He first came to unassuming light with his understated but anchoring performance in ‘The History Boys’, and since then Russell Tovey has been turning in one surprising performance after another, in work that varies from ‘Looking’ to ‘American Horror Story: NYC’. He and his body have been featured here previously in this gratuitous post, but this marks his first crowning as Dazzler of the Day.
At the heart of every artist is the drive and desire to create and to connect. Different artists do it in different media, and those who cross the boundaries to understand how different types of art bleed into each other have a wisdom that leads to work that can be richly resonant. Karel Barnoski’s latest effort, ‘Surrounded By Light’ is a prime example of an artist who focuses on a single instrument – in this case the piano – which somehow becomes a vessel for mapping out a tapestry of emotion.
Beginning with the bright, hopeful ‘Rise’, a little preamble to the proceedings, ‘Surrounded By Light’ locates Barnoski where he feels most alive: painting with the piano, coloring with the chords, and shading with the surety of his nimble fingers across the keys. The title track eases things into contemplative motion, slowing and distilling the proceedings to a wistful, almost bluesy territory – the place where music transforms into feelings, becoming more than the sum of the sound, and landing in a glorious mix of emotions – that precise moment before an abstract painting becomes a mess, stopping just short of that at the place of brilliance. Barnoski clips his songs at just the right ripe moment – a sign of maturity and genius in an all-too-often overwrought and overextended world.
Knowing when to pause and invoke silence is the unappreciated secret to so much of music, evidenced by ‘Grace’, where the space in-between the notes holds the exquisite tension and anticipation of promised release and elegant resolution. Another secret to great music is allowing the listener to make their own journey, leaving enough room in the songs and their titles to allow multiple readings to shade every experience differently. ‘Message’ might be a missive, a rumination, or a warning; ‘Drift’ could be a trip, a wave, a wind, or a loss.
Barnoski’s music evokes colors and light, shadows and shimmer, drawing a soundscape with strokes of sound that lift and bounce along as they do in ‘Held’ or undulate wildly and wonderfully as in ‘Sway’, each finding a way to sonically craft a world rich in texture and possibility.
When an artist so deftly creates music that merges and demands the conjuring of mental images, it creates a connection with the listener that pierces the heart in a way that a stand-alone image or song, taken on their own, can never quite achieve. ‘Surrounded By Light’ is that sort of music – it asks nothing from us other than to be heard – it is the plea and unanswered prayer of the artist – and the beauty of that, in the generosity of spirit and shared experience, is what touches me most here. It defies explanation and description – it can only be felt, as in the magical waves of ‘Mystic’ and the closing contemplative elegy of ‘Complete’.
I used to think that artists felt things differently from other people, that they somehow had access to deeper parts of the soul that the rest of us could never understand. As I listen to a song like ‘Self’ I’m no longer so certain we can separate and categorize people in such broad strokes – what I do know is that there are some works of art that speak to people in a universal way; they touch and tug at the heart because they evoke something primal at the core of being human.
These blues are not the sad and sorrowful sort, but rather the bright and hopeful tints seen in the sky on a recent winter morning. While we’ve had some snow of late, with more scheduled to come, we have arrived at March – the month in which spring comes with all its bluster and tumult. Far from being out of the woods, it’s still a good place to look ahead and focus on the coming spring and summer seasons, and that does my heart good. 
As antsy as Andy and I are for the weather to soften and the sun to appear in full force, I’m taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of a winter morning. The wind has been kind enough to leave some of the snow on the pine boughs, mirroring the scattering of clouds in the sky. Considering how beauty works so wondrously makes me believe the world is more than a bunch of random acts and images. There is purpose here, and design, and meaning. It speaks to all the senses, even the metallic taste in the air signaling snow on the move.
“That’s the thing with a diary, though. In order to record your life, you sort of need to live it. Not at your desk, but beyond it. Out in the world where it’s so beautiful and complex and painful that sometimes you just need to sit down and write about it.” ~
Whether you break the time down by acknowledging that I am teetering on the upper side of middle-age, or do the math that the two decades of this website have documented about half of my adult life, this website would only document about half of my existence.
