Archive for October, 2007
On Flight
The bleak and vaguely militaristic atmosphere of the terminal is now behind us; we have endured the stifling tedium of the runway and the paralyzing terror of the lift-off, during which we considered the high likelihood of our imminent death and regretted our many missteps. We thought with great tenderness of Dante and Zephyr and […]
Filed under: Dream, Infrastructure, Resignation, The Autumn Garden, The Russian Blue, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cats, conifers, LGA, US Airways
I sat down in Terminal C next to an older woman, who in a long black dress and ostrich-feather hat appeared oddly elegant among all the business suits. “I hope it’s not too crowded,” I remarked in a somewhat stilted attempt to engage this mysterious woman in conversation, as if we were both waiting to […]
Filed under: Dream, Gay, Memory, Opera, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: LGA, Liebestod, Opera, Spleen, Tristan and Isolde, Wagner
We pull and tug at the blanket — the first cold night of the year is upon us — but it doesn’t move even an inch: it is trapped under the leaden weight of cats in the night. We shiver at the edge of the bed, longing to be covered and warm, to retreat to […]
Filed under: Addiction, Dream, Longing, The Russian Blue | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cats, Day, Insomnia, Night, Science, Sleep
On Our Interview with Ann Romney
Today, as part of our continuing series of garden interviews in Washington Heights, we spoke with Ann Romney — wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt — about some of her favorite films and “the focus” they have brought to her husband’s campaign. ——————————- The Gay Recluse: Ann, we noticed in the press materials that you […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drag Queens, Film, Gay, Politicians | 2 Comments
Tags: Ann Romney, Election 2008, Jean Renoir, Lina Wertmüller, Mitt Romney, Virginia Woolf
It was the sight of a civil war hat — blue wool, with the truncated black rim and a small leather band across the front — on a fellow C-train passenger that made us think of the time, almost twenty years earlier, when we had last worn such a hat (yes, it is called a […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Dream, Good Rock, Memory, Subway | Leave a Comment
Tags: Birthdays, C-train, Dreams, Memory, The Queen Is Dead, The Smiths
On The OC Bakery and Cafe
Have you not seen the latest symptom of this noxious scourge of gentrification, this affront to our community? Have you not been outraged as you approach the corner of Edgecombe Avenue and 159th Street by the sight of a rainbow-colored umbrella and outdoor tables, where you can drink a cup of coffee and enjoy a […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Drivel, Gay, Gentrification, Pleasure, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Community, Croissants, Gay, Gentrification, Patisserie, Sugar Hill, The OC Bakery and Cafe, Washington Heights
Those arriving in Washington Heights for the first time are often surprised to hear splintering, cracking sounds in the distance, sounds which like breaking bones or the felling of ancient trees barely need to be identified to be recognized. “Oh yes,” we nod impassively, but then feel compelled to elaborate. “The shoreline is rocky and […]
Filed under: Infrastructure, Resignation, The Gay Recluse, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gay, George Washington Bridge, Hudson River, Washington Heights
Of all the critics and columnists in recent history at The Times, Herbert Muschamp and Cathy Horyn are the only ones who have succeeded in gripping us with every sentence that ever appeared under their respective names. Now, of course, Muschamp is dead, returned to the same infinite folds as an entire generation of gay […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Gay, Obsession, The Times, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Architecture, Cathy Horyn, David Brooks, Fashion, Gail Collins, Gay, Herbert Muschamp, New York Times, Walter Benjamin
Thank you, Human Rights Campaign, not only for sending us such a meaningful letter this week encouraging us to come out, but for being so discreet about it! There was not a single thing on the plain-white envelope — not even your name! — that could have identified either of us as “gay”! (But thank […]
Filed under: Drivel, Gay, Pessimism, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: Gay, Human Rights Campaign, Junk Mail, National Coming Out Day
On Burma
Our heart goes out to the Burmese monks of Myanmar but our mind drifts back to the post-hardcore band from Boston. As much as any other band in our collection, Mission of Burma was one whose impenetrable mystique electrified us at an age when we were still anxious to be electrified. The songs were angular and dissonant, […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Memory, Opera, Politicians | Leave a Comment
Tags: Boston, Democracy, Mission of Burma, Myanmar, Post-hardcore
