In which The Gay Recluse presents a gay/impressionistic alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
By JULIE BUXBAUM and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: May 11, 2008

SEVEN months ago, I was married in an ivory lace dress to a woman in a gray suit on [...]

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 documents the sunset of a dream.

Today the tide seemed to finally turn against Hillary Clinton.

We felt bad about it, but mostly on behalf of our mother. She’s in her seventies now and really wanted Hillary to win.

She’s spent the better part of four decades fighting for women’s “equality.” As people [...]

In which The Gay Recluse serves brunch.

This was yesterday morning, after our first trip to Zabar’s since the Christmas Eve trifecta. We were almost nostalgic thinking about it, but ultimately relieved that it’s a mountain we will probably never have to climb again.

In which The Gay Recluse is small.
Time/Location of Pictures: 35th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenue, some night last week.

It’s not exactly a revelation to say that the city is filled with infinite borders, many of which are strictly maintained.

But there’s something comforting in the utility of a nicely designed fence.

As we walk past we [...]

In which The Gay Recluse attempts to use a new “macro” lens.

So yeah: The Globularia stygia we bought last year at Stonecrop Gardens is in bloom.

These first two pix we took with the regular lens.

Then we took some drugs tried out a new macro lens.

We are reminded of a record cover for one of those [...]

In which The Gay Recluse retires to our garden in Washington Heights.
Date of photograph: April 28, 2008, around 6:30pm

It’s hardly a secret that sometimes the spring garden looks better in the rain.

Today was one of those days…

One of our favorite plants is the creeping yellow groundcover, which we bought a few years ago at [...]

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 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 appreciates Miranda.
Many years ago we had a friend named Miranda. She was the coolest! She wore the smallest backpack ever! It was gold and she used it to carry her cigarettes in it and nothing else, and even that was a tight fit. She was a photographer and a filmmaker [...]

In which The Gay Recluse works in the garden.
Time of Photographs: April 20, 2008, afternoon (ish)

Today, a first in the garden! We heard an opera singer.

She was doing scales in a nearby apartment. Her window was definitely open.

She was loud! And she was struggling to hit her high notes. (She was a mezzo.)

There were [...]

In which The Gay Recluse again laments the suffocation of the gay voice in American literature.
If you’re like us, when you scanned through the list of books included in New York Magazine’s recent “New York City Canon 1968-2008,” you had one reaction: wtf! where are the gays? In every other format, gays are represented [...]

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 [...]

In which The Gay Recluse corresponds with Harry, an 80-year-old autistic gay man.
Herewith, for those who asked (and for those who did not):
March 24: 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 [...]

In which The Gay Recluse celebrates Easter.
It was not until eleventh grade — in Mrs. S____’s English class — that we began to appreciate the obsessive and illogical side of literature, which of course is to say we were reading Wuthering Heights. Do you remember Mrs. S____? How thin and small and severe she was? [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times.
Mom, It’s Me, Your Gay Son, Finally
By PETE MacDONALD and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 22, 2008
A YEAR after my partner Alan left me, and on the day before my estranged mother would have turned 77, I [...]

In which The Gay Recluse promotes remembrance of things past.
Today we received this letter from reader Steve in Manhattan:
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 side that is directly below the place where [...]

In which The Gay Recluse retreats to our garden in Washington Heights.
As it has done for thousands of years — and not just in our garden — the hellebore has sent forth the most beautiful, delicate blossoms at this improbable juncture, as if to taunt winter into sending one last storm. (Let’s hope nobody is [...]

In which The Gay Recluse photographs birds.

Mary-Kate and Ashley? Elliot and Silda? Tristan and Isolde? You decide. (Our Jonathan Livingston Seagull moment for the day.)