This Is How It Was For Me Too. I Sacrificed My Family, Health And Personal Life For Years. Then COVID

'Rose and Lily' (1893) textile length by Morris and Co

Wool and silk twill.

Image and text information courtesy LACMA.

DREW STARKEY AS EUGENE ALLERTON Queer (2024) dir. Luca Guadagnino

One of my favorite portrait painters ever, Giovanni Boldini.

Boldini, Giovanni (1842-1931) - 1902 Portrait of the Artist Lawrence Alexander Harrison (Sotheby’s New York, 2004) by Milton Sonn

Oil on canvas; 126 x 101 cm.

Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter, belonging to the Parisian school. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the “Master of Swish” because of his flowing style of painting.

Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and went to Florence in 1862 to study painting, meeting there the realist painters known as the Macchiaioli. Their influence is seen in Boldini’s landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known. He attained great success in London as a portraitist.

From 1872 Boldini lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Légion d'honneur for this appointment. He died in Paris in 1931.

JONATHAN BAILEY as FIYERO Wicked Part 1 (2024) dir. Jon M. Chu

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

Similar to Sargeant, I recognize a Boldini whenever I see one on my dash and feel the need to repost. This is the artist Whistler, or more formally James Abbott McNeill Whistler, painted by Giovanni Boldini in 1897.

The next few weeks are going to be hard for many of us in the US. The new regime is going to come out of the gate in full attack mode. The LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, women, the poor and even our (already broken) health industry are going to be targeted.

This is an attempt to exhaust us with a game of civil rights whack-a-mole, and there is no doubt that some of us are going to feel absolutely wrecked every time we look at the news.

Here is my advice on surviving the next four years

Limit your exposure to the news, it's fine to check the headlines, but

Order a big roll of postcard stamps from the USPS and buy some cheap, blank, postcards.

Sending physical mail can be more effective than signing online petitions, and it has the added benefit of getting you away from the computer. I personally prefer writing postcards because it feels more like I am taking tangible, physical action.

If you are especially organized, you can pre-print address labels for your representatives. I am 100% not that organized.

The ACLU has a guide on what to say here: https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives

Most importantly, don't fall into despair. You are not alone in this, there are millions of us out here who want to see a kinder world.

We've got your back.

I got to see her perform a few times when I lived in Chicago. This is a great loss and she will be missed.

JONATHAN BAILEY as FIYERO in WICKED (2024)