Trye Sivan has made several splashes here over the years, starting with this Dazzler of the Day post. They’ve been fascinating the world ever since, as witnessed in this Troye Sivan appreciation post. Sivan also provided the summer anthem a couple of years back, with the driving ‘Rush’.
Confirmation was made when Shawn Mendes liked Troye’s butt in this post.
While he played no part in this week’s blog entries, Robert Irwin is fronting this weekly recap because, well, look. One more below, if you make it through the week’s worth of blog links first. (And if you must have more of Robert Irwin in his underwear, click here or here.)
Trans people are welcome here.
Who would write such a thing?!
The disappearing shoreline of upstate New York.
Brick and mortar stores are dead.
Those Crafty Lumberjacks know how to Dazzle.
Caleb Marshall in a jockstrap was enough to earn a Dazzler honor.
The stars line up and the bridge is beautiful.
A fairy finds himself in a forest.
An umbrella of ribbons would make Danny Elfman proud.
While these spring bloomers may seem like the earliest reward for working in the garden, they actually needed to be planted in the fall, then slumber for a full six months of cold and awful weather, so I’m not sure ‘early reward’ is entirely apt. Many people see the spring bulbs in bloom now and want to go out and purchase a bunch of bulbs to plant immediately, but that’s not the way it works. By the time fall rolls around, they’ve forgotten or lost interest or simply aren’t aware that that’s when you need to work to get spring results.
I act in similar fashion, though my version is more one of laziness and forgotten magic. By the time fall roll around, my garden drive has all but dissipated after half a year of watering and wedding and working. The magic of these spring blooms also feels like a distant memory, and I cannot smell their exquisitely light perfume to remind me. Thus I pass by the bulbs when they should be planted, and then I regret that I didn’t do more at this time of the year.
Perhaps overthinking is the real curse here.
Two scarves and an electric pink coat are all I need for a happy spring outfit.
Well, pants and shirt too I suppose, but who’s going to be a stickler for those details?
‘Tis the damn season for some bold color choices.
Most daffodils begin their blooming period in bashful form, especially when the weather is so changeable. They only unfurl their full splendor if they can be sure of some sun and warmth and stillness. I do not blame them in the least, and my natural state in times of uncertainty is certainly within the realm of all that is bashful.
This little blossom is at the early stage of its bloom, still looking groundward and holding its outer petals close to its corona. A shy first step that is full of hope and trepidation.
I often like this stage better than the fullest bloom, the same way I enjoy the night before a dinner or a party more than the actual event itself. It’s a happy way of prolonging the experience and making every moment matter.
“How can you have rivals when no one else can do what you do?” ~ Terrence McNally, ‘Master Class’
When I was younger, and far longer than the twenty years ago when this project was created, I had a much different reading of the opening quote here. Back then I took it with all the heady hubris of a twenty-something young man – young in almost every way.
Then time passed.
I grew up a little.
And a lot.
And I realized that the opening words are true for everyone.
When you realize that – truly and genuinely realize it, take it to heart and let it seep into your soul – you realize there’s no longer a need to compete. You step off the hamster wheel, you step off the scale, you step off the comparison bandwagon, and you are suddenly free.
‘Comparison is the ultimate thief of joy.’
Or, just mind your own fucking business.
Both are paths that lead to happier places.
I’m not quite sure what this has to do with Divine Diva Tour, or why I’m even writing it now, but posting this project from twenty years ago has me intermingling the past with the present. To ignore the evolution that’s progressed in these past two decades is to do a grave disservice to the riches of retrospect at hand.
These are the sort of riches that can never be found in a jewelry box or bank, they cannot be saved or purchased or bought, they can only be experienced.
Once upon a time I sold the story to myself that I was divine, and I believed it because I believed everyone was divine. Egalitarian hubris, perhaps. Vanity that candles itself out in the celebration, adoration and devotion to others.
And the shadow of manipulation that saw it all through glasses far darker than rose.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
Tying ribbons to the tips of a black umbrella made for a mad scene beside a graveyard.
Snow fell on that day.
He didn’t need the sunglasses unless he was trying to hide the eyeshadow.
A slim gray suit, all three pieces, borrowed from a boyfriend.
Twenty years later, neither of us can fit into that suit, but it’s still a pretty thing.
Time turns us inside out.
“A performance is a struggle.
You have to win.
The audience is the enemy.
We have to bring you to your knees because we’re right.
If I’m worried about what you’re thinking about me, I can’t win.
Art is domination.
It’s making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, on voice.
Yours.”
~ Terrence McNally ‘Master Class’
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
Culturally-deficient confession: I have never seen any iteration of the Willy Wonka movies.
Not the original with Gene Wilder, nor any of the remakes with Johnny Depp or Timothee Chalamet.
Am I missing anything?
I am aware of the visuals, however, and they inform this darker and more sinister take on the top-hatted cultural icon. It marks another turn in the Divine Diva Tour, and the fairy has another tale to tell.
“Where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?”
“The story is about the opposite aspects of one and the same person; that which pushes him to escape into a faraway world of adventure and fantasy, and the other part which keeps him bound to common practicality – his id and his ego, the manifestation of the reality principle and the pleasure principle.” ~ Bruno Bettelheim
Shadows and outlines, the man who is there, the man who is not there, the man who will never be.
There or anywhere.
“There’s no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going.”
