July 2017
He earned his Hunk of the Day entry with a fleeting dick-glimpse in ‘Gone Girl’, but the shower butt shot of a nude Ben Affleck inexplicably got left on the cutting room floor. It’s a shame – there was nothing else worth seeing in that dreadful ‘Batman vs. Superman’ fiasco. Anyway, it’s here now, along with a throwback to the first.
If all goes according to tentatively-scheduled plan, my summer sabbatical blog break will begin about a week from today, and run for two months. While some of you have been on summer vacation for a few weeks now, I’m only just about to begin. Next year, it may be longer. Or shorter. We’ll see how this one goes. For all I know, I may return for a day and close the book on this website in one fell swoop. I’ve done less surprising things time and time again, and one of the greatest thrills I get out of life is the ability to surprise people even this late in my career. Send in the clowns.
How shall I occupy my time away from this place? I’ll tell you later. We will have so much to discuss come September. For now, I invite you to float. Just float. On a pink flamingo. On the wings of desire. On a screeching hawk. On a stick of cotton candy. It’s summer. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s make the most of it. It will end all too quickly.
I never knew that sperm whales snuck out a few power naps to recharge and re-energize, but I’m tickled to learn such. Check out some video and photos here. This is the sort of natural scene that thrills me, and when this blog returns in the fall, I may post more of our underwater frontier.
The respite of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is always a balm upon the soul. We need more beauty in this world. The courtyard, though bright, is cool on these summer days. The dim environs of the surrounding rooms offer spiritual respite. Angels watch over the space, even if demons have infiltrated over the years. (Empty gold frames remind of which works were stolen in a still-unsolved crime back in 1990.) There are ghosts here, but they feel benign. Perhaps they were merely sleeping on the night of the robbery.
Four large tree ferns rise in the center court, framing the square space with delicate fronds of unfurling grace and elegance. Carpets of baby tears border the stone paths, and potted orchids nestle in every nook and cranny.
Art watches over all, standing sentinel in the absence of Ms. Gardner, whose will made it clear that nothing was to be touched or moved, so we have an idea of what it was actually like when she walked these beautiful floors. I stared out of windows and up at fantastical works and wondered what she did when she stopped to soak up the beauty at hand.
Through portals of stone and light and time, I peered into past and future alike. I was also able to inhabit the present moment – the most difficult trick of all for those of us who would rather be anywhere else than this moment in time. Here, it was all right. Surrounded by beauty, it was bearable.
A fountain gurgled its peaceful, bubbly melody in the background.
Palm trees, rubber plants, and philodendron soaked up the sun coming in from the skylight.
It was impossible not to smile at the world.
It’s that time of the year again, and as usual I almost missed it. This bloom would have gone unnoticed had Andy not alerted me to the fact that he saw it when mowing the lawn last week. It is the blossom of the prickly pear cactus that has survived on our South-facing bank for a number of years. There it receives full sun and dry sandy soil and little to no pampering or care. Somehow it still throws out these pretty blooms, often to a complete lack of notice.
It’s another instance of where I need to focus more and maybe build up their space since they do so well there. It’s a tricky spot that Andy has bemoaned having to mow in the past. Sometimes solutions present themselves in flowering pricks.
A few more shots from the ESPN Body Issue, this time of the ever-naked Julian Edelman. A nude Edelman is something that must be seen to be believed, so here he is in the altogether again.
As we near the summer sabbatical I’m about to embark upon, there’s only one more Monday morning recap on the way after this, so enjoy it! I’m super-excited for this break, but we’ve got a couple of weeks left before this page goes silent, so let me get some small talk out of the way.
America celebrated its independence, with some shirtless help from Chris Evans.
Still waiting to hear back from Amsterdam officials on why my parents house, and other homes on their street, got flooded with sewage. Until we do, Google will direct anyone looking up George Amedore, Jr., Angelo Santabarbara, and Mayor Michael Villa will find this shitty entry.
Hunks of the Day included Denevin Miranda, Cristian Romero, Renaud Lavillenie, Nathan Hopkinson, and Javier Báez.
Frost on the glass, water droplets on the frost. The moving image obscured in shadows of shadows, and pooling in water and light. The tension of what might be revealed grows in hydroponic fashion, with rivulets of water racing over skin cells, pulsing with heat and life like the very origin of the universe.
A hide-and-seek game, in the light and the dark, the day and the night, the wet and the dry, the desert and the ocean, played out on the landscape of the body – a shell of the soul. We are given our blood and bones for such a short time.
One can hide in their nakedness – it’s the best hiding place of all.
No one sees that though. Clever how it works.
There are revelations yet to come.
There is always more to see.
In the corner of the Monkey Bar, we sat and ordered cocktails.
An old evening in old New York.
The room was practically empty.
The two other tables would be gone before we finished.
‘What’s become of the world?’
All around us, the monkeys smiled and played, but not a single one uttered a word.
They’d seen it all before.
The blush of youth.
The dance to adulthood.
The walk home.
The wee small hours of the morning.
This classic clematis was planted soon after we moved into our home, which makes it a decade and a half old. It’s trained, rather loosely, to climb the lamp-post in the front yard, but I’m afraid I tend to let it flop and run rather than tying it up so it climbs higher. Still, it performs, even when it gets mown down (as it did a few times before a spreading sedum was put at its base to shade the roots and offer a buffer to the wrath of Andy’s mower). This year it’s especially floriferous, so I may coddle it a bit for next year’s show. Preparation for a comeback always starts early.
The hawks have been causing quite the commotion in the neighborhood this year, with a ready food source thanks to the proliferation of chipmunks, squirrels and other woodland creatures in the vicinity. They are bold, noble, somewhat terrifying creatures, and their cries cut through the sunniest summer day. (Sometimes in the winter too.)
