I only buy it for the articles.

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:35:13 GMT

A youngster at our leather club asked us oldsters to answer a few questions about life during the AIDS years.

( the questions )

( a bit of a spew really ... I probably WAY overdid it )

In retrospect I'm thinking about how much growing up gay then and there sounds like living under a hostile occupation.

comments

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 02:01:50 GMT

I’m reading what y’all are writing. Just so you know.

Three things on my mind today.

1. Preparing in case there’s an invasion. What I’m seeing over and over from people with actual experience is that the best thing you can do in advance is create mutual aid social networks. Thinking about what I can meaningfully do, I think my best role is to help create emergency response capacity (way too old and unwell to actually fight). So to that end I’m working on getting as much emergency medical response training for myself and my social network as I can afford. If you’re in Canada: https://sja.ca/en/first-aid-training
2. I’ve just started reading Margaret Atwood’s memoirs and already, a few pages in, some provocative ideas. Is the place of memoir to talk about what has happened to one? Or also to talk about one’s internal evolution?
3. Tangentially related. As one ages, if one survives long enough, there eventually comes a time when one feels one could credibly write or tell the story of one’s parents’ lives. I think this is a major milestones that is not widely discussed.

comments

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 02:10:23 GMT

One from the vaults. I was reminded of this opening segment from a science news program that was on heavy rotation when I was a kid. Canadian Content, so it go reused and reused, eventually going from "Here Come the 70s" to "Here Come the 80s" to "Here Comes the Future". A bit unexpected, seeing a naked butt in the opening sequence of what was essential a science news / nationalist hype show. I can't imagine that getting past the gatekeepers today.

The music, "Tillicum" by a Canadian band Syrinx, is a Moog feast. I find it quite evocative of the times. A feeling that something wonderful, awe inspiring, was rushing toward you. As opposed to what I feel lately. Was it the times, or just my youth?

comments

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:47:36 GMT

I've still got one shoot in the works, but this is as much as I'm going to get finished before the year changes. All the people shoots I published in 2025 (DANGER WARNING PELIGRO! nudity and sex):

https://bill-pusztai.squarespace.com/nudes-2025

comments

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 04:28:22 GMT

Arisaema triphyllum 7520
©Bill Pusztai 2025

( about 40 plant pictures )

comments

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 21:40:40 GMT

Happy Christmas if you're celebrating!

The first orchid pictured here, the Calypso, gave me one of the best "miracles" of the year. Despite having lived in their native range my entire life, I'd never seen them - they won't grow on disturbed soil, that is, anywhere that's been logged - and where they *do* grow, people pick them (don't get me started). But in one wonderful trip with the fam to Pemberton, BC, they were growing plentifully in an accessible location. It's like meeting a phoenix or a dragon, to me.

Calypso bulbosa
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Calypso bulbosa 9348
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Paphiopedilum 'Saint Swithin' (P. philippinense x P. rothschildianum) 6434
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Paphiopedilum sukhakulii 4832
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Phalaenopsis bellina fma coerulea 0634
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Phalaenopsis bellina fma coerulea 0858.
©Bill Pusztai 2025

This Phrag is the first of the genus I've ever managed to bloom. I killed several of them by overfertilizing - they want weak fertilizer and between fertilizings they must be flushed through with plain water to avoid any sort of salt buildup. Otherwise they start to die back from the leaf tips.

Phragmipedium 'Ecuagenera Dream' (P. Sedenii × P. kovachii, Ecuagenera 2017) 0613
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Phragmipedium 'Ecuagenera Dream' (P. Sedenii x P. kovachii, Ecuagenera 2017) 8801
©Bill Pusztai 2025

comments

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 20:24:19 GMT

Irises from the garden, 2025. "NOID" means "no ID", that is to say, I don't know their names. The noids in this group are all three in the street island garden and were there when I inherited it; the one identified as 'Benton Deirdre' is tentative - I decided it is that based on a combination of appearance and the recent trendiness of the Benton irises. The unnamed Pacific Coast hybrid was a random seedling child of random seedlings. The name and date in brackets is the breeder and the date of the cultivar's registration or introduction to commerce.

