Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Our 2022 BroSox Adventure is now in the books, so while I recover and recuperate from a fun and relaxing weekend away, let’s examine the week that came before as we enter the week of Summer Officiale. On with the weekly recap…

Roses signified the month of June for one of my childhood heroes. 

How not to get a job in the future.

This homage to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ began a long while, but only last week did I find time to conclude its enchantment. 

I do love a sweet treat, even if they’re getting slightly less sweet as I get older. 

America’s favorite pastime and a return to a happy tradition. 

A toast to Andy’s Dad.

Pecking away at the pretty petunias.

A culprit caught in the act and saved by its own cuteness. 

Pass the popcorn and pay attention as this country documents history.

Happy Father’s Day!

A summer meadow, just before the season begins. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Joaquina Kalukango and Stuart Sox.

There was a time when we would walk through a meadow, admiring the wildflowers and lying down on soft mounds of grass, without worry of Lyme disease or fire ants, and the start of summer would signal nothing but hope and dreams. I can’t imagine lying down in a meadow now, and I mourn all those children who won’t have such a carefree sense of joy. Of course there are other joys that children today get, I just wonder how much of it is natural and how much is manufactured. Now I’m starting to sound like the old man I’m quickly becoming, and that was not the point of this post.

The meadow is the point. Because while the meadow may now have new inhabitants, good and bad, it remains largely the same – at least the idea of the meadow remains the same. These days, that’s sometimes all that remains, but it will have to be enough.  It is an idea of summer freedom, of carefree moments, of sun and heat and happiness. For me, it’s a collection of childhood memories, and some adult ones as well, as summer visits for three months of every year, and we are constantly adding to our memory vaults if we’re lucky. 

The meadows of my youth were mostly just fields that went unattended for a few months when school was out, but the glory of a meadow is how quickly it reclaims its form, even after being mowed down. I admire that resilience and ability to bounce back so quickly after attempted destruction. And even when shorn of her waving grains of future glory, the spirit of the meadow survives, locked in memory. Before this summer even arrives, I’m looking back at some summers that came before, and indulging in a little nostalgia. 

Are you watching the January 6 Hearings? 

Because you absolutely should be. 

This is our country’s history, happening and unfurling before our very eyes. 

It may be the last gasp of democracy as we know it.

If you don’t think that’s worth some of your attention, don’t be surprised if your vote, and your voice, are one day gone. 

The pesky destroyer of our petunia patch was caught in the act of more destruction, as seen in this GIF and photo of a snack of ornamental sweet potato leaves. Cheeky and bold, this bunny has captured our hearts, and Andy and I are helpless to do anything but watch with amusement and adoration, even as it takes out half of the garden. Some things are worth sacrificing for a little joy, and a couple of petunias and a sweet potato vine are a small price to pay for such entertainment. And the culprit is so tiny and cute, who can be mad about it?

Concluding this little homage to ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a cloud of feathers lends fantasy and freedom to the caged bird motif. A choker of pearls closes tightly around the throat – another cage, another coat of prettiness. Floating on a cloud of sheer ruffles, inhabiting a character like Blanche DuBois is now merely an exercise of play and passing an hour. Such glamorous trappings, such rotten interiors – who could sustain such a real life? 

“I’ve been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy’s eyes! You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor!” ~ Tennessee Williams

“What I mean is – he thinks I’m sort of – prim and proper, you know! I want to deceive him enough to make him – want me.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“It’s dark in here… I don’t think I ever seen you in the light… What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers… So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out… and I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle – a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!” ~ Tennessee Williams

Turner Movie Classics was playing ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ the other night, and I was once again drawn into the magnificent madness of Tennessee Williams, and the delicate treatise on the cruelty and kindness of humanity. The brute aesthetic of Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski was echoed in this blog post, because it’s fun to get dirty for a photo shoot, while the rough and tumble shower scene was re-interpreted in this slightly-racy sequence. Trying on the guise of brutal physicality, of dense and impenetrable hardness, was a fun step out of my comfort zone, and I always intended to do an interpretation of Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois, which is where most people assume my natural inclinations lie. But that seemed too easy, too simple, to don a wig and some macabre eye-make-up, and the truth is I simply don’t make a very pretty woman, of any age to be painfully honest. That doesn’t mean I can’t embrace my own middle-aged manhood and cloak it in feathers and ruffles and sheet gossamer wonder. In fact, that sort of hybridization is what has fueled this blog for almost two decades. 

Rather than a recreation, as I’m far too old to even approximate Blanche DuBois (who was actually only around 30, and already being urged out to pasture) I’m simply luxuriating in her silk and satin trappings – all feathers and lace and pearls. As a gay man, I empathize with Blanche’s race against time, when being attractive is currency and a means of survival. When that begins to fade, a certain panic sets in if you haven’t devised a life apart from appearance, or if your appearance has been your only way to succeed. And though I do not know that level of attractiveness, I know the chilling effects of age. We will all know that, sooner or later. 

“I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft – soft people have got to shimmer and glow – they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a… paper lantern over the light… It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I… I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“Yes, I have had many meetings with strangers.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“I don’t go in for that stuff… compliments to women about their looks. I never met a dame yet didn’t know she was good looking or not without being told. And I’ve met some of them who give themselves credit for more than they’ve got.” ~ Tennessee Williams

“We’ve made enchantment!” ~ Tennessee Williams