Sex in the plant kingdom is sometimes flagrant, sometimes furtive, and always fascinating. It happens through scent, through timing, through touch and feel – an instinct and an impulse and an intoxicating allure – and all signs point to propagating survival.
Will spring sail in on a night wind? The lilacs, in spite of recent photos here, have yet to even swell their buds. We exist only in a lilac dream – the stuff of lilac fairies – the stuff of lilac fantasy.
Somewhere in Hollywood’s glamorous past a starlet strikes a pose of seduction, bedecked in lilac chiffon and not much else, while squeezing the fringed bubble of a perfume atomizer. Scented mist disperses like a sweet cloud of floral essence, invisibly traveling around the room, and she wears it like an ethereal robe.
Singing through the sadness, dancing through the madness – maybe a musical number is all we can muster right now, and maybe it’s an exercise in fatal futility, but let’s go out dancing, let’s go out living, let’s go out loving…
Let’s go out in lilac glory – on a Saturday night, and every night.
Be beautiful in the face of awfulness. Be beautiful in the face of ugliness. Be beautiful in the face of flying fucks.
Could beauty ever render hate into something meaningless and petty? Or will hate do that eventually on its own?
Isn’t the enchanting power of a lilac’s perfume more potent and convincing than any bigot’s vitriol? One way may be louder and more noticeable, but the other can more charmingly engage and disarm. You can catch more flies by sucking them off than a swift knee to the same nether region. Which holds more sway? Which affects more lives, more memories?
I choose to remember the lilacs.
I remember the hate too, but I remember the lilacs more.
You always have a choice in which memories you cultivate and which you let die.
A choker of lilac, a choke of lavender, a choker of amethyst deep and sobering – a rope of purple and prettiness intact, and it feels so good and looks so right you don’t even realize that it’s strangling you from the inside out – as if all those luscious pearls had slid down your throat and re-assembled themselves into some strand of beautiful asphyxiation.
Some men accidentally kill themselves while masturbating, trying to come close to choking themselves, literally, just to get an extra sort of high when they approach climax. I’ve had hands around my neck at such moments, so I get it, and to die at the height of ecstasy seems in some respects a perfectly marvelous way to go.
If you’re not quite ready to permanently depart, leave the choking to the pearls – purple and pink and pretty enough to do their work with the pleasure that comes purely from being beautiful, damn it.
It wasn’t long, long ago I fooled the guards, but someone tipped them off But all my cards aside, the bells still rang No charms, no claims No good for goodness sake
White asparagus is not just some variant form of the green spikes most of us know so well; it’s just green asparagus that has been completely starved and deprived of light during its growing season. That doesn’t mean it is less; in fact, it contains much the same levels of fiber and nutrients and all the good things that asparagus supplies. But it looks different. It’s been through more.
Oh, I don’t wanna run and hide I don’t wanna live a lie I?need the spotlight Like a bird inside a cage Exotic, but covered up with lace If what they say is true There’s no place for me and you But when I walk my walk When I put my makeup on Look at me, look at me Don’t you see your queen?
When mother left, the halls did cry As for the world, it went on like before But time passed, and the band began to play First, there was light, then there was sound Then all the stars came out
Some have warned that this is not the time to speak out and attract notice. Some have said it’s better to be silent, to take no side, to make no noise. Some have never even more wrong. This moment in history calls upon us to be more ourselves than we’ve ever been before. To boldly proclaim our right to exist, to live, to love – and to defy anyone standing in our way. Live and let live, or perish trying to prevent us from doing the same.
Oh, I don’t wanna run and hide I don’t wanna live a lie I need a spotlight Like a bird inside a cage Bright-eyed and longing for the stage If what they say is true There’s no place for me and you But when I walk my walk (But you better give up before you die) When I put my makeup on (Doesn’t matter who you are) Look at me, look at me Don’t you see a queen?
Too often we diminish ourselves, making our existence smaller to please others, dimming our own light as not to over shine anyone else. Fuck that. Fuck all of that in the most fucking heinous way possible. Skull-fuck it through the goddamn eye sockets of anyone who sees it that way.