Iris Miniature Tall Bearded 'In My Veins' (Charles Bunnell, 2008) 4957
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Pacific Coast hybrid 4919.
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Dragon's Den' (Chuck Chapman, 2002) 5231
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Dragon's Den' (Chuck Chapman, 2002) 5335
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Eramosa OJ' (Chuck Chapman, 2014) 9093
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Standard Dwarf Bearded 'Eramosa OJ' (Chuck Chapman, 2014) 9119
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded Benton 'Deirdre' (Sir Cedric Morris, R. 1946) 1472
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded noid blue 1460
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded noid blue
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded noid variegata 4361
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded 'War Chief' (Schreiner 1992) 4168
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Iris Tall Bearded 'War Chief' (Schreiner, 1992) 4230
©Bill Pusztai 2025

comments

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 04:24:20 GMT

I can feel it happening. Many artists enter - usually at the end of their career - a phase where they no longer govern themselves by the rules they know will make their work intelligible to others. Nowadays I often find I just want to photograph the light sliding across the backdrop from morning to night. It won't mean a damn thing to anyone else. But it's the utter essence of photograph, the light at an exact place and time.

comments

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 04:19:29 GMT

A year of portraits. As long time readers will be aware, that means there may be sexual content. If you don't want to see, or you shoundn't for whatever reason (age, location, scolding conscience) don't click the link below.
Some of these people are close friends, some are professional porn models, some are clients I don't know very well, some I'm photographing for first time, others I've been photographing for 20 years.

( Read more... )

comments

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:07:48 GMT

Hippeastrum 'Wild Amazone', amaryllis (N.L. van Geest B.V., 2019)
©Bill Pusztai 2025

Diospyris kaki, persimmon
©Bill Pusztai 2025

comments

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 03:07:12 GMT

My 60th year is drawing to a close. What do I want to do? Contrary to my usual “the exact number is not that important” outlook, I’ve found 60 is magical to me. So many things I’ve wanted to get rid of … well I’m 60 now why am I keeping that?
Last week I called the man who’s been the driving force behind creating a queer archive here in Vancouver. Off went a huge pile of written porn that I promised someone would end up in an archive. A bunch of magazines, porny and not. And the magnum mysterium (tis the season) a box full of slides from a porn site that lived and died in Vancouver ca 2000, chisel.com; pictures of people many of whom I’m sure are gone, plus the work of local photographers, but I lack the resources to flesh out (heh) those stories on my own. Perhaps some eager youngster will take to it!
We bought a persimmon tree, the non-astringent flat-fruited kind, in the spring and it’s been living in a gigantic pot since. We had about ten fruits from it, and I just ate the most perfect one. Truthfully, they are not much good until they’ve had a few frosts. It was not jelly-like and sweet, as I’ve come to expect from the ones in the store, but more peach like in consistency and almost like fresh dates in flavour, fresh and mildly sweet.

comments

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 03:09:15 GMT

If you've been reading this for a while you will have seen blogging about gardening. This has been a year I let things get away from me, starting in early summer when we were putting together the David show. I have three gardens, more or less, all small, but quite different.

The largest is the back yard at the house. This is the least public, so I feel very little pressure to keep on top of it, but it's also the most heartfelt (if you garden, you know what I mean). The two main issues are goutweed and bindweed. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do about these two, but I've clearly reached an age where I can't keep up with them. This is both a matter of physical pain (I was diagnosed with rheumatism) and emotional incapacity (I think this is where I maybe experience some of the executive dysfunction people with real ADHD know). My gardening friend Mark suggested letting the goutweed do as it will and just grow things that can go right through it. Which is actually not a bad plan, the only things back in the affected zone are things like lilies and raspberries, which won't be bothered by it anyway. I'm about done collecting dozens of irises ... I love them but this climate is not that great for them, they universally develop a leaf rot late in the season and look like hell until the spring. On the other side of the yard is a bed that I planted to perennials. They cannot tolerate the goutweed - or the bindweed - that are now inextricably intertwined with everything. I'm inclined to dig it all up and cardboard + mulch it, just kill off everything that's in there and start from scratch.

The second is the little patch in the front of the house. It's actually the least trouble. The only issue there is that whoever initially painted our house purple decided to make a purple garden, and that included a purple-leaved cherry, which blocks most of whatever light that patch gets. But that's tolerable. Lots of ferns, Aquilegia, etc. make it fairly easy to look after.

