I have mixed feelings about plants that bloom this late in the season. Part of me is glad to see new colors and forms in the garden at this time, but another part has already given up. It’s why I only ever included a couple specimens of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. By the time the show starts it’s already time for the season to be over. Focus has already shifted indoors. The rest of the surrounding area is brown with the die-down of scorched ferns and wilted hydrangeas.
Yet there are joys and thrills of opening this late in the game. For starters, there isn’t much competition. Even the annuals, which will flower until the last possible moment, are looking ragged and worn. As noted, the ferns and other foliage have all been burnt and scorched by the high season. The plants that do begin their blooming cycle now are few and far between, which makes them all the more valued. One of the most striking late-bloomers is this Caryopteris – more commonly called Bluebeard. Not only is it rare in its late-hour show, it also offers one of the closest hues to blue that is produced in the natural world.
As I said, I’ve already pretty much written off the garden by this point in the year, but blooms like this remind me that as long as the sun lingers there is life – and some of it quite colorful and gorgeous. That’s a rather pleasant reminder, and a wonderful way to see the season through to the end.
The bench looks out onto the Charles River. Beneath a green-leafed oak it is shaded beneath the hot afternoon sun. Even in September, the heat of a dying summer remains strong. A city hangs onto heat like that, but a river and an ocean are nearby, and a breeze lends a comforting and cooling effect. September is the bridge between summer and fall, when the nights turn crisp and suddenly the days follow suit, and soon it’s easy to forget that there ever was a time when it was hot.
I don’t know if it’s sadness that I feel at the approach of fall. Most of the time the relief from oppressive heat is reinvigorating more than anything else, but I still can’t quell the worry that this is the start of the slow march to winter. It only gets more barren from this point forward. The days will shorten. The light will lessen. The clocks will tick, and time will advance.
If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I’d like to do Is to save every day til eternity passes away Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever If words could make wishes come true I’d save every day like a treasure and then Again, I would spend them with you
Along the Charles people walk or run or ride bikes behind the bench on which I sit. Out of the corner of my eye, I sense their presence. Some move quickly, whizzing by in a blur. Others are slow and deliberate, pausing along the way, lost in revelry or distraction, or maybe just intent on their journey. It is impossible to read the human mind.
The river laps at its shore. A plastic bottle mars the otherwise-pristine view, but it is too far to reach. The bench next to mine is empty. There is something both hopeful and lamentable about an empty bench. It carries the weight of possibility bound by loneliness, the happiness of summer days suffused with the ache of passing time. A bench is a marker – of space and hours and days and moments. It stands still when the world refuses to wait.
But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do, once you find them I’ve looked around enough to know That you’re the one I want to go through time with
The first time I passed this bench I did not pause. I was one of the walkers, passing quickly by behind it, not noticing or caring enough to take in the day, to drink in the sun, to reflect on the moment. I was walking next to the first man I ever kissed, on the way to his apartment, and that was all that mattered. It would be years before I made the connection of where we were, and the route we had taken. Back then Boston was a disjointed mass of T-stops, and aside from a few green line stations, I had no idea how the city was truly laid out. I had to walk to discover.
If I had a box just for wishes And dreams that had never come true The box would be empty, except for the memory of how They were answered by you.
There are still days when fall feels like summer. If you close your eyes and sit still in the sun, you can fool yourself into thinking that time has not passed, that we have not yet reached the beginning of the end. Until that first hard frost, it’s possible to pretend. The tricks of memory, the twists and turns of time, the gnarled paths we take, sometimes repeating ourselves, sometimes branching out in frightening and wonderful directions – these are the marks of the seasonal shift out of summer.
Opening my eyes, the dappled sunlight dances on the dry ground. Soon, the space will be littered with fallen oak leaves. They hold on until the very end, reluctant to let go of their lofty vantage point. It is time to leave this place, before the leaves fall. This is how I want to remember it.
