In which The Gay Recluse plays Abstract Jeopardy.
Readers! Welcome to our new feature, Abstract Jeopardy, in which we pose one possible solution but leave the question open to debate. Let’s get started, shall we?
Today’s possible solution: 50,000 red geraniums.

So what’s the question?
A few possibilities:

What is 100,000 geraniums minus 50,000 geraniums?
You know what’s more impressive than [...]

In which The Gay Recluse hopes that a young woman will not succumb to the more conventional pressures that sadly ooze from this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
Want To Be My Girlfriend? Please Don’t Define
By MARGUERITE FIELDS and THE GAY RECLUSE
RECENTLY my mother asked [...]

In which The Gay Recluse admires manholes.
Time/Location: May 2, 2008 on 35th Street between 6th Avenue and Madison.

By our calculations, there are approximately ten zillion manholes in New York City, and each has a cover; this is one of the largest and most striking. The alternating pattern of single and interlocking circles — reminiscent of [...]

In which The Gay Recluse says goodbye to the cruelest month.

Our hands were shaking a little bit, here. (It’s been a tough few weeks, hasn’t it?)

In which The Gay Recluse reports on monthly traffic whoring metrix to the Board of Directors.
I. Summary
After a record month of whoring in March, we experienced a slight dip in April. But! It was still our second best month on record.
II. Traffic Whoring Metrix
WordPress
Total Views March: 13,957
Grand Total Number of Views: 48,973
Monthly Breakdown

[...]

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 contemplates an old friend.
Date of Picture: April 24, 2008
Location: Our garden in Washington Heights.

Even as a child in Pittsburgh, we loved this table.

All winter it would sit out on the porch as we stared longingly at it.

Every May, when it was finally warm enough (this obviously before global warming), [...]

In which The Gay Recluse works in the garden.
Of all the trees that populate our dreams and fantasies, the dawn redwood — a deciduous conifer — must go at the top of the list. Long thought to be extinct, it was discovered in the 1940s in a secret canyon in China. (And not just on [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Time of photographs: April 19th, 7:00-8:00 (ish).

Washington Heights is a place of extremes.

Even the clouds are intense.

Life is nothing but abrasive.

Washington Heights is completely bereft of visionaries.

But resonates with the dead genius of the past.

Here we have been destroyed by music.

As our hearing [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge.
Date of photographs: April 18, 2008, 8:00pm-ish

I, too, have an obsession with the George Washington Bridge. However, mine involves a nagging compulsion to complete a football pass from the deck of the bridge to a buddy on the ground below.
–Ryan Pissed and Petty [...]

In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with The George Washington Bridge.
Time and date of photographs: April 17, 2008, 7:00 - 8:00 pm (ish).
Originally the George Washington Bridge was meant to be clad in stone but fortunately they ran out of money.

This is not a pattern we ever get tired of looking at.

Even when [...]

In which The Gay Recluse welcomes the spring garden.
The hellebore is perhaps not the most spectacular flower, but we like it anyway: it’s a dependable friend.

We feel reassured. After months of planning, the first guests have finally arrived and they seem to be having a good time!

The hellebore is thousands of years old but decidedly [...]

In which The Gay Recluse ponders random acts of beauty garbage.
So yesterday we wrote about a giant-tote-bag-and-broken-sawhorse installation on 35th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. Today we are happy to report that not only has the installation survived, but that it has grown!

This is facing west. We like the way the new and more [...]

In which The Gay Recluse admires random acts of beauty garbage.
If you’re like us, you’ve long wondered what would happen if you took the world’s largest (and Con Edison branded!) tote, propped it open with a broken sawhorse and left it for a week on 35th Street and 5th Avenue. Would anyone move it? Or [...]

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 Deirdre’s Terrain checks in with The Gay Recluse.
Today we received this startling news report and follow-up analysis from our Manhattan correspondent Deirdre’s Terrain:
ieeww I hate people who post picts & videos of their KIDS at the beach taking a bath etc etc… playing with their iPhone.. YUCK! why do parents post boring picts [...]

In which The Gay Recluse is momentarily disturbed.
Of all the natural vistas we have encountered — desert landscapes, arctic tundra, the badlands — the rooftops of Washington Heights remain one of the most tranquil and undisturbed. Originally carved from the bedrock some 10,000 years ago by the retreating glaciers, the surreal beauty of these structures [...]

In which The Gay Recluse turns forty.
Today we received the following note from Harry, a reader in Washington Heights:
Subj: YOU
Mess: It is none my business to know, but! My curiosity is tweaked. Who are you? Have you posted something somewhere to give a more detailed bio? or do I have to continue to read between [...]

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

Consider, if you will, one of 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 [...]

In which The Gay Recluse updates his informal but rather telling quantitative analysis of Modern Love, the weekly Style Section (of The Times) column in which openly gay writers almost never appear, and even less frequently describe a romantic relationship.
This week’s piece: How We Got from Grief to Pancakes
Subject: A woman finds a new [...]