Scorpio 23° (November 15)

Exhausting day. Cleaning, laundry, shopping, dump, gard manger and then making carbonara and zucchini for din din, which we will eat super early (Sunday lunch style) before diving into the Crown.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1141-1145 I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

ou know, some days I just don’t know where to start. The state of the world is so troubling and what I didn’t know is how much this was going to effect me and people I know. A friend put up a post on Facebook saying how he thought everything was terrible and was it just him. And another friend (who I have to say is one of the world’s most neediest cases who has called me crying for a handout and has asked for help a number of times—to recommend her for affordable housing, to advance her pay when I’ve employed her, on and on) suggested “just travel” as she is currently in Australia doing a concert and, mind you, is only there because she is traveling on another friend’s dime. To which I responded: Reality check: Geographic cures are not the answer. Anthony Bourdain did a lot of traveling. The state of this country (and world) and what is going on politically is effecting all of us with a conscience and we have to find even the smallest ways of being part of the solution. That is the only way to fight the pall of mass depression that is a deliberate result of an oppressive regime. They are serving us hopelessness on purpose as they dismantle everything we love about being who we are. That is fucking depressing. To tell people to “just travel” is ridiculous. And (AM) you should know as well as anybody the feeling of being stuck and without resource and searching for help and answers from friends to get out of the holes we all find ourselves in. We have to help each other and listen to each other and inspire each other to actually fight. People ask why didn’t the Jews fight back during the Holocaust. Um because they were so demoralized and the erosion was slow enough—the boiling frog syndrome—that by the time it was too late it was. You see we as kind people with a conscience can’t conceive of the evil people are capable of; and those who do evil and plan to oppress others rely on the fact that we can’t conceive of doing such a thing. But this manipulative mechanism is no longer accidental or vague. It is a plot, and a well planned out one where individuals who are antithetical to the institutions they are meant to represent are put in place to destroy them. This is not conspiracy theory. This is happening. So, sure, take a trip and dance barefoot threw the grass that appears greener on the other side, but then come back and become part of the solution. And by the way, the price of jet fuel is going up for a reason. Because not everyone gets plane tickets paid for by someone else; and most of us can’t afford to just jump on a flight somewhere; increasingly that is becoming something only few will be able to afford. Fight. That is the antidote to depression. Fight for your life in even the smallest way you can. It isn’t metaphor. It’s real. And trust your instincts. It is more true now than ever that yes “everything IS terrible.” We all must find a way to do something about it. The struggle is real. And helping others can be the most healfully selfish thing you can do!

I’m just going to type up all the last bits of paper I’d like to throw away and not even judge the content in the least.

Must reach out to top stars to Andy Cohen. Don’t look for anything from them. Instead engage more. Eleganza. I had a dream I met Ken Horgan so I have decided to take some tennis lessons from him (only to later learned he’s no longer doing it). Quinn Cox. William Leone. Letter to menas magazines. I just decided on day recently to get back into it. Than Nelsons. I’m into the Fortnight. AF twitter insta. Agreement for Becca. Add Isaac Oliver to Family. Find and cultivate 1. Letter to Venues. @. Make mini acting resume. Make mini writing resume. Brian letter of agreement. One to two artists a day building the site to Two and Getting materials to Jesse Build sponsor website as we go after them. Preservation al Hall, Provincetown Theater Cotiuit Arts Center. Ask Mitch about Sandra. Fenton Barnus. Edsel. Mildred and the Vidas. Gift cards.

From Lady of the Lake to Lancelot du Lac. Anysaid. Thursday: Growth. Friday: Self Appreciation. Straight White Men. Everyday write a Blague about a place with a photo. Instragram and Tweet from A.F. Write a form ltter to new or college venue.S+ C tweet words about the day. Get on case for new website. What astrology book are we reading?

And that’s the end of that, really. Today is the day I move beyond any sense of catching up in any realm of my existence and feel the wind at my back pushing me forward to do fun and interesting things along the way.

I have the usual artists from whom it’s like pulling teeth to get their information. It’s no longer good enough and I’m going to already research who might be able to replace these horror shows. I’m really sick of my works being undervalued; but it will be my own fault if they continue to be so.

Diane Nelson reached out. She left her job at Warner Bros. a year ago. I didn’t know that. She and her husband Pete and their kids are coming to Truro in a few weeks; so we’ll see them; and also Heather Randall (Tony’s widow) will be coming up because her son is doing some kind of writer’s program, presumably, at the Fine Arts Work Center. A bunch of snobs there I must say.

Provincetown has become super uppity in that regard on the one hand. And yet the cruise shops keep pouring in, dropping thousands of tourists who don’t eat (because they eat for free on the boat) and probably don’t drink much either—they just walk around taking up space. In so many ways it might be time to go to try and carve out a genuine experience somewhere else.

I think we all get attached to what we think we should be doing or to the doing of things we’ve done. And sometimes, even if certain things are going “well” we need to make an abrupt change. I’m feeling that kind of last bow coming on….