In fact, that doesn’t even come close. Had I posted all of my diaries and journals since the Garfield-the-cat one I had in grade school, you still wouldn’t be able to get more than a slight glimpse into my life. Whenever I read biographies or autobiographies, I always find myself wondering about all that isn’t said – and that’s a tell on myself. The vast majority of my life is lived off-line; I come here to regroup and summarize, and to try to make sense of specific parts of it. Then I share that with the world, in as palatable a form as possible while eliciting some silver thread of entertainment. Through that process comes a sort of catharsis, a way of talking abut things not that far removed from therapy, but void of any guidance or challenging questions that therapy so helpfully provides.
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” ~ James M. Barrie
Putting my messiness down in words here has absolutely helped me figure certain things out over the last two decades. Aside from the simple documentation of what went down on any given week, I can look back and see how various events shaped and influenced various moods, and vice versa, then better deal with similar incident in the future. Life is repetitious in many aspects – too often we get bogged down in repeating our own actions and reactions without realizing what we might change or learn from them. Seeing it here, in printed searchable format, I can analyze and become better – and isn’t that the whole point?
But even that’s going further than necessary: most of the time the act of putting it down, regardless of follow-up analysis, is enough, and I’ve been consistently surprised at this when it happens. It just came up when I was reminded of my childhood friend Jeff who ended up committing suicide in high school. That incident, and that lost friend, haunted me for years – far longer than this website has been I existence – and try as I might, I could not shake it. I never revealed that, however. I had written a lot about it, without noting how much it had affected me in the ensuing years. Last year I did just that, and in heaves of relief and regret, I put it all down in this post. Ever since that moment, the ghost has never returned, and I haven’t thought of Jeff in that way for months. Far more happily, when I do think of him, it’s not in a frightening, this-must-be-blocked-immediately-and-forcefully-because-it-hurts-too-much way. Rather when I pass his old house or our elementary school, I find the hurt has for the most part healed – never fully forgotten, but no longer the debilitating force it once was. When I formulated all of that into words, the relief was instant and tangible.
Similar catharsis came when I wrote this letter out to the first man who ever kissed me. Tom had been my first gay experience, and for all of the romantic innocence I exhibited at the time, and all the foolish first-steps of finding my gay footing, it was not the wonderful and fabulous foray into the community of which I might have been secretly dreaming. In fact, it was fraught with doubt and danger, and Tom did nothing to offer guidance or advice – in fact, he clearly and coldly told me he wanted nothing to do with educating anyone, and since he had to find his own way, he thought everyone should. It took me years to forgive myself for not standing up to such a selfish stance in that moment, and then more years to forgive myself for thinking I had to forgive myself. In the end, it was the simple writing of his name in a letter which set that ghost free. I haven’t thought of him since then, until trying to conjure this post in fact, and now it no longer hurts to recollect that time in my life.
That’s the power of a diary when done with care and intent and deliberation. It’s not enough to write the daily machinations of a day – one has to write what one fears and does not yet understand, and in the release of that comes a certain exoneration. It’s a tricky process, however, at least for me. I’ve written about many things over the years and they will continue to haunt and nag at me – only when I hit at the specific issues, and the things I’ve hidden even to myself, does the release and magic happen. Knowing what that is, and what it feels like, is what keeps me doing this.
“In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance.”
~
“Keep a diary, and someday it’ll keep you.” ~ Mae West
“If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of with which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes.” ~ Michelangelo
Mythology is rife with imaginative portraits of humans whose quest for glory leads them to dire ends – Icarus, Narcissus and Prometheus come to mind. There are also Biblical stories where humans’ ingenuity and intelligence sparks an unexpected triumph, such as in David and Goliath. (Figures that sort of hubris would come from the Bible. Are we deities or not? Are we divine or merely human?) I’ve been happy to be merely mortal – a human with hubris, haughtiness, and hell sometimes in my heart – and I contain all the folly that every human has contained since we were created. That means I’ve had the vanity and self-deception to assume that a personal blog could become a work of art.