Though they make a ruckus, I’m coming to find comfort in their presence. They remind me that there is more wild in the world than order. The untamed. The unbound. The ones that fly free, high away from human contact. There is wisdom in that given what we as humans have been known to do.
And woe to the bunnies that let down their guard against such majesty.
All good things must come to an end.
This website has been in existence since January of 2003. It’s fourteen years old. That’s a lifetime in blog years, where the average age of a personal blog is said to be a whopping 100 days. When it turns fifteen next January, it will be time to consider its long-term fate. Before that, however, I’d like to to try out a couple of possible avenues before we move into the autumn and winter of this website’s journey.
Lately, and you’ve probably noticed as well, it feels like this place has been on auto-pilot. A morning post of (hopefully) some substance, a noonish post of filler and frivolity, and an evening post of some shirtless/naked/nude flotsam. Of late, I’ve been too busy (and yes, some days and nights, too lazy) to make it to all three posts, opting instead for two, and both rather lame at that.
I’ve also been pre-programming posts for when I go on vacation or leave town for the weekend, which takes away the timely import of the thing, and connecting in an approximately real-time manner is what makes me feel part of something.
But it’s tiring, and it’s a lot of work, and the last few months have revealed that I value my life off the internet far more than anything that goes on here. A few minutes basking in the glow of summer sun, or hanging out with friends, or simply watching my niece and nephew splash in the pool – are worth more than the last ten years of writing these posts.
I’m not ending this blog anytime in the immediate future, but I intend to take a break – a summer sabbatical – as suggested by my webmaster and friend Skip, whose wisdom far exceeds mine in such matters. He brought the idea up as we were traveling to Boston, and it’s something that I’ve given some thought to for a while. The idea of stepping away somehow, not just from this blog, but from the social media world which has occupied so much of my time is an appealing one. Maybe it’s the season of summer, when all I want to do is sit by the pool and read a book and not be bound to phone or laptop.
When faced with the quagmire of possibility involved in taking a break, it’s best to keep things simple, but also leave room for change and evolution. It also gives notice that this blog may not last forever, and I’m putting the idea of ending ALANILAGAN.com into the universe to discover what may manifest when I open myself up to new options. Maybe someone has a better idea of what can be done with this space – I’m open to any and all suggestions.
My initial thoughts are to leave for the last half of July, all of August, and return in September. A summer vacation, like when we were kids. And then, upon my return, a lessening of the three-posts-a-day schedule I’ve maintained for the past few years, and the ease of not feeling obligated to post something every single day. That’s a grueling schedule. I’ve been posting 364-days-a-year for over a decade – it’s time to re-enter the real world.
Does it mean I won’t come back if something noteworthy enough happens? No – I‘m open to doing a quick visit should there be a new Madonna song or President in the next two months, but I’m really looking forward to not being connected, not being on my phone, not having the continual pressure to post in the background of everything else that’s going on. That’s no way to live anymore.
I’ll keep you posted on the development, and I promise not to pull an Irish goodbye on anyone (much as I’d like to exit without fanfare or notice). There will be a proper farewell-for-now post. We deserve that. In the meantime, a few more lazy posts to come before I go… and a few you won’t want to miss.
This year’s ESPN Body Issue is the gift that keeps on giving, with these red-hot snow-cold shots of Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy. Naked but for his Olympic apparatus, Mr. Kenworthy gives more than good face, as he has in the past (baring his ass in posts like this).
We’ve had a darker start to summer than anyone would like, but there are ways to bring a sunny side to circumstances no matter how much rain, or lack of electricity, might work to dampen the day. Such was the state of affairs when JoAnn and some of the Cape Crew stopped by this weekend. It’s been too long since we hung out, and this is something for which we’ve all been waiting. Reunions with dear friends are somehow more wonderful in the summer, as if the universe is conspiring to create its own dose of happy kismet. We all seemed to need that.
There’s an awful lot of sadness and heartache in the world today – on a universal and personal level for some of us – and the only way to get through it is to surround yourself with friends and family and hold on until things get better. Parents have passed, relationships have ended, and everyone feels a little lost lately. Summer can only ease so much; one needs a good group of friends to make up for the rest.
They arrived to a batch of lavender martinis, and brought with them roses and crystal cuff links and Portuguese pastries. We hit it hard – but not too hard – starting early in the afternoon, and by the time dinner rolled around, we were feeling no pain. Good thing too, as the electricity went out just as the meal was served. The sun was starting to go down, so we brought in some extra candles and had an old-fashioned candle-light dinner. It added to the atmosphere and the intimacy, and maybe those little foibles are meant to be. Like clockwork, the electricity was back on by the time dessert (New York cheesecake!) was being plated. Afterward, we played a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity, then called it a relatively early night.
The next morning was greeted with brunch and then a full day of poolside revelry. The sun gods, so fickle and moody these past few weeks, smiled indulgently and granted us a perfect day. Our guests, friends old and new, eased into the weekend. The first night is always flush with excitement and catching-up; the second day is when you can ripen into relaxation. We sat by the pool letting the sun move slowly overhead, lazily draining the cooler of beer, and digging into the red pepper dip once brunch had settled.
As with most summer weekends, it went by too quickly, but we’ll have the memory of it when the days turn cold again.
When a silly response to all the Rob Kardashian drama that went down on Instagram and Twitter today garners 400,000 impressions while a legit request for aid to my parents doesn’t get any traction at all, one realizes the utter insanity and hopelessness of the internet. That’s sort of why there’s a big announcement as to the fate of this blog coming in the next day or two – and it will hopefully bleed over into my social media outlets as well. Watch out FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram (and follow me before it’s too late!)
As for the fate of ALANILAGAN.com… stay tuned.
