She very well may be the reigning star of this summer’s Olympic Games, adding to her medal count to trigger records right and left and all over the place thanks to her speed and consistency. This is Allyson Felix, who nimbly earns a Dazzler of the Day from her winning efforts at the Tokyo Olympics.
The finches have been having a daily party at our stand of cup plants, joining the masses of bees and a couple of butterflies, and now and then an iridescent dragonfly. If you want to see the one in the opening GIF, you’ll have to look fast, because it’s gone in a flash. The finches are even more flighty than the hummingbirds we’ve had lately, disappearing with the first movement of the door or the opening of a window. As such, we treasure their golden beauty all the more, because it is so fleeting. They will stick around until well into the fall, as the cup plant’s seed-heads continue to ripen. Doing their part to ensure the proliferation of future cup plants around the yard, the finches work on their picking and pecking to disperse the seeds far and wide. It’s not exactly welcome at this point as we have enough cup plants to last for a lifetime, and their roots reach down early and intractably, but I cannot begrudge the finches their food and their fun.
Taken along the Esplanade, this sunset closed out a recent day with Suzie in Boston, the adventures of which have already been posted here. Instead of rehashing that already, I’m taking this picture as inspiration to slow down and lean into these summer days before they’re gone.
Sit for a spell before the light goes out.
We can begin the drudgery again in the fall.
For now, relax – swim, sleep, walk, read, eat, enjoy…
Life is too short to ignore the sunset.
Fresh from the announcement that she will be headlining the upcoming revival of ‘Funny Girl’, Beanie Feldstein earns her first Dazzler of the Day crowning. Having made splashes in all of her on-screen appearances, such as ‘Booksmart’ and ‘Lady Bird’, along with the recently-recommended ‘What We Do In the Shadows’, she’s poised on the brink of superstardom. A Broadway debut in the spectacular Bette Midler-helmed ‘Hello, Dolly!’ was only the beginning.
Behold the beautiful bumblebee! I love these creatures. Though they make for a fierce and fearsome fuzzy front, they have always been docile and amiable when pollinating their favorite flowers in the garden. And in all the years of bumping up against them, they have never tried giving me a bite, unlike their grumpy cousins. (My hands still smart at the memory of an attack earlier this summer.) Bumbles merely bounce from flower to flower, awkwardly buzzing with seemingly happy abandon, and I’ve even had a few bump into my arm or chest as we were both navigating a hydrangea, and they’ve always been polite about it.
This time of the year, when they are favoring a tree hydrangea and the seven-sons-flower tree about to start blooming, I will often find a few stuck in the pool, their wings vainly beating but not gaining enough air to lift them from the water. I always save them when I find them in such a predicament, pulling a piece of Northern sea oat grass and letting them climb aboard the rescue vessel to dry off and take flight. It’s the least I can do for something that doesn’t sting me.
Would that the world should seem so friendly as a bumblebee…
As if to say this summer is not yet over, and assembling for a party is the best way to prove it, the birds and bees and butterflies have been having a field day in our clumps of cup plants, buzzing and chirping and fluttering about their pollination work, and so our summer continues onward. Not content to throw it all away just yet, despite the wonky and rainy extended start, they seem to have congregated in the backyard as proof that the work is not yet done. This also marks the first few days of the unfurling blooms of the seven sons’ flower tree – two specimens of which now rise twenty feet in our back and side yards.
It’s been nice having the sun back in our lives these past few days, reminding us that August and September are mostly about summer, and that the season is still high when it chooses to be. Autumn may be creeping into the nights, and the light lasts a little less every day, but it’s still summer. Hold into it…
My summer song obsession just found fruition in the latest from Lizzo, with an assist by Cardi B, and so it is that Lizzo earns her first Dazzler of the Day crowning. I admire anyone with the audacity to be themselves in the face of hate and the ills of society’s judgment. Lizzo embodies body-positivity in a world that devalues anyone who veers from the silly self-imposed standards of the mainstream. Add to that the talent and entertainment expertise of a woman just beginning to exert her power and grace, and you have the ideal Dazzler of the Day. PS – Listen to ‘Rumors’ and come back here for a proper exploration of all that ass-shaking fabulousness.
Summers in Boston can be brutal. Once that heat and humidity seeps into the ground, and the subway, it simply sits there, bothering and annoying even in the midnight hour, and stubbornly lingering until October at the earliest. When the days creep into the 90’s, and the sun is not abated by cloud or tree cover, it becomes difficult to cool down, and when you’re trapped among the city blocks of concrete and cobblestone, the only relief is found within the mind.