We will return here one day. For now, we put the summer to sleep.
But there never seems to be enough time To do the things you want to do, once you find them I’ve looked around enough to know That you’re the one I want to go through time with…
This year’s summer retrospective continues, as we look back at the season of the sun, so recently departed. We’ve made it up to mid-late July, when summer reaches its peak in many ways. That includes reminiscences about the date Andy and I met each other. Fourteen years ago things were very different, but somehow we’ve survived the changes.
Whether it was yesterday or today, the first day of fall has arrived, and thus ends another summer. It’s always sad to see the sunny season depart, but there are gorgeous elements of fall that make up for it, and the long giddy road to the holidays has its own charms. For now, a pause in honor of the summer that just passed.
At first I thought it was a horse. I was traveling along the Massachusetts Turnpike, a road I’ve taken hundreds of times, and on the opposite side was a dark mass rising out of the grass. As I got closer, the antlers separated themselves from the background of trees, and I realized I was looking at a moose.
What struck me most was the size of the creature. It was gigantic. Even from afar its immensity was impressive. The rounded massiveness of the antlers, the dark majesty of its fur, and somehow, even as my car whizzed by, the soulful portals of its eyes. It moved slowly. When you’re that big, there is no need to rush. Yet far from plodding or cumbersome, its gait was more graceful than clumsy, and suddenly, somewhere between Boston and Albany, that glimpse of grace brought its own sense of peace.
There is some debate over whether today or tomorrow marks the first day of fall but I’m going with tomorrow, so for now I bring you the usual weekly recap. Tomorrow I’ll do the big summer round-up and the big events (and hot guys) that the season of the sun offered.
Male supermodel David Gandy has been featured here time and time again, and as long as he keeps up the underwear front he’ll be featured here in the future. There’s a comfort and a thrill in that, the perfect encapsulation for the spark of fall just around the corner. Previous postings include his initial crowning as Hunk of the Day, his naked ass (and a peek of more), this sexy work-out GIF, a gratuitous crotch shot, a relatively classy black-and-white bonus, and a bit of bush and backside in one. A few more appearances like this and he may make it into his own category, a la David Beckham or Tom Daley.
Andy is a magician in the kitchen, as evidenced by this recent beet and goat cheese pizza. A somewhat unorthodox pizza combination, it was supplemented by peppers and red onions, resulting in the riot of warm colors you see here. Food is about more than taste – it’s about texture and temperature and, yes, presentation. While pretty dishes don’t necessarily translate to yummy eats, when the two combine it makes for a merry moment, and a merry meal.
If there was one character I related to most on ‘Twin Peaks’ it was Audrey – the young, sexy vixen who had the hots for Agent Dale Cooper, who was supremely uninterested in her. I know that song, I know that dance, and I know that no matter how silly and sophomoric it may seem, those feelings can rip apart the heart, rending it doubly difficult of loving later on. Audrey managed to be seductive and sad, a sex-pot who didn’t so much have sex as inspire it, someone who longed for the one man who wouldn’t long for her in return. Not that way. Never that way.
You can have the eyes and the desire of the world, but what good is it when the one you want doesn’t even notice? Sometimes I think that’s what drives us – the elusive other, the one who got away, the single person who will only ever like you, not love – not love in the way you need and crave and want, not love in the one way that will mean everything and turn you inside out and bring the world crashing down so they can build it all back up. No, not that kind of love. Not for her, not for me.
The breezes of fall rustled through the pine trees in my childhood backyard. The abyss of darkness, and the safety and the danger of night, stretched out unseen and unknown. I could only feel it, even when I reached out and stepped over broken leaves and matted grass. I could only listen to the rush of it, pulsating with the quickened beating of a heart – a single heart – the aching sound of loneliness. Longing is louder, but loneliness rings deeper.