The cedar wax wings returned this morning. I woke up at 5am to continue painting upstairs. I love the cedar wax wings. They are like angels. And their calls are like whistles, shrill but delicate. The painting is daunting but, really, I don’t have a deadline.

Four friends from high school are coming to visit. Dave, whom I’ve been in touch with these past four years, as he lived in Paris and we have been going there consistently; and now he’s in New York, in the East Village, so we’ve got to hang there too. Here is actually a really good guitarist. Then there’s Tony whom I haven’t seen since the 1990s. He played in the band the Niagaras, fronted by Robert Whaley, with whom we seemed to click, not sure why. When I was in the Seagull on Broadway, Ethan Hawke starred. And Ethan was close with Robert’s brother Frank who had also been in the band—Ethan and Frank were in Dead Poets’ Society. So Tony is a serious musician.

Then there is Ken whom I haven’t seen but once in 2006 at a high school reunion, and not, before that, since 1987 I believe, when he lived near his parents in Franklin Lakes. We visited him one afternoon or evening and that was the last time I saw Mike, who is also coming to visit. Mike and I go the furtherest back, having gone to grammar school together in Wyckoff where I moved for the fourth grade. He was always pretty rambunctious and kind of a bully—but in that way boys could be when they maybe found themselves having crushes on other boys or sensing a certain ambuiguity in sexual identity. In any case he left high school (military school?) junior year but returned for senior year. At least that is my recollection. I think he and I probably will have the best connection. Though Ken was my dearest friend of the lot, I think he’s become religious. Or at least his wife has become a reverend; Methodist I think. But he always played guitar.

I’m probably the least talented, muscially, and I hope not the fattest. Ironically, I’m the one who performs places like Joe’s Pub, which is only the case because of the wider resonance of the act—these performing astrologers—not because I have any kind of chops. I like to say that I’m a vocalist, not a singer, and not a very good one at that.

I’m at once looking forward to their visit—Stella will be in Canada—and also kind of dreading it, just being which a bunch of guys I hardly know makes me feel encroached upon; and then there is the bathroom scenario. I can’t even think about it. I plan not to poo for a few days. Anyway they all arrive on Friday, June 29th, Tony in the day, the rest in the evening, and Dave leaves the next morning which (when do we sleep?) is going to feel like hell. I think I will do an experiment and drink very little and be the grown up of the group. Honestly I think it’s the only way to pull this off, sanely.

This has always been one of the darkest days of the year for me. I have one sibling (that I know of) born this day and she is probably the worst person you will ever meet. I haven’t had to see her since about 2005, gratefully; and despite what you might be thinking, trust me: there is no going back. As it turns out the mango in chief is also born this day. Flag day. Don’t get me started on the anthem and taking a knee. I’d like to take a baseball bat to that fucker. I cannot wait for the tide to turn and for the return to normalcy. We must vote this creature out; and we must know that our voting process isn’t rigged in the process.

These kids, these girls, toddlers, disappearing at the border: they are being sold into sex slavery, aren’t they? I know it seems sick to say so. But it’s sicker to believe that these pigs are not doing this for the very purpose of human sex trafficking, children sex trafficking. That’s what’s happening here. And the sickos doing it rely on the fact that we non-sickos would think it too sicko to be true. It isn’t.

I can feel a certain radicalism welling up inside me for reals. In some ways I feel quite free. In others I feel quite the opposite. But I can pinpoint the times in my life where I have made strong singular changes. Mostly these moments occurred in my youth, pre-longterm-relationship (which for me means before the age of nineteen!) but somehow there is more freedom in our relationship now than ever. And I am feeling empowered to embark on something of a solo inner journey.

One of the topics I want to explore in the next few days is: a serious argument for astrology. To get started I think I would say that first we have to look at the Zodiac as we know it. It’s something that has always been there, and we’ve pooh-poohed for some reason without really knowing why. Well, they why of it is the advent of the daily horoscope which is a rather new confection, made popular by the birth of Princess Margaret in 1930. But it’s like a sort of mass hallucination that we are meant to mentally, intellectually pass the Zodiac by without really looking at what it is; which is a sort of mandala, a self-contained circle to express all of experience, and something of a system for self-realization. Or at least for discerning to some degree an order to our lives and to the universe.

The symbology and pictography of the Zodiac link directly to the myths and, most extraordinary, to the myths, first associated with the planets (which are named for the chief gods) and with the sign itself. For instance Aries, the Ram, opens onto the myth of the golden fleece; while we might also explore the myths of the namesake of the sign’s planet ruler, in this case, Mars (Greek: Ares, uncoincidentally) and the full estate and legend of the war god who is an apt archetype for the Aries man, just as Athena (the war goddess) is fitting to the Aries woman. Of course, this just one direction one can take in “reading” the Zodiac—here discussing the relevance of each of the twelve signs to people born under them, what is called humanistic astrology—but one can look through the lens of the Zodiac in numerous other ways—there are in fact eight-four different recognized schools of astrology at last count.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of 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! Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.