In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Last week our newest correspondent The Blind Architect filed this report:
You may be interested in this statue of George Washington I saw last week in Seattle. No musculature, but he does have a big sword. I have been watching the HBO John Adams series, and George [...]

In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinion pieces in The Times.
Frank Rich/Hillary’s St. Patrick’s Day Massacre
The Short Version: Why is Hillary such a lying liar? To cover up her Iraq vote, of course!
In his words: “Incredible as it seems, the professionals around Mrs. Clinton — though surely knowing her story was false — thought [...]

In which The Gay Recluse posts love letters from crazies.
Remember a couple hundred years ago when Arthur C. Clarke died and we made fun of him for being a closet case? And how not everyone thought it was funny and we laughed at them too? Well, some people are still upset and can’t resist [...]

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 [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. Those looking for our quantitative analysis should click here.
How We Got From Grief to Pancakes
By PATTY DANN and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 30, 2008
I WAS nervous about meeting my new partner’s parents, even though — omg! [...]

In which the Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Although this is not an official submission, we felt it was imperative to share a comment from reader GenghisKuhn in response to Seth Tisue’s entry from Philadelphia (shown below).

Genghis writes:
What makes this even funnier is that it looks like the J-Man might be involved, reminiscent of [...]

In which The Gay Recluse reads a book five years later and says wtf.
Last fall, after we posted our thoughts on the suffocation of the gay voice in American literature, a reader suggested that for the sake of comparison we check out The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany, which said reader described to us [...]

In which The Gay Recluse explores mythology.
In response to our post on the nasty black smoke seen snaking around the rooftops of Washington Heights, reader David writes:
FYI - asthma is caused more by a bad diet than by the air we breathe.
Love your site, but the “asthma is caused by dirty air” myth should be [...]

In which The Gay Recluse takes pictures and displays ignorance.
First, a note from our new friend and GreenCine film critic James Van Maanen, who writes (with regard to the below shot):
Is that first picture of a hawk, maybe? (I ask, because we are getting a number of here out here in Jackson Heights of [...]

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: Mom, It’s Me, Your Son, Finally
Subject: A man in mid-life crisis tries [...]

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 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 posts an incisive reader comment.
This was left in the comments but we thought it merited a full post because it brings to light several important and interesting issues that are not unrelated to our obituary of Arthur C. Clarke, which — ahem — did not please everyone.
Vikram — a gay [...]

In which The Gay Recluse kills two birds with one stone.
Today we received a certain amount of shit for “trashing” Arthur C. Clarke as a major closet-case only milliseconds after he died. Fair enough, we trashed him a little. But our purpose in doing so — besides being an internet traffic whore, of course — [...]

In which The Gay Recluse considers the reigning state of stupidity, even in nice countries like Canada.
Our friend Jeff Weinstein wrote earlier this week with this piece of news, which would be hilarious if it were in a movie, but instead must be viewed as sadly incredible. According to the article, by Tiffany Crawford [...]

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 provides a more accurate obituary for Arthur C. Clarke than the one that just appeared in The Times. (For the AP version, click here.)
Arthur C. Clarke, Premier Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 90

By GERALD JONAS and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 18, 2008
Arthur C. Clarke, a writer and long-time closet [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a more accurate version of Arthur C. Clarke’s obituary than the one that was just released by AP. (For The Times version, click here.)
Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Writer, Dies at 90
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and THE GAY RECLUSE
Published: March 18, 2008
Filed at 6:41 p.m. ET
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) [...]

In which The Gay Recluse provides a gay alternative to this week’s Modern Love offering in The Times. (Note: For Kayla’s response, please click here.)
By KAYLA RACHLIN SMALL and THE GAY RECLUSE
THE rules forbade me from being within three feet of her. I knew those rules; she knew them. Sharing a drink meant coming [...]

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 [...]