The soundtrack to ‘Twin Peaks’ brings it all rushing back to my mind. I was in high school then. Practicing marching band music after school, fumbling with math proofs, and squeezing a frozen juice box into a messy accordion. On certain Friday nights, we had to perform in the football halftime show, running out into the middle of the surreal, unforgiving illumination of the football field, blaring ‘Fanfare and Entrance’ while the majorettes kicked their legs and waved their pom-poms in the air. When the halftime show was over, and Friday night fun was just beginning for others, I traipsed my way through a darkened field back up to my home. I passed dimly-lit baseball diamonds, and a patch of blackened forest that beckoned with the fate of Laura Palmer. I did not know fear then. I did not know what it was like to be unloved. I did not know how lucky I was.
When Prada introduced one of its first colognes onto the market, I drove breathlessly into Boston to purchase it. I was ready to buy it scent unsniffed, but this was my first lesson that no matter how much you may admire a brand, it doesn’t always automatically register into a love of its fragrance. As I sprayed a generous spritz onto my wrist, I instantly recoiled: it was awful. Well, maybe not awful, but awful on me, and awful to my olfactory receptors. At the time, I wasn’t ready for the complexity of such a fragrance. There is a learning curve involved in developing one’s appreciation for cologne, and at that point Prada was too much.
I revisited every new launch, but for some reason the magic of Prada always eluded me. There was something too floral about it, tinged with a chemical note that I found slightly repellant. I’m not saying they were bad, simply not suited to my taste. Yet times, and tastes, change, and the challenge of Prada that I could not quite answer years ago can be taken up and conquered now.
Pictured here is Luna Rossa – one of the new Prada fragrances. If my years of Latin are recalled correctly, I think it roughly translates as Red Moon. Perfect for a fragrance to bridge the gap between summer and fall, when the nights turn cold, and only a red moon is there to remind you of the heat that came just days before.
Part of my prior Prada reluctance was due to the fact that I was making quick decisions based on sample sticks and hasty dry-downs. This time around I boldly spritzed some on and let it linger on me for a while, and that’s when the transformation took hold. Those chemical aspects dissipated quickly, replaced by warmer shades of something richer and earthier. Spicy notes crept into the mid-section, and the evolution of this cologne on the skin restored my faith in the Prada name. Patience and perseverance are often rewarded, particularly when it comes to fragrance. For that reason, Luna Rossa may not be for everyone, but if carefully employed can be an elegant addition to a gentleman’s cologne arsenal.
There’s something special about Matthew Rettenmund‘s relationship with Madonna. I first wrote about that moving connection here, and to this day Matthew will always remind me of Madonna, and often vice versa. Far beyond that of fandom, Rettenmund has long connected on a deeper level with the iconic goddess, bringing a sharp and erudite reading to all of her work, calling her out when she’s faltered but mostly praising her work in an intelligent and scrupulous manner.
Almost two decades ago, he wrote ‘The Encyclopedia Madonnica’ – a book that more than lived up to its epic name, and one that remains a definitive record of Madonna’s life and career until that time. Of course, Madonna has gone on to do a great many more things since the publication date of that seminal tome, and Matthew Rettenmund is making moves to update that in this brilliant Kickstarter pitch.
Forget ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ or ‘The Godfather 2’ – this one looks to be the definitive sequel that surpasses the original. Much of Madonna’s richest work has come after 1995 (witness ‘Ray of Light‘ and ‘Music‘ and ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor.’) The best has yet to be written, and Mr. Rettenmund is the ideal man to flesh it out in print. While it’s an ambitious undertaking, Matthew (not unlike another certain ‘M’-monikered icon) has the drive, determination, skill, and talent to pull it off. Support his noble efforts here – there are a number of nifty rewards at every donation level, including some very special Madonna items.
Where is the time going? We are almost half-way through the month of September. How is this even possible?? I’ve been out of town at a Bachelor Party weekend in Washington, DC, but I’m recapping the events of the previous week before we get to the rather tame shenanigans of this past weekend.
