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 has a bad day and indulges in a lil rant.
Here’s a shot of one seriously fucking annoying thing some people do on the subway, i.e., leave their shopping bags on the seat next to them when the entire train is filled with passengers. Most days we would just tell the [...]

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
Today reader Scott LaPierre sends in this from Georgia, as in the former Soviet Socialist Republic. Scott writes:
i don’t know exactly what’s supposed to be going on in this mural/statue, but there seems to be a lot of innuendo here…it’s in Gori, Georgia (the town is [...]

In which The Gay Recluse dreams of stowing away.

There are hundreds of barges that pass by each day.

All of them seem to have cool apartments on board.

We dream of sailing to Australia to visit The Cannanes.

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 holds a contest. Sort of.
Let’s face it: when it comes to gay rights hot gay statues, Europe is miles ahead of the United States. Reader Anthony Goriainoff, a journalist and photographer based in Madrid, writes:
“Madrid these days is really into its art and it takes itself very seriously. Wherever you [...]

In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of.
On the topic of hot gay statues, one of our readers — David from Queens — writes with an important observation/challenge:
Great contest, Gay Recluse. But it would be virtually impossible for our splendid nation to top the statue of Hercules and Cacus (attached) in Florence. I [...]

In which The Gay Recluse — with help from our United Kingdom correspondent, The London Eye — examines life abroad (instead of just dreaming about it all the time).
Today, this exclusive analysis from The London Eye:
“These [statues of Antony Gormley] seem to be naked, and possibly gay, but not necessarily hot …”

(Photo BBC News)
Thanks, London [...]

In which The Gay Recluse runs a contest. Sort of.
We are extremely pleased to announce that we’ve already received our first hot-gay-statue submission, from Andrew of 801a.info, who tells us: “This is in Washington D.C., directly across from the White House. The pictures could be taken to look more salacious, I guarantee.”
Really? We’re not so [...]

In which The Gay Recluse — with help from our United Kingdom correspondent, The London Eye — examines life abroad (instead of just dreaming about it all the time).
Today, this breaking news from The London Eye:
Dear The Gay Recluse

Here’s a photo of a TV screen in one of the tube stations (Picadilly Circus). It’s [...]

In yesterday’s Times, we were told that Italy has sunk to new depths of despair on many fronts, “struggling as few other countries do with fractured politics, uneven growth, organized crime and a tenuous sense of nationhood.” There is widespread malaise, or malessere. Quoted is Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome: “It’s a country that [...]

Yet another raw December day on which to consider the question of how much happier we might be somewhere else in the world! We stare out the window at the low winter sky and ask if perhaps we might prefer to live in Miami, where it never snows and our bones might not feel so [...]

Perhaps it was the broken signal of the closing subway door — so that the usual New York City tones were reversed, with the low one first — that dislodged us from our usual evening commute and sent us reeling toward the city of light; or maybe it was the pair of women speaking French; [...]

The first snow of the season in our Washington Heights garden, and naturally we are drawn to that most unnatural of colors: the electric slate blue of the atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica). Suddenly — are you with us? — we are on a train in northern Italy, watching the countryside drift past; here, it [...]

It already seems years away, those hours spent sweeping up the golden leaves of the European white birch, which has always been the focal point of our garden in Washington Heights. Each leaf, of course, represents a day in our past, and for this reason might seem more valuable if there weren’t so many. And [...]

The taxi dispatcher blew his whistle: “Reagan National?” he asked, referring to the airport just outside of the city.
We shuddered visualizing a similar exchange twenty years in the future and the many monuments that would inevitably be erected to honor our current leaders. But as the cab pulled into the circular drive of the hotel, [...]

A young runner — perhaps twenty years old — had stopped to stretch at one of the Parcourse installations in Rock Creek Park; it did not take more than a single glance to realize why he looked so familiar. In a short conversation, he confirmed that he had in fact just this year graduated from [...]

AMERICA’S NEW OUTDOOR FITNESS SPORT IS FOR EVERYONE. Join the millions of participants who enjoy Parcourse regularly to maintain overall physical fitness and good health.
Parcourse consists of a series of fitness stations (where you perform specific exercises) which are spaced along a jogging and walking path in this area, as you can see from the [...]

The modern hotel is a mammoth, sprawling fortress on a hill; its endless hallways are dim and silent and uniform except for the temporal, scattered remains of room service left outside a door. If we see anyone at all — and this is rare, although we have been told the hotel is fully occupied — [...]