There’s an empty seat That’s where you’ll find me There’s a broken heel That’s where you’ll find me If the sun doesn’t shine on you Break your glass and cause a scene And tell the world, just wait, you’ll see There’s no more time to cry when the crowd’s right there
While the Lavender Scare gave no reasonable or sane reason to fear gay people, the Lilac Scare is here to turn that on its head – because people should be scared, very much scared, very much afraid and very much in terror about what we will do when attacked. But do not worry too much – it will be done beautifully, it will be done fabulously, it will be done gorgeously – and you won’t even feel the prick of metal slicing through skin until it’s too late.
When I walk my walk And when I put my makeup on Look at me, look at me Don’t you see your goddamn queen?
It has come to my attention that ‘Gaelic’ means something totally different than what I assumed all these crazy years. (Turns out not everything is about being gay – whoopsie daisy!) So on this day of shamrock shakes and pots of gold and little bearded green-suited men, here’s some music by Tulua, and a few pics of green heaven.
My one and only visit to the Emerald Isle was an enchanting one, and I still recall a very specific brush with the sublime there (and the eloquence I earned from making out with the Blarney Stone).
May your day be filled with magic and luck and all the charms.
When all the guests have departed and the fancy cocktail glasses have been carefully washed by hand and put away, a musical moment of calm descends as a song plays us into the end of the evening. The bouquet of flowers is still as fresh as when the night began; the candles have diminished slightly in height, and their smoke will soon be all that lingers in the air. It is a moment of afterglow, only ever-so-slightly tinged with remorse that it had arrived at an end.
We are not granted an infinite number of such nights, and I have learned not to take a single one of them for granted – each is a singular gift, never to be replicated or repeated, never to be had again, so I do my best to be present and mindful for all of them.
When the heart approaches fullness we come closest to brushing up against the sublime, and the sublime is often best experienced with good company. At the end of an evening, when all the guests have gone and the candles have been blown out, I sit in the dim living room, listening to Andy finish loading the dishwasher, watching the kitchen lights go out. He is still my favorite company, my treasured comfort, and the very best way to finish an evening.
I had a bad habit of missing lovers past My brother used to call it ‘eating out of the trash’ It’s never gonna last I thought my house was haunted – I used to live with ghosts And all the perfect couples said, “When you know you know.” And, “When you don’t you don’t.” And all of the foes and all of the friends Have seen it before, they’ll see it again Life is a song, it ends when it ends… I was wrong…
And then this song comes on like another bad habit with the best of intentions, not unlike this blog has been for much of the winter. A little obscure, a little forlorn, a little lacking in patience and compassion. A lot like the world right now. What else is there to do but get lost in a pop song? What else can anyone who is not in Congress actually do to change this country right now? We can dance, we can shout, we can let it all out, but in the end all we have to do is protect ourselves and our loved ones. Do what you can – maybe try to do a little more than you usually would given the unprecedented downfall of our country – and fight the good fight. You know what is right and wrong. You know what feels fishy and false. You see photos and videos and facts before you, even when some Orwellian despot is spewing lies about it right to your face, and the party goes along with it, adding to their riches while we all grow poorer. On some level, you know. If you don’t wish to acknowledge the truth of what is happening, that’s on you. If you’re ok with racism, hatred, violence, and pedophilia, that’s on you. If you can turn a blind eye and say you don’t follow politics and you wish people didn’t post about it, that’s on you.
…But my Mama told me It’s all right, you were dancing through the lightning strikes Sleepless in the onyx night, but now the sky is opalite Oh my Lord never made no one like you before You had to make your own sunshine But now the sky is opalite
Wrapping such an upsetting world in a gauzy song of escapism may be its own form of rebellion, albeit it a rather minor and inconsequential one. A four-minute pop song was never going to save the world. Relying on someone else to do it won’t save the world either. And remaining quiet about it because you don’t want to upset anyone, well that actively works to ruin the world at a time when voices matter.
You couldn’t understand it – why you felt alone You were in it for real, she was in her phone, and you were just a pose And don’t we try to love love? We give it all we got You finally left the table, and what a simple thought You’re starving ’til you’re not. And all of the foes and all of the friends Have messed up before, they’ll mess up again Life is a song, it ends when it ends You move on…
How dare I take a harmless Taylor Swift song and turn it into some click-bait diatribe about speaking out about the current state of affairs in this country? Maybe because Taylor isn’t saying much after robbing the world blind with a bazillion different versions of her latest album. Maybe because no one is taking this disastrous administration as seriously as they should because they seem too stupid to be so dangerous. Maybe because I’ve predicted all that’s happened these past few months way back when everyone didn’t feel comfortable enough voting for a woman the first time around. And the second time. Maybe because it’s all too late now and none of this will even matter.