“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” ~ Michelangelo
Making a blog into a work of art is perhaps a silly notion. When I consider the great works of art that have survived the centuries, a blog is unlikely to ever be counted as one of them. To that end, I have failed miserably, and will continue to fail in that quest. Making myself into a living work of art is also a ridiculous endeavor. I will fail at that too.
Yet in the effort, I hope you will find some shred of nobility. In the trying, may you see the striving. In the attempt, may you find the hope. If Icarus never fell, how would we know we could fly? If Prometheus hadn’t dared to capture fire, how would we learn to burn? If David hadn’t stepped forward to face Goliath, how would we muster the nerve to try?
“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. ” ~ Michelangelo
For all of the twenty years this website has been in existence, I have striven to find myself – the man I truly was, the one beneath all of the fluster and bluster. Chipping away at our own thick stone to reveal the tender interior is not only the province of sculptors and artists, but the quest of every human being remotely interested in getting to know themselves. In certain ways, that is the purpose of life. Some may call it vanity, some may call it self-obsession, some might deride it as ego – and all of those play their necessary part – but only when we discover and know ourselves can we look into the soul of another human and possibly hope to see what is truly there.
“The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.” ~ Michelangelo
Admittedly, I am no David. Nor am I Goliath, or Prometheus, or Icarus. Far too afraid for far too often to be any of those characters, and far too flawed to have achieved what they did in spite of their folly, I’m only beginning to learn to be comfortable in my own skin. Such a lesson takes longer than twenty years, and the few things I know now at 47 wouldn’t have been dreamed or designed when I was 27. That’s why I’m still doing this. There is so much more to know. The two decades encapsulated on this website are the merest wisp of my life. You think I’ve revealed everything? You haven’t seen anything. We’re just getting started.
“To know each other is the best way to understand each other. To understand each other is the only way to love each other.” ~ Michelangelo
And so we journey onward – and I use ‘we’ with deliberate care and import. Somewhere along the way of the last twenty years I understood that this adventure would never, could never, and should never be done entirely on one’s own. My most thrilling moments here – the ones I enjoy reading even after I’ve written them – are those which involve my friends and family. Their stories are the often-invisible threads that hold this narrative together, weaving a life’s work into something that approaches art.
That which we love is always beautiful, and that which is beautiful is always art.
Winter, at the edge of the world.
Wind whips across the water as tendrils of icy air grab hold of sand particles.
Tiny crystals of frozen water sting the face, joining little fists of air wrapped around jagged grains of sand.
Light drains from day, and is determined to leave a mark, a memory.
A streak of amber would-be-warmth if the rest of the world wasn’t conspiring entirely against it.
The carcass of a seagull, desiccated and hollow, sits forlornly on the beach – a veritable embodiment of the shells our bodies are. At odds with all other memories of seagulls, and a disconcerting juxtaposition of all my memories of beaches, it somehow brings peace to us.
We stand at the edge of the world – the fist of Cape Cod’s armlike peninsula – and the ocean quietly crashes around us. A winter beach, for those of us who only visit in the summer, is an unexpectedly beautiful bit of desolation.
Brutally ruinous winter has ravaged this crux of land and sea, sending tourists to warmer climes and natives to their hearths, while we stand unbothered and alone in the wind and the sand and the flying flotsam of ice and salty water. The tip of the tongue can still taste life in the air that way – in its salty, mineral, most basic elements – clinging to the chapped lips and waiting to be devoured.
There, with the entire world and twenty years ahead of and behind me, the sea birds soar beyond the beach that still holds their missing brethren. A fleeting thought of panic rises, when it all feels useless and futile, then it falls away as the ocean laps gently, as the wind takes pause, as the sun feels like it will return after all.
In the winter of 2003, I started writing it down here.
I still feel the panic.
I still feel…
ALANIAGAN.com ~ 20 years and counting.
Scarlet burns the little pool of light.
On this night, winter wants for the warmth of such a candle.
Warm to the touch, warm to the sight, a candle is a thing of might.
