In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and Date of morning photograph: March 21, 2008, 5:15pm-ish.
Notes: This is the view of the George Washington Bridge from the north, in the remotest and most abandoned part of Manhattan. We see the pilings of an old pier and — most [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/A Catered Affair
The Short Version: Paterson should have left his wife at home.
In her words: “Everybody knows there’s only one revenge affair to a customer.”
Score: A- (Amusing)
We began this column a bit fearfully, but gradually succumbed to Collins’ witty take on the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Time and date of morning photograph: March 21, 2008, 7:54am.

Time and date of evening photograph: March 21, 2008, 7:34pm

The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photograph: March 21, 2008, 7:54am.
Notes: The blue sky, almost completely windswept.

“I, too am obsessed with the George Washington Bridge, and have been ever since as stoned youths me and my friends cavorted in the park on the New Jersey [...]

In which The Gay Recluse watches the sunset, craves a gin-and-tonic and converses with a higher power.
Time and Date of Photographs: 7:15ish, March 20, 2008
Notes: All sunset photos are inherently cheesy — obviously — but sometimes we have to get in touch with our inner tourist.

God: Don’t let your youth go to waste!
Us: Ughh — [...]

In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer.
Time and Date of morning photograph: March 20, 2008, 6:54am.
Notes: One benefit of living in Washington Heights is that it’s truly like the 19th century, not only in the architectural grandeur that splays across the rooftops, but the daily emissions of 100-year-old boilers in apartment [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and Date of morning photograph: March 20, 2008, 6:54am.
Notes: Seriously, don’t these clouds look a little “Poltergeisty”?

Time and Date of evening photograph: March 20, 2008, 6:54pm.
Notes: We appreciate the black smoke, which is so good for our asthma.

“The George Washington Bridge over [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Nicholas Kristof/Obama and Race
The Short Version: Obama gave a great speech the other day.
In his words: “Much of the time, blacks have a pretty good sense of what whites think, but whites are oblivious to common black perspectives.”
Score: B- (Boring)
We obviously liked Obama’s [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Maureen Dowd: Black, White & Gray
The Short Version: Obama’s “race speech” rawked!
In her words: “A little disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a good thing. Too much idealism can blind a leader to reality as surely as too much ideology can.”
Score: A- [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
David Brooks/The Bailout Artists
The Short Version: There are reasons why even free-market types should embrace a bailout in the housing crisis.
In his words: “It makes sense to try to find some circuit breakers so the housing market doesn’t totally collapse.”
Score: A- (Astute)
Brooks presents a very [...]

Paul Krugman/The B-Word
The Short Version: Bailout!
In his words: “As Bear goes, so will go the rest of the financial system.”
Score: B+ (Bailout)
Krugman predicts more woe for the financial markets, along with an inevitable (and very expensive) buyout. Unfortunately for a lot of people (and U.S. taxpayers), he appears to be right.
Roger Cohen/Obama’s Brother in China
The [...]

In which The Gay Recluse goes to a new restaurant (twice) and is totally psyched.
For all of you doubters in doubterville, take note: there’s a new restaurant on 166th Street between Broadway and Saint Nicholas, right around the corner from Dallas BBQ. And get this: it’s vegetastic! We’ve eaten there twice already this weekend alone [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/George Speaks, Badly
The Short Version: George is a loser.
In her words: “Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.”
Score: A- (Acerbic)
When even Gail Collins sounds like [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Paul Krugman/Betting the Bank
The Short Version: Economically, we’re fucked.
In his words: “I’m more concerned that despite the extraordinary scale of Mr. Bernanke’s action — to my knowledge, no advanced-country’s central bank has ever exposed itself to this much market risk — the Fed still [...]

In which The Gay Recluse would laugh at government doublespeak (and the media’s reporting of the same) if it were in a novel instead of the real world.
Today Jeff Weinstein sent us the following quote from an article in The Times (of London) about the British government’s decision to reopen the asylum case of Iranian [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Gail Collins/Unwelcome Surprises
The Short Version: Who knew?
In her words: “Memo to future disgraced politicians: The nation has discussed this at length, and we do not want to see any more stricken spouses at the press conference. ”
Score: B (Boring)
We generally like Collins — and [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Bob Herbert/Sharing the Pain
The Short Version: More than ever, it sucks to be poor.
In his words: “It is disgraceful that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, nearly a third of the people are poor or near-poor.”
Score: D- (Depressing)
It’s not that we [...]

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Today we are extremely honored to present another hot-gay-statue submission, this one a joint effort from Jeff Weinstein/Out There and John Perreault/Artopia. Jeff writes:

I sent partner John to shoot Garibaldi in Washington Square Park and instead he came back with [a fuzzy shot of] the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Paul Krugman/The Face-Slap Theory
The Short Version: We’re in deep shit.
In his words: “The only way the Fed’s action could work is through the slap-in-the-face effect: by creating a pause in the selling frenzy, the Fed could give hysterical markets a chance to regain their [...]

In which The Gay Recluse ponders New York Magazine’s “Best of New York” Special Double Ish.
Recently, through a series of startling but ultimately mundane machinations we’d rather not get into because it involves that most hideous of modern chimeras (i.e., frequent flier miles), we happened to receive in the mail (we know, gross) a copy [...]