…And that’s when I told you It’s all right, you were dancing through the lightning strikes Sleepless in the onyx night, but now the sky is opalite Oh my Lord never made no one like you before You had to make your own sunshine But now the sky is opalite
Dancing through the lightning strikes like those musicians playing their final song as the Titanic sank beneath them. To die as one lived. Nobility is one fine line away from stupidity, and stupidity is mere moments from lucidity. I’m too tired to even look up ‘cupidity’ so make it all make sense. (Ok, I looked it up – it means greed for money and possessions. Guilty as hell.)
Oh winter, release your stifling hold already. How much more are we expected to take? You have given us nothing this year – not even the briefest of thaws. While a thaw has always wreaked more havoc than peace, I’d gleefully take that over this ridiculous nonsense any time. And the song plays on as we cross the bridge…
This is just a storm inside a teacup But shelter here with me, my love Thunder like a drum – this life will beat you up, up, up, up This is just a temporary speed bump But failure brings you freedom And I can bring you love, love, love, love… Don’t you sweat it baby
There it is – sweet release in a saccharine chorus, if saccharine is even a thing anymore. This winter has me feeling all sorts of outdated and out of sorts – no more sorts to give, I guess. An experiment ending in dismal and total failure. Nothing to salvage, nothing to save, nothing to remotely begin the assembly of something to be learned. Only word games and plays on words – a rope of words if you will, Miss Desmond, and we all know she won’t because it strangled her business of being a star – silent, iconic, shrouded in mystery, the blank space of being whatever you wanted her to be.
It’s all right, you were dancing through the lightning strikes Sleepless in the onyx night, but now the sky is opalite Oh my Lord never made no one like you before You had to make your own sunshine But now the sky is opalite
Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’ movement gets a so-called ‘epic’ treatment, lending an already-dramatic musical selection even more tension and wonder. In this dizzying winter season, where the obscure has failed to resolve itself into any sort of focus, and the haze grows even more fuzzy, I’m reconciling myself to the imperfect way life has of stumbling along, especially at those times when we most want things to run smoothly.
Like days filled with the fullness of the moon, or periods when Mercury is in retrograde motion, this winter has proven challenging, and fighting such challenges is futile. When you learn to let go and lean into where the world is taking you, no matter how strange and unfamiliar, surprising things might result. There is an important distinction between giving up and giving in – good and bad points to each. While the rest of the world seems to have lost sight of nuance and subtlety, those graces are integral to making a happier way through life.
Winter waits for no one; it hurries for even less.
Nearing Valentine’s Day has some of us reminiscing about this antiquated day of love, and while I’ve now spent more Valentine’s Days with Andy than without him, I still recall the holidays of my youth, long before I had any inkling of what real romance was – when the notion of love was accessed through pop songs, hinted at in lyrics, and felt only in an approximation of want and yearning.
The way I started to understand love was through the radio, in the music of the woman who would be with me on all my romantic journeys ~ Madonna. She sang early on from a swaying room, when the music started and strangers moved in shadows that seemed mysterious and filled with secrets – the stuff of romance, of desire, of love. I was around ten years old, and I knew nothing of any of that, but something in her voice resonated with me, speaking to the undeniable romantic I was torturously destined to become.
The secret to love, true love, was elusive and ever out of reach. Whenever I felt like I was approaching it, it shifted and changed and disappeared. Such secrets were cloaked in delicious darkness – I could only sense them, not solve them, and the closer I got, the more slippery they became.
Throughout the 90’s, Madonna grew and evolved, her music changing as much as her images, and love, in all its many facets and problematic notions, was a constant theme. She kept me company as various people entered and exited my romantic stages, reminding me that if Madonna found romance a rocky road, maybe none of us would find it easy.