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale focuses on the second half of its title, as our journey shifts into a more fairy-tale oriented atmosphere, starting with this glimpse into the forest. It’s a place featured in pivotal points of most fairy tales – it is danger and risk, power and might, magic and charm, transformation and realization – sometimes all at once. For the purposes of this 2005 journey, the fairy and the forest provide fertile prancing ground for reconciling childhood and make-believe, and the beginning of the discernment between fantasy and reality.
~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~
This isn’t some set piece from ‘Wicked’ – it is the eerie way the lighting looked for our local Macy’s building at Colonie around dusk the other night. A visit to the mall – an increasingly rare expedition for someone who once made the mall his home many, many years ago – is what prompted this negative post. It does appear as though in-person retail shopping is falling by the wayside, based on the dwindling stock and questionable customer service in a store like Macy’s.
On this recent visit, the floor was more apparent than ever. That sounds ridiculous to say, but I never used to notice the floor in any department store because it was always obscured by rows of racks and stacks of merchandise. Now there is more empty floor space than goods, leaving a stark sense of sparseness that might work for fancier fare like Dior or Gucci, but falls apart when you’re looking for variety and choices.
Everything has shifted online, which is maddening for a recovering-perfectionist who still wants to see how colors and fabrics look in real life and not be bothered with the risk of having to return something because it appeared entirely different online than it is in person.
Alas, I am a curmudgeonly dinosaur, still hanging on to some semblance of the past, further serving my jurassic image. Cue the roar of the rex.
Stars are tricky entities to capture in a photo, at least in my incapable hands and antiquated phone. Instead, I give you a sad approximation of the stars in the sky – always somehow more resplendent in person, when the night surrounds you, and the sound of a spring evening sets the heart to reminiscing. This song is a moody take on the starlit moment, courtesy of the brilliance that is Marianne Faithfull’s ‘A Secret Life’ album.
The majority of music there is aligned with fall memories, but for some reason this one speaks to me of later winter and spring, after we’ve made it through those dark early days of fall and winter. This one cracks the ice when its chords resolve in the midsection.
As if music could ever resolve the mysteries of starlight, as if starlight could ever illuminate the mysteries of the heart, as if the heart could ever give meaning to the stars… and on and on and on the fairy’s wing beats.
Known as The Fitness Marshall, Caleb Marshall has crafted a fitness empire and made himself into the world’s foremost fitness pop star of the moment. (He also brings back the booty to these booty-starved posts, simply scroll down.) For those reasons alone, he is crowned Dazzler of the Day. I first started following The Fitness Marshall after laughing hysterically to a clip of him doing a Halloween fitness as Richard Simmons in which his wig flew off mid-routine. Along with Allison Florea and Haley Jordan, Caleb has focused on an inclusivity for all types of bodies and people who just want to get in better shape, and has become a must-watch sensation even if you’re not going in the workouts. Check out The Fitness Marshall website here.
Today’s lesson in gardening is a lesson for life.
Every year as spring arrives, I’m faced with the daunting prospect of cleaning the entire yard of winter wreckage and rot. This usually takes about 40 to 50 filled lawn bags, and as I step into the yard with the first bag in hand, I always think it’s an impossible task. For years, this gave me hesitation, and it was often difficult to even begin the process because the idea of filling even ten bags seemed insurmountable. My mind was creating an impasse before I even began filling one bag, and I would look around at the yard, which normally felt small and manageable, and think it was endless.
For a few years, I tried to trick my brain into embracing the process. At that time in my life, I was accustomed to having a constant stream of sound fed into my head – earphones (this was long before the earbud), stereos, sound systems – they kept my head filled with music, but looking back, no matter how fierce a Madonna song might have been, it was all just noise. Like most of us, I was once uncomfortable in silence. The yearly yard-clean-up was my enforced return to quiet and stillness, and though it was jarring at the onset, after a few hours I felt the relaxed ease into a more natural state of quiet – the way the body will often return to its natural calm. This method worked, as my yard cleaning became a sort of meditation that drowned out the chaos of the rest of the world, and the noise that ran about in my head. It till has that effect, and I still worm my way into a meditative state after a few hours of outside work, but there is a greater lesson that translates into everyday life.
Over the last couple of years, whenever I felt the seemingly impossible expanse of yard work looming impassable in my path, I would stop my brain from its automatic resistance to the totality of the operation, and simply focus on the very next step ahead of me. The idea, and very real impossibility, of filling 40 lawn bags on that first day of clean-up is not an idea anyone can overcome. However, I could easily fill one or two, or even five bags, at a single time, and that’s what I trained my brain to focus on – not the totality of the process, but the very basic first step. It was a freeing moment, because I also understood that the barrier to beginning was only in my head, and since then I’ve applied the process to any challenging situations that at first feels too formidable to conquer. Very rarely do our greatest accomplishments happen in one fell swoop – anything worth completing is going to take time and effort, and likely repeated attempts and trials, but if we distill it to one manageable step at a time, everything becomes possible.
Baby steps.
Because sometimes babies aren’t that stupid.
It’s a rarity to have two people named as Dazzlers of the Day at the same time, but sometimes a package deal is the very finest deal. Dennis Setteducati and Andrew Boza first met on a production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, and have been in a self-described show-mance ever since. They have taken their love of crafting and holidays and turned it into a full-fledged career, fueled by a theatrical flair that informs their presentations and sets them apart from more staid crafters. Check out their website here, as well as their charming and refreshingly-candid social media presence.
