Archive for October, 2007
On Candy Apple Grey
Today we accepted a Halloween gift of a candy apple, which we considered for a moment before we were transported to the last time we encountered one, this just a few days after 9/11 (which is not to say this is a story about 9/11). Like so many others, we had gone down to walk […]
Filed under: Gay, Good Rock, Memory, Obsession, Pessimism, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: 9/11, Bob Mould, Candy Apple Grey, Gay, Grant Hart, Greg Norton, Hüsker Dü, Music, Post-hardcore, Ruins
Unlike The Times, which in honor of today’s Halloween festivities speculated about paranormal activity in different luxury apartment buildings around the city — e.g., The Ansonia, The Dakota — we are more inclined to look at the question from a slightly different angle; to wit: is there anyone who walks down Broadway between 96th and […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gentrification, Landscape, The Times | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bank of America, Chase Manhattan, CVS, Duane Reade, Halloween, New York Times, Upper West Side, Washington Mutual
Is there any doubt that one did not lead directly to the other, that our collective misery in Bush’s incapable but malevolent hands is only slightly more extreme than it was twenty years ago when we were in the same situation with Reagan? Those who defend Reagan but criticize Bush display a disregard of history […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, History, Philosophers, Politicians, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Arthur Schopenhauer, George W. Bush, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Ronald Reagan
As part of our ongoing series this primary season, we met with Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, who came all the way up to Washington Heights to discuss one of his favorite topics: correct service for the formal and informal table. —————————– The Gay Recluse: Rudy, as mayor you were associated with a hard-nosed approach […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Politicians, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Abortion, Gay, Giuliani, Guns, Interviews, NYC, Right To Marry, Washington Heights
We turn again to New York Times critic Edward Rothstein — who today wrote about the “irrelevance of gayness” with regard to the fictional wizard Albus Dumbledore –and shake our heads in wonder and dismay: how did such an arrogant, presumptuous blockhead get a PhD? a job with the Times? We must conclude that it […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Obsession, Philosophers, The Times, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Edward Rothstein, Gay, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer
In today’s Times, we are told by critic Edward Rothstein with regard to Albus Dumbledore that the question of the wizard’s “gayness” is “irrelevant” and “distracting” given the character’s later vows of celibacy and his more high-minded efforts to save the world. Here we have a perfect example of the sort of tepid, mediocre and […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, History, Obsession, The Gay Recluse, The Times, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Criticism, Edward Rothstein, Fiction, Gay, History, The Times, Writing
Like Ann Coulter, the ailanthus tree is noxious, unsightly and invasive, and can be found almost everywhere in the United States, not only in vacant lots and highway meridians, but in once pristine forests, where it wreaks havoc on local ecosystems. It does not favor diversity or nuance, but — and with just the most […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Landscape, Resignation, Sickness, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Ailanthus, Ann Coulter, Bronx Tree, Death, Fire, Invasive Species, Vermilion
In a profile included in this month’s Poets & Writers Magazine, Benjamin Percy — a young American genius said to have written the “story of the year” in 2006 — tells us: “I am interested in this new masculinity in today’s society, what distinguishes us as men and as women besides our biology. No longer […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Literature, Sickness, Writers-American, Writers-British | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alan Hollinghurst, Benjamin Percy, Masculinity, Refresh Refresh, Swimming Pool Library
On Autumn Dreams
In winter we had no dreams; it was too cold to consider anything but the brittle landscape outside and the frozen tributaries of our past within. In spring we were nervous and agitated, our thoughts scattered like cherry-blossom petals in the wind. Summer came and we were boldly confident, perhaps even arrogant; who could not […]
Filed under: Dream, Landscape, Resignation, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Autumn, Books, Dreams, Fog, George Washington Bridge
On Albus Dumbledore
Last night at the midtown bistro ______, we were pleased to find Des Esseintes at the bar, his thin hand clutched around a tumbler of amber-colored liquid. We asked about this, and he confirmed it was a single highland malt from the ____ distillery, which he had long professed to be the most burnished yet […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Dream, Gay, Opera, Writers-British, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Albus Dumbledore, Aristocracy, Opera, Paparazzi, Whiskey
One day on the street in Washington Heights we passed an old man who invited us into his garden. Though barely the size of three parking spaces, the garden contained a vast array of unusual trees, including columnar varieties of a blue atlas cedar, a purple beech (the most magisterial of all trees), a Norway […]
Filed under: Dream, Longing, Resignation, The Autumn Garden, The Gay Recluse | Leave a Comment
Tags: Art, Beech, Blue Atlas Cedar, conifers, Dawn Redwood, Gardens, Hellebores, Life, Norway Spruce
Here we take offense with Andrew Sullivan‘s unthinking assertion that “[f]or all his many faults, [Rudy Giuliani] turned a city around.” Rather than rebut this ourselves, however, we turn to the infinitely more eloquent and compelling words of Herbert Muschamp, who sadly is no longer with us to tell the truth, which resonates in ways […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Infrastructure, Memory, Sickness | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Giuliani, Herbert Muschamp, New York City
On One Important Difference Between Pets and Children and What It Tells Us About U.S. Foreign Policy
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that we have two couples, roughly similar in every indicator of socioeconomic status, and that money is not a determinative factor in this hypothetical. Let’s also assume that both are offered the opportunity 1) to have (or adopt) a child, or 2) to adopt a pet. A further […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Gay, History, Pessimism, Philosophers, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Children, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Pets, Schopenhauer, USA, War
Poets, pundits, philosophers and politicians, take note! This is not the story of nations or other one-hit wonders, nor is it the story of religion, for which so many millions have died in futile anger and delusion. It is certainly not the history of capital, although this too has been a scourge; no, friends, these […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Infrastructure, Obsession, Philosophers, Poets, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: Capital, Civilization, History, Meat Puppets II, Nationalism, Religion, The Cannanes, The City, Walter Benjamin
Although we admire the spirit in which Andrew Sullivan — inspired by Nietzsche’s timelessly apt tirade against moral crusaders — compares America to a “very insecure adolescent” we feel the analogy is nonetheless somewhat off the mark. We by contrast would prefer to compare America to a brittle (but dangerous) old man, unwilling to resign himself to the inevitable fate that awaits us all.
Filed under: Philosophers, Politicians, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Writers-German | Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Morality, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer
On Reagan National Airport
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 […]
Filed under: Decay, History, Infrastructure, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Airports, Marriott Wardman Park, Ronald Reagan, Spleen, Washington DC
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 […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Good Rock, Infrastructure, Landscape, Memory, Nostalgia, Opera, Pleasure, The Gay Recluse, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Center for Marine Conservation, Cornell University, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Parks, Rock Creek Park, Running, Stretching, The Meat Puppets, The Smiths, Washington DC
On the Rock Creek Park Parcourse
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 […]
Filed under: Decay, Infrastructure, Landscape, Memory, Nostalgia, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: 1970s, Democracy, Exercise, Parcourse, Populism, Rock Creek Park, Washington DC
On Die Tote Stadt
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 — […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Infrastructure, Opera, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Keycard, Marriott Wardman Park, Paranoia, The Dead City
On the Cotillion Ballroom
As we descend the wide, curving stairs to make our entrance into the Cotillion Ballroom, we look up and observe six — no, eight! — crystal chandeliers hovering above us, massive structures roughly the shape of upside-down umbrellas, each one magically suspended under the 30-foot ceiling. This is a grand interior space reminiscent of those we have seen […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Film, Infrastructure, Pessimism, Politicians, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Aristocracy, Law, Marriott, The Supreme Court, Visconti
