Summer Sundays are always bittersweet – they tick away too quickly like the season itself. This year especially seems to be flying by – and there are two very special events fast approaching: our 25th anniversary and my 50th birthday. This past weekend we had a group 50th celebration, as the Cornell Collegetown Crew descended on Albany for an all-too-rare reunion, and I’m still on a heart-high from my favorite people – let’s ease into a new work week slowly and carefully – Mercury is still in retrograde – the madness is still in motion – the underlying summer tension runs hot… and our weekly blog recap begins now.
Summer sometimes seems deceptively sweet, carelessly benign as its sun beats down and lends a false aspect of cheer to whatever might be crumbling in the world around us. Strange really, as heartache knows no seasonal bounds, and occasionally summer’s relentless sweetness is a slap in the face when you’re faced with sadness. That sort of contradiction is rife throughout the memories of this song – ‘Toy Soldiers’ by Martika, of ‘Kids Incorporated’ fame.
It wasn’t my intention to mislead you It never should have been this way What can I say? It’s true, I did extend the invitation I never knew how long you’d stay
When you hear temptation call It’s your heart that takes Takes the fall (Won’t you come out and play with me?)
Step by step, heart to heart (heart to heart) Left, right, left, we all fall down (all fall down) Like toy soldiers Bit by bit (bit by bit), torn apart (torn apart) We never win, but the battle wages on For toy soldiers
In July of 1989, the song went to number one, which is when I remember it – and in many ways this was the section of life when music started mattering, when a song melded itself to a moment. I was thirteen years old, about to turn fourteen, and it feels far away. There are elements that are unrecognizable to me, and elements that are still very much the same. That’s the age the soul is said to solidify into what it will be for life. A powerful age, a tender age, an impossible age. How much we load onto ourselves without realizing it…
It’s getting hard to wake up in the morning My head is spinning constantly How can it be? How could I be so blind to this addiction? If I don’t stop, the next one’s gonna be me
The specifics of that summer escape me, but if I think back hard enough and reinhabit that section of youth, I remember feeling the dangers of growing up, while wanting nothing more than to be older and out in the world – the first stirrings of a restless heart. Throughout that summer Martika sang this plaintive song (reportedly about a friend enthralled in drug addiction) and though I had no idea what it was about, it called to me with all its 80’s glory. To this day, it reminds me of summer – the darker underside of summer – always there in the shade, in the shadows, in the night…
Only emptiness remains It replaces all All the pain (Won’t you come out and play with me?)
Step by step, heart to heart (heart to heart) Left, right, left, we all fall down (all fall down) Like toy soldiers Bit by bit (bit by bit), torn apart (torn apart) We never win, but the battle wages on For toy soldiers
Which is sadder: a rainy Sunday or a rainy Monday?
Both once felt like a waste.
Now both feel like an opportunity. Or, better, a challenge, which at this point in my life is more of a blessing than I realized in my youth. Learning to embrace the rain makes for a happier existence than lamenting it. Most people try to view rain as the prerequisite for the flowers, which is a fine way for children to begin accepting it, but I want to grow a little deeper.
On a rainy day, the world is gray, muted, and more subtle than in the stark revelatory shine of a sunny day. It allows us to notice and feel the quieter gradations of the world, which allows us to feel the softer things more acutely, expanding how we experience what some consider mundane and dull. Nothing in this world is dull, only our lack of imagination and belief in possibility. Once you unleash that shift in perception, everything is new again.
Rows and floes of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere Looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun They rain and they snow on everyone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way
When the words are taken away, when the voice is silenced, we still have the music, we still have the melody. Once, several years ago, I wrote a blog post using this Joni Mitchell song, but I cannot find it anymore. Like the rest of this site, one day it will all be lost – bits and pieces and fragments of whatever technological remnants might remain won’t ever come together like you see them here. Nothing lasts forever.
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down and still somehow It’s cloud illusions I recall I really don’t know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels The dizzy dancing way that you feel As every fairy tale comes real I’ve looked at love that way
But now it’s just another show And you leave ’em laughing when you go And if you care, don’t let them know Don’t give yourself away
The sky was troubled on the night these photos were taken, on the night these words are being written. This moment will be over and done by the time anyone reads this post, and this precious capsule of time will have passed. But I can play it over again in my mind, like the way this song remains in memory, as long as I can remember, as long as I might pass it on.
Tears and fears and feeling proud To say, “I love you, ” right out loud Dreams and schemes and circus crowds I’ve looked at life that way
Oh, but now old friends, they’re acting strange And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained In living every day
As I write this, the friends I met thirty years ago are scheduled to arrive tomorrow for a weekend of catching up and reminiscing, and maybe that’s why I’m feeling slightly nostalgic and contemplative – my ‘pensive pony’ pose as a former paramour once described this mood. Maybe it’s just Mercury in retrograde. As I perused a shirt in a store earlier tonight, it reminded me of my favorite Uncle – it was something he would have worn, likely selected by his wife and of no great concern to him, clothes not mattering as much as other things, and I almost started crying for the tender innocence of some men, and the tender guilt of all of us.