The third garden is the island in the middle of the street down by the park. That one, despite it's troubles (horsetail throughout; there is no easy way to water it; and because it's public, people sometimes trample or drive over it) is the easiest to look after. Mainly, I find, because it's something I feel like I'm doing *with* the neighbours, who often stop to chat or comment. Even when I really really don't feel like working on it (the glaring light and heat of August is the worst) that gets me motivated. It's a bit patch and quirky but I don't think anyone would prefer beds of petunias. Or if they would they know better than to say so :)

The "more or less" is that we guerilla plant a bunch of spring blooming bulbs in the park. But that's just a matter of putting them in in the fall, and then weeding out the dandelions in the psring (if there are too many dandelion flowers, Karen will complain to the city, who will just mow it flat).

comments

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 19:31:14 GMT

I made tourtière for the first time ever. I have a troubled history with pastry so I have avoided making pies, but I also love meat pie especially and the ones in the stores lately are not cutting it. This recipe is adapted from Madame Jehane Benoit, so I feel the saintly presence of Herself helped me succeed. Parking the recipe here so I don't lose it.

Filling
0.5 kg ground pork
0.5 kg ground beef
1 tbsp oil or fat
1 large onion, diced
1 large potato, shredded
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt

Heat oil in pan, fry onion until transparent. Add meat and potato and fry until it carmelises. If there's excess fat, drain it. Then add the spices and heat to bloom them. Take it off the heat and let it cool fully.

Crust
1.25 c all-purpose flour
0.5 tsp salt
0.25 lb butter cut into pieces and frozen
3-4 tbsp ice water

Refrigerate everything for an hour or more.

Put dry ingredients into food processor and pulse a few times. Add butter and process until crumbly but not melting. Drizzle in water until it combines into a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and form into a disk (two for double recipe). Refrigerate for more than an hour in a sealed container.

Preheat oven to 400F, put a jellyroll pan on the bottom rack to preheat.

Roll out the dough and line the springform with it, bottom and sides. Add filling. Add top crust, cut vents. Turn down sides to make a "rustic" top crust. Put the whole deal on the jellyroll pan. Bake at for about an hour until the pastry browns. I didn't wash with egg but that's trad and would have made a browner top crust.

- the 10" springform needed a double batch of the pastry and it was just barely enough with nothing over
- could have used more spices, surprisingly even what I did use wasn't overpowering
- lard can be used instead of butter

comments

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 18:28:20 GMT

The show opening was remarkably well attended for a rainy cold weekend afternoon. As usual I found it completely alienating ... too many people talking too loud, and I knew none of them and they all knew each other. Lol. When I was 30 this was all very intimidating, now it just seems normal. I did have a few quiet conversations with people off to the side, mostly women my age, as usual. I don't think anyone sold anything but that's common for an event like this - people were hardly looking at the art anyway, it's a socializing opportunity, and this gallery does not attract the kind of clientele who like to conspicuously spend to impress their friends. There were dogs and babies and a lovely violinist who played her own compositions, avant-garde but not strident. I spent yesterday regenerating.

comments

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 18:16:17 GMT

I'm part of a group show opening on Saturday -

Asterism
Exhibition: December 6 2025 to January 15 2026
Opening reception: December 6 2025, 2 PM to 5 PM

Gallery 881
881 Hastings Street
Vancouver BC V6A 3Y1
gallery881.com | @gallery881
Presented by Printmaker Studio

I'll be showing this -

comments

Sat, 10 May 2025 23:08:57 GMT

Pro-palestine rally just went past our house to the park at the end of the street. I find that no matter the crowd or whatever the issue I find angry shouty mobs terrifying. This is definitely an age thing, as well.

comments

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 17:58:18 GMT

Did people in former ages comfort themselves with the idea that Kali, Fenris, Apophis, Leviathan, Tiamat, must have their time?

Didn't think so.

comments

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 17:31:53 GMT

60th birthday month is nearly done and I think I've had enough birthday festivities for a couple of years. It's been fun! but I am just not a party girl. I'm looking forward to simple good food and quiet gatherings of friends for the rest of the winter.

We're having frosty but bright weather, which has been nice and rather unusual for us. It tends to be cloudy for weeks at a time here, at this time of year.

The flood of terrible news from down south grew too much for me last week, so I tuned it out completely for a couple of days to get my feet back, and since then I've been relying on the CBC (Canadian national media corporation) to give me news filtered to pertain particularly to Canada. This is no longer a matter of preferences but simple survival: if I pay close attention to everything going on in the US I will drown. Also, there are doings afoot in Canada that I must pay attention to, and if I'm fretting about Idaho trying to criminalize my work - terrifying precedent but not directly relevant - I'm not paying attention to the Canadian assholes / foreign agents trying to drag Canada down from the inside.

