Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

People seem to be going stir-crazy right now. I’d love to be going to Boston every other weekend, seeing shows on Broadway, flying to Savannah or California, and going to the movies or out to dinner. Of course I miss those things, but it’s not an onerous punishment to be staying at home. Some people have indicated they are getting bored. It’s always been my opinion that only boring people get bored.

There are more books in the world than can ever be read, more music than can ever be heard, more nuances in the texture of a single ceiling if you know how to look and examine and explore the wondrous working of the mind.

When I was a kid every once in a while I’d work myself into a state where I would think I had nothing new to do, and I’d whine and complain to my mother that I was so bored. Wisely, my mother ignored my aimless whining, allowing me to work through it on my own. It sucked and I hated it, but it made me a better person. I learned patience. I learned quiet. I learned how to be ok sitting still and doing nothing. And for all of my adult life, I have been able to enjoy being quiet and doing nothing. There is such a sense of peace in that. I don’t see that in today’s youth, nor in some of my own generation. People freak out if there’s no television or wifi. They can’t stand to have a few minutes of stillness and silence.

I think it’s because we have been conditioning ourselves to be constantly stimulated and occupied. I never needed that, and I’m much happier because of it. Too many people are tormented by their inability to simply be – to sit in the stillness, to sit in the company of yourself, to be quiet and to be ok with the silence. When you can do that, it’s almost impossible to be bored. Every moment and every situation is the opportunity to return to yourself and the little space you’ve made in the universe. 

And if you’re still bored after exploring the interior of your mind, just go on TikTok and follow @alanilagan already.

Most of you know that flash mobs typically make me cry. Thankfully this one was short enough that no major waterworks erupted, but I will admit to welling up a bit. It happens every time I see people doing their best to better the world in however small a way it happens. This time it may have a little more impact, as the “Wear a Mask” campaign, championed by our own Governor Andrew Cuomo, gets some help with a socially-distanced flash mob treatment to spread the #NewYorkTough word. Created and choreographed by Jim Cooney, this is what New York does best. Check out the full background and credits here, and start spreading the news.

As for the idea of wearing a mask to be respectful of the health of others, only a selfish asshole refuses to wear one when in public.

When the world shakes and shimmies, disturbing the status quo and reminding us that no human is really in charge of anything, I tend to turn to nostalgia and the comforts of remembering a time that seemed simpler and easier and not quite so dim. To that end, I’ve been taking daily walks around our little gardens, soaking in the sun and silence, and remembering the way things used to be. This is not a state in which one should stay, and it’s not a place in which I usually find myself, but for now, for this moment, it is welcome.

These vintage photos were taken during the first or second summer in our current home, about eighteen years ago. We still have that weigela in the background, though it’s on its last legs and in need of replacement. Out with the old and in with the new, and this garden year is about editing and cutting out what doesn’t work. Gardening remains a ruthless game. There is comfort in that too. 

This just about sums it up, and we are not even halfway through the year. 

Here is our pool then and now.

It is in need of a new liner, which is why we didn’t bother to open it, against my instincts, so now here it sits – an ideal habitat for mosquitoes, flies, ducks, and the occasional opossum (that post is coming…) Contrasted and compared to last year’s pool scene, this is a stark reminder of the bullshit that is 2020 in a nutshell. There is a lesson in learning to wait.

Oh well. Such first-world problems aren’t the end of our world, first or otherwise. Annoying? Yes, especially when it’s been sunny and in the 80’s and there is literally nothing else to do, but my mind opens up at such times, and the imagination unfurls like it has since I was a child, and suddenly a backyard even without a pool is a magical oasis. Hell, our living room alone is a place of endless enchantments, with its books and photo albums and music and memories and artistic objects and gifts from around the world. Going through all the stories connected to everything there could take an entire month, and all of it filled with happiness and contentment. 

Now is not the time to opine our current circumstances nor compare it to past glories. So much of our discontentment is based on unreasonable comparisons rather than simply examining the moment at hand and how we feel in it. Where is the beauty here and now? Where might we find beauty in the next hour or so? The rest doesn’t matter. 

For instance, around the pool at the moment is a grand Korean lilac bush in full, fragrant bloom. The ever-increasing stand of Ostrich ferns is at its most perfect stage, when the fronds are full and fresh, in their brightest shade of chartreuse. The peonies are in tight bud with the promise of a perfumed future. There is so much to embrace and cherish here and now. 

And eventually we will make beauty out of the pool again. And it will be better and brighter than before, because it will happen when we are present, when we can be mindful, when we can take it in like we never did.

We won’t be looking back.

This morning’s recap of Memorial Days past finds companionship with our usual Monday recap of the week that came before. Traditionally we would just be making our way back to upstate New York after a long weekend in Ogunquit, but the world has changed and shifted beneath our feet. This one will be spent in the garden, and there is joy and beauty in that, as evidenced by the lilacs seen here. On with the weekly recap…

It began with some shirtless male celebrities. 

Boss lady.

Glitter & wisdom in a PSA.

Fabulous repeating.

You can munch on this sweet carpet.

Tulipa.

I am now addicted to TikTok, so follow my ass there. 

Striking a pose for three decades. 

Nude male drawings.

This is why I adore Jasmine Shea.

In these serious times, we live life through imagined worlds and wishful scenarios, such as this virtual weekend in Boston with Kira. It was so fantabulous it needed a second part. 

We revisited a night at the Hotel Chelsea, for better or worse. 

My journey in therapy continues, and I absolutely love it. 

Memorial Days in Maine.

Hunks of the Day included Fran Tirado, Ben Foster, Zach Clayton, Reid Kisselback, and Olly B.