Watching the flame perform its dance is a mesmerizing study. Some use this as an entry-point into mindfulness and meditation. If you’ve ever paused to watch a candle burn and gotten transfixed in its light and motion, you’ve partaken of a practice of meditation.
Mindfulness need not be a complicated endeavor. Sometimes the more simple a practice is, the more powerfully it can transform us. Learning to be mindful in the most mundane of moments is a method of finding magic in all the minutes. It will be a trick that comes in useful for every trying time in life. The older I get, the more trying the times seem to become. Being able to slip into mindfulness – to achieve that place of calm breath and easy existence no matter what is going on around us – this is the goal of my daily meditation practice. Every day it gets a little easier, while every day a deeper calm exists just beyond me. The beautiful journey has no end.
Boston has played a major part in this website over the past twenty years, forming the backdrop for many a documented excursion, and the inspiration for many blog posts. It’s still my favorite city in the world, and it’s the place where I can find peace, happiness, excitement, glamour, stillness, calm, joy and adventure. I was scheduled to revisit it this past weekend, but plans were changed due to a stomach flu, so a re-do is in the works. Until then, this linky look back at some enjoyable Boston stays will have to sustain us.
Boston has always been home to me – even when we were just visiting as children, its size and streets and charm felt cozy and comfortable, thanks mostly to the guiding force of Mom, who took us around and showed us how manageable a city could be. Back then, we stayed mostly to Copley Square, and the safe confines of our hotel. Eventually, I grew out of that sheltered space, and ventured forth into the city on my own. It’s been one beautiful journey after another, and I wouldn’t change a single step.
Boston was the first place where I ever kissed a man, and despite how that all turned out, I have found a way to cherish that memory.
Boston was where I met and forged a friendship with Alissa. We returned there to meet again and again over the years, and whenever I tread the South End streets near where she used to live, she comes back to life.
Boston is where I found my first real job, in retail of course, which was the start of a beautiful romance.
Boston is where I met JoAnn, which sparked one of the most hilarious moments in my life, right on the steps of Trinity Church.
Boston was where I reconnected with Kira, who formed a major part of my days at John Hancock, along with JoAnn and the whole OG Hancock crew. She is entwined with my Boston history, happily so, no matter life may bring to us. She also helped me start the Boston Holiday Stroll tradition, something we kept going for quite a few years. Andy has picked up where she left off, and it’s still one of my favorite holiday traditions.
Boston is home to several happy holiday traditions, highlighted by the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, which is one of the more uncharacteristic events I’ve hosted in my Boston home. Thankfully, I’m a pro around the kiddies these days, and I can handle however many hours it might run.
Boston was where I was supposed to be on the day of the Marathon Bombing. I was literally about to get in the car to start the drive when messages started coming in asking if I was ok; I unpacked my bags to the news of the lockdown and manhunt for the bombers.
Boston is the home of the Red Sox, the only sports team that has ever inspired any sort of passion in me, thanks to the way my Dad raised me and my brother. We were a Red Sox household, and that allegiance has never wavered (even when I was the lone sixth-grader in upstate New York rooting for them against the Mets in that bummer of a 1986 season – yeah, I still remember). That played the historical backbone to the BroSox Adventures that Skip and I have enjoyed for many years, a tradition that forms what is always one of the most fun weekends of our summer season.
Boston is also a place for drama, and as we get older I find myself in more, and less, of it. Lessons have been learned, and lessons have had to be re-learned, and still the city provides a backdrop and balm for whatever is going on in the tumult of all our hearts and heads.
Boston is where I love to rendezvous with an old friend, such as this salty old man who has been along for the rollercoaster of friendship with me since 1995. We blame Suzie for introducing us, and Suzie has been in Boston numerous times, lending her own quirky enchantment to the city and finding new ways to dream.
Boston is a home I’ve had for almost three decades, standing solidly within the brick walls of our condo, obliterating the attacks of every winter storm or stifling summer day, providing respite and reprieve from an ever-frightening outside world.