Such were the warm circumstances in which Suzie and I found ourselves on a recent Saturday walking along Newbury Street. To alleviate the heat, we ducked into the Aesop shop, where the temperatures were cool and the lighting was dim and everything suddenly felt tranquil and calm. So much of being hot has to do with noise and bustle, and if you can master that mental game then the world instantly becomes more comfortable. In this case we also had a big sink with cool water in which to sample their body washes and products. A fan since I purchased their delicious ‘Tacit’ fragrance, they have a number of sweetly-scented items that neither overpower nor overwhelm, and we set about to giving them a try.
Both of us are fans of geranium, which seems to originate neither from the popular annual plant that bears its common name, or the true perennial variety that blooms in subtle shades of purple. It’s a very green scent, herbal and pungent, yet soft and delicate. Cool enough to withstand the summer heat, and bright enough to dispel winter’s darkness. And so it was that I found myself with a ridiculously-pricey pair of products, all worth it in the end when I realized I could pair them so perfectly with the ‘Geranium Pour Monsieur’ fragrance by Dominique Ripion (in Frederic Malle’s exquisite line) that I had in my cologne collection. This is an ideal fragrance to use for the summer months, as it dissipated rather quickly, doesn’t rest heavily on the skin, and is light and bright enough to cut through the humidity that characterizes the muggiest days.
It’s been more than a hot minute since we’ve celebrated Madonna on this site, mostly because she’s reportedly been in editing mode for the long-awaited ‘Madame X Tour’ and however the hell it’s going to be presented, and her biopic, the status and form of which I’ve lost track. I’ll always be a Madonna fan, but the stand days may be done, and that’s cool. These days, I’m anxiously awaiting her next musical move, because it’s time. Her last album came out two years ago, and this is a long stretch without any musical motion on her part. Perhaps she’ll pull some amazing double-album surprise drop, but that feels like too much to wish for. In the meantime, and in honor of her birthday today, here are a few links to some online moments that celebrate the woman who’s been my main muse for the last three decades.
Before a proper day of celebration, a good night’s sleep is important. Enjoy this ‘Bedtime Story’ to send you to dreamland.
When all else fails, and you long to be something better than you are today, I know a place where you can get away…
I have no choice, I hear your voice.
I can dress like a boy, I can dress like a girl. Keep your beautiful words…
What do I remind you of? Your past, your dreams, or some part of yourself that you just can’t love?
I took a trip, it set me free – forgave myself for being me.
The face of you, my substitute for love.
Happy Birthday, Madonna ~ thanks for being there for all these years.
Sandwiched between my last trip to Boston with Suzie, and an upcoming birthday trip to Boston with Andy, here is a Monday morning recap that personified the very best of what August can be. Here’s all the good stuff, and then some:
Let’s begin with this year’s strangely unfabulous birthday wish list.
Tom Daley, Olympic gold medalist and knitter.
A second showing of summer, led by lavender.
A tale of two dinners in downtown Albany.
A definite highlight of this summer – and this year – was this stretch of days staying with Dad.
Volunteers of cheer in the form of cleome.
Shaking it down to the 80’s, with some help from my nephew Noah.
A Boston weekend with my bestie began with a spread of charcuterie, continued with a stroll in the Boston Public Garden, and concluded with a night of laughter after taking a shit on someone’s glasses.
Dazzlers of the Day included Matt Iseman, Dustin Lance Black, Taika Waititi, and Grant Chungo.
Most of my trips to Boston in recent years have incorporated intentional time for an afternoon siesta – when the sun, if it deigns to do so, floods the bedroom through the bay window, and the world seems to quiet for a couple of hours to recharge and rest itself for evening festivities. It’s not something that’s honored or employed much in this country, but the rest of the world understands the benefits.
We took our afternoon break with a movie (‘The Devil Wears Prada’) and were refreshed before dinner at Oak & Rowan – a restaurant in the Seaport that looked good. The meal was stupendous, and this marked the first steps in getting to know the Seaport area a little better. It’s a bit of a trek, but nothing insurmountable on a comfortable summer evening, especially when trying to walk off a couple of days of substantial eating. The dessert we’d had was prettier than it was filling, so once again the hunt was on for a sweet treat to close the evening, and Suzie found a late-night cookie stand (Insomnia Cookies) that would do nicely in such a pinch. COVID has Boston restaurants mostly closing up before the clock strikes 11 PM, so we wandered into Downtown for this elusive cookie place, and lo and behold there it was not far from Boston Common. I’m not saying the cookies are anything more than frozen ones heated back up, slapped with some ice cream, and adequately served for anyone with the munchies – and sometimes that’s all one needs.