By the time I finally got around to spending a night at the Hotel Chelsea, it was in sad and sorry shape, a shell of its former glory, and on the last legs of its former life. That was also part of its almost-eternal appeal. It carried its beauty in its rough edges, in its raw and slightly-rundown, worn weariness. It carried it in blood and death, in a haunted history of debauchery and decadence, both glamorous and depraved. I didn’t want to delve too deeply into it – it was enough to spend a single night and experience the hotel before it closed down. It seemed like it was on the verge of closing for years, and in 2009, on a warm summer afternoon, I checked in to the Hotel Chelsea, and a new project was shot in a single day.

I REMEMBER YOU WELL IN THE CHELSEA HOTEL
YOU WERE TALKING SO BRAVE AND SO SWEET
GIVING ME HEAD ON THE UNMADE BED
WHILE THE LIMOUSINES WAIT IN THE STREET
THOSE WERE THE REASONS AND THAT WAS NEW YORK
WE WERE RUNNING FOR THE MONEY AND THE FLESH
AND THAT WAS CALLED LOVE FOR THE WORKERS IN SONG
PROBABLY STILL IS FOR THOSE OF THEM LEFT

This evocative version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Chelsea Hotel’ performed wondrously by Meshell Ndegeocello is the perfect soundtrack to this project, this post, and the magic that is New York. Upon checking in, the front desk clerk brought me up a few steps to the first room on offer. The biggest cockroach I have ever seen in my life scurried under the door next to mine, and I knew right then that would not be my room. That was confirmed when the window to the place was wide open and unlocked, looking right out onto an alleyway and easily reached by anyone taller than me. I wanted a hotel experience, but not quite this gritty. I asked for a different room, which I rarely do, and after some hemming and hawing they ultimately obliged. A few flights above, I went into a corner room, oddly laid out with a full step into a slightly elevated tile bathroom, ragged-off painted walls and doors, and a tiny square of a window with a typical New York fire escape, iron grates and alley-view.

AH, BUT YOU GOT AWAY, DIDN’T YOU BABE?
YOU JUST TURNED YOUR BACK ON THE CROWD
YOU GOT AWAY, I NEVER ONCE HEARD YOU SAY
I NEED YOU, I DON’T NEED YOU
I NEED YOU, I DON’T NEED YOU
AND ALL OF THAT JIVING AROUND

I spent the afternoon and early part of the evening shooting the project. Chris wasn’t due in until later, so I had a stretch of solitude. It was summer in New York, with all the heat and humidity and sweaty loneliness that the city could conjure. Alone in the hotel, I roamed the empty hallways shooting doors and windows and the iron stairwell. I peeked and probed and poked into all sorts of corners, hoping for a glimpse of some secret, some ghost that the hotel would give up to my camera’s eye. Nothing happened. Nothing revealed itself in blatant, striking form. No grand illusions were smashed, no enchanting recluse opened her door to let me in. Any haunted secrets were going to keep to themselves for this evening. 

It was stuffy. The air was stale. Even in the open hallways, I felt constricted and confined, the way New York sometimes closed in on me. Retreating to my room, I locked the door and threw off my clothes, as much for artistic attempts as for comfort. A few more photos, a little reading, and then a shower to get the train ride and the taxi off of me. There are times when the only escape is a shower, when the only way out is through breathing in, when the feel and scent of soap is the only thing to keep you sane. 

I REMEMBER YOU WELL IN THE CHELSEA HOTEL
YOU WERE FAMOUS, YOUR HEART WAS A LEGEND
YOU TOLD ME AGAIN YOU PREFERRED HANDSOME MEN
BUT FOR ME YOU WOULD MAKE AN EXCEPTION
AND CLENCHING YOUR FIST FOR THE ONES LIKE US
WHO ARE OPPRESSED BY THE FIGURES OF BEAUTY
YOU FIXED YOURSELF, YOU SAID, “WELL, NEVER MIND
WE ARE UGLY BUT WE HAVE THE MUSIC”

There were summer storms in the air that night. I headed a few doors down to a little bar and waited for Suzie, who was joining me for a quick dinner before Chris got in. A martini was a lovely way to wait out a rainstorm, which itself was a lovely way of relieving the humidity. We rushed out in the middle of the downpour, finding an umbrella at a deli, but when it’s that hot and nasty out, a downpour isn’t the end of the world. It’s also difficult to be mad at the world when Suzie’s around. She headed home and I went back to the hotel. 

AND THEN YOU GOT AWAY, DIDN’T YOU BABY?
YOU JUST TURNED YOUR BACK ON THE CROWD
YOU GOT AWAY, I NEVER ONCE HEARD YOU SAY
I NEED YOU, I DON’T NEED YOU
I NEED YOU, I DON’T NEED YOU
AND ALL OF THAT JIVING AROUND

The raw work of a project was done. That was the fun part – the part of possibility – the part when everything is perfect because it exists only in the mind. The editing and refinement of the project would come later. For now, I could relax into the night, into an empty hotel room in the loneliest city in the world. There was no comfort in the room, and I leaned into the tension. It was what I needed for the project. That ghostly solitude. The Hotel Chelsea opened up at last. 

The next morning, I couldn’t check out soon enough. 

I DON’T MEAN TO SUGGEST THAT I LOVED YOU THE BEST
I CAN’T KEEP TRACK OF EACH FALLEN ROBIN
I REMEMBER YOU WELL IN THE CHELSEA HOTEL
THAT’S ALL, I DON’T EVEN THINK OF YOU THAT OFTEN

{See ‘A Night at the Hotel Chelsea’ in its entirety here. Also see ‘StoneLight‘ and ‘The Circus Project.’}