Perhaps most happily of all, Boston is where Andy and I got married – on a bright sunny May day in the Public Garden, surrounded by all the spring blooms and swans and love that anyone could want. We return there year after year – sometimes it rains, sometimes the sun shines, and often it does a bit of both – and it grounds us again, reminding us of that day, that year, and all the years that we’ve had together.
Boston is Love.
Bringing a batch of birthday blondies to my brother, I got to see this little guy just maxing out and relaxing in the sunlight of a Sunday afternoon. Jaxon is one happy little baby, content to rock in his chair and let the world do its thing, while he watches and observes, occasionally cracking a smile or wincing at the foolishness of all us adults hustling and bustling about. At only seven months old, he already has a certain centered peace to him, and though I am usually good about hightailing it out when a crying fit might be about to occur (I’ve got a heightened-sense about it thanks to several years of practice with these two) even when he cries it’s not the crazy mess that babies can sometimes become.
His chill, laid-back attitude bodes well for coping in a world where insanity is the order of the day. Luckily, everyone is making sure he’s kept peaceful and comfortable for as long as possible. There will be time enough to grow up later. For now, we enjoy a sunny day at the end of February.
His expressions are such that I could easily fill the rest of this blog’s life up with pictures of Jaxon alone. That’s a comforting thought for when I scrape the bottom of the barrel for content, and for those who are over my own tired shenanigans. ‘The Life & Times of Jaxon Layne’ has a certain gorgeous ring to it…
While a stomach flu threw a wrench in most of the plans for this past week, shit still managed to get done, and as we close out this wretched and final full month of winter I want only to race forward. Big things are happening this week, as we mark the official 20th anniversary of when this website went live way back in 2003. Two decades baby! But first, a look back at the last week as we always do on Monday morning.
Things began in fine family form with a sleepover with the twins, a trip to Saratoga, and a family dinner wherein Jaxon Layne made his first visit to our home.
From there, it was shit city, as that nasty stomach flu that’s been going around hit me hard. I’m still awaiting that first solid bowel movement, which I’m confident will be as glorious as everyone is imagining it to be. #StayStrong
A bouquet of tulips to ease the winter pain.
There’s always room for Jello!
A gratuitous and shirtless Shawn Mendes post.
Madonna’s best album ever, ‘Ray of Light’, celebrated its 25th anniversary.
My baby brother celebrated his 46th trip around the sun.
The Madonna Timeline fittingly returned from the dead with ‘Come Alive’.
When the winter gets icky and messy.
Spoiler alert: Twitter still sucks.
Dazzlers of the Day included Corey Feldman, Brenden Sanborn, Omar Apollo, and Micah McLaurin.
Sometimes a single performance is enough to garner a Dazzler of the Day crowning. Such was the case when I happened upon the Madonna medley below performed by the divine Micah McLaurin. That alone was enough to seal the deal – when one looks deeper into McLaurin’s talents and accomplishments, it is clear that Dazzler is just the tip of the iconic iceberg. With soaring work in composing, performing, and fashion, McLaurin is a multi-layered artist whose entire being is a force of gorgeous, breathtaking inspiration. Check out Micah’s YouTube channel here for more amazing performances and prepare to be blown away; his website is also full of enchantment – find that here.
Why are we even bothering with Twitter anymore? I just don’t know…
Andy happily left the platform months ago when that idiot-savant-minus-the-savant Elon Musk took over and began its long slow drive into the ground. Musk seems hellbent on taking down Tesla along with Twitter, as both companies are tanking in the real world. Oh well, this is why we can’t have nice things. The whole platform is slowly crumbing, as evidenced by messages like the one below, which is becoming more and more common. Social media society… I still don’t know…
This is that time of the year when everything outside starts to feel icky. Whether it’s another snow/ice storm (or something called graupel that a certain wimp in Santa Monica, Cali-fucking-fornia was bemoaning because it wasn’t 75 degrees outside), the weather is turning on its rollercoaster-like menace, zigging when we want to zag and vice versa. It’s also the time of the year when the streets turn to absolute crap, filled with treacherous potholes that are always bigger than they seem, and caked in dirt and salt and grime that will then cement itself to your car before you even get it home from the carwash.
