Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ~ Howard Zinn

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” ~ Frederick Douglass

“In a system of intimidation and control, people do not show how much they know, how deeply they feel, until their practical sense informs them they can do so without being destroyed.” ~ Howard Zinn

“The world now seems a stunningly ignoble place. It has not really grown all that much worse but appears to have done so because we know so much more about it than we did. Communication, which the class magazines are always telling us we lack, is in fact an epidemic.” ~ Quentin Crisp

“Everything that happens anywhere is told to everyone in great detail, at once and in color, and since, as the cliche goes, good news is no news, never a day passes but by proxy we are choked with tear gas, bludgeoned with sticks, robbed of millions, raped at age eleven, and starved for a lifetime.” ~ Quentin Crisp

“I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.” ~ Howard Zinn

“The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth.

Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson – that everything we do matters – is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think, when we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back.” ~ Howard Zinn

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
5. Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
8. Bad Boy Bangs: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
9. Vanity Under Where: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
10. Sugar Plum Ballerina: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
11. A Pool Frolic: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
12. A Cemetery Interlude: Part One and Part Two.
13. Powder Blue Fur Doll: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
14. A Milky Interlude 
15. Rock Out, Cock Out/ Hang Out, Wang Out: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
16. Cocktail Cocktale: Part One and Part Two.
17. A Fairy’s Interlude: Part One and Part Two.
18. Willy Wonkers: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
19. A Peacock In Everything But Beauty: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
20. Swan Lake Fantasia: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.
21. Black & White in Briefs: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
22. Weave of Basket, Weave of Rope: Part One and Part Two.

This is the tale of how people change ~ even foolish, young, vain ones.

He was handsome, he was popular, he was adored,

but always something was missing.

He shirked off the compliments.

They meant nothing. 

He was Awakening.

He looked at the world around him of the first time,

not with any concern about his place in it, but of the world as its own self.

It was heartbreaking to see.

It hurt to look.

But he stared and studied and threw off his shallow vanity.

… no matter how much he was loved …

– From The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~ circa 2005

Reading over these words that I wrote twenty years ago, I am somewhat pleasantly surprised at how prescient and timeless they proved to be, while cringing slightly at the vestiges of vanity and self-importance that still seeped into much of what I did back then. Curiously, that adds an element of paradoxical tension to the moment, and I love a tension that condemns our personality quirks while playing them up at the same time. 

We have reached the sharpest turn of this project, where we have rounded the corner that puts us into a plane that doesn’t allow us to go back to the superficial glamour that informed the earlier entries. You can never go back to before, as some newly-awakened diva once sang in a musical called ‘Ragtime’. Awakening is part of the theme at work here; growing up is the other side of that coin. 

“In a society of complex controls, both crude and refined, secret thoughts can be found in the arts…” ~ Howard Zinn

~ The Divine Diva Tour: A Fairy’s Tale ~

1. Pink Frilly Fairy: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three
2. Homage to Herb: Part One, Part Two and Part Three
3. A Purple-Hued Interlude
4. Style & Panache: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
5. Purple Puff Confection: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
6. A Blue-Hued Interlude
7. Fuchsia Fabulousness: Part One. Part Two and Part Three.
8. Bad Boy Bangs: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
9. Vanity Under Where: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
10. Sugar Plum Ballerina: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
11. A Pool Frolic: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.
12. A Cemetery Interlude: Part One and Part Two.
13. Powder Blue Fur Doll: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
14. A Milky Interlude 
15. Rock Out, Cock Out/ Hang Out, Wang Out: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
16. Cocktail Cocktale: Part One and Part Two.
17. A Fairy’s Interlude: Part One and Part Two.
18. Willy Wonkers: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
19. A Peacock In Everything But Beauty: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.
20. Swan Lake Fantasia: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.
21. Black & White in Briefs: Part One, Part Two. and Part Three.