post-retro-futero-quasi coolness

Some young fellow just walked by sporting designer sunglasses, designer haircut, designer jawline, designer three-day beard growth, designer walk, designer angularity and atmosphere and aura. A Ralph Lauren ad no longer a still life. Do I sound a tad jealous? Or is it envious? Of what? Lost beauty and youth? Lost coolness? Naw. I was never that, nor did I ever aspire to that. At least I don't think so.

Back to our regularly scheduled program (programme, if you prefer).

Bloomsday blogaversary

Either by coincidence or by providence, I began this blog on June 16, Bloomsday, in 2006, not pretending to be a pedestrian protagonist of a digital age, a reblossomed Leopold Bloom, nor an associate of Ulysses or Joyce or Dickens or Cohen or an inchoate echo of Ecco, but rather a solipsistic spinster of spindrift syllables in Syracuse, no more, no less, chasing punctuation marks off the screen, nudging meaning to the margins, mumbling along the half-desserted streets of summery scoopers of Gannon's ice cream.

now is the season

It is the season of bloom, and each species, each flower, each tree, each blade of grass or weed, does so in its naturally ordained time. The irises are out, bobbing their heads. The irises, with their curvilinear lushness of bloom, their varieties of dark or pale purple, yellows, whites, ivories, even in the wild along the canal banks. I see the same time of ripeness for peonies, phlox, and endless incarnations I know not by name. Now is the season of bloom and blossom, at least for these, in their appointed time.

Which makes me speculate and wonder a bit, about the human metaphor, my own included.

take me out to the (local) ballgame

Last evening, I watched the first-place Syracuse Chiefs (with Emmanuel Burriss) defeat the first-place Indianapolis Indians. Bucs prospect Gregory Polanco contributed a defensive gem, crashing into the wall in right field. Lucky if 2,000 fans were there. A summer shower lasted through most of one inning. The umpires let the players keep playing. Sunlight and rain, then the rainbow over right. Gorgeous. I went to the game on a whim. Ended up meeting baseball author Hart Seely and former Syracuse mayoral candidate Pat Hogan, of Tipp Hill. Macdog and others provided updates of the Giants’ loss. Hart, Hogan, former Post-Standard photog Jim Commentucci, “Doc,” and I settled ourselves directly in back of the visitors’ bullpen. We did not taunt them. The pitchers and catcher or two in waiting talked and restlessly fooled around; some drank Red Bull. Some spat. The five of us fans traded baseball stories, with direct or one-step-removed stories of Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton, Don Drysdale, Whitey Herzog, Willie Mays, Tommy Fecking Lasorda, Vin Scully, Cookie Lavagetto, Willie Horton, Ben Gazzara, Dan Valenti, Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and others. It was brilliant. One of the best times I’ve ever had at a ballgame. Laid-back, witty, conversational — and the home-team wins, almost as an afterthought.

This will never happen again.

Not in exactly the same way.

That's the glory of it; that's the story of it.

aerial yoga

A local billboard boasts the availability of "aerial yoga." The accompanying photo looks uncannily (or cannily) like someone performing pole-dancing.

I'm not a prude.

Go for it.

This has been an exercise option in the U.K. for years.

Aerial yoga. I wish I had coined that.

June rhymes with . . .

and now it is June
month of Bloomsday
anniversary of the start of this blog, in 2006,
June
anniversary of a certain sort of personal abstinence
if not,
I dare to say,
a certain sort of sobriety
June
with its moon croon loon tune soon
boon
June
with its heat and heart