In which The Gay Recluse asks a reader to think more conceptually.
In response to our recent Franco Harris Hot Gay Statue submission, Reader Queerunity writes:
all football players wear spandex, why is this gay?
We’re posting this comment — and thanks for bringing this up, Queerunity — because we think it raises an interesting point about the [...]

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 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 thinks about taking a seat.
Time/Location: Recently, around 34th Street.

We walk by these benches all the time, but have never had the time or inclination to sit.

In which The Gay Recluse watches birds.

The bird flew by just as the fog was lifting. That could be a metaphor for many different things!

In which The Gay Recluse is entranced by the lowly marigold.
Time/Location: Sunday afternoon at the Green Valley Nursery in Westchester.

Yellow marigolds.

Red marigolds.

Orange marigolds.

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 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 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 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 holds a contest. Sort of.
Today we received two unofficial entries for the contest, “unofficial” because 1) the first statue is in Europe and we are primarily interested in locating the hottest gay statues in the U.S., and 2) the second statue doesn’t exist except in someone’s photoshopallucination! Yet we still [...]

In which Dante and Zephyr take over The Gay Recluse.

Friends! Laugh all you want, but the truth remains: Not every cat is a lolcat!

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 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 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 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 Dante and Zephyr take over The Gay Recluse.

Friends! Let’s be perfectly clear: not every cat is a lolcat!