Author Archives: Alan Ilagan

Oh AI, what are you doing to this world? 

Sooner or later, although most signs point to sooner, we won’t be able to tell what’s real. 

In this instance, we come upon Tom Holland assuming the stance and position for Henry Cavill. A pose of possibility, perhaps. A pose of something more in the minds of the great gutter-dwellers.

Some nights the stars are best seen from the vantage point of a gutter. 

As for the inevitable take-over by AI, that’s far too much to address in a single blog post, and certainly not on a Tuesday. 

Targeted marketing on social media often works quite well on me – all those glamorous duds from Saks and Nordstrom, caftans with sumptuous cuffs of ostrich feathers, sequined jumpsuits, and bejeweled purses in the shapes of swans and stars and shells. They don’t always get it right though, as seen in this ad for a vibrator sold through Anthropologie. 

My most recent purchase from Anthropologie was a pair of sheer sequined pants, and perhaps that gave them the wrong idea in this case. As amusing as this is, I’m more in shock that this particular company carries vibrators. I fear the next stage of growing old is being shocked at such a thing, and that is the stage I’m at: shock and awe, only I’m usually on the other side of both. 

It’s time to get back in the game, and back to my usual side. 

Winter is scheduled to return this week after a bit of an unofficial and greatly-appreciated hiatus – we’ll see how much she decided to dump on us tomorrow. In the meantime, the weekly recap slides us into Monday whether we are ready or not…

Fed up with the social media scene, here are the new rules for my social media pages. 

A shirtless Shawn Mendes post.

Not-so-future nostalgia Part 1, way back when I was blonde.

Not-so-future nostalgia Part 2, back when I was in a Speedo.

The Madonna Timeline randomly chose ‘Looking For Mercy’ as its latest entry.

Entering the age when I don’t want to drive in the dark or in the rain.

Don’t try to run I can keep up with you, nothing can stop me from trying…

A winter visit to my Dad.

Properly suited for despair.

Accents of scarlet to warm the onslaught of a winter night. 

My new favorite word: apricity. 

Staying dry.

Weaving a summer story through the middle of winter. 

My style in the 90’s was questionable, but the reconciliation is real.

Cleaning up my kitchen act.

A glimpse at the first trailer for the ‘Wicked’ movie and it’s a wonderful thing.

Dazzlers of the Day included Ryan Gosling and Anthony Nerada.

The trailer for the movie adaptation of ‘Wicked’ dropped during the first moments of the Super Bowl (this is why we watch, people!) and it is more than I was hoping, and certainly more than I was expecting. Obviously, a trailer does not a movie make, but a trailer has been known to break a few, and this one magnificently shows just enough to set the stage for a year of anticipation until the first installment arrives. Feast your eyes and ears upon it below, and prepare to fly… 

“Style is something that you cannot learn. It’s something that has to come from within you and bit by bit be arrived at. And it’s simply there like the color of your eyes.” – Truman Capote

It took some time to arrive, and it shall continue to evolve, but my style has always been a component of who I am. For many years I played it up while simultaneously dismissing it, donning costumes and items of artifice that conveyed a chameleonic shifting of character. It was a form of dress-up that we adopt as children, and which some of us never quite quit. It was as much revelation as it was masquerade. 

Were mistakes made? Numerous times. Big, bombastic, egregious mistakes. And when I knew better, I tried to be better. I’ve always been one to appreciate the arc of a learning journey, the ways we improve and what we do after we make our mistakes. Too many people want to focus on the mistakes themselves and the immediate aftermath and repercussions; I prefer to focus on the growth and evolution and eventual revealing of who we truly are that comes about from those mistakes. These days I’m also discovering how to accept and be at peace with the perfection of imperfection. Perhaps I should have written that when I knew better, I tried to do things differently, rather than doing them better. Sometimes we don’t need to improve; sometimes we just need to do things in a different way. 

As for what constitutes my style these days, I’m deep into comfort. Sweat pants and loose, oversized long-sleeve t-shirts. It’s winter. It’s a new age in a new world. And I’m cocooning. The unseen transformation is always the most powerful. In other to listen well, one must be completely quiet, and I hear the subtle whispers of inspiration when the wind is low. Acknowledging the past is also a component of good listening; it allows for the advice of the future to be fully heard. In stillness and silence there may be understanding. 

If you’ve made it through a Dry January, why not keep going? 

Does anyone’s body really feel worse without alcohol?

#TinyThreads

One of the greatest thrills of life is discovering a word you never knew, especially when it so aptly describes something that you have always loved. In this case, it’s the word ‘apricity’ – which means the warmth of the sun in winter. Tell me that’s not an exquisite word, with an exquisite meaning. It contains a gorgeous bit of tension in its juxtaposing elements, eliciting a silver thread of hope from the barren doldrums of the slumbering season. 

When posed with the question of why I have written posts for this website for over twenty years, my first, and perhaps over-simplified response is that I love to write. Inherent in that is a love for words – how they’re used, how they might be transformed and rearranged into something new and spectacular, how they might be both masks and revelations in the exact same time and place. On some level, writing is the ultimate act of manipulation – using phrases and sentences and structure to convey whatever you want to convey, and in that sense it’s a concrete version of what we do as humans. Mastering manipulation may not sound like a noble quest in being human, and maybe it’s not – that doesn’t make it any less true. 

Rather than dive into that icky contemplation on humanity, let’s instead focus on apricity, something auto-correct is repeatedly insisting on switching to ‘apricot’ – a lovely word in its own right, but not the one I want to celebrate today. Apricity – the warmth of the sun in winter – must be a phenomenon that most skiers who have ever gotten sunburn around their ski goggles know and understand quite well. As a well-proven non-skier, my understanding is limited to the instinctual way my head will sometimes turn to face the sun on those colder days. Merrily squinting and smiling into its brightness, I close my eyes and let it fall on my cheeks and forehead, imagining through the icy chill and wind that it’s summer somewhere, knowing that it will come again if we’re all still here in a few months.

Apricity… like a sliver of hope in the darkest heart.

Recently I read that the daylight grows longer at its quickest pace during this time of the year. When the workday is done, that’s usually the time and space where I make my meditation. It’s the moment when the sky just starts turning dark, and in the living room the sun determines how the remaining light looks – the sun, the sky, the clouds, the atmosphere – they all conspire to bring about something gray and dull and somber, or something filled with rich hues and deep color. 

I don’t usually think of winter in such colorful ways. In my mind, I’ve relegated it to the stuff of dreams, and most of my dreams are in black and white. Yes, my dreams are drained of color – a rather unfair predicament for someone so enamored of bold splashes of fuchsia, gorgeous gushes of chartreuse in early spring, or the fiery red of this candle. 

Even on the gray days, the light outside the window will often turn blue when seen in pictures. In person, it’s never quite as striking. Another instance of disappointment, of something that feels unfair, when really it’s just another lesson of winter, another way to shift one’s views. Finding beauty in more subtle nuances is a way to finding happiness, but it takes practice and focus and a willingness to live in the quiet, without the relentless distractions and bells and whistles of cel phones and lap tops and surround sound and screens that get bigger and bigger. I’m running on now like my sentences, running through winter and keeping a steady pace to get through, to keep going. 

“The day and time itself: late afternoon in early February, was there a moment of the year better suited for despair?” –  Alice McDermott

If there is, I haven’t found it yet.