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.)

In which The Gay Recluse shares a fresh expression used by an older relative new to the internet.
“I’m dead! That’s funny!”

In which The Gay Recluse compares the Richard Wagner opera Tristan and Isolde (first performed in Munich in 1865; financed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria and now running at The Metropolitan Opera) with Loveless, the final record by My Bloody Valentine (Creation, 1991).
While the music is dissonant, it’s never abrasive; it’s just another thread [...]

In which The Gay Recluse ponders the dinosaurs.
In today’s New York Times, in a shocking piece that has vaulted all the way to number one on the “Most Popular” chart, we learn that golf is on the way out; declining in a popularity, with too many courses built in the 90s, it’s no longer feasible [...]

In which The Gay Recluse is inspired by a classic.
Of all the French photographers who documented Paris at the turn of the last century (and we don’t mean 8 years ago), we are most obsessed with Eugene Atget. Who can resist his urban streetscapes, his ghostly renderings of the city of light? And [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Maureen Dowd/A Flawed Feminist Test
The Short Version: On behalf of women, I feel bad for Hillary — I really do — but I still hate her.
In her words: “Instead of carving out a separate identity for herself, she has become more entwined with Bill.”
Score: [...]

In which The Gay Recluse enjoys a game of “Would You Rather,” the elementary school game in which you must choose one of two offered alternatives and explain why.
The Set-up: You are at the gym over lunch, about to get on to the treadmill for fifteen minutes when you realize — fucking-shit! – that you [...]

In which The Gay Recluse writes metaphorically about life.
Let’s say you were invited to a cocktail reception in the Rainbow Room, hosted by ____ and featuring a talk by _____, a political hero of yours who now works at a prestigious law firm. And even though it was a corporate event, which is never as [...]

It was difficult to read Maiden Voyage, the 1943 novel by Denton Welch, although not in any of the usual ways. For starters, the prose is relatively simple, marked by compact sentences — very much in keeping with the voice of a sixteen-year-old — but deceptively elegant; sincere and direct without ever being vulgar [...]

Until now we’ve been careful not to endorse either of the leading Democratic candidates — preferring to hold out for Geraldine Ferraro — but with the New York State primary upon us, we have decided to end our prevarication and officially endorse Barack Obama. Our decision is not based on any particular issue — for [...]