Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

It would be impossible to come up with anything, no matter how perfect, to match the storied history that Suzie and I have (half-real, a quarter conjured, and a quarter, no doubt, make-believe) with Mary Poppins. It is one of the first memories I have with Suzie and it’s remained part of our legend and lore for over four decades. When a movie and its music is that deep in one’s lexicon, any sort of update, sequel, or related entity is doomed to pale in comparison. Happily, Ms. Poppins, and her whimsical lessons of life, manage to retain the magic and wonder of the original, and may just be the classic continuation to see the character through a new generation.

It helps immensely that the film revolves around a winning performance by Emily Blunt, and energetic support from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Guest turns by Meryl Streep, Noma Dumezweni, Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Dick Van Dyke, and a trio of preciously precocious but not grating children round things out in sparkling fashion. The costumes are deliciously exquisite – sumptuous in color and design – and the animation is seamlessly drawn in, whimsically enchanting for children and adults alike. The story is serviceable, and where it lacks the compelling family transformation of the first, a more somber undertone of loss runs through it, giving the grounding it needs for such fantastical flights of fancy. Mary Poppins is about delight and wonder, and how to conjure each in a world of dim adulthood. 

As Suzie and I sat there next to her kids, nearly forty years after we sat at a showing of the original, I pondered part of our journey. As they boarded a cartoon carriage onscreen and rode through a porcelain path of Royal Doulton, I thought of those happy moments beneath a grape arbor or wandering through the forest of a Renaissance fair. Of course I also recalled our first viewing of ‘Mary Poppins’ in the same mall. A finger crushed in the car window. A platter of fried clams. It meant more to us than it could to anyone else in the theater, but that’s the way it’s always been. 

Given today’s nine-filled date, I was reminded that Twitter recently sent me notice that my 9^thanniversary of having joined the social network came on New Year’s Day. (Guess I was bored at the family dinner and signed up to start tweeting about it.) So… nine whopping years of tweets… and nothing to show for it. I shudder to think how many years I’ve wasted on FaceBook… I came relatively late to the Instagram party, so I feel a bit better about that.

All of this makes me pause and take stock of how social media has become such a part of our lives. My formative years were spent without such stuff, and I’m better for it. Having worked in human resources for well over a decade, I’ve seen the changing shifts in job applicants, and it’s decidedly unimpressive. Gone are the days when one crafted an error-free cover letter or carefully-curated resume. Gone are the days of candidates who could attend an interview and actually engage in and follow a conversational thread. Some of it may be attributed to the way the current generation processes everything on their phones, not worrying about spelling full words or figuring out how to make sustained eye contact or simply focusing on a single topic for more than two minutes. But now I’m losing sight of the whole point of this nine-centric post (credit my burgeoning crotchety-old-man attitude – you knew it was coming – hell, it’s been coming for forty years).

What does one do for a Twitter anniversary? For starters, follow me: @alanilagan. Then never open the app again, because the only thing worse than Twitter is FaceBook.

Luxury is assembling a fruit salad in the middle of winter, and I’ve never not appreciated such charming circumstances. The idea of having a selection of various citrus – grapefruit, oranges, tangerines – and apples and berries and kiwi and pineapple – in the midst of frigid weather is a lovely thing. I complain a lot, but it’s all for show. My heart is filled with gratitude as much as my stomach is filled with the apples seen here. Most of us are luckier than we realize. A visit or glimpse into the rest of the world is proof of that.

Not that we need to dwell there, not in this corner of the internet anyway. There is enough ugliness to be found in other places. Here, we shall have beauty. Here, we shall have art. Here, we shall have only the prettiest, most enchanting and magical moments we can conjure.

For today, we shall have an orange and some apples. In the middle of a raging winter. Through the eyes of a website.

Try some… eat one.

There was no Monday recap last week because it was New Year’s Eve, and this blog was pre-occupied with all the hunks that had paraded for your viewing pleasure the year before. Then came the ‘Year in Review – Part One and Part Two’ which seemed like more than enough recaps for the week. So this post will do double duty and recall posts from the last two weeks, just so nothing, and no one, gets left out. People, and Hunks, can be so sensitive sometimes. On with the show…

It began with the official end of fall.

A secret Russian Christmas tea.

Winter arrives. 

I was surrounded by nine children, and I lived to tell the tale. 

Sexy Christmas assholes. 

Christmas Eve.

Holiday, celebration…

The first set of Hunks of the Day included Sam Salter, Daniel Cifonelli, David Muir, Glenn McCuen, Matt Turner, Max Evans and Thom Evans.

Post-holiday stress disorder.

Leather & blush: when Tom Ford intertwines.

Christmas dinner: a seven-dish Filipino feast.

Top Nine of 2018: the bare butt edition.

The New Year began with a bang by Britney.

An egg.

Peace in. 

Char-who-to-what?

A birthday, a pencil, a childhood memory.

Pietro Boselli’s naked ass. 

Picture me in a leopard-print onesie, or just click here. 

This blog is bringing sexy back, starting with this salacious post, and continuing with this one filled with gratuitous male nudity. 

The second set of Hunks of the Day featured David Copperfield, Noah Centineo, Sam Asghari, Cauã Reymond, Mina Gerges, Prince Fielder, Jake Mace, Seth Rogen and Alessandro Florenzi.