Since we last saw the hills around Saratoga a few days ago, they have become drab and mundane, the color of an unwatered suburban lawn, while further south the Catskills have grown equally tired and pedestrian. Did we really talk with any enthusiasm about wanting to visit either of these spots? Even the Hudson River […]
Filed under: Good Rock, Memory, Obsession, Opera, The Autumn Garden, Travel, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Catskills, George Washington Bridge, Hudson River Valley, Palisades Parkway, Saratoga Springs, Washington Heights
Whenever the gay recluse leaves home, we find our dreams inhabited by those we have left behind. Several times in the passing nights we feel the slight pressure of paws walking across the terrain of the bed, pausing now and again to balance on our legs, as if to ask us if anything we have […]
Filed under: Dream, The Russian Blue, Travel, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baudelaire, Dream, Russian Blue, Spleen, The Clock
In the introduction to the Emile Zola work Nana — which we have recently been reading — we are given the following insight into the French author: “Zola tried to establish an analogy between literature and sciences, arguing that imagination had no place in the modern world, and that the novelist, like the scientist, should […]
Filed under: Obsession, The Times, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Emile Zola, Joris-Karl Huysman, The New York Times
The thuds you hear on the roof? No, it is not rain or sleet or thunder, or at least not in the meteorological sense of these terms; rather, it is a rain of debris brought down upon us by the merciless gods who throw garbage from the windows.
Filed under: Decay, Infrastructure, Politicians, Sickness, Washington Heights | Leave a Comment
Tags: 311, Garbage, Gentrification, New York City, Rats, Washington Heights
According to an article in The Times today, “[h]omophobia directed at the elderly has many faces.” We learn of home health aides who “must be reminded not to wear gloves at inappropriate times, for example while opening the front door or making the bed, when there is no evidence of H.I.V. infection.” We learn of […]
Filed under: Dream, Longing, Pessimism, The Autumn Garden, Writers-American | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Aging, American Fiction, Death, gardening, Henry James, HIV, Picea Omorika Pendula, The New York Times, Weeping Serbian Spruce
Our first impressions of Lake Placid are oddly and unexpectedly reaffirmed by our continuing explorations, which reveal the existence of a completely inaccessible series of estates — here they are called “camps” — that ring the shoreline of the lake. Still filled with a naive optimism after descending from the nearby mountain, we had succumbed […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Decay, Dream, Memory, Pleasure, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Aristocracy, Class, Helicopters, Lake Placid, Lakes, Segregation, The Pleasure of Ruins
Yes, we exalt at the view offered by the summit of Whiteface Mountain! Here from New York State’s fifth-highest peak we see nothing but a carpet of trees — both deciduous and coniferous — rolling over an ancient, haunted landscape interrupted by exquisite lakes and bands of cirrus clouds that hover ambivalently over the horizon. […]
Filed under: Capitalism, Good Rock, Longing, Philosophers, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Democracy, Desparate Housewives, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Populism, Walter Benjamin, Whiteface Mountain
Today on the way up Whiteface Mountain, we stopped to take in the view and were surprised when a hawk suddenly appeared above the treeline. It flew toward us and landed on a nearby boulder; in its beak it carried a single sheet of paper, which we were equally surprised to learn — after the […]
Filed under: Drivel, Memory, Travel, Writers-French | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Albertine, Marcel Proust, Milan Kundera, Whiteface Mountain
This from a July, 1906 newspaper article — “Chicago Woman Physician Alone All Night on Mt. Whiteface” — on display at the summit of Whiteface Mountain: “Dr. J. D. Merrill, a prominent woman physician of Chicago, is reported to have ‘got lost’ and stayed all night alone on the top of Mount Whiteface one night […]
Filed under: Drag Queens, Travel | Closed
Tags: Adirondacks, Mountain Climbing, Physicians, Wilderness, Women
On What Is Confirmed at Auto Tour Stop #9 on The Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway
“If you turn around now, and face the mountain, notice how dwarfed the trees just above the parking lot are; small, contorted by the wind, branches broken from the load of ice in the winter, spring growth killed off by late spring frosts, soil so thin and impoverished as to defy definition, the whole scene […]
Filed under: Longing, Pessimism, Philosophers, Travel | Leave a Comment
Tags: Adirondacks, Nature, Schopenhauer, The Smiths, Whiteface Mountain
The Gay Recluse 