In which The Gay Recluse provides an update on a beehive of activity at 573-579 West 161st Street.
So it’s official, if “official” means by way of an unnamed receptionist at the architects’s office: 573-575 West 161st Street is going to be a 6-story condominium. We’re trying to scrounge up a rendering, but in the meantime, [...]

In which The Gay Recluse suggests a link.
The most beautiful ads are always for dead companies.

Like this one we recently took on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue.

Does this company still exist? We hope not, because we don’t want to have to think about buying anything.

New York City is filled with ads for dead [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times.
Paul Krugman/Success Breeds Failure
The Short Version: Don’t get too excited about the financial markets.
In his words: “[T]he next crisis will probably be worse than this one.”
Score: B- (Been there)
Krugman describes an entrenched cycle of boom/bust/haphazard regulation in the financial markets that is oddly reflected his column, [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times.
Gail Collins/How Will It Play in Apex?
The Short Version: It’s hard to say who’s worse: Blabbermouth Bill or The Reverend Wright.
In her words: “On the other hand, young voters who have yet to have their hearts broken by a politician find it wicked (sic?) depressing.”
Score: A (Applause)
We like [...]

In which The Gay Recluse invites readers to get drunk enjoy art in person.
Reader John Anthony Frederick sent us the following flier today for his photo exhibition in Albany:

To all of our readers in Albany: Hey, we think you should go! The tree photos look extremely cool: distant, distorted and contemplative. (Why not buy one!) [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Frank Rich/How McCain Lost in Pennsylvania
The Short Version: We’ll see who’s laughing in November!
In his words: “On the way to the finish line, the prolonged primary race, far from destroying the Democratic candidates, may do more insidious damage to the Republican nominee, lulling his [...]

In which The Gay Recluse leaves New York.

Last month we went to Pittsburgh for a few days.

Even though we “grew up” there, it was almost like visiting a new (as in unfamiliar) city.

We always lived in the suburbs, and almost never went into the city except to see the Penguins!

This time though, we stayed downtown [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/Hillary’s Smackdown
The Short Version: Don’t panic, it’ll be ok.
In her words: “If you want to worry about something, worry about the way both of them have been pandering themselves over the edge.”
Score: B (Benign)
Although we don’t want to be reading about Obama and [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes a flaneur.
Date of pictures: April 23, 2008
Location: 35th Street between 5th Avenue and Madison.

We often think about the city streets as we would the surface of a lake.

We imagine worlds beneath us we cannot ever see.

The windows down are beautiful, however.

Looking through them, we forget how much we long [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Bob Herbert/Clueless in America
The Short Version: Kids are stupid.
In his words: “While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement.”
Score: F (Forgettable)
If you’re in the mood to be scolded on account of how shitty [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Date of Photographs: April 18, 2008

We’ve noticed that almost every chimney in Washington Heights is spewing thick, black smoke these days.

It’s definitely a lot worse than it’s ever been, which leads us to ask: Does it have anything to do with the rising cost of [...]

In which The Gay Recluse looks forward to Beijing 2008.
Today we are pleased to introduce readers to our new women’s beach-volleyball correspondent, Robert Representative, who kicks off his Olympic coverage with the following report:
Any real commentary of this sport will have to wait until the summer,
but I did manage to find some awesome photos that [...]

In which The Gay Recluse documents the ruins of Washington Heights and self-referentially quotes an earlier post.
Date of photo: April 6, 2008
Location: 161st Street between Broadway and Amsterdam

This lion is understandably upset by his bad hair and tacky gold paint! (Still, he’s over 100 years old so it could definitely be worse.)
In Washington Heights we [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/Pinochle Politics
The Short Version: I’m bored with politics.
In her words: “Setting aside six weeks of preparation for the Pennsylvania primary turns out to have been a little excessive.”
Score: B- (Boring)
We agree with Collins that the Democratic primary is kind of difficult to follow [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Paul Krugman/Voodoo Health Economics
The Short Version: The Maverick is an idiot.
In her words: “[T]he McCain health plan — actually a set of bullet points on the campaign’s Web site — is entirely based on blind faith that competition among private insurers will solve all [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Time and date of photographs: March 26, 10am (ish). [We would have posted earlier but had a backlog of hot gay statues to attend to. (Plus we had to go to Pittsburgh for the weekend for a celebration.)]
We’ve repeatedly documented the monstrous plumes of black [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Time and date of photographs: April 2, 2008, 7pm (ish)

Although the worst offender seems to have abated after we called 311 a few weeks ago, there are regular emissions of nasty-looking black smoke from almost all of the rooftops.

At least when it gets dark it’s [...]

In which The Gay Recluse contemplates an uncommissioned masterpiece from the walls of an uptown subway station.

Consider the old panels on the subway platform wall, and observe the finely wrought precision with which each strip of peeling paint has by the hands of time been distressed in the subtlest shades of gold and silver, all [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/A Black Hole Rating System
The Short Version: Well, these are not exactly the best of times.
In her words: “Let’s prioritize. Rank all your causes for concern on a scale of: ! (unfortunate development) to !!!!! (Large Hadron Collider has a bad day). ”
Score: [...]

In which The Gay Recluse imagines a life more exciting than his own.
Our newest correspondent — Deirdre’s Terrain — sends in pix of her desk at work, which she labeled only half-ironically as “CUBE Party!” along with the following report:
Look @ my cube

This is the view from where Deirdre sits. (Note the television!)

Here’s the [...]