My 43rd Birthday: A Day of Aesthetic Pleasures
A surprising discovery from exactly one year ago today . . .
Editor’s Note: Yesterday (September 18th) was my 44th birthday, and I happened to look at the journal entry I wrote exactly one year ago today on September 19th, 2021. To my surprise, I had written in detail about the entire day from an aesthetic perspective, listing all of my reading, listening, looking, viewing and tasting pleasures. All of the topics we are currently writing about and discussing here each week! And yet this was *long* before we had started the Substack you are reading (or listening to) right now . . . which did not formally begin until almost nine months later in May of this year! Was this the moment we conceived the idea that would lead to The Epicurean Vagabonds? I’m fascinated by the similar themes, motifs and even specific artists that have since shown up here in our writings and podcasts. I even wrote an entire article about McCoy Tyner’s “Atlantis,” which describes one moment from this day in much more detail. (Even though it turns out I misremembered the restaurant where we actually ate! The one I described in the article is the restaurant where we ate the following day.) At any rate, I still can’t believe how accurately I predicted, or at least foreshadowed, what we would be doing a year later. Hopefully you will find the following reverie insightful as well!
September 19, 2021 - Dubrovnik, Croatia
Yesterday, I woke up with Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” playing in my head. After almost two years of paranoia and confinement, I genuinely felt a long-awaited influx of freedom, confidence, renewal and joy.
Classic breakfast of tea and toast with butter and orange marmalade (simple pleasures) on our balcony overlooking the Adriatic, whilst listening to my idol McCoy Tyner play duets with the grande dame of jazz piano, Marian McPartland, on a radio broadcast from 1983. This was followed by some leisurely reading of poetry from a recent collection by Carl Phillips, and some poems by my favorite poet, the goddess H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), who I constantly re-read with great pleasure. Two poems in particular caught my eye on this reading - the intense queer drama of “Prisoners” and a profound meditation on art, inspiration and the ambivalent role of the artist in “Pygmalion.” I can’t count how many times I’ve read “Pygmalion” before, but yesterday I felt I was seeing it for the first time . . . this poem spoke to me in that moment like the ghost of a friend, an urgent message from a kindred spirit. I re-read it three times in a row.
We then made a brief attempt to visit the beach, a short walk from our apartment, but the beach was a disappointment (too hot, too crowded, too many screaming children). So we returned to the comfort of our vacation rental, to a playlist of new releases (songs by Glenn Copeland, Nubya Garcia, Mia Doi Todd and Loreena McKennitt), followed by Yo-Yo Ma’s wonderful new album, Notes for the Future, with musicians from five or six continents, including the great Jeremy Dutcher, Angélique Kidjo, Lila Downs, Marlon Williams and Mashrou’ Leila.
While reading about the brave activism of Hamed Sinno, the openly gay leader of this Beirut-based band, I saw a controversial portrait of the singer (painted by Alireza Shojaian) tweaking the nipple of the Egyptian god Anubis, who was wearing a necklace in the rainbow colors of the Pride flag!
This was my first encounter with the art of Alireza Shojaian, a gay French-Iranian painter whose work focuses on exquisite portraits of queer Muslim men. I added a number of his works to my desktop slideshow of images, which I projected to the large-screen digital TV to provide a continual inundation of visual beauty throughout the afternoon, evening and night. Some other recent additions of note are gay American neoclassicist - David Ligare; indigenous Amazonian fantasist - Rember Yahuarcani, Detroit-based Chamorro feminist - Gisela McDaniel; the jazz-inspired geometric abstractions of William T. Williams; the vibrant portrait-quilts of Bisa Butler; and the recent Guggenheim installation of trans pioneer, Wu Tsang, in honor of fellow trans pioneer Glenn Copeland.
Lunch was small in anticipation of my birthday dinner - fresh bread and local cheese with a blueberry cider. I put on a playlist I’d made of songs released in my birth year of 1978 (many pop, rock, soul, funk, punk, disco and R&B favorites) and commenced the initial chapters of my next epic read: Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers, which had been lurking on my must-read list for ages. The book is very, very long, but the first few chapters instantly captivated me. The sheer paganism of it all! The deliciously long sentences, the baroque excess, the philosophical searching . . . I love it. Before I knew it, it was time to dress for dinner.
The sun was starting to set above the sea as we sat down at our quiet table for two on the terrace at the Pull Over Restaurant. The nearly-full moon was bright behind us. Our server, Valentina (who wore a mask, and yes, she did keep it on - that’s a RuPaul’s Drag Race reference) was a true professional, a knowledgeable sommelier, a choreographer who turned our meal into a well-orchestrated dance for the senses:
Act I was a glass of prosecco (“It’s not a birthday without bubbly,” says Wildstar), paired with the most scrumptious oxtail croquettes, lovingly slathered with an apple jam.
Act II was a refreshing burrata salad with heirloom tomatoes and pears infused with gin and tonic (!), followed by a perfectly-charred grilled octopus on a bed of pumpkin ravioli, with a sauce starring the most delicious pumpkin seed pesto and what we suspect was a stock made from lobster or langoustine. The octopus was delectable, the pumpkin ravioli was the best I’ve ever tasted, and every drop of that pumpkin seed/langoustine pesto was sopped up by the homemade bread. This was all paired with a delightful, well-balanced bottle of Pošip from one of Wildstar’s favorite Croatian wineries.
Act III, the finale, was a decadent chocolate lava cake/fondant alongside strawberry-and-almond ice cream. This was expertly paired with a glass of Croatian red chosen by Valentina, an unusual blend of cabernet, merlot and pinot noir. Wildstar enjoyed a local liqueur that smelled like an herbaceous grappa with sweet hints of mastika.
After dinner, we returned to our apartment to relax on the giant couch. I’d been saving some concerts from the BBC Proms, and last night we viewed the Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov, in a unique program pairing Minds in Flux, a new work by African-American composer George Lewis, alongside Beethoven’s 2nd symphony and his aria “Ah! perfido.” The Lewis composition was experimental, at times jarring, but also quite resonant - almost a mix of Ornette Coleman and Iannis Xenakis. I loved it. The Beethoven aria was vividly interpreted by British soprano Lucy Crowe, and the symphony, like all of Beethoven’s symphonies, was a sheer sonic spectacle.
The Proms concert was followed by a charming new British musical, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. I am not normally a fan of most musicals (exceptions: Cabaret, Chicago, Dreamgirls, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), but this coming-of-age tale about a teenage drag queen was pure entertainment. The star, Max Harwood, was stunningly talented - this kid has a promising future on stage or screen. His eccentric drag mentor is played by a fabulously witty Richard E. Grant, and his devoted mother (Sarah Lancashire - ideal casting) brought tears to my eyes on numerous occasions.
Our evening was accompanied by another chilled bottle of Croatian white handpicked by Wildstar, but my husband had another luxury prepared to cap the evening. He had me choose a playlist and then disappeared to the bathroom. Of course I chose “It’s Always Time for Tyner,” my recent playlist of my favorite McCoy Tyner compositions and performances. I relaxed to the soothing notes of “Inception,” “Reaching Fourth,” “Three Flowers” and “Search for Peace.”
Wildstar then took me by the hand and led me to the giant bathtub, lit by tealights and candles, filled with a peach-scented bubble bath. I disrobed and stepped into the bath, just as my favorite composition, “Atlantis,” began. [For a full account of this glorious and life-changing experience, see my essay “It’s Always Time for Tyner: Atlantis.”]
It was heaven, haven. Olympos. Arcadia. Utopia. Bliss. After the relaxing revelation of my “Atlantis”-inspired bubble bath, I could have gone to bed in that moment, but I wanted to cool down first. Wildstar brought me some apple cider and I set up the visual art slideshow on the TV. Lois Mailou Jones, Sonia Delaunay, Emily Carr, Frida, Georgia . . . and so many more inspiring images. While I was bathing, Wildstar had made me a chill-down playlist of love songs from 70s AM radio. He played the mix, we watched the slideshow, and we ended up having a fascinating discussion about books, art and artists until almost 5am!
We talked of many things, art and academe . . . We talked about the art and artists we continually return to, the ones we most want to re-read and listen to again and look at repeatedly over the years. We discussed the role of the artist in the world, the role of politics, whether or not we can separate the work of an artist from the artist’s life. We spoke of personality, meditation, inspiration. I read H.D.’s “Pygmalion” aloud to Wildstar - the poem seemed so germane to our discussion. He loved it. I was then reminded of his poem “Committed” (later turned into a song/spoken word piece), one of my favorites, and how the imagery and language reminds me so much of H.D. and the Imagists.
Our love always reminds me of a poem by Amy Lowell, “A Decade” (though in our case that’s now over two decades). I slept deeply and comfortably. I awoke today feeling completely rejuvenated. Now, on our balcony overlooking the Adriatic, I have tea and cheese burek for brunch while I write. Life is good. And I am truly happy.
A Decade by Amy Lowell When you came, you were like red wine and honey, And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. Now you are like morning bread, Smooth and pleasant. I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour, But I am completely nourished.
Gorgeous. Delicious. Lovely. Happy birthday, Ryan!
Ryan--may all your birthdays be as glorious. Happy Birthday!