We walked back to the condo skirting the Common and then the Public Garden. Suzie freaked out at a rat and a snake she claimed were battling it out by the Common, but neither me nor the two other witnesses nearby saw anything like that. Suzie can be very imaginative. We reached the condo without further incident, spent some time being harassed by Chris via text, and took our revenge on a pair of glasses he’d left on his last visit. That part will remain our little secret, and it had to be done. Life is a mystery – everyone must stand alone.
Retiring for an early start the next morning (to avoid a line at Café Madeleine and to head to the SoWa Market for the first time in two years) we slept hard again, and by the midpoint of Sunday we were ready to hit the road, hitting it just in time to avoid the lengthier traffic lines. Good music and happy company and a full tank of gas made for a seamless ride home, and our time in Boston had come to a close much too quickly. I’ve missed spending time with Suzie – one of the major drawbacks of the current state of the world – and something we will work to rectify one way or another. For now, we are eyeing a day-trip to Manchester, Vermont for the next get-together/get-away…
There was already a line at Café Madeleine after our hard sleep the night before – all that walking and talking wiped us out – and I hadn’t slept so soundly in quite a long time, so we woke slightly later than intended. That meant we were without the Madeleine pastries, so we stepped into another line at Flour Bakery and just waited it out. The plan was to take a stroll through the Boston Public Garden then meander our way along Newbury Street for some shopping before a siesta and dinner.
The Garden was filled with waterfowl and rodents – tons of ducks and geese and squirrels, all wanting to say hello to Suzie, who wanted nothing to do with them. It was already hot out, the humidity was equally oppressive, but the Garden unfolded its shady paths and cool nooks, and in the shelter of a Metasequoia tree we set up a brunch of pastries and cookies. And water – oh so much water – to combat the heat and maintain hydration. Apparently I’m drinking water and booze like a pregnant woman: tons of the former and none of the latter.
We took our time walking through most of the Garden, staying close to the pond and beneath the trees, but even those attempts at remaining cool were proving difficult to maintain, so when we crossed Arlington to the site of the former Ritz Carlton/Taj Hotel, now The Newbury, we entered to use their air-conditioned restroom and regroup for a moment of cooling down. I’d recalled the restroom from my last trip to Boston with Chris, and their Byredo ‘Willow’ soap was the main reason for this stop. We stationed ourselves in an upstairs lobby area where they were setting up for a wedding later that day. Flowers abounded, and I was reminded of the simple joy of pausing in a hotel lobby on a day in the city and re-grouping.
Shopping beckoned us onward, even in the midst of mounting heat and humidity, so by the time we reached the Aesop store, I was ready to stop, even if I never intended to find anything. With a soap sink and station set up for sampling their product, the dark, dim coolness of the store was a balm for the overheated madness of the street, and we took our time indulging and trying out the sweetly-scented offerings on hand. While not in the market for more soap, I splurged on their Geranium products (which is worth a total post of its own, so stay tuned…) It was one of those moments of respite that only happen when purely unplanned, on sunny days where everything else is melting, and you don’t expect to find relief so when you do it’s even more gratifying.
We wound our way through the retail gauntlet, finding sustenance in the fries and fried pickles at Trident before returning to the condo for a siesta. Suzie proclaimed that Ahmad Jamal would provide the soundtrack to the weekend, hence the song selections in these posts. ‘Tranquility’ felt especially fitting for the laid-back calm of spending a weekend in Boston with a friend I’ve known since birth. One more post to go…
Suzie was my companion on my very last trip before COVID hit – to a ‘Swan Lake’ show in New York City in the winter before it all went awry. So returning to Boston with her felt like a return to the world of the living, even as it came with precautions and a stunning shift in what had happened to Boston, and to us, in the last year and a half. Most of our recent visits to Boston have taken place during the holidays, when winter was knocking at the door, and we were gathering friends and family for the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour. This summer trip was a return to the past for us, when we would take a few days of summer vacation to spend a couple of days in the sultry heat of Boston for some show or shopping excursion. This time around I think it was mostly to spend some quality time with each other.
To avoid crowds, our first meal was procured largely from Eataly, where we assembled a collection of meats and cheeses and fruits and crackers for a kick-ass charcuterie platter. As I started folding pieces of salami over the side of a glass, Suzie looked at me quizzically and said it looked like I was preparing a meat cocktail. After explaining that I had seen on social media that this was how to make a salami rosette, I began to doubt myself and the end result, but after using all the salami in the pack, I flipped it over and this stunning denouement silenced all doubts.
We had lots of leftovers for savory indulgences that would last throughout the weekend, so we stored things away and headed to the Esplanade for a summer evening walk. For far too many years, I ignored this precious place along the Charles River, and whenever friends are in town I’ve been taking them back here for a walk that feels far from the city, even as the skyscrapers loom on both sides of the water.
We walked to Beacon Hill and made our way to Faneuil Hall where we waited in vain for someone to sell us some cookies at the Chipyard. Alas, they were already closed by the time we arrived, and so we decided to walk to the harbor to cool down a bit instead.
At the edge of the world, where sea met city, and the dark of the sky was matched by the dark of the ocean, we set up shop. The water lapped at the stone beneath our feet as we dangled them over the edge into the darkness. Boats passed in the near distance, while planes landed at Logan Airport in the far. The breeze felt good, the conversation was better, and the company was the best.
Our search for a sweet treat to end the day ended up at the local convenience store, where some ice cream would suffice – and after a full day of walking we deserved it. Unpacking our re-entry into Boston over this dessert ended things on a sweet and satisfied note. The next day we planned to sleep in and deal with the heat of the day as it came…
When this song first came across the radio waves as part of the sequel to ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ I was roughly the age that my nephew Noah is now. I got to spend some quality time with him when I was staying with my Dad, and it’s fun to see how much – and how little – has changed in the lives of kids now compared to my hey-day in the 80’s. My brother and I tried to explain how far we used to ride our bikes back then – the trips to creeks across town, the roaming bands of boys traversing all of Amsterdam no matter how hot the day. The lives of boys in the summer are filled with more than anyone really realizes.
While our main concerns seemed to be which route to take to get home quickest when we suddenly noticed the day waning, there were burgeoning worries that befuddled the mind, even in the freedom of summer. Even the sunniest day went to sleep eventually, and summer nights, without the bright blanket of snow to reflect any light, could be especially dark. In one’s youth, that dramatic hint of darkness was more of a thrill than a concern, and more often than not we found ourselves in bed before the real dark of night ever arrived. There’s a brutal lesson in patience to be gleaned from going to bed when the sun is still illuminating the sky.
As I watched Noah ride his bike, toss a ball with his Dad, or jump into the pool, I was reminded of the innocence of this moment, how every minute can feel exciting and hopeful, and the next turn to dependency and despair – all over the smallest and insignificant of things – but when you’re a kid everything matters. Everything is important. Maybe that’s the big fallacy of becoming an adult – we suddenly forget about what it was like when every single thing truly mattered.
We also lose our sense of adventure unless we keep nurturing it. The sort of summer movie escapism that characterized my childhood – even if it was only in my imagination – is rekindled mostly through things like writing this entry or remembering the chases of our youth with emboldened urgency and drama. There was never anyone really chasing us, but we felt the whole world biting at our heels and sped away because of it.
My niece and nephew are right in that moment, when childhood is cresting and young adulthood is right around the corner. More than any other generation perhaps, they are in a race against time – a shakedown of epic proportion that is probably quite unfair to them, but which we – the adults – have set up for them to fail. If they keep to what’s right, if they stay true to what’s good, they may stand a chance. I’m just not sure it will even matter. That’s the cynical adult in me being brutally honest. I’d rather go back to the eleven-year-old I was, dancing and grooving to ‘Shakedown’ and imagining and enacting all sorts of crazy adventures before I had to grow up.
Behold the Hibiscus!
Bold, enormous, and somehow delicate, these gigantic blooms are finally putting on their annual show in the backyard, with little to no help from yours truly. Their super-late emergence typically means they get lost in the spring shuffle, and by the time their stalks appear, I’ve usually moved on to other concerns. It’s totally unfair, especially considering how well they perform, how stunning their show, and how consistent they’ve been.
With blooms the size of dinner plates, in shades striking and soft, with foliage bright and light or sultry and dark, the Hibiscus – also hardy in Zone 5 – makes for a magnificent addition to the garden, and I may make room for a few more.
They can be shy and demure, or brash and loud, depending on the stage of their blossoms, and the colors of their petals and leaves. Such changeability and flexibility is a boon in a world that demands versatility.