To replace the "news" I've been reading more. So far, Margaret Atwood's recent book of collected & new works (I'm a fan), a book of Nk'Mip cultural stories (Syilx of the Okanagan Nation, the indigenous people who live around Okanagan Lake), Armistead Maupin's latest installment in the Tales of the City series, Mona of the Manor (enjoyable fluff, for the most part), and Terry Pratchett's Snuff (I'm still hot & cold on Pratchett, wonderful characters and storytelling, but the occasional turd in the form of racist "Who Flung Dung" humour and fat shaming).

comments

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 18:22:42 GMT

Oh yay! New year, new diagnosis! Right knee, rheumatoid arthritis!

comments

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 18:29:51 GMT

People seem to be ready to engage their outrage for any or no reason lately. Better watch my step eh?

comments

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 18:41:25 GMT

Year end musing. I'm realising that I'm really worn out and fucked up from being scolded so much over the last few ... years? I guess it is? when did it become normal to generally scold people as a performance piece to demonstrate your own virtue, as a replacement for actually engaging in political action, or introspection? anyway. I realise I no longer have a good set of filters for knowing when I've fucked up cause for any given behaviour there's someone out there scolding me for it.
That leads me to want to scold less (except for scolding about scolding of course). I figure I'm probably about as guilty of this as anyone.

comments

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 04:51:04 GMT

David was positively merry this weekend. I notice the life flowing back into him. It's good to see.

I rearranged the furniture in the living room on Friday. Which would have been nothing much except for the three bookcases and all their contents. Room for four more pieces of art! one of them is up already, a painting by Marie Gagnon who in the ancient mists of time was GirlfagPNW on here (or maybe only on LiveJournal?). And plenty of room for xmas deco to go up.

I've been on Bluesky a lot lately, and Denise Paolucci (one of the founders of Dreamwidth, you may know her as user "Denise" on here) has an account as "rahaeli" over there, and is very active in identifying bad actors. I'm learning so much from reading her.

We're expecting guests for most of December, the first of them arriving in ten days (omg). The mattress we ordered to accommodate them will be here any day now. This is going to be tight.

The local faeries have an indoor winter event in the city, known as "the shadow gathering". Organizing has started. Or perhaps I should say disorganizing.

I am distracting myself as much as possible. The seasonal argh has descended.

comments

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:41:26 GMT

We had a "bomb cyclone" just off the coast of Vancouver Island. It did tremendous damage all around us, on the Island and up and down the coast, trees down, roads closed, large swaths of country without power, floods, etc. - but miraculously we just had a bit of rain, not even high winds, the power went out a couple of times and came right back after a minute or two. The roof didn't even leak where the landlord hasn't fixed it from the time it leaked during the atmospheric river a month ago. Altogether feeling like we dodged a bullet.

To the south of the studio they've been building an apartment building (or safer injection site or transitional housing or homeless shelter or market condos ... it changes every time the Province needs to crow about Solving The Problems). To the south and east of the studio they are going through the zoning process to build three more towers. Whether they will be useable rental housing or yet more shoebox condos for overseas speculative investors remains to be seen but I have hopes. Regardless, the neighbourhood will be dramatically different in five years.

I put all the unexpected amaryllis bulbs in pots the other day, and stuck them under the lights. Meanwhile the ones I had out on the porch all summer have decided they are not going to go dormant and have initiated bloom. There's going to be a lot of amaryllis around here in a few weeks.

And I have decided, fuck propriety (surely the neighbours will talk!), I am going to put up the "tree" and coloured lights early this year. But first I am going to rearrange the living room. If I'm feeling very ambitious I may even repaint.

comments

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:11:08 GMT

omg, how am I going to avoid reading american election spew for the next few days.

comments

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 03:57:03 GMT

It is my custom to remember my dead on this day.

Barbara Pusztai
Brad Rolph
Compton Farinha
Dan Zapata aka Zapp
Danielle Macdonell
David Scott Callander
Earl Dagle
Etienne Espinet
Frolic
Goodland Brinson
Gordon Beckingham
Henri Senecaut
James (Jimmy) Kirk
John Hans Ulrich Weiss aka Dr Perv
Josef Standhaft
Keith Duncan
Lillian Sirate
Margaret Wallace
Marion Wallace
Milda Marjama
Oscar Wolfman
Pete Villenueve
Pusztai Erzsébet
Pusztai Sándor Ede
Robert Galbraith
Robin Wallace
Ruth Glass
Ruth Wallace
Stanley Bissell
Teresa Wallace
Tom Dekker
Torvald Patterson
Urso
Vörös Pista

comments