skinny-dip.
Dazzlers of the Day included John Mulaney and Nicole Scherzinger.
Perhaps I’ll regret wishing for cooler weather, but right now I could use with a bit of a cool down, global warming be damned. It’s fall, and it should feel like it. While I don’t begrudge anyone their warmer weather preferences, this year I’m longing for the requisite colder weather that puts a sharper jaunt in one’s stroll, pricking the senses with a morning chill, and setting nights up for more comfortable slumber.
This moon appeared the other night, portending the harvest that we’ve already had – I wish to reap no more – and it felt cooling, and calming. The moon doesn’t always do that, and usually the tumult it elicits is internal, which is always worse. This time around, I wrangled its energy, my focus like a lasso around its neck – wherever the moon’s neck might proverbially be – and I set the harness with a vice-like grip, riding this pony into the night, over the river and through the woods on the only path that’s ever taken us through fall.
The Vreeland Vroom is a proven effect, a result of being stimulated and inspired by the great Diana Vreeland, either in words or pictures or fragrance or color. Of all these, perhaps the greatest is fragrance.
Despite what the stores would have us think, it is a bit too early to be doing any sort of serious holiday shit, but I previewed this candle in ‘Mulled Cider and Fir’ and it’s a keeper. Carrying just enough fruitiness to signify fall, and only the slightest hint of fir to signal the onslaught of Christmas, it’s a lovely scent to offer the most teasing glimpse of what shouldn’t begin until next month at the earliest.
It set the attic scene for a rainy day of bleak dreariness, when a storm system set up residence for the entirety of a Saturday. A batch of cardamom and cinnamon rolls, from scratch no less, yeast-infections be damned, was in the oven, and the pictured candle was throwing light and pungent fragrance around the place. It made for a cozy picture on a day when coziness felt in short supply.
This was good practice for the winter to come.
Nightswimming…
Somewhere a hidden moon lies in wait, promising to shield the entire sun come next spring. On this night, only a soft chorus of insects and amphibians offers the slightest accompaniment, while in my head this song sounds – piano notes falling like water, dripping with heartache and longing.
The best music makes you so happy that you cry, tears of joy that the body releases while wondering what it’s doing. It is that wonder that unlocks a little bit of the universe, a part that it keeps closed to all but the most sensitive – the small recompense for feeling things a little too keenly, because I’m not sure we’re meant to feel things like that.
…I forgot my shirt at the water’s edge
The moon is low tonight…
Summer ended a while ago. Time moves differently now, time now is numbness. Time is staring blankly into space, unable to focus on anything, as much a deterioration of the eyes as a depletion of any drive or desire to see at all. Darkness and murkiness offer solace beneath the water, and I want so badly for it to be some sort of healing balm that I take their invitation to dive down deeper. Sadness and shadow imbuing everything now, and everything later.
Nightswimming deserves a quiet night
I’m not sure all these people understand
It’s not like years ago
The fear of getting caught
The recklessness in water
They cannot see me naked
These things they go away
We cannot go back, we cannot go back, we cannot go back. How terrifying that it must be so, to only move forward, how trapping and tricking and troubling it feels. A human like an animal, yet thinking we feel and know so much more than we ever do. A human trying to return to childhood – vain, impossible mission – stupid, wasteful hope. We cannot go back. We cannot go back. We cannot go back.
Chanted like a mantra – cadence of sound, repetition of madness – set it to music, set it to fire, set it to rain and hell and the fuzzy mind of a person caught underwater, life snuffed out in quick mortal panic.
Nightswimming…
…remembering that night…
One night in a summer almost forgotten a girl took my hand, led me into a bit of the woods, wanting me to touch her heart, wanting me to feel something I could never feel. We looked out at a dark river that barely distinguished itself from the night, danger and peril and the stirrings of love – all escaping my notice or care. Cold too, if we had been close enough to pull at its ripples, if we’d been that brave.
One night in a winter barely remembered a boy let my hand fall from his for the last time. Walking away from a life I thought we’d share, taking a different path from mine, the journey suddenly and irrevocably becoming the journeys – what once was one was now two, as it was in the beginning – and then the prayer I’d learned as a child – is now, and ever shall be the world without end.
You I thought I knew you
You I cannot judge
You I thought you knew me
This one laughing quietly
Underneath my breath
Nightswimming…