I’ve looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall I really don’t know life at all
Did you see this sad FAFO story about the New Hampshire guy who had lived here for almost his entire life, then supported MAGA and Trump, and got stopped from coming back into the US after a visit to Canada? Chris Landry got his green card revoked because of some prior convictions, and now has to stay in Canada, separated from his family. I guess there’s some grace in the fact that he seems remorseful – most of the MAGA folks are still supporting Trump and the GOP even when their kids are dying of measles and they are thrown out of the country. (They don’t appear to be the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree.) It seems to ring differently when it’s not someone with darker skin – how strange (insert shrug emoji here for shits and giggles).
Ricocheting from the stereotypically-masculine to the stereotypically-feminine, the push and pull of The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale may be as profound as it is silly. One of the main tenets of that project was poking a little fun at myself, and looking as ridiculous as possible, while also positing some inherent questions on what makes a man or a woman. It sounded more superficial back then, which is precisely how I wanted it to be. These days, such questions take on greater resonance, as more and more people are being attacked for being different or other. That is way too serious for someone in a wig like this.
And lip gloss like that.
We won’t even get into the rest of the make-up…
Such a wigged-out state is ideal for this interlude, which constitutes our lone Divine Diva Tour entry for the week. Catch up on all previous entries below.
Music and summer go hand in hand with making memories, second only perhaps to scent and fragrance in melding a sensory experience to a memory. This old-school summer playlist contains most of the classics that informed my youthful summers, and last year there was this trio of playlists that informed our Coquette Era:
This year, our summer theme is ‘ISLAND’, and I present to you a playlist that is more eclectic than usual, which directly mirrors the scattered nature of my brain these hot, hazy days… (click on the title for a link to hear the song)
The lovely tribe that I wrote about in this post descends upon our happy home this weekend, cramming everyone into our little space like we did way back in our college years. It’s a celebration of us turning or about to turn 50, as well as the 30th year of my friendship with them. It also marks a rare summer gathering for us – we usually get together around the holidays in Boston – but summer is always lighter and more carefree.
They’ll be part of our Island Summer, escaping to our lovely little landlocked isle and all of its perfectly and quirkily contradictory aspects for a weekend. It’s a badly-needed moment of reconnection for my favorite people in the world, especially in the darkened and dim world we have going on right now.
Mercury is in retrograde motion until August 11, and I’m already completely fucking over it. I think Mars is still in Virgo, so fuck around at your own risk. I’m not entertaining nonsense.
I am trying to go with the flow and let the fuckery happen without letting it get to me. The fun bottle featured here was a gift from Lorie, who knows just how ruffled my feathers can get whenever Mercury goes retro. Embrace the attitude, succumb to the drama, and stand back Buenos Aires – you oughta know what you’re gonna get in me – just a little touch of star quality!
And by star quality I mean back the fuck up and leave me be until mid-August.
The grammatically-correct perfectionist I used to be would scoff at my embracing of these ridiculous sweet treats, called ‘Donettes’, and unexpectedly adored by Tom Ford. My decidedly imperfect current incarnation simply wants to enjoy their powdery, sugary sweetness, their simplicity and inherent unhealthiness, and the element of nostalgia they conjure. They’re somewhere in my childhood, but I can’t quite place where and when – and it’s ok to simply be moved backward in time, even if the precise placement remains unknown.
Social media is mostly awful these days, and I’m on it for posting these blog links and that’s about it. Hit it and quit it. So it was a happy surprise when I saw the number of followers I have on BlueSky tick up to the 10,000 realm. That’s almost twice my Instagram and FaceBook follower counts, and feels like more of a testament to the sanity and reason of the people on that site than any special draw I’m exhibiting. Would that it were the latter, but my youthful days were spent long ago. This is more validation that others share my views, which are for love and equality, which had earned the ‘woke’ moniker. I’m good with being awake rather than asleep or hateful. Wish more felt that way…
While the Madonna Timeline has yet to hit ‘Has To Be’ – the B-side to Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ single – I’m including the instrumental version of this underrated track in this post for its tranquil properties. In my opinion, it could have easily slipped onto the ‘Ray of Light’ album, perhaps elongating the last section’s slowed-down meditative vibe. (It’s certainly superior to the currently-hyped ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’ demo that is part of the messy ‘Veronica Electronica’ release – that one feels decidedly unfinished, even if it’s exceptionally intriguing as a product of this artistically-fertile point in Madonna’s career.)
I’ve written about its pull previously in this post, and there will be a more comprehensive meditation on it for when the Madonna timeline makes its way there. For now, breathe in, breathe out, and say a little prayer.
Our backyard is no stranger to magic mushrooms, and this muggy summer makes for more fungus hospitality. These beauties appears practically overnight – I thought some escaped bit of rubbish blew into the yard before I went out for a closer look and discovered them.
The decaying stump of an old Japanese maple, and a bit of rain, formed the happy home environs for this mushroom clump. There is something magical about how quickly and fleetingly such a thing happens. It will likely shrink and wither beneath the direct rays of sunlight – should they happen to strike.
After some perfunctory research online, it looks like these may be a variety of oyster mushroom, but I’m not someone who will take his life into his hands by trying that theory out. Nor would I serve this to a dinner party for shits and giggles (no matter how tempting that might be).