My apologies – this hasn’t been the calming Sunday morning post I wanted it to be, but winter is a necessary reminder that life isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. The sooner we realize that the sooner we can get on with it. The initial bitterness that began this blog is being tempered as I look outside at the snow gently falling. It’s not at all unpretty. It gives pause to the day, presents the helpful conundrum of determining whether what I had planned is truly necessary. Do I need another shopping trip to Homegoods? Isn’t our home already good enough? When I think in those terms, ‘good enough’ becomes the new goal. I am finding comfort in that, great comfort, and such a reframing is a wonderful thing, especially at the end of winter.
Despite this dip in temperatures, and winter’s reassurance that it isn’t quite ready to budge, my heart remains hopeful, and my thoughts will indulge in the coming of spring. February is almost done… the pavement is coming, dirty or not, and the snow will go. It’s all happening.
Mexican-American artist Omar Apollo is a singer, songwriter, and producer haling from Indiana. Since 2017, he’s been releasing his music to rapturous response from fans around the world. He’s currently on tour (and it hits Boston’s TD Garden on February 28) so check out his website here for upcoming dates. He garners his first Dazzler of the Day for making music that’s right for just about any vibe.
It’s been more than one hot minute since our last Madonna Timeline entry, and the shuffle has brought us to a happier, sunnier time: the summer of 2019, and what has shaken out as my favorite track from Madonna’s latest album ‘Madame X’. While lead single ‘Medellin’ held its own subtle magic and conjured its own giddy memories, the song that embodied the best of the ‘Madame X’ experience was ‘Come Alive’.
Only with hindsight can we see how quaintly the world turned in the months before a deadly worldwide pandemic hit. That summer of 2019 in many ways feels like a last summer of innocence and carefree joy, which is strange, because at the time I don’t think that’s what most of us felt. Most of my tension and worry is bound in dwelling and ruminating about that which may or may not happen, and that depletes a lot of joy in what might otherwise be a wonderful time. Again, it’s something that only hindsight can truly teach, and since then I’ve been working on inhabiting the moment, and concerning myself only with what I can directly and currently control. The rest is not worth worrying about, for the most part, and that’s what this song has come to mean to me now.
That said, it’s nice to revisit a pre-pandemic world, and I’m all for a trip down the section of memory lane that correlates with a summer season. Back in 2019, we were sitting on the patio by the pool and listening to ‘Madame X’ – a Madonna album that heralded the arrival of summer, not unlike the magical moment when ‘True Blue’ embodied its own summer a number of decades ago. Madonna and summer have a way of going together that just feels right – and pop songs somehow hit more intensely in the sunny season. ‘Come Alive’ should have been one of those summer hits – alas, Madonna was way ahead of the game, and more concerned with edgier fare like ‘Dark Ballet‘ and ‘God Control‘ than this piece of pop music perfection. She seemed to sense something in the air.
This song is all hope and exuberance and possibility – the very marks of what summer usually embodies, in its sun, its wonder, and its way of waking up the world to its own brilliance. Yet there is more at work here, in the drive and defiance that is a mark of all that Madonna herself has come to embody. A steely strength and determination pervades the message of ‘Come Alive’, a throwback to Madonna’s perennial message to ‘Express Yourself’ and a reminder that forty years into her historical career, Madonna still has to fight.
Summer is tumultuous that way – from the calmest and clearest of sunny days, storms and darkness can appear and suddenly descend on our happiest moments. In the continuing aftermath of COVID, summers feel less jubilant than they once did, as so much else does, but there is still a way to find that joy, even if it revisiting a summer that came before. Memories can bring happiness into the present moment.
And so I return in my mind to that 2019 summer, when ‘Come Alive’ and ‘Crave‘ and ‘Crazy’ formed the only Vitamin C we needed. The world felt more carefree and innocent then, and perhaps it was – but it had its own issues, and were we to return to a more innocent time, we would also be returning to a more ignorant time. With knowledge comes heartbreak and hope, and a little thrill at still being alive.
SONG #170: ‘Come Alive’ – Summer 2019