The lead single from the forthcoming Harry Styles album ‘Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally’ has been released, and it’s a gently shuffling sort of beckoning to the disco dance floor that primes the beat for what might be to come. It’s called ‘Aperture’ and it’s a vibe. I don’t know if it’s a proper right primal banger that’s gonna make you sweat, but it’s a beginning. Perhaps that’s what this moment needs – escapism and fantasy from the floors of dance and good times. It feels far away, it feels necessary.
https://youtu.be/7sxVHYZ_PnA?si=cz7oc3xoQa8tgZIt
And still it doesn’t feel like enough. There is so much darkness, I’m not sure I can find solace on the dance floor right now, or ever again. A sense of defeatism pervades our world, shading the future, bleeding into all the days to come. Maybe this is just what getting older means. Maybe this is what getting older does.
“During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.” – Dan Savage
This is what you’ll get This is what you’ll get This is what you’ll get When you mess with us
Karma police, I’ve given all I can It’s not enough, I’ve given all I can But we’re still on the payroll
Winter recedes from focus – I cannot get my arms around it, can’t get my head around it – winter obscura, sentences collapse, words fragment…
Walls of noise rise, but not here, not in this post. Not when we so need melody… and solace. Ease to the ears, healing for the head – and I wouldn’t dare ask for any help for the heart.
This is what you’ll get This is what you’ll get This is what you’ll get When you mess with us
Winter obscura… like silent snow, secret snow, sickening snow. Snow on the television, snow on the phone, snow on the brain. Snowy blowy bloviating bullshit.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Back in 2003, some saw the teaming up of these two pop icons as the passing of the Pop Goddess baton from Madonna to Britney Spears, but I knew only one of them would/could last, and with a new album on the more immediate horizon, that looks to be Madonna. Nothing against Britney, or the music, just a reflection on longevity, and Brit’s got a long way to go before she surpasses Madonna on that front.
Here was their first and thus far only collaboration, the lead single from Britney’s fourth album ‘In the Zone’ – and a strange little blip on Madonna’s musical timeline.
Hey Britney, you say you wanna lose control Come over here I got something to show ya Sexy lady, I’d rather see you bare your soul If you think you’re so hot Better show me what you got
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clwLKJ294u4
Like almost all of Madonna’s collaborations with other superstar artists, this one suffers slightly from overwhelming expectations and an oddly-muted production. For all their effort, and all the hype of being released in the white-hot aftermath of their infamous and incendiary MTV Video Awards performance smooch, it falls just a little flat. While Britney gets top billing, this is just as much a duet as Madonna’s ‘4 Minutes’ splash with Justin Timberlake (which make be her strongest collaboration with another renowned celebrity/singer).
The video keeps them tantalizingly apart until the very end – a lengthy tease that is emblematic of the song as a whole. All tease, little action, and not much lasting resonance. Madonna’s greatest strength will always and forever be as a solo artist.
While Laufey will forever embody that glorious Coquette Summer we celebrated a couple of years ago, she’s been a staple on the cafe playlist where I’ve been spending my afternoons. It’s good winter music as well, and so I seek out a proper seasonal song from her impressive oeuvre.
Madonna’s love affair with Dolce & Gabbana goes back decades, and finds further expression in her lending them a song for their promotional push for ‘The One’ fragrances. It’s her first musical release since 2019’s ‘Madame X’, and acts as an amuse-bouche for her upcoming return to dance-floor form in a long-hinted-at sequel to ‘Confessions On A Dancefloor‘.
A respectable cover of Patty Pravo’s ‘La Bombola’, sung in its original Italian, this Madonna is moody, mature, and understandably a little worn and worse for wear. At moments, it doesn’t even really sound like her, which is a bold move, as she’s not the chirpy girl of ‘Like A Virgin‘ or ‘Material Girl‘ anymore, and this is an accomplished effort. It’s not going to climb the charts, as if that even mattered at this point in her career, and it really speaks more to her commitment to creatively expansive artistry, and a wonderful evocative companion to her perfume ad visuals.
I wish she’d done something like this for her own fragrance releases for ‘Truth or Dare’ and ‘Truth or Dare: Naked’ – both of which are exquisite scents, and worth more than Madonna’s relatively lackluster promotional push at the time. A song by the lady herself would have possibly made these flagons immortal in the style of Elizabeth Taylor rather than a one-two-off adored by a selective niche.
That said, perhaps I should be glad not more have embraced these, as they can still be found if you know where to look. Like the music here, the mood is sensual, spicy, slightly carnal. If anyone knows how to whet the appetite for what is about to come, it’s Madonna. This is a gorgeous start to a year that may find her deservedly back in the pop spotlight.
