Aries 9° (March 29)

 

Fell asleep in front of the fire last night. Woke up at five and already have done a thousand things. It is now ten in the morning. I was thinking of how productive I can be as a means of dealing with stress. Part of me wants to completely escape by whatever means necessary. But the better portion of myself is determined to work through all these feelings and to stay strong as can be. I sent a bunch of notes out to people wishing them well. I got precious few back which is fine. My car had been taking on water, a phenom I couldn’t figure; and now, as inexplicably it isn’t. I chalked it up, originally, to the replacement of my windshield, and went back and forth, for months with the company that did the switcheroo, and they maintain it has nothing to do with them; and yet they came while I was in Europe and the feedback they gave me was that yes it was totally soaked inside; but I’m guessing they did something they aren’t owning up to, because the problem has disappeared. Anyway, I went to the dump in this, my thirty five year old Mercedes Benz, with its broken hood hinges, and broken headlights, and it still drives like a dream. I love my car in an unnatural way. I keep getting traumatic flashes of the last several weeks, escaping from Paris to London and then back to America fleeing this deadly virus. Of course I don’t want it, and I intend not to get it. I suppose in the end I’m glad to be on Cape Cod where the people are few and far between and, as I say, I’m used to isolation anyway, being the social pariah that I am. I wish I was joking about that. It doesn’t take much to be social pariah.

You just have to live in a place that echoes eighth grade, as Provincetown does, and be the victim of gaslighting and cancel culture, which I am. I very much related to some fourteen year old girl whose social life has been fucked with by mean girls. I had a best friend, this semi famous gay fellow I’d be friends with at least as long as my Mercedes has been in existence; and he did a number on me. And it snowballed from there. It doesn’t quite matter much to me because I don’t really make my life there anymore and most of my friendships are based in Europe and the UK, really. Not so much New York anymore. Meanwhile, as it is, if I needed to take stock of the Provincetown existence, I could still list hundreds of friends there. It’s just a matter of being more aware of places that are closed to one as opposed to those who remain open. And I have long learned my lesson: There are folks I should have never been friends with in the first place because they largely fall under the larger heading of malignant narcissists. And still, during this crisis, I sent out words of love and encouragement even to those who character-assassinated me. I do believe in that Jesus m.o. of turning the other cheek. It’s different from letting yourself be slapped around; rather it’s about taking one’s full power and illustrating that your side of the street remains clean. All told, Provincetown does attract people who need that junior-high dynamic. It’s all about having been ostracized as children, marginalized, and so, as adults they are compensating and often overshoot the mark and become the people who used to torment them. It’s a pretty banal pattern, actually.

I spent some quality time in the kitchen today already—I have today’s food prepped (Greek salad for lunch and chicken stew for din din); but I also made a roasted pepper soup and a fresh pea and mint soup to have later in the week, which is going to be a very busy one with a number of clients and a branding project that will occupy ninety percent of my creativity. We are going to tithe by making this year’s Haute Astrology books 99¢ instead of $9.99, and I have already done all the prep work for the 2021 books so that is an accomplishment of which I can feel proud. We all have to do what we can within reason. Mainly, I do feel quite happy with the solitude. And I’m glad to be connecting with the usual penpals.

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 46-50.  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

When the going gets tough…etc. And some of us know this dynamic well. I’m this man. I come from financially poor beginnings, and my father, who had countless shortcomings, was also this man, and he took us as far into the storm as he could, typically sporting a dapper hat, with a feather, a symbol of higher-mind aspirations. He had the benefit of being middle class when there was one, but still he worked for the man who tried and mostly succeeded to fuck him over in the end. The storm for him was that of social strata and prejudice. He died with nothing except for an uncompromising nature that never let him quit. I seemed to have inherited that. For me the storm is not working for the man. So braving it isn’t a just a necessity it’s a privilege. I welcome the wind and rain on my face.

Then again I had a weird and wonderfully wacky Pisces mother who, again, when in her cups when I was small, insisted I accompany her outside for strolls during hurricanes.

There is something a bit cringy about the costume of the man with the hat. He seems to wear his station in life. He’s a big garish, perhaps, bordering on nouveau. That always makes me uncomfortable. Like Stella Dallas at a fancy estate; or the penchant some men have these days of adopting a sort of neo Oceans Eleven style when asked to dress up for weddings. Barf. I feel some pity for this man in the oracle just as I genuflect to his pluck. He is telegraphing his desire for upward mobility via trappings that might prevent him from it. Again I think of Frank Sinatra who, despite his success, being labelled a wop, as my father surely was, snubbed in the end by those Kennedys who, let’s face it, weren’t exactly bluebloods themselves. But I find prejudice is more prevalent the closer the social proximity between classes. It explains why Italian Americans can be the most prejudice of African Americans. It’s because they were the last immigrant wave before the Civil Rights Movement.

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When we were writing Sextrology back in the day I went through a “metaphysical visitation” period whereby I was awakened every morning at 3:33 AM. And before this surfaced as a theme in the Nicholas Cage film vehicle Adaptation, being awoken at this time was an experience I owned. I came to realize that 3+3+3 signaled the nine Muses, the triple goddess in triplicate. I automatically see an upward spiral.

Of course the three is also the trident on it’s side, so little wonder that this Sabian symbol is ruled by the sign of PIsces whose ruler Neptune’s symbol is that trident. 48 reduces to 12 which reduces to 3. So it get’s better.

When I started the Afterglow Festival I did so under the name 333; but not automatically. There already was a 333 business on the South Shore of Massachusetts. Some kind of management company. They were not easy to reach—I had to put on my Corleone thinking cap—I have always loved the fact that Lynne’s name is Corbett and mine is Leone so together we are Corleone—lion heart—although the Cor in Corbett is actually Gaelic for raven which is the sigil of their house. Mine of course is Bert Lahr.

So I finally tracked these people down and convinced them, can you imagine, to write me a letter “letting” me also be 333, Inc in Massachusetts. Afterglow is a d/b/a/ off of that. I figured I’d need to court these Muses in the making of the festival and surely I need invoke them moving forward with new artistic goals.

The first year of the festival we put it on at The Provincetown Theater which was lovely in its way. We comped a great many people. But when I tallied the total of actual tickets sold over the four days it came to, yes you guessed it, folks, 333.

You have to believe we are magic. LIfe is all just one big upward stroll through the Guggenheim.

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To